📝 您未登录，登录后完成练习可保存成绩、查看最佳记录。
总字符
0
正确字符
0
错误字符
0
错误率
0.00%
耗时(秒)
0
速度 WPM
0
0 / 43
1Ere quitting, for the nonce, the Sperm Whale's head, I would have you, as a sensible physiologist, simply--particularly
2remark its front aspect, in all its compacted collectedness. I would have you investigate it now with the sole view of
3forming to yourself some unexaggerated, intelligent estimate of whatever battering-ram power may be lodged there. Here
4is a vital point; for you must either satisfactorily settle this matter with yourself, or for ever remain an infidel as
5to one of the most appalling, but not the less true events, perhaps anywhere to be found in all recorded history. You
6observe that in the ordinary swimming position of the Sperm Whale, the front of his head presents an almost wholly
7vertical plane to the water; you observe that the lower part of that front slopes considerably backwards, so as to
8furnish more of a retreat for the long socket which receives the boom-like lower jaw; you observe that the mouth is
9entirely under the head, much in the same way, indeed, as though your own mouth were entirely under your chin. Moreover
10you observe that the whale has no external nose; and that what nose he has--his spout hole--is on the top of his head;
11you observe that his eyes and ears are at the sides of his head, nearly one third of his entire length from the front.
12Wherefore, you must now have perceived that the front of the Sperm Whale's head is a dead, blind wall, without a single
13organ or tender prominence of any sort whatsoever. Furthermore, you are now to consider that only in the extreme, lower,
14backward sloping part of the front of the head, is there the slightest vestige of bone; and not till you get near twenty
15feet from the forehead do you come to the full cranial development. So that this whole enormous boneless mass is as one
16wad. Finally, though, as will soon be revealed, its contents partly comprise the most delicate oil; yet, you are now to
17be apprised of the nature of the substance which so impregnably invests all that apparent effeminacy. In some previous
18place I have described to you how the blubber wraps the body of the whale, as the rind wraps an orange. Just so with the
19head; but with this difference: about the head this envelope, though not so thick, is of a boneless toughness,
20inestimable by any man who has not handled it. The severest pointed harpoon, the sharpest lance darted by the strongest
21human arm, impotently rebounds from it. It is as though the forehead of the Sperm Whale were paved with horses' hoofs. I
22do not think that any sensation lurks in it. Bethink yourself also of another thing. When two large, loaded Indiamen
23chance to crowd and crush towards each other in the docks, what do the sailors do? They do not suspend between them, at
24the point of coming contact, any merely hard substance, like iron or wood. No, they hold there a large, round wad of tow
25and cork, enveloped in the thickest and toughest of ox-hide. That bravely and uninjured takes the jam which would have
26snapped all their oaken handspikes and iron crow-bars. By itself this sufficiently illustrates the obvious fact I drive
27at. But supplementary to this, it has hypothetically occurred to me, that as ordinary fish possess what is called a
28swimming bladder in them, capable, at will, of distension or contraction; and as the Sperm Whale, as far as I know, has
29no such provision in him; considering, too, the otherwise inexplicable manner in which he now depresses his head
30altogether beneath the surface, and anon swims with it high elevated out of the water; considering the unobstructed
31elasticity of its envelope; considering the unique interior of his head; it has hypothetically occurred to me, I say,
32that those mystical lung-celled honeycombs there may possibly have some hitherto unknown and unsuspected connexion with
33the outer air, so as to be susceptible to atmospheric distension and contraction. If this be so, fancy the
34irresistibleness of that might, to which the most impalpable and destructive of all elements contributes. Now, mark.
35Unerringly impelling this dead, impregnable, uninjurable wall, and this most buoyant thing within; there swims behind it
36all a mass of tremendous life, only to be adequately estimated as piled wood is--by the cord; and all obedient to one
37volition, as the smallest insect. So that when I shall hereafter detail to you all the specialities and concentrations
38of potency everywhere lurking in this expansive monster; when I shall show you some of his more inconsiderable braining
39feats; I trust you will have renounced all ignorant incredulity, and be ready to abide by this; that though the Sperm
40Whale stove a passage through the Isthmus of Darien, and mixed the Atlantic with the Pacific, you would not elevate one
41hair of your eye-brow. For unless you own the whale, you are but a provincial and sentimentalist in Truth. But clear
42Truth is a thing for salamander giants only to encounter; how small the chances for the provincials then? What befell
43the weakling youth lifting the dread goddess's veil at Lais?
🎉 全部完成！共 43 行