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070c9616a6
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c8c2d9a9e0 | |
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03c0840041 |
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@ -0,0 +1,5 @@
|
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*.log
|
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output.*.txt
|
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.vscode
|
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files
|
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files.*/
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|
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@ -0,0 +1,28 @@
|
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name: lint-build-test
|
||||
on:
|
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push:
|
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branches:
|
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- master
|
||||
pull_request:
|
||||
|
||||
permissions:
|
||||
contents: read
|
||||
|
||||
jobs:
|
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lint-build-test:
|
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name: lint-build-test
|
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runs-on: ubuntu-latest
|
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steps:
|
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- uses: actions/checkout@v4
|
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- uses: actions/setup-go@v5
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with:
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go-version: "1.22"
|
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cache: false
|
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- name: golangci-lint
|
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uses: golangci/golangci-lint-action@v4
|
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with:
|
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version: latest
|
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- name: build
|
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run: go build -v ./...
|
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- name: Run tests
|
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run: go test
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||||
|
|
@ -1,3 +1,5 @@
|
|||
*.log
|
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output.*.txt
|
||||
.vscode
|
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files
|
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files.*/
|
||||
|
|
|
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20
Dockerfile
20
Dockerfile
|
|
@ -1,11 +1,19 @@
|
|||
ARG bin_name=docgrouper
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|
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FROM golang:1.22 as builder
|
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WORKDIR /go/src/docgrouper
|
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COPY testdata testdata/
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COPY *.go go.mod go.sum ./
|
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ARG bin_name
|
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WORKDIR /go/src/$bin_name
|
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COPY . .
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RUN go mod download
|
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RUN go test -v ./... && CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o docgroup
|
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RUN go test -v ./... && CGO_ENABLED=0 GOOS=linux GOARCH=amd64 go build -o $bin_name
|
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|
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FROM gcr.io/distroless/base-nossl-debian12
|
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COPY --from=builder /go/src/docgrouper/docgrouper /bin/docgrouper
|
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ARG bin_name
|
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COPY --from=builder /go/src/${bin_name}/${bin_name} /bin/${bin_name}
|
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VOLUME [ "/files" ]
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ENTRYPOINT [ "docgroup" ]
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|
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# ARGs are stupid and cannot be used in ENTRYPOINT, so we still have to
|
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# hard-code the binary name here, but this is still better than having to
|
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# hard-code it in the stages above, since it doesn't really matter much what the
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# entrypoint is called.
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ENTRYPOINT [ "docgrouper" ]
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50
README.md
50
README.md
|
|
@ -26,6 +26,8 @@ arguments cannot be passed to a Makefile target.
|
|||
## Options
|
||||
|
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```
|
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-output string
|
||||
output file (default is stdout)
|
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-path string
|
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path to the file pool (default "files")
|
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-prefix
|
||||
|
|
@ -37,3 +39,51 @@ arguments cannot be passed to a Makefile target.
|
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-workers int
|
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number of workers to use (default 2*<number-of-cores>)
|
||||
```
|
||||
|
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# Approach
|
||||
|
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To satisfy the project requirements, the following approach was used:
|
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|
||||
1. Order files by timestamp, to be able to step through the "evolution" of the
|
||||
associated documents.
|
||||
2. Iterate through all the timestamps, and for all documents identified,
|
||||
determine whether any of the files associated with the current timestamp can be
|
||||
related to an existing document. For each file that remains unassociated with an
|
||||
existing document at this point, create a new document.
|
||||
3. Sort the associated files for each document in order by their filename (which
|
||||
is a number).
|
||||
|
||||
## Practical considerations
|
||||
|
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The corpus provided for this assignment is comprised of 20,000 files; a
|
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substantial enough amount to take time and memory complexity into account. To
|
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manage time complexity, a pool of workers compares documents against candidate
|
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files in a parallel manner, rather than serially stepping through all the files.
|
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On my MacBook Pro M1 Max, this reduces runtime from 27 minutes to roughly five
|
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minutes. Additionally, file contents are cached to prevent repeatedly reading
|
||||
the same files off disk.
|
||||
|
||||
Cached files are purged as soon as their contents won't ever be needed again, to
|
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conserve a large amount of memory that would be used by caching the contents of
|
||||
20,000 files. We can be sure a file's contents aren't needed anymore when its
|
||||
associated timestamp has already been processed, and the file isn't the most
|
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recent file associated with a given document: we only need the latest version of
|
||||
the document to associate files from future timestamps.
|
||||
|
||||
There is some status text written to the console by default, but it is written
|
||||
to stderr, so if only the pure list of files associated with one another is
|
||||
desired, redirecting stdout will yield a clean list without any status text. The
|
||||
same can be accomplished by using the `-output` flag, as well.
|
||||
|
||||
# High level design
|
||||
|
||||
The main representational types in the program are the `DocumentManager` and the
|
||||
`Document` types. `DocumentManager` handles starting workers and comparing
|
||||
documents against candidate files. The `Document` type keeps track of which
|
||||
files are associated with it, and the timestamp of the latest file. Work is
|
||||
performed by sending "work items" to the workers on a channel, who pull a work
|
||||
item off and perform it, altering documents if they need to be updated with a
|
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new associated file. When all files have been checked, the final set of
|
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documents is presented to the user.
|
||||
|
||||

|
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|
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Binary file not shown.
