Ahab an engine on the Line through America

[Thomas Eckhardt]

Terrance quoted:

> "The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails,
> whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through
> the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I
> rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!"

This is a topic I am immensely interested in, as some of you know, so
please excuse me if I provide some more material. Just curious, for
example: What about the end of Father Maple's Sermon (Chapter 9):

"Delight is to him --a far, far upward, and inward delight --who
against the proud gods and commodores of this earth, ever stands forth
his own inexorable self.  Delight is to him whose strong arms yet
support him, when the ship of this base treacherous world has gone
down beneath him.  Delight is to him, who gives no quarter in the
truth, and kills, burns, and destroys all sin though he pluck it out
from under the robes of Senators and Judges.  Delight, --top-gallant
delight is to him, who acknowledges no law or lord, but the Lord his
God, and is only a patriot to heaven.  Delight is to him, whom all the
waves of the billows of the seas of the boisterous mob can never shake
from this sure Keel of the Ages."

Compare, from Chapter 28 "Ahab":

"His bone leg steadied in that hole; one arm elevated, and holding by a
shroud; Captain Ahab stood erect, looking straight out beyond the ship's
ever-pitching
prow. There was an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate
unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward
dedication of that glance."

Is Ahab's and thus his ship's "iron way" a satanic version of Maple's "sure
Keel of the Ages"? Both quests seem to be grounded in the same attitude of
"firmest fortitude etc." (a sterile erection, think of the ivory/whale-bone
leg, remember the pain in Ahab's groin; wouldn't know about his balls
though) whereas Ishmael learns from Queequeg to follow the rhythm of the
waves...

Thomas