Well, I'm coming to the end of my Undergraduate education--a scary thought. I decided to look back at my Valedictory address from high school. I thought it might inspire me as I write my personal statement for a Ph.D. program. It hasn't, but I enjoyed reading it anyway. I'm inspired for life, even though I haven't gotten any good writing ideas. Now I'm posting it on the-blog-that-no-one-reads. Yay!
When I began to thinking about writing a speech, I immediately panicked. What if I never thought of anything! But I remembered a question that I’ve been hearing a lot recently. “Are you excited about graduating?” That's a difficult question to answer. Every time someone asks, I begin to think. What does he mean? Am I relieved that I have managed to get through the first 13 years of my education? If I say yes, will the questioner think that I can't wait for it to end? On the other hand, maybe he’s asking if I am looking forward to the change. My classmates and I are coming to a milestone in our lives. We are taking a giant step away from childhood and toward adulthood. Am I eagerly anticipating it? When things like that are racing through my head, I don’t usually give a good answer. So I think the standard answer has been “yeah, sortof, I mean I want to go to college, but I don’t want to leave” or something to that effect. Well, now to all who were really interested, I have a fuller answer. I have thought long about both sides of this question, and you get to hear it all. The two directions of the question point to the two things I want to talk about. We, the class of 2005, are at a crossroads and it would be well for us to look behind and ahead.
Looking behind is not very hard. It seems like only a few days since Mrs. Olsen sat all of us in our seats in alphabetical order--although that rationale certainly did not occur to my kindergarten mind. I’ve been in school with you guys for the better part of 12 years, and they have been great years. I’ve gotten to know some of you quite well, and I hope we’ll all continue to be friends for many years to come. We have memories of squabbles in plenty, but also have memories of the joys of forgiving. It is only in a class like this that you can have an "inside joke" that doesn't exclude anyone (except probably the teacher). We laugh at the same things because of our shared experience. I can’t say that I’m looking forward to classes without “pun recognition” from Jussley or jokes about Josh’s hair and pointy ears. I don’t want to never hear Shawn say “ANNA SURBATOVICH” again. In fact, I might even miss your obscure facts, Sam! I know we’ll all miss each other to one degree or another, because we’ve become a lot like family.
But of course school is not only about making friends. When I look back at school I want to remember learning too. It seems that we often assume that learning is not cool. Many times when people ask if I am excited about finishing school I think that they are wondering if or even assuming that I want it to end. This attitude is ubiquitous. I have always been annoyed by the motto of “Brain Quest” “It’s okay to be smart.” Why should we need to be TOLD that it’s okay to be smart? Why do teachers make it into books and tv shows as sadistic villains (who have no greater pleasure than that of giving out detentions…)? I think this attitude is the result of peer pressure more than anything else. Most of the little children that I have met were very excited about school. Then in a few months they decided that they didn’t like it, and recess was their favorite subject, and lunch is their second favorite subject. But really, I don’t think many children would think that way on their own.
Not only is this dislike of schoolwork in many cases the result of peer pressure, it’s also not very sensible. Face it—if you’re not a senior (hehe) you’re stuck until the end. So you might as well enjoy it. We seem to have the “countdown mindset” starting from the beginning of the school year. Only 179 days to freedom! We’re almost there! I would encourage every TCS student to rethink this attitude. I can attest from experience that there is nothing that makes a class seem more interminable than peeking at the clock every thirty seconds. I remember once staying in for five minutes at recess in kindergarten. Andy Martin told me that he was going to count to sixty 5 times, and that would make it go faster. (We weren’t supposed to be talking…so go figure) But he was wrong. That was one of the longest five minutes in my life! Enjoy what you are given. It will only be worse if you refuse to like it.
But more importantly than the pragmatic reason for changing attitudes about learning are the biblical reasons. We don’t like school because of the work that it entails. We see it as a punishment, but it isn’t a bad thing. Adam worked in the Garden of Eden before he sinned. It is in God’s plan for us that we work. Many people in the world have recognized that. In Huxley’s futuristic Brave New World everyone had an eight hour workday. Everyone in that pleasure-centered society worked, even though it was unnecessary because they needed it to enjoy life contentedly. Man was created to do work, so he must work. Schoolwork, like other work is very good.
