{"id":"01KJNXJQX2D2VJTQ9QZ4HJZGJK","cid":"bafkreihommobkwucxtzw2apf7mw4bmgz6gk7dv5f3rxtgronpny254qmgq","type":"text_chunk","properties":{"char_end":371087,"char_start":363086,"chunk_index":51,"chunk_total":178,"estimated_tokens":2001,"source_file_key":"moby-dick","text":"furnishes an asylum for many romantic, melancholy, and absent-minded\r\nyoung men, disgusted with the carking cares of earth, and seeking\r\nsentiment in tar and blubber. Childe Harold not unfrequently perches\r\nhimself upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whale-ship,\r\nand in moody phrase ejaculates:—\r\n\r\n\r\n“Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll! Ten thousand\r\nblubber-hunters sweep over thee in vain.”\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nVery often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young\r\nphilosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient\r\n“interest” in the voyage; half-hinting that they are so hopelessly lost\r\nto all honorable ambition, as that in their secret souls they would\r\nrather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young\r\nPlatonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are\r\nshort-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have\r\nleft their opera-glasses at home.\r\n\r\n“Why, thou monkey,” said a harpooneer to one of these lads, “we’ve been\r\ncruising now hard upon three years, and thou hast not raised a whale\r\nyet. Whales are scarce as hen’s teeth whenever thou art up here.”\r\nPerhaps they were; or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in\r\nthe far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of\r\nvacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending\r\ncadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity;\r\ntakes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep,\r\nblue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange,\r\nhalf-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every\r\ndimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him\r\nthe embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by\r\ncontinually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit\r\nebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space;\r\nlike Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of\r\nevery shore the round globe over.\r\n\r\nThere is no life in thee, now, except that rocking life imparted by a\r\ngently rolling ship; by her, borrowed from the sea; by the sea, from\r\nthe inscrutable tides of God. But while this sleep, this dream is on\r\nye, move your foot or hand an inch; slip your hold at all; and your\r\nidentity comes back in horror. Over Descartian vortices you hover. And\r\nperhaps, at mid-day, in the fairest weather, with one half-throttled\r\nshriek you drop through that transparent air into the summer sea, no\r\nmore to rise for ever. Heed it well, ye Pantheists!\r\n\r\n\r\nCHAPTER 36. The Quarter-Deck.\r\n\r\n(_Enter Ahab: Then, all._)\r\n\r\nIt was not a great while after the affair of the pipe, that one morning\r\nshortly after breakfast, Ahab, as was his wont, ascended the\r\ncabin-gangway to the deck. There most sea-captains usually walk at that\r\nhour, as country gentlemen, after the same meal, take a few turns in\r\nthe garden.\r\n\r\nSoon his steady, ivory stride was heard, as to and fro he paced his old\r\nrounds, upon planks so familiar to his tread, that they were all over\r\ndented, like geological stones, with the peculiar mark of his walk. Did\r\nyou fixedly gaze, too, upon that ribbed and dented brow; there also,\r\nyou would see still stranger foot-prints—the foot-prints of his one\r\nunsleeping, ever-pacing thought.\r\n\r\nBut on the occasion in question, those dents looked deeper, even as his\r\nnervous step that morning left a deeper mark. And, so full of his\r\nthought was Ahab, that at every uniform turn that he made, now at the\r\nmain-mast and now at the binnacle, you could almost see that thought\r\nturn in him as he turned, and pace in him as he paced; so completely\r\npossessing him, indeed, that it all but seemed the inward mould of\r\nevery outer movement.\r\n\r\n“D’ye mark him, Flask?” whispered Stubb; “the chick that’s in him pecks\r\nthe shell. ’Twill soon be out.”\r\n\r\nThe hours wore on;—Ahab now shut up within his cabin; anon, pacing the\r\ndeck, with the same intense bigotry of purpose in his aspect.