THE WHITE WHALE 347 
Nor does this- — its amazing strength, at all tend to cripple the 
graceful flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates 
through a Titanism of power. On the contrary, those motions derive 
their most appalling beauty from it. Real strength never impairs 
beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and in everything impos- 
ingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take away 
the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the 
carved Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckerman 
lifted the linen sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was over- 
whelmed with the massive chest of the man, that seemed as a Roman 
triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God the Father in human 
form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may reveal 
of the divine love in the Son, the soft,, curled hermaphroditical Italian 
pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied ; these 
pictures, so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of 
any power, but the mere negative, feminine one of submission and 
endurance, which on all hands it is conceded, form the peculiar prac- 
tical virtues of his teachings. 
Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether 
wielded in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood 
it he in, its flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein 
no fairy’s arm can transcend it. 
Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin 
for progression ; Second, when used as a mace in battle ; Third, in 
sweeping; Fourth, in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes. 
First: Being horizontal in its position, the Leviathan’s tail acts 
in a different manner from the tails of all other sea creatures. It 
never wriggles. In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To 
the whale, his tail is the sole means of propulsion. Scrollwise coiled 
forwards beneath the body, and then rapidly sprung backwards, it is 
this which gives that singular darting, leaping motion to the monster 
when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer by. 
Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only 
fights another sperm whale with his head and jaw, nevertheless, in 
his conflicts with man, he chiefly and contemptuously uses his tail. 
Iu striking at a boat, he swiftly curves away his flukes from it, 
