Term
| I feared I should not be able to write, from mere memory, a statement so minute and connected as to have the appearance of that truth it would really possess... |
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Definition
| Arthur Gordon Pym, Preface of The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym |
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Term
| however roughly, as regards mere authorship, my book should be got up, its very uncouthness, if there were any, would give it all the better chance of being received as truth. |
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Definition
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Term
| It is hardly possible to conveive the extremity of my terror. The fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of managing the boat... |
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Definition
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Term
| Hardly had I come to this resolution, when, suddenly, a loud and long scream or yell, as if from the throats of a thousand demons, seemed to pervade the whole atmosphere around and above the boat. |
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Definition
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Term
| our deliverance seemed to have been brought about by two of those almost inconceivable pieces of good fortune which are attributed by the wise and pious to the special interference of Providence. |
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Definition
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Term
| It is strange, too, that he most strongly enlisted my feelings in behalf of the life of a seaman, when he depicted his more terrible moments of suffering and despair. |
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Definition
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Term
| I felt myself making a step towards the ensanguined spot. |
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Definition
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Term
| Upon approaching the land, however, the navigator might be induced to suppose otherwise, as the sides of most of the hills, from September to March, are clothed with very brilliant verdure. This deceitful appearance is caused by a small plant resembling saxifrage... |
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Definition
| Pym speaking of Desolation Island |
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Term
| Upon this he immediately seized me by the throat, and drawing a knife, made several ineffectual efforts to stab me in the stomach. |
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Definition
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Term
| from everuthing I could see of these wretches, they appeared to be the most wicked, hypocritical, vindictive, bloodthirsty, and altogether fiendish race of men upon the face of the globe. |
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Definition
| Pym speaking of the Tsalalians |
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Term
| I have graven it within the hills, and my vengeance upon the dust within the rock. |
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Definition
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Term
| The personages of the tale are really of the author's own making...he would be glad therefore if the book may be read strictly as a Romance. |
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Definition
| Preface to The House of the Seven Gables |
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Term
| Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moral purpose, at which they profess to aim their works. Not to be deficient in this particular, the author has provided himself with a moral -- the truth, namely that the wrongdoing of one generation lives into the successive ones... |
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Definition
| Preface to House of Seven Gables |
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Term
| The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore, relentlessly to impale the story with its moral is with an iron rod... |
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Definition
| Preface to House of Seven Gables |
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Term
| He would have made a good and massive portrait; better now, perhaps, than at any previous period of his life, although his look might grow positively harsh in the process of being fixed upon the canvas. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne as narrator, speaking of Judge Pyncheon |
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Term
| The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward storm and sunshine, but expressive, also, of the long lapse of mortal life... |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne as narrator, speaking of the House of the Seven Gables |
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Term
| There will be a connection with the long past - a reference to forgotten events and personages |
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Definition
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Term
| It is a likeness of a young man, in a silken dressing gown of an old fashion, the soft richness o fwhich is well adapted to the countenance of reverie, with its full, tender lips, and beautiful eyes, that seem, to indicate not so much capacity of thought as gentle and voluptuous emotion. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne, speaking of Clifford |
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Term
| representing the stern features of a Puritanic-looking personage, in a skullcap, with laced band and a grizzly beard; holding a Bible with one hand, and in the other uplifting an iron sword hilt. The latter....stood out in far greater prominence... |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne, speaking of Colonel Pyncheon |
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Term
| Her scowl - as the world, or such part of it sometimes caught a transitory glimpse of her at the window, wickedly persisted in calling it - had done her an ill office, in establishing her character as an ill tempered old maid... |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah |
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Term
| She, in fact, felt a reverence for the pictured visage, of which only a far-descended and time-stricken virgin could be susceptible... |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah looking at Colonel Pyncheon's portrait |
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Term
| But her heart never frowned. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah |
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Term
| But, even as a ray of sunshine, fall into what dismal place it may, instantaneously creates for itself a propreity in being there... |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of Phoebe |
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Term
