Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 11, 2025
"However recklessly the whale may sometimes serve us," said humorous Stubb one day, "he can never be truly said to handle us without mittens." For all these reasons, then, any way you may look at it, you must needs conclude that the great Leviathan is that one creature in the world which must remain unpainted to the last.
What, perhaps, with other things, made Stubb such an easy-going, unfearing man, so cheerily trudging off with the burden of life in a world full of grave peddlers, all bowed to the ground with their packs; what helped to bring about that almost impious good-humor of his; that thing must have been his pipe.
At length, towards noon, upon the final dismissal of the ship's riggers, and after the Pequod had been hauled out from the wharf, and after the ever-thoughtful Charity had come off in a whale-boat, with her last gift a nightcap for Stubb, the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for the steward after all this, the two Captains, Peleg and Bildad, issued from the cabin, and turning to the chief mate, Peleg said: "Now, Mr.
"I have sat before the dense coal fire and watched it all aglow, full of its tormented flaming life; and I have seen it wane at last, down, down, to dumbest dust. Old man of oceans! of all this fiery life of thine, what will at length remain but one little heap of ashes!" "Aye," cried Stubb, "but sea-coal ashes mind ye that, Mr. Starbuck sea-coal, not your common charcoal.
"I have it, I have it," cried Stubb, with delight, striking something in the subterranean regions, "a purse! a purse!" Dropping his spade, he thrust both hands in, and drew out handfuls of something that looked like ripe Windsor soap, or rich mottled old cheese; very unctuous and savory withal. You might easily dent it with your thumb; it is of a hue between yellow and ash color.
The Pequod had now swept so nigh to the stranger, that Stubb vowed he recognised his cutting spade-pole entangled in the lines that were knotted round the tail of one of these whales. "There's a pretty fellow, now," he banteringly laughed, standing in the ship's bows, "there's a jackal for ye!
And now poor Stubb goes to bed upon a mattrass that is all too soft; would it were stuffed with brushwood! I grin at thee, thou grinning whale! Look ye, sun, moon, and stars! I call ye assassins of as good a fellow as ever spouted up his ghost. For all that, I would yet ring glasses with ye, would ye but hand the cup! Oh, oh! oh, oh! thou grinning whale, but there'll be plenty of gulping soon!
And this, good friends, is ambergris, worth a gold guinea an ounce to any druggist. Some six handfuls were obtained; but more was unavoidably lost in the sea, and still more, perhaps, might have been secured were it not for impatient Ahab's loud command to Stubb to desist, and come on board, else the ship would bid them good-bye. Ambergris
We must not run over him before morning; he's making a passage now, and may heave-to a while. Helm there! keep her full before the wind! Aloft! come down! Mr. Stubb, send a fresh hand to the fore-mast head, and see it manned till morning."
If moody Ahab was now all quiescence, at least so far as could be known on deck, Stubb, his second mate, flushed with conquest, betrayed an unusual but still good-natured excitement. Such an unwonted bustle was he in that the staid Starbuck, his official superior, quietly resigned to him for the time the sole management of affairs.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking