Moby Dick

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.



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 on 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 monopolizing
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 "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