{"id":"01KFNR8B8NTV6JB9YT4DZFFACA","cid":"bafkreidtsgreorf6y2aznvqrdb5oj2girshepa5bb7udotcceocybolp3u","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16539,"extracted_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.394Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KFNR0Z394A878Y5AQ63MQEM2","start_line":16480,"text":"thought I. Lo! in my brief sleep I had turned myself about, and was\r\nfronting the ship’s stern, with my back to her prow and the compass. In\r\nan instant I faced back, just in time to prevent the vessel from flying\r\nup into the wind, and very probably capsizing her. How glad and how\r\ngrateful the relief from this unnatural hallucination of the night, and\r\nthe fatal contingency of being brought by the lee!\r\n\r\nLook not too long in the face of the fire, O man! Never dream with thy\r\nhand on the helm! Turn not thy back to the compass; accept the first\r\nhint of the hitching tiller; believe not the artificial fire, when its\r\nredness makes all things look ghastly. To-morrow, in the natural sun,\r\nthe skies will be bright; those who glared like devils in the forking\r\nflames, the morn will show in far other, at least gentler, relief; the\r\nglorious, golden, glad sun, the only true lamp—all others but liars!\r\n\r\nNevertheless the sun hides not Virginia’s Dismal Swamp, nor Rome’s\r\naccursed Campagna, nor wide Sahara, nor all the millions of miles of\r\ndeserts and of griefs beneath the moon. The sun hides not the ocean,\r\nwhich is the dark side of this earth, and which is two thirds of this\r\nearth. So, therefore, that mortal man who hath more of joy than sorrow\r\nin 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","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KFNR848BP9JAJWPVS0P8X4C0","peer_label":"The Lamp","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KFNR848BP9JAJWPVS0P8X4C0","peer_label":"The Lamp","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":"01KFNR8B7VP7KKZ39CENPAZKKJ","peer_label":"Chunk 2","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"},{"peer":"01KFNR8BDWBTBMHKPCSE1H3B2B","peer_label":"Chunk 0","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-23T15:41:06.942Z","ts":"2026-01-23T15:41:17.722Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}