The Moby-Dick Bible
< Back to the concordance

Symbolism › Hair-Oil

Hair-Oil

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

Much might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to much in his totality.

Chapter 25, Postscript · verse 3

Read in context >