| She stole softly into the hall, and, herself invisible, gazed through the dusty side lights of the portal at the young, blooming, and very cheerful face, which presented itself for admittance into the gloomy old mansion. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne, speaking of Hepzibah seeing Phoebe at the door of the mansion |
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Term
| It was evident that the race had degenerated, like many a noble race besides, in consequence of too strict watchfulness to keep it pure. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of the Pyncheon chickens |
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Term
| So wise, as well as antique, was their aspect, as to give color to the idea not merely that they were the descendants of a time-honored race, but that they had existed, in their individual capactiy, ever since the House of the Seven Gables was founded, and were somehow mixed up with its destiny. |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Chanticlear and the lady chickens |
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Term
| He had the strangest companions imaginable: men with long beards, and dressed in linen blouses, and other such newfangled and ill-fitting garments... |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Holgrave |
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Term
| She had read a paragraph in a penny paper, the other day, accusing him of making a speech full of wild and disorganizing matter, at a meeting of his banditti-like associates. |
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Definition
| Nathaniel Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah reading about Holgrave |
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Term
| She had reason to believe that he practiced animal magnetism, and, if such things were in fashion nowadays, should be apt to suspect him of studying the Black Art up there in his lonesome chamber. |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah about Holgrave |
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Term
| I have seriously made it a question, whether I ought not to send him away. But, with all his oddities, he is a quiet kind of person, and has such a way of taking hold of one's mind that, without exactly liking him, I should be sorry to lose sight of him entirely. |
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Definition
| Hepzibah speaking of Holgrave |
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Term
| I suppose he has a law of his own! |
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Definition
| Hepzibah speaking of Holgrave |
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Term
| As it was, the whole procession might have seen him, a wild, haggard figure, his gray locks floating in the wind that waved their banners; a lonely being, estranged from his race, but now feeling himself man again, by the virtue of the irrepressible instinct that possessed him. |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Clifford |
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Term
| Fear nothing - it is over now - but had I taken that plunge and survived it, methinks it would have made me another man! |
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Definition
| Clifford speaking to Hepzibah |
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Term
| Were I to be there, it seems to me that I could pray once more, when so many human souls were praying all around me! |
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Definition
| Clifford speaking to Hepzibah |
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Term
| It does seem to me that men make a wonderful mistake in trying to heap up property upon property. If I had done so, I should feel as if Providence was not bound to take care of me... |
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Definition
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Term
| I ought to have said, too, that we live in dead men's houses... |
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Definition
| Holgrave speaking to Phoebe |
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Term
| If each generation were allowed and expected to build its own houses, that single change, comparatabely unimportant in itself, would imply almost every reform which society is now suffering for. |
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Definition
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Term
| It makes me dizzy to think of such a shifting world! |
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Definition
| Phoebe in response to Holgrave |
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Term
| The secret was that an individual of his temper can always be pricked more acutely through his sense of the beautiful and harmonious than through his heart...Had he enjoyed the means of cultivating his taste to its utmost perfectibility, that subtile attribute might, before this period, have completely eaten out or filed away his affections. |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Clifford |
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Term
| She had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in what are called happier circumstances. |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Hepzibah |
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Term
| Even as it was, a change grew visible; a change partly to be regretted, although whatever charm it infringed upon was repaired by another, perhaps more precious...Her eyes looked deeper...like Artesian wells...She was less girlish... |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Phoebe |
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Term
| As a supernumerary official , of some kind or other, aboard a packet ship, he had visited Europe, and found means, before his return to see Italy, and part of France and Germany. At a later period, he had spent some months in a community of Fourierists. Still more recently, he had been a public lecturer on Mesmerism... |
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Definition
| Hawthorne speaking of Holgrave |
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Term
| You find me a conservative already! Little did I think ever to become one. It is especially unpardonable in this dwelling of so much hereditary misfortune, and under the eye of yonder portrait of a model conservative, who, in that very character, rendered himself so long the evil destiny of this race. |
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Definition
| Holgrave speaking to Phoebe |
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Term
| should he refuse me the information so important to myself, and which he assuradly possesses, I shall consider it the one needed jot of evidence to satsify my mind of his insanity. |
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Definition
| Judge Pyncheon speaking to Hepzibah about Clifford |
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Term
| Then, why should you do this cruel, cruel thing? So mad a thing, that I know not whether to call it wicked! ...You are but doing over again, in another shape, what your ancestor before you did, and sending down your posterity the curse inherited from him! |
