To: nickcarraway
What outlandish beings are these? Erect as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all round the rock like sculptured caryatides, supporting the next range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely misshapen, their bills short, their feet seemingly legless; while the members at their sides are neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin; as an edible, pertaining neither to Carnival nor Lent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yet discovered by man. Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops. As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased sea-story of Rodondo.
2 posted on
01/27/2022 12:35:43 PM PST by
golux
To: golux
Herman Melville is truly great. I wonder how many kids ever get to read him now. One of the best American authors.
To: golux
Clearly the author never saw them flitting about underwater with all the grace that swallows flit about in the air.
10 posted on
01/27/2022 3:54:56 PM PST by
piasa
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