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1"I am mistaken then. I thought I was speaking to the Captain himself." "Thou art speaking to Captain Peleg--that's who
2ye are speaking to, young man. It belongs to me and Captain Bildad to see the Pequod fitted out for the voyage, and
3supplied with all her needs, including crew. We are part owners and agents. But as I was going to say, if thou wantest
4to know what whaling is, as thou tellest ye do, I can put ye in a way of finding it out before ye bind yourself to it,
5past backing out. Clap eye on Captain Ahab, young man, and thou wilt find that he has only one leg." "What do you mean,
6sir? Was the other one lost by a whale?" "Lost by a whale! Young man, come nearer to me: it was devoured, chewed up,
7crunched by the monstrousest parmacetty that ever chipped a boat!--ah, ah!" I was a little alarmed by his energy,
8perhaps also a little touched at the hearty grief in his concluding exclamation, but said as calmly as I could, "What
9you say is no doubt true enough, sir; but how could I know there was any peculiar ferocity in that particular whale,
10though indeed I might have inferred as much from the simple fact of the accident." "Look ye now, young man, thy lungs
11are a sort of soft, d'ye see; thou dost not talk shark a bit. Sure, ye've been to sea before now; sure of that?" "Sir,"
12said I, "I thought I told you that I had been four voyages in the merchant--" "Hard down out of that! Mind what I said
13about the marchant service--don't aggravate me--I won't have it. But let us understand each other. I have given thee a
14hint about what whaling is; do ye yet feel inclined for it?" "I do, sir." "Very good. Now, art thou the man to pitch a
15harpoon down a live whale's throat, and then jump after it? Answer, quick!" "I am, sir, if it should be positively
16indispensable to do so; not to be got rid of, that is; which I don't take to be the fact." "Good again. Now then, thou
17not only wantest to go a-whaling, to find out by experience what whaling is, but ye also want to go in order to see the
18world? Was not that what ye said? I thought so. Well then, just step forward there, and take a peep over the
19weather-bow, and then back to me and tell me what ye see there." For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious
20request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow's feet
21into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand. Going forward and glancing over the weather bow, I perceived
22that the ship swinging to her anchor with the flood-tide, was now obliquely pointing towards the open ocean. The
23prospect was unlimited, but exceedingly monotonous and forbidding; not the slightest variety that I could see. "Well,
24what's the report?" said Peleg when I came back; "what did ye see?" "Not much," I replied--"nothing but water;
25considerable horizon though, and there's a squall coming up, I think." "Well, what does thou think then of seeing the
26world? Do ye wish to go round Cape Horn to see any more of it, eh? Can't ye see the world where you stand?" I was a
27little staggered, but go a-whaling I must, and I would; and the Pequod was as good a ship as any--I thought the
28best--and all this I now repeated to Peleg. Seeing me so determined, he expressed his willingness to ship me. "And thou
29mayest as well sign the papers right off," he added--"come along with ye." And so saying, he led the way below deck into
30the cabin. Seated on the transom was what seemed to me a most uncommon and surprising figure. It turned out to be
31Captain Bildad, who along with Captain Peleg was one of the largest owners of the vessel; the other shares, as is
32sometimes the case in these ports, being held by a crowd of old annuitants; widows, fatherless children, and chancery
33wards; each owning about the value of a timber head, or a foot of plank, or a nail or two in the ship. People in
34Nantucket invest their money in whaling vessels, the same way that you do yours in approved state stocks bringing in
35good interest. Now, Bildad, like Peleg, and indeed many other Nantucketers, was a Quaker, the island having been
36originally settled by that sect; and to this day its inhabitants in general retain in an uncommon measure the
37peculiarities of the Quaker, only variously and anomalously modified by things altogether alien and heterogeneous. For
38some of these same Quakers are the most sanguinary of all sailors and whale-hunters. They are fighting Quakers; they are
39Quakers with a vengeance. So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names--a singularly
40common fashion on the island--and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker
41idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these
42unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan
43Roman. And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous
44heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath
45constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's
46sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some
47help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language--that man makes one in a whole nation's
48census--a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies. Nor will it at all detract from him, dramatically
49regarded, if either by birth or other circumstances, he have what seems a half wilful overruling morbidness at the
50bottom of his nature. For all men tragically great are made so through a certain morbidness. Be sure of this, O young
51ambition, all mortal greatness is but disease. But, as yet we have not to do with such an one, but with quite another;
52and still a man, who, if indeed peculiar, it only results again from another phase of the Quaker, modified by individual
53circumstances. Like Captain Peleg, Captain Bildad was a well-to-do, retired whaleman. But unlike Captain Peleg--who
54cared not a rush for what are called serious things, and indeed deemed those self-same serious things the veriest of all
55trifles--Captain Bildad had not only been originally educated according to the strictest sect of Nantucket Quakerism,
56but all his subsequent ocean life, and the sight of many unclad, lovely island creatures, round the Horn--all that had
57not moved this native born Quaker one single jot, had not so much as altered one angle of his vest. Still, for all this
58immutableness, was there some lack of common consistency about worthy Captain Bildad. Though refusing, from
59conscientious scruples, to bear arms against land invaders, yet himself had illimitably invaded the Atlantic and
60Pacific; and though a sworn foe to human bloodshed, yet had he in his straight-bodied coat, spilled tuns upon tuns of
61leviathan gore. How now in the contemplative evening of his days, the pious Bildad reconciled these things in the
62reminiscence, I do not know; but it did not seem to concern him much, and very probably he had long since come to the
63sage and sensible conclusion that a man's religion is one thing, and this practical world quite another. This world pays
64dividends. Rising from a little cabin-boy in short clothes of the drabbest drab, to a harpooneer in a broad shad-bellied
65waistcoat; from that becoming boat-header, chief-mate, and captain, and finally a ship owner; Bildad, as I hinted
66before, had concluded his adventurous career by wholly retiring from active life at the goodly age of sixty, and
67dedicating his remaining days to the quiet receiving of his well-earned income.
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