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So that overawed by the rumors and portents concerning him, not a few of the fishermen recalled, in reference to Moby Dick, the earlier days of the Sperm Whale fishery, when it was oftentimes hard to induce long practised Right whalemen to embark in the perils of this new and daring warfare; such men protesting that although other leviathans might be hopefully pursued, yet to chase and point lance at such an apparition as the Sperm Whale was not for mortal man. That to attempt it, would be inevitably to be torn into a quick eternity. On this head, there are some remarkable documents that may be consulted.

Round dread Alcathous now the battle rose; On every side the steely circle grows; Now batter’d breast-plates and hack’d helmets ring, And o’er their heads unheeded javelins sing. Above the rest, two towering chiefs appear, There great Idomeneus, Æneas here. Like gods of war, dispensing fate, they stood, And burn’d to drench the ground with mutual blood. The Trojan weapon whizz’d along in air; The Cretan saw, and shunn’d the brazen spear: Sent from an arm so strong, the missive wood Stuck deep in earth, and quiver’d where it stood. But OEnomas received the Cretan’s stroke; The forceful spear his hollow corslet broke, It ripp’d his belly with a ghastly wound, And roll’d the smoking entrails on the ground. Stretch’d on the plain, he sobs away his breath, And, furious, grasps the bloody dust in death. The victor from his breast the weapon tears; His spoils he could not, for the shower of spears. Though now unfit an active war to wage, Heavy with cumbrous arms, stiff with cold age, His listless limbs unable for the course, In standing fight he yet maintains his force; Till faint with labour, and by foes repell’d, His tired slow steps he drags from off the field. Deiphobus beheld him as he pass’d, And, fired with hate, a parting javelin cast: The javelin err’d, but held its course along, And pierced Ascalaphus, the brave and young: The son of Mars fell gasping on the ground, And gnash’d the dust, all bloody with his wound.

And as if the now tested reality of his might had in former legendary times thrown its shadow before it; we find some book naturalists—Olassen and Povelson—declaring the Sperm Whale not only to be a consternation to every other creature in the sea, but also to be so incredibly ferocious as continually to be athirst for human blood. Nor even down to so late a time as Cuvier’s, were these or almost similar impressions effaced. For in his Natural History, the Baron himself affirms that at sight of the Sperm Whale, all fish (sharks included) are “struck with the most lively terrors,” and “often in the precipitancy of their flight dash themselves against the rocks with such violence as to cause instantaneous death.” And however the general experiences in the fishery may amend such reports as these; yet in their full terribleness, even to the bloodthirsty item of Povelson, the superstitious belief in them is, in some vicissitudes of their vocation, revived in the minds of the hunters.

Mrs. Bennet was, in fact, too much overpowered to say a great deal while Sir William remained; but no sooner had he left them than her feelings found a rapid vent. In the first place, she persisted in disbelieving the whole of the matter; secondly, she was very sure that Mr. Collins had been taken in; thirdly, she trusted that they would never be happy together; and, fourthly, that the match might be broken off. Two inferences, however, were plainly deduced from the whole: one, that Elizabeth was the real cause of all the mischief; and the other, that she herself had been barbarously used by them all; and on these two points she principally dwelt during the rest of the day. Nothing could console and nothing appease her. Nor did that day wear out her resentment. A week elapsed before she could see Elizabeth without scolding her: a month passed away before she could speak to Sir William or Lady Lucas without being rude; and many months were gone before she could at all forgive their daughter.

But there were still other and more vital practical influences at work. Not even at the present day has the original prestige of the Sperm Whale, as fearfully distinguished from all other species of the leviathan, died out of the minds of the whalemen as a body. There are those this day among them, who, though intelligent and courageous enough in offering battle to the Greenland or Right whale, would perhaps—either from professional inexperience, or incompetency, or timidity, decline a contest with the Sperm Whale; at any rate, there are plenty of whalemen, especially among those whaling nations not sailing under the American flag, who have never hostilely encountered the Sperm Whale, but whose sole knowledge of the leviathan is restricted to the ignoble monster primitively pursued in the North; seated on their hatches, these men will hearken with a childish fireside interest and awe, to the wild, strange tales of Southern whaling. Nor is the pre-eminent tremendousness of the great Sperm Whale anywhere more feelingly comprehended, than on board of those prows which stem him.