{"id":"01KFNR88AJXWHG0660HF6TFV98","cid":"bafkreifwhnmjwj6u45tcbmr35ws6vrz7bgssyukfewgnmdyqcgcinqx2zu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7887,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.425Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":7826,"text":"acquainted with the peculiar character of the day, does the bare\r\nmention of Whitsuntide marshal in the fancy such long, dreary,\r\nspeechless processions of slow-pacing pilgrims, down-cast and hooded\r\nwith new-fallen snow? Or, to the unread, unsophisticated Protestant of\r\nthe Middle American States, why does the passing mention of a White\r\nFriar or a White Nun, evoke such an eyeless statue in the soul?\r\n\r\nOr what is there apart from the traditions of dungeoned warriors and\r\nkings (which will not wholly account for it) that makes the White Tower\r\nof London tell so much more strongly on the imagination of an\r\nuntravelled American, than those other storied structures, its\r\nneighbors—the Byward Tower, or even the Bloody? And those sublimer\r\ntowers, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, whence, in peculiar\r\nmoods, comes that gigantic ghostliness over the soul at the bare\r\nmention of that name, while the thought of Virginia’s Blue Ridge is\r\nfull of a soft, dewy, distant dreaminess? Or why, irrespective of all\r\nlatitudes and longitudes, does the name of the White Sea exert such a\r\nspectralness over the fancy, while that of the Yellow Sea lulls us with\r\nmortal thoughts of long lacquered mild afternoons on the waves,\r\nfollowed by the gaudiest and yet sleepiest of sunsets? Or, to choose a\r\nwholly unsubstantial instance, purely addressed to the fancy, why, in\r\nreading the old fairy tales of Central Europe, does “the tall pale man”\r\nof the Hartz forests, whose changeless pallor unrustlingly glides\r\nthrough the green of the groves—why is this phantom more terrible than\r\nall the whooping imps of the Blocksburg?\r\n\r\nNor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling\r\nearthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas; nor the\r\ntearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide\r\nfield of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop\r\n(like canted yards of anchored fleets); and her suburban avenues of\r\nhouse-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;—it\r\nis not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest,\r\nsaddest city thou can’st see. For Lima has taken the white veil; and\r\nthere is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe. Old as Pizarro,\r\nthis whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful\r\ngreenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid\r\npallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.\r\n\r\nI know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness\r\nis not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of\r\nobjects otherwise terrible; nor to the unimaginative mind is there\r\naught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind\r\nalmost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when\r\nexhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or\r\nuniversality. What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be\r\nrespectively elucidated by the following examples.\r\n\r\nFirst: The mariner, when drawing nigh the coasts of foreign lands, if\r\nby night he hear the roar of breakers, starts to vigilance, and feels\r\njust enough of trepidation to sharpen all his faculties; but under\r\nprecisely similar circumstances, let him be called from his hammock to\r\nview his ship sailing through a midnight sea of milky whiteness—as if\r\nfrom encircling headlands shoals of combed white bears were swimming\r\nround him, then he feels a silent, superstitious dread; the shrouded\r\nphantom of the whitened waters is horrible to him as a real ghost; in\r\nvain the lead assures him he is still off soundings; heart and helm\r\nthey both go down; he never rests till blue water is under him again.\r\nYet where is the mariner who will tell thee, “Sir, it was not so much\r\nthe fear of striking hidden rocks, as the fear of that hideous\r\nwhiteness that so stirred me?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR84DQYATE2Z2YJZZ1PVJW","peer_label":"42","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR84DQYATE2Z2YJZZ1PVJW","peer_label":"42","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR88GB4GDJF2CVABK8J2SP","peer_label":"Chunk 6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR88F1WASS6EZWYHPY9D74","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.874Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.483Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}