Egads. Now I know why I never read it in high school. If you take out the massively boring quantities of thoroughly unnecessary (not too mention ludicrously inaccurate in this day and age) info on Cetaceans and whaling, it’s barely a novella. Still, one of my all time favorite quotes came from this book and it was nice to read it in context.
“For there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he forever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than the other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.”
Dy's Take 