All the work in school is also a responsibility. It’s easy to think of the bad aspects of responsibility—the labour, the emotional stress. But responsibility is positive. Remember the parable of the talents. The master rewarded his righteous servants with more responsibility. Think of added duties in the light of what they mean as a step toward adulthood. I can be excited to think that when I get more homework, I'm given a trust, a vote of confidence. My teacher thinks that I am capable of a workload closer to that of my parents and other adults than to that of my first-grade brother! My little brother hardly does any homework, but he can't go any farther from home unaccompanied than the next-door neighbor’s yard. I, on the other hand, have plenty of homework, but in my free time I can drive myself to the County Library, or the mall (to practice saying “Like” repeatedly and meaninglessly.) Growing up is a trade-off. We have to lose our carefree childishness. But who would stay carefree, if he would never have the privileges of adulthood?
Schoolwork is not only a "vote of confidence." We are receiving the tools to help us appreciate many aspects of God’s glory as revealed in his creation. We are seeing the creativity he gave to man.
We get onerous reading assignments in our Western Thought and Great Books classes(esp WT). We groan and complain (a lot!). But imagine if there were no books for us to read? Imagine if we never experienced the thrill of knowing that we are hearing the thoughts of someone who died thousands of years ago. And sure, Shakespeare is difficult sometimes, but imagine if everything was expressed in the language of a textbook! I know that not everyone loves literature. But noone has to hate it.
We learn foreign languages. Maybe it's annoying to do all the homework, but that will help us to master the language and then we may have a whole new culture open to us. We can communicate with more people around us, and we can read more literature.
Studying philosophy isn't necessarily an esoteric useless exercise. For thousands of years men have been working to gain a deeper understanding of our world. Many people wonder who they are, and what they were put here to do. I used to wonder if all my life I was just dreaming and I might wake up some time and discover that I was someone else. I was very relieved when I learned that other people think about that too! As Christians we can be thankful for how much God has revealed in the Scriptures about our chief end. And as we think about love and justice and life and death we are not the first. So many people have thought about them and we are benefitted by learning from it.
Donald Whitney in 10 Spiritual Disciplines said "discipline without direction is drudgery." While he was speaking of the spiritual realm it is true in the realm of school. Schoolwork is not pointless. Our primary goal in life is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. At school we learn more about God's creation and have our eyes opened to more of his infinite glory.
So there are many reasons why you can and should enjoy learning at school. We all think is "cool" to hate school, but I am sure that if we just think about it differently, we see what a privilege it is and enjoy it.
And for all of you looking forward to high school, and feeling a little bit nervous about it, I will now give my sage advice stemming from 17 long years of experience. I know that people have been telling you that it only gets tougher. I'm not going to deny this, but remember, you're getting more mature. Of course 9th graders get more homework than 8th graders. But 9th graders also have one year more of experience under their belts.
(I suppose you could say that what I have said so far is my "not really" answer to the question of whether I am excited about graduating. I am going to miss my experiences both of learning and spending time with you my class and all my teachers and all my other friends at school(lunch buddies and stuff).
That was our look back at this crossroads of life. Now, to my fellow graduates looking ahead. Am I excited about college? I truly am sad to think of leaving my school. You're like family to me. But I'm also very exited about growing up. I think we all are. We looked at our teachers in kindergarten with adoration. Somewhere in elementary school we began to think that maybe they were of the same species as us. We began to respect them as men and women. Now we see them not only as men and women to be respected, but also people we should emulate. We as students are suddenly faced with the reality that now our lives are changing and our choices will decide what type of men and women we become. I'll tell you you, I'm scared, and I doubt that I'm alone in this (the thought of our going into the real world probably fill our teachers with dread! Hehe) but I know that this is something I've always wanted. You might not know this (yeah, right) but I really like Sam Gamgee. I think it’s partly because he was a normal person who always imagined being heroic--someone who dreamed of doing great things. All my life (even before LotR) I loved to read books like Kidnapped, and Ivanhoe--stories about boys who went to sea and war and did heroic deeds. I dreamed, like Sam did, of being like them. I wanted people a hundred years from now to remember me, to read books that I had written and to laugh and cry over them. I still do. But I know that is an unlikely scenario. I know that in a valedictory address I'm supposed to say that you can be what you want to be, you can do it, just work hard… But we all know that not everyone fulfills his dreams of glory. In fact very few people do. If we all were heroes, then heroes would no longer be heroic. Besides, a common life is grand, too. A few days ago when we were all in Yosemite nat'l park I saw real mountains for the first time ever. They were inspiring in their grandeur--their shapes were unpredictable and exciting. I also saw the sea again last week. I’ve seen it many times, and in my opinion it is one of the most beautiful things in God’s creation. It beats against the shore endlessly. It has a regular tidal pattern. Its very regularity and predictability is what makes it so inspiring. The waves do not move very far, but they shape land. The sea could reshape the mountains if it had enough time. Our lives are more likely to be like the sea than like mountains. We will not tower above others, but in the routine of life we can mold and change others. Pursue your dreams, but be content with little ones. If at the end of your life the only people who think you are a hero are your children, you have still done well.
