74 
MOBY DICK; OR 
and savage sometimes; but that will all pass off. And once for all, 
let me tell thee and assure thee, young man, it’s better to sail with 
a moody good captain than a laughing bad one. So good-bye to thee — 
and wrong not Captain Ahab, because he happens to have a wicked 
name. Besides, my boy, he has a wife — not three voyages wedded — 
a sweet, resigned girl. Think of that ; by that sweet girl that old man 
has a child: hold ye then there can be any utter, hopeless harm in 
Ahab? Ho, no, my lad; stricken, blasted, if he be, Ahab has his 
humanities !” 
As I walked away, I was full of thoughtfulness. What had been 
incidentally revealed to me of Captain Ahab, filled me with a certain 
wild vagueness of painfulness concerning him. And somehow, at the 
time, I felt a sympathy and a sorrow for him, but for I don’t know 
what, unless it was the cruel loss of his leg. And yet I also felt a 
strange awe of him ; but that sort of awe, which I cannot at all describe, 
was not exactly awe; I do not know what it was. But I felt it; and 
it did not disincline me towards him ; though I felt impatience at what 
seemed like mystery in him, so imperfectly as he was known 
to me then. However, my thoughts were at length carried in 
other directions, so that for the present dark Ahab slipped my 
mind. 
CHAP TEH XVII 
THE RAMADAN 
As Queequeg’s Ramadan, or Easting and Humiliation, was to con- 
tinue all day, I did not choose to disturb him till towards nightfall; 
for I cherish the greatest respect towards everybody’s religious obli- 
gations, never mind how comical, and could not find it in my heart 
to undervalue even a congregation of ants worshipping a toadstool ; or 
those other creatures in certain parts of our earth, who with a degree 
of footmanism quite unprecedented in other planets, bow down before 
the torso of a deceased landed proprietor merely on account of the 
inordinate possessions yet owned and rented in his name. 
I say, we good Presbyterian Christians should be charitable in 