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After Width: | Height: | Size: 146 KiB |
182
main.go
182
main.go
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|
@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import (
|
|||
"flag"
|
||||
"fmt"
|
||||
"log/slog"
|
||||
"math"
|
||||
"os"
|
||||
"path"
|
||||
"runtime"
|
||||
|
|
@ -21,6 +22,7 @@ import (
|
|||
"strings"
|
||||
"sync"
|
||||
"sync/atomic"
|
||||
"time"
|
||||
)
|
||||
|
||||
const (
|
||||
|
|
@ -38,37 +40,72 @@ const (
|
|||
var (
|
||||
dataFilePath string
|
||||
similarityThreshold float64
|
||||
outputFile string
|
||||
useDocPrefix bool
|
||||
verbose bool
|
||||
numWorkers int
|
||||
)
|
||||
|
||||
func main() {
|
||||
documents, err := run(os.Args)
|
||||
var (
|
||||
start = time.Now()
|
||||
padding = "\n"
|
||||
)
|
||||
documents, output, err := run(os.Args)
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "error: %v\n", err)
|
||||
os.Exit(-1)
|
||||
}
|
||||
for _, doc := range documents {
|
||||
fmt.Println(doc)
|
||||
if output != os.Stdout {
|
||||
defer output.Close()
|
||||
padding = ""
|
||||
}
|
||||
duration := time.Since(start)
|
||||
|
||||
v := make(Visualizer)
|
||||
for _, doc := range documents {
|
||||
fmt.Fprintln(output, doc)
|
||||
v.Add(*doc)
|
||||
}
|
||||
fmt.Fprintf(
|
||||
os.Stderr,
|
||||
"%s%d documents identified in %s\n\n%s\n",
|
||||
padding,
|
||||
len(documents),
|
||||
duration.Truncate(time.Millisecond),
|
||||
v.Render("Distribution for Number of Associated Files per Document", 60),
|
||||
)
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// run is the main entry point for the program.
|
||||
func run(args []string) ([]*Document, error) {
|
||||
func run(args []string) ([]*Document, *os.File, error) {
|
||||
flags := flag.NewFlagSet(args[0], flag.ExitOnError)
|
||||
flags.StringVar(&dataFilePath, "path", defaultDataFilePath, "path to the file pool")
|
||||
flags.Float64Var(&similarityThreshold, "threshold", defaultSimilarityThreshold, "similarity threshold")
|
||||
flags.StringVar(&outputFile, "output", "", "output file (default is stdout)")
|
||||
flags.IntVar(&numWorkers, "workers", runtime.NumCPU()*2, "number of workers to use")
|
||||
flags.BoolVar(&useDocPrefix, "prefix", false, "use '[doc ###]' prefix for output")
|
||||
flags.BoolVar(&verbose, "verbose", false, "enable verbose logging")
|
||||
_ = flags.Parse(args[1:])
|
||||
|
||||
output := os.Stdout
|
||||
if outputFile != "" {
|
||||
var err error
|
||||
output, err = os.Create(outputFile)
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
return nil, nil, fmt.Errorf("creating output file: %w", err)
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
shouldReportStatus := !verbose && output != os.Stdout
|
||||
if shouldReportStatus {
|
||||
defer fmt.Fprintln(os.Stderr)
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// The files need to be processed in order of time, so determine the
|
||||
// timestamp of each file and sort them by time.
|
||||
fileTimes, times, err := orderFiles(dataFilePath)
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
return nil, err
|
||||
return nil, nil, err
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
dm := NewDocumentManager(dataFilePath, similarityThreshold, numWorkers)
|
||||
|
|
@ -79,7 +116,7 @@ func run(args []string) ([]*Document, error) {
|
|||
// documents, so we can identify unassociated files later and then
|
||||
// create new documents for them. This needs to be distinct for each
|
||||
// timestamp, so it's created inside the timestamp loop's scope.
|
||||
associatedFiles sync.Map
|
||||
claimedFiles sync.Map
|
||||
|
||||
// We might need to create new documents for files that weren't
|
||||
// associated with any document at this timestamp, so we need to make
|
||||
|
|
@ -90,13 +127,16 @@ func run(args []string) ([]*Document, error) {
|
|||
)
|
||||
|
||||
log("processing timestamp", "timestamp", timestamp, "timestampIndex", i, "totalTimestamps", len(times))
|
||||
if shouldReportStatus {
|
||||
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "\rProcessing timestamp %d of %d...", i+1, len(times))
|
||||
}
|
||||
for i, doc := range dm.Documents {
|
||||
wg.Add(1)
|
||||
dm.WorkCh <- WorkItem{
|
||||
doc: doc,
|
||||
fileNumbers: fileTimes[timestamp],
|
||||
timestamp: timestamp,
|
||||
associatedFiles: &associatedFiles,
|
||||
claimedFiles: &claimedFiles,
|
||||
wg: &wg,
|
||||
}
|
||||
log(
|
||||
|
|
@ -115,7 +155,7 @@ func run(args []string) ([]*Document, error) {
|
|||
// documents for them.
|
||||
var docsAdded int
|
||||
for _, fileNumber := range fileTimes[timestamp] {
|
||||
if _, ok := associatedFiles.Load(fileNumber); !ok {
|
||||
if _, ok := claimedFiles.Load(fileNumber); !ok {
|
||||
dm.AddNewDocument(fileNumber, timestamp)
|
||||
docsAdded++
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
|
@ -129,7 +169,7 @@ func run(args []string) ([]*Document, error) {
|
|||
}
|
||||
|
||||
dm.Shutdown()
|
||||
return dm.SortedDocuments(), nil
|
||||
return dm.SortedDocuments(), output, nil
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// WorkItem is what will be sent to the the workers in the worker pool.
