{"id":"01KFNR88DS3K95RWWJHMKSXZ59","cid":"bafkreicvz4j4fd4jhszhkeo66smuboaj7ebpjm2jzbfstnxxwcgpnia72u","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":6617,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.417Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":6570,"text":"furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded\r\nyoung men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking\r\nsentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches\r\nhimself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship,\r\nand in moody phrase ejaculates:—\r\n\r\n\r\n“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand\r\nblubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVery often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young\r\nphilosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient\r\n“interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost\r\nto all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would\r\nrather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young\r\nPlatonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are\r\nshort-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have\r\nleft their opera-glasses at home.\r\n\r\n“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooneer to one of these lads, “we’ve been\r\ncruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale\r\nyet. Whales are scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.”\r\nPerhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in\r\nthe far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of\r\nvacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending\r\ncadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity;\r\ntakes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep,\r\nblue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange,\r\nhalf-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every\r\ndimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him\r\nthe embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by\r\ncontinually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit\r\nebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space;\r\nlike Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of\r\nevery shore the round globe over.\r\n\r\nThere is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a\r\ngently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from\r\nthe inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on\r\nye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your\r\nidentity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And\r\nperhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled\r\nshriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no\r\nmore to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR849M33V0R24XW8NAKS9R","peer_label":"35","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR849M33V0R24XW8NAKS9R","peer_label":"35","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":"01KFNR88EEDR226D3BGWM3WKY1","peer_label":"Chunk 3","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:03.867Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:18.894Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}