And so I come to the end. We've come to a crossroads. We're ending childhood and beginning adulthood. It is frightening but it's also exhilarating. I don't know what God has in store for me or any of us, but I know that all things will work for His glory, and the good of all of us who love Him. I don't want to say goodbye to any of you, so let us say as the French say "au revoir" (I always wanted to say that!) But in all seriousness, I am praying that this goodbye will be temporary. I am praying that we'll be able to one day have a final class reunion--and all of you will be there--and we'll never have to leave again.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, June 29, 2008
All Good Things Must Come to an End
So, I should be sleeping. I've had about three hours of sleep in the past 48 hours. But I'm still psyched from going to the ISI Honors Colloquium.
Psyched may be the wrong word. My adrenaline is still pumping, but I'm actually sad. I enjoyed my time so much, and I am not particularly looking forward to cleaning my room and doing normal stuff again. I told myself that all good things must come to an end, and then I started thinking about the truth or untruth of that pessimistic phrase.
First, Heaven will not end. The statement is obviously not unqualifiedly true. But on earth does it hold? I guess so.
I just decided that I am too tired to continue this "conversation." Suffice it to say that I think good things end while good continues. (Think Sam Gamgee and the star.)
Goodnight.
Psyched may be the wrong word. My adrenaline is still pumping, but I'm actually sad. I enjoyed my time so much, and I am not particularly looking forward to cleaning my room and doing normal stuff again. I told myself that all good things must come to an end, and then I started thinking about the truth or untruth of that pessimistic phrase.
First, Heaven will not end. The statement is obviously not unqualifiedly true. But on earth does it hold? I guess so.
I just decided that I am too tired to continue this "conversation." Suffice it to say that I think good things end while good continues. (Think Sam Gamgee and the star.)
Goodnight.
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Mendelssohn's Elijah
I really hate Romanticism as defined by C.S. Lewis in two senses. First: "'Romanticism' can...mean the indulgence in abnormal, and finally in anti-natural, moods. The macabre is 'romantic,' and so is an interest in torture and a love of death" (Lewis uses Tristan und Isolde as an example of this...stupid liebestod!) and Second: "Egoism and subjectivism are 'romantic.' In this sense the typically 'romantic' books are Werther and Rousseau's Confessions, and the works of Byron and Proust. (Lewis hates them too! I always knew he had good taste!)
However, I am always thinking about Romanticism. It has so defined our culture. Egoism and subjectivism are probably the most ubiquitous philosophies of our day (think self esteem, or those literature classes where everyone said "well, I feel that what really matters in this poem is..." and then ended with their favorite random pet topic...) It's defined what we think of as good poetry, or really as poetry at all.
Maybe I'm always thinking about it because I'm always thinking about Milton. The three longest papers that I've written since starting school were about Milton.
Anyway, this all has nothing (or very little) to do with Mendelssohn's Elijah, except that the oratorio was written in the Romantic era, musically speaking.
Almost all the words in Elijah are taken directly from the Bible. I noticed recently that Elijah says such things as "As God the Lord of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." Sort of interesting, because it seems to put the responsibility on Elijah--God obviously is the ultimate source of the power, but Elijah is the one choosing whether or not to use it. Later, when he prays to God to send fire from heaven, he says "This day let it be known that thou art the Lord and that I am thy servant...that I have done these things according to thy word." At another time when he asks God to let him die, he says "I have been very jealous for the Lord [but] the children of Israel have broken thy covenant..." Anyway, it just seems to me that there is a lot about Elijah himself. Elijah wants God to vindicate not only Himself, but also Elijah. Maybe I just don't know the prophets well enough, but I don't believe that the focus on self-vindication is so prominent in others.
And here we come to the point: Elijah is an IDEAL character for a Romantic work of art. If you had to write an oratorio, I could not think of a better man!
That's all.
