, which passing on either side the loins and running down into the
flukes, insensibly blend with them, and largely contribute to their might; so
that in the tail the confluent measureless force of the whole whale seems
concentrated to a point. Could annihilation occur to matter, this were the thing
to do it.
    Nor does this - its amazing strength - at all tend to cripple the graceful
flexion of its motions; where infantileness of ease undulates through a Titanism
of power. On the contrary, those motions derive their most appalling beauty from
it. Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it; and
in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic. Take
away the tied tendons that all over seem bursting from the marble in the carved
Hercules, and its charm would be gone. As devout Eckermann lifted the linen
sheet from the naked corpse of Goethe, he was overwhelmed with the massive chest
of the man, that seemed as a Roman triumphal arch. When Angelo paints even God
the Father in human form, mark what robustness is there. And whatever they may
reveal of the divine love in the Son, the soft, curled, hermaphroditical Italian
pictures, in which his idea has been most successfully embodied; these pictures,
so destitute as they are of all brawniness, hint nothing of any power, but the
mere negative, feminine one of submission and endurance, which on all hands it
is conceded, form the peculiar practical virtues of his teachings.
    Such is the subtle elasticity of the organ I treat of, that whether wielded
in sport, or in earnest, or in anger, whatever be the mood it be in, its
flexions are invariably marked by exceeding grace. Therein no fairy's arm can
transcend it.
    Five great motions are peculiar to it. First, when used as a fin for
progression; Second, when used as a mace in battle; Third, in sweeping; Fourth,
in lobtailing; Fifth, in peaking flukes.
    First: Being horizontal in its position, the leviathan's tail acts in a
different manner from the tails of all other sea-creatures. It never wriggles.
In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority. To the whale, his tail is
the sole means of propulsion. Scroll- coiled forward beneath the body, and then
rapidly sprung backward, it is this which gives that singular darting, leaping
motion to the monster when furiously swimming. His side-fins only serve to steer
by.
    Second: It is a little significant, that while one sperm whale only fights
another
