There she blows!-there she blows! A hump like a snow-hill! It is Moby Dick! - Herman Melville

God help thee, old man, thy thoughts have created a creature in thee; and he whose intense thinking thus makes him a Prometheus; a vulture feeds upon that heart forever; the vulture the very creature he creates.

Here some one thrust these cards into these old hands of mine, swears that I must play them, and no others. And damn me, Ahab, but thou actest right, live in the game, and die in it.

I believe that much of a man's character will be found betokened in his backbone. I would rather feel your spine than your skull, whoever you are. A thin joist of a spine never yet upheld a full and noble soul. I rejoice in my spine, as in the firm audacious staff of that flag which I fling half out to the world.