Moby Dick

[Old Thunder]

And the women of New Bedford, they bloom like their own red roses.

 

[Old Thunder]

But roses only bloom in summer; whereas the fine carnation of their cheeks is perennial as sunlight in the seventh heavens.

 

[Old Thunder]

Elsewhere match that bloom of theirs, ye cannot, save in Salem, where they tell me the young girls breathe such musk, their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore, as though they were drawing nigh the odorous Moluccas instead of the Puritanic sands.

 

[CensoredAlso]

their sailor sweethearts smell them miles off shore

Those dirty buggers!

 

[Old Thunder]

CHAPTER VII.
The Chapel.​

In this same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot.*

*The chapel is Melville's adaptation of the Seaman's Bethel, in New Bedford, Massachusetts. The model for Father Mapple was probably Edward Taylor of Boston; formerly a sailor, he was well know for using nautical language when preaching.

 

[Old Thunder]

I am sure that I did not.

 

[Old Thunder]

Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand.

 

[Old Thunder]

The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist.

 

[Old Thunder]

Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm.

 

[Old Thunder]

Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows.