7/2: thinking about

...the various ways the word "as" works:  expressing a time relationship, signaling a simile, completing a comparison, showing extent, qualifying or particularizing, helping to introduce a conditional clause of comparison, offering a reason or cause, showing purpose.  Sometimes the categories of usage seem quite separate, but as I've been looking at Herman Melville's uses of "as" in Moby Dick, I'm realizing how often they blend into one another.