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All Men Live Enveloped In Whale-lines. All Are Born With Halters Round Their Necks; But It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realize The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life. And If You Be A Philosopher, Though Seated In The Whale-boat, You Would Not At Heart Feel One Whit More Of Terror, Than Though Seated Before Your Evening Fire With A Poker, And Not A Harpoon, By Your Side.

-Herman Melville

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All Men Live Enveloped

Herman Melville

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All Men Live Enveloped In Whale-lines. All Are Born With Halters Round Their Necks; But It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realize The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life. And If You Be A Philosopher, Though Seated In The Whale-boat, You Would Not At Heart Feel One Whit More Of Terror, Than Though Seated Before Your Evening Fire With A Poker, And Not A Harpoon, By Your Side.

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The Result Of Civilization, At The Sandwich Islands And Elsewhere, Is Found Productive To The Civilizers, Destructive To The Civilizees. It Is Said To Be Compensation--a Very Philosophical Word; But It Appears To Be Very Much On The Principle Of The Old Game, "you Lose, I Win": Good Philosophy For The Winner.

Man And Boy, I Have Lived Ever Since I Can Remember.

It Is Not For Man To Follow The Trail Of Truth Too Far, Since By So Doing He Entirely Loses The Directing Compass Of His Mind.

There Is Something Wrong About The Man Who Wants Help. There Is Somewhere A Deep Defect, A Want, In Brief, A Need, A Crying Need, Somewhere About That Man.

Stay True To The Dreams Of Thy Youth.

Let Faith Oust Fact; Let Fancy Oust Memory; I Look Deep Down And Do Believe.

Amity Itself Can Only Be Maintained By Reciprocal Respect, And True Friends Are Punctilious Equals.

Students Of History Are Horror-struck At The Massacres Of Old; But In The Shambles, Men Are Being Murdered To-day.

True Places Are Not Found On Maps.

We Cannibals Must Help These Christians.

I Will Live And Die By This Testimony: That I Loved A Good Conscience; That I Never Invaded Another Man's Liberty; And That I Preserved My Own.

For God's Sake, Be Economical With Your Lamps And Candles! Not A Gallon You Burn, But At Least One Drop Of Man's Blood Was Spilled For It.

Cannibalism To A Certain Moderate Extent Is Practised Among Several Of The Primitive Tribes In The Pacific, But It Is Upon The Bodies Of Slain Enemies Alone; And Horrible And Fearful As The Custom Is, Immeasurably As It Is To Be Abhorred And Condemned, Still I Assert That Those Who Indulge In It Are In Other Respects Humane And Virtuous.

In The Operative Opinion Of The World, He Who Is Already Fully Provided With What Is Necessary For Him, That Man Shall Have More;while He Who Is Deplorably Destitute Of The Same, He Shall Have Taken Away From Him Even That Which He Hath. Yet The World Vows It Is A Very Plain, Downright Matter-of-fact, Plodding, Humane Sort Of World.

That Hour In The Life Of A Man When First The Help Of Humanity Fails Him, And He Learns That In His Obscurity And Indigence Humanity Holds Him A Dog And No Man: That Hour Is A Hard One, But Not The Hardest. There Is Still Another Hour Which Follows, When He Learns That In His Infinite Comparative Minuteness And Abjectness, The Gods Do Likewise Despise Him, And Own Him Not Of Their Clan.

We Incline To Think That God Cannot Explain His Own Secrets And That He Would Like A Little Information Upon Certain Points Himself. We Mortals Astonish Him As Much As He Us. But It Is This Being Of The Matter; There Lies The Knot With Which We Choke Ourselves. As Soon As You Say Me, A God, A Nature, So Soon You Jump Off From Your Stool And Hang From The Beam. Yes, That Word Is The Hangman. Take God Out Of The Dictionary, And You Would Have Him In The Street.

I Do Not Think I Have Any Uncharitable Prejudice Against The Rattlesnake, Still, I Should Not Like To Be One.

There's Something Ever Egotistical In Mountain-tops And Towers, And All Other Grand And Lofty Things.

When A Companion's Heart Of Itself Overflows, The Best One Can Do Is To Do Nothing.

It Is Well Known, That The Best Productions Of The Best Human Intellects, Are Generally Regarded By Those Intellects As Mere Immature Freshman Exercises, Wholly Worthless In Themselves, Except As Initiatives For Entering The Great University Of God After Death.

At Sea A Fellow Comes Out. Salt Water Is Like Wine, In That Respect.

In Our Own Hearts, We Mold The Whole World's Hereafters; And In Our Own Hearts We Fashion Our Own Gods.

Roll On, Thou Deep And Dark Blue Ocean, Roll! Ten Thousand Blubber-hunters Sweep Over Thee In Vain.

Failure Is The Test Of Greatness.

