IVIV20: Moving faster than Doc had ever seen him, 354-357

[alice wellintown]

The readings of readings, the limits of reading, the evasive sublime,
ineffible text ...the bookishness & TULIP themes...all central to  the
American Romance. Where A is for Adam's Fall and for when we Fell All
and for ART and for it ALLUSIVE AMBIGUITIES.

Ch 79 M-D or The Whale

Champollion deciphered the wrinkled granite hieroglyphics. But there
is no Champollion to decipher the Egypt of every man's and every
being's face. Physiognomy, like every other human science, is but a
passing fable. If then, Sir William Jones, who read in thirty
languages, could not read the simplest peasant's face in its
profounder and more subtle meanings, how may unlettered Ishmael hope
to read the awful Chaldee of the Sperm Whale's brow? I but put that
brow before you. Read it if you can.


Before this equatorial coin, Ahab, not unobserved by others, was now pausing.

"There's something ever egotistical in mountain-tops and towers, and
all other grand and lofty things; look here,- three peaks as proud as
Lucifer. The firm tower, that is Ahab; the volcano, that is Ahab; the
courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl, that, too, is Ahab;
all are Ahab; and this round gold is but the image of the rounder
globe, which, like a magician's glass, to each and every man in turn
but mirrors back his own mysterious self. Great pains, small gains for
those who ask the world to solve them; it cannot solve itself.
Methinks now this coined sun wears a ruddy face; but see! aye, he
enters the sign of storms, the equinox! and but six months before he
wheeled out of a former equinox at Aries! From storm to storm! So be
it, then. Born in throes, 't is fit that man should live in pains and
die in pangs! So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on.
So be it, then."

"No fairy fingers can have pressed the gold, but devil's claws have
left their mouldings there since yesterday," murmured Starbuck to
himself, leaning against the bulwarks. "The old man seems to read
Belshazzar's awful writing. I have never marked the coin inspectingly.
He goes below; let me read.

I remembered to have read (probably in Felt’s Annals) a notice of the
decease of Mr. Surveyor Pue, about fourscore years ago; and likewise,
in a newspaper of recent times, an account of the digging up of his
remains in the little grave-yard of St. Peter’s Church, during the
renewal of that edifice. Nothing, if I rightly call to mind, was left
of my respected predecessor, save an imperfect skeleton, and some
fragments of apparel, and a wig of majestic frizzle; which, unlike the
head that it once adorned, was in very satisfactory preservation. But,
on examining the papers which the parchment commission served to
envelop, I found more traces of Mr. Pue’s mental part, and the
internal operations of his head, than the frizzled wig had contained
of the venerable skull itself.
  They were documents, in short, not official, but of a private
nature, or, at least, written in his private capacity, and apparently
with his own hand. I could account for their being included in the
heap of Custom-House lumber only by the fact, that Mr. Pue’s death had
happened suddenly; and that these papers, which he probably kept in
his official desk, had never come to the knowledge of his heirs, or
were supposed to relate to the business of the revenue. On the
transfer of the archives to Halifax, this package, proving to be of no
public concern, was left behind, and had remained ever since unopened.
  The ancient Surveyor—being little molested, I suppose, at that early
day, with business pertaining to his office—seems to have devoted some
of his many leisure hours to researches as a local antiquarian, and
other inquisitions of a similar nature. These supplied material for
petty activity to a mind that would otherwise have been eaten up with
rust.
  A portion of his facts, by the by, did me good service in the
preparation of the article entitled “MAIN STREET,” included in the
present volume. The remainder may perhaps be applied to purposes
equally valuable, hereafter; or not impossibly may be worked up, so
far as they go, into a regular history of Salem, should my veneration
for the natal soil ever impel me to so pious a task. Meanwhile, they
shall be at the command of any gentleman, inclined, and competent, to
take the unprofitable labor off my hands. As a final disposition, I
contemplate depositing them with the Essex Historical Society.
  But the object that most drew my attention, in the mysterious
package, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded.
There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was
greatly frayed and defaced; so that none, or very little, of the
glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with
wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by
ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now
forgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of picking out
the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth,—for time, and wear, and a
sacrilegious moth, had reduced it to little other than a rag,—on
careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital
letter A.



> Down the page on 354, another kind of reading. Viewed from the ocean,
> Gordita Beach appears "in a spill of weather-beaten colors, like paint chips
> at some out-of-the-way hardware store, and the hillside up to Dunecrest ...
> looking from out here strangely flat, hardly there at all". The loss of
> perspective indicated here is both painterly and reminiscent of the earlier
> (two-dimensional) "glittering mosaic of doubt" (351). To emphasise Doc's
> impressionistic reading: ". like paint chips". The extreme close-up and the
> long shot are equally evasive.