Herman Melville, Moby Dick, or the whale, (1851)

The Whiteness of the Whale

Is it that by its (the colour white's) indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the milky way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a colour as the visible absence of colour, and at the same time the concrete of all colours; is it for th4ese reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows - a colourless, all-colour of atheism from which we shrink? And when we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues - every stately or lovely emblazoning - the sweet tinges of sunset skies and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these are but subtle deceits, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified nature absolutely paints like a harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within; and when we proceed further, and consider that the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, for ever remains white or colourless in itself and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all subjects, even tulips and roses, with its own blank tinge - pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us a leper

Faith, sir I've-

Faith? What's that?

Why, faith, sir, it's only a sort of exclamation like..

O nature, and O soul of man! How far beyond all utterance are your linked analogies! Not the smallest atom stirs of lives in matter, but has its cunning duplicate in mind

[Queequeg's] tattooing, had been the work of a departed prophet and seer of his island, who, by those hieroglyphic marks, had written out on his body a complete theory of the heavens and the earth, and a mystical treatise on the art of attaining truth; so that Queequeg in his own proper person was a riddle to unfold; a wondrous work in one volume; but whose mysteries not even to himself could read...

Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts

in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic

to have one's hands among the unspeakable foundations, ribs and very pelvis of the world; this is a fearful thing

in landlessness alone resides the highest truth

all deep earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independenc of her sea 

a soul's a sort of fifth wheel to a wagon 

hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since the perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans    

the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records     

Queequeg was native of Kokoko, an island far away to the West and the South. It is not down in any map; true places never are.

no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.