re: the iron way

Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the
sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset
soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me;
all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er
enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the
low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most
malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good
night—good night! [Waving his hand, he moves from the
window.] 

'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one
stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits
into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or,
if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they
all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that
to fire others, the match itself must needs be
wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've
willed, I'll do! They think me mad—Starbuck
does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That
wild madness that's only calm to
comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be
dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy
that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be
the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than
ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye,
ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and
blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as school-boys do to
bullies,—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel
me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but
ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your
cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come,
Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can
swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye
swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The
path to my fixed purpose is laid with
iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over
unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of
mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush!
Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron
way! 

http://geli.tripod.com/febapr2001.html

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