A letter to Herman Mellvile

Hello Mr.Mellvile, I’ve been depressed multiple times but through reading your novels Ive been able to relish in the vastness of this world without having to step outside into the insipid atmosphere that burns my retinas from being in my house for so long. I, as many others, have secluded myself to the indoors in the hopes that whatever expectations await in the outside world may never find me in this hot and arid room I’ve procured for myself. It was not long ago that I started to read Moby Dick; a few years ago in fact, back when the outside seemed more bearable. Now I can only go out minutes at at time. The hot tingling sensation of the sun evaporating the sweat off my skin is most unpleasant; the moisture, unbearable; yet so thrilling to think of the world beyond these four walls. Ive heard of the streets of Nantucket; of the snow and the churches cast in the imagery of sailing and voyaging, as if our destinies laid in the vastness of our oceans and in foreign ports; not only foreign to our selves but to our imaginations. That is to say, when I do venture out, if I venture out, you would’ve been the man to have inspired such intrepid journey for which I had no foresight but that which was described in the pages of Moby Dick; or The Whale.