Alliterative Fun

I keep meaning to post on Melville's penchant for alliterative phrasing. But as I've said, I'm using an edition that my friend Jeff gave me, and even though he gave it to me, I have the same hesitation to write in it as if it were a loaner. So I'm not writing in it, and every time I see a phrase that I might add to a list compiled for posting purposes, I just try to make a mental note of where it is. Which doesn't work at all in a book this bulky.

So I was thinking maybe that's a stupid, English-teachery thing to post on anyhow, so maybe I won't. And then I hit this sibilant description in Chapter 51, "The Spirit Spout":

"It was while gliding through these latter waters that one serene and moonlight night, when all the waves rolled by like scrolls of silver; and by their soft, suffusing seethings, made what seemed a silvery silence, not a solitude: on such a silent night a silvery jet was seen far in advance of the white bubbles at the bow. Lit up by the moon, it looked celestial; seemed some plumed and glittering god uprising from the sea."

Oo ... pretty.