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Isabella of Castile: The First Renaissance Queen

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Nancy Rubin Stuart

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“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. Where unrecorded names and navies rust, and untold hopes and anchors rot; where in her murderous hold this frigate earth is ballasted with bones of millions of the drowned; there, in that awful water-land, there was thy most familiar home. Thou hast been where bell or diver never went; hast slept by many a sailor’s side, where sleepless mothers would give their lives to lay them down. Thou saw’st the locked lovers when leaping from their flaming ship; heart to heart they sank beneath the exulting wave; true to each other, when heaven seemed false to them. Thou saw’st the murdered mate when tossed by pirates from the midnight deck; for hours he fell into the deeper midnight of the insatiate maw; and his murderers still sailed on unharmed — while swift lightnings shivered the neighboring ship that would have borne a righteous husband to outstretched, longing arms. O head! thou hast seen enough to split the planets and make an infidel of Abraham, and not one syllable is thine!”

AhabThe Sphinx
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun --slow dived from noon, --goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; i, the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that i wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron --that I know--not gold. 'Tis split, too --that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight!”

AhabHerman Melville185Mobydick
Book:Moby-Dick or, The Whale
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“Hope. It was something about the way he said it that made me feel like I was understanding what the word meant for the first time. I wanted to tell him that the only way to control your suffering was to orchestrate it. That the only true pleasure in life must be found in pain, because if you master pain you will not even need to hope for anything at all. Unable to tell him any of this, I just stare at him, wondering what he has that is worth hoping for with such a genuine drive, that even I would question the safety of my own suffering.”

InspirationalBeautifulHope
Book:Swan Song
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