76 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
76 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
1
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CHAPTER 1. Loomings.
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Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having
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little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me
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on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part
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of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and
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regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about
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the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever
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I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and
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bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever
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my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral
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principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and
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methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to
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get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball.
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With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I
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quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they
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but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other,
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cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.
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There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by
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wharves as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her
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surf. Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme
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downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and
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cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of
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land. Look at the crowds of water-gazers there.
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But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and
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seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the
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extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder
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warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water
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as they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of
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them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, streets
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and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all unite. Tell
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me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses of all
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those ships attract them thither?
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No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast,
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plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head.
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True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to
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spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of
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thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honor,
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particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, the
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Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if
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just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been
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lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in
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awe of you. The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a
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schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and
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the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it. But even this wears off
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in time.
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What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom
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and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed,
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I mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel
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Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and
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respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain’t
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a slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may
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order me about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the
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satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is
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one way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or
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metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is
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passed round, and all hands should rub each other’s shoulder-blades,
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and be content.
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Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of
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paying me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single
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penny that I ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must
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pay. And there is all the difference in the world between paying and
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being paid. The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable
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infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But _being
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paid_,—what will compare with it? The urbane activity with which a man
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receives money is really marvellous, considering that we so earnestly
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believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no
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account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how cheerfully we consign
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ourselves to perdition!
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