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Updated: August 31, 2025
Once more was a narrative of his experiences to be preserved in 'White Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War. Thus, of Melville's four most important books, three, 'Typee, 'Omoo, and 'White-Jacket, are directly auto biographical, and 'Moby Dick' is partially so; while the less important 'Redburn' is between the two classes in this respect.
White-jacket, racially sympathetic, lowered the window-shades and made an exit on tiptoe, encountering the other white-jacket the harassed overseer in the hall without. Said the emerging one: "He mighty shaky, Mist' Jackson. Drop right down an' shet his eyes. Eyelids all black. Rich folks gotta go same as anybody else. Anybody ast me if I change 'ith 'at ole boy No, suh!
And there you will lie, White-Jacket, while hostile navies are playing cannon-ball billiards over your grave. By the main-mast! then, in a time of profound peace, I am subject to the cut-throat martial law.
But when White-Jacket speaks of the rover's life, he means not life in a man-of-war, which, with its martial formalities and thousand vices, stabs to the heart the soul of all free-and-easy honourable rovers. I have said that I was wont to mount up aloft and muse; and thus was it with me the night following the loss of the cooper.
When, lo! it again booms on your ear shall suffer death! No reservations, no contingencies; not the remotest promise of pardon or reprieve; not a glimpse of commutation of the sentence; all hope and consolation is shut out shall suffer death! that is the simple fact for you to digest; and it is a tougher morsel, believe White-Jacket when he says it, than a forty-two-pound cannon-ball.
For a time, Jack Chase, out of a polite nervousness touching myself, as a newly-elected member of the club, would frequently endeavour to excuse to me the vulgarity of Shanks. One day he wound up his remarks by the philosophic reflection "But, White-Jacket, my dear fellow, what can you expect of him? Our real misfortune is, that our noble club should be obliged to dine with its cook."
And my shirt all cut to pieces, too arn't it, White-Jacket? Damn me, but these coltings puts the tin in the Purser's pocket. O Lord! my back feels as if there was a red-hot gridiron lashed to it. But I told you so a widow's curse on him, say I he thought I meant him, and not Priming."
I have no reason to love the particular gentleman who filled that post aboard our frigate, for it was he who refused my petition for as much black paint as would render water-proof that white-jacket of mine. All my soakings and drenchings lie at his state-room door.
Yes, White-Jacket, and I have seen and sat in the cave at the end of the flowery, winding way, where Camoens, according to tradition, composed certain parts of his Lusiad. Ay, Camoens was a sailor once! Then, there's Falconer, whose 'Ship-wreck' will never founder, though he himself, poor fellow, was lost at sea in the Aurora frigate. Old Noah was the first sailor. And St.
'Redburn, already mentioned, succeeded 'Mardi' in the same year, and was a partial return to the author's earlier style. In 'White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War' , Melville almost regained it. This book has no equal as a picture of life aboard a sailing man-of-war, the lights and shadows of naval existence being well contrasted.
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