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Now , had Tashtego perished in that head , it had been a very precious perishing ; smothered in the very whitest and daintiest of fragrant spermaceti ; coffined , hearsed , and tombed in the secret inner chamber and sanctum sanctorum of the whale . Only one sweeter end can readily be recalled — the delicious death of an Ohio honey - hunter , who seeking honey in the crotch of a hollow tree , found such exceeding store of it , that leaning too far over , it sucked him in , so that he died embalmed . How many , think ye , have likewise fallen into Plato’s honey head , and sweetly perished there ? CHAPTER 79 . The Prairie . To scan the lines of his face , or feel the bumps on the head of this Leviathan ; this is a thing which no Physiognomist or Phrenologist has as yet undertaken . Such an enterprise would seem almost as hopeful as for Lavater to have scrutinized the wrinkles on the Rock of Gibraltar , or for Gall to have mounted a ladder and manipulated the Dome of the Pantheon . Still , in that famous work of his , Lavater not only treats of the various faces of men , but also attentively studies the faces of horses , birds , serpents , and fish ; and dwells in detail upon the modifications of expression discernible therein . Nor have Gall and his disciple Spurzheim failed to throw out some hints touching the phrenological characteristics of other beings than man . Therefore , though I am but ill qualified for a pioneer , in the application of these two semi - sciences to the whale , I will do my endeavor . I try all things ; I achieve what I can . Physiognomically regarded , the Sperm Whale is an anomalous creature . He has no proper nose . And since the nose is the central and most conspicuous of the features ; and since it perhaps most modifies and finally controls their combined expression ; hence it would seem that its entire absence , as an external appendage , must very largely affect the countenance of the whale . For as in landscape gardening , a spire , cupola , monument , or tower of some sort , is deemed almost indispensable to the completion of the scene ; so no face can be physiognomically in keeping without the elevated open - work belfry of the nose . Dash the nose from Phidias’s marble Jove , and what a sorry remainder ! Nevertheless , Leviathan is of so mighty a magnitude , all his proportions are so stately , that the same deficiency which in the sculptured Jove were hideous , in him is no blemish at all . Nay , it is an added grandeur . A nose to the whale would have been impertinent . As on your physiognomical voyage you sail round his vast head in your jolly - boat , your noble conceptions of him are never insulted by the reflection that he has a nose to be pulled . A pestilent conceit , which so often will insist upon obtruding even when beholding the mightiest royal beadle on his throne .
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