{"id":"01KG8AMH6KF93ZHBC4B7MSP0ZF","cid":"bafkreigcyabjxfxlwb5p6qrvojd72a73qgxbpuyqju6lywbfs3cfvkuszy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":10497,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:36.274Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","start_line":10427,"text":"Ay, and Byron helped put a piece of a keel on the fire; for it was made\r\nof bits of a wreck, they say; one wreck burning another! And was not\r\nByron a sailor? an amateur forecastle-man, White-Jacket, so he was;\r\nelse how bid the ocean heave and fall in that grand, majestic way? I\r\nsay, White-Jacket, d’ye mind me? there never was a very great man yet\r\nwho spent all his life inland. A snuff of the sea, my boy, is\r\ninspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, has been the\r\nmaking of many a true poet and the blasting of many pretenders; for,\r\nd’ye see, there’s no gammon about the ocean; it knocks the false keel\r\nright off a pretender’s bows; it tells him just what he is, and makes\r\nhim feel it, too. A sailor’s life, I say, is the thing to bring us\r\nmortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don’t it say that we\r\nmain-top-men alone see the marvellous sights and wonders? Don’t deny\r\nthe blessed Bible, now! don’t do it! How it rocks up here, my boy!”\r\nholding on to a shroud; “but it only proves what I’ve been saying—the\r\nsea is the place to cradle genius! Heave and fall, old sea!”\r\n\r\n“And _you_, also, noble Jack,” said I, “what are you but a sailor?”\r\n\r\n“You’re merry, my boy,” said Jack, looking up with a glance like that\r\nof a sentimental archangel doomed to drag out his eternity in disgrace.\r\n“But mind you, White-Jacket, there are many great men in the world\r\nbesides Commodores and Captains. I’ve that here, White-Jacket”—touching\r\nhis forehead—“which, under happier skies—perhaps in you solitary star\r\nthere, peeping down from those clouds—might have made a Homer of me.\r\nBut Fate is Fate, White-Jacket; and we Homers who happen to be captains\r\nof tops must write our odes in our hearts, and publish them in our\r\nheads. But look! the Captain’s on the poop.”\r\n\r\nIt was now midnight; but all the officers were on deck.\r\n\r\n“Jib-boom, there!” cried the Lieutenant of the Watch, going forward and\r\nhailing the headmost look-out. “D’ye see anything of those fellows\r\nnow?”\r\n\r\n“See nothing, sir.”\r\n\r\n“See nothing, sir,” said the Lieutenant, approaching the Captain, and\r\ntouching his cap.\r\n\r\n“Call all hands!” roared the Captain. “This keel sha’n’t be beat while\r\nI stride it.”\r\n\r\nAll hands were called, and the hammocks stowed in the nettings for the\r\nrest of the night, so that no one could lie between blankets.\r\n\r\nNow, in order to explain the means adopted by the Captain to insure us\r\nthe race, it needs to be said of the Neversink, that, for some years\r\nafter being launched, she was accounted one of the slowest vessels in\r\nthe American Navy. But it chanced upon a time, that, being on a cruise\r\nin the Mediterranean, she happened to sail out of Port Mahon in what\r\nwas then supposed to be very bad trim for the sea. Her bows were\r\nrooting in the water, and her stern kicking up its heels in the air.\r\nBut, wonderful to tell, it was soon discovered that in this comical\r\nposture she sailed like a shooting-star; she outstripped every vessel\r\non the station. Thenceforward all her Captains, on all cruises,\r\n_trimmed her by the head;_ and the Neversink gained the name of a\r\nclipper.\r\n\r\nTo return. All hands being called, they were now made use of by Captain\r\nClaret as make-weights, to trim the ship, scientifically, to her most\r\napproved bearings. Some were sent forward on the spar-deck, with\r\ntwenty-four-pound shot in their hands, and were judiciously scattered\r\nabout here and there, with strict orders not to budge an inch from\r\ntheir stations, for fear of marring the Captain’s plans. Others were\r\ndistributed along the gun and berth-decks, with similar orders; and, to\r\ncrown all, several carronade guns were unshipped from their carriages,\r\nand swung in their breechings from the beams of the main-deck, so as to\r\nimpart a sort of vibratory briskness and oscillating buoyancy to the\r\nfrigate.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTJSDBMD7ZEK1X031X87","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J19NC56FFGBCM2SWEZZY","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AMH6KK3CZCRN3CCMNN15N","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AMH6KE6E88M2Y3GT7MHJX","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:40.147Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:51.612Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}