{"id":"01KG8AP7TS6KM5PP5QXH8WHSBS","cid":"bafkreideenbomx7y6mdsuh5p3wchsvno6e3u7gb3u6o54o67kdar53ubqi","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4972,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.765Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 72","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":4904,"text":"to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 25. Postscript.\r\n\r\nIn behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught but\r\nsubstantiated facts. But after embattling his facts, an advocate who\r\nshould wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise, which might tell\r\neloquently upon his cause—such an advocate, would he not be\r\nblameworthy?\r\n\r\nIt is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens, even\r\nmodern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them for their\r\nfunctions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state, so called,\r\nand there may be a castor of state. How they use the salt,\r\nprecisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that a king’s head is\r\nsolemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head of salad. Can it be,\r\nthough, that they anoint it with a view of making its interior run\r\nwell, as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,\r\nconcerning the essential dignity of this regal process, because in\r\ncommon life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow who anoints\r\nhis hair, and palpably smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man\r\nwho uses hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a\r\nquoggy spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can’t amount to\r\nmuch in his totality.\r\n\r\nBut the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind of oil is\r\nused at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar\r\noil, nor castor oil, nor bear’s oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.\r\nWhat then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in its unmanufactured,\r\nunpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?\r\n\r\nThink of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings and\r\nqueens with coronation stuff!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 26. Knights and Squires.\r\n\r\nThe chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a\r\nQuaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an\r\nicy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being\r\nhard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood\r\nwould not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time\r\nof general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which\r\nhis state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those\r\nsummers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his\r\nthinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties\r\nand cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was\r\nmerely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking;\r\nquite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and\r\nclosely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength,\r\nlike a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for\r\nlong ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow\r\nor torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was\r\nwarranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed\r\nto see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he\r\nhad calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life\r\nfor the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame\r\nchapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there\r\nwere certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some\r\ncases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly\r\nconscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence,\r\nthe wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline\r\nhim to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some\r\norganizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than\r\nfrom ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And\r\nif at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more\r\ndid his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child,\r\ntend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature,\r","title":"Chunk 72"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK7FP6P1V67V3ATJHHZ83","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP7TSTDSBWD23177B9Y1H","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP7V16GZ6W04W1817P4PJ","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:36.089Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:42.709Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}