.. < chapter xlvi 22  SURMISES >


     Though, consumed with the hot fire of his

purpose, Ahab in all his thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate

capture of Moby Dick; though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal

interests to that one passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by

nature and long habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman's ways,

altogether to abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage.  Or at least

if this were otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more

influential with him.  It would be refining too much, perhaps, even

considering his monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards

.. <p 210 >

the White Whale might have possibly extended itself in some degree to all

sperm whales, and that the more monsters he slew by so much the more he

multiplied the chances that each subsequently encountered whale would prove to

be the hated one he hunted.  But if such an hypothesis be indeed

exceptionable, there were still additional considerations which, though not

so strictly according with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by

no means incapable of swaying him.  To accomplish his object Ahab must use

tools; and of all tools used in the shadow of the moon, men are most apt to

get out of order.  He knew, for example, that however magnetic his ascendency

in some respects was over Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the

complete spiritual man any more than mere corporeal superiority involves

intellectual mastership; for to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but

stand in a sort of corporeal relation.  Starbuck's body and Starbuck's coerced

will were Ahab's, so long as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck's brain;

still he knew that for all this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his

captain's quest, and could he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it,

or even frustrate it.  it might be that a long interval would elapse ere the

White Whale was seen.  During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to

fall into open relapses of rebellion against his captain's leadership, unless

some ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon

him.  Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick was

noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and

shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some way

be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally invested

it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn into the

obscure background (for few men's courage is proof against protracted

meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their long night

watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to think of than

Moby Dick.  For however eagerly and impetuously the savage crew had hailed the

announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all sorts are more or less

capricious and unreliable --they live in the varying outer weather, and they

inhale its fickleness --and when retained

.. <p 211 >

for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however promissory of life

and passion in the end, it is above all things requisite that temporary

interests and employment should intervene and hold them healthily suspended

for the final dash.  Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing.  In times of

strong emotion mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are

evanescent.  The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man,

thought Ahab, is sordidness.  Granting that the White Whale fully incites the

hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even breeds

a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the love of it

they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for their more common,

daily appetites.  For even the high lifted and chivalric Crusaders of old

times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of land to fight for

their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries, picking pockets, and

gaining other pious perquisites by the way.  Had they been strictly held to

their one final and romantic object --that final and romantic object, too many

would have turned from in disgust.  I will not strip these men, thought Ahab,

of all hopes of cash --aye, cash.  They may scorn cash now; but let some months

go by, and no perspective promise of it to them, and then this same

quiescent cash all at once mutinying in them, this same cash would soon

cashier Ahab.  Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more

related to Ahab personally.  Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps

somewhat prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod's

voyage, Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly

laid himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect

impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end

competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently

wrest from him the command.  From even the barely hinted imputation of

usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression

gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect himself.


     That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain and heart

and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating

.. <p 212 >

attention to every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his

crew to be subjected to.  For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too

analytic to be verbally developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still

in a good degree continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod's

voyage; observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself

to evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of his

profession.  be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the

three mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit

reporting even a porpoise.  This vigilance was not long without reward.

.. <p 212 >

