{"id":"01KJNXJQYH0N9VTA636W2D3J58","cid":"bafkreice675fdfdtzdwcmuqkmqf2i4kmurdva33rlpxhhqybhzy5rqsrcq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":434942,"char_start":427382,"chunk_index":60,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1890,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"emotions 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\nMost famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of the\r\nWhite Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger,\r\nlarge-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a\r\nthousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the\r\nelected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those\r\ndays were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At\r\ntheir flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which\r\nevery evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of his\r\nmane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings more\r\nresplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished him. A\r\nmost imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen, western\r\nworld, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters revived the\r\nglories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic as a god,\r\nbluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether marching amid\r\nhis aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts that endlessly\r\nstreamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether with his\r\ncircumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon, the White\r\nSteed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils reddening through\r\nhis cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented himself, always to\r\nthe bravest Indians he was the object of trembling reverence and awe.\r\nNor can it be questioned from what stands on legendary record of this\r\nnoble horse, that it was his spiritual whiteness chiefly, which so\r\nclothed him with divineness; and that this divineness had that in it\r\nwhich, though commanding worship, at the same time enforced a certain\r\nnameless terror.\r\n\r\nBut there are other instances where this whiteness loses all that\r\naccessory and strange glory which invests it in the White Steed and\r\nAlbatross.\r\n\r\nWhat is it that in the Albino man so peculiarly repels and often shocks\r\nthe eye, as that sometimes he is loathed by his own kith and kin! It is\r\nthat whiteness which invests him, a thing expressed by the name he\r\nbears. The Albino is as well made as other men—has no substantive\r\ndeformity—and yet this mere aspect of all-pervading whiteness makes him\r\nmore strangely hideous than the ugliest abortion. Why should this be\r\nso?\r\n\r\nNor, in quite other aspects, does Nature in her least palpable but not\r\nthe less malicious agencies, fail to enlist among her forces this\r\ncrowning attribute of the terrible. From its snowy aspect, the\r\ngauntleted ghost of the Southern Seas has been denominated the White\r\nSquall. Nor, in some historic instances, has the art of human malice\r\nomitted so potent an auxiliary. How wildly it heightens the effect of\r\nthat passage in Froissart, when, masked in the snowy symbol of their\r\nfaction, the desperate White Hoods of Ghent murder their bailiff in the\r\nmarket-place!\r\n\r\nNor, in some things, does the common, hereditary experience of all\r\nmankind fail to bear witness to the supernaturalism of this hue. It\r\ncannot well be doubted, that the one visible quality in the aspect of\r\nthe dead which most appals the gazer, is the marble pallor lingering\r\nthere; as if indeed that pallor were as much like the badge of\r\nconsternation in the other world, as of mortal trepidation here. And\r\nfrom that pallor of the dead, we borrow the expressive hue of the\r\nshroud in which we wrap them. Nor even in our superstitions do we fail\r\nto throw the same snowy mantle round our phantoms; all ghosts rising in\r\na milk-white fog—Yea, while these terrors seize us, let us add, that\r\neven the king of terrors, when personified by the evangelist, rides on\r\nhis pallid horse.\r\n\r\nTherefore, in his other moods, symbolize whatever grand or gracious\r\nthing he will by whiteness, no man can deny that in its profoundest\r\nidealized significance it calls up a peculiar apparition to the soul.\r\n\r\nBut though without dissent this point be fixed, how is mortal man to\r\naccount for it? To analyse it, would seem impossible. Can we, then, by\r\nthe citation of some of those instances wherein this thing of\r\nwhiteness—though for the time either wholly or in great part stripped\r\nof all direct associations calculated to impart to it aught fearful,\r\nbut nevertheless, is found to exert over us the same sorcery, however\r\nmodified;—can we thus hope to light upon some chance clue to conduct us\r\nto the hidden cause we seek?\r\n\r\nLet us try. But in a matter like this, subtlety appeals to subtlety,\r\nand without imagination no man can follow another into these halls. And\r\nthough, doubtless, some at least of the imaginative impressions about\r\nto be presented may have been shared by most men, yet few perhaps were\r\nentirely conscious of them at the time, and therefore may not be able\r\nto recall them now.\r\n\r\nWhy to the man of untutored ideality, who happens to be but loosely\r\nacquainted 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."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKZQTB8ZKHC4EF8WWR7JW","peer_label":"adam","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"biblical_figure","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:15.293Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMBM865CDFN9C1SZ2XF8N","peer_label":"whiteness concept","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"abstract_concept","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:15.293Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMBP95V7EKEFCAB53YC74","peer_label":"antarctic fowl","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"animal","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:08:15.293Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXMBPJG0MKECZRZKVSR5JD","peer_label":"captain moby 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