An intense copper calm, like a universal yellow lotus, was more and more unfolding its noiseless measureless leaves upon the sea.
Interpretation
This quote depicts a serene and beautiful scene of tranquility in nature.
Herman Melville's quote evokes a vivid sense of calmness and beauty in the natural world. The imagery of a 'universal yellow lotus' unfolding on the sea suggests a profound peace that envelops the surroundings, illustrating the harmonious relationship between nature and tranquility, where the calmness of the sea mirrors the quiet unfolding of the lotus, embodying both stillness and growth.
In practice
In a speech about environmental conservation, one might quote Melville to illustrate the beauty of untouched nature.
A good laugh is a mighty good thing, and rather too scarce a good thing; the more's the pity. So, if any one man, in his own proper person, afford stuff for a good joke to anybody, let him not be backward, but let him cheerfully allow himself to spend and be spent in that way. And the man that has anything bountifully laughable about him, be sure there is more in that man than you perhaps think for.
The Marquesan girls dance all over; not only do their feet dance, but their arms, hands, fingers, ay, their very eyes seem to dance in their heads.
Dream tonight of peacock tails, Diamond fields and spouter whales. Ills are many, blessing few, But dreams tonight will shelter you.
Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
If some books are deemed most baneful and their sale forbid, how then with deadlier facts, not dreams of doting men? Those whom books will hurt will not be proof against events. Events, not books should be forbid.
You cannot spill a drop of American blood without spilling the blood of the whole world.... We are not a nation, so much as a world.
I've always been more interested in organisms that can move on their own than in stationary plants. But when I canoe or hike along the edge of lakes or oceans and see trees that seem to be growing out of rock faces, I am blown away. How do they do it?
The earth's crust has not yet stopped heaving and plunging under our feet. Mountain ranges are still being thrust up on the horizon. Granites are still growing under the continental masses. Nor has the organic world ceased to produce new buds at the tips of its countless branches.
Just as our forefathers saved and invested to build what we, the current generation, are enjoying today, so, too, we must plant trees so that our sons and daughters, and their sons and daughters, can enjoy the shade.
The snowdrop and primrose our woodlands adorn, and violets bathe in the wet o' the morn.
Like winds and sunsets, wild things were taken for granted until progress began to do away with them
I see a future in which nature gives us a helping hand. Instead of destroying the natural world, why can't we use it to solve the kinds of problems that we are facing?
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