Were This World An Endless Pain, And By Sailing Eastward We Could Forever Reach New Distances, And Discover Sights More Sweet And Strange Than Any Cyclades Or Islands Of King Solomon, Then There Were Promise In The Voyage.

To Be Called One Thing, Is Oftentimes To Be Another.

There Is No Champollion To Decipher The Egypt Of Every Man's And Every Being's Face. Physiognomy, Like Every Other Human Science,is But A Passing Fable.

When My Eye Rested On An Arid Height, Spirit Partook Of The Barrenness. - Heartily Wish Niebuhr & Strauss To The Dogs. The Deuce Take Their Penetration & Acumen. They Have Robbed Us Of The Bloom.

Nature Has Not Implanted Any Power In Man That Was Not Meant To Be Exercised At Times, Though Too Often Our Powers Have Been Abused. The Privilege, Inborn And Inalienable, That Every Man Has Of Dying Himself, And Inflicting Death Upon Another, Was Not Given To Us Without A Purpose. These Are The Last Resources Of An Insulted And Unendurable Existence.

Truly To Enjoy Bodily Warmth, Some Small Part Of You Must Be Cold, For There Is No Quality In This World That Is Not What It Is Merely By Contrast. Nothing Exists In Itself. If You Flatter Yourself That You Are All Over Comfortable, And Have Been So A Long Time, Then You Cannot Be Said To Be Comfortable Any More.

Doesn't The Devil Live Forever; Who Ever Heard That The Devil Was Dead? Did You Ever See Any Person Wearing Mourning For The Devil?

Let Us Pray That The Great Historic Tragedy Of Our Time May Not Have Been Enacted Without Instructing Our Whole Beloved Country Through Terror And Pity; And May Fulfillment Verify In The End Those Expectations Which Kindle The Bards Of Progress And Humanity.

Indolence Is Heaven 's Ally Here, And Energy The Child Of Hell : The Good Man Pouring From His Pitcher Clear But Brims The Poisoned Well.

Hell Is An Idea First Born On An Undigested Apple Dumpling.

The Only Ugliness Is That Of The Heart, Seen Through The Face. And Though Beauty Be Obvious, The Only Loveliness Is Invisible.

A Thing May Be Incredible And Still Be True; Sometimes It Is Incredible Because It Is True.

Mystery Is In The Morning, And Mystery In The Night, And The Beauty Of Mystery Is Everywhere; But Still The Plain Truth Remains, That Mouth And Purse Must Be Filled.

Where Is There Such An One Who Has Not A Thousand Times Been Struck With A Sort Of Infidel Idea, That Whatever Other Worlds God May Be Lord Of, He Is Not The Lord Of This; For Else This World Would Seem To Give The Lie To Him; So Utterly Repugnant Seem Its Ways To The Instinctively Known Ways Of Heaven.

The Earliest Instinct Of The Child, And The Ripest Experience Of Age, Unite In Affirming Simplicity To Be The Truest And Profoundest Part For Man. Likewise This Simplicity Is So Universal And All-containing As A Rule For Human Life, That The Subtlest Bad Man, And The Purest Good Man, As Well As The Profoundest Wise Man, Do All Alike Present It On That Side Which They Socially Turn To The Inquisitive And Unscrupulous World.

See How Elastic Our Prejudices Grow When Once Love Comes To Bend Them.

Aside From Higher Considerations, Charity Often Operates As A Vastly Wise And Prudent Principle-a Great Safeguard To Its Possessor. Men Have Committed Murder For Jealousy's Sake, And Anger's Sake, And Hatred's Sake, And Selfishness' Sake, And Spiritual Pride's Sake; But No Man That Ever I Heard Of, Ever Committed A Diabolical Murder For Sweet Charity's Sake. Mere Self-interest, Then, If No Better Motive Can Be Enlisted, Should, Especially With High-tempered Men, Prompt All Beings To Charity And Philanthropy.

Why Is Almost Every Robust Healthy Boy With A Robust Healthy Soul In Him, At Some Time Or Other Crazy To Go To Sea? Why Upon Your First Voyage As A Passenger, Did You Yourself Feel Such A Mystical Vibration, When First Told That You And Your Ship Were Now Out Of Sight Of Land? Why Did The Old Persians Hold The Sea Holy? Why Did The Greeks Give It A Separate Deity, And Own Brother Of Jove? Surely All This Is Not Without Meaning.

Love's Secrets, Being Mysteries, Ever Pertain To The Transcendent And The Infinite; And So They Are As Airy Bridges, By Which Ourfurther Shadows Pass Over Into The Regions Of The Golden Mists And Exhalations; Whence All Poetical, Lovely Thoughts Are Engendered, And Drop Into Us, As Though Pearls Should Drop From Rainbows.

