This chapter introduces Starbuck, the Pequod's chief mate. He is from Nantucket and comes from a Quaker family. He is a thin, serious man in his thirties. Ishmael says he looks dried down to essentials, like hard twice-baked bread, but still strong and healthy.
Starbuck can handle hot or cold weather. His eyes seem to hold memories of a thousand dangers he has faced calmly. He is steady and practical.
He is very careful and also a little superstitious, but in a thoughtful way, not a foolish one. He thinks about his wife and child back on Cape Cod. Those memories make him less reckless than some whale hunters.
Starbuck says he will not take a man in his boat who is not afraid of a whale. He does not want cowards, but he also does not want reckless daredevils. Real courage means understanding the danger.
Stubb, the second mate, calls Starbuck a careful man. Ishmael will show later what careful means on a whaling ship.
Starbuck treats courage like ship supplies. He does not chase whales for glory. He will not lower boats after sundown or keep fighting a whale that fights too hard. He is here to kill whales for a living, not to be killed by them. He remembers his father's death and his brother lost at sea.
Ishmael warns that even a brave man like Starbuck may break when faced with a different kind of terror, especially from a furious powerful captain.
Then Ishmael stops the story for a moment and makes a bigger point. He says it is painful to watch a brave person's spirit fall. True dignity is not found in kings and robes. It shines in the arm that swings a pick or drives a spike.
He asks God to help him tell the stories of rough sailors with respect, even when their lives are tragic. He wants common workers treated as noble people.
Coming Up in Chapter 27
Stubb follows in Knights and Squires: happy-go-lucky Cape Cod mate, whistling at death and smoking pipe after pipe. Then Flask, the harpooneer squires Queequeg, Tashtego, and Daggoo, and Ishmael maps who supplies brains and muscles aboard the Pequod.