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Definition
| Hepzibah speaking to Judge Pyncheon |
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Term
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Definition
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Term
| No man can be a poet and a bookkeeper at the same time. |
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Definition
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Term
| I have written a wicked book. |
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Definition
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Term
| The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. |
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Definition
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Term
| I began to be sensible of strange feelings. I felt a melting in me. |
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Definition
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Term
| we were bosom friends; he would gladly die for me, if need should be. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Queequeg |
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Term
| What's all this fuss I have been making about, thought I to myself - the man's a human being just as I am: he has just as much reason to fear me, as I have to be afraid of him. Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Queequeg |
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Term
| he seemed to be saying to himself - "It's a mutual, jointstock world, in all meridians. We cannibals much help these Christians." |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Queequeg |
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Term
| And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a gobular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also the stillness and seclusion of many long nightwatches in the remotest waters...one makes ...a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Bildad |
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Term
| A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of the Pequod |
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Term
| He's a grand, ungodly, god-like man. |
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Definition
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Term
| I will have no man in my boat, who is not afraid of a whale. |
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Definition
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Term
| He seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more dangerous comrade than a coward. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Starbuck |
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Term
| Starbuck, there, is as careful a man as you'll find anywhere in this fishery. |
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Definition
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Term
| Uncommonly conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence, the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than from ignorance. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Starbuck |
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Term
| And brave as he might be, it was that sort of bravery, chiefly visible in some intrepid men, which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and mighty man. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Starbuck |
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Term
| So utterly lost was he to all sense of reverence for the many marvels of theri majestic bulk and mystic ways; and so dead to anything like an apprehension of any possible danger from encountering them; that in his poor opinion, the wondrous whale was but a species of magnified mouse... |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Flask |
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Term
| I say this continual smoking must have been one cause, at least, of his peculiar disposition; for every one knows that this earthly air, whether ashore or afloat, is terribly infected with teh nameless miseries of the numberless mortals who had died exhaling it... |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Stubb's smoking |
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Term
| He kept a whole row of pipes there ready loaded, stuck in a rack, within easy reach of his hand... |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Stubb |
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Term
| an unmixed Indian from Gay Head...where there still exists the last remnant of a village of red men, which has long supplied the neighboring island of Nantucket with many of her most daring harpooners. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Tashtego |
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Term
| a gigantic, coal-black-negro-savage, with a lion-like tread.... |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Daggoo |
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Term
| Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the NOrway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. |
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Definition
| Ahab speaking of Moby Dick |
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Term
| I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too...if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. |
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Definition
| Starbuck speaking of Ahab |
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Term
| Vengeance on a dumb brute! ...that simply smote thee from blindest instinct! Madness! |
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Definition
| Starbuck speaking of Ahab's vengeance toward MD |
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Term
| To be enraged with a dumb thing seems blasphemous. |
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Definition
| Starbuck speaking to Ahab |
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Term
| All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. |
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Definition
| Ahab speaking to Starbuck |
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Term
| The White Whale swam before him as the monomaniac incarnation of all those malicious agencies which some deep men feel eating in them, till they are left living on with half a heart and half a lung...He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down. |
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Definition
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Term
| whiteness has been even made significant of gladness, for among the ROmans a white stone marked a joyful day; and though in other mortal sympathies and symbolizings, this same hue is made the emblem of many touching, noble things -- the innocence of brides, the benignity of age... |
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Definition
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Term
