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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Moby Dick by Herman Melville: here, though, so I can pass the rope; now listen. What's the mighty
difference between holding a mast's lightning-rod in the storm, and
standing close by a mast that hasn't got any lightning-rod at all in
a storm? Don't you see, you timber-head, that no harm can come to
the holder of the rod, unless the mast is first struck? What are you
talking about, then? Not one ship in a hundred carries rods, and
Ahab,--aye, man, and all of us,--were in no more danger then, in my
poor opinion, than all the crews in ten thousand ships now sailing
the seas. Why, you King-Post, you, I suppose you would have every
man in the world go about with a small lightning-rod running up the
corner of his hat, like a militia officer's skewered feather, and
Moby Dick |