|
||||
|
|
@ -137,7 +177,7 @@ type WorkItem struct {
|
|||
doc *Document
|
||||
fileNumbers []int
|
||||
timestamp int
|
||||
associatedFiles *sync.Map
|
||||
claimedFiles *sync.Map
|
||||
wg *sync.WaitGroup
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -229,55 +269,52 @@ func (dm *DocumentManager) SortedDocuments() []*Document {
|
|||
// document against each file and if a match is found, associate the file with the
|
||||
// document sent in the work item, and record the file as having been matched.
|
||||
func (dm *DocumentManager) ComparisonWorker(workerID int) {
|
||||
defer dm.wg.Done()
|
||||
for workItem := range dm.WorkCh {
|
||||
for _, fileNumber := range workItem.fileNumbers {
|
||||
if _, ok := workItem.associatedFiles.Load(fileNumber); ok {
|
||||
// This file has already been matched; skip it.
|
||||
dm.maybeAssociateFileWithDocument(workItem, workerID)
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
func (dm *DocumentManager) maybeAssociateFileWithDocument(workItem WorkItem, workerID int) {
|
||||
defer workItem.wg.Done()
|
||||
for _, candidateFileNumber := range workItem.fileNumbers {
|
||||
if _, ok := workItem.claimedFiles.Load(candidateFileNumber); ok {
|
||||
// This file has already been matched with another document, so skip it.
|
||||
continue
|
||||
}
|
||||
latestFileNumber := workItem.doc.LatestAssociatedFile()
|
||||
similarity, err := dm.compareFiles(latestFileNumber, fileNumber)
|
||||
similarity, err := dm.compareFiles(latestFileNumber, candidateFileNumber)
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
// Simplistic error handling: log the error and continue.
|
||||
slog.Error(
|
||||
"error comparing files",
|
||||
"file1", latestFileNumber,
|
||||
"file2", fileNumber,
|
||||
"latestAssociatedFile", latestFileNumber,
|
||||
"candidateFile", candidateFileNumber,
|
||||
"document", workItem.doc.ID,
|
||||
"worker", workerID,
|
||||
)
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// If current file doesn't match current document, skip to the next file.
|
||||
if similarity < dm.similarityThreshold {
|
||||
continue
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// Current file matches current document, so record this.
|
||||
workItem.doc.AssociateFile(fileNumber, workItem.timestamp)
|
||||
workItem.associatedFiles.Store(fileNumber, struct{}{})
|
||||
// If current file matches current document, record it and exit.
|
||||
if similarity >= dm.similarityThreshold {
|
||||
workItem.doc.AssociateFile(candidateFileNumber, workItem.timestamp)
|
||||
workItem.claimedFiles.Store(candidateFileNumber, struct{}{})
|
||||
log(
|
||||
"match found",
|
||||
"document", workItem.doc.ID,
|
||||
"file", fileNumber,
|
||||
"file", candidateFileNumber,
|
||||
"time", workItem.timestamp,
|
||||
"worker", workerID,
|
||||
)
|
||||
|
||||
// We don't need to consider this document anymore since we've found
|
||||
// a match. End processing and wait for more work.
|
||||
break
|
||||
return
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
workItem.wg.Done()
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// Report that this worker is shutting down.
|
||||
dm.wg.Done()
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// compareFiles computes how much two files overlap, on a scale
|
||||
// of 0 to 1 by iterating through the files and identifying lines
|
||||
// that are duplicated.
|
||||
// compareFiles computes how much two files overlap on a scale of 0 to 1 by
|
||||
// iterating through the files and calculating a similarity score that's based
|
||||
// on the number of line-centric differences between the contents of the two
|
||||
// files.
|
||||
func (dm *DocumentManager) compareFiles(f1Number, f2Number int) (float64, error) {
|
||||
f1, err := dm.fcc.GetFileContents(f1Number)
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
|
|
@ -289,23 +326,20 @@ func (dm *DocumentManager) compareFiles(f1Number, f2Number int) (float64, error)
|
|||
}
|
||||
|
||||
histogram := make(map[string]int)
|
||||
for _, lines := range [][]string{f1, f2} {
|
||||
for _, line := range lines {
|
||||
// Skip blank lines, which can throw off the count.
|
||||
if line == "" {
|
||||
continue
|
||||
}
|
||||
for _, line := range f1 {
|
||||
histogram[line]++
|
||||
}
|
||||
for _, line := range f2 {
|
||||
histogram[line]--
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
var overlap int
|
||||
var differences float64
|
||||
for _, v := range histogram {
|
||||
if v == 2 {
|
||||
overlap++
|
||||
differences += math.Abs(float64(v))
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
return float64(overlap) / float64(len(histogram)), nil
|
||||
|
||||
similarity := 1 - (differences / float64(len(f1)+len(f2)))
|
||||
return similarity, nil
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// Document stores a document ID and a list of associated files.
|
||||
|
|
@ -485,6 +519,58 @@ func orderFiles(dir string) (map[int][]int, []int, error) {
|
|||
return timeMap, timeSlice, nil
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
// Visualizer is a utility to provide insight into the shape of the data
|
||||
// processed.
