{"id":"01KF7FPSCZF07W1BZBGESE2N4J","cid":"bafkreign6o6ij4wzyg3bzi2dpaedzh53nztwwvqat774alpk4iiqxoiauy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":15389,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:20.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 9","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":15331,"text":"reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude\r\novertakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the\r\nlove for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant,\r\nadmonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to\r\nan exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians\r\nand parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from\r\nhis amorous errors.\r\n\r\nNow, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is\r\nthe lord and master of that school technically known as the\r\nschoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however\r\nadmirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then\r\ngo abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it.\r\nHis title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the\r\nname bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the\r\nman who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read\r\nthe memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a\r\ncountry-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and\r\nwhat was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of\r\nhis pupils.\r\n\r\nThe same secludedness and isolation to which the schoolmaster whale\r\nbetakes himself in his advancing years, is true of all aged Sperm\r\nWhales. Almost universally, a lone whale—as a solitary Leviathan is\r\ncalled—proves an ancient one. Like venerable moss-bearded Daniel Boone,\r\nhe will have no one near him but Nature herself; and her he takes to\r\nwife in the wilderness of waters, and the best of wives she is, though\r\nshe keeps so many moody secrets.\r\n\r\nThe schools composing none but young and vigorous males, previously\r\nmentioned, offer a strong contrast to the harem schools. For while\r\nthose female whales are characteristically timid, the young males, or\r\nforty-barrel-bulls, as they call them, are by far the most pugnacious\r\nof all Leviathans, and proverbially the most dangerous to encounter;\r\nexcepting those wondrous grey-headed, grizzled whales, sometimes met,\r\nand these will fight you like grim fiends exasperated by a penal gout.\r\n\r\nThe Forty-barrel-bull schools are larger than the harem schools. Like a\r\nmob of young collegians, they are full of fight, fun, and wickedness,\r\ntumbling round the world at such a reckless, rollicking rate, that no\r\nprudent underwriter would insure them any more than he would a riotous\r\nlad at Yale or Harvard. They soon relinquish this turbulence though,\r\nand when about three-fourths grown, break up, and separately go about\r\nin quest of settlements, that is, harems.\r\n\r\nAnother point of difference between the male and female schools is\r\nstill more characteristic of the sexes. Say you strike a\r\nForty-barrel-bull—poor devil! all his comrades quit him. But strike a\r\nmember of the harem school, and her companions swim around her with\r\nevery token of concern, sometimes lingering so near her and so long, as\r\nthemselves to fall a prey.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 89. Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish.\r\n\r\nThe allusion to the waif and waif-poles in the last chapter but one,\r\nnecessitates some account of the laws and regulations of the whale\r\nfishery, of which the waif may be deemed the grand symbol and badge.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 9"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPMFSMJT6NVJR448ANF6Z","peer_label":"Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPMFSMJT6NVJR448ANF6Z","peer_label":"Fast-Fish and Loose-Fish","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":"01KF7FPSD0M611K12RJX8EEVG3","peer_label":"Chunk 10","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KF7FPSC7Y1V8C16SY9CJ24AX","peer_label":"Chunk 8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:20.845Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.968Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}