{"id":"01KJNXJQTBVB2BHK5ZMRHDCZH2","cid":"bafkreihzqsgiyy23mnlymphj4tkarafcrl4iit4rjpg462bf6drgjidxre","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":36890,"char_start":28895,"chunk_index":4,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1999,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me\r\non shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part\r\nof the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and\r\nregulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about\r\nthe mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever\r\nI find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and\r\nbringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever\r\nmy hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral\r\nprinciple to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and\r\nmethodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to\r\nget to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.\r\nWith a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I\r\nquietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they\r\nbut knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other,\r\ncherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.\r\n\r\nThere now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by\r\nwharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her\r\nsurf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme\r\ndowntown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and\r\ncooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of\r\nland. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.\r\n\r\nCircumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears\r\nHook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What\r\ndo you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand\r\nthousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some\r\nleaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some\r\nlooking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the\r\nrigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these\r\nare all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to\r\ncounters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are\r\nthe green fields gone? What do they here?\r\n\r\nBut look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and\r\nseemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the\r\nextremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder\r\nwarehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water\r\nas they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of\r\nthem—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets\r\nand avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell\r\nme, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all\r\nthose ships attract them thither?\r\n\r\nOnce more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take\r\nalmost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a\r\ndale, and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in\r\nit. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest\r\nreveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will\r\ninfallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.\r\nShould you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this\r\nexperiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical\r\nprofessor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for\r\never.\r\n\r\nBut here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,\r\nquietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley\r\nof the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his\r\ntrees, each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were\r\nwithin; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up\r\nfrom yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands\r\nwinds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in\r\ntheir hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and\r\nthough this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this\r\nshepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were\r\nfixed upon the magic stream before him. Go visit the Prairies in June,\r\nwhen for scores on scores of miles you wade knee-deep among\r\nTiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there is not a drop\r\nof water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel\r\nyour thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon\r\nsuddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy\r\nhim a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian\r\ntrip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy with a\r\nrobust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to sea?\r\nWhy upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a\r\nmystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out\r\nof sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did\r\nthe Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely\r\nall this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that\r\nstory of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild\r\nimage he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that\r\nsame image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image\r\nof the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.\r\n\r\nNow, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin\r\nto grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my\r\nlungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a\r\npassenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a\r\npurse is but a rag unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers\r\nget sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’t sleep of nights—do not enjoy\r\nthemselves much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger;\r\nnor, though I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a\r\nCommodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction\r\nof such offices to those who like them. For my part, I abominate all\r\nhonorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind\r\nwhatsoever. It is quite as much as I can do to take care of myself,\r\nwithout taking care of ships, barques, brigs, schooners, and what not.\r\nAnd as for going as cook,—though I confess there is considerable glory\r\nin that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I\r\nnever fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously\r\nbuttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who\r\nwill speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled\r\nfowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old\r\nEgyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the\r\nmummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.\r\n\r\nNo, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,\r\nplumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.\r\nTrue, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to\r\nspar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of\r\nthing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,\r\nparticularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the\r\nVan Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if\r\njust previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been\r\nlording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in\r\nawe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a\r\nschoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and\r\nthe Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off\r\nin time.\r\n\r\nWhat of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom\r\nand sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed,\r\nI mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel\r\nGabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and\r\nrespectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKWEB56P83RN0MCEZECW3","peer_label":"manhattoes","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"city","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.819Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKWFCNA29VMBQJN12MZ0D","peer_label":"corlears hook","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.819Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKWJGZ8107Z7B75JMG4VV","peer_label":"coenties slip","predicate":"extracted_entity","properties":{"entity_type":"location","extracted_at":"2026-03-02T00:02:00.819Z"}},{"peer":"01KJNXKWHV35GZVP363JQH762V","peer_label":"the 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