Snow, and the Quality of Whiteness. 1 1 5 



pleasant and painful. What is it, he asks, that in 

 the albino so peculiarly repels and shocks the eye, 

 as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and 

 kin ? He has a great deal to say of the polar bear, 

 and the white shark of the tropical seas, and con- 

 cludes that it is their whiteness that makes them so 

 much more terrible to us than other savage rapa- 

 cious creatures that are dangerous to man. He 

 speaks of the muffled rolling of a milky sea ; the 

 rustlings of the festooned frost of mountains ; the 

 desolate shif tings of the windrowed snows of prairies. 

 Finally, he asks, whence, in peculiar moods, comes 

 that gigantic phantom over the soul at the bare 

 mention of a White Sea, a White Squall, White 

 Mountains, etc., etc. 



He assumes all along that the cause of the feeling, 

 however it may differ in degree and otherwise, 

 according to the nature and magnitude of the sub- 

 ject, is one and the same in all cases, that the cause 

 is in the whiteness, and not in the object with which 

 that quality is associated. 



The albino case need not detain us long ; and 

 here Melville's seafaring experiences might have 

 suggested a better explanation. Sailors, I am con- 

 vinced from observation, are very primitive in their 

 impulses, and hate, and often unite in persecuting, a 

 companion who, owing to failing strength or. some 

 physical defect, is not able to do his share of the 

 work. Savages and semi-barbarous people often 

 cherish a strong animosity against a constantly 

 ailing, crippled, or otherwise defective member of 



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