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- Герман Мелвилл
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- Моби Дик
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- Стр. 61/297
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In
the
first
place
,
it
may
be
deemed
almost
superfluous
to
establish
the
fact
,
that
among
people
at
large
,
the
business
of
whaling
is
not
accounted
on
a
level
with
what
are
called
the
liberal
professions
.
If
a
stranger
were
introduced
into
any
miscellaneous
metropolitan
society
,
it
would
but
slightly
advance
the
general
opinion
of
his
merits
,
were
he
presented
to
the
company
as
a
harpooneer
,
say
;
and
if
in
emulation
of
the
naval
officers
he
should
append
the
initials
S.
W.
F.
(
Sperm
Whale
Fishery
)
to
his
visting
card
,
such
a
procedure
would
be
deemed
preeminently
presuming
and
ridiculous
.
Doubtless
one
leading
reason
why
the
world
declines
honoring
us
whalemen
,
is
this
:
they
think
that
,
at
best
,
our
vocation
amounts
to
a
butchering
sort
of
business
;
and
that
when
actively
engaged
therein
,
we
are
surrounded
by
all
manner
of
defilements
.
Butchers
we
are
,
that
is
true
.
But
butchers
,
also
,
and
butchers
of
the
bloodiest
badge
have
been
all
Martial
Commanders
whom
the
world
invariably
delights
to
honor
.
And
as
for
the
matter
of
the
alleged
uncleanliness
of
our
business
,
ye
shall
soon
be
initiated
into
certain
facts
hitherto
pretty
generally
unknown
,
and
which
,
upon
the
whole
,
will
triumphantly
plant
the
sperm
whale-ship
at
least
among
the
cleanliest
things
of
this
tidy
earth
.
But
even
granting
the
charge
in
question
to
be
true
;
what
disordered
slippery
decks
of
a
whale-ship
are
comparable
to
the
unspeakable
carrion
of
those
battle-fields
from
which
so
many
soldiers
return
to
drink
in
all
ladies
'
plaudits
?
And
if
the
idea
of
peril
so
much
enhances
the
popular
conceit
of
the
soldier
's
profession
;
let
me
assure
ye
that
many
a
veteran
who
has
freely
marched
up
to
a
battery
,
would
quickly
recoil
at
the
apparition
of
the
sperm
whale
's
vast
tail
,
fanning
into
eddies
the
air
over
his
head
.
For
what
are
the
comprehensible
terrors
of
man
compared
with
the
interlinked
terrors
and
wonders
of
God
!
But
,
though
the
world
scouts
at
us
whale
hunters
,
yet
does
it
unwittingly
pay
us
the
profoundest
homage
;
yea
,
an
all-abounding
adoration
!
for
almost
all
the
tapers
,
lamps
,
and
candles
that
burn
round
the
globe
,
burn
,
as
before
so
many
shrines
,
to
our
glory
!
But
look
at
this
matter
in
other
lights
;
weigh
it
in
all
sorts
of
scales
;
see
what
we
whalemen
are
,
and
have
been
.
Why
did
the
Dutch
in
De
Witt
's
time
have
admirals
of
their
whaling
fleets
?
Why
did
Louis
XVI
of
France
,
at
his
own
personal
expense
,
fit
out
whaling
ships
from
Dunkirk
,
and
politely
invite
to
that
town
some
score
or
two
of
families
from
our
own
island
of
Nantucket
?
Why
did
Britain
between
the
years
1750
and
1788
pay
to
her
whalemen
in
bounties
upwards
of
L1
,000,000
?
And
lastly
,
how
comes
it
that
we
whalemen
of
America
now
outnumber
all
the
rest
of
the
banded
whalemen
in
the
world
;
sail
a
navy
of
upwards
of
seven
hundred
vessels
;
manned
by
eighteen
thousand
men
;
yearly
consuming
4,000,000
of
dollars
;
the
ships
worth
,
at
the
time
of
sailing
,
$
20,000,000
!
and
every
year
importing
into
our
harbors
a
well
reaped
harvest
of
$
7,000,000
.
How
comes
all
this
,
if
there
be
not
something
puissant
in
whaling
?
But
this
is
not
the
half
;
look
again
.
I
freely
assert
,
that
the
cosmopolite
philosopher
can
not
,
for
his
life
,
point
out
one
single
peaceful
influence
,
which
within
the
last
sixty
years
has
operated
more
potentially
upon
the
whole
broad
world
,
taken
in
one
aggregate
,
than
the
high
and
mighty
business
of
whaling
.
One
way
and
another
,
it
has
begotten
events
so
remarkable
in
themselves
,
and
so
continuously
momentous
in
their
sequential
issues
,
that
whaling
may
well
be
regarded
as
that
Egyptian
mother
,
who
bore
offspring
themselves
pregnant
from
her
womb
.
It
would
be
a
hopeless
,
endless
task
to
catalogue
all
these
things
.
Let
a
handful
suffice
.
For
many
years
past
the
whale-ship
has
been
the
pioneer
in
ferreting
out
the
remotest
and
least
known
parts
of
the
earth
.
She
has
explored
seas
and
archipelagoes
which
had
no
chart
,
where
no
Cooke
or
Vancouver
had
ever
sailed
.
If
American
and
European
men-of-war
now
peacefully
ride
in
once
savage
harbors
,
let
them
fire
salutes
to
the
honor
and
glory
of
the
whale-ship
,
which
originally
showed
them
the
way
,
and
first
interpreted
between
them
and
the
savages
.
They
may
celebrate
as
they
will
the
heroes
of
Exploring
Expeditions
,
your
Cookes
,
your
Krusensterns
;
but
I
say
that
scores
of
anonymous
Captains
have
sailed
out
of
Nantucket
,
that
were
as
great
,
and
greater
,
than
your
Cooke
and
your
Krusenstern
.
For
in
their
succorless
empty-handedness
,
they
,
in
the
heathenish
sharked
waters
,
and
by
the
beaches
of
unrecorded
,
javelin
islands
,
battled
with
virgin
wonders
and
terrors
that
Cooke
with
all
his
marines
and
muskets
would
not
have
willingly
dared
.
All
that
is
made
such
a
flourish
of
in
the
old
South
Sea
Voyages
,
those
things
were
but
the
life-time
commonplaces
of
our
heroic
Nantucketers
.
Often
,
adventures
which
Vancouver
dedicates
three
chapters
to
,
these
men
accounted
unworthy
of
being
set
down
in
the
ship
's
common
log
.
Ah
,
the
world
!
Oh
,
the
world
!
Until
the
whale
fishery
rounded
Cape
Horn
,
no
commerce
but
colonial
,
scarcely
any
intercourse
but
colonial
,
was
carried
on
between
Europe
and
the
long
line
of
the
opulent
Spanish
provinces
on
the
Pacific
coast
.
It
was
the
whalemen
who
first
broke
through
the
jealous
policy
of
the
Spanish
crown
,
touching
those
colonies
;
and
,
if
space
permitted
,
it
might
be
distinctly
shown
how
from
those
whalemen
at
last
eventuated
the
liberation
of
Peru
,
Chili
,
and
Bolivia
from
the
yoke
of
Old
Spain
,
and
the
establishment
of
the
eternal
democracy
in
those
parts
.
