Snow, and the Quality of Whiteness. 115 
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 shiftings 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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