|
||||
type Visualizer map[int]int
|
||||
|
||||
func (v Visualizer) Add(d Document) {
|
||||
numAssocFiles := len(d.AssociatedFiles)
|
||||
v[numAssocFiles]++
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
func (v Visualizer) Render(title string, width int) string {
|
||||
if len(v) == 0 {
|
||||
return ""
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
type pair struct {
|
||||
numAssocFiles int
|
||||
numDocsWithThisNumFiles int
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
var (
|
||||
slicedMap []pair
|
||||
totalNumDocs int
|
||||
)
|
||||
for naf, nd := range v {
|
||||
slicedMap = append(slicedMap, pair{numAssocFiles: naf, numDocsWithThisNumFiles: nd})
|
||||
totalNumDocs += nd
|
||||
}
|
||||
slices.SortFunc(slicedMap, func(a, b pair) int {
|
||||
return a.numDocsWithThisNumFiles - b.numDocsWithThisNumFiles
|
||||
})
|
||||
slices.Reverse(slicedMap)
|
||||
|
||||
var sb strings.Builder
|
||||
sb.WriteString(title)
|
||||
sb.WriteRune('\n')
|
||||
sb.WriteString(strings.Repeat("=", width))
|
||||
sb.WriteRune('\n')
|
||||
|
||||
scaleFactor := float64(totalNumDocs) / float64(slicedMap[0].numDocsWithThisNumFiles)
|
||||
for _, p := range slicedMap {
|
||||
ratio := float64(p.numDocsWithThisNumFiles) / float64(totalNumDocs)
|
||||
numChars := int(math.Ceil(ratio * float64(width-14) * scaleFactor))
|
||||
sb.WriteString(fmt.Sprintf(
|
||||
"%3d | %s (%.1f%%)\n",
|
||||
p.numAssocFiles,
|
||||
strings.Repeat("*", numChars),
|
||||
float64(p.numDocsWithThisNumFiles)*100/float64(totalNumDocs),
|
||||
))
|
||||
}
|
||||
return sb.String()[0 : sb.Len()-1]
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
||||
func makeFileName(number int) string {
|
||||
return fmt.Sprintf("%d.txt", number)
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
43
main_test.go
43
main_test.go
|
|
@ -102,22 +102,41 @@ func TestFileContentsCache(t *testing.T) {
|
|||
}
|
||||
|
||||
func TestEndToEnd(t *testing.T) {
|
||||
docs, err := run([]string{"argv0", "-path", "testdata/e2e"})
|
||||
want := []int{1, 6, 9, 12, 14, 18}
|
||||
docs, _, err := run([]string{"argv0", "-path", "testdata/e2e"})
|
||||
want := []Document{
|
||||
{
|
||||
ID: 1,
|
||||
AssociatedFiles: []int{1, 6, 9, 12, 14, 18},
|
||||
LatestTimestamp: 5,
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
ID: 2,
|
||||
AssociatedFiles: []int{2, 7, 13, 15, 22, 25},
|
||||
LatestTimestamp: 5,
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
ID: 3,
|
||||
AssociatedFiles: []int{11, 19},
|
||||
LatestTimestamp: 7,
|
||||
},
|
||||
{
|
||||
ID: 4,
|
||||
AssociatedFiles: []int{21},
|
||||
LatestTimestamp: 3,
|
||||
},
|
||||
}
|
||||
if err != nil {
|
||||
t.Fatal("error running program: ", err)
|
||||
}
|
||||
if len(docs) != 1 {
|
||||
t.Fatalf("expected %d documents, got %d", 1, len(docs))
|
||||
for i, doc := range docs {
|
||||
if got, want := doc.ID, want[i].ID; got != want {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected ID %d, got %d", want, got)
|
||||
}
|
||||
doc := docs[0]
|
||||
if doc.ID != 1 {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected ID %d, got %d", 0, doc.ID)
|
||||
if want, got := doc.LatestTimestamp, want[i].LatestTimestamp; got != want {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected latest timestamp %d, got %d", want, got)
|
||||
}
|
||||
if want, got := doc.AssociatedFiles, want[i].AssociatedFiles; !reflect.DeepEqual(got, want) {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected associated files %v, got %v", want, got)
|
||||
}
|
||||
if doc.LatestTimestamp != 5 {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected latest timestamp %d, got %d", 3, doc.LatestTimestamp)
|
||||
}
|
||||
if !reflect.DeepEqual(doc.AssociatedFiles, want) {
|
||||
t.Errorf("expected associated files %v, got %v", want, doc.AssociatedFiles)
|
||||
}
|
||||
}
|
||||
|
|
|
|||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,133 @@
|
|||
7
|
||||
CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.
|
||||
|
||||
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my
|
||||
arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city
|
||||
of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night
|
||||
in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little
|
||||
packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching
|
||||
that place would offer, till the following Monday.
|
||||
|
||||
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at
|
||||
this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well
|
||||
be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was
|
||||
made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a
|
||||
fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous
|
||||
old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has
|
||||
of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though
|
||||
in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket
|
||||
was her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the
|
||||
first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket
|
||||
did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes
|
||||
to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did
|
||||
that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with
|
||||
imported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in
|
||||
order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the
|
||||
bowsprit?
|
||||
|
||||
Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me
|
||||
in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a
|
||||
matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a
|
||||
very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold
|
||||
and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had
|
||||
sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So,
|
||||
wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of
|
||||
a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the
|
||||
north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you
|
||||
may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to
|
||||
inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.
|
||||
|
||||
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The
|
||||
Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further
|
||||
on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came
|
||||
such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and
|
||||
ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay
|
||||
ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me,
|
||||
when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from
|
||||
hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
|
||||
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one
|
||||
moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of
|
||||
the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t
|
||||
you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are
|
||||
stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets
|
||||
that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not
|
||||
the cheeriest inns.
|
||||
|
||||
Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,
|
||||
and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At
|
||||
this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of
|
||||
the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light
|
||||
proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood
|
||||
invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the
|
||||
uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble
|
||||
over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying
|
||||
particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city,
|
||||
Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then
|
||||
must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and
|
||||
hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior
|
||||
door.
