{"id":"01KFNR86SZN6MSZPB4XHWGMMHW","cid":"bafkreicrjdclogeshajh23toslwwwbv5gfwhxljdq37gzqyut2pal3jpai","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":948,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:01.891Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":890,"text":"it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest\r\nreveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will\r\ninfallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.\r\nShould you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this\r\nexperiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical\r\nprofessor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for\r\never.\r\n\r\nBut here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,\r\nquietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley\r\nof the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his\r\ntrees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were\r\nwithin; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up\r\nfrom yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands\r\nwinds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in\r\ntheir hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and\r\nthough this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this\r\nshepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were\r\nfixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June,\r\nwhen for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among\r\nTiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop\r\nof water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel\r\nyour thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon\r\nsuddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy\r\nhim a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian\r\ntrip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a\r\nrobust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?\r\nWhy upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a\r\nmystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out\r\nof sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did\r\nthe Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely\r\nall this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that\r\nstory of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild\r\nimage he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that\r\nsame image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image\r\nof the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.\r\n\r\nNow, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin\r\nto grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my\r\nlungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a\r\npassenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a\r\npurse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers\r\nget sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy\r\nthemselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger;\r\nnor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a\r\nCommodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction\r\nof such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all\r\nhonorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind\r\nwhatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself,\r\nwithout taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.\r\nAnd as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory\r\nin that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I\r\nnever fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously\r\nbuttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who\r\nwill speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled\r\nfowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old\r\nEgyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the\r\nmummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849AZNBWE9DYJRZR7PSA","peer_label":"Chapter 1. Loomings","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849AZNBWE9DYJRZR7PSA","peer_label":"Chapter 1. Loomings","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR81RMVAX2BBMMBW51V97D","peer_label":"Moby Dick; Or, The Whale","peer_type":"novel","predicate":"partOf"},{"peer":"01KFNR0H0Q791Y1SMZWEQ09FGV","peer_label":"Moby Dick","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KFNR86TT184EBCF9VBQQ9TWX","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR86SP3WJDX4FBATMD6VQV","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KH2S50J11TVB5N9SPKSHV8P7","predicate":"contains"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:02.406Z","ts":"2026-02-10T03:22:36.569Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KDZS52M5F9XS0ZPZQQXGPC9A"}}