And therefore three
cheers for Nantucket; and come a stove boat and stove body when they
will, for stave my soul, Jove himself cannot.
CHAPTER 8
The Pulpit.
I had not been seated very long ere a man of a certain venerable
robustness entered; immediately as the storm-pelted door flew back
upon admitting him, a quick regardful eyeing of him by all the
congregation, sufficiently attested that this fine old man was the
chaplain. Yes, it was the famous Father Mapple, so called by the
whalemen, among whom he was a very great favourite. He had been a
sailor and a harpooneer in his youth, but for many years past had
dedicated his life to the ministry. At the time I now write of,
Father Mapple was in the hardy winter of a healthy old age; that sort
of old age which seems merging into a second flowering youth, for
among all the fissures of his wrinkles, there shone certain mild
gleams of a newly developing bloom--the spring verdure peeping forth
even beneath February's snow. No one having previously heard his
history, could for the first time behold Father Mapple without the
utmost interest, because there were certain engrafted clerical
peculiarities about him, imputable to that adventurous maritime life
he had led.
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