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Literary Motifs › Enlargement Of Mind

Enlargement Of Mind

1 passage in the novel carry this mark, in the order they appear.

Not at all.—Why then do you try to “enlarge” your mind? Subtilize it.

Let us now with whatever levers and steam-engines we have at hand, cant over the sperm whale’s head, that it may lie bottom up; then, ascending by a ladder to the summit, have a peep down the mouth; and were it not that the body is now completely separated from it, with a lantern we might descend into the great Kentucky Mammoth Cave of his stomach. But let us hold on here by this tooth, and look about us where we are.

Chapter 74, The Sperm Whale’s Head—Contrasted View · verse 15

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