Ahab's Adventure's In Wonderland; or The Rabbit

Chapter Twenty-Two

The cabin; by the picture window; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out.

'I leave a crooked and turbid furrow; barren soil where'er I plow. The envious billows pile dirt to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass.

'Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm skies blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun-- slow dived from noon--goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron--that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too--that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!

'Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night--good night!' (waving his hand, he moves from the window.)

'Twas not so hard a task. Ithought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits intoall their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so manyant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard!that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared,I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad-- Starbuck does;but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm tocomprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and--Aye! Ilost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then,be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, everwere. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkesand blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies--Take someone of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am upagain; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! Ihave no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see ifye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves!man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with ironrails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through therifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught'san obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!