And once for all, let me tell thee and assure thee, young man,
it's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing
bad one. So good-bye to thee--and wrong not Captain Ahab,
because he happens to have a wicked name. Besides, my boy,
he has a wife--not three voyages wedded--a sweet, resigned girl.
Think of that; by that sweet girl that old man had a child:
hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in Ahab? No, no,
my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his humanities!"
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness; what had
been incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me
with a certain wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him.
And somehow, at the time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him,
but for I don't know what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg.
And yet I also felt a strange awe of him; but that sort of awe,
which I cannot at all describe, was not exactly awe; I do not
know what it was. But I felt it; and it did not disincline
me towards him; though I felt impatience at what seemed like
mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known to me then.
However, my thoughts were at length carried in other directions,
so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my mind.
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