{"id":"01KG8AP8DH4YG7EKSSBZ43V725","cid":"bafkreig2642hzpzbfc2kfln3s6ct5nc7lsuj5cs6chnytsksol756gzyxe","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":16225,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:30.771Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 1","source_file":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","start_line":16155,"text":"CHAPTER 94. A Squeeze of the Hand.\r\n\r\nThat whale of Stubb’s, so dearly purchased, was duly brought to the\r\nPequod’s side, where all those cutting and hoisting operations\r\npreviously detailed, were regularly gone through, even to the baling of\r\nthe Heidelburgh Tun, or Case.\r\n\r\nWhile some were occupied with this latter duty, others were employed in\r\ndragging away the larger tubs, so soon as filled with the sperm; and\r\nwhen the proper time arrived, this same sperm was carefully manipulated\r\nere going to the try-works, of which anon.\r\n\r\nIt had cooled and crystallized to such a degree, that when, with\r\nseveral others, I sat down before a large Constantine’s bath of it, I\r\nfound it strangely concreted into lumps, here and there rolling about\r\nin the liquid part. It was our business to squeeze these lumps back\r\ninto fluid. A sweet and unctuous duty! No wonder that in old times this\r\nsperm was such a favourite cosmetic. Such a clearer! such a sweetener!\r\nsuch a softener! such a delicious molifier! After having my hands in it\r\nfor only a few minutes, my fingers felt like eels, and began, as it\r\nwere, to serpentine and spiralise.\r\n\r\nAs I sat there at my ease, cross-legged on the deck; after the bitter\r\nexertion at the windlass; under a blue tranquil sky; the ship under\r\nindolent sail, and gliding so serenely along; as I bathed my hands\r\namong those soft, gentle globules of infiltrated tissues, woven almost\r\nwithin the hour; as they richly broke to my fingers, and discharged all\r\ntheir opulence, like fully ripe grapes their wine; as I snuffed up that\r\nuncontaminated aroma,—literally and truly, like the smell of spring\r\nviolets; I declare to you, that for the time I lived as in a musky\r\nmeadow; I forgot all about our horrible oath; in that inexpressible\r\nsperm, I washed my hands and my heart of it; I almost began to credit\r\nthe old Paracelsan superstition that sperm is of rare virtue in\r\nallaying the heat of anger; while bathing in that bath, I felt divinely\r\nfree from all ill-will, or petulance, or malice, of any sort\r\nwhatsoever.\r\n\r\nSqueeze! squeeze! squeeze! all the morning long; I squeezed that sperm\r\ntill I myself almost melted into it; I squeezed that sperm till a\r\nstrange sort of insanity came over me; and I found myself unwittingly\r\nsqueezing my co-laborers’ hands in it, mistaking their hands for the\r\ngentle globules. Such an abounding, affectionate, friendly, loving\r\nfeeling did this avocation beget; that at last I was continually\r\nsqueezing their hands, and looking up into their eyes sentimentally; as\r\nmuch as to say,—Oh! my dear fellow beings, why should we longer cherish\r\nany social acerbities, or know the slightest ill-humor or envy! Come;\r\nlet us squeeze hands all round; nay, let us all squeeze ourselves into\r\neach other; let us squeeze ourselves universally into the very milk and\r\nsperm of kindness.\r\n\r\nWould that I could keep squeezing that sperm for ever! For now, since\r\nby many prolonged, repeated experiences, I have perceived that in all\r\ncases man must eventually lower, or at least shift, his conceit of\r\nattainable felicity; not placing it anywhere in the intellect or the\r\nfancy; but in the wife, the heart, the bed, the table, the saddle, the\r\nfireside, the country; now that I have perceived all this, I am ready\r\nto squeeze case eternally. In thoughts of the visions of the night, I\r\nsaw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of\r\nspermaceti.\r\n\r\nNow, while discoursing of sperm, it behooves to speak of other things\r\nakin to it, in the business of preparing the sperm whale for the\r\ntry-works.\r\n\r\nFirst comes white-horse, so called, which is obtained from the tapering\r\npart of the fish, and also from the thicker portions of his flukes. It\r\nis tough with congealed tendons—a wad of muscle—but still contains some\r\noil. After being severed from the whale, the white-horse is first cut\r\ninto portable oblongs ere going to the mincer. They look much like\r\nblocks of Berkshire marble.\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 1"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AMA8ZSZE2W4FPM48H6WCY","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J198KE6FY8WPVJQQRCZ6","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AP8DHCDW71XCM4D8PMQQV","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:49:36.689Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:53.680Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}