What Thinks You?
From first paragraph, Chapter One: “If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings toward the ocean with me.” Question? Does everyone agree with this statement?
Chapters 23 - 27: Last Sentences
Chapter 23. Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of the ocean-perishing - straight up, leaps thy apotheosis! Chapter 24. And, as for me, if by any possibility, there by any as yet undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left undone; if, at my death , my executors, or more properly, my creditors, find any precious MSS in my desk, then here I prespectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling; for a whale ship was my Yale College and my Harvard. Chapter 25. Think of that, ye loyal Britons! We whalemen supply your kings and queens with coronation stuff! Chapter 26. Thy selected champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, oh God! Chapter 27. On the grim Pequod’s...
Certainly not the drowning man.
ReplyDeleteOr being denied chowder, I know. But do all of us seek watery shores? I’m the son of farmers on both ends of the stick, for example, firmly placed in the middle of things, with no water in sight. Yes, we had water, in lakes and streams in spades. And we DID seek them out. Part of me, as a landsman from the olden days :) (my grandfather died on his tractor, out on his field, happily, painlessly I hope, but doing what he loved). Do all humans seek water and shores? Or is this just a statement of geographical ignorance, of this is where I live, so of course, all must love it? I tend to think this statement is rather profound and correct, btw. But my farmer Midwest roots wants to wrestle with it.
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