…but 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; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over. There is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a gently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from the inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on ye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your identity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And perhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled shriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no more to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!
但是這個心不在焉的年輕人，他的思緒合上了波浪的節拍，不知不覺完全進入了一種像抽醉了大煙似的昏沉沉茫茫然一無所知的幻想境界，終于忘了身在何處，把腳底下神秘的海洋當作廣蔽人類與自然的深藍無底的靈魂的視覺形象；而那躲着他的半隐半現、一掠而過的美麗奇特的東西，那看不真切的形體逐漸顯露、依稀可見的鳍，在他看來，隻是川流不息充塞靈魂的那些無從捉摸的思想的化身。就這般迷迷糊糊地你的生命逐漸向其來源處消逝，擴散到無垠的時空，就像無神論者克蘭默的骨灰抛撒空中，最終成為泥土一般。 如今，你的身子已無生命可言，隻是随着微微颠簸的海來回擺動而已。而船的颠簸來自大海；大海的起伏則來自上帝莫測高深的潮汐。但是當你如此這般睡去，如此這般入夢時，你的手或腳要是挪動了一點點，要是抓牢什麼的雙手突然松開，你會吓個半死回到現實中來。你就翺翔在笛卡兒旋風之上了。而也許，某個夏天中午，天氣晴朗，你像嗓子眼堵住了似的尖叫一聲，從半空中掉進大海，再也沒有上來。你們這些泛神論者，可得多加小心啊！（羅山川譯本）
摘自《白鲸》CHAPTER 35
