as i walked away, i was full of thoughtfulness; what had been incidentally revealed to me of captain ahab, filled me with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. and somehow, at the time, i felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for i don’t know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. and yet i also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe, which i cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; i do not know what it was. but i felt it; and it did not disincline me towards him; though i felt impatience at what seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.