Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more.

 

[Old Thunder]

But if, like Queequeg and me in the bed, the tip of your nose or the crown of your head be slightly chilled, why then, indeed, in general consciousness you feel most delightfully and unmistakably warm.

 

[Old Thunder]

For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich.

 

[Old Thunder]

For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air.

 

[Old Thunder]

Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.

 

[Old Thunder]

We had been sitting in this crouching manner for some time, when all at once I thought I would open my eyes; for when between sheets, whether by day or by night, and whether asleep or awake, I have a way of always keeping my eyes shut, in order the more to concentrate the snugness of being in bed.

 

[Old Thunder]

Because no man can ever feel his own identity aright except his eyes be closed; as if darkness were indeed the proper element of our essences, though light be more congenial to our clayey part.

 

[Old Thunder]

Upon opening my eyes then, and coming out of my own pleasant and self-created darkness into the imposed and coarse outer gloom of the unilluminated twelve-o'clock-at-night, I experienced a disagreeable revulsion.

 

[Old Thunder]

Nor did I at all object to the hint from Queequeg that perhaps it were best to strike a light, seeing that we were so wide awake; and besides he felt a strong desire to have a few quiet puffs from his tomahawk.

 

[Old Thunder]

Be it said, that though I had felt such a strong repugnance to see his smoking in the bed the night before, yet see how elastic our stiff prejudices grow when love once comes to bend them.