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17. There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently awful

stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those fabled undulations

of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St. John.

And meet it is, that over these sea- pastures, wide-rolling watery prairies and

Potters' Fields of all four continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb and flow

unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams,

somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming,

still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by

their restlessness.

18. A sailor becomes calm and tranquil - At such times, under an abated sun; afloat

all day upon smooth, slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe;

and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves, that like hearth-stone cats

they purr against the gunwale; these are the times of dreamy quietude, when

beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger

heart that pants beneath it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw

but conceals a remorseless fang.

But the mingled, mingling threads of life are woven by warp and woof: calms

crossed by storms, a storm for every calm. There is no steady unretracing progress

in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: -

through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughtless faith, adolescence'

doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in

manhood's pondering repose of If.

Starbuck believes the sea to be a qualifier of his faith - "Loveliness unfathomable, as

ever lover saw in his young bride's eye! - Tell me not of thy teeth-tiered sharks, and

thy kidnapping cannibal ways. Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deepdown and do believe."

19. Typhoons are much more violent tropical storms with cyclones and thunder and

lighting - "When darkness came on, sky and sea roared and split with the thunder,

and blazed with the lightning, that showed the disabled masts fluttering here and

there withthe rags which the first fury of the tempest had left for its after sport."

The sails are burned away - Overhearing Starbuck, the panic-stricken crew

instantly ran to the braces - though not a sail was left aloft.

Crews reaction - While this pallidness was burning aloft, few words were heard

from the enchanted crew; who in one thick cluster stood on the forecastle, all theireyes gleaming in that pale phosphorescence, like a far away constellation of stars.

Relieved against the ghostly light, the gigantic jet negro, Daggoo, loomed up to thrice

his real stature, and seemed the black cloud from which the thunder had come. The

parted mouth of Tashtego revealed his shark-white teeth, which strangely gleamed

as if they too had been tipped by corpusants; while lit up by the preternatural light,

Queequeg's tattooing burned like Satanic blue flames on his body.

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Ahabs reaction - "Oh! thou clear spirit of clear fire, whom on these seas I as Persian

once did worship, till in the sacramental act so burned by thee, that to this hour I

bear the scar; I now know thee, thou clear spirit, and I now know that thy right

worship is defiance. To neither love nor reverence wilt thou be kind; and e'en for

hate thou canst but kill; and all are killed. No fearless fool now fronts thee.

Sudden, repeated flshes of lightning; the nine flames leap length-wise to thrice theirprevious height; Ahah, with the rest, closes his eyes, his right hand pressed hard

upon them.

20. Starbuck does not like Ahab too much, and Fedallah was part of Ahabs personal

crew that he snuck on board - Pausing his glance long upon Daggoo, Queequeg,

Tashtego; but shunning Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the

chief mate, said, - "Take the rope, Sir - I give it into thy hands, Starbuck." Then

arranging his person in the basket, he gave the word for them to hoist him to his

perch, Starbuck being the one who secured the rope at last; and afterwards stood

near it

21. Ahabs delusional prophesy - "And when thou art so gone before - if that ever

befall - then ere I can follow, thou must still appear to me, to pilot me still? - Was it

not so? Well, then, did I believe all ye say, oh my pilot! I have here two pledges that I

shall yet slay Moby Dick and survive it."

Ahab, shortly before his death - Oh, lonely death on lonely life! Oh, now I feel my

topmost greatness lies in my topmost grief. Ho, ho! from all your furthest bounds,

pour ye now in, ye bold billows of my whole foregone life, and top this one piled

comber of my death! Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering

whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I

spit my last breath at thee. Sink all coffins and all hearses to one common pool! andsince neither can be mine, let me then tow to pieces, while still chasing thee, though

tied to thee, thou damned whale! Thus, I give up the spear!"