{"id":"01KFNR88F2J2RPM7JMKWA3V15V","cid":"bafkreibjz4vs2mhrdgxxqqhbhiyngtwepiv3alh34wqhgytugnmnx3gxzu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7743,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.424Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 2","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":7698,"text":"Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness of death in this shark,\r\nand the mild deadliness of his habits, the French call him _Requin_.\r\n\r\nBethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual\r\nwonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all\r\nimaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God’s great,\r\nunflattering laureate, Nature.*\r\n\r\n*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged\r\ngale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch\r\nbelow, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the\r\nmain hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and\r\nwith a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its\r\nvast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous\r\nflutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered\r\ncries, as some king’s ghost in supernatural distress. Through its\r\ninexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took\r\nhold of God. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white\r\nthing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled\r\nwaters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of traditions and of\r\ntowns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only\r\nhint, the things that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and\r\nturning, asked a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney!\r\nnever had heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious\r\nthing is utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I\r\nlearned that goney was some seaman’s name for albatross. So that by no\r\npossibility could Coleridge’s wild Rhyme have had aught to do with\r\nthose mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon\r\nour deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird to\r\nbe an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish a\r\nlittle brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.\r\n\r\nI assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird\r\nchiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in\r\nthis, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey\r\nalbatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such\r\nemotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.\r\n\r\nBut how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will\r\ntell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the sea.\r\nAt last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered, leathern\r\ntally round its neck, with the ship’s time and place; and then letting\r\nit escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant for man, was\r\ntaken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join the wing-folding,\r\nthe invoking, and adoring cherubim!\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 2"},"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":"01KFNR889TZ3S6HWD3SNWHHVZM","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR889M63VWJXY2GTN0RS31","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:04.092Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:16.422Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}