Here's a fin of the whale

Shall I send you a fin of the whale by way of a specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked -- though the hell-fire in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this. This is the book’s motto (the secret one) -- Ego non babtiso te in nomine* -- but make out the rest yourself.

-- Melville, letter to Hawthorne on the writing of "Moby Dick," June 29 1851

* "Madness is indefinable"