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 down town 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 the 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 aint 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 forecastle 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