However, I am always thinking about Romanticism. It has so defined our culture. Egoism and subjectivism are probably the most ubiquitous philosophies of our day (think self esteem, or those literature classes where everyone said "well, I feel that what really matters in this poem is..." and then ended with their favorite random pet topic...) It's defined what we think of as good poetry, or really as poetry at all.
Maybe I'm always thinking about it because I'm always thinking about Milton. The three longest papers that I've written since starting school were about Milton.
Anyway, this all has nothing (or very little) to do with Mendelssohn's Elijah, except that the oratorio was written in the Romantic era, musically speaking.
Almost all the words in Elijah are taken directly from the Bible. I noticed recently that Elijah says such things as "As God the Lord of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word." Sort of interesting, because it seems to put the responsibility on Elijah--God obviously is the ultimate source of the power, but Elijah is the one choosing whether or not to use it. Later, when he prays to God to send fire from heaven, he says "This day let it be known that thou art the Lord and that I am thy servant...that I have done these things according to thy word." At another time when he asks God to let him die, he says "I have been very jealous for the Lord [but] the children of Israel have broken thy covenant..." Anyway, it just seems to me that there is a lot about Elijah himself. Elijah wants God to vindicate not only Himself, but also Elijah. Maybe I just don't know the prophets well enough, but I don't believe that the focus on self-vindication is so prominent in others.
And here we come to the point: Elijah is an IDEAL character for a Romantic work of art. If you had to write an oratorio, I could not think of a better man!
That's all.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Reason to go to College?
I recently was on the website for the University of Central Missouri. What did I find on said website? A picture of David Cook!
So, what they want all prospective students going onto the website to think is this:
GO TO UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI AND YOU COULD BE THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right...
David Cook got his degree in Graphic Arts Technology Management (whatever that is) not music, so I'm afraid his Alma Mater cannot take any responsibility.
http://www.ucmo.edu/
And, I'm sure you are all wondering, "How does this post fulfil the stated purpose of this blog, to showcase random and sporadic literature, philosophy, and opera musings?" I'll tell you.
In Logic (which is required for many philosophy degrees, and which furthermore was developed by many famous philosophers including Ockham and Duns Scotus and Bertrand Russel and many many more) we learned about the Appeal to Authority as an inductive argument. One of the questions we had to as was "Is the person really an authority on the subject?" Hence, my exposition of the university's bad appeal to authority is in fact an application of Logic!
And you thought I had lost my mind!
So, what they want all prospective students going onto the website to think is this:
GO TO UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL MISSOURI AND YOU COULD BE THE NEXT AMERICAN IDOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Right...
David Cook got his degree in Graphic Arts Technology Management (whatever that is) not music, so I'm afraid his Alma Mater cannot take any responsibility.
http://www.ucmo.edu/
And, I'm sure you are all wondering, "How does this post fulfil the stated purpose of this blog, to showcase random and sporadic literature, philosophy, and opera musings?" I'll tell you.
In Logic (which is required for many philosophy degrees, and which furthermore was developed by many famous philosophers including Ockham and Duns Scotus and Bertrand Russel and many many more) we learned about the Appeal to Authority as an inductive argument. One of the questions we had to as was "Is the person really an authority on the subject?" Hence, my exposition of the university's bad appeal to authority is in fact an application of Logic!
And you thought I had lost my mind!
Monday, May 12, 2008
Sublimity
Over the past week I read over three hundred pages of eighteenth century writing on the sublime. It was actually quite fascinating...I was writing a paper explaining how Percy Shelley managed to say that Satan was a hero in Paradise Lost, and it had everything to do with the sublime. It also make me want to read more of Edmund Burke. He seems like a very interesting character.
The reason I am blogging about this, however, is to share two very interesting quotes.
1: "Nature hath rendered passions, wheresoever strongly marked, catching"
2: "To be remarkable for nothing is not to be at all; and less eligible than to be remarkably a blockhead"
Maybe I'm too tired, but I thought these were both very funny.
The reason I am blogging about this, however, is to share two very interesting quotes.
