{"id":"01KF7FPTBF7EJ39THDQ2P6FJFJ","cid":"bafkreie6cwr4xnexnr6ekzy5klslr3szyzhjxg5gncgmcys2mxyr3jhoo4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16567,"extracted_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.436Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 0","source_file":"01KESYVB66H8YEVTN88DWE9W8D","start_line":16500,"text":"in him, that mortal man cannot be true—not true, or undeveloped. With\r\nbooks the same. The truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the\r\ntruest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered\r\nsteel of woe. “All is vanity.” ALL. This wilful world hath not got hold\r\nof unchristian Solomon’s wisdom yet. But he who dodges hospitals and\r\njails, and walks fast crossing graveyards, and would rather talk of\r\noperas than hell; calls Cowper, Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils\r\nall of sick men; and throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais\r\nas passing wise, and therefore jolly;—not that man is fitted to sit\r\ndown on tomb-stones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably\r\nwondrous Solomon.\r\n\r\nBut even Solomon, he says, “the man that wandereth out of the way of\r\nunderstanding shall remain” (_i.e._, even while living) “in the\r\ncongregation of the dead.” Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it\r\ninvert thee, deaden thee; as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom\r\nthat is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a\r\nCatskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest\r\ngorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny\r\nspaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is\r\nin the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle\r\nis still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 97. The Lamp.\r\n\r\nHad you descended from the Pequod’s try-works to the Pequod’s\r\nforecastle, where the off duty watch were sleeping, for one single\r\nmoment you would have almost thought you were standing in some\r\nilluminated shrine of canonized kings and counsellors. There they lay\r\nin their triangular oaken vaults, each mariner a chiselled muteness; a\r\nscore of lamps flashing upon his hooded eyes.\r\n\r\nIn merchantmen, oil for the sailor is more scarce than the milk of\r\nqueens. To dress in the dark, and eat in the dark, and stumble in\r\ndarkness to his pallet, this is his usual lot. But the whaleman, as he\r\nseeks the food of light, so he lives in light. He makes his berth an\r\nAladdin’s lamp, and lays him down in it; so that in the pitchiest night\r\nthe ship’s black hull still houses an illumination.\r\n\r\nSee with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of\r\nlamps—often but old bottles and vials, though—to the copper cooler at\r\nthe try-works, and replenishes them there, as mugs of ale at a vat. He\r\nburns, too, the purest of oil, in its unmanufactured, and, therefore,\r\nunvitiated state; a fluid unknown to solar, lunar, or astral\r\ncontrivances ashore. It is sweet as early grass butter in April. He\r\ngoes and hunts for his oil, so as to be sure of its freshness and\r\ngenuineness, even as the traveller on the prairie hunts up his own\r\nsupper of game.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 98. Stowing Down and Clearing Up.\r\n\r\nAlready has it been related how the great leviathan is afar off\r\ndescried from the mast-head; how he is chased over the watery moors,\r\nand slaughtered in the valleys of the deep; how he is then towed\r\nalongside and beheaded; and how (on the principle which entitled the\r\nheadsman of old to the garments in which the beheaded was killed) his\r\ngreat padded surtout becomes the property of his executioner; how, in\r\ndue time, he is condemned to the pots, and, like Shadrach, Meshach, and\r\nAbednego, his spermaceti, oil, and bone pass unscathed through the\r\nfire;—but now it remains to conclude the last chapter of this part of\r\nthe description by rehearsing—singing, if I may—the romantic proceeding\r\nof decanting off his oil into the casks and striking them down into the\r\nhold, where once again leviathan returns to his native profundities,\r\nsliding along beneath the surface as before; but, alas! never more to\r\nrise and blow.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 0"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KF7FPNZBNGVCWNVTSE3WPQSC","peer_label":"The Doubloon","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KF7FPNZBNGVCWNVTSE3WPQSC","peer_label":"The Doubloon","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":"01KF7FPTBVHKEPVR4AE400JWQV","peer_label":"Chunk 1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-18T02:42:21.823Z","ts":"2026-01-18T02:42:28.825Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KF7FCDA7SCSJ6A30TDPDSJQV"}}