, carries us at last among
the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad,
hay-making suns, and soft-cymballing, round harvest-moons, we must needs give in
to this: that the gods themselves are not forever glad. The ineffaceable, sad
birth-mark in the brow of man is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.
    Unwittingly here a secret has been divulged, which perhaps might more
properly, in set way, have been disclosed before. With many other particulars
concerning Ahab, always had it remained a mystery to some, why it was, that for
a certain period, both before and after the sailing of the Pequod, he had hidden
himself away with such Grand-Lama-like exclusiveness; and, for that one
interval, sought speechless refuge, as it were, among the marble senate of the
dead. Captain Peleg's bruited reason for this thing appeared by no means
adequate; though, indeed, as touching all Ahab's deeper part, every revelation
partook more of significant darkness than of explanatory light. But, in the end,
it all came out; this one matter did, at least. That direful mishap was at the
bottom of his temporary recluseness. And not only this, but to that
ever-contracting, dropping circle ashore, who, for any reason, possessed the
privilege of a less banned approach to him; to that timid circle the
above-hinted casualty - remaining, as it did, moodily unaccounted for by Ahab -
invested itself with terrors, not entirely underived from the land of spirits
and of wails. So that, through their zeal for him, they had all conspired, so
far as in them lay, to muffle up the knowledge of this thing from others; and
hence it was, that not till a considerable interval had elapsed, did it
transpire upon the Pequod's decks.
    But be all this as it may; let the unseen, ambiguous synod in the air, or
the vindictive princes and potentates of fire, have to do or not with earthly
Ahab, yet, in this present matter of his leg, he took plain practical
procedures; - he called the carpenter.
    And when that functionary appeared before him, he bade him without delay set
about making a new leg, and directed the mates to see him supplied with all the
studs and joists of jaw-ivory (sperm whale) which had thus far been accumulated
on the voyage, in order that a careful selection of the stoutest,
clearest-grained stuff might be secured
