cgrillo
02-26-2010, 05:27 PM
Hello, everyone! Over the past few days I've been writing the first chapter of a novel. I feel like I should post it here to see if it has any potential, or if I should revise the first chapter before going onto the second. I've never really had any feedback on any of my writing, so I'm open to criticism. Here it is:
Chapter I
Solicitude
In this account I seek to simply tell my tale and be done with it, while imposing as little of myself as possible. The journey which I partook on took place wholly aboard the New Bedford whaler Mississippi; though I had been a sailor for sometime, I had previously partaken on exploratory voyages to the south that always kept my interest; nevertheless I was understandably worried about the possible monotony of the voyage. Yet, my urge to try my hand at whaling kept me with the voyage all the way until it set sail on a gloomy day in April. After only a short time, however, (during which, my worries did not subside and instead continued to build up) I saw that this voyage was not going to be like any of my other voyages, and, overall, it would not be monotonous in anyway.
My voyage began in this way:
I enlisted aboard a merchant vessel that was supposedly bound for the West Indies; always interested in new and foreign lands, I was quick to secure my place on the crew. Once we arrived in the Caribbean, however, the captain announced his true intentions for this voyage: he desired to go to the arctic regions that lie far south, and discover what was located there. The crew had a variety of reactions. I myself was quite interested in finding out what lies in the southernmost part of the world, and remained loyal to the captain; the cook, on the other hand, vehemently denied any part in this expedition. Alas, it was a very bad idea of my captain to lie about the true nature of this voyage—if he had simply been truthful about his intentions, than he probably would’ve ended up with a much better crew for an arctic expedition than, for example, the cook. In any case, the crew was split into two parts: the men who were willing to follow the captain to the South Pole, and the men who wanted nothing to do with the expedition, led by the cook; the former group being a few men larger than the latter, the captain decided to go through with his plan and take us to the arctic. However, the cook was furious and requested—or rather, demanded—that he be put ashore and left behind. The problem with this solution was, however, that we had ventured into open seas and there was nowhere to go. The captain told the cook of this, and, considering the matter settled, retired to his cabin, only to find that, the next day, the cook and half of the crew was missing, along with one of the whaleboats.
With the cook’s desertion came both good and bad consequences. The good was that the cook, an angry and vain fellow who had always butted heads with the captain, was gone; his constant defiance of orders would not have to be bared any longer. However, he took a considerable amount of the crew with him, (as well as one of the whaleboats) even some of the men who remained loyal to the captain. Though they did not mind traveling and exploring the South Pole, the prospect of traveling to the West Indies or other places in the Caribbean entertained them more, and they changed their mind at the last moment. At first I feared a mutiny and the killings of all the sure men, though this did not happen; instead, the cook seemed to wake up those whom he felt could be swayed and left the sure men sleeping instead. With less than half of the men that he set out with, the captain’s certainty that the expedition would work out was beginning to waver, despite my attempts at convincing him that the remaining sailors could accomplish it by themselves.
Thus, his confidence in the voyage very low, we docked in Jamaica and stayed there for a long, bleak time. During our visit to the island four members of the remaining crew decided to leave for home. I, fearing both that the voyage would come to an end and that I’d lose a large sum of my money, asked the captain of the state of our voyage, and he replied, “Oh, honest sailor, you have remained loyal to me from beginning to end, and thus it makes it even harder for me to tell you the truth—this voyage is doomed, and it will be best to simply let it die and be on with our lives.”
This announcement made me very distraught. I begged the captain to continue with the voyage, saying that our miniscule crew could still accomplish it, (for, I said, as the men left the crew it became more and more obvious who the trustworthy sailors were) but to no avail. He and I both knew that a crew of nineteen men—for over twenty had already left—would simply not be enough for the voyage, though I would not accept this as the captain did. In a way, the captain was much braver than I was, for he knew when to quit, and it takes a great man to admit that he has lost. While I was brave in the sense that I still wanted to go through with the voyage, the captain was brave in that he understood that we simply could not go on; he was, in many ways, allowing the world to decide to decide his fate. And thus, the voyage came to an end; as quickly as it began, it ended and left me unsure of what to do with myself. Since the voyage was not really one of commerce, we had made no sales and I was therefore in a state of poverty. Along with the money I had spent to make amends with this voyage, I had to spend even more of the little I had to make my way back to America, a process which took a long time and a lot of hardship. I did not speak to the captain after my attempts at getting him to go through with the voyage, nor did I speak to the other nineteen crew members, and what became of them I do not know; neither do I know what became of the cook and his group of deserters, for I never heard of them again.
