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Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers , the Fates , put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage , when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies , and short and easy parts in genteel comedies , and jolly parts in farces — though I cannot tell why this was exactly ; yet , now that I recall all the circumstances , I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises , induced me to set about performing the part I did , besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment . Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself . Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity . Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk ; the undeliverable , nameless perils of the whale ; these , with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds , helped to sway me to my wish . With other men , perhaps , such things would not have been inducements ; but as for me , I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote . I love to sail forbidden seas , and land on barbarous coasts . Not ignoring what is good , I am quick to perceive a horror , and could still be social with it — would they let me — since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in . By reason of these things , then , the whaling voyage was welcome ; the great flood - gates of the wonder - world swung open , and in the wild conceits that swayed me to my purpose , two and two there floated into my inmost soul , endless processions of the whale , and , mid most of them all , one grand hooded phantom , like a snow hill in the air . CHAPTER 2 . The Carpet - Bag . 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 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 .
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