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- Герман Мелвилл
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- Моби Дик
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In
considering
these
ribs
,
I
could
not
but
be
struck
anew
with
the
circumstance
,
so
variously
repeated
in
this
book
,
that
the
skeleton
of
the
whale
is
by
no
means
the
mould
of
his
invested
form
.
The
largest
of
the
Tranque
ribs
,
one
of
the
middle
ones
,
occupied
that
part
of
the
fish
which
,
in
life
,
is
greatest
in
depth
.
Now
,
the
greatest
depth
of
the
invested
body
of
this
particular
whale
must
have
been
at
least
sixteen
feet
;
whereas
,
the
corresponding
rib
measured
but
little
more
than
eight
feet
.
So
that
this
rib
only
conveyed
half
of
the
true
notion
of
the
living
magnitude
of
that
part
.
Besides
,
for
some
way
,
where
I
now
saw
but
a
naked
spine
,
all
that
had
been
once
wrapped
round
with
tons
of
added
bulk
in
flesh
,
muscle
,
blood
,
and
bowels
.
Still
more
,
for
the
ample
fins
,
I
here
saw
but
a
few
disordered
joints
;
and
in
place
of
the
weighty
and
majestic
,
but
boneless
flukes
,
an
utter
blank
!
How
vain
and
foolish
,
then
,
thought
I
,
for
timid
untravelled
man
to
try
to
comprehend
aright
this
wondrous
whale
,
by
merely
pouring
over
his
dead
attenuated
skeleton
,
stretched
in
this
peaceful
wood
.
No
.
Only
in
the
heart
of
quickest
perils
;
only
when
within
the
eddyings
of
his
angry
flukes
;
only
on
the
profound
unbounded
sea
,
can
the
fully
invested
whale
be
truly
and
livingly
found
out
.
But
the
spine
.
For
that
,
the
best
way
we
can
consider
it
is
,
with
a
crane
,
to
pile
its
bones
high
up
on
end
.
No
speedy
enterprise
.
But
now
it
's
done
,
it
looks
much
like
Pompey
's
Pillar
.
There
are
forty
and
odd
vertebrae
in
all
,
which
in
the
skeleton
are
not
locked
together
They
mostly
lie
like
the
great
knobbed
blocks
on
a
Gothic
spire
,
forming
solid
courses
of
heavy
masonry
.
The
largest
,
a
middle
one
,
is
in
width
something
less
than
three
feet
,
and
in
depth
more
than
four
.
The
smallest
,
where
the
spine
tapers
away
into
the
tail
,
is
only
two
inches
in
width
,
and
looks
something
like
a
white
billiard-ball
.
I
was
told
that
there
were
still
smaller
ones
,
but
they
had
been
lost
by
some
little
cannibal
urchins
,
the
priest
's
children
,
who
had
stolen
them
to
play
marbles
with
.
Thus
we
see
how
that
the
spine
of
even
the
hugest
of
living
things
tapers
off
at
last
into
simple
child
's
play
.
From
his
mighty
bulk
the
whale
affords
a
most
congenial
theme
whereon
to
enlarge
,
amplify
,
and
generally
expatiate
.
Would
you
,
you
could
not
compress
him
.
By
good
rights
he
should
only
be
treated
of
in
imperial
folio
.
Not
to
tell
over
again
his
furlongs
from
spiracle
to
tail
,
and
the
yards
he
measured
about
the
waist
;
only
think
of
the
gigantic
involutions
of
his
intestines
,
where
they
lie
in
him
like
great
cables
and
hawsers
coiled
away
in
the
subterranean
orlop-deck
of
a
line-of-battle-ship
.
Since
I
have
undertaken
to
manhandle
this
Leviathan
,
it
behooves
me
to
approve
myself
omnisciently
exhaustive
in
the
enterprise
;
not
overlooking
the
minutest
seminal
germs
of
his
blood
,
and
spinning
him
out
to
the
uttermost
coil
of
his
bowels
.
Having
already
described
him
in
most
of
his
present
habitatory
and
anatomical
peculiarities
,
it
now
remains
to
magnify
him
in
an
archaeological
,
fossiliferous
,
and
antediluvian
point
of
view
.
Applied
to
any
other
creature
than
the
Leviathan
--
to
an
ant
or
a
flea
--
such
portly
terms
might
justly
be
deemed
unwarrantably
grandiloquent
.
But
when
Leviathan
is
the
text
,
the
case
is
altered
.
Fain
am
I
to
stagger
to
this
enterprise
under
the
weightiest
words
of
the
dictionary
.
And
here
be
it
said
,
that
whenever
it
has
been
convenient
to
consult
one
in
the
course
of
these
dissertations
,
I
have
invariably
used
a
huge
quarto
edition
of
Johnson
,
expressly
purchased
for
that
purpose
;
because
that
famous
lexicographer
's
uncommon
personal
bulk
more
fitted
him
to
compile
a
lexicon
to
be
used
by
a
whale
author
like
me
.
One
often
hears
of
writers
that
rise
and
swell
with
their
subject
,
though
it
may
seem
but
an
ordinary
one
.
How
,
then
,
with
me
,
writing
of
this
Leviathan
?
Unconsciously
my
chirography
expands
into
placard
capitals
.
Give
me
a
condor
's
quill
!
Give
me
Vesuvius
'
crater
for
an
inkstand
!
Friends
,
hold
my
arms
!
For
in
the
mere
act
of
penning
my
thoughts
of
this
Leviathan
,
they
weary
me
,
and
make
me
faint
with
their
outreaching
comprehensiveness
of
sweep
,
as
if
to
include
the
whole
circle
of
the
sciences
,
and
all
the
generations
of
whales
,
and
men
,
and
mastodons
,
past
,
present
,
and
to
come
,
with
all
the
revolving
panoramas
of
empire
on
earth
,
and
throughout
the
whole
universe
,
not
excluding
its
suburbs
.
Such
,
and
so
magnifying
,
is
the
virtue
of
a
large
and
liberal
theme
!
We
expand
to
its
bulk
.
To
produce
a
mighty
book
,
you
must
choose
a
mighty
theme
.
No
great
and
enduring
volume
can
ever
be
written
on
the
flea
,
though
many
there
be
who
have
tried
it
.
Ere
entering
upon
the
subject
of
Fossil
Whales
,
I
present
my
credentials
as
a
geologist
,
by
stating
that
in
my
miscellaneous
time
I
have
been
a
stone-mason
,
and
also
a
great
digger
of
ditches
,
canals
and
wells
,
wine-vaults
,
cellars
,
and
cisterns
of
all
sorts
.
Likewise
,
by
way
of
preliminary
,
I
desire
to
remind
the
reader
,
that
while
in
the
earlier
geological
strata
there
are
found
the
fossils
of
monsters
now
almost
completely
extinct
;
the
subsequent
relics
discovered
in
what
are
called
the
Tertiary
formations
seem
the
connecting
,
or
at
any
rate
intercepted
links
,
between
the
antichronical
creatures
,
and
those
whose
remote
posterity
are
said
to
have
entered
the
Ark
;
all
the
Fossil
Whales
hitherto
discovered
belong
to
the
Tertiary
period
,
which
is
the
last
preceding
the
superficial
formations
.
And
though
none
of
them
precisely
answer
to
any
known
species
of
the
present
time
,
they
are
yet
sufficiently
akin
to
them
in
general
respects
,
to
justify
their
taking
rank
as
Cetacean
fossils
.