|
||||
|
||||
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black
|
||||
faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of
|
||||
Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the
|
||||
preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping
|
||||
and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing
|
||||
out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’
|
||||
|
||||
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the
|
||||
docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a
|
||||
swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly
|
||||
representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words
|
||||
underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”
|
||||
|
||||
Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought
|
||||
I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this
|
||||
Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and
|
||||
the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated
|
||||
little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here
|
||||
from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a
|
||||
poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very
|
||||
spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.
|
||||
|
||||
It was a queer sort of place—a gable-ended old house, one side palsied
|
||||
as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood on a sharp bleak corner,
|
||||
where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept up a worse howling than
|
||||
ever it did about poor Paul’s tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless,
|
||||
is a mighty pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the
|
||||
hob quietly toasting for bed. “In judging of that tempestuous wind
|
||||
called Euroclydon,” says an old writer—of whose works I possess the
|
||||
only copy extant—“it maketh a marvellous difference, whether thou
|
||||
lookest out at it from a glass window where the frost is all on the
|
||||
outside, or whether thou observest it from that sashless window, where
|
||||
the frost is on both sides, and of which the wight Death is the only
|
||||
glazier.” True enough, thought I, as this passage occurred to my
|
||||
mind—old black-letter, thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are
|
||||
windows, and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they didn’t
|
||||
stop up the chinks and the crannies though, and thrust in a little lint
|
||||
here and there. But it’s too late to make any improvements now. The
|
||||
universe is finished; the copestone is on, and the chips were carted
|
||||
off a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there, chattering his teeth
|
||||
against the curbstone for his pillow, and shaking off his tatters with
|
||||
his shiverings, he might plug up both ears with rags, and put a
|
||||
corn-cob into his mouth, and yet that would not keep out the
|
||||
tempestuous Euroclydon. Euroclydon! says old Dives, in his red silken
|
||||
wrapper—(he had a redder one afterwards) pooh, pooh! What a fine frosty
|
||||
night; how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them talk of their
|
||||
oriental summer climes of everlasting conservatories; give me the
|
||||
privilege of making my own summer with my own coals.
|
||||
|
||||
But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands by holding them up
|
||||
to the grand northern lights? Would not Lazarus rather be in Sumatra
|
||||
than here? Would he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the
|
||||
line of the equator; yea, ye gods! go down to the fiery pit itself, in
|
||||
order to keep out this frost?
|
||||
|
||||
Now, that Lazarus should lie stranded there on the curbstone before the
|
||||
door of Dives, this is more wonderful than that an iceberg should be
|
||||
moored to one of the Moluccas. Yet Dives himself, he too lives like a
|
||||
Czar in an ice palace made of frozen sighs, and being a president of a
|
||||
temperance society, he only drinks the tepid tears of orphans.
|
||||
|
||||
But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling, and there
|
||||
is plenty of that yet to come. Let us scrape the ice from our frosted
|
||||
feet, and see what sort of a place this “Spouter” may be.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,75 @@
|
|||
1
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
|
||||
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
|
||||
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
|
||||
warehouses 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. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
|
||||
and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
|
||||
me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
|
||||
those ships attract them thither?
|
||||
|
||||
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
|
||||
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
|
||||
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
|
||||
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
|
||||
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
|
||||
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
|
||||
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
|
||||
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
|
||||
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
|
||||
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
|
||||
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
|
||||
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
|
||||
in time.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,158 @@
|
|||
3
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears
|
||||
Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What
|
||||
do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand
|
||||
thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some
|
||||
leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some
|
||||
looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft 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
|
||||
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are
|
||||
the green fields gone? What do they here?
|
||||
|
||||
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,
|
||||
quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the 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
|
||||
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up
|
||||
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands
|
||||
winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in
|
||||
their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and
|
||||
though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
|
||||
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were
|
||||
fixed upon the magic 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 Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel
|
||||
your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
|
||||
suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy
|
||||
him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
|
||||
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why 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
|
||||
mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out
|
||||
of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did
|
||||
the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely
|
||||
all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that
|
||||
story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild
|
||||
image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that
|
||||
same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image
|
||||
of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
|
||||
|
||||
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
|
||||
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
|
||||
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
|
||||
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
|
||||
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
|
||||
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
|
||||
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
|
||||
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
|
||||
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
|
||||
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
|
||||
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
|
||||
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
|
||||
in time.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
|
||||
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
|
||||
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if
|
||||
you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
|
||||
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from
|
||||
the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not
|
||||
so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many
|
||||
other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
|
||||
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
|
||||
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling
|
||||
voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
|
||||
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in
|
||||
some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,
|
||||
doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
|
||||
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in
|
||||
as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
|
||||
performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
|
||||
something like this:
|
||||
|
||||
“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._
|
||||
“WHALING VOYAGE 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 high tragedies, and short
|
||||
and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I
|
||||
cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, 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, besides cajoling me into the
|
||||
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill
|
||||
and discriminating judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale
|
||||
himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my
|
||||
curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island
|
||||
bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
|
||||
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,
|
||||
helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things
|
||||
would not have 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 coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
|
||||
perceive a horror, and could still 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, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
|
||||
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
|
||||
conceits that swayed 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 in the air.
