Seat thyself sultanically among the moons of Saturn1, and take high abstracted man alone; and he seems a wonder, a grandeur2, and a woe3. But from the same point, take mankind in mass, and for the most part, they seem a mob of unnecessary duplicates, both contemporary and hereditary4. But most humble5 though he was, and far from furnishing an example of the high, humane6 abstraction; the Pequod's carpenter was no duplicate; hence, he now comes in person on this stage.
Like all sea-going ship carpenters, and more especially those belonging to whaling vessels7, he was, to a certain off-hand, practical extent, alike experienced in numerous trades and callings collateral8 to his own; the carpenter's pursuit being the ancient and outbranching trunk of all those numerous handicrafts which more or less have to do with wood as an auxiliary9 material. But, besides the application to him of the generic10 remark above, this carpenter of the Pequod was singularly efficient in those thousand nameless mechanical emergencies continually recurring11 in a large ship, upon a three or four years' voyage, in uncivilized and far-distant seas. For not to speak of his readiness in ordinary duties:-- repairing stove boats, sprung spars, reforming the shape of clumsy-bladed oars12, inserting bull's eyes in the deck, or new tree-nails in the side planks14, and other miscellaneous matters more directly pertaining15 to his special business; he was moreover unhesitatingly expert in all manner of conflicting aptitudes16, both useful and capricious.
The one grand stage where he enacted17 all his various parts so manifold, was his vice18-bench; a long rude ponderous19 table furnished with several vices20, of different sizes, and both of iron and of wood. At all times except when whales were alongside, this bench was securely lashed21 athwartships against the rear of the Try-works.
A belaying pin is found too large to be easily inserted into its hole: the carpenter claps it into one of his ever ready vices, and straightway files it smaller. A lost landbird of strange plumage strays on board, and is made a captive: out of clean shaved rods of right-whale bone, and cross-beams of sperm22 whale ivory, the carpenter makes a pagoda-looking cage for it. An oarsman sprains23 his wrist: the carpenter concocts24 a soothing25 lotion26. Stubb longed for vermillion stars to be painted upon the blade of his every oar13; screwing each oar in his big vice of wood, the carpenter symmetrically supplies the constellation27. A sailor takes a fancy to wear shark-bone ear-rings: the carpenter drills his ears. Another has the toothache: the carpenter out pincers, and clapping one hand upon his bench bids him be seated there; but the poor fellow unmanageably winces28 under the unconcluded operation; whirling round the handle of his wooden vice, the carpenter signs him to clap his jaw29 in that, if he would have him draw the tooth.
Thus, this carpenter was prepared at all points, and alike indifferent and without respect in all. Teeth he accounted bits of ivory; heads he deemed but top-blocks; men themselves he lightly held for capstans. But while now upon so wide a field thus variously accomplished30 and with such liveliness of expertness in him, too; all this would seem to argue some uncommon31 vivacity32 of intelligence. But not precisely33 so. For nothing was this man more remarkable34, than for a certain impersonal35 stolidity36 as it were; impersonal, I say; for it so shaded off into the surrounding infinite of things, that it seemed one with the general stolidity discernible in the whole visible world; which while pauselessly active in uncounted modes, still eternally holds its peace, and ignores you, though you dig foundations for cathedrals. Yet was this half-horrible stolidity in him, involving, too, as it appeared, an all-ramifying heartlessness;-- yet was it oddly dashed at times, with an old, crutch-like, antediluvian37, wheezing38 humorousness, not unstreaked now and then with a certain grizzled wittiness39; such as might have served to pass the time during the midnight watch on the bearded forecastle of Noah's ark. Was it that this old carpenter had been a life-long wanderer, whose much rolling, to and fro, not only had gathered no moss40; but what is more, had rubbed off whatever small outward clingings might have originally pertained41 to him? He was a stript abstract; an unfractioned integral; uncompromised as a new-born babe; living without premeditated reference to this world or the next. You might almost say, that this strange uncompromisedness in him involved a sort of unintelligence; for in his numerous trades, he did not seem to work so much by reason or by instinct, or simply because he had been tutored to it, or by any intermixture of all these, even or uneven42; but merely by a kind of deaf and dumb, spontaneous literal process. He was a pure manipulator; his brain, if he had ever had one, must have early oozed44 along into the muscles of his fingers. He was like one of those unreasoning but still highly useful, multum in parvo, Sheffield contrivances, assuming the exterior-- though a little swelled--of a common pocket knife; but containing, not only blades of various sizes, but also screw-drivers, cork-screws, tweezers45, awls, pens, rulers, nail-filers, countersinkers. So, if his superiors wanted to use the carpenter for a screw-driver, all they had to do was to open that part of him, and the screw was fast: or if for tweezers, take him up by the legs, and there they were.
