Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

"Now," said Queequeg, "what you tink now? - Didn't our people laugh?"

 

[Old Thunder]

At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner.

 

[Old Thunder]

Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river.

 

[Old Thunder]

On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air.

 

[Old Thunder]

Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers,* with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins and second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, forever and for aye.

 

[Old Thunder]

Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

 

[Old Thunder]

Gaining the more open water, the bracing breeze waxed fresh; the little Moss tossed the quick foam from her bows, as a young colt his snortings.

 

[Old Thunder]

How I snuffed that Tartar air! - how I spurned that turnpike earth! - that common highway all over dented with the marks of slavish heels and hoofs; and turned me to admire the magnanimity of the sea which will permit no records.

 

[Old Thunder]

At the same foam-fountain, Queequeg seemed to drink and reel with me.

 

[Old Thunder]

His dusky nostrils swelled apart; he showed his filed and pointed teeth.