528 
MOBY DICK; OR 
EXTRACTS 
(supplied BY a SUB-SUB-LIBRARIAN".) 
[It will be seen that this mere painstaking burrower and grubworm of 
a poor devil of a Sub-Sub appears to have gone through the long Yaticans 
and street-stalls of the earth, picking up whatever random allusions to 
whales he could anyways find in any book whatsoever, sacred or profane. 
Therefore you must not, in every case, at least, take the higgledy-piggledy 
whale statements, however authentic, in these extracts, for veritable gospel 
cetology. Ear from it. As touching the ancient authors generally, as well 
as the poets here appearing, these extracts are solely valuable or entertain- 
ing, as affording a glancing bird’s-eye view of what has been promiscuously 
said, thought, fancied, and sung of Leviathan, by many nations and genera- 
tions, including our own. 
So fare thee well, poor devil of a Sub-Sub, whose commentator I am. 
Thou belongest to that hopeless, sallow tribe which no wine of this world 
will ever warm ; and for whom even Pale Sherry would be too rosy strong ; 
but with whom one sometimes loves to sit, and feel poor-devilish, too; and 
grow convivial upon tears ; and say to them bluntly, with full eyes and empty 
glasses, and in not altogether unpleasant sadness — Give it up, Sub-Subs! 
For by how much the more pains ye take to please the world, by so much 
the more shall ye for ever go thankless! Would that I could clear out 
Hampton Court and the Tuileries for ye ! Bu-t gulp down your tears and 
hie aloft to the royal-mast with your hearts ; for your friends who have gone 
before are clearing out the seven-storied heavens, and making refugees of 
long-pampered Gabriel, Michael, and Raphael, against your coming. Here 
ye strike but splintered hearts together. — there, ye shall strike unsplinterable 
glasses !] 
“And God created great whales.” 
Genesis. 
“Leviathan maketh a path to shine after him; 
One would think the deep to be hoary.” 
Job. 
“How the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah.” 
Jonah. 
“There go the ships; there is that Leviathan whom thou hast made to 
play therein.” Psalms. 
“In that day, the Lord with his sore, and great, and strong sword, shall 
