imparts such an abhorrent mildness, even more loathsome than
terrific, to the dumb gloating of their aspect. So that not the
fierce-fanged tiger in his heraldic coat can so stagger courage as
the white-shrouded bear or shark.*


*With reference to the Polar bear, it may possibly be urged by him
who would fain go still deeper into this matter, that it is not the
whiteness, separately regarded, which heightens the intolerable
hideousness of that brute; for, analysed, that heightened
hideousness, it might be said, only rises from the circumstance, that
the irresponsible ferociousness of the creature stands invested in
the fleece of celestial innocence and love; and hence, by bringing
together two such opposite emotions in our minds, the Polar bear
frightens us with so unnatural a contrast. But even assuming all
this to be true; yet, were it not for the whiteness, you would not
have that intensified terror.

As for the white shark, the white gliding ghostliness of repose in
that creature, when beheld in his ordinary moods, strangely tallies
with the same quality in the Polar quadruped. This peculiarity is
most vividly hit by the French in the name they bestow upon that
fish. The Romish mass for the dead begins with "Requiem eternam"
(eternal rest), whence REQUIEM denominating the mass itself, and any
other funeral music. Now, in allusion to the white, silent stillness
of death in this shark, and the mild deadliness of his habits, the
French call him REQUIN.


Bethink thee of the albatross, whence come those clouds of spiritual
wonderment and pale dread, in which that white phantom sails in all
imaginations? Not Coleridge first threw that spell; but God's great,
unflattering laureate, Nature.*


*I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a
prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the Antarctic seas. From my
forenoon watch below, I ascended to the overclouded deck; and there,
dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of
unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At
intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace
some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though
bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in
supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes,
methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham
before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its
wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the
miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed
at that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things
that darted through me then. But at last I awoke; and turning, asked
a sailor what bird was this. A goney, he replied. Goney! never had
heard that name before; is it conceivable that this glorious thing is
utterly unknown to men ashore! never! But some time after, I learned
that goney was some seaman's name for albatross. So that by no
possibility could Coleridge's wild Rhyme have had aught to do with
those mystical impressions which were mine, when I saw that bird upon
our deck. For neither had I then read the Rhyme, nor knew the bird
to be an albatross. Yet, in saying this, I do but indirectly burnish
a little brighter the noble merit of the poem and the poet.

I assert, then, that in the wondrous bodily whiteness of the bird
chiefly lurks the secret of the spell; a truth the more evinced in
this, that by a solecism of terms there are birds called grey
albatrosses; and these I have frequently seen, but never with such
emotions as when I beheld the Antarctic fowl.

But how had the mystic thing been caught? Whisper it not, and I will
tell; with a treacherous hook and line, as the fowl floated on the
sea. At last the Captain made a postman of it; tying a lettered,
leathern tally round its neck, with the ship's time and place; and
then letting it escape. But I doubt not, that leathern tally, meant
for man, was taken off in Heaven, when the white fowl flew to join
the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!


Most famous in our Western annals and Indian traditions is that of
the White Steed of the Prairies; a magnificent milk-white charger,
large-eyed, small-headed, bluff-chested, and with the dignity of a
thousand monarchs in his lofty, overscorning carriage. He was the
elected Xerxes of vast herds of wild horses, whose pastures in those
days were only fenced by the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. At
their flaming head he westward trooped it like that chosen star which
every evening leads on the hosts of light. The flashing cascade of
his mane, the curving comet of his tail, invested him with housings
more resplendent than gold and silver-beaters could have furnished
him. A most imperial and archangelical apparition of that unfallen,
western world, which to the eyes of the old trappers and hunters
revived the glories of those primeval times when Adam walked majestic
as a god, bluff-browed and fearless as this mighty steed. Whether
marching amid his aides and marshals in the van of countless cohorts
that endlessly streamed it over the plains, like an Ohio; or whether
with his circumambient subjects browsing all around at the horizon,
the White Steed gallopingly reviewed them with warm nostrils
reddening through his cool milkiness; in whatever aspect he presented
himself, always to the bravest Indians he was the object of trembling
reverence and awe. Nor can it be questioned from what stands on
legendary record of this noble horse, that it was his spiritual
whiteness chiefly, which so clothed him with divineness; and that
this divineness had that in it which, though commanding worship, at
the same time enforced a certain nameless terror.


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