{"id":"01KF7FPQ1XCH7D8KQS1XWRCP0J","cid":"bafkreiguzllpr2zek5efxsifootvk7mljeeogqpezv4lce4maf7dryx66a","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3551,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:17.964Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":3489,"text":"a half wilful overruling morbidness at the bottom of his nature. For\r\nall men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be\r\nsure of this, O young ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease.\r\nBut, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another;\r\nand still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from\r\nanother phase of the Quaker, modified by individual circumstances.\r\n\r\nLike Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman.\r\nBut unlike Captain Peleg—who cared not a rush for what are called\r\nserious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the\r\nveriest of all trifles—Captain Bildad had not only been originally\r\neducated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism, but\r\nall his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely\r\nisland creatures, round the Horn—all that had not moved this native\r\nborn Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his\r\nvest. Still, for all this immutableness, was there some lack of common\r\nconsistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from\r\nconscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself\r\nhad illimitably invaded the Atlantic and Pacific; and though a sworn\r\nfoe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled\r\ntuns upon tuns of leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening\r\nof his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the\r\nreminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much,\r\nand very probably he had long since come to the sage and sensible\r\nconclusion that a man’s religion is one thing, and this practical world\r\nquite another. This world pays dividends. Rising from a little\r\ncabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a\r\nbroad shad-bellied waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header,\r\nchief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted\r\nbefore, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from\r\nactive life at the goodly age of sixty, and dedicating his remaining\r\ndays to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.\r\n\r\nNow, Bildad, I am sorry to say, had the reputation of being an\r\nincorrigible old hunks, and in his sea-going days, a bitter, hard\r\ntask-master. They told me in Nantucket, though it certainly seems a\r\ncurious story, that when he sailed the old Categut whaleman, his crew,\r\nupon arriving home, were mostly all carried ashore to the hospital,\r\nsore exhausted and worn out. For a pious man, especially for a Quaker,\r\nhe was certainly rather hard-hearted, to say the least. He never used\r\nto swear, though, at his men, they said; but somehow he got an\r\ninordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them. When\r\nBildad was a chief-mate, to have his drab-coloured eye intently looking\r\nat you, made you feel completely nervous, till you could clutch\r\nsomething—a hammer or a marling-spike, and go to work like mad, at\r\nsomething or other, never mind what. Indolence and idleness perished\r\nbefore him. His own person was the exact embodiment of his utilitarian\r\ncharacter. On his long, gaunt body, he carried no spare flesh, no\r\nsuperfluous beard, his chin having a soft, economical nap to it, like\r\nthe worn nap of his broad-brimmed hat.\r\n\r\nSuch, then, was the person that I saw seated on the transom when I\r\nfollowed Captain Peleg down into the cabin. The space between the decks\r\nwas small; and there, bolt-upright, sat old Bildad, who always sat so,\r\nand never leaned, and this to save his coat tails. His broad-brim was\r\nplaced beside him; his legs were stiffly crossed; his drab vesture was\r\nbuttoned up to his chin; and spectacles on nose, he seemed absorbed in\r\nreading from a ponderous volume.\r\n\r\n“Bildad,” cried Captain Peleg, “at it again, Bildad, eh? Ye have been\r\nstudying those Scriptures, now, for the last thirty years, to my\r\ncertain knowledge. How far ye got, Bildad?”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPMMDMDHFCPN9A03Z0A29","peer_label":"The Ship.","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPMMDMDHFCPN9A03Z0A29","peer_label":"The Ship.","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KF7FPKDT5SHSH1ZQV6ABHQCA","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"book","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KESYJX0Z6XE0HWTS5N3SDG0B","peer_label":"The Classics","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KF7FPQ2740JFSAXQQS63E1N4","peer_label":"Chunk 6","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPQ23W6JJT8SX299ZQ2K5","peer_label":"Chunk 4","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:18.412Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:26.538Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}