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
|
|||
3
|
||||
CHAPTER 2. The Carpet-Bag.
|
||||
|
||||
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it under my
|
||||
arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good city
|
||||
of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford. It was a Saturday night
|
||||
in December. Much was I disappointed upon learning that the little
|
||||
packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no way of reaching
|
||||
that place would offer, till the following Monday.
|
||||
|
||||
As most young candidates for the pains and penalties of whaling stop at
|
||||
this same New Bedford, thence to embark on their voyage, it may as well
|
||||
be related that I, for one, had no idea of so doing. For my mind was
|
||||
made up to sail in no other than a Nantucket craft, because there was a
|
||||
fine, boisterous something about everything connected with that famous
|
||||
old island, which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has
|
||||
of late been gradually monopolising the business of whaling, and though
|
||||
in this matter poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket
|
||||
was her great original—the Tyre of this Carthage;—the place where the
|
||||
first dead American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket
|
||||
did those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out in canoes
|
||||
to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from Nantucket, too, did
|
||||
that first adventurous little sloop put forth, partly laden with
|
||||
imported cobblestones—so goes the story—to throw at the whales, in
|
||||
order to discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the
|
||||
bowsprit?
|
||||
|
||||
Now having a night, a day, and still another night following before me
|
||||
in New Bedford, ere I could embark for my destined port, it became a
|
||||
matter of concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a
|
||||
very dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, bitingly cold
|
||||
and cheerless. I knew no one in the place. With anxious grapnels I had
|
||||
sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few pieces of silver,—So,
|
||||
wherever you go, Ishmael, said I to myself, as I stood in the middle of
|
||||
a dreary street shouldering my bag, and comparing the gloom towards the
|
||||
north with the darkness towards the south—wherever in your wisdom you
|
||||
may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear Ishmael, be sure to
|
||||
inquire the price, and don’t be too particular.
|
||||
|
||||
With halting steps I paced the streets, and passed the sign of “The
|
||||
Crossed Harpoons”—but it looked too expensive and jolly there. Further
|
||||
on, from the bright red windows of the “Sword-Fish Inn,” there came
|
||||
such fervent rays, that it seemed to have melted the packed snow and
|
||||
ice from before the house, for everywhere else the congealed frost lay
|
||||
ten inches thick in a hard, asphaltic pavement,—rather weary for me,
|
||||
when I struck my foot against the flinty projections, because from
|
||||
hard, remorseless service the soles of my boots were in a most
|
||||
miserable plight. Too expensive and jolly, again thought I, pausing one
|
||||
moment to watch the broad glare in the street, and hear the sounds of
|
||||
the tinkling glasses within. But go on, Ishmael, said I at last; don’t
|
||||
you hear? get away from before the door; your patched boots are
|
||||
stopping the way. So on I went. I now by instinct followed the streets
|
||||
that took me waterward, for there, doubtless, were the cheapest, if not
|
||||
the cheeriest inns.
|
||||
|
||||
Such dreary streets! blocks of blackness, not houses, on either hand,
|
||||
and here and there a candle, like a candle moving about in a tomb. At
|
||||
this hour of the night, of the last day of the week, that quarter of
|
||||
the town proved all but deserted. But presently I came to a smoky light
|
||||
proceeding from a low, wide building, the door of which stood
|
||||
invitingly open. It had a careless look, as if it were meant for the
|
||||
uses of the public; so, entering, the first thing I did was to stumble
|
||||
over an ash-box in the porch. Ha! thought I, ha, as the flying
|
||||
particles almost choked me, are these ashes from that destroyed city,
|
||||
Gomorrah? But “The Crossed Harpoons,” and “The Sword-Fish?”—this, then
|
||||
must needs be the sign of “The Trap.” However, I picked myself up and
|
||||
hearing a loud voice within, pushed on and opened a second, interior
|
||||
door.
|
||||
|
||||
It seemed the great Black Parliament sitting in Tophet. A hundred black
|
||||
faces turned round in their rows to peer; and beyond, a black Angel of
|
||||
Doom was beating a book in a pulpit. It was a negro church; and the
|
||||
preacher’s text was about the blackness of darkness, and the weeping
|
||||
and wailing and teeth-gnashing there. Ha, Ishmael, muttered I, backing
|
||||
out, Wretched entertainment at the sign of ‘The Trap!’
|
||||
|
||||
Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from the
|
||||
docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air; and looking up, saw a
|
||||
swinging sign over the door with a white painting upon it, faintly
|
||||
representing a tall straight jet of misty spray, and these words
|
||||
underneath—“The Spouter Inn:—Peter Coffin.”
|
||||
|
||||
Coffin?—Spouter?—Rather ominous in that particular connexion, thought
|
||||
I. But it is a common name in Nantucket, they say, and I suppose this
|
||||
Peter here is an emigrant from there. As the light looked so dim, and
|
||||
the place, for the time, looked quiet enough, and the dilapidated
|
||||
little wooden house itself looked as if it might have been carted here
|
||||
from the ruins of some burnt district, and as the swinging sign had a
|
||||
poverty-stricken sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the very
|
||||
spot for cheap lodgings, and the best of pea coffee.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,200 @@
|
|||
5
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears
|
||||
Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What
|
||||
do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand
|
||||
thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some
|
||||
leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some
|
||||
looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft 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
|
||||
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are
|
||||
the green fields gone? What do they here?
|
||||
|
||||
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
|
||||
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
|
||||
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
|
||||
warehouses 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. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
|
||||
and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
|
||||
me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
|
||||
those ships attract them thither?
|
||||
|
||||
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take
|
||||
almost any 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 magic in
|
||||
it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
|
||||
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will
|
||||
infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.
|
||||
Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this
|
||||
experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical
|
||||
professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
|
||||
ever.
