me  years agonever mind how longpreciselyhaving little or no money in my purse and nothingparticular to interest me on shore thought would sail about alittle and see the watery part of the world  is a way have ofdriving off the spleen and regulating the circulation  myself growing grim about the mouth whenever it is a dampdrizzly in my soul whenever find myself involuntarilypausing before coffin warehouses and bringing up the rear of everyfuneral meet and especially whenever my hypos get such an upperhand of me that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent mefrom deliberately stepping into the street and methodically knockingpeoples hats offthen account it high time to get to sea as soonas can  is my substitute for pistol and ball  aphilosophical flourish throws himself upon his sword quietlytake to the ship  is nothing surprising in this  they butknew it almost all men in their degree some time or other cherishvery nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with menow is your insular city of the belted round bywharves as isles by coral reefscommerce surrounds it withher surf  and left the streets take you waterward  downtown is the battery where that noble mole is washed bywaves and cooled by breezes which a few hours previous were out ofsight of land  at the crowds of watergazers therethe city of a dreamy afternoon  fromto and from thence by  do you seelike silent sentinels all aroundthe town stand thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in oceanreveries  leaning against the spiles some seated upon thepierheads some looking over the bulwarks of ships from somehigh aloft in the rigging as if striving to get a still betterseaward peep  these are all landsmen of week days pent up inlath and plastertied to counters nailed to benches clinched todesks  then is this  the green fields gone  do theyherelook here come more crowds pacing straight for the water andseemingly bound for a dive   will content them butthe extremest limit of the land loitering under the shady lee ofyonder warehouses will not suffice   must get just as nighthe water as they possibly can without falling in  there theystandmiles of themleagues  all they come from lanesand alleys streets and avenuesnorth east south and west  they all unite  me does the magnetic virtue of theneedles of the compasses of all those ships attract them thithermore  you are in the country in some high land of lakesalmost any path you please and ten to one it carries you downin a dale and leaves you there by a pool in the stream  ismagic in it  the most absentminded of men be plunged in hisdeepest reveriesstand that man on his legs set his feet agoingand he will infallibly lead you to water if water there be in allthat region  you ever be athirst in the great try this experiment if your caravan happen to be suppliedwith a metaphysical professor  as every one knows meditationand water are wedded for everhere is an artist  desires to paint you the dreamiestshadiest quietest most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in allthe valley of the  is the chief element he employs  his trees each with a hollow trunk as if a hermit and acrucifix were within and here sleeps his meadow and there sleep hiscattle and up from yonder cottage goes a sleepy smoke  intodistant woodlands winds a mazy way reaching to overlapping spurs ofmountains bathed in their hillside blue  though the picturelies thus tranced and though this pinetree shakes down its sighslike leaves upon this shepherds head yet all were vain unless theshepherds eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him  visitthe in when for scores on scores of miles you wadekneedeep among is the one charmwantingis not a drop of water there  a cataract of sand would you travel your thousand miles to seeit  did the poor poet of upon suddenly receiving twohandfuls of silver deliberate whether to buy him a coat which hesadly needed or invest his money in a pedestrian trip to  is almost every robust healthy boy with a robust healthysoul in him at some time or other crazy to go to sea  upon yourfirst voyage as a passenger did you yourself feel such a mysticalvibration when first told that you and your ship were now out ofsight of land  did the old hold the sea holy  didthe give it a separate deity and own brother of  this is not without meaning  still deeper the meaning ofthat story of who because he could not grasp thetormenting mild image he saw in the fountain plunged into it andwas drowned  that same image we ourselves see in all rivers andoceans  is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life and thisis the key to it allwhen say that am in the habit of going to sea whenever to grow hazy about the eyes and begin to be over conscious ofmy lungs do not mean to have it inferred that ever go to sea asa passenger  to go as a passenger you must needs have a purseand a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it  get seasickgrow quarrelsomedont sleep of nightsdonot enjoy themselves much as a general thingno never go as apassenger nor though am something of a salt do ever go to seaas a or a or a  abandon the glory anddistinction of such offices to those who like them  my part all honourable respectable toils trials and tribulationsof every kind whatsoever  is quite as much as can do to takecare