"Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wil… - Herman Melville

"Death is only a launching into the region of the strange Untried; it is but the first salutation to the possibilities of the immense Remote, the Wild, the Watery, the Unshored; therefore, to the death-longing eyes of men, who still have left in them some interior compunctions against suicide, does the all-contributed and all-receptive ocean alluringly spread forth his whole plan of unimaginable, taking terrors, and wonderful, new-life adventures; and from the hearts of infinite Pacific's, the thousand mermaids sing to them — "Come hither, broken-hearted; here is another life without the guilt of intermediate death; here are wonders supernatural, without dying for them. Come hither! bury thyself in a life which, to your now equally abhorred and abhorring, landed world, is more oblivious than death. Come hither! put up thy gravestone, too, within the churchyard, and come hither, till we marry thee!" Hearkening to these voices, East and West, by early sun rise, and by fall of eve, the blacksmith's soul responded, Aye I come! And so Perth went a-whaling."

English
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About Herman Melville

Herman Melville (1 August 1819 – 28 September 1891) was an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period.

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Hermann Melville Herman Melvill
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Additional quotes by Herman Melville

Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth;
whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul;
whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses,
and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet;
and especially when my hypos get such an upper hand of me,
that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off-
then, I account it high time to get to a bookstore as soon as I can.
That is my substitute for the pistol and ball.

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