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In what census of living creatures , the dead of mankind are included ; why it is that a universal proverb says of them , that they tell no tales , though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands ; how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world , we prefix so significant and infidel a word , and yet do not thus entitle him , if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth ; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death - forfeitures upon immortals ; in what eternal , unstirring paralysis , and deadly , hopeless trance , yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago ; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss ; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead ; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city . All these things are not without their meanings . But Faith , like a jackal , feeds among the tombs , and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope . It needs scarcely to be told , with what feelings , on the eve of a Nantucket voyage , I regarded those marble tablets , and by the murky light of that darkened , doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me . Yes , Ishmael , the same fate may be thine . But somehow I grew merry again . Delightful inducements to embark , fine chance for promotion , it seems — aye , a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet . Yes , there is death in this business of whaling — a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into Eternity . But what then ? Methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of Life and Death . Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance . Methinks that in looking at things spiritual , we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water , and thinking that thick water the thinnest of air . Methinks my body is but the lees of my better being . In fact take my body who will , take it I say , it is not me . And therefore three cheers for Nantucket ; and come a stove boat and stove body when they will , for stave my soul , Jove himself cannot . CHAPTER 8 . The Pulpit . I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable robustness entered ; immediately as the storm - pelted door flew back upon admitting him , a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the congregation , sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the chaplain . Yes , it was the famous Father Mapple , so called by the whalemen , among whom he was a very great favourite . He had been a sailor and a harpooneer in his youth , but for many years past had dedicated his life to the ministry . At the time I now write of , Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age ; that sort of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth , for among all the fissures of his wrinkles , there shone certain mild gleams of a newly developing bloom — the spring verdure peeping forth even beneath February’s snow . No one having previously heard his history , could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the utmost interest , because there were certain engrafted clerical peculiarities about him , imputable to that adventurous maritime life he had led .
Назад Сторінка 35 з 430 Сторінка 35 з 430 Вперед Читайте далі з перекладом Створіть безкоштовний акаунт: 7 днів Pro, далі 20 перекладів слів на день або платний тариф.