People Think That If A Man Has Undergone Any Hardship, He Should Have A Reward; But For My Part, If I Have Done The Hardest Possible Day's Work, And Then Come To Sit Down In A Corner And Eat My Supper Comfortably -why, Then I Don't Think I Deserve Any Reward For My Hard Day's Work -for Am I Not Now At Peace? Is Not My Supper Good?

The Past Is The Textbook Of Tyrants; The Future The Bible Of The Free. Those Who Are Solely Governed By The Past Stand Like Lot's Wife, Crystallized In The Act Of Looking Backward, And Forever Incapable Of Looking Before.

The Entire Merit Of A Man Can Never Be Made Known; Nor The Sum Of His Demerits, If He Have Them. We Are Only Known By Our Names; As Letters Sealed Up, We But Read Each Other's Superscriptions.

I Would Prefer Not To.

Think Not, Is My Eleventh Commandment; And Sleep When You Can, Is My Twelfth.

The Sun Hides Not The Ocean, Which Is The Dark Side Of This Earth, And Which Is Two Thirds Of This Earth. So, Therefore, That Mortal Man Who Hath More Of Joy Than Sorrow In Him, That Mortal Man Cannot Be True-- Not True, Or Undeveloped. With Books The Same. The Truest Of All Men Was The Man Of Sorrows, And The Truest Of All Books Is Solomon’s, And Ecclesiastes Is The Fine Hammered Steel Of Woe.

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.

The Grand Points In Human Nature Are The Same To-day They Were A Thousand Years Ago. The Only Variability In Them Is In Expression, Not In Feature.

Lo! Ye Believers In Gods All Goodness, And In Man All Ill, Lo You! See The Omniscient Gods Oblivious Of Suffering Man; And Man, Though Idiotic, And Knowing Not What He Does, Yet Full Of The Sweet Things Of Love And Gratitude.

My Means Are Sane, My Motives And My Object Mad.

It Is Often To Be Observed, That As In Digging For Precious Metals In The Mines, Much Earthly Rubbish Has First To Be Troublesomely Handled And Thrown Out ; So, In Digging In One S Soul For The Fine Gold Of Genius, Much Dulness And Common-place Is First Brought To Light. Happy Would It Be, If The Man Possessed In Himself Some Receptacle For His Own Rubbish Of This Sort: But He Is Like The Occupant Of A Dwelling, Whose Refuse Cannot Be Clapped Into His Own Cellar, But Must Be Deposited In The Street Before His Own Door, For The Public Functionaries To Take Care Of.

Consider The Subtleness Of The Sea; How Its Most Dreaded Creatures Glide Under Water, Unapparent For The Most Part, And Treacherously Hidden Beneath The Loveliest Tints Of Azure. Consider Also The Devilish Brilliance And Beauty Of Many Of Its Most Remorseless Tribes, As The Dainty Embellished Shape Of Many Species Of Sharks. Consider, Once More, The Universal Cannibalism Of The Sea; All Whose Creatures Prey Upon Each Other, Carrying On Eternal War Since The World Began.

Struck Dead By An Angel Of God! Yet The Angel Must Hang!

Whenever I Find Myself Growing Grim About The Mouth; Whenever It Is A Damp, Drizzly November In My Soul; Whenever I Find Myself Involuntarily Pausing Before Coffin Warehouses, And Bringing Up The Rear Of Every Funeral I Meet; And Especially Whenever My Hypos Get Such An Upper Hand Of Me, That It Requires A Strong Moral Principle To Prevent Me From Deliberately Stepping Into The Street, And Methodically Knocking People's Hats Off - Then, I Account It High Time To Get To Sea As Soon As I Can.

Evil Is The Chronic Malady Of The Universe, And Checked In One Place, Breaks Forth In Another.

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing

A Good Laugh Is A Mighty Good Thing, And Rather Too Scarce A Good Thing.

I Am A Man Who, From His Youth Upwards, Has Been Filled With A Profound Conviction That The Easiest Way Of Life Is The Best.

In Thoughts Of The Visions Of The Night, I Saw Long Rows Of Angels In Paradise, Each With His Hands In A Jar Of Spermaceti.

A Man Of True Science... Thinks, That By Mouthing Hard Words, He Proves That He Understands Hard Things.

There Is All Of The Difference In The World Between Paying And Being Paid.

Beware The People Weeping When They Bare The Iron Hand.

One Would Like To Know, What Were Foes Made For Except To Be Used?

How It Is I Know Not; But There Is No Place Like A Bed For Confidential Disclosures Between Friends. Man And Wife, They Say, There Open The Very Bottom Of Their Souls To Each Other; And Some Old Couples Often Lie And Chat Over Old Times Till Nearly Morning. Thus, Then, In Our Hearts' Honeymoon, Lay I And Queequeg - A Cosy, Loving Pair.

