Farther back looms Captain Ahab, who, by being impossible to please, is a nightmare of a boss.

WSJ: Word Craft: Ben Schrank, Author of Love Is a Canoe, on Bosses

Look how different artists have approached that Satan of American fiction, Captain Ahab.

FORBES: Play It Again

" When Ahab is soothed, he is "only soothed to deeper gloom.

WSJ: Word Craft: Ben Schrank, Author of Love Is a Canoe, on Bosses

Without that tear, without the bird that tears off Ahab's hat, would it mean as much when Ahab goes down with his ship?

WSJ: Word Craft: Ben Schrank, Author of Love Is a Canoe, on Bosses

The Journal has properly warned that Senator Ahab's misbehavior is likely to have implications far beyond the immediate disservice it does to Mr. Feith and those who labored so ably under him.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Truly "inappropriate" behavior

Only then are we allowed to watch as "Ahab dropped a tear into the sea" and talks about the young wife he has left behind, the "desolation of solitude" his life has been.

WSJ: Word Craft: Ben Schrank, Author of Love Is a Canoe, on Bosses

In 1841, Herman Melville set out to sea from the city on the whaling ship Acushnet, returning after an 18-month voyage to eventually write Moby Dick, the tale of Captain Ahab's obsessive search for the great white whale.

BBC: The haunted land of New England

Commenting on Mr. Alan Greenspan's crafting of U.S. monetary policy, a recent magazine article warned against the obsessive drive to achieve some arbitrary consumer price index rate, and compared it to Captain Ahab's fatal pursuit of Moby Dick.

CNN: QUIPPED ONE ANONYMOUS

Ahab just needed to chillax.

FORBES: Bromance and the American Novel