tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462946535883846881.post2019277950462819296..comments2024-03-17T16:32:51.970-04:00Comments on Vast Public Indifference: 101 Ways, Part 63: Supposed Foundered at SeaCDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14390048358391513711noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1462946535883846881.post-61720737868206400882008-11-12T20:25:00.000-05:002008-11-12T20:25:00.000-05:00New Englanders (and other humans) had been dying f...New Englanders (and other humans) had been dying far from home in wars for centuries. Although I haven't read Faust, I'm inclined to think that the Civil War differed in quantity but not necessarily in quality.<BR/><BR/>The maritime case is particular, however, and coastal communities always had the special problem of people being lost at sea. There's a famous meditation in Chapter 7 of Moby Dick:<BR/><BR/>=====<BR/>In the same New Bedford there stands a Whaleman's Chapel, and few are the moody fishermen, shortly bound for the Indian Ocean or Pacific, who fail to make a Sunday visit to the spot. I am sure that I did not.<BR/><BR/>Returning from my first morning stroll, I again sallied out upon this special errand. The sky had changed from clear, sunny cold, to driving sleet and mist. Wrapping myself in my shaggy jacket of the cloth called bearskin, I fought my way against the stubborn storm. Entering, I found a small scattered congregation of sailors, and sailors' wives and widows. A muffled silence reigned, only broken at times by the shrieks of the storm. Each silent worshipper seemed purposely sitting apart from the other, as if each silent grief were insular and incommunicable. The chaplain had not yet arrived; and there these silent islands of men and women sat steadfastly eyeing several marble tablets, with black borders, masoned into the wall on either side the pulpit. Three of them ran something like the following, but I do not pretend to quote:<BR/><BR/>SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF JOHN TALBOT, Who, at the age of eighteen, was lost overboard Near the Isle of Desolation, off Patagonia, November 1st, 1836. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS SISTER.<BR/><BR/>SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ROBERT LONG, WILLIS ELLERY, NATHAN COLEMAN, WALTER CANNY, SETH MACY, AND SAMUEL GLEIG, Forming one of the boats' crews OF THE SHIP ELIZA Who were towed out of sight by a Whale, On the Off-shore Ground in the PACIFIC, December 31st, 1839. THIS MARBLE Is here placed by their surviving SHIPMATES.<BR/><BR/>SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF The late CAPTAIN EZEKIEL HARDY, Who in the bows of his boat was killed by a Sperm Whale on the coast of Japan, August 3d, 1833. THIS TABLET Is erected to his Memory BY HIS WIDOW.<BR/><BR/>....<BR/><BR/>Oh! ye whose dead lie buried beneath the green grass; who standing among flowers can say-here, here lies my beloved; ye know not the desolation that broods in bosoms like these. What bitter blanks in those black-bordered marbles which cover no ashes! What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.<BR/>=====Robert J.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12937384579138400443noreply@blogger.com