He was on his best behavior when her family visited.

It was a brave, good speech, a speech from that staunch and strong spirit which lay behind all the acidities and angularities of the old zoologist.

That was the era of the lushly scored costume poperetta (“The Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats,” “Miss Saigon,” “Les Misérables”), staged like Cecil B. DeMille epics and usually overseen by the Mike Todd-ish producer Cameron Mackintosh.

I see in him [Moby Dick] outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him.