of myself without taking care of ships barques brigsschooners and what not  as for going as cookthough confessthere is considerable glory in that a cook being a sort of officeron shipboardyet somehow never fancied broiling fowlsthoughonce broiled judiciously buttered and judgmatically salted andpeppered there is no one who will speak more respectfully not tosay reverentially of a broiled fowl than will  is out of theidolatrous dotings of the old upon broiled ibis and roastedriver horse that you see the mummies of those creatures in theirhuge bakehouses the pyramidswhen go to sea go as a simple sailor right before the mastplumb down into the forecastle aloft there to the royal mastheadthey rather order me about some and make me jump from spar tospar like a grasshopper in a meadow  at first this sort ofthing is unpleasant enough  touches ones sense of honourparticularly if you come of an old established family in the landthe or or  more thanall if just previous to putting your hand into the tarpot you havebeen lording it as a country schoolmaster making the tallest boysstand in awe of you  transition is a keen one assure youfrom a schoolmaster to a sailor and requires a strong decoction ofand the to enable you to grin and bear it  eventhis wears off in timeof it if some old hunks of a seacaptain orders me to get abroom and sweep down the decks  does that indignity amount toweighed mean in the scales of the  you thinkthe archangel thinks anything the less of me because and respectfully obey that old hunks in that particularinstance  aint a slave  me that  then however theold seacaptains may order me abouthowever they may thump and punchme about have the satisfaction of knowing that it is all rightthat everybody else is one way or other served in much the samewayeither in a physical or metaphysical point of view that is andso the universal thump is passed round and all hands should rub eachothers shoulderblades and be contentalways go to sea as a sailor because they make a point ofpaying me for my trouble whereas they never pay passengers a singlepenny that ever heard of  the contrary passengers themselvesmust pay  there is all the difference in the world betweenpaying and being paid  act of paying is perhaps the mostuncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed uponus  will compare with it  urbane activitywith which a man receives money is really marvellous consideringthat we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthlyills and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven  howcheerfully we consign ourselves to perditionalways go to sea as a sailor because of the wholesomeexercise and pure air of the forecastle deck  as in this worldhead winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern that is ifyou never violate the maxim so for the most part theon the quarterdeck gets his atmosphere at second hand fromthe sailors on the forecastle  thinks he breathes it first butnot so  much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders inmany other things at the same time that the leaders little suspectit  wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the seaas a merchant sailor should now take it into my head to go on awhaling voyage this the invisible police officer of the whohas the constant surveillance of me and secretly dogs me andinfluences me in some unaccountable wayhe can better answer thanany one else  doubtless my going on this whaling voyageformed part of the grand programme of that was drawn up along time ago  came in as a sort of brief interlude and solobetween more extensive performances  take it that this part of thebill must have run something like thiscannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managersthe put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage whenothers were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies andshort and easy parts in genteel comedies and jolly parts infarcesthough cannot tell why this was exactly yet now that all the circumstances think can see a little into thesprings and motives which being cunningly presented to me undervarious disguises induced me to set about performing the part didbesides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resultingfrom my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgmentamong these motives was the overwhelming idea of the greatwhale himself  a portentous and mysterious monster roused allmy curiosity  the wild and distant seas where he rolled hisisland bulk the undeliverable nameless perils of the whale thesewith all the attending marvels of a thousand sights andsounds helped to sway me to my wish  other men perhaps suchthings would not have been inducements but as for me am tormentedwith an everlasting itch for things remote  love to sail forbiddenseas and land on barbarous coasts  ignoring what is good amquick to perceive a horror and could still be social with itwouldthey let mesince it is but well to be on friendly terms with allthe inmates of the place one lodges inreason of these things then the whaling voyage was welcome thegreat floodgates of the wonderworld swung open and in the wildconceits that swayed me to my purpose two and two there floated intomy inmost soul endless processions of the whale and mid most ofthem all one grand hooded phantom like a snow hill in the air