{"id":"01KG8AME6Y4RPZRCV7J60H45QR","cid":"bafkreih6kut5wkxvcocbuphbjcihqmiyswdyfpcwth33laj7tjnlrcowfu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":7183,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":7128,"text":"about dining with him. Nevertheless, he was a man to study and digest;\r\nso, upon a little reflection; I was not displeased at his presence. It\r\namazed me, however, that he had wormed himself into the mess, since so\r\nmany of the other messes had declined the honour, until at last, I\r\nascertained that he had induced a mess-mate of ours, a distant relation\r\nof his, to prevail upon the cook to admit him.\r\n\r\nNow it would not have answered for hardly any other mess in the ship to\r\nhave received this man among them, for it would have torn a huge rent\r\nin their reputation; but our mess, A. No. 1—the Forty-two-pounder\r\nClub—was composed of so fine a set of fellows; so many captains of\r\ntops, and quarter-masters—men of undeniable mark on board ship—of\r\nlong-established standing and consideration on the gun-deck; that, with\r\nimpunity, we could do so many equivocal things, utterly inadmissible\r\nfor messes of inferior pretension. Besides, though we all abhorred the\r\nmonster of Sin itself, yet, from our social superiority, highly\r\nrarified education in our lofty top, and large and liberal sweep of the\r\naggregate of things, we were in a good degree free from those useless,\r\npersonal prejudices, and galling hatreds against conspicuous _sinners_,\r\nnot _Sin_—which so widely prevail among men of warped understandings\r\nand unchristian and uncharitable hearts. No; the superstitions and\r\ndogmas concerning Sin had not laid their withering maxims upon our\r\nhearts. We perceived how that evil was but good disguised, and a knave\r\na saint in his way; how that in other planets, perhaps, what we deem\r\nwrong, may there be deemed right; even as some substances, without\r\nundergoing any mutations in themselves utterly change their colour,\r\naccording to the light thrown upon them. We perceived that the\r\nanticipated millennium must have begun upon the morning the first words\r\nwere created; and that, taken all in all, our man-of-war world itself\r\nwas as eligible a round-sterned craft as any to be found in the Milky\r\nWay. And we fancied that though some of us, of the gun-deck, were at\r\ntimes condemned to sufferings and blights, and all manner of\r\ntribulation and anguish, yet, no doubt, it was only our misapprehension\r\nof these things that made us take them for woeful pains instead of the\r\nmost agreeable pleasures. I have dreamed of a sphere, says Pinzella,\r\nwhere to break a man on the wheel is held the most exquisite of\r\ndelights you can confer upon him; where for one gentleman in any way to\r\nvanquish another is accounted an everlasting dishonour; where to tumble\r\none into a pit after death, and then throw cold clods upon his upturned\r\nface, is a species of contumely, only inflicted upon the most notorious\r\ncriminals.\r\n\r\nBut whatever we mess-mates thought, in whatever circumstances we found\r\nourselves, we never forgot that our frigate, had as it was, was\r\nhomeward-bound. Such, at least, were our reveries at times, though\r\nsorely jarred, now and then, by events that took our philosophy aback.\r\nFor after all, philosophy—that is, the best wisdom that has ever in any\r\nway been revealed to our man-of-war world—is but a slough and a mire,\r\nwith a few tufts of good footing here and there.\r\n\r\nBut there was one man in the mess who would have naught to do with our\r\nphilosophy—a churlish, ill-tempered, unphilosophical, superstitious old\r\nbear of a quarter-gunner; a believer in Tophet, for which he was\r\naccordingly preparing himself. Priming was his name; but methinks I\r\nhave spoken of him before.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJS32V8KWVR1XVNNS595G","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AME6YQXMFJEZAKK20CSZM","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AME6YTFDS3JECCDPE039G","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.086Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:48.361Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}