Almost two months after we docked in Jamaica I arrived back in New Bedford, where my home and possessions were. I was left with a state of melancholy, as I always was after a voyage, for its end felt like the end of a great journey, sad but necessary; for even the greatest adventures have to come to an end eventually. Along with this melancholy, however, also came dissatisfaction, for this voyage did nothing but exhaust my money and leave me stranded, so to speak, in the Caribbean for two months. Usually when I have finished a voyage I like to relax in New Bedford and wait a few months before I partake on another voyage; however, I was unable to do that with the little money that I had. Instead, I had to look for another ship to sail on so that I could, at least, regain the money that I had had before the doomed South Seas explorer set sail, nearly a year prior to that day. Until that time I could not entertain myself to even think that I may enjoy the smallest of pleasures, for no pleasure is without a cost, no matter how minimal it is.
So it was then that I knew I needed some way of making money. I must say that I was a little reluctant to go on another voyage after the ‘expedition’ which I had participated on and had failed me in every way possible. However, I had a been a sailor for all of my life, and thus I knew little about other professions; though I was worried about going on another voyage, I had no idea as to what I would do instead, and I mustn’t do nothing, for then I would simply lose my money at a steady rate until I was reduced to a beggar. I would not let this fate befall on me. During this time I tried my hand at numerous temporary jobs, which I will spare the reader from hearing due to both unimportance and embarrassment, for I was unable to complete most of these tasks. At the end of all this I was still very poor, and the little money that I had would not make a difference; indeed, all of the payment I had received for these jobs was gone in a week, being spent on necessary things like groceries. I must say that at that time I was at a loss of what to do, and that such a state of monotony had overtaken me since my arrival in New Bedford that I was considering traveling to other parts of the country to find work there; but I could never leave New Bedford, the great whaling city, for if I was ever apart from the sea for too long than I would probably experience such a sense of yearning that I would be able to do nothing but sail to my heart’s desire.
Oh, New Bedford! Who knew that you could be such a gloomy city when you are not going to sea in a short time? Admittedly, this is an odd occurrence; New Bedford was, indeed, the whaling city, and many of the city’s occupants are either sailors, (usually ones who work aboard a whaler) innkeepers, or old seamen who have retired and still enjoy the sight of the ocean and the magnificent ships on the horizon. During the time when I was keeping those temporary jobs, I would remember my time at sea, the gentle rocking of the waves, and the salty air that I have so come accustomed to. Indeed, more than once I would wonder the streets of the whaling city and look fondly at the dimly lit inns that were scattered around, one never being out of sight. The combination of silence and loneliness those nights would give me a feeling not unlike the melancholy I felt after I voyage; I was recalling my times at inns just like those, preparing for a voyage which would surely be the greatest that I ever partook on—at least, that’s what I thought before all of my voyages (and obviously, this statement has not always come true, as evidenced by my doomed expedition).
So I would walk through the city in the late hours of the night, obscured by darkness and unseen by nearly all; and even those who did see a glimpse of me soon forgot me in their own troubled thoughts. Soon, the odd feeling that I felt whenever I saw the inns and the ships completely overtook me and caused my worries, little by little, to go away, until they were completely gone, and once again I yearned to go out to sea on the voyage which would surely be the greatest that I have ever partaken on. This yearning was strengthened even more when, one night, I was taking another one of my midnight walks when I heard a voice, dimly but certainly there, singing this chant:
“Oh, the rare old whale, mid storm and gale,
in his ocean home will be
a giant in might, where might is right,
and king of the boundless sea!”
The voice cut off there and never sounded once again, and though I waited along that stretch of road for a long time, (how long I could never be certain) I never heard that man singing again, and I was forced to return home.