|
||||
|
||||
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,
|
||||
quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the 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
|
||||
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up
|
||||
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands
|
||||
winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in
|
||||
their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and
|
||||
though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
|
||||
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were
|
||||
fixed upon the magic 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 Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel
|
||||
your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
|
||||
suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy
|
||||
him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
|
||||
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why 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
|
||||
mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out
|
||||
of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did
|
||||
the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely
|
||||
all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that
|
||||
story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild
|
||||
image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that
|
||||
same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image
|
||||
of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
|
||||
|
||||
Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin
|
||||
to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my
|
||||
lungs, 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 something in it. Besides, passengers
|
||||
get sea-sick—grow quarrelsome—don’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 abominate all
|
||||
honorable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind
|
||||
whatsoever. It is quite as much as 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 considerable glory
|
||||
in that, a cook being a sort of officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I
|
||||
never fancied broiling fowls;—though once broiled, judiciously
|
||||
buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who
|
||||
will speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled
|
||||
fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old
|
||||
Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see the
|
||||
mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the pyramids.
|
||||
|
||||
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
|
||||
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
|
||||
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
|
||||
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
|
||||
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
|
||||
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
|
||||
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
|
||||
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
|
||||
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
|
||||
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
|
||||
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
|
||||
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
|
||||
in time.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
|
||||
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
|
||||
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if
|
||||
you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
|
||||
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from
|
||||
the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not
|
||||
so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many
|
||||
other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
|
||||
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
|
||||
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling
|
||||
voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
|
||||
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in
|
||||
some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,
|
||||
doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
|
||||
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in
|
||||
as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
|
||||
performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
|
||||
something like this:
|
||||
|
||||
“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._
|
||||
“WHALING VOYAGE 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 high tragedies, and short
|
||||
and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I
|
||||
cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, 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, besides cajoling me into the
|
||||
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill
|
||||
and discriminating judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale
|
||||
himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my
|
||||
curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island
|
||||
bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
|
||||
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,
|
||||
helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things
|
||||
would not have 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 coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
|
||||
perceive a horror, and could still 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, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
|
||||
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
|
||||
conceits that swayed 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 in the air.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,58 @@
|
|||
3
|
||||
CHAPTER 3. The Spouter-Inn.
|
||||
|
||||
Entering that gable-ended Spouter-Inn, you found yourself in a wide,
|
||||
low, straggling entry with old-fashioned wainscots, reminding one of
|
||||
the bulwarks of some condemned old craft. On one side hung a very large
|
||||
oilpainting so thoroughly besmoked, and every way defaced, that in the
|
||||
unequal crosslights by which you viewed it, it was only by diligent
|
||||
study and a series of systematic visits to it, and careful inquiry of
|
||||
the neighbors, that you could any way arrive at an understanding of its
|
||||
purpose. Such unaccountable masses of shades and shadows, that at first
|
||||
you almost thought some ambitious young artist, in the time of the New
|
||||
England hags, had endeavored to delineate chaos bewitched. But by dint
|
||||
of much and earnest contemplation, and oft repeated ponderings, and
|
||||
especially by throwing open the little window towards the back of the
|
||||
entry, you at last come to the conclusion that such an idea, however
|
||||
wild, might not be altogether unwarranted.
|
||||
|
||||
But what most puzzled and confounded you was a long, limber,
|
||||
portentous, black mass of something hovering in the centre of the
|
||||
picture over three blue, dim, perpendicular lines floating in a
|
||||
nameless yeast. A boggy, soggy, squitchy picture truly, enough to drive
|
||||
a nervous man distracted. Yet was there a sort of indefinite,
|
||||
half-attained, unimaginable sublimity about it that fairly froze you to
|
||||
it, till you involuntarily took an oath with yourself to find out what
|
||||
that marvellous painting meant. Ever and anon a bright, but, alas,
|
||||
deceptive idea would dart you through.—It’s the Black Sea in a midnight
|
||||
gale.—It’s the unnatural combat of the four primal elements.—It’s a
|
||||
blasted heath.—It’s a Hyperborean winter scene.—It’s the breaking-up of
|
||||
the icebound stream of Time. But at last all these fancies yielded to
|
||||
that one portentous something in the picture’s midst. _That_ once found
|
||||
out, and all the rest were plain. But stop; does it not bear a faint
|
||||
resemblance to a gigantic fish? even the great leviathan himself?
|
||||
|
||||
In fact, the artist’s design seemed this: a final theory of my own,
|
||||
partly based upon the aggregated opinions of many aged persons with
|
||||
whom I conversed upon the subject. The picture represents a Cape-Horner
|
||||
in a great hurricane; the half-foundered ship weltering there with its
|
||||
three dismantled masts alone visible; and an exasperated whale,
|
||||
purposing to spring clean over the craft, is in the enormous act of
|
||||
impaling himself upon the three mast-heads.
|
||||
|
||||
The opposite wall of this entry was hung all over with a heathenish
|
||||
array of monstrous clubs and spears. Some were thickly set with
|
||||
glittering teeth resembling ivory saws; others were tufted with knots
|
||||
of human hair; and one was sickle-shaped, with a vast handle sweeping
|
||||
round like the segment made in the new-mown grass by a long-armed
|
||||
mower. You shuddered as you gazed, and wondered what monstrous cannibal
|
||||
and savage could ever have gone a death-harvesting with such a hacking,
|
||||
horrifying implement. Mixed with these were rusty old whaling lances
|
||||
and harpoons all broken and deformed. Some were storied weapons. With
|
||||
this once long lance, now wildly elbowed, fifty years ago did Nathan
|
||||
Swain kill fifteen whales between a sunrise and a sunset. And that
|
||||
harpoon—so like a corkscrew now—was flung in Javan seas, and run away
|
||||
with by a whale, years afterwards slain off the Cape of Blanco. The
|
||||
original iron entered nigh the tail, and, like a restless needle
|
||||
sojourning in the body of a man, travelled full forty feet, and at last
|
||||
was found imbedded in the hump.
