Nantucket! … a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach without a background. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds there; they don't grow naturally; that pieces of wood in Nantucket are carried about like bits of the true cross in Rome; that one blade of grass makes an oasis, three blades in a day's walk a prairie.


Moby-Dick, 1851

Herman Melville Quotes

Nantucket! … a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach without a background. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds...

Nantucket! … a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach without a background. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds...

Nantucket! … a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach without a background. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds...

Nantucket! … a mere hillock, and elbow of sand; all beach without a background. Some gamesome wights will tell you that they have to plant weeds...