Moby Dick

This text is a combination of etexts, one from the now-defunct ERIS project at Virginia Tech and one from Project Gutenberg’s archives. The proofreaders of this version are indebted to The University of Adelaide Library for preserving the Virginia Tech version. The resulting etext was compared with a public domain hard copy version of the text.

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._

‏חו‎, _Hebrew_. ϰητος, _Greek_. CETUS, _Latin_. WHŒL, _Anglo-Saxon_. HVALT, _Danish_. WAL, _Dutch_. HWAL, _Swedish_. HVALUR, _Icelandic_. WHALE, _English_. BALEINE, _French_. BALLENA, _Spanish_. PEKEE-NUEE-NUEE, _Fegee_. PEHEE-NUEE-NUEE, _Erromangoan_.