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There is no steady unretracing progress in this life ; we do not advance through fixed gradations , and at the last one pause : — through infancy’s unconscious spell , boyhood’s thoughtless faith , adolescence ’ doubt ( the common doom ) , then scepticism , then disbelief , resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If . But once gone through , we trace the round again ; and are infants , boys , and men , and Ifs eternally . Where lies the final harbor , whence we unmoor no more ? In what rapt ether sails the world , of which the weariest will never weary ? Where is the foundling’s father hidden ? Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them : the secret of our paternity lies in their grave , and we must there to learn it . And that same day , too , gazing far down from his boat’s side into that same golden sea , Starbuck lowly murmured : — “ Loveliness unfathomable , as ever lover saw in his young bride’s eye ! — Tell me not of thy teeth - tiered sharks , and thy kidnapping cannibal ways . Let faith oust fact ; let fancy oust memory ; I look deep down and do believe . ” And Stubb , fish - like , with sparkling scales , leaped up in that same golden light : — “ I am Stubb , and Stubb has his history ; but here Stubb takes oaths that he has always been jolly ! ” CHAPTER 115 . The Pequod Meets The Bachelor . And jolly enough were the sights and the sounds that came bearing down before the wind , some few weeks after Ahab’s harpoon had been welded . It was a Nantucket ship , the Bachelor , which had just wedged in her last cask of oil , and bolted down her bursting hatches ; and now , in glad holiday apparel , was joyously , though somewhat vain - gloriously , sailing round among the widely - separated ships on the ground , previous to pointing her prow for home . The three men at her mast - head wore long streamers of narrow red bunting at their hats ; from the stern , a whale - boat was suspended , bottom down ; and hanging captive from the bowsprit was seen the long lower jaw of the last whale they had slain . Signals , ensigns , and jacks of all colours were flying from her rigging , on every side . Sideways lashed in each of her three basketed tops were two barrels of sperm ; above which , in her top - mast cross - trees , you saw slender breakers of the same precious fluid ; and nailed to her main truck was a brazen lamp . As was afterwards learned , the Bachelor had met with the most surprising success ; all the more wonderful , for that while cruising in the same seas numerous other vessels had gone entire months without securing a single fish . Not only had barrels of beef and bread been given away to make room for the far more valuable sperm , but additional supplemental casks had been bartered for , from the ships she had met ; and these were stowed along the deck , and in the captain’s and officers ’ state - rooms .
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