A land hero may just be for chance; a whaling hero spends several months above exalted tedium. If the ship was a vast city’s orchestra (the depths being the city itself), then the mast head is the conductor’s neck, and the crow’s nest, his head. He will sway with the turning breezes and melodies, cry out if a sudden darkness overcomes the piece. A whale! A divided wind! His nautical convenience is imperative for his players and their wives. When the maestro dreams of his next supper, or even wiser thoughts—vagrant hours, fleshy comforters, choking time—he will not cue the strings, the horns will delay, the donors will withdraw their gilded fingers. I say, very often do the over-lording captains rent these haphazard, visual blanks to shriek at sight of blubber. But they are too buried! Their interest is directed toward the bottomless soul and the tasked natural sea beneath their feet is reconfigured. Ah, the whales are scarcer when borrowed from the sea.
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