Chapter 48.00: CHAPTER 46. Surmises.

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CHAPTER 46. Surmises.
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Though, consumed with the hot fire of his purpose, Ahab in all his
thoughts and actions ever had in view the ultimate capture of Moby Dick;
though he seemed ready to sacrifice all mortal interests to that one
passion; nevertheless it may have been that he was by nature and long
habituation far too wedded to a fiery whaleman’s ways, altogether to
abandon the collateral prosecution of the voyage. Or at least if this were
otherwise, there were not wanting other motives much more influential with
him. It would be refining too much, perhaps, even considering his
monomania, to hint that his vindictiveness towards the White Whale might
have possibly extended itself in some degree to all sperm whales, and that
the more monsters he slew by so much the more he multiplied the chances
that each subsequently encountered whale would prove to be the hated one
he hunted. But if such an hypothesis be indeed exceptionable, there were
still additional considerations which, though not so strictly according
with the wildness of his ruling passion, yet were by no means incapable of
swaying him.

To accomplish his object Ahab must use tools; and of all tools used in the
shadow of the moon, men are most apt to get out of order. He knew, for
example, that however magnetic his ascendency in some respects was over
Starbuck, yet that ascendency did not cover the complete spiritual man any
more than mere corporeal superiority involves intellectual mastership; for
to the purely spiritual, the intellectual but stand in a sort of corporeal
relation. Starbuck’s body and Starbuck’s coerced will were Ahab’s, so long
as Ahab kept his magnet at Starbuck’s brain; still he knew that for all
this the chief mate, in his soul, abhorred his captain’s quest, and could
he, would joyfully disintegrate himself from it, or even frustrate it. It
might be that a long interval would elapse ere the White Whale was seen.
During that long interval Starbuck would ever be apt to fall into open
relapses of rebellion against his captain’s leadership, unless some
ordinary, prudential, circumstantial influences were brought to bear upon
him. Not only that, but the subtle insanity of Ahab respecting Moby Dick
was noways more significantly manifested than in his superlative sense and
shrewdness in foreseeing that, for the present, the hunt should in some
way be stripped of that strange imaginative impiousness which naturally
invested it; that the full terror of the voyage must be kept withdrawn
into the obscure background (for few men’s courage is proof against
protracted meditation unrelieved by action); that when they stood their
long night watches, his officers and men must have some nearer things to
think of than Moby Dick. For however eagerly and impetuously the savage
crew had hailed the announcement of his quest; yet all sailors of all
sorts are more or less capricious and unreliable—they live in the
varying outer weather, and they inhale its fickleness—and when
retained for any object remote and blank in the pursuit, however
promissory of life and passion in the end, it is above all things
requisite that temporary interests and employments should intervene and
hold them healthily suspended for the final dash.

Nor was Ahab unmindful of another thing. In times of strong emotion
mankind disdain all base considerations; but such times are evanescent.
The permanent constitutional condition of the manufactured man, thought
Ahab, is sordidness. Granting that the White Whale fully incites the
hearts of this my savage crew, and playing round their savageness even
breeds a certain generous knight-errantism in them, still, while for the
love of it they give chase to Moby Dick, they must also have food for
their more common, daily appetites. For even the high lifted and chivalric
Crusaders of old times were not content to traverse two thousand miles of
land to fight for their holy sepulchre, without committing burglaries,
picking pockets, and gaining other pious perquisites by the way. Had they
been strictly held to their one final and romantic object—that final
and romantic object, too many would have turned from in disgust. I will
not strip these men, thought Ahab, of all hopes of cash—aye, cash.
They may scorn cash now; but let some months go by, and no perspective
promise of it to them, and then this same quiescent cash all at once
mutinying in them, this same cash would soon cashier Ahab.

Nor was there wanting still another precautionary motive more related to
Ahab personally. Having impulsively, it is probable, and perhaps somewhat
prematurely revealed the prime but private purpose of the Pequod’s voyage,
Ahab was now entirely conscious that, in so doing, he had indirectly laid
himself open to the unanswerable charge of usurpation; and with perfect
impunity, both moral and legal, his crew if so disposed, and to that end
competent, could refuse all further obedience to him, and even violently
wrest from him the command. From even the barely hinted imputation of
usurpation, and the possible consequences of such a suppressed impression
gaining ground, Ahab must of course have been most anxious to protect
himself. That protection could only consist in his own predominating brain
and heart and hand, backed by a heedful, closely calculating attention to
every minute atmospheric influence which it was possible for his crew to
be subjected to.

For all these reasons then, and others perhaps too analytic to be verbally
developed here, Ahab plainly saw that he must still in a good degree
continue true to the natural, nominal purpose of the Pequod’s voyage;
observe all customary usages; and not only that, but force himself to
evince all his well known passionate interest in the general pursuit of
his profession.

Be all this as it may, his voice was now often heard hailing the three
mast-heads and admonishing them to keep a bright look-out, and not omit
reporting even a porpoise. This vigilance was not long without reward.