How they use the salt, precisely--who knows? Certain I am,
however, that a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation,
even as a head of salad. Can it be, though, that they
anoint it with a view of making its interior run well,
as they anoint machinery? Much might be ruminated here,
concerning the essential dignity of this regal process,
because in common life we esteem but meanly and contemptibly a fellow
who anoints his hair, and palpably smells of that anointing.
In truth, a mature man who uses hairoil, unless medicinally,
that man has probably got a quoggy spot in him somewhere.
As a general rule, he can't amount to much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here is this--what kind of oil is used
at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil, nor macassar oil,
nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor cod-liver oil.
What then can it possibly be, but the sperm oil in its unmanufactured,
unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your kings
and queens with coronation stuff!
CHAPTER 26
Knights and Squires
The chief mate of the Pequod was Starbuck, a native of Nantucket,
and a Quaker by descent.
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