bloody Turk. But many people
thought him so, White-Jacket, because he didn't go to mass, and because
he wrote Queen Mab. Trelawney was by at the burning; and he was an
ocean-rover, too! Ay, and Byron helped put a piece of a keel on the
fire; for it was made of bits of a wreck, they say; one wreck burning
another! And was not Byron a sailor? an amateur forecastle-man,
White-Jacket, so he was; else how bid the ocean heave and fall in that
grand, majestic way? I say, White-Jacket, d'ye mind me? there never was
a very great man yet who spent all his life inland. A snuff of the sea,
my boy, is inspiration; and having been once out of sight of land, has
been the making of many a true poet and the blasting of many
pretenders; for, d'ye see, there's no gammon about the ocean; it knocks
the false keel right off a pretender's bows; it tells him just what he
is, and makes him feel it, too. A sailor's life, I say, is the thing to
bring us mortals out. What does the blessed Bible say? Don't it say
that we main-top-men alone see the marvellous sights and wonders? Don't
deny the blessed Bible, now! don't do it! How it rocks up here, my
boy!" holding on to a shroud; "but it only proves what I've been
saying--the sea is the place to cradle genius! Heave and fall, old sea!"

"And _you_, also, noble Jack," said I, "what are you but a sailor?"

"You're merry, my boy," said Jack, looking up with a glance like that
of a sentimental archangel doomed to drag out his eternity in disgrace.
"But mind you, White-Jacket, there are many great men in the world
besides Commodores and Captains. I've that here,
White-Jacket"--touching his forehead--"which, under happier
skies--perhaps in you solitary star there, peeping down from those
clouds--might have made a Homer of me. But Fate is Fate, White-Jacket;
and we Homers who happen to be captains of tops must write our odes in
our hearts, and publish them in our heads. But look! the Captain's on
the poop."

It was now midnight; but all the officers were on deck.

"Jib-boom, there!" cried the Lieutenant of the Watch, going forward and
hailing the headmost look-out. "D'ye see anything of those fellows now?"

"See nothing, sir."

"See nothing, sir," said the Lieutenant, approaching the Captain, and
touching his cap.

"Call all hands!" roared the Captain. "This keel sha'n't be beat while
I stride it."

All hands were called, and the hammocks stowed in the nettings for the
rest of the night, so that