Chapter 2 - Page 2

at leisure. All this he may compass; but he may not lounge;
for to lounge is to be idle; to be idle implies an absence of any
thing to do; whereas there is a calm to be endured: enough to attend
to, Heaven knows.

His physical organization, obviously intended for locomotion, becomes
a fixture; for where the calm leaves him, there he remains. Even his
undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of
volition, become as naught. For of what use? He wills to go: to get
away from the calm: as ashore he would avoid the plague. But he can
not; and how foolish to revolve expedients. It is more hopeless than
a bad marriage in a land where there is no Doctors' Commons. He has
taken the ship to wife, for better or for worse, for calm or
for gale; and she is not to be shuffled off. With yards akimbo, she
says unto him scornfully, as the old beldam said to the little
dwarf:--"Help yourself"

And all this, and more than this, is a calm.