The Project Gutenberg Etext of Moby Dick, by - Plano Library ...

Moby Dick or The Whale
that sweet girl that old man has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless
harm in Ahab? No, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!”
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had been incidentally revealed to
me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning
him. And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t
know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a strange awe of
him; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not
know what it was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though I felt
impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me
then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions, so that for the
present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
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