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,179 @@
|
|||
4
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears
|
||||
Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What
|
||||
do you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand
|
||||
thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some
|
||||
leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some
|
||||
looking over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft 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
|
||||
counters, nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are
|
||||
the green fields gone? What do they here?
|
||||
|
||||
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
|
||||
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
|
||||
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
|
||||
warehouses 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. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
|
||||
and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
|
||||
me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
|
||||
those ships attract them thither?
|
||||
|
||||
Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take
|
||||
almost any 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 magic in
|
||||
it. Let the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest
|
||||
reveries—stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will
|
||||
infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region.
|
||||
Should you ever be athirst in the great American desert, try this
|
||||
experiment, if your caravan happen to be supplied with a metaphysical
|
||||
professor. Yes, as every one knows, meditation and water are wedded for
|
||||
ever.
|
||||
|
||||
But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest,
|
||||
quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the 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
|
||||
within; and here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up
|
||||
from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands
|
||||
winds a mazy way, reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in
|
||||
their hill-side blue. But though the picture lies thus tranced, and
|
||||
though this pine-tree shakes down its sighs like leaves upon this
|
||||
shepherd’s head, yet all were vain, unless the shepherd’s eye were
|
||||
fixed upon the magic 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 Niagara but a cataract of sand, would you travel
|
||||
your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of Tennessee, upon
|
||||
suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate whether to buy
|
||||
him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a pedestrian
|
||||
trip to Rockaway Beach? Why 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
|
||||
mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out
|
||||
of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did
|
||||
the Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely
|
||||
all this is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that
|
||||
story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild
|
||||
image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that
|
||||
same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image
|
||||
of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all.
|
||||
|
||||
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
|
||||
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
|
||||
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
|
||||
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
|
||||
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
|
||||
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
|
||||
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
|
||||
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
|
||||
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
|
||||
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
|
||||
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
|
||||
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
|
||||
in time.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
|
||||
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
|
||||
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if
|
||||
you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
|
||||
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from
|
||||
the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not
|
||||
so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many
|
||||
other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
|
||||
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
|
||||
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling
|
||||
voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
|
||||
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in
|
||||
some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,
|
||||
doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
|
||||
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in
|
||||
as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
|
||||
performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
|
||||
something like this:
|
||||
|
||||
“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._
|
||||
“WHALING VOYAGE 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 high tragedies, and short
|
||||
and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I
|
||||
cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, 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, besides cajoling me into the
|
||||
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill
|
||||
and discriminating judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale
|
||||
himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my
|
||||
curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island
|
||||
bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
|
||||
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,
|
||||
helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things
|
||||
would not have 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 coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
|
||||
perceive a horror, and could still 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, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
|
||||
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
|
||||
conceits that swayed 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 in the air.
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,128 @@
|
|||
2
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
|
||||
seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
|
||||
extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
|
||||
warehouses 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. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
|
||||
and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
|
||||
me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
|
||||
those ships attract them thither?
|
||||
|
||||
No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
|
||||
plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
|
||||
True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
|
||||
spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
|
||||
thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
|
||||
particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
|
||||
Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
|
||||
just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
|
||||
lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
|
||||
awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
|
||||
schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
|
||||
the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
|
||||
in time.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
|
||||
Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome
|
||||
exercise and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world,
|
||||
head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if
|
||||
you never violate the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the
|
||||
Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from
|
||||
the sailors on the forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not
|
||||
so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many
|
||||
other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it. But
|
||||
wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a
|
||||
merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling
|
||||
voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the
|
||||
constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in
|
||||
some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else. And,
|
||||
doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand
|
||||
programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago. It came in
|
||||
as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive
|
||||
performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run
|
||||
something like this:
|
||||
|
||||
“_Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States._
|
||||
“WHALING VOYAGE 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 high tragedies, and short
|
||||
and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I
|
||||
cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, 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, besides cajoling me into the
|
||||
delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill
|
||||
and discriminating judgment.
|
||||
|
||||
Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale
|
||||
himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my
|
||||
curiosity. Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island
|
||||
bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all
|
||||
the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds,
|
||||
helped to sway me to my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things
|
||||
would not have 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 coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to
|
||||
perceive a horror, and could still 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, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the
|
||||
great flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild
|
||||
conceits that swayed 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 in the air.
|
||||
|
||||
|
|
@ -0,0 +1,51 @@
|
|||
0
|
||||
CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
|
||||
|
||||
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 part
|
||||
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; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
|
||||
I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
|
||||
bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
|
||||
my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
|
||||
principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
|
||||
methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
|
||||
get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
|
||||
With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
|
||||
quietly 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 same feelings towards the ocean with me.
|
||||
|
||||
There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
|
||||
wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
|
||||
surf. 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.
|
||||
|
||||
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, weighed,
|
||||
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-captains may
|
||||
order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
|
||||
satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
|
||||
one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
|
||||
metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
|
||||
passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
|
||||
and be content.
|
||||
|
||||
Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
|
||||
paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
|
||||
penny that I ever heard of. 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 perhaps the most uncomfortable
|
||||
infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
|
||||
paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
|
||||
receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
|
||||
believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
|
||||
account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
|
||||
ourselves to perdition!
|
||||
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Reference in New Issue