1
Looming s.
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago?never mind how
long precisely?having little or no money in my purse,
and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I
would sail about a little and see the watery pa rt of the
world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and
regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself
growing grim about the mouth; w henever it is a d amp,
drizzly Nov ember in my soul; whenever I fi nd myself
involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially
whenever m y hypos get such an upp er hand of me, that i t
requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from
deliberately stepping into the str eet, and methodically
knocking people?s hats off?then, I a ccoun t it hig h time to
get to sea as soon as I ca n. Thi s is my substitu te for pisto l
and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself
upon his sword; I qu ietly take to the ship. There is
nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all
men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very
nearly the sa me feelings t owards the ocean with me.
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There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes,
belted round by wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs?
commerce surrounds it with her sur f. Right and left, the
streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is the
battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out
of sight of land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
Circumamb ulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath
afternoon. Go from Corlears Hook to Coenti es Slip, and
from thence, by Whit ehall, northward. What do you
see??Posted like silen t sentinels all around the town,
stand thousands upon thousand s of mortal me n fixed in
ocean reveries. Some l eaning against the spil es; some
seated upon the pier-heads; some looking over the
bulwarks of ships from China; some high al oft in the
rigging, as if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But
these are all landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and
plaster?tied to co unters, nailed to benches, cli nched to
desks. How then is this? Are the green fields gone? What
do they here?
But look! here come m ore crowds, pacing straight for
the water, and seemingly bound for a dive. Strange!
Nothing will content them bu t the extremest limit of the
land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder warehouses
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will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water
as they possibly can without falling in. And there they
stand?miles of them?leagues. Inla nders all, they come
from lanes and alleys, stree ts and avenues?north, east,
south, and west. Yet he re they all unite. Tell me, does the
magnetic virtue of the needles of the compa sses of all those
ships attract them thither ?
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high
land of lakes. Take almost an y path you please, and ten to
one it carries you down in a dale, and leaves you there by
a pool in the stream. There is magi c in it. Let the most
absent-mi nded of me n be plunged in his deepest
reveries?stand that man on hi s legs, set hi s feet a-going,
and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be
in all that region. Should you ev er be athirst in the great
American desert, try t his experiment, if your caravan
happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes,
as every one knows, me ditat ion and water are wedded for
ever.
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the
dreamiest, shadiest, qui etest, most enchanting bit of
romantic landscape in all th e valley of the Saco. What is
the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, each
with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were
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within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his
cattle; and up from yo nder cottage goes a sleepy smoke.
Deep into d istant woodl ands wind s a mazy w ay, reaching
to overlapping spurs of mountains b athed in their hill-side
blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and thoug h
this pine-tree shakes down i ts sighs like leaves upon this
shepherd?s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd?s
eye were fixed upon the ma gic stream before him. Go
visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of
miles you wade knee- deep among Tiger-lilies?what is
the one charm wanting??Water?there is not a drop of
water there! Were Niag ara but a cataract of sand, would
you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the
poor poet of Tennesse e, upon suddenly receiving two
handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy hi m a coat,
which he sadly needed, or in vest his money in a pedestrian
trip to Rockaway Beach? Wh y is almost every robust
healthy boy with a robust healthy soul in him, at some
time or other crazy to go to sea? Why upon your first
voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such a mystica l
vibration, when first tol d that you and your ship were
now out of sight of land? Wh y did the old Persi ans hold
the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate deity,
and own brother of Jove? Surely all this is not without
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meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of
Narcissus, w ho because he could not grasp the tormenting,
mild image he saw in the fountain, p lunged into it and was
drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all
rivers and oceans. It is the image of the u ngraspable
phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
Now, when I say that I am in the ha bit of going to sea
whenever I begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin
to be over conscio us of my l ungs, I do not mean to have it
inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to go as a
passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but
a rag unless you have so mething in i t. Besides, p assengers
get sea-sick?grow quarrelsome?d on?t sleep of nights?
do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;?no, I
never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a
salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or
a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices
to those who like them. For my part, I abo minate all
honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of
every kind whatsoever. It is qu ite as much a s I can do to
take care of myself, without taking care of ships, barques,
brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as
cook,?though I confess there is c onsiderable glory in
that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board?yet,
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somehow, I never fancied br oiling fowls;?though once
broiled, judiciously buttered, and ju dgmatically salted and
peppered, t here is no one who will spea k more
respectfully, not to say reveren tially, of a broiled fowl than
I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old
Egyptians upon broiled ibis and ro asted river horse, that
you see the mummies of tho se creatures in their huge
bake-houses the pyramids.
