Thus fell two heroes; one the pride of Thrace, And one the leader of the Epeian race; Death’s sable shade at once o’ercast their eyes, In dust the vanquish’d and the victor lies. With copious slaughter all the fields are red, And heap’d with growing mountains of the dead.
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“I should think ‘The Idiot Boy’, or ‘Dumb but Innocent’. Our fathers used to like that sort of piece, I believe. The longer I live, Dorian, the more keenly I feel that whatever was good enough for our fathers is not good enough for us. In art, as in politics, les grandpères ont toujours tort.”
For a moment I stood a little puzzled by this curious request, not knowing exactly how to take it, whether humorously or in earnest. But concentrating all his crow’s feet into one scowl, Captain Peleg started me on the errand.
“At Aunt Agatha’s. I have asked myself and Mr. Gray. He is her latest protégé.”
“I can sympathize with everything except suffering,” said Lord Henry, shrugging his shoulders. “I cannot sympathize with that. It is too ugly, too horrible, too distressing. There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the colour, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores, the better.”
“But what takes thee a-whaling? I want to know that before I think of shipping ye.”
Alarmed at this terrible outburst between the two principal and responsible owners of the ship, and feeling half a mind to give up all idea of sailing in a vessel so questionably owned and temporarily commanded, I stepped aside from the door to give egress to Bildad, who, I made no doubt, was all eagerness to vanish from before the awakened wrath of Peleg. But to my astonishment, he sat down again on the transom very quietly, and seemed to have not the slightest intention of withdrawing. He seemed quite used to impenitent Peleg and his ways. As for Peleg, after letting off his rage as he had, there seemed no more left in him, and he, too, sat down like a lamb, though he twitched a little as if still nervously agitated. “Whew!” he whistled at last—“the squall’s gone off to leeward, I think. Bildad, thou used to be good at sharpening a lance, mend that pen, will ye. My jack-knife here needs the grindstone. That’s he; thank ye, Bildad. Now then, my young man, Ishmael’s thy name, didn’t ye say? Well then, down ye go here, Ishmael, for the three hundredth lay.”
Pride and Prejudice — Chapter 9: Chapter VII (part 2/2)
“And where did you come across her?”
“Never heard of her.”
And, after signing the papers, off I went; nothing doubting but that I had done a good morning’s work, and that the Pequod was the identical ship that Yojo had provided to carry Queequeg and me round the Cape.
“I don’t think I am likely to marry, Harry. I am too much in love. That is one of your aphorisms. I am putting it into practice, as I do everything that you say.”
“And what dost thou want of Captain Ahab? It’s all right enough; thou art shipped.”
Nothing more happened on the passage worthy the mentioning; so, after a fine run, we safely arrived in Nantucket.
“Nor I, I am sure,” said Miss Bingley.
“Certainly not.”
He said: a leader’s and a brother’s fears Possess his soul, which thus the Spartan cheers: “Let not thy words the warmth of Greece abate; The feeble dart is guiltless of my fate: Stiff with the rich embroider’d work around, My varied belt repell’d the flying wound.”
“Oh, yes, horrid people with dyed hair and painted faces.”
He said, then shook the ponderous lance, and flung; On his broad shield the sounding weapon rung, Pierced the tough orb, and in his cuirass hung, “He bleeds! the pride of Greece! (the boaster cries,) Our triumph now, the mighty warrior lies!” “Mistaken vaunter! (Diomed replied;) Thy dart has erred, and now my spear be tried; Ye ’scape not both; one, headlong from his car, With hostile blood shall glut the god of war.”
“To yield readily--easily--to the persuasion of a friend is no merit with you.”