It Is Only When Caught In The Swift, Sudden Turn Of Death, That Mortals Realise The Silent, Subtle, Ever-present Perils Of Life.

We Are Only What We Are; Not What We Would Be; Nor Every Thing We Hope For. We Are But A Step In A Scale, That Reaches Further Above Us Than Below.

To Be A Born American Citizen Seems A Guarantee Against Pauperism; And This, Perhaps, Springs From The Virtue Of A Vote.

All Truth Is Profound.

Because No Man Can Ever Feel His Own Identity Aright Except His Eyes Be Closed; As If Darkness Were Indeed The Proper Element Of Our Essences, Though Light Be More Congenial To Our Clayey Part.

Old Age Is Always Wakeful; As If, The Longer Linked With Life, The Less Man Has To Do With Aught That Looks Like Death.

In Armies, Navies, Cities, Or Families, In Nature Herself, Nothing More Relaxes Good Order Than Misery.

For The Profit Of Travel: In The First Place, You Get Rid Of A Few Prejudices.... The Prejudiced Against Color Finds Several Hundred Millions Of People Of All Shades Of Color, And All Degrees Of Intellect, Rank, And Social Worth, Generals, Judges, Priests, And Kings, And Learns To Give Up His Foolish Prejudice.

The So-called Transcendentalists Are Not The Only People Who Deal In Transcendentals. On The Contrary, We Seem To See That The Utilitarians,--the Every-day World's People Themselves, Far Transcend Those Inferior Transcendentalists By Their Own Incomprehensible Worldly Maxims.

Transcendentalism

Human Madness Is Oftentimes A Cunning And Most Feline Thing. When You Think It Fled, It May Have But Become Transfigured Into Some Still Subtler Form.

All Wars Are Boyish, And Are Fought By Boys.

Any Appellative At All Savouring Of Arbitrary Rank Is Unsuitable To A Man Of Liberal And Catholic Mind.

Only The Man Who Says No Is Free

When The Passage "all Men Are Born Free And Equal," When That Passage Was Being Written Were Not Some Of The Signers Legalised Owners Of Slaves?

It May Seem Strange That Of All Men Sailors Should Be Tinkering At Their Last Wills And Testaments, But There Are No People In The World More Fond Of That Diversion.

Nearly All Literature, In One Sense, Is Made Up Of Guide-books. Old Ones Tell Us The Ways Our Fathers Went, Through The Thoroughfares And Courts Of Old; But How Few Of Those Former Places Can Their Posterity Trace, Amid Avenues Of Modern Erections; To How Few Is The Old Guide-book Now A Clew! Every Age Makes Its Own Guide-books, And The Old Ones Are Used For Waste Paper.

The Lightning Flashes Through My Skull; Mine Eyeballs Ache And Ache; My Whole Beaten Brain Seems As Beheaded, And Rolling On Some Stunning Ground.

Better To Sleep With A Sober Cannibal Than A Drunken Christian.

The Great God Absolute! The Centre And Circumference Of All Democracy! His Omnipresence, Our Divine Equality!

In Childhood, Death Stirred Me Not; In Middle Age, It Pursued Me Like A Prowling Bandit On The Road; Now, Grown An Old Man, It Boldly Leads The Way, And Ushers Me On.

Bachelors Alone Can Travel Freely, And Without Any Twinges Of Their Consciences Touching Desertion Of The Fire-side.

Say What Some Poets Will, Nature Is Not So Much Her Own Ever-sweet Interpreter, As The Mere Supplier Of That Cunning Alphabet, Whereby Selecting And Combining As He Pleases, Each Man Reads His Own Peculiar Lesson According To His Own Peculiar Mind And Mood.

Nobody Is So Heartily Despised As A Pusillanimous, Lazy, Good-for-nothing, Land-lubber; A Sailor Has No Bowels Of Compassion For Him.

At My Years, And With My Disposition, Or Rather, Constitution, One Gets To Care Less And Less For Everything Except Downright Goodfeeling. Life Is So Short, And So Ridiculous And Irrational (from A Certain Point Of View) That One Knows Not What To Make Of It, Unless--well, Finish The Sentence For Yourself.

The Poor Man Wants Many Things; The Covetous Man, All.

It Is Not The Purpose Of Literature To Purvey News. For News Consult The Almanac De Gotha.

Surely A Gentle Sister Is The Second Best Gift To A Man; And It Is First In Point Of Occurrence; For The Wife Comes After.

Do Not Presume, Well-housed, Well-warmed, And Well-fed, To Criticize The Poor

It Is Plain And Demonstrable, That Much Ale Is Not Good For Yankee, And Operates Differently Upon Them From What It Does Upon A Briton; Ale Must Be Drank In A Fog And A Drizzle.

