{"id":"01KG8AMFY66X4C30FY0SNZ3ZR5","cid":"bafkreiblgjfef2jpys3fdzq7ytabcl6qrcwuonplf47iecz36a7ltb22ai","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":3020,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.270Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":2964,"text":"CHAPTER XIX.\r\nTHE JACKET ALOFT.\r\n\r\n\r\nAgain must I call attention to my white jacket, which, about this time\r\ncame near being the death of me.\r\n\r\nI am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft at\r\nnight, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacket\r\nabout me and give loose to reflection. In some ships in which. I have\r\ndone this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studying\r\nastronomy—which, indeed, to some extent, was the case—and that my\r\nobject in mounting aloft was to get a nearer view of the stars,\r\nsupposing me, of course, to be short-sighted. A very silly conceit of\r\ntheirs, some may say, but not so silly after all; for surely the\r\nadvantage of getting nearer an object by two hundred feet is not to be\r\nunderrated. Then, to study the stars upon the wide, boundless sea, is\r\ndivine as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions\r\nfrom the plains.\r\n\r\nAnd it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us into the universe\r\nof things, and mates us a part of the All, to think that, wherever we\r\nocean-wanderers rove, we have still the same glorious old stars to keep\r\nus company; that they still shine onward and on, forever beautiful and\r\nbright, and luring us, by every ray, to die and be glorified with them.\r\n\r\nAy, ay! we sailors sail not in vain, We expatriate ourselves to\r\nnationalise with the universe; and in all our voyages round the world,\r\nwe are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators, the stars, who\r\nare shipmates and fellow-sailors of ours—sailing in heaven’s blue, as\r\nwe on the azure main. Let genteel generations scoff at our hardened\r\nhands, and finger-nails tipped with tar—did they ever clasp truer palms\r\nthan ours? Let them feel of our sturdy hearts beating like\r\nsledge-hammers in those hot smithies, our bosoms; with their\r\namber-headed canes, let them feel of our generous pulses, and swear\r\nthat they go off like thirty-two-pounders.\r\n\r\nOh, give me again the rover’s life—the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let\r\nme feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy saddle once more. I\r\nam sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reek\r\nof towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs, and not\r\nthe dull tramp of these plodders, plodding their dull way from their\r\ncradles to their graves. Let me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny\r\nin thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O\r\nsweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine the\r\ntomb that swallowed up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with\r\nDrake, where he sleeps in the sea.\r\n\r\nBut when White-Jacket speaks of the rover’s life, he means not life in\r\na man-of-war, which, with its martial formalities and thousand vices,\r\nstabs to the heart the soul of all free-and-easy honourable rovers.\r\n\r\nI have said that I was wont to mount up aloft and muse; and thus was it\r\nwith me the night following the loss of the cooper. Ere my watch in the\r\ntop had expired, high up on the main-royal-yard I reclined, the white\r\njacket folded around me like Sir John Moore in his frosted cloak.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJQ3RYCG05CMSKM7C58NJ","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMFY6KEXMWQ9K08QPECR1","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:38.854Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:44.727Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}