148 
MOBY DICK; OR 
I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing 
it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and to be the white 
whale agent, or he the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate 
upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; Fd strike the sun if 
it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; 
since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over 
all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s 
over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intoler- 
able than fiends’ glarings is a doltish stare ! So, so ; thou reddenest and 
palest ; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starhuck, 
what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from 
whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. 
Let it go. Look ! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn — living, 
breathing pictures painted by the sun. The pagan leopards — the un- 
recking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no 
reasons for the torrid life they feel ! The crew, man, the crew ! Are 
they not one and all with Ahab, in this matter of the whale? See 
Stubb! he laughs! See yonder Chilian! he snorts to think of it. 
Stand up amid the general hurricane, thy one tost sapling cannot, Star- 
huck! And what is it? Beckon it. ’Tis hut to help strike a fin; 
no wondrous feat for Starhuck. What is it more? From this one 
poor hunt, then, the best lance out of all Bantucket, surely he will not 
hang back, when every foremost hand has clutched a whetstone ? Ah ! 
constrainings seize thee; I see! the billow lifts thee! Speak, but 
speak ! — Aye, aye ! thy silence, that — that voices thee. (Aside) Some- 
thing shot from my dilated nostrils, he has inhaled it in his lungs. 
Starhuck now is mine; cannot oppose me now, without rebellion.” 
“God keep me! — keep us all!” murmured Starhuck slowly. 
But in his joy at the enchanted, tacit acquiescence of the mate, Ahab 
did not hear his foreboding invocation; nor yet the low laugh from 
the hold ; nor yet the presaging vibrations of the winds in the cordage ; 
nor yet the hollow flap of the sails against the masts, as for a moment 
their hearts sank in. For again Starbuck’s downcast eyes lighted up 
with the stubbornness of life; the subterranean laugh died away; the 
winds blew on; the sails filled out; the ship heaved and rolled as be- 
fore. Ah, ye admonitions and warnings! why stay ye not when ye 
