Chapter 19

THE JACKET ALOFT.

Again must I call attention to my white jacket, which, about this
time came near being the death of me.

I am of a meditative humour, and at sea used often to mount aloft
at night, and seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my
jacket about me and give loose to reflection. In some ships in
which. I have done this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be
studying astronomy--which, indeed, to some extent, was the case--
and that my object in mounting aloft was to get a nearer view of
the stars, supposing me, of course, to be short-sighted. A very
silly conceit of theirs, some may say, but not so silly after
all; for surely the advantage of getting nearer an object by two
hundred feet is not to be underrated. Then, to study the stars
upon the wide, boundless sea, is divine as it was to the Chaldean
Magi, who observed their revolutions from the plains.

And it is a very fine feeling, and one that fuses us into the
universe of things, and mates us a part of the All, to think
that, wherever we ocean-wanderers rove, we have still the same
glorious old stars to keep us company; that they still shine
onward and on, forever beautiful and bright, and luring us, by
every ray, to die and be glorified with them.

Ay, ay! we sailors sail not in vain, We expatriate ourselves to
nationalise with the universe; and in all our voyages round the
world, we are still accompanied by those old circumnavigators,
the stars, who are shipmates and fellow-sailors of ours--sailing
in heaven's blue, as we on the azure main. Let genteel generations
scoff at our hardened hands, and finger-nails tipped with tar--did
they ever clasp truer palms than ours? Let them feel of our sturdy
hearts beating like sledge-hammers in those hot smithies, our bosoms;
with their amber-headed canes, let them feel of our generous pulses,
and swear that they go off like thirty-two-pounders.

Oh, give me again the rover's life--the joy, the thrill, the
whirl! Let me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into thy
saddle once more. I am sick of these terra firma toils and cares;
sick of the dust and reek of towns. Let me hear the clatter of
hailstones on icebergs, and not the dull tramp of these plodders,
plodding their dull way from their cradles to their graves. Let
me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny in thy spray. Forbid it,
sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that
no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that
swallowed up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with
Drake, where he sleeps in the sea.

But when White-Jacket speaks of the rover's life, he means not
life in a man-of-war, which, with its martial formalities and
thousand vices, stabs