Ben Whishaw credited as playing...
Herman Melville
- Herman Melville: Something else you've given me tonight.
- Old Thomas Nickerson: And what's that?
- Herman Melville: The courage to go where one does not want to go.
- [last lines]
- Old Thomas Nickerson: You know, I heard a man from Pennsylvania drilled a hole in the ground recently and found oil. That can't be true.
- Herman Melville: I heard it, too.
- Old Thomas Nickerson: Oil from the ground! Fancy that.
- [first lines]
- Herman Melville: [in his letter] How does one come to know the unknowable? What faculties must a man possess? Since it was discovered that whale oil could light our cities in ways never achieved before, it created global demand. It has pushed man to venture further and further into the deep blue unknown. We know not its depths, nor the host of creatures that live there. Monsters. Are they real?
- [a huge whale passes]
- Herman Melville: Or do the stories exist only to make us respect the sea's dark secrets?
- Title Card: NANTUCKET ISLAND Massachusetts February 1850
- Herman Melville: The question both vexes and excites me, and is the reason I've written you a second time to request a meeting. A conversation with you, sir, I believe will serve me well for the novel I intend to write, currently entitled: Moby Dick. I hope you will reconsider my offer. The unknown. That is where my imagination yearns to venture. And so the question plagues me still: How does a man come to know the unknowable? Sincerely, Herman Melville.
- Old Thomas Nickerson: Take the money and leave! The devil's bargain.
- Herman Melville: No, sir. The devil loves unspoken secrets. Especially those that fester in a man's soul.
- Old Thomas Nickerson: What's yours?