I was deeply affected by that mysterious event, though why I was not sure. In any case, it was then that I decided that I was going to go sailing once more, and that my worries were foolish; for if every time someone had a bad voyage they would be afraid to return to sea, sailing would cease to exist. Unhappy voyages are bound to occur once and awhile for everyone, and they should simply be forgotten and overshadowed by the voyages that have been happy. Besides, during my doomed expedition the only really bad thing that happened to me was my loss of money; though this was, indeed, a very important thing to lose, I still had my health. I had faired much better than the cook did, for he rather naively took a number of seamen and left in an open boat, in the middle of the ocean. I noticed soon after he had left that he did not take any compass to know which direction he was going in, and only took a minimal amount of food that would perhaps feed three people—much less than the group he took. Therefore he was in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and barely any provisions to last for the long run. For all they knew, they may have been sailing even further into open water due to their lack of a compass; though I never heard anything of them again, I always felt that their chance at survival (or, at least that all of them would survive) was very little.
But all this is by and by. I began to search for a ship that I liked. There were many that were looking for sailors; I narrowed it down to three after inspecting some of them to see how well the ship was made and kept. All of them where whalers, for I had decided (even before the doomed expedition) that I wanted to try my hand at whaling. It is my belief that every sailor, no matter his past voyages, should try out whaling, for how better to truly assess your skills as a seaman than by partaking on the most demanding voyage that there is? I had also heard from the sailors that spent there time at inns and bars that whaling is quite profitable, and I myself being in quite a financial crisis, was keen on finding a way to make money. The three aforementioned ships were bound to totally different places: one was to sail for the South Seas; one was headed for the South Pacific; and the other’s destination was the North Pacific. These ships were alike only in the fact that they where whalers; other details like size and shape where much different. I surveyed the ships for only a few moments before I decided on which ship I liked best: the ship bound for the South Pacific, the whaler called Mississippi. It was in this way that I had decided on every voyage that I have ever been on—I looked them over for only a short time before going with my instinct; this choice has almost always been a good one, not counting the events that transpired on my doomed expedition.
Here I will provide a brief description of the ship and its history: it was an incredibly old ship, though how old I never learned; it had been built at least fifty years prior to my discovery of it there in New Bedford, where many of the greatest whalers came from. Having been on many voyages in those years, it was more appealing in my eyes, for knowing that it had an extensive history evoked a feeling that it had seen many a marvel, and that the old sailors who once walked on its decks could tell a great many stories. The ship’s appearance also evoked a similar feeling; the gentle creaking of the deck and the old wooden mast made it seem like an English warship straight from the pages of a child’s fantasy book. The only things on the ship that looked new were the clean, white sails that hung from the ship’s three masts; they added a feeling of majesty in addition to the feeling brought on by the age of the ancient ship. Overall, the ships evoked a great amount of feelings that, when they were together, made the ship seem like the most magnificent vessel in the world.
It was for these reasons that I decided to try and secure a place on this vessel; just looking at it made me sure that this was the craft that would certainly provide me with the greatest voyage that I had ever partaken on—and in a way, it did, though it was definitely not the happiest I’ve ever been on. I believe that any man who was looking to ship on a whaling voyage would be impressed with the ship, for its elegance could cause any sailor to fall madly in love with it; of all of the voyages I have been on, it is still the best looking ship that I’ve ever seen, and the day when I first came upon it still lingers in my mind like the memory of a lost loved one. In fact, almost all of my memories from this voyage still linger in my mind, and when I think about it I’m taken by such a melancholic nostalgia that I have began to avoid thinking about it; for my stomach aches with the yearning for the past that I feel each time I think of a past voyage, though with this particular one it is tenfold.
One interesting anecdote, in my opinion, is the reason behind the naming of the ship, for it had never been to the state of Mississippi. Instead, (as one of the sailors aboard the vessel told me later on in the voyage) it was named in honor of the grandfather of the original owner and captain of the ship, who had been a steamboat captain on the Mississippi river when he was a young man. After growing old and retiring from the profession, he would tell his grandchildren, including the man who later come to own the Mississippi, that if he ever had his own boat—even if it was just a sailboat—he would name it ‘Mississippi,’ honoring the fond memories that he had working as a steamboat captain. Unfortunately, he died before his dream of owning his own boat was ever achieved, and his son decided that he would name his own ship that for his grandfather, who was apparently a great inspiration to him; out of the five children of that steamboat captain, the owner of the ship was the only one that followed the family tradition of becoming a sailor, and honored his grandfather for helping him get into that profession.
Hearing about this made me realize that I’m not the only person that feels that melancholic nostalgia; just as I yearn for the past when I remember my voyages, the old steamboat captain yearned for the past when he remembered his days on the Mississippi river, captain of a steamboat, when he was young and fit and could do anything he put his mind to.