What Man Who Carries A Heavenly Soul In Him, Has Not Groaned To Perceive, That Unless He Committed A Sort Of Suicide As To The Practical Things Of This World, He Never Can Hope To Regulate His Earthly Conduct By That Same Heavenly Soul?

A True Military Officer Is In One Particular Like A True Monk. Not With More Self-abnegation Will The Latter Keep His Vows Of Monastic Obedience Than The Former His Vows Of Allegiance To Martial Duty.

It Is Hard To Be Finite Upon An Infinite Subject, And All Subjects Are Infinite.

The Sea Had Jeeringly Kept His Finite Body Up, But Drowned The Infinite Of His Soul.

Familiarity With Danger Makes A Brave Man Braver, But Less Daring. Thus With Seamen: He Who Goes The Oftenest Round Cape Horn Goes The Most Circumspectly.

That Mortal Man Who Hath More Of Joy Than Sorrow In Him, That Mortal Man Cannot Be True--not True, Or Undeveloped.

In Truth, A Mature Man Who Uses Hair Oil, Unless Medicinally, That Man Has Probably Got A Quoggy Spot In Him Somewhere.

A Chaplain Is The Minister Of The Prince Of Peace Serving The Host Of The God Of War--mars. As Such, He Is As Incongruous As A Musket Would Be On The Altar At Christmas. Why, Then, Is He There? Because He Indirectly Subserves The Purpose Attested By The Cannon; Because Too He Lends The Sanction Of The Religion Of The Meek To That Which Practically Is The Abrogation Of Everything But Brute Force.

And Yet Self-knowledge Is Thought By Some Not So Easy. Who Knows, My Dear Sir, But For A Time You May Have Taken Yourself For Somebody Else? Stranger Things Have Happened.

The Past Is The Textbook Of Tyrants; The Future Is The Bible Of The Free.

The Terrors Of Truth And Dart Of Death To Faith Alike Are Vain.

Great Towers Take Time To Construct.

I Am Madness Maddened! That Wild Madness That's Only Calm To Comprehend Itself

A Noble Craft, But Somehow A Most Melancholy! All Noble Things Are Touched With That.

He Piled Upon The Whale's White Hump The Sum Of All The General Rage And Hate Felt By His Whole Race From Adam Down; And Then, As If His Chest Had Been A Mortar, He Burst His Hot Heart's Shell Upon It.

Many Sensible Things Banished From High Life Find An Asylum Among The Mob.

When We Affect To Condemn Savages, We Should Remember That By Doing So We Asperse Our Own Progenitors; For They Were Savages Also.who Can Swear That Among The Naked British Barbarians Sent To Rome To Be Stared At More Than 1500 Years Ago, The Ancestor Of Bacon Might Not Have Been Found?--why, Among The Very Thugs Of India, Or The Bloody Dyaks Of Borneo, Exists The Germ Of All That Is Intellectually Elevated And Grand. We Are All Of Us--anglo-saxons, Dyaks And Indians--sprung From One Head And Made In One Image.

No Philosophers So Thoroughly Comprehend Us As Dogs And Horses.

That Great America On The Other Side Of The Sphere, Australia.

A Whale Ship Was My Yale College And My Harvard.

Forty Years After A Battle It Is Easy For A Non-combatant To Reason About How It Ought To Have Been Fought. It Is Another Thing Personally And Under Fire To Direct The Fighting While Involved In The Obscuring Smoke Of It.

In This World, Shipmates, Sin That Pays Its Way Can Travel Freely, And Without Passport; Whereas Virtue, If A Pauper, Is Stopped At All Frontiers.

The Path To My Fixed Purpose Is Laid With Iron Rails Whereon My Soul Is Grooved To Run

Give Not Thyself Up, Then, To Fire, Lest It Invert Thee, Deaden Thee, As For The Time It Did Me. There Is A Wisdom That Is Woe; But There Is A Woe That Is Madness.

Praise When Merited Is Not A Boon: Yet To A Generous Nature, Is It Pleasant To Utter It.

He Who Goes Oftenest Round Cape Horn Goes The Most Circumspectly.

Though Amid All The Smoking Horror And Diabolism Of A Sea-fight, Sharks Will Be Seen Longingly Gazing Up To The Ship's Decks, Like Hungry Dogs Round A Table Where Red Meat Is Being Carved, Ready To Bolt Down Every Killed Man That Is Tossed To Them.

What Plays The Mischief With The Truth Is That Men Will Insist Upon The Universal Application Of A Temporary Feeling Or Opinion.

Nature Is Nobody's Ally.

All Things That God Would Have Us Do Are Hard For Us To Do--remember That--and Hence, He Oftener Commands Us Than Endeavours To Persuade.

