Nor, credulous as such minds must have been, was this conceit altogether without some faint show of superstitious probability. For as the secrets of the currents in the seas have never yet been divulged, even to the most erudite research; so the hidden ways of the Sperm Whale when beneath the surface remain, in great part, unaccountable to his pursuers; and from time to time have originated the most curious and contradictory speculations regarding them, especially concerning the mystic modes whereby, after sounding to a great depth, he transports himself with such vast swiftness to the most widely distant points.
It is a thing well known to both American and English whale-ships, and as well a thing placed upon authoritative record years ago by Scoresby, that some whales have been captured far north in the Pacific, in whose bodies have been found the barbs of harpoons darted in the Greenland seas. Nor is it to be gainsaid, that in some of these instances it has been declared that the interval of time between the two assaults could not have exceeded very many days. Hence, by inference, it has been believed by some whalemen, that the Nor' West Passage, so long a problem to man, was never a problem to the whale. So that here, in the real living experience of living men, the prodigies related in old times of the inland Strello mountain in Portugal (near whose top there was said to be a lake in which the wrecks of ships floated up to the surface); and that still more wonderful story of the Arethusa fountain near Syracuse (whose waters were believed to have come from the Holy Land by an underground passage); these fabulous narrations are almost fully equalled by the realities of the whalemen.
Forced into familiarity, then, with such prodigies as these; and knowing that after repeated, intrepid assaults, the White Whale had escaped alive; it cannot be much matter of surprise that some whalemen should go still further in their superstitions; declaring Moby Dick not only ubiquitous, but immortal (for immortality is but ubiquity in time); that though groves of spears should be planted in his flanks, he would still swim away unharmed; or if indeed he should ever be made to spout thick blood, such a sight would be but a ghastly deception; for again in unensanguined billows hundreds of leagues away, his unsullied jet would once more be seen.
But even stripped of these supernatural surmisings, there was enough in the earthly make and incontestable character of the monster to strike the imagination with unwonted power. For, it was not so much his uncommon bulk that so much distinguished him from other sperm whales, but, as was elsewhere thrown out- a peculiar snow-white wrinkled forehead, and a high, pyramidical white hump. These were his prominent features; the tokens whereby, even in the limitless, uncharted seas, he revealed his identity, at a long distance, to those who knew him.
The rest of his body was so streaked, and spotted, and marbled with the same shrouded hue, that, in the end, he had gained his distinctive appellation of the White Whale; a name, indeed, literally justified by his vivid aspect, when seen gliding at high noon through a dark blue sea, leaving a milky-way wake of creamy foam, all spangled with golden gleamings.
Moby Dick takes on supernatural powers as this chapter progresses, able almost to bilocate from hemisphere to hemisphere. This paranormal aura is enhanced by his ghostly white hue. He appears off the coast of Greenland in the morning and then is sighted in the tropics in the afternoon, the waterways of the world all connected in some mysterious way. Again, superstition holds sway.
Let me reiterate in this post that I am not a particularly superstitious person in most areas of my life. Having been raised Catholic, however, I do carry around a certain sense of divine justice. For example, as a young man, I used to believe that masturbation was the source of all kinds of bad things in my life. The act caused small and large disasters to occur as punishment. Flat tires. Flooded basements. The death of tropical fish and my mother's mother.
As an adult, I now realize that things don't really work that way. A boy having a few minutes of pleasure in the privacy of his bedroom will not cause North Korea to launch missiles toward Hawaii. That is the power of irrational superstition. It makes the ludicrous seem plausible. As far as I know, there has been no proven scientific link between spanking the monkey and nuclear escalation.
This Friday night, I'm sitting in the relative quiet of my living room. My life is rarely peaceful. I always have projects to work on. Rooms to clean. Poems and essays to write. Workshops and lessons to plan. I'm nearing the end of my year of teaching. I haven't been offered a summer course, so I'm facing four months of relative free time. However, with the lack of a paycheck from the university, my recreational activities may be limited to an occasional trip to Dairy Queen, but I will also have more time to focus on writing.
In the past, I've always begun my summers like this--big plans to write a novel or finish a collection of poems. I'd set myself goals, and, by the end of August, found myself in a swamp of regret because I'd accomplished very little creatively. So, for the last couple years, I've become somewhat superstitious about summer plans. Like New Year's resolutions, summer plans are a recipe for failure. If I say that I'm going to write a collection of short stories based on characters from The Brady Bunch, I will only write the titles of each chapter in my journal (ten of them--"Mike," "Carol," "Marcia," "Jan," "Cindy," "Greg," "Peter," "Bobby," "Alice," and "Sam the Butcher") and do nothing else.
When I was a teenager, I futilely tried to give up masturbation. Told myself that, as a Catholic, I should instead focus on things like the Bible and prayer. It didn't work. I'd start my morning with the Gospel of John and end the day with a five-page spread of Claire the Redhead in Penthouse. Failure was inevitable.
My point this evening is that I'm going to set myself some goals this summer. However, I'm going to keep those goals modest. And, just for insurance, I've already enlisted the help of two close friends to keep me on track. By doing this, I believe I stand a better chance at success come Labor Day.
If I don't reach those goals, the world is not going to riddled with mushroom clouds as a result. God is not going to smite me if I don't write enough poems. I'm leaving superstition out of the equation. Instead, I've got people who are going to lovingly harass over the next few months.
And Saint Marty is thankful for those individuals.
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