254 : 
MOBY DICK; OR 
more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey 
upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. 
Consider all this ; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile 
earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find 
a strange analogy to something in yourself? For as this appalling 
ocean surrounds the verdant land, so in the soul of man there lies one 
insular Tahiti, full of peace and joy, hut encompassed by all the 
horrors of the half-known life. God keep thee! Push not off from 
that isle, thou canst never return ! 
CHAPTER LVIII 
SQUID 
Slowly wading through the meadows of hrit, the Pequod still held on 
her way north-eastward towards the island of Java; a gentle air im- 
pelling her keel, so that in the surrounding serenity her three tall, 
tapering masts mildly waved to that languid breeze, as three mild 
palms on a plain. And still, at wide intervals in the silvery night, 
the lonely, alluring jet would be seen. 
But one transparent blue morning, when a stillness almost preter- 
natural spread over the sea, however unattended with any stagnant 
calm; when the long burnished sun-glade on the waters seemed a 
golden finger laid across them, enjoining some secrecy; when the 
slippered waves whispered together as they softly ran on ; in this pro- 
found hush of the visible sphere a strange spectre was seen by Daggoo 
from the mainmast head. 
In the distance, a great white mass lazily rose, and rising higher 
and higher, and disentangling itself from the azure, at last gleamed 
before our prow like a snow-slide, new slid from the hills. Thus glist- 
ening for a moment, as slowly it subsided, and sank. Then once more 
arose, and silently gleamed. It seemed not a whale; and yet is this 
Moby Dick ? thought Daggoo. Again the phantom went down, but on 
reappearing once more, with a stiletto-like cry that startled every man 
from his nod, the negro yelled out — “There! there again! there she 
breaches! right ahead! The White Whale, the White Whale !” 
