{"id":"01KG8AP3VB9MYFW6ASH082Y21Q","cid":"bafkreierc4vejgigoydt6tlwqql7difzsmchy33ddpkk22anu4uhgjxlf4","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":1192,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.764Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 4","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":1143,"text":"moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a\r\nCzar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a\r\ntemperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.\r\n\r\nBut no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there\r\nis plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted\r\nfeet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.\r\n\r\nEntering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,\r\nlow, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of\r\nthe bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large\r\noilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the\r\nunequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent\r\nstudy and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of\r\nthe neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its\r\npurpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first\r\nyou almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New\r\nEngland hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint\r\nof much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and\r\nespecially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the\r\nentry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however\r\nwild, might not be altogether unwarranted.\r\n\r\nBut what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,\r\nportentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the\r\npicture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a\r\nnameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive\r\na nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,\r\nhalf-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to\r\nit, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what\r\nthat marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas,\r\ndeceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight\r\ngale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a\r\nblasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of\r\nthe icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to\r\nthat one portentous something in the picture’s midst. _That_ once found\r\nout, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint\r\nresemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?\r\n\r\nIn fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own,\r\npartly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with\r\nwhom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner\r\nin a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its\r\nthree dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale,\r\npurposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of\r\nimpaling himself upon the three mast-heads.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 4"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK7FP6P1V67V3ATJHHZ83","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP37Y8D81XY7G5H53PFKH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP3V58PTF81N0BWTFJN4F","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:32.011Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:39.016Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}