Revenge of the Whale

Can you catch the expression of the Sperm Whale's there? It is the same he
died with, only some of the longer wrinkles in the forehead seem now faded
away. I think his broad brow to be full of a prairie-like placidity, born of a
speculative indifference as to death. But mark the other head's expression.
See that amazing lower lip, pressed by accident against the vessel's side, as
firmly to embrace the jaw. Does not this whole head seem to speak of an
enormous practical resolution in facing death? This Right Whale I take to
have been a Stoic; the Sperm Whale, a Platonian, who might have taken
up Spinoza in his latter years.

Herman Melville - Moby-Dick

illustration: Revenge of the Whale by Terry Fan