Ishmael returns to the streets of New Bedford on a “special errand”, to find that the “sunny cold” of morning had given way, “to driving sleet and mist.” He was determined to visit the Whaleman’s Chapel this Sunday, and did not stroll.
“I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors’ wives and widows.”
What follows is the best portion of the book for the researcher, a description of three of the many plaques dedicated to lost Whalers: to the following persons:
“John Talbot, Who at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard, Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836…”
“Robert Long, Willis Ellery. Nathan Coleman, Walter Cunny, Seth Macy, and Samuel Gleig, Forming one of the boats’ crews of The Ship Eliza, Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the off-shore Ground in the Pacific, December 31st, 1839…”
“Captain Ezekiel Hardy, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, 1833…”
He is surprised to find that Queequeg has accompanied him. The plaques move Ishmael to wonder at the agony of the loved ones of men who die at sea, “What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave.”
These dark considerations of the aching inscriptions move him to search within us all, “…how is it that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead.”
“But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.”
“Methinks we have hugely mistaken the matter of Life and Death. Methinks that what they call my shadow here on earth is my true substance. Methinks that in looking at things spiritual, we are too much like oysters observing the sun through the water, and thinking that thick water was thinnest air. Methinks my body is the lees of my better being. In fact, take my body who will, take it I say, it is not me.”