* * *
P.S. Does anybody know the time period of the whale song that I used? I searched for 'songs about whales' on Google and this came up, but it didn't include any details about where it's from or when it first appeared.
Chapter I
Solicitude
In this account I seek to simply tell my tale and be done with it, while imposing as little of myself as possible. The journey which I partook on took place wholly aboard the New Bedford whaler Mississippi; though I had been a sailor for sometime, I had previously partaken on exploratory voyages to the south that always kept my interest; nevertheless I was understandably worried about the possible monotony of the voyage. Yet, my urge to try my hand at whaling kept me with the voyage all the way until it set sail on a gloomy day in April. After only a short time, however, (during which, my worries did not subside and instead continued to build up) I saw that this voyage was not going to be like any of my other voyages, and, overall, it would not be monotonous in anyway.
My voyage began in this way:
I enlisted aboard a merchant vessel that was supposedly bound for the West Indies; always interested in new and foreign lands, I was quick to secure my place on the crew. Once we arrived in the Caribbean, however, the captain announced his true intentions for this voyage: he desired to go to the arctic regions that lie far south, and discover what was located there. The crew had a variety of reactions. I myself was quite interested in finding out what lies in the southernmost part of the world, and remained loyal to the captain; the cook, on the other hand, vehemently denied any part in this expedition. Alas, it was a very bad idea of my captain to lie about the true nature of this voyage—if he had simply been truthful about his intentions, than he probably would’ve ended up with a much better crew for an arctic expedition than, for example, the cook. In any case, the crew was split into two parts: the men who were willing to follow the captain to the South Pole, and the men who wanted nothing to do with the expedition, led by the cook; the former group being a few men larger than the latter, the captain decided to go through with his plan and take us to the arctic. However, the cook was furious and requested—or rather, demanded—that he be put ashore and left behind. The problem with this solution was, however, that we had ventured into open seas and there was nowhere to go. The captain told the cook of this, and, considering the matter settled, retired to his cabin, only to find that, the next day, the cook and half of the crew was missing, along with one of the whaleboats.
With the cook’s desertion came both good and bad consequences. The good was that the cook, an angry and vain fellow who had always butted heads with the captain, was gone; his constant defiance of orders would not have to be bared any longer. However, he took a considerable amount of the crew with him, (as well as one of the whaleboats) even some of the men who remained loyal to the captain. Though they did not mind traveling and exploring the South Pole, the prospect of traveling to the West Indies or other places in the Caribbean entertained them more, and they changed their mind at the last moment. At first I feared a mutiny and the killings of all the sure men, though this did not happen; instead, the cook seemed to wake up those whom he felt could be swayed and left the sure men sleeping instead. With less than half of the men that he set out with, the captain’s certainty that the expedition would work out was beginning to waver, despite my attempts at convincing him that the remaining sailors could accomplish it by themselves.
Thus, his confidence in the voyage very low, we docked in Jamaica and stayed there for a long, bleak time. During our visit to the island four members of the remaining crew decided to leave for home. I, fearing both that the voyage would come to an end and that I’d lose a large sum of my money, asked the captain of the state of our voyage, and he replied, “Oh, honest sailor, you have remained loyal to me from beginning to end, and thus it makes it even harder for me to tell you the truth—this voyage is doomed, and it will be best to simply let it die and be on with our lives.”
This announcement made me very distraught. I begged the captain to continue with the voyage, saying that our miniscule crew could still accomplish it, (for, I said, as the men left the crew it became more and more obvious who the trustworthy sailors were) but to no avail. He and I both knew that a crew of nineteen men—for over twenty had already left—would simply not be enough for the voyage, though I would not accept this as the captain did. In a way, the captain was much braver than I was, for he knew when to quit, and it takes a great man to admit that he has lost. While I was brave in the sense that I still wanted to go through with the voyage, the captain was brave in that he understood that we simply could not go on; he was, in many ways, allowing the world to decide to decide his fate. And thus, the voyage came to an end; as quickly as it began, it ended and left me unsure of what to do with myself. Since the voyage was not really one of commerce, we had made no sales and I was therefore in a state of poverty. Along with the money I had spent to make amends with this voyage, I had to spend even more of the little I had to make my way back to America, a process which took a long time and a lot of hardship. I did not speak to the captain after my attempts at getting him to go through with the voyage, nor did I speak to the other nineteen crew members, and what became of them I do not know; neither do I know what became of the cook and his group of deserters, for I never heard of them again.
