[EXTREME Forum Game] Count to 50,000!

13763

 

13764

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

 

13765

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way—he can better answer than any one else.

 

13766

And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago.

 

13767

 

13768

It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances.

 

13769 (nice)

I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

 

13770

“Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.

 

13771

 

13772

“WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL.

 

13773

“BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN.” monkaS

 

13773

 

13774

Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgment.

holy mother of run-on sentences

 

13775

 

13776

Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity.

 

13777

Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to my wish.

 

13778 (that timing)

With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote.

 

13779

I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.

 

13780

 

13781

Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one lodges in.