Dedication of Moby-Dick
IN TOKEN
OF MY ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS,
THIS BOOK IS INSCRIBED
TO
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Excerpts from Chapter lxx of Moby-Dick , "The Sphinx"
"Speak, thou vast and venerable head," muttered Ahab, "which, though ungarnished
with a beard, yet here and there lookest hoary with mosses; speak, mighty
head, and tell us the secret thing that is in thee. Of all divers, thou hast
dived the deepest. That head upon which the upper sun now gleams, has moved
amid this world's foundations. . . ."
(courtesy of the e-text
library of the University of Virginia)