398 
MOBY DICK; OR 
up the Andes, in the unwaning clime that knows no autumn. Zoned by 
those letters you saw the likeness of three Ande’s summits ; from one 
a flame ; a tower on another ; on the third a crowing cock ; while arch- 
ing over all was a segment of the partitioned zodiac, the signs all 
marked with their usual cabalistics, and the keystone sun entering 
the equinoctial point at Libra. 
Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was 
now pausing. 
“There’s something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, 
and all other grand and lofty things; look here, — three peaks, as 
proud as Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is 
Ahab; the courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, 
is Ahab; all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the 
rounder globe, which, like a magician’s glass, to each and every man 
in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, 
small gains, for those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot 
solve itself. Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but 
see ! aye, he enters the sign of storms, the equinox ! and but six months 
before he wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to 
storm! So be it, then. Born in throes, ’tis fit that man should live 
in pains and die in pangs ! So be it, then ! Here’s stout stuff for woe 
to work on. So be it, then.” 
“Ho fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil’s claws must 
have left their mouldings there since yesterday,” murmured Starbuck 
to himself, leaning against the bulwarks. “The old man seems to 
read Belshazzar’s awful writing. I have never marked the coin in- 
spectingly. He goes below ; let me read. A dark valley between three 
mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some 
faint, earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round ; 
and over all our gloom, the Sun of Bighteousness still shines a beacon 
and a hope. If we bend down our eyes, the dark vale shows her 
mouldy soil; but if we lift them, the bright sun meets our glance 
half-way, to cheer. Yet, oh, the great sun is no fixture; and if, at 
midnight, we would fain snatch some sweet solace from him, we gaze 
for him in vain ! This coin speaks wisely, mildly, truly, but still sadly 
to me. I will quit it, lest Truth shake me falsely.” 
