{"id":"01KJNXJQTPPPN30RDAP29CJBCZ","cid":"bafkreietcrnrs4hdapanejktmhqd4jj7vosgitrgssec3kuydpuuab32sm","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":107789,"char_start":99942,"chunk_index":14,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":1962,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks\r\nis perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens. Elsewhere match that\r\nbloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young\r\ngirls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off\r\nshore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of\r\nthe Puritanic sands.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 7. The Chapel.\r\n\r\nIn this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman’s Chapel, and few are\r\nthe moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who\r\nfail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.\r\n\r\nReturning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this\r\nspecial errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving\r\nsleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called\r\nbearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found\r\na small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and\r\nwidows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks\r\nof the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart\r\nfrom the other, as if each silent grief were insular and\r\nincommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these\r\nsilent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble\r\ntablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the\r\npulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not\r\npretend to quote:—\r\n\r\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was\r\nlost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, _November_\r\n1_st_, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.\r\n\r\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN,\r\nWALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats’\r\ncrews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the\r\nOff-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, _December_ 31_st_, 1839. THIS MARBLE\r\nIs here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.\r\n\r\nSACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows\r\nof his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, _August_\r\n3_d_, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.\r\n\r\nShaking off the sleet from my ice-glazed hat and jacket, I seated\r\nmyself near the door, and turning sideways was surprised to see\r\nQueequeg near me. Affected by the solemnity of the scene, there was a\r\nwondering gaze of incredulous curiosity in his countenance. This savage\r\nwas the only person present who seemed to notice my entrance; because\r\nhe was the only one who could not read, and, therefore, was not reading\r\nthose frigid inscriptions on the wall. Whether any of the relatives of\r\nthe seamen whose names appeared there were now among the congregation,\r\nI knew not; but so many are the unrecorded accidents in the fishery,\r\nand so plainly did several women present wear the countenance if not\r\nthe trappings of some unceasing grief, that I feel sure that here\r\nbefore me were assembled those, in whose unhealing hearts the sight of\r\nthose bleak tablets sympathetically caused the old wounds to bleed\r\nafresh.\r\n\r\nOh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing\r\namong flowers can say—here, _here_ lies my beloved; ye know not the\r\ndesolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in\r\nthose black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in\r\nthose immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden\r\ninfidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse\r\nresurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a\r\ngrave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as\r\nhere.\r\n\r\nIn what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included;\r\nwhy it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no\r\ntales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands; how it is\r\nthat to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix\r\nso significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if\r\nhe but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the\r\nLife Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what\r\neternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies\r\nantique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we\r\nstill refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are\r\ndwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all\r\nthe dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify\r\na whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.\r\n\r\nBut Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these\r\ndead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.\r\n\r\nIt needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a\r\nNantucket voyage, I regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky\r\nlight of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who\r\nhad gone before me. Yes, Ishmael, the same fate may be thine. But\r\nsomehow I grew merry again. Delightful inducements to embark, fine\r\nchance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an\r\nimmortal by brevet. Yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a\r\nspeechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity. But what\r\nthen? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death.\r\nMethinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true\r\nsubstance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too\r\nmuch like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking\r\nthat thick water the thinnest of air. Methinks my body is but the lees\r\nof my better being. In fact take my body who will, take it I say, it is\r\nnot me. And therefore three cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat\r\nand stove body when they will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 8. The Pulpit.\r\n\r\nI had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable\r\nrobustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back upon\r\nadmitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation,\r\nsufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain. Yes, it\r\nwas the famous Father Mapple, so called by the whalemen, among whom he\r\nwas a very great favourite. He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in\r\nhis youth, but for many years past had dedicated his life to the\r\nministry. At the time I now write of, Father Mapple was in the hardy\r\nwinter of a healthy old age; that sort of old age which seems merging\r\ninto a second flowering youth, for among all the fissures of his\r\nwrinkles, there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing\r\nbloom—the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow. No\r\none having previously heard his history, could for the first time\r\nbehold Father Mapple without the utmost interest, because there were\r\ncertain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him, imputable to that\r\nadventurous maritime life he had led. When he entered I observed that\r\nhe carried no umbrella, and certainly had not come in his carriage, for\r\nhis tarpaulin hat ran down with melting sleet, and his great pilot\r\ncloth jacket seemed almost to drag him to the floor with the weight of\r\nthe water it had absorbed. However, hat and coat and overshoes were one\r\nby one removed, and hung up in a little space in an adjacent corner;\r\nwhen, arrayed in a decent suit, he quietly approached the pulpit.\r\n\r\nLike most old fashioned pulpits, it was a very lofty one, and since a\r\nregular stairs to such a height would, by its long angle with the\r\nfloor, seriously contract the already small area of the chapel, the\r\narchitect, it seemed, had acted upon the hint of Father Mapple, and\r\nfinished the pulpit without a stairs, substituting a perpendicular side\r\nladder, like those used in mounting a ship from a boat at sea."},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KJNXKZWNWH9124159G96R4Q9","peer_label":"indian 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