Yet, as previously46 hinted, this omnitooled, open-and-shut carpenter, was, after all, no mere43 machine of an automaton47. If he did not have a common soul in him, he had a subtle something that somehow anomalously48 did its duty. What that was, whether essence of quicksilver, or a few drops of hartshorn, there is no telling. But there it was; and there it had abided for now some sixty years or more. And this it was, this same unaccountable, cunning life-principle in him; this it was, that kept him a great part of the time soliloquizing; but only like an unreasoning wheel, which also hummingly soliloquizes; or rather, his body was a sentry-box and this soliloquizer on guard there, and talking all the time to keep himself awake.
1 Saturn | |
n.农神,土星 | |
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2 grandeur | |
n.伟大,崇高,宏伟,庄严,豪华 | |
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3 woe | |
n.悲哀,苦痛,不幸,困难;int.用来表达悲伤或惊慌 | |
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4 hereditary | |
adj.遗传的,遗传性的,可继承的,世袭的 | |
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5 humble | |
adj.谦卑的,恭顺的;地位低下的;v.降低,贬低 | |
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6 humane | |
adj.人道的,富有同情心的 | |
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7 vessels | |
n.血管( vessel的名词复数 );船;容器;(具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的)人 | |
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8 collateral | |
adj.平行的;旁系的;n.担保品 | |
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9 auxiliary | |
adj.辅助的,备用的 | |
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10 generic | |
adj.一般的,普通的,共有的 | |
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11 recurring | |
adj.往复的,再次发生的 | |
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12 oars | |
n.桨,橹( oar的名词复数 );划手v.划(行)( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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13 oar | |
n.桨,橹,划手;v.划行 | |
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14 planks | |
(厚)木板( plank的名词复数 ); 政纲条目,政策要点 | |
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15 pertaining | |
与…有关系的,附属…的,为…固有的(to) | |
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16 aptitudes | |
(学习方面的)才能,资质,天资( aptitude的名词复数 ) | |
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17 enacted | |
制定(法律),通过(法案)( enact的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18 vice | |
n.坏事;恶习;[pl.]台钳,老虎钳;adj.副的 | |
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19 ponderous | |
adj.沉重的,笨重的,(文章)冗长的 | |
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20 vices | |
缺陷( vice的名词复数 ); 恶习; 不道德行为; 台钳 | |
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21 lashed | |
adj.具睫毛的v.鞭打( lash的过去式和过去分词 );煽动;紧系;怒斥 | |
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22 sperm | |
n.精子,精液 | |
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23 sprains | |
扭伤( sprain的名词复数 ) | |
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24 concocts | |
v.将(尤指通常不相配合的)成分混合成某物( concoct的第三人称单数 );调制;编造;捏造 | |
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25 soothing | |
adj.慰藉的;使人宽心的;镇静的 | |
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26 lotion | |
n.洗剂 | |
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27 constellation | |
n.星座n.灿烂的一群 | |
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28 winces | |
避开,畏缩( wince的名词复数 ) | |
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29 jaw | |
n.颚,颌,说教,流言蜚语;v.喋喋不休,教训 | |
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30 accomplished | |
adj.有才艺的;有造诣的;达到了的 | |
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31 uncommon | |
adj.罕见的,非凡的,不平常的 | |
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32 vivacity | |
n.快活,活泼,精神充沛 | |
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33 precisely | |
adv.恰好,正好,精确地,细致地 | |
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34 remarkable | |
adj.显著的,异常的,非凡的,值得注意的 | |
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35 impersonal | |
adj.无个人感情的,与个人无关的,非人称的 | |
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36 stolidity | |
n.迟钝,感觉麻木 | |
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37 antediluvian | |
adj.史前的,陈旧的 | |
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38 wheezing | |
v.喘息,发出呼哧呼哧的喘息声( wheeze的现在分词 );哮鸣 | |
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39 wittiness | |
机智,临机应变 | |
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40 moss | |
n.苔,藓,地衣 | |
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41 pertained | |
关于( pertain的过去式和过去分词 ); 有关; 存在; 适用 | |
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42 uneven | |
adj.不平坦的,不规则的,不均匀的 | |
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43 mere | |
adj.纯粹的;仅仅,只不过 | |
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44 oozed | |
v.(浓液等)慢慢地冒出,渗出( ooze的过去式和过去分词 );使(液体)缓缓流出;(浓液)渗出,慢慢流出 | |
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45 tweezers | |
n.镊子 | |
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46 previously | |
adv.以前,先前(地) | |
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47 automaton | |
n.自动机器,机器人 | |
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48 anomalously | |
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