summaryrefslogtreecommitdiff
path: root/usergrps/uktug/baskervi/8_3/ishmael.tex
blob: 889d5fe97f9fa6b9440a12c317f97de410182e22 (plain)
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
\documentclass{book}

\begin{document}
\chapter{Example formatted file}\label{ishmael}
%\addtocontents{toc}{ishmael}
I stuffed a shirt or two into my old carpet-bag, tucked it
under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the Pacific. Quitting the good
city of old Manhatto, I duly arrived in New Bedford.
It was on a Saturday night in December. Much was I disappointed
upon learning that the little packet for Nantucket had already sailed, and that no
way of reaching that place would offer, till the following Monday.

As most young candidates for the pains and
penalties of whaling stop at this same New Bedford, thence to embark
on their voyage, it may as well be related that I, for one, had no idea 
of so doing. For my mind was made up to sail in no other than a
Nantucket craft, because there was a fine boisterous something about
everything connected with that famous old island,
which amazingly pleased me. Besides though New Bedford has of
late been gradually monopolizing the business of whaling, and though in this matter
poor old Nantucket is now much behind her, yet Nantucket was her great original
--- the Tyre of this Carthage; --- the place where the first dead
American whale was stranded. Where else but from Nantucket did
those aboriginal whalemen, the Red-Men, first sally out
in canoes to give chase to the Leviathan? And where but from
Nantucket, too, did that first adventurous little sloop
put forth, partly laden with imported cobblestones
--- so goes the story --- to throw at the whales, in order to
discover when they were nigh enough to risk a harpoon from the
bowsprit?

Now having a night, a day, and still another night
following before me in New Bedford, ere I could
embark for my destined port, it became a matter of
concernment where I was to eat and sleep meanwhile. It was a very
dubious-looking, nay, a very dark and dismal night, 
bitingly cold and cheerless. I knew no-one in the place.
With anxious grapnels I had sounded my pocket, and only brought up a few
pieces of silver, --- ``So, wherever you
go, Ishmael,'' said I to myself, as I stood in the middle
of a dreary street shouldering my bag,
and comparing the gloom towards the north with the darkness
towards the south --- ``wherever in your wisdom
you may conclude to lodge for the night, my dear
Ishmael, be sure to inquire the price, and don't be too
particular.''
\end{document}

Moving on, I at last came to a dim sort of light not far from
the docks, and heard a forlorn creaking in the air;
and looking up, saw a swinging sign over the door
with a white painting upon it, faintly representing a tall straight jet
of misty spray, and these words underneath --- `The Spouter-Inn:
--- Peter Coffin.'

``Coffin? --- Spouter? --- Rather ominous in that particular
connexion,'' thought I. ``But it is a common name in Nantucket,
they say, and I suppose this Peter is an emigrant
from there.'' As the light looked so dim,
and the place, for the time, looked
quiet enough, and the dilapidated little wooden
house itself looked as if it might have been 
carted here from the ruins of some burnt
district, and as the swinging sign had a poverty-stricken
sort of creak to it, I thought that here was the
very spot for cheap lodgings, and the best pea coffee.

It was a queer sort of place --- a gable-ended old house,
one side palsied as it were, and leaning over sadly. It stood
on a sharp bleak corner, where that tempestuous wind Euroclydon kept
up a worse howling than it ever did about poor
Paul's tossed craft. Euroclydon, nevertheless, is a mighty
pleasant zephyr to any one in-doors, with his feet on the hob
quietly toasting for bed. ``In judging of that tempestuous
wind called Euroclydon,'' says an old writer --- of whose works
I possess the only copy extant --- ``it maketh a
marvellous difference, whether you lookest
out at it from a glass window where the frost
is all on the outside, or whether thou observest it from
that sashless window, where the frost is on both sides, and
of which the wight Death is the only glazier.'' True enough, thought I,
as this passage occurred to my mind --- old black-letter,
thou reasonest well. Yes, these eyes are windows,
and this body of mine is the house. What a pity they
don't stop up the chinks and crannies though, and thrust in a little
lint here and there. But it's too late
to make any improvements now. The universe is finished;
the copestone is on, and the chips were carted off
a million years ago. Poor Lazarus there,
chattering his teeth against the curbstone for his
pillow, and shaking off his tatters with his shiverings, he might
plug up both ears with rags, and put a corn-cob into his
mouth, and yet that would not keep out the
tempestuous Euroclydon.  What a fine frosty night;
how Orion glitters; what northern lights! Let them
talk of their oriental summer climes of everlasting 
conservatories; give me the privilege of making my
own summer with my own coals.

But what thinks Lazarus? Can he warm his blue hands
by holding them up to the grand northern lights? Would not
Lazarus rather be in Sumatra than here? Would
he not far rather lay him down lengthwise along the line
of the equator; yea, ye gods!
go down to  the fiery pit itself, in order
to keep out this frost?

But no more of this blubbering now, we are going a-whaling,
and there is plenty of that yet to come. Let us
scrape this ice from our frosted feet, and see what sort of place this
`Spouter' may be.