1: "Nature hath rendered passions, wheresoever strongly marked, catching"
2: "To be remarkable for nothing is not to be at all; and less eligible than to be remarkably a blockhead"
Maybe I'm too tired, but I thought these were both very funny.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
The Symphony
I just read Moby Dick. Herman Melville is, in my opinion, one of the most poetic prose writers in English language literature. He is like a cross between John Milton and Charles Dickens. He also reminds me a lot of one of my other favorite authors--John Steinbeck. There are so many absolutely gorgeous passages in Moby Dick, but I just had to post this one. It is my favorite chapter. [Disclaimer: Starbuck is my favorite character, which is part of the reason it is my favorite chapter...but then who else could be my favorite?] So, without further ado, "Symphony":
CHAPTER 132
The Symphony
It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep.
Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.
But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.
Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion- most seen here at the Equator- denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.
Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven.
Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel- forbidding- now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there.
Ahab turned.
"Starbuck!"
"Sir."
"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day- very much such a sweetness as this- I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty- forty- forty years ago!- ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without- oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!- when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before- and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare- fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul!- when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts- away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow- wife? wife?- rather a widow with her husband alive? Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey- more a demon than a man!- aye, aye! what a forty years' fool- fool- old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!- crack my heart!- stave my brain!- mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board!- lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!"
"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's- wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!- this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket."
"They have, they have. I have seen them- some summer days in the morning. About this time- yes, it is his noon nap now- the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again."
"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the hill!"
But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.
"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? 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. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the airs smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swarths- Starbuck!"
But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.
Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there, Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
CHAPTER 132
The Symphony
It was a clear steel-blue day. The firmaments of air and sea were hardly separable in that all-pervading azure; only, the pensive air was transparently pure and soft, with a woman's look, and the robust and man-like sea heaved with long, strong, lingering swells, as Samson's chest in his sleep.
Hither, and thither, on high, glided the snow-white wings of small, unspeckled birds; these were the gentle thoughts of the feminine air; but to and fro in the deeps, far down in the bottomless blue, rushed mighty leviathans, sword-fish, and sharks; and these were the strong, troubled, murderous thinkings of the masculine sea.
But though thus contrasting within, the contrast was only in shades and shadows without; those two seemed one; it was only the sex, as it were, that distinguished them.
Aloft, like a royal czar and king, the sun seemed giving this gentle air to this bold and rolling sea; even as bride to groom. And at the girdling line of the horizon, a soft and tremulous motion- most seen here at the Equator- denoted the fond, throbbing trust, the loving alarms, with which the poor bride gave her bosom away.
Tied up and twisted; gnarled and knotted with wrinkles; haggardly firm and unyielding; his eyes glowing like coals, that still glow in the ashes of ruin; untottering Ahab stood forth in the clearness of the morn; lifting his splintered helmet of a brow to the fair girl's forehead of heaven.
Oh, immortal infancy, and innocency of the azure! Invisible winged creatures that frolic all round us! Sweet childhood of air and sky! how oblivious were ye of old Ahab's close-coiled woe! But so have I seen little Miriam and Martha, laughing-eyed elves, heedlessly gambol around their old sire; sporting with the circle of singed locks which grew on the marge of that burnt-out crater of his brain.
Slowly crossing the deck from the scuttle, Ahab leaned over the side and watched how his shadow in the water sank and sank to his gaze, the more and the more that he strove to pierce the profundity. But the lovely aromas in that enchanted air did at last seem to dispel, for a moment, the cankerous thing in his soul. That glad, happy air, that winsome sky, did at last stroke and caress him; the step-mother world, so long cruel- forbidding- now threw affectionate arms round his stubborn neck, and did seem to joyously sob over him, as if over one, that however wilful and erring, she could yet find it in her heart to save and to bless. From beneath his slouched hat Ahab dropped a tear into the sea; nor did all the Pacific contain such wealth as that one wee drop.
Starbuck saw the old man; saw him, how he heavily leaned over the side; and he seemed to hear in his own true heart the measureless sobbing that stole out of the centre of the serenity around. Careful not to touch him, or be noticed by him, he yet drew near to him, and stood there.
Ahab turned.
"Starbuck!"
"Sir."
