{"id":"01KG8AMESE0AY10NPM1B7CV7ED","cid":"bafkreidjwy5eysg6od7j6u3f6sbmmtjic5jefly7msrwiz234aghrirsne","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":2072,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":2000,"text":"have staked my life on it, that he seized the right meaning of\r\nMontaigne. I saw that he was an earnest thinker; I more than suspected\r\nthat he had been bolted in the mill of adversity. For all these things,\r\nmy heart yearned toward him; I determined to know him.\r\n\r\nAt last I succeeded; it was during a profoundly quiet midnight watch,\r\nwhen I perceived him walking alone in the waist, while most of the men\r\nwere dozing on the carronade-slides.\r\n\r\nThat night we scoured all the prairies of reading; dived into the\r\nbosoms of authors, and tore out their hearts; and that night\r\nWhite-Jacket learned more than he has ever done in any single night\r\nsince.\r\n\r\nThe man was a marvel. He amazed me, as much as Coleridge did the\r\ntroopers among whom he enlisted. What could have induced such a man to\r\nenter a man-of-war, all my sapience cannot fathom. And how he managed\r\nto preserve his dignity, as he did, among such a rabble rout was\r\nequally a mystery. For he was no sailor; as ignorant of a ship, indeed,\r\nas a man from the sources of the Niger. Yet the officers respected him;\r\nand the men were afraid of him. This much was observable, however, that\r\nhe faithfully discharged whatever special duties devolved upon him; and\r\nwas so fortunate as never to render himself liable to a reprimand.\r\nDoubtless, he took the same view of the thing that another of the crew\r\ndid; and had early resolved, so to conduct himself as never to run the\r\nrisk of the scourge. And this it must have been—added to whatever\r\nincommunicable grief which might have been his—that made this Nord such\r\na wandering recluse, even among our man-of-war mob. Nor could he have\r\nlong swung his hammock on board, ere he must have found that, to insure\r\nhis exemption from that thing which alone affrighted him, he must be\r\ncontent for the most part to turn a man-hater, and socially expatriate\r\nhimself from many things, which might have rendered his situation more\r\ntolerable. Still more, several events that took place must have\r\nhorrified him, at times, with the thought that, however he might\r\nisolate and entomb himself, yet for all this, the improbability of his\r\nbeing overtaken by what he most dreaded never advanced to the\r\ninfallibility of the impossible.\r\n\r\nIn my intercourse with Nord, he never made allusion to his past\r\ncareer—a subject upon which most high-bred castaways in a man-of-war\r\nare very diffuse; relating their adventures at the gaming-table; the\r\nrecklessness with which they have run through the amplest fortunes in a\r\nsingle season; their alms-givings, and gratuities to porters and poor\r\nrelations; and above all, their youthful indiscretions, and the\r\nbroken-hearted ladies they have left behind. No such tales had Nord to\r\ntell. Concerning the past, he was barred and locked up like the specie\r\nvaults of the Bank of England. For anything that dropped from him, none\r\nof us could be sure that he had ever existed till now. Altogether, he\r\nwas a remarkable man.\r\n\r\nMy other friend, Williams, was a thorough-going Yankee from Maine, who\r\nhad been both a peddler and a pedagogue in his day. He had all manner\r\nof stories to tell about nice little country frolics, and would run\r\nover an endless list of his sweethearts. He was honest, acute, witty,\r\nfull of mirth and good humour—a laughing philosopher. He was invaluable\r\nas a pill against the spleen; and, with the view of extending the\r\nadvantages of his society to the saturnine Nord, I introduced them to\r\neach other; but Nord cut him dead the very same evening, when we\r\nsallied out from between the guns for a walk on the main-deck.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER XIV.\r\nA DRAUGHT IN A MAN-OF-WAR.\r\n\r\n\r\nWe were not many days out of port, when a rumour was set afloat that\r\ndreadfully alarmed many tars. It was this: that, owing to some\r\nunprecedented oversight in the Purser, or some equally unprecedented\r\nremissness in the Naval-storekeeper at Callao, the frigate’s supply of\r\nthat delectable beverage, called “grog,” was well-nigh expended.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ3HTMCJF8V136ARKCBX","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMESBBG8ZM6B2RBSMSNCH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:37.678Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:43.934Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}