| Though neither knows where lie the namless things of which the mystic sign gives forth such hints; yet with me, as with the colt, somewhere those things must exist. Though in many of its aspects this visible world seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in fright. |
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Definition
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Term
| Or is it, taht as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color, and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in a wide landscape of snows -- a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? |
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Definition
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Term
| True, one portrait may hit the mark much neareer than another, but none can hit it with any very considerable degree of exactness. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of whale's portraits |
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Term
| and every strange, half-seen, giding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came...forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over. |
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Definition
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Term
| There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly folding up hope in the midst of despair. |
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Definition
| Ishmael speaking of Queequeg |
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Term
| THere are certain queer times and occasions in this trange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke |
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Definition
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Term
| Consider, once more, the universal cannibalism of the sea; all whose creatures prey upon each other, carrying on eternal war since the world began. Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself? |
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Definition
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Term
| Cussed fellow-critters! Kick up de damndest row as ever you can; fill your dam' bellies 'till dey bust - and den die. |
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Definition
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Term
| and while ponderous planets of unwaning woe revolve round me, deep down and deep inland there I still bathe me in eternal mildness of joy. |
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Definition
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Term
| Think, think of the fevers, yellow and bilious! Beware of the horrible plague! ...Think, think of thy whale-boat, stoven and sunk! Beware of the horrible tail! |
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Definition
| Gabriel (prophesizing to Ahab) |
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Term
| We can't afford to lose whales by teh likes of you; a whale would sell for thirty times what you would.... |
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Definition
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Term
| So soon as he recovered himself, the poor little negro was assailed by yells and execrations of the crew. |
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Definition
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Term
| But the awful lonesomeness is intolerable. The intense concentration of self in the middle of such a heartless immensity, my God! who can tell it? |
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Definition
| Ishmael - speaking of Pip |
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Term
| By the merest chance the ship itself at last rescued him; but from that hour the little negro went about the deck an idiot... |
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Definition
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Term
| and this round gold is but the image of the rounder glove, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn but mirrors back his own mysterious self. |
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Definition
| Ahab, thinking of the doubloon |
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Term
| A dark valley between three mighty, heaven-abiding peaks, that almost seem the Trinity, in some faint earthly symbol. So in this vale of Death, God girds us round; and over all our gloom, the sun of Righteousness still shines a beacon and a hope. |
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Definition
| Starbuck, thinking of the doubloon |
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Term
| I'd not look at it very long ere spending it....I'll try my hand at raising a meaning out of these queer curvices here with the Massachusetts calendar...Signs and wonders... |
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Definition
| Stubb, thinking of the doubloon |
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Term
| It is worth sixteen dollars, that's true; and at two cents the cigar, that's nine hundred and sixty cigars.... |
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Definition
| Flask, thinking about the doubloon |
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Term
| I look, you look, he looks; we look, ye look, they look... |
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Definition
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Term
| I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board! |
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Definition
| Ahab speaking to Starbuck |
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Term
| Thou sea-mark! thou high and mighty Pilot! thou tellest me truly where I am - but canst thou cast the least hint where I shall be? Or canst thou tell where some other thing besides me is this moment living? Where is Moby Dick? |
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Definition
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Term
| But shall this crazed old man be tamely suffered to drag a whole ship's company down to doom with him? - Yes, ti would make him teh wilful murderer of thirty men and more, if this ship come to any deadly harm...Yes, just there, - in there, he's sleeping. Sleeping? |
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Definition
| Starbuck speaking of Ahab |
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Term
| There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fized gradations, and at the last one pause: - through infancy's unconscious spell, boyhood's thoughless faith, adolescence' doubt, then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at least in manhood's pondering repose of If. |
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Definition
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Term
| It was the devious-crusing Rachel, that in her retracing search after her missing children, only found another orphan. |
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Definition
| Ishmael, speaking of himself |
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