"But not yet have we solved the incantation of this whiteness, and learned why it appeals with such power to the soul; and more strange and more portentous - why, as we have seen, it is at once the most meaning symbol of spiritual things, nay the very veil of the Christian's Deity; and yet should be as it is, the intensifying agent in things the most appalling to mankind. Is it that by it's indefiniteness it shadows forth the heartless voids and immensities of the universe, and thus stabs us from behind with the thought of annihilation, when beholding the white depths of the Milky Way? Or is it, that as in essence whiteness is not so much a color as the visible absence of color; and at the same time the concrete of all colors; is it for these reasons that there is such a dumb blankness, full of meaning, in wide landscape of snows - a colorless, all-color of atheism from which we shrink? When we consider that other theory of the natural philosophers, that all other earthly hues - every stately or lovely emblazoning - the sweet tinges of sunset, skies, and woods; yea, and the gilded velvets of butterflies, and the butterfly cheeks of young girls; all these subtle deceipts, not actually inherent in substances, but only laid on from without; so that all deified nature absolutely paints like the harlot, whose allurements cover nothing but the charnel-house within and when we proceed further and consider the mystical cosmetic which produces every one of her hues, the great principle of light, forever remains white or colorless in itself, and if operating without medium upon matter, would touch all objects, even tulips and roses with it's own black tinge - pondering all this, the palsied universe lies before us like a leper; and like willful travelers in Lapland, who refuse to wear colored or coloring glasses upon their eyes, so the wretched infidel gazes himself blind at the monumental white shroud that wraps all the prospect around him. And all these things the albino whale was the symbol of. Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?"
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