Emerson presents a different system of learning than I had ever encountered. Throughout my previous education, I was taught to learn whatever was in the book. The only place original thought was accepted was in occasional creative writing assignments, and even then a stylistic formula was required. The sentence from "Self-Reliance," "A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages." (263) was a completely new idea to me. My mind originally dismissed the concept from his journals that "The dead sleep in their moonless nigh

t; my business is with the living. . . ." (40). But on further reflection, it made sense. Self-reliance is an intimidating concept. Students are taught to externally justify any position we take. If we make a thesis statement we must find support for it in the crumbling stacks of the library. Yet in the end I have found that self-reliance is the most satisfying way to grapple with life.

The idea of a binary world is apparent in the characters of Moby Dick as well. In the first chapters lines are clearly drawn between "Christians" and "savages;" these two descriptions define exclusive states of being. However, unlike the boundary between natural/supernatural, it is possible to cross the line dividing Christian from heathen. Queequeg straddles the latter just as whales traverse the former.

"Cutting me a green measuring-rod, I once more dived within the skeleton. From their arrow-slit in the skull, the priests perceived me taking the altitude of the final rib. 'How now!' they shouted; 'Dar'st thou measure this our god! That's for us.' 'Aye, priests-well, how long do ye make him, then?' But hereupon a fierce contest rose among them, concerning feet and inches; they cracked each other's sconces with their yard-sticks-the great skull echoed-and seizing that lucky chance, I quickly concluded my own admeasurements." (375)

Melville also asserts his own metaphor for self-reliance, embodied in the form of a whale. "Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. . . retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own." (261)

Melville blatantly refutes the utility of the "transparent eyeball" in everyday life. He draws a picture of a young sailor on top-watch "lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature." (140) While this a pleasurable reverie, the man on watch will see no whales, which, after all, is the purpose of his ascent. Thus Melville feels compelled to remark, "And let me in this place movingly admonish you, ye shipowners of Nantucket! Beware of enlisting in your vigilant fisheries any lad. . . given to an unseasonable meditativeness." (139) This meditativeness makes the lad no friends among the rest of the crew, as "Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient 'interest' in the voyage. . . But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve?" (139) Well aware of the allure stemming contemplating nature overlong, he also admonishes "Look not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy hand on the helm!" (354) For while dreaming has its place, it can handicap when one has business to attend to in reality.

"Is it not curious, that so vast a being as the whale should see the world through so small an eye, and hear the thunder through an ear which is smaller than a hare's? but if his eyes were broad as the lens of Herschel's great telescope; and his ears capacious as the porches of cathedrals; would that make him any longer of sight, or sharper of hearing? Not at all.-Why then do you try to "enlarge" your mind? Subtilize it." (280)

The earth to be spann'd, connected by network,

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Approximate Word count = 3205
Approximate Pages = 13 (250 words per page double spaced)