From Moby-Dick (1851), by Herman Melville
Illustration by Angela Dominguez
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the extremest limit of the land; loitering under the lee of yonder warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand — miles of them — leagues. Inlanders, all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets and avenues — north, east, south, or west. Yet here they all unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all those ships attract them hither?
Once more. Say you are in the country, in some high land of lakes. Take almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries — stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be a-thirst in the great American desert, try that experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded forever.
