{"id":"01KG8AP7TSKE5VMCBJS85JM432","cid":"bafkreiddxytyqicb3bohbfphl5lvbsbi7xl3zwwwcgisyiclbum57pghiq","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":4748,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.765Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 68","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":4682,"text":"“Come, come, Captain Bildad; stop palavering,—away!” and with that,\r\nPeleg hurried him over the side, and both dropt into the boat.\r\n\r\nShip and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between; a\r\nscreaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave\r\nthree heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone\r\nAtlantic.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 23. The Lee Shore.\r\n\r\nSome chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded\r\nmariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn.\r\n\r\nWhen on that shivering winter’s night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive\r\nbows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her\r\nhelm but Bulkington! I looked with sympathetic awe and fearfulness upon\r\nthe man, who in mid-winter just landed from a four years’ dangerous\r\nvoyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another\r\ntempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest\r\nthings are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs;\r\nthis six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only\r\nsay that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that\r\nmiserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give\r\nsuccor; the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort,\r\nhearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that’s kind to our\r\nmortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship’s\r\ndirest jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land,\r\nthough it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and\r\nthrough. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing,\r\nfights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks\r\nall the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly\r\nrushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!\r\n\r\nKnow ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally\r\nintolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid\r\neffort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the\r\nwildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the\r\ntreacherous, slavish shore?\r\n\r\nBut as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless,\r\nindefinite as God—so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite,\r\nthan be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For\r\nworm-like, then, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the\r\nterrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O\r\nBulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of thy\r\nocean-perishing—straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 24. The Advocate.\r\n\r\nAs Queequeg and I are now fairly embarked in this business of whaling;\r\nand as this business of whaling has somehow come to be regarded among\r\nlandsmen as a rather unpoetical and disreputable pursuit; therefore, I\r\nam all anxiety to convince ye, ye landsmen, of the injustice hereby\r\ndone to us hunters of whales.\r\n\r\nIn the first place, it may be deemed almost superfluous to establish\r\nthe fact, that among people at large, the business of whaling is not\r\naccounted on a level with what are called the liberal professions. If a\r\nstranger were introduced into any miscellaneous metropolitan society,\r\nit would but slightly advance the general opinion of his merits, were\r\nhe presented to the company as a harpooneer, say; and if in emulation\r\nof the naval officers he should append the initials S.W.F. (Sperm Whale\r\nFishery) to his visiting card, such a procedure would be deemed\r\npre-eminently presuming and ridiculous.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 68"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AK7FP6P1V67V3ATJHHZ83","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP7TSG8V3GX37VM32Y7JB","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AP7TSBAB3P37ZYW61KDHH","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:36.089Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:42.415Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}