Very often do the captains of such ships take those absent-minded young philosophers to task, upbraiding them with not feeling sufficient "interest" in the voyage; half hinting that they are so hopelessly lost to all ambition, as that in their secret souls they would rather not see whales than otherwise. But all in vain; those young Platonists have a notion that their vision is imperfect; they are short-sighted; what use, then, to strain the visual nerve? They have left their opera-glasses at home.
"Why, thou monkey," said a harpooner to one of these lads, "we've been cruising now hard upon three years and thou hast not raised a whale yet. Whales are scarcer than hens teeth whenever thou art up here." Perhaps they were, or perhaps there might have been shoals of them in the far horizon; but lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the cadence of waves with thoughts that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some indiscernible form, seems to him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul by continually flitting through it.
All artwork and instalation by Megan Hepburn and Colin Muir Dorward.
All photos courtesy of Willie.
All photos courtesy of Willie.