Moby Dick; Or, The Whale by Herman Melville

The pale Usher—threadbare in coat, heart, body, and brain; I see him

now. He was ever dusting his old lexicons and grammars, with a queer

handkerchief, mockingly embellished with all the gay flags of all the known

nations of the world. He loved to dust his old grammars; it somehow mildly

reminded him of his mortality.

“While you take in hand to school others, and to teach them by what

name a whale-fish is to be called in our tongue, leaving out, through

ignorance, the letter H, which almost alone maketh up the signification of

the word, you deliver that which is not true.” —Hackluyt.