Nature Has Not Implanted Any Power In Man That Was Not Meant To Be Exercised At Times, Though Too Often Our Powers Have Been Abused.

Were Not Meant To Be

Courage Is The Most Common And Vulgar Of The Virtues.

In This World Of Lies, Truth Is Forced To Fly Like A Scared White Doe In The Woodlands; And Only By Cunning Glimpses Will She Reveal Herself, As In Shakespeare And Other Masters Of The Great Art Of Telling The Truth, Even Though It Be Covertly, And By Snatches.

War Being The Greatest Of Evils, All Its Accessories Necessarily Partake Of The Same Character.

But Even So, Amid The Tornadoed Atlantic Of My Being, Do I Myself Still For Ever Centrally Disport In Mute Calm; And While Ponderous Planets Of Unwaning Woe Revolve Round Me, Deep Down And Deep Inland There I Still Bathe Me In Eternal Mildness Of Joy.

In Their Precise Tracings-out And Subtle Causations, The Strongest And Fieriest Emotions Of Life Defy All Analytical Insight.

The Further Our Civilization Advances Upon Its Present Lines So Much The Cheaper Sort Of Thing Does "fame" Become, Especially Of The Literary Sort. This Species Of "fame" A Waggish Acquaintance Says Can Be Manufactured To Order, And Sometimes Is So Manufactured.

Time Is Made Up Of Various Ages; And Each Thinks Its Own A Novelty.

In Time Of Peril, Like The Needle To The Loadstone, Obedience, Irrespective Of Rank, Generally Flies To Him Who Is Best Fitted To Command.

It Is Better To Fail In Originality Than To Succeed In Imitation.

The Starred And Stately Nights Seemed Haughty Dames In Jewelled Velvets, Nursing At Home In Lonely Pride, The Memory Of Their Absent Conquering Earls, The Golden Helmeted Suns!

Give Me A Condor's Quill! Give Me Vesuvius Crater For An Inkstand!

At Last The Anchor Was Up, The Sails Were Set, And Off We Glided. It Was A Sharp, Cold Christmas; And As The Short Northern Day Merged Into Night, We Found Ourselves Almost Broad Upon The Wintry Ocean, Whose Freezing Spray Cased Us In Ice, As In Polished Armor.

Though The Ancients Were Ignorant Of The Principles Of Christianity There Were In Them The Germs Of Its Spirit.

The Food Of Thy Soul Is Light And Space; Feed It Then On Light And Space. But The Food Of Thy Body Is Champagne And Oysters; Feed It Then On Champagne And Oysters; And So Shall It Merit A Joyful Resurrection, If There Is Any To Be.

This Whole Act's Immutably Decreed. 'twas Rehearsed By Thee And Me A Billion Years Before This Ocean Rolled. Fool! I Am The Fates' Lieutenant; I Act Under Orders.

...in Certain Moods, No Man Can Weigh This World Without Throwing In Something, Somehow Like Original Sin, To Strike The Uneven Balance.

The Marquesan Girls Dance All Over; Not Only Do Their Feet Dance, But Their Arms, Hands, Fingers, Ay, Their Very Eyes Seem To Dance In Their Heads.

And The Visible World Seems Formed In Love, The Invisible Spheres Were Formed In Fright.

We Are Off! The Courses And Topsails Are Set: The Coral-hung Anchor Swings From The Bow: And Together, The Three Royals Are Given To The Breeze, That Follows Us Out To Sea Like The Baying Of A Hound.

The Most Mighty Of Nature's Laws Is This, That Out Of Death She Brings Life.

Love Is Both Creator's And Saviour's Gospel To Mankind; A Volume Bound In Rose-leaves, Clasped With Violets, And By The Beaks Of Humming-birds Printed With Peach-juice On The Leaves Of Lilies.

There Was About All The Romans A Heroic Tone Peculiar To Ancient Life. Their Virtues Were Great And Noble, And These Virtues Madethem Great And Noble. They Possessed A Natural Majesty That Was Not Put On And Taken Off At Pleasure, As Was That Of Certain Eastern Monarchs When They Put On Or Took Off Their Garments Of Tyrian Dye. It Is Hoped That This Is Not Wholly Lost From The World, Although The Sense Of Earthly Vanity Inculcated By Christianity May Have Swallowed It Up In Humility.

A Ship Is A Bit Of Terra Firma Cut Off From The Main; It Is A State In Itself; And The Captain Is Its King.

A Man Can Be Honest In Any Sort Of Skin.

Know, Thou, That The Lines That Live Are Turned Out Of A Furrowed Brow.

For Whatever Is Truly Wondrous And Fearful In Man, Never Yet Was Put Into Words Or Books.

Dream Tonight Of Peacock Tails, Diamond Fields And Spouter Whales. Ills Are Many, Blessing Few, But Dreams Tonight Will Shelter You.

