Considering how sociably we had been sleeping together the night previous,
and especially considering the affectionate arm I had found thrown
over me upon waking in the morning, I thought this indifference
of his very strange. But savages are strange beings; at times you
do not know exactly how to take them. At first they are overawing;
their calm self-collectedness of simplicity seems as Socratic wisdom.
I had noticed also that Queequeg never consorted at all, or but very
little, with the other seamen in the inn. He made no advances whatever;
appeared to have no desire to enlarge the circle of his acquaintances.
All this struck me as mighty singular; yet, upon second thoughts,
there was something almost sublime in it. Here was a man some
twenty thousand miles from home, by the way of Cape Horn, that is--
which was the only way he could get there--thrown among people
as strange to him as though he were in the planet Jupiter; and yet
he seemed entirely at his ease; preserving the utmost serenity;
content with his own companionship; always equal to himself. Surely this
was a touch of fine philosophy; though no doubt he had never heard
there was such a thing as that. But, perhaps, to be true philosophers,
we mortals should not be conscious of so living or so striving.
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