If the Sperm Whale be physiognomically a Sphinx, to the phrenologist his brain seems that geometrical circle which it is impossible to square.
remaking moby-dick
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Tag Archives: first sentences of Moby-Dick
first sentence of Chapter 81. The Pequod Meets The Virgin.
The predestinated day arrived, and we duly met the ship Jungfrau, Derick De Deer, master, of Bremen.
first sentence of chapter 82. The Honour and Glory of Whaling.
There are some enterprises in which a careful disorderliness is the true method.
first sentence of chapter 83. Jonah Historically Regarded.
Reference was made to the historical story of Jonah and the whale in the preceding chapter.
first sentence of chapter 84: Pitchpoling
To make them run easily and swiftly, the axles of carriages are anointed; and for much the same purpose, some whalers perform an analogous operation upon their boat; they grease the bottom.
first sentence of chapter 93: The Castaway.
It was but some few days after encountering the Frenchman, that a most significant event befell the most insignificant of the Pequod’s crew; an event most lamentable; and which ended in providing the sometimes madly merry and predestinated craft with a living and ever accompanying prophecy of whatever shattered sequel might prove her own.
(vignette from The Brothers Brick)
first sentence of chapter 94
That whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the Pequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations previously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of the Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.
first sentence of chapter 95
Had you stepped on board the Pequod at a certain juncture of this post-mortemizing of the whale; and had you strolled forward nigh the windlass, pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity a very strange, enigmatical object, which you would have seen there, lying along lengthwise in the lee scuppers.
first sentence of chapter 97
Had you descended from the Pequod’s try-works to the Pequod’s forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors.
first sentence of chapter 100
“Ship, ahoy! Hast seen the White Whale?”