Death Is Only A Launching Into The Region Of The Strange Untried; It Is But The First Salutation To The Possibilities Of The Immense Remote, The Wild, The Watery, The Unshored.

We Cannot Live Only For Ourselves. A Thousand Fibers Connect Us With Our Fellow Men.

Beauty Is Like Piety--you Cannot Run And Read It; Tranquility And Constancy, With, Now-a-days, An Easy Chair, Are Needed.

Father Mapple Paused A Little; Then Kneeling In The Pulpit's Bows, Folded His Large Brown Hands Across His Chest, Uplifted His Closed Eyes, And Offered A Prayer So Deeply Devout That He Seemed Kneeling And Praying At The Bottom Of The Sea.

I Could...see In Emerson...that Had He Lived In Those Days When The World Was Made, He Might Have Offered Some Valuable Suggestions.

...the Silent Reminiscence Of Hardships Departed, Is Sweeter Than The Presence Of Delight.

He Knows Himself, And All That's In Him, Who Knows Adversity.

Whatever Has Made, Or Does Make, Or May Make Music, Should Be Held Sacred As The Golden Bridle-bit Of The Shah Of Persia's Horse,and The Golden Hammer, With Which His Hoofs Are Shod.

Books, Gentlemen, Are A Species Of Men, And Introduced To Them You Circulate In The "very Best Society" That This World Can Furnish, Without The Intolerable Infliction Of "dressing" To Go Into It. In Your Shabbiest Coat And Cosiest Slippers You May Socially Chat Even With The Fastidious Earl Of Chesterfield, And Lounging Under A Tree Enjoy The Divinest Intimacy With My Late Lord Of Verulam.

Those Peculiar Social Sensibilities Nourished By Our Own Peculiar Political Principles, While They Enhance The True Dignity Of A Prosperous American, Do But Minister To The Added Wretchedness Of The Unfortunate; First, By Prohibiting Their Acceptance Of What Little Random Relief Charity May Offer; And, Second, By Furnishing Them With The Keenest Appreciation Of The Smarting Distinction Between Their Ideal Of Universal Equality And Their Grind-stone Experience Of The Practical Misery And Infamy Of Poverty.

Traveling Takes The Ink Out Of One's Pen As Well As The Cash Out Of One's Purse.

It Does Seem To Me, That Herein We See The Rare Virtue Of A Strong Individual Vitality, And The Rare Virtue Of Thick Walls, And The Rare Virtue Of Interior Spaciousness. Oh, Man! Admire And Model Thyself After The Whale! Do Thou, Too, Remain Warm Among Ice. Do Thou, Too, Live In This World Without Being Of It. Be Cool At The Equator; Keep Thy Blood Fluid At The Pole. Like The Great Dome Of St. Peter's, And Like The Great Whale, Retain, O Man! In All Seasons A Temperature Of Thine Own.

Consider The Subtleness Of The Sea; How Its Most Dreaded Creatures Glide Under Water, Unapparent For The Most Part, And Treacherously Hidden Beneath The Loveliest Tints Of Azure..... Consider All This; And Then Turn To This Green, Gentle , And Most Docile Earth; Consider Them Both, The Sea And The Land; And Do You Not Find A Strange Analogy To Something In Yourself?

There Is Nothing Namable But That Some Men Will, Or Undertake To, Do It For Pay.

Ah, Happiness Courts The Light So We Deem The World Is Gay. But Misery Hides Aloof So We Deem That Misery There Is None.

The World Is Forever Babbling Of Originality; But There Never Yet Was An Original Man, In The Sense Intended By The World; The First Man Himself--who According To The Rabbins Was Also The First Author--not Being An Original; The Only Original Author Being God.

You Cannot Hide The Soul.

I Have No Objection To Any Person's Religion, Be It What It May, So Long As That Person Does Not Kill Or Insult Any Other Person, Because That Other Person Don't Believe It Also. But When A Man's Religion Becomes Really Frantic; When It Is A Positive Torment To Him; And, In Fine, Makes This Earth Of Ours An Uncomfortable Inn To Lodge In; Then I Think It High Time To Take That Individual Aside And Argue The Point With Him.

Stripped Of The Cunning Artifices Of The Tailor, And Standing Forth In The Garb Of Eden - What A Sorry Set Of Round-shouldered, Spindle-shanked, Crane-necked Varlets Would Civilized Men Appear!

...that One Most Perilous And Long Voyage Ended, Only Begins A Second; And A Second Ended, Only Begins A Third, And So On, For Ever And For Aye. Such Is The Endlessness, Yea, The Intolerableness Of All Earthly Effort.

Silence Is The Only Voice Of Our God.

