even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
 Herman Melville, Moby-Dick (1851). copy citation

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Author Herman Melville
Source Moby-Dick
Topic highness soaring eagles
Date 1851
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm

Context

“There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.
Chapter 97. The Lamp.
Had you descended from the Pequod's try-works to the Pequod's forecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single moment you would have almost thought you were standing in some illuminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors.” source

Meaning and analysis

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