Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us.

 

[Old Thunder]

But being paid, -- what will compare with it?

 

[Old Thunder]

The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really marvelous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven.

 

[Old Thunder]

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

 

[Old Thunder]

Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise and pure air of the forecastle deck.

 

[Old Thunder]

For as in this world, head winds are far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate the Pythagorean maxim*), so for the most part the Commodore on the quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second-hand from the sailors on the forecastle.

*Not to eat beans.

 

[Old Thunder]

He thinks he breathes it first; but not so.

 

[Old Thunder]

In much the same way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same time that the leaders little suspect it.

 

[CensoredAlso]

Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!

Tell me about it.

 

[Old Thunder]

But wherefore it was that after having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs me, and influences me in some unaccountable way -- he can better answer than anyone else.