If I make a list of my ten favorite books Moby Dick by Herman Melville is not among them. When the list expands to a hundred favorite books, Moby Dick's fate will not change. However I place it in the top ten of the most forgettable.
The mystery writer Robert B. Parker uses 'A Catskill Eagle" from Moby Dick as a book title and a background theme in a Spenser novel.. Out of the depths of Moby Dick soars a segment which I jotted down for my 'memory bank'.
There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And 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 for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
Even so the book Moby Dick does not soar so high with me.
On another theme my apologies to Dr. Samuel Johnson , author of the "The Dictionary" , : who wrote about retirement: "Exert your talents and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow who from pride or cowardice or laziness drives himself into a corner, and then does nothing but sit and growl. Let him come out, as I do, and bark."
I apologize because out of sheer laziness or ineptness I omitted the location of the quote when I first made note of it. Using Dr. Johnson as a retirement guide, from time to time I do put down the crossword puzzle and come out and bark.
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