I account that man
more honorable than that great captain of antiquity who boasted
of taking as many walled towns.
And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered
prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small
but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of;
if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather
have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors,
or more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk,
then here I prospectively ascribe all the honor and the glory to whaling;
for a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.
CHAPTER 25
Postscript
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance naught
but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts,
an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable surmise,
which might tell eloquently upon his cause--such an advocate,
would he not be blame-worthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,
even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them
for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar
of state, so called, and there may be a caster of state.
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