No, when I go to sea, I go as a si mple sailor, right
before the mast, plumb down into the forecastle, alof t
there to the royal mast-head. True, they rather order me
about some, and make me jump fr om spar to spar, like a
grasshopper in a May meadow. An d at first, thi s sort of
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one?s sense of
honour, par ticularly if you come of an o ld e stablished
family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or
Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just pr evious to
putting your hand into the tar-pot, y ou have been lording
it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand
in awe of y ou. The transition is a keen one, I assure you,
from a schoolmaster to a sailo r, and requires a strong
decoction of Seneca and the St oics to enable you to grin
and bear it. But even this wears off in time.
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What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders
me to get a broom and sweep down the decks? What does
that indignity amount to, weig hed, I mean, in the scales of
the New Testament? Do you think the archangel Gabriel
thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and
respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance?
Who ain?t a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the
old sea-cap tains may order me about?however they may
thump and punch me about, I ha ve the sati sfaction of
knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one way
or other served in much the same way?eit her in a
physical or metaphysical poin t of vi ew, that is; and so the
universal thump is passe d round, and all hands should rub
each other?s shoulder-blades, and be c ontent.
Again, I alw ays go to sea as a sailor, because they make
a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas they never
pay passenge rs a single p enny that I ever heard o f. On the
contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is all
the difference in the world between paying and being
paid. The act of paying is p erhaps the most uncomfortable
inflictio n th at the two orc hard thie ves entailed upon us.
But BEING PAID,?what will compare with it? The
urbane activ ity with w hich a man receives money is really
marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe
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money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
account can a monie d man enter heaven. Ah! how
cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!
Finally, I always go to sea as a sail or, because of the
wholesome exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck.
For as in this world, head winds ar e far more prevalent
than winds from astern (that is, if y ou never violate the
Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
Commodore on the quarter-deck g ets his atmosphere at
second hand from the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks
he breathes it first; but not so. In much the sa me way do
the commo nalty lead th eir lead ers in many other things, at
the same time that th e leaders little suspect it. But
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea
as a merchant sail or, I should now take it into my head to
go on a whaling voyage; this the invi sible police officer of
the Fates, who has the const ant surveillance of me, and
secretly dogs me, and influences me in some
unaccountab le way?he can be tter answer than any one
else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage,
formed part of the grand pr ogramme of Providence that
was drawn up a long ti me ago. It came in as a sort of brief
interlude and solo between more extensive performances.
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I take it that this part of the bill must have run something
like this:
?GRAND CONTESTED ELEC TION FOR THE
PRESIDENCY OF THE UNITED STATES .
?WHALING VOYA GE BY ONE ISHMAEL.
?BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.?
Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage
managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a
whaling voyage, when others were set down for
magnificent parts in hi gh tragedies, and short and easy
parts in genteel comedies , and jolly parts in farces?though
I cannot tell why this w as exactly; y et, now that I recall all
the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs
and motives which being cunningly presented to me
under various disguises, induced me to set about
performing the part I did, be sides cajoling me into the
delusion that it w as a choi ce resul ting from my own
unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.
Chief amon g these moti ves was the overwhelming idea
of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and
mysterious monster rou sed all my curiosity. Then the wild
and distant seas where he roll ed his island bulk; the
undeliverabl e, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and
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sounds, help ed to sway me to my wish. With other men,
perhaps, such things w ould not h ave been inducements;
but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for
things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on
barbarous co asts. Not ign oring what is good, I am quick to
perceive a horror, and could st ill be social with it?would
they let me?since it is but well to be on friendly terms
with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.
By reason of these things, th en, the whaling voy age was
welcome; the great fl ood-gates of the wonder-world
swung open, and in the wild conceits that sway ed me to
my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost
soul, endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of
them all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill i n
the air.
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