Almost two months after we docked in Jamaica I arrived back in New Bedford, where my home and possessions were. I was left with a state of melancholy, as I always was after a voyage, for its end felt like the end of a great journey, sad but necessary; for even the greatest adventures have to come to an end eventually. Along with this melancholy, however, also came dissatisfaction, for this voyage did nothing but exhaust my money and leave me stranded, so to speak, in the Caribbean for two months. Usually when I have finished a voyage I like to relax in New Bedford and wait a few months before I partake on another voyage; however, I was unable to do that with the little money that I had. Instead, I had to look for another ship to sail on so that I could, at least, regain the money that I had had before the doomed South Seas explorer set sail, nearly a year prior to that day. Until that time I could not entertain myself to even think that I may enjoy the smallest of pleasures, for no pleasure is without a cost, no matter how minimal it is.
So it was then that I knew I needed some way of making money. I must say that I was a little reluctant to go on another voyage after the ‘expedition’ which I had participated on and had failed me in every way possible. However, I had a been a sailor for all of my life, and thus I knew little about other professions; though I was worried about going on another voyage, I had no idea as to what I would do instead, and I mustn’t do nothing, for then I would simply lose my money at a steady rate until I was reduced to a beggar. I would not let this fate befall on me. During this time I tried my hand at numerous temporary jobs, which I will spare the reader from hearing due to both unimportance and embarrassment, for I was unable to complete most of these tasks. At the end of all this I was still very poor, and the little money that I had would not make a difference; indeed, all of the payment I had received for these jobs was gone in a week, being spent on necessary things like groceries. I must say that at that time I was at a loss of what to do, and that such a state of monotony had overtaken me since my arrival in New Bedford that I was considering traveling to other parts of the country to find work there; but I could never leave New Bedford, the great whaling city, for if I was ever apart from the sea for too long than I would probably experience such a sense of yearning that I would be able to do nothing but sail to my heart’s desire.
Oh, New Bedford! Who knew that you could be such a gloomy city when you are not going to sea in a short time? Admittedly, this is an odd occurrence; New Bedford was, indeed, the whaling city, and many of the city’s occupants are either sailors, (usually ones who work aboard a whaler) innkeepers, or old seamen who have retired and still enjoy the sight of the ocean and the magnificent ships on the horizon. During the time when I was keeping those temporary jobs, I would remember my time at sea, the gentle rocking of the waves, and the salty air that I have so come accustomed to. Indeed, more than once I would wonder the streets of the whaling city and look fondly at the dimly lit inns that were scattered around, one never being out of sight. The combination of silence and loneliness those nights would give me a feeling not unlike the melancholy I felt after I voyage; I was recalling my times at inns just like those, preparing for a voyage which would surely be the greatest that I ever partook on—at least, that’s what I thought before all of my voyages (and obviously, this statement has not always come true, as evidenced by my doomed expedition).
So I would walk through the city in the late hours of the night, obscured by darkness and unseen by nearly all; and even those who did see a glimpse of me soon forgot me in their own troubled thoughts. Soon, the odd feeling that I felt whenever I saw the inns and the ships completely overtook me and caused my worries, little by little, to go away, until they were completely gone, and once again I yearned to go out to sea on the voyage which would surely be the greatest that I have ever partaken on. This yearning was strengthened even more when, one night, I was taking another one of my midnight walks when I heard a voice, dimly but certainly there, singing this chant:
“Oh, the rare old whale, mid storm and gale,
in his ocean home will be
a giant in might, where might is right,
and king of the boundless sea!”
The voice cut off there and never sounded once again, and though I waited along that stretch of road for a long time, (how long I could never be certain) I never heard that man singing again, and I was forced to return home.
I was deeply affected by that mysterious event, though why I was not sure. In any case, it was then that I decided that I was going to go sailing once more, and that my worries were foolish; for if every time someone had a bad voyage they would be afraid to return to sea, sailing would cease to exist. Unhappy voyages are bound to occur once and awhile for everyone, and they should simply be forgotten and overshadowed by the voyages that have been happy. Besides, during my doomed expedition the only really bad thing that happened to me was my loss of money; though this was, indeed, a very important thing to lose, I still had my health. I had faired much better than the cook did, for he rather naively took a number of seamen and left in an open boat, in the middle of the ocean. I noticed soon after he had left that he did not take any compass to know which direction he was going in, and only took a minimal amount of food that would perhaps feed three people—much less than the group he took. Therefore he was in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight and barely any provisions to last for the long run. For all they knew, they may have been sailing even further into open water due to their lack of a compass; though I never heard anything of them again, I always felt that their chance at survival (or, at least that all of them would survive) was very little.
