102 
MOBY DICK; OR 
“Ay, ay,” said Stubb, the second mate, “Starbuck, there, is as careful 
a man as you’ll find anywhere in this fishery.” But we shall ere long 
see what that word “careful” precisely means when used by a man like 
Stubb, or almost any other whale-hunter. 
Starbuck was no crusader after perils; in him courage was not a 
sentiment ; but a thing simply useful to him, and always at hand upon 
all mortally practical occasions. Besides, he thought, perhaps, that in 
this business of whaling, courage was one of the great staple outfits of 
the ship, like her beef and her bread, and not to be foolishly wasted. 
Wherefore he had no fancy for lowering for whales after sundown; 
nor for persisting in fighting a fish that too much persisted in fighting 
him. For, thought Starbuck, I am here in this critical ocean to kill 
whales for my living, and not to be killed by them for theirs ; and that 
hundreds of men had been so killed Starbuck well knew. What doom 
was his own father’s ? Where, in the bottomless deeps, could he find 
the torn limbs of his brother ? 
With memories like these in him, and, moreover, given to a certain 
superstitiousness, as has been said, the courage of this Starbuck which 
could, nevertheless, still flourish, must indeed have been extreme. But 
it was not in reasonable nature that a man so organised, and with such 
terrible experiences and remembrances as he had ; it was not in nature 
that these things should fail in latently engendering an element in him, 
which, under suitable circumstances, would break out from its confine- 
ment, and burn all his courage up. And brave as he might be, it was 
that sort of bravery chiefly, visible in some intrepid men, which, while 
generally abiding firm in the conflict with seas, or winds, or whales, 
or any of the ordinary irrational horrors of the world, yet cannot with- 
stand those more terrific, because more spiritual terrors, which some- 
times menace you from the concentrating brow of an enraged and 
mighty man. 
But were the coming narrative to reveal, in any instance, the com- 
plete abasement of poor Starbuck’s fortitude, scarce might I have the 
heart to write it ; for it is a thing most sorrowful ; nay shocking, to ex- 
pose the fall of valour in the soul. Men may seem detestable as joint- 
stock companies and nations; knaves, fools, and murderers there may 
be ; men may have mean and meagre faces ; hut man, in the ideal, is so 
noble and so sparkling, such a grand and glowing creature, that over 
