Moby Dick is a novel by Herman Melville, narrated by the sailor Ishmael. It blends a whaling voyage with reflections on obsession, nature, and the sea as Captain Ahab pursues the white whale. Its rich language and digressions make it a rewarding classic.
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Cover of the original edition (Project Gutenberg, public domain).
Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
MOBY-DICK;
or, THE WHALE.
By Herman Melville
ETYMOLOGY.
(Supplied by a Late Consumptive Usher to a Grammar
School.)
The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a
queer handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly reminded him of his mortality.
“While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of the word, you deliver that which is not true.” —
Hackluyt.
“WHALE. * * * Sw. and Dan. hval. This animal is named from roundness or rolling; for in Dan. hvalt is arched or vaulted.” —
Webster’s Dictionary.
“WHALE. * * * It is more immediately from the Dut. and Ger.
Wallen; A.S. Walw-ian, to roll, to wallow.” —Richardson’s Dictionary.
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