But all this is by and by. I began to search for a ship that I liked. There were many that were looking for sailors; I narrowed it down to three after inspecting some of them to see how well the ship was made and kept. All of them where whalers, for I had decided (even before the doomed expedition) that I wanted to try my hand at whaling. It is my belief that every sailor, no matter his past voyages, should try out whaling, for how better to truly assess your skills as a seaman than by partaking on the most demanding voyage that there is? I had also heard from the sailors that spent there time at inns and bars that whaling is quite profitable, and I myself being in quite a financial crisis, was keen on finding a way to make money. The three aforementioned ships were bound to totally different places: one was to sail for the South Seas; one was headed for the South Pacific; and the other’s destination was the North Pacific. These ships were alike only in the fact that they where whalers; other details like size and shape where much different. I surveyed the ships for only a few moments before I decided on which ship I liked best: the ship bound for the South Pacific, the whaler called Mississippi. It was in this way that I had decided on every voyage that I have ever been on—I looked them over for only a short time before going with my instinct; this choice has almost always been a good one, not counting the events that transpired on my doomed expedition.
Here I will provide a brief description of the ship and its history: it was an incredibly old ship, though how old I never learned; it had been built at least fifty years prior to my discovery of it there in New Bedford, where many of the greatest whalers came from. Having been on many voyages in those years, it was more appealing in my eyes, for knowing that it had an extensive history evoked a feeling that it had seen many a marvel, and that the old sailors who once walked on its decks could tell a great many stories. The ship’s appearance also evoked a similar feeling; the gentle creaking of the deck and the old wooden mast made it seem like an English warship straight from the pages of a child’s fantasy book. The only things on the ship that looked new were the clean, white sails that hung from the ship’s three masts; they added a feeling of majesty in addition to the feeling brought on by the age of the ancient ship. Overall, the ships evoked a great amount of feelings that, when they were together, made the ship seem like the most magnificent vessel in the world.
It was for these reasons that I decided to try and secure a place on this vessel; just looking at it made me sure that this was the craft that would certainly provide me with the greatest voyage that I had ever partaken on—and in a way, it did, though it was definitely not the happiest I’ve ever been on. I believe that any man who was looking to ship on a whaling voyage would be impressed with the ship, for its elegance could cause any sailor to fall madly in love with it; of all of the voyages I have been on, it is still the best looking ship that I’ve ever seen, and the day when I first came upon it still lingers in my mind like the memory of a lost loved one. In fact, almost all of my memories from this voyage still linger in my mind, and when I think about it I’m taken by such a melancholic nostalgia that I have began to avoid thinking about it; for my stomach aches with the yearning for the past that I feel each time I think of a past voyage, though with this particular one it is tenfold.
One interesting anecdote, in my opinion, is the reason behind the naming of the ship, for it had never been to the state of Mississippi. Instead, (as one of the sailors aboard the vessel told me later on in the voyage) it was named in honor of the grandfather of the original owner and captain of the ship, who had been a steamboat captain on the Mississippi river when he was a young man. After growing old and retiring from the profession, he would tell his grandchildren, including the man who later come to own the Mississippi, that if he ever had his own boat—even if it was just a sailboat—he would name it ‘Mississippi,’ honoring the fond memories that he had working as a steamboat captain. Unfortunately, he died before his dream of owning his own boat was ever achieved, and his son decided that he would name his own ship that for his grandfather, who was apparently a great inspiration to him; out of the five children of that steamboat captain, the owner of the ship was the only one that followed the family tradition of becoming a sailor, and honored his grandfather for helping him get into that profession.
Hearing about this made me realize that I’m not the only person that feels that melancholic nostalgia; just as I yearn for the past when I remember my voyages, the old steamboat captain yearned for the past when he remembered his days on the Mississippi river, captain of a steamboat, when he was young and fit and could do anything he put his mind to.
* * *
P.S. Does anybody know the time period of the whale song that I used? I searched for 'songs about whales' on Google and this came up, but it didn't include any details about where it's from or when it first appeared.