"Oh, Starbuck! it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky. On such a day- very much such a sweetness as this- I struck my first whale- a boy-harpooneer of eighteen! Forty- forty- forty years ago!- ago! Forty years of continual whaling! forty years of privation, and peril, and storm-time! forty years on the pitiless sea! for forty years has Ahab forsaken the peaceful land, for forty years to make war on the horrors of the deep! Aye and yes, Starbuck, out of those forty years I have not spent three ashore. When I think of this life I have led; the desolation of solitude it has been; the masoned, walled-town of a Captain's exclusiveness, which admits but small entrance to any sympathy from the green country without- oh, weariness! heaviness! Guinea-coast slavery of solitary command!- when I think of all this; only half-suspected, not so keenly known to me before- and how for forty years I have fed upon dry salted fare- fit emblem of the dry nourishment of my soul!- when the poorest landsman has had fresh fruit to his daily hand, and broken the world's fresh bread to my mouldy crusts- away, whole oceans away, from that young girl-wife I wedded past fifty, and sailed for Cape Horn the next day, leaving but one dent in my marriage pillow- wife? wife?- rather a widow with her husband alive? Aye, I widowed that poor girl when I married her, Starbuck; and then, the madness, the frenzy, the boiling blood and the smoking brow, with which, for a thousand lowerings old Ahab has furiously, foamingly chased his prey- more a demon than a man!- aye, aye! what a forty years' fool- fool- old fool, has old Ahab been! Why this strife of the chase? why weary, and palsy the arm at the oar, and the iron, and the lance? how the richer or better is Ahab now? Behold. Oh, Starbuck! is it not hard, that with this weary load I bear, one poor leg should have been snatched from under me? Here, brush this old hair aside; it blinds me, that I seem to weep. Locks so grey did never grow but from out some ashes! But do I look very old, so very, very old, Starbuck? I feel deadly faint, bowed, and humped, as though I were Adam, staggering beneath the piled centuries since Paradise. God! God! God!- crack my heart!- stave my brain!- mockery! mockery! bitter, biting mockery of grey hairs, have I lived enough joy to wear ye; and seem and feel thus intolerably old? Close! stand close to me, Starbuck; let me look into a human eye; it is better than to gaze into sea or sky; better than to gaze upon God. By the green land; by the bright hearthstone! this is the magic glass, man; I see my wife and my child in thine eye. No, no; stay on board, on board!- lower not when I do; when branded Ahab gives chase to Moby Dick. That hazard shall not be thine. No, no! not with the far away home I see in that eye!"
"Oh, my Captain! my Captain! noble soul! grand old heart, after all! why should any one give chase to that hated fish! Away with me! let us fly these deadly waters! let us home! Wife and child, too, are Starbuck's- wife and child of his brotherly, sisterly, play-fellow youth; even as thine, sir, are the wife and child of thy loving, longing, paternal old age! Away! let us away!- this instant let me alter the course! How cheerily, how hilariously, O my Captain, would we bowl on our way to see old Nantucket again! I think, sir, they have some such mild blue days, even as this, in Nantucket."
"They have, they have. I have seen them- some summer days in the morning. About this time- yes, it is his noon nap now- the boy vivaciously wakes; sits up in bed; and his mother tells him of me, of cannibal old me; how I am abroad upon the deep, but will yet come back to dance him again."
"'Tis my Mary, my Mary herself! She promised that my boy, every morning, should be carried to the hill to catch the first glimpse of his father's sail! Yes, yes! no more! it is done! we head for Nantucket! Come, my Captain, study out the course, and let us away! See, see! the boy's face from the window! the boy's hand on the hill!"
But Ahab's glance was averted; like a blighted fruit tree he shook, and cast his last, cindered apple to the soil.
"What is it, what nameless, inscrutable, unearthly thing is it; what cozening, hidden lord and master, and cruel, remorseless emperor commands me; that against all natural lovings and longings, I so keep pushing, and crowding, and jamming myself on all the time; recklessly making me ready to do what in my own proper, natural heart, I durst not so much as dare? 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. By heaven, man, we are turned round and round in this world, like yonder windlass, and Fate is the handspike. And all the time, lo! that smiling sky, and this unsounded sea! Look! see yon Albicore! who put it into him to chase and fang that flying-fish? Where do murderers go, man! Who's to doom, when the judge himself is dragged to the bar? But it is a mild, mild wind, and a mild looking sky; and the airs smells now, as if it blew from a far-away meadow; they have been making hay somewhere under the slopes of the Andes, Starbuck, and the mowers are sleeping among the new-mown hay. Sleeping? Aye, toil we how we may, we all sleep at last on the field. Sleep? Aye, and rust amid greenness; as last year's scythes flung down, and left in the half-cut swarths- Starbuck!"
But blanched to a corpse's hue with despair, the Mate had stolen away.
Ahab crossed the deck to gaze over on the other side; but started at two reflected, fixed eyes in the water there, Fedallah was motionlessly leaning over the same rail.
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