Man, In The Ideal, Is So Noble And So Sparkling, Such A Grand And Glowing Creature, That Over Any Ignominious Blemish In Him All His Fellows Should Run To Throw Their Costliest Robes.

To Treat Of Human Actions Is To Deal Wholly With Second Causes.

I Baptize You Not In The Name Of The Father, But In The Name Of The Devil. (ego Baptizo Te In Nomine Patris, Sed In Nomine Diaboli.)

Boy, Take My Advice, And Never Try To Invent Any Thing But--happiness.

Will You, Or Will You Not, Quit Me? I Now Demanded In A Sudden Passion, Advancing Close To Him. "i Would Prefer Not To Quit You", He Replied, Gently Emphasizing The Not.

Is Ahab, Ahab? Is It I, God, Or Who, That Lifts This Arm? But If The Great Sun Move Not Of Himself; But Is An Errand-boy In Heaven; Nor One Single Star Can Revolve, But By Some Invisible Power; How Then Can This One Small Heart Beat; This One Small Brain Think Thoughts; Unless God Does That Beating, Does That Thinking, Does That Living, And Not I.

The Symmetry Of Form Attainable In Pure Fiction Can Not So Readily Be Achieved In A Narration Essentially Having Less To Do With Fable Than With Fact. Truth Uncompromisingly Told Will Always Have Its Ragged Edges.

Cannibals? Who Is Not A Cannibal? I Tell You It Will Be More Tolerable For The Fejee That Salted Down A Lean Missionary In His Cellar Against A Coming Famine; It Will Be More Tolerable For That Provident Fejee, I Say, In The Day Of Judgement, Than For Thee, Civilized And Enlightened Gourmand, Who Nailest Geese To The Ground And Feastest On Their Bloated Livers In Thy Pate De Fois Gras.

Contempt Is As Frequently Produced At First Sight As Love.

Let Us Speak, Though We Show All Our Faults And Weaknesses, - For It Is A Sign Of Strength To Be Weak, To Know It, And Out With It - Not In A Set Way And Ostentatiously, Though, But Incidentally And Without Premeditation.

Not One Man In Five Cycles, Who Is Wise, Will Expect Appreciative Recognition From His Fellows, Or Any One Of Them.

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.

Appalling Is The Soul Of A Man! Better Might One Be Pushed Off Into The Material Spaces Beyond The Uttermost Orbit Of Our Sun, Than Once Feel Himself Fairly Afloat In Himself.

For Though Consciences Are As Unlike As Foreheads, Every Intelligence, Not Including The Scriptural Devils Who "believe And Tremble" Has One.

However Baby Man May Brag Of His Science And Skill, And However Much, In A Flattering Future, That Science And Skill May Augment; Yet For Ever And For Ever, To The Crack Of Doom, The Sea Will Insult And Murder Him, And Pulverize The Stateliest, Stiffest Frigate He Can Make; Nevertheless, By The Continual Repetition Of These Very Impressions, Man Has Lost That Sense Of The Full Awfulness Of The Sea Which Aboriginally Belongs To It.

Is There Some Principal Of Nature Which States That We Never Know The Quality Of What We Have Until It Is Gone?

Toil Is Man's Allotment; Toil Of Brain, Or Toil Of Hands, Or A Grief That's More Than Either, The Grief And Sin Of Idleness.

Twelve O'clock! It Is The Natural Centre, Key-stone, And Very Heart Of The Day. At That Hour, The Sun Has Arrived At The Top Of His Hill; And As He Seems To Hang Poised There A While, Before Coming Down On The Other Side, It Is But Reasonable To Suppose That He Is Then Stopping To Dine; Setting An Eminent Example To All Mankind.

An Intense Copper Calm, Like A Universal Yellow Lotus, Was More And More Unfolding Its Noiseless Measureless Leaves Upon The Sea.

It Is-or Seems To Be-a Wise Sort Of Thing, To Realise That All That Happens To A Man In This Life Is Only By Way Of Joke, Especially His Misfortunes, If He Have Them. And It Is Also Worth Bearing In Mind, That The Joke Is Passed Round Pretty Liberally & Impartially, So That Not Very Many Are Entitled To Fancy That They In Particular Are Getting The Worst Of It.

Youth Is The Time When Hearts Are Large.

Implacable I, The Implacable Sea; Implacable Most When Most I Smile Serene- Pleased, Not Appeased, By Myriad Wrecks In Me.

Nothing Can Lift The Heart Of Man Like Manhood In A Fellow Man.

All Visible Objects, Man, Are But As Pasteboard Masks. But In Each Event — In The Living Act, The Undoubted Deed — There, Some Unknown But Still Reasoning Thing Puts Forth The Mouldings Of Its Features From Behind The Unreasoning Mask.

I Love To Sail Forbidden Seas, And Land On Barbarous Coasts.

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Michael D. Barnes

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