429 
THE WHITE WHALE 
beyond the grave; not at all to hint of this, there still seems an in- 
equality in the deeper analysis of the thing. For, thought Ahab, while 
even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying 
pettiness lurking in them, but at bottom, all heart-woes, a mystic 
significance, and, in some men, an archangel grandeur; so do their 
diligent tracings-out not belie the obvious deduction. To trail the 
genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the 
sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that in the face of all the 
glad, haymaking suns, and soft cymballing, round harvest moons, we 
must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever 
glad. The ineffaceable, sad birthmark in the brow of man, is but the 
stamp of sorrow in the singers. 
Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might 
more properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many 
other particulars concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery 
to some, why it was, that for a certain period both before and after 
the sailing of the Pequod , he had hidden himself away with such 
Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one interval, sought 
speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the dead. 
Captain Peleg’s bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means 
adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab’s deeper part, every 
revelation partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory 
light. But in the end it all came out; this one matter did, at least. 
That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness. 
And not only this, but to that ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, 
who, for any reason, possessed the privilege of a less banned approach 
to him ; to that timid circle the above hinted casualty — remaining, as it 
did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahab — invested itself with terrors, 
not entirely underived from the land of spirits and of wails. So that, 
through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so far as in them lay, 
to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others ; and hence it was, 
that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it transpire upon 
the Pequod* s decks. 
But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the 
air, or the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not 
with earthly Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain, 
practical procedures ; — he called the carpenter. 