\r\n\r\nIt drew near the close of day. Suddenly he came to a halt by the\r\nbulwarks, and inserting his bone leg into the auger-hole there, and\r\nwith one hand grasping a shroud, he ordered Starbuck to send everybody\r\naft.\r\n\r\n“Sir!” said the mate, astonished at an order seldom or never given on\r\nship-board except in some extraordinary case.\r\n\r\n“Send everybody aft,” repeated Ahab. “Mast-heads, there! come down!”\r\n\r\nWhen the entire ship’s company were assembled, and with curious and not\r\nwholly unapprehensive faces, were eyeing him, for he looked not unlike\r\nthe weather horizon when a storm is coming up, Ahab, after rapidly\r\nglancing over the bulwarks, and then darting his eyes among the crew,\r\nstarted from his standpoint; and as though not a soul were nigh him\r\nresumed his heavy turns upon the deck. With bent head and half-slouched\r\nhat he continued to pace, unmindful of the wondering whispering among\r\nthe men; till Stubb cautiously whispered to Flask, that Ahab must have\r\nsummoned them there for the purpose of witnessing a pedestrian feat.\r\nBut this did not last long. Vehemently pausing, he cried:—\r\n\r\n“What do ye do when ye see a whale, men?”\r\n\r\n“Sing out for him!” was the impulsive rejoinder from a score of clubbed\r\nvoices.\r\n\r\n“Good!” cried Ahab, with a wild approval in his tones; observing the\r\nhearty animation into which his unexpected question had so magnetically\r\nthrown them.\r\n\r\n“And what do ye next, men?”\r\n\r\n“Lower away, and after him!”\r\n\r\n“And what tune is it ye pull to, men?”\r\n\r\n“A dead whale or a stove boat!”\r\n\r\nMore and more strangely and fiercely glad and approving, grew the\r\ncountenance of the old man at every shout; while the mariners began to\r\ngaze curiously at each other, as if marvelling how it was that they\r\nthemselves became so excited at such seemingly purposeless questions.\r\n\r\nBut, they were all eagerness again, as Ahab, now half-revolving in his\r\npivot-hole, with one hand reaching high up a shroud, and tightly,\r\nalmost convulsively grasping it, addressed them thus:—\r\n\r\n“All ye mast-headers have before now heard me give orders about a white\r\nwhale. Look ye! d’ye see this Spanish ounce of gold?”—holding up a\r\nbroad bright coin to the sun—“it is a sixteen dollar piece, men. D’ye\r\nsee it? Mr. Starbuck, hand me yon top-maul.”\r\n\r\nWhile the mate was getting the hammer, Ahab, without speaking, was\r\nslowly rubbing the gold piece against the skirts of his jacket, as if\r\nto heighten its lustre, and without using any words was meanwhile lowly\r\nhumming to himself, producing a sound so strangely muffled and\r\ninarticulate that it seemed the mechanical humming of the wheels of his\r\nvitality in him.\r\n\r\nReceiving the top-maul from Starbuck, he advanced towards the main-mast\r\nwith the hammer uplifted in one hand, exhibiting the gold with the\r\nother, and with a high raised voice exclaiming: “Whosoever of ye raises\r\nme a white-headed whale with a wrinkled brow and a crooked jaw;\r\nwhosoever of ye raises me that white-headed whale, with three holes\r\npunctured in his starboard fluke—look ye, whosoever of ye raises me\r\nthat same white whale, he shall have this gold ounce, my boys!”\r\n\r\n“Huzza! huzza!” cried the seamen, as with swinging tarpaulins they\r\nhailed the act of nailing the gold to the mast.\r\n\r\n“It’s a white whale, I say,” resumed Ahab, as he threw down the\r\ntopmaul: “a white whale. Skin your eyes for him, men; look sharp for\r\nwhite water; if ye see but a bubble, sing out.”\r\n\r\nAll this while Tashtego, Daggoo, and Queequeg had looked on with even\r\nmore intense interest and surprise than the rest, and at the mention of\r\nthe wrinkled brow and crooked jaw they had started as if each was\r\nseparately touched by some specific recollection.\r\n\r\n“Captain Ahab,” said Tashtego, “that white whale must be the same that\r\nsome call Moby Dick.”\r\n\r\n“Moby Dick?” shouted Ahab. “Do ye know the white whale then, Tash?”\r\n\r\n“Does he fan-tail a little curious, sir, before he goes down?” said the\r\nGay-Header deliberately.\r\n\r\n“And has he "},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KJNXEDHZCC8DR4EPSQD0QP4P","peer_label":"moby-dick","peer_type":"text","predicate":"derived_from"},{"peer":"01KJNXECF9R1EZKS5Z7J8A8ZSB","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"}],"ver":1,"created_at":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.682Z","ts":"2026-03-02T00:01:15.682Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KJ6WPT018SDDANE6N7Q8E428"}}