Some days elapsed， and ice and icebergs all astern, the Pequod now wentroiling through the bright Quito spring, which, at sea, almost perpetually reignson the threshold of the eternal August of the Tropic. The warmly cool, clear,ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets ofPersian sherbet, heaped up ——flaked up, with rose-water snow. The starred andstately nights seemed haughty dames in jewelled velvets, nursing at home inlonely pride, the memory of their absent conquering Earls, the golden helmetedsuns！ For sleeping man, it was hard to choose between such winsome days andsuch seducing nights. But all the witcheries of that unwaning weather did notmerely lend new spells and potencies to the outward world. Inward they turnedupon the soul, especially when the still mild hours of eve came on; then, memoryshot her crystals as the clear ice most forms of noiseless twilights.
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