{"id":"01KF7FPTFEWPQH6JRABY2SR1SP","cid":"bafkreibwj53r4s5p2u4brbb4ezjuveubo4eupufckwoemtho4wijcgzu2a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":18592,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.461Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":18540,"text":"live heart beat against them; and these mysteries were therefore\r\ndestined in the end to moulder away with the living parchment whereon\r\nthey were inscribed, and so be unsolved to the last. And this thought\r\nit must have been which suggested to Ahab that wild exclamation of his,\r\nwhen one morning turning away from surveying poor Queequeg—“Oh,\r\ndevilish tantalization of the gods!”\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 111. The Pacific.\r\n\r\nWhen gliding by the Bashee isles we emerged at last upon the great\r\nSouth Sea; were it not for other things, I could have greeted my dear\r\nPacific with uncounted thanks, for now the long supplication of my\r\nyouth was answered; that serene ocean rolled eastwards from me a\r\nthousand leagues of blue.\r\n\r\nThere is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose gently\r\nawful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like those\r\nfabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist St.\r\nJohn. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling watery\r\nprairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves should\r\nrise and fall, and ebb and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of\r\nmixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all\r\nthat we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing\r\nlike slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by\r\ntheir restlessness.\r\n\r\nTo any meditative Magian rover, this serene Pacific, once beheld, must\r\never after be the sea of his adoption. It rolls the midmost waters of\r\nthe world, the Indian ocean and Atlantic being but its arms. The same\r\nwaves wash the moles of the new-built Californian towns, but yesterday\r\nplanted by the recentest race of men, and lave the faded but still\r\ngorgeous skirts of Asiatic lands, older than Abraham; while all between\r\nfloat milky-ways of coral isles, and low-lying, endless, unknown\r\nArchipelagoes, and impenetrable Japans. Thus this mysterious, divine\r\nPacific zones the world’s whole bulk about; makes all coasts one bay to\r\nit; seems the tide-beating heart of earth. Lifted by those eternal\r\nswells, you needs must own the seductive god, bowing your head to Pan.\r\n\r\nBut few thoughts of Pan stirred Ahab’s brain, as standing like an iron\r\nstatue at his accustomed place beside the mizen rigging, with one\r\nnostril he unthinkingly snuffed the sugary musk from the Bashee isles\r\n(in whose sweet woods mild lovers must be walking), and with the other\r\nconsciously inhaled the salt breath of the new found sea; that sea in\r\nwhich the hated White Whale must even then be swimming. Launched at\r\nlength upon these almost final waters, and gliding towards the Japanese\r\ncruising-ground, the old man’s purpose intensified itself. His firm\r\nlips met like the lips of a vice; the Delta of his forehead’s veins\r\nswelled like overladen brooks; in his very sleep, his ringing cry ran\r\nthrough the vaulted hull, “Stern all! the White Whale spouts thick\r\nblood!”\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPP0JQTVX69KENX8VXFJM","peer_label":"Chapter 128","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPP0JQTVX69KENX8VXFJM","peer_label":"Chapter 128","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPTD3XTS4BJGR9WCG5RG8","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.945Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:31.100Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}