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- 2648
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:14.838Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 2598
- text
- ship’s ropes, as I have read, they once had a simplifying of the
classes of plants in Botany. It is really wonderful how many names
there are in the world. There is no counting the names, that surgeons
and anatomists give to the various parts of the human body; which,
indeed, is something like a ship; its bones being the stiff
standing-rigging, and the sinews the small running ropes, that manage
all the motions.
I wonder whether mankind could not get along without all these names,
which keep increasing every day, and hour, and moment; till at last the
very air will be full of them; and even in a great plain, men will be
breathing each other’s breath, owing to the vast multitude of words
they use, that consume all the air, just as lamp-burners do gas. But
people seem to have a great love for names; for to know a great many
names, seems to look like knowing a good many things; though I should
not be surprised, if there were a great many more names than things in
the world. But I must quit this rambling, and return to my story.
At last we hoisted the stun’-sails up to the top-sail yards, and as
soon as the vessel felt them, she gave a sort of bound like a horse,
and the breeze blowing more and more, she went plunging along, shaking
off the foam from her bows, like foam from a bridle-bit. Every mast and
timber seemed to have a pulse in it that was beating with life and joy;
and I felt a wild exulting in my own heart, and felt as if I would be
glad to bound along so round the world.
Then was I first conscious of a wonderful thing in me, that responded
to all the wild commotion of the outer world; and went reeling on and
on with the planets in their orbits, and was lost in one delirious
throb at the center of the All. A wild bubbling and bursting was at my
heart, as if a hidden spring had just gushed out there; and my blood
ran tingling along my frame, like mountain brooks in spring freshets.
Yes! yes! give me this glorious ocean life, this salt-sea life, this
briny, foamy life, when the sea neighs and snorts, and you breathe the
very breath that the great whales respire! Let me roll around the
globe, let me rock upon the sea; let me race and pant out my life, with
an eternal breeze astern, and an endless sea before!
But how soon these raptures abated, when after a brief idle interval,
we were again set to work, and I had a vile commission to clean out the
chicken coops, and make up the beds of the pigs in the long-boat.
Miserable dog’s life is this of the sea! commanded like a slave, and
set to work like an ass! vulgar and brutal men lording it over me, as
if I were an African in Alabama. Yes, yes, blow on, ye breezes, and
make a speedy end to this abominable voyage!
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- Chunk 3