Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic

“When they have got to where the sun is, the red ball will swing open like a door, and Moby-Dick, and all the whales, and all the ships will rush through it into an anchorage in Kingdom Come. It will be a great calm piece of water, with land close aboard, where all the ships of the world will lie at anchor, tier upon tier, with the hands gathered forward, singing. They’ll have no watches to stand, no ropes to coil, no mates to knock their heads in. Nothing will be to do except singing and beating on the bell. And all the poor sailors who went in patched rags, my son, they’ll be all fine in white and gold. And ashore, among the palm-trees, there’ll be fine inns for the seamen.” And there, among a numerous company, will be Fayaway, and Captain Ahab, and Jack Chase, and Jarl, and Toby, and Pierre, and Father Mapple, and Jackson, and Doctor Long Ghost, and Kory-Kory, and Bildad, and Peleg, and Fedallah, and Tashetego, and Marnoo, and Queequeg. But it seems hardly likely that Melville will there find Hawthorne to tempt by a basket of champagne into some little shady corner, there to cross their legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and to discourse pleasantly of all the things manifold which once so much distressed them. In my Father’s house are many mansions.