it needs scarcely to be told, with what feelings, on the eve of a nantucket voyage, i regarded those marble tablets, and by the murky light of that darkened, doleful day read the fate of the whalemen who had gone before me. yes, ishmael, the same fate may be thine. but somehow i grew merry again. delightful inducements to embark, fine chance for promotion, it seems—aye, a stove boat will make me an immortal by brevet. yes, there is death in this business of whaling—a speechlessly quick chaotic bundling of a man into eternity. but what then? methinks we have hugely mistaken this matter of life and death.