Chương Chương 26 · Knights and Squires.

The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket, and a

Quaker by descent. He was a long, earnest man, and though born on an

icy coast, seemed well adapted to endure hot latitudes, his flesh being

hard as twice-baked biscuit. Transported to the Indies, his live blood

would not spoil like bottled ale. He must have been born in some time

of general drought and famine, or upon one of those fast days for which

his state is famous. Only some thirty arid summers had he seen; those

summers had dried up all his physical superfluousness. But this, his

thinness, so to speak, seemed no more the token of wasting anxieties

and cares, than it seemed the indication of any bodily blight. It was

merely the condensation of the man. He was by no means ill-looking;

quite the contrary. His pure tight skin was an excellent fit; and

closely wrapped up in it, and embalmed with inner health and strength,

like a revivified Egyptian, this Starbuck seemed prepared to endure for

long ages to come, and to endure always, as now; for be it Polar snow

or torrid sun, like a patent chronometer, his interior vitality was

warranted to do well in all climates. Looking into his eyes, you seemed

to see there the yet lingering images of those thousand-fold perils he

had calmly confronted through life. A staid, steadfast man, whose life

for the most part was a telling pantomime of action, and not a tame

chapter of sounds. Yet, for all his hardy sobriety and fortitude, there

were certain qualities in him which at times affected, and in some

cases seemed well nigh to overbalance all the rest. Uncommonly

conscientious for a seaman, and endued with a deep natural reverence,

the wild watery loneliness of his life did therefore strongly incline

him to superstition; but to that sort of superstition, which in some

organizations seems rather to spring, somehow, from intelligence than

from ignorance. Outward portents and inward presentiments were his. And

if at times these things bent the welded iron of his soul, much more

did his far-away domestic memories of his young Cape wife and child,

tend to bend him still more from the original ruggedness of his nature,

and open him still further to those latent influences which, in some

honest-hearted men, restrain the gush of dare-devil daring, so often

evinced by others in the more perilous vicissitudes of the fishery. “I

will have no man in my boat,” said Starbuck, “who is not afraid of a

whale.” By this, he seemed to mean, not only that the most reliable and

useful courage was that which arises from the fair estimation of the

encountered peril, but that an utterly fearless man is a far more

dangerous comrade than a coward.

“Aye, aye,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as

careful a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery.” But we shall

ere long see what that word “careful” precisely means when used by a

man like Stubb, or almost any other whale hunter.

Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a

sentiment; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon

all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in

this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits

of the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly

wasted. Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after

sun-down; nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted

in fighting him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical

ocean to kill whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for

theirs; and that hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew.

What doom was his own father’s? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could

he find the torn limbs of his brother?

With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain

superstitiousness, as has been said; the courage of this Starbuck which

could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But

it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organized, and with such

terrible experiences and remembrances as he had; it was not in nature

that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in

him, which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its

confinement, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it

was that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which,

while generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or

whales, or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet

cannot withstand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors,

which sometimes menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged

and mighty man.

But were the coming narrative to reveal in any instance, the complete

abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the heart

to write it; for it is a thing most sorrowful, nay shocking, to expose

the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint

stock-companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may be;

men may have mean and meagre faces; but man, in the ideal, is so noble

and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over any

ignominious blemish in him all his fellows should run to throw their

costliest robes. That immaculate manliness we feel within ourselves, so

far within us, that it remains intact though all the outer character

seem gone; bleeds with keenest anguish at the undraped spectacle of a

valor-ruined man. Nor can piety itself, at such a shameful sight,

completely stifle her upbraidings against the permitting stars. But

this august dignity I treat of, is not the dignity of kings and robes,

but that abounding dignity which has no robed investiture. Thou shalt

see it shining in the arm that wields a pick or drives a spike; that

democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God;

Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all

democracy! His omnipresence, our divine equality!

If, then, to meanest mariners, and renegades and castaways, I shall

hereafter ascribe high qualities, though dark; weave round them tragic

graces; if even the most mournful, perchance the most abased, among

them all, shall at times lift himself to the exalted mounts; if I shall

touch that workman’s arm with some ethereal light; if I shall spread a

rainbow over his disastrous set of sun; then against all mortal critics

bear me out in it, thou just Spirit of Equality, which hast spread one

royal mantle of humanity over all my kind! Bear me out in it, thou

great democratic God! who didst not refuse to the swart convict,

Bunyan, the pale, poetic pearl; Thou who didst clothe with doubly

hammered leaves of finest gold, the stumped and paupered arm of old

Cervantes; Thou who didst pick up Andrew Jackson from the pebbles; who

didst hurl him upon a war-horse; who didst thunder him higher than a

throne! Thou who, in all Thy mighty, earthly marchings, ever cullest

Thy selectest champions from the kingly commons; bear me out in it, O

God!