Ahab's Adventure's In Wonderland; or The Rabbit

Chapter Twenty-Nine

There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. However, nothing dispirits, and nothing seems worth while disputing. He bolts down all events, all creeds, and beliefs, and persuasions, all hard things visible and invisible, never mind how knobby; as an ostrich of potent digestion gobbles down bullets and gun flints. And as for small difficulties and worryings, prospects of sudden disaster, peril of life and limb; all these, and death itself, seem to him only sly, good-natured hits, and jolly punches in the side bestowed by the unseen and unaccountable old joker. That odd sort of wayward mood I am speaking of, comes over a man only in some time of extreme tribulation; it comes in the very midst of his earnestness, so that what just before might have seemed to him a thing most momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. There is nothing like the perils of an adventure down a rabbit hole to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I now regarded this whole affair with Ahab and the great White Rabbit its object.

'Franklin,' said I, as we waiting nearby while Ahab nibbled at the cake, and I was still shaking myself in my jacket getting used to my new dimensions; 'Franklin, my fine friend, does this sort of thing often happen?' Without much emotion, though visibly shaken by his diminutive demeanor just like me, he gave me to understand that such things did often happen.

'Mr. Starbuck,' said I, turning to that worthy, who, buttoned up in his oil-jacket, was now calmly smoking his pipe; 'Mr. Starbuck, I think I have heard you say that of all farmers you ever met, our chief, Captain Ahab, is by far the most single-minded and determined. I suppose then, that eating strange foods that have the ability to change a man's size is the height of a farmer's discretion?'

'Certain.'

'And Mr. Starbuck,' said I, 'you are experienced in these things, and I am not. Will you tell me whether it is an unalterable law in this farm for a plowman to shrink his own body to chase a rabbit into death's jaws?'

'Can you imagine us getting any smaller?' said Starbuck. 'Yes, that's the law. I should like to see a farm's crew pushing up soil to a rabbit face foremost. Ha, ha! the rabbit would give them squint for squint, mind that!'

Here then, from two impartial witnesses, I had a deliberate statement of the entire case. Considering, therefore, that tornados and fallen trees, as well as bivouacks in the remote areas of the forest, were matters of common occurrence in this kind of life; considering that at the superlatively critical instant of going on to the rabbit I must resign my life into the hands of him who guided the carriage-- oftentimes a fellow who at that very moment is in his impetuousness upon the point of scuttling the craft with his own frantic stampings; considering that the particular disaster to our own particular crew was chiefly to be imputed to Starbuck's chasing after Ahab down the deepest hole imaginable, and considering that Starbuck, notwithstanding, was famous for his great heedfulness; considering that I belonged to this uncommonly prudent Starbuck's crew; and finally considering in what a devil's chase I was implicated, touching the White Rabbit: taking all things together, I say, I thought I might as well go on and make a rough draft of my will. 'Franklin,' said I, 'come along, you shall be my lawyer, executor, and legatee.'

It may seem strange that of all men farmers should be tinkering at their last wills and testaments, but there are no people in the world more fond of that diversion. This was the fourth time in my agricultural life that I had done the same thing. After the ceremony was concluded upon the present occasion, I felt all the easier; a stone was rolled away from my heart. Besides, all the days I should now live would be as good as the days that Lazarus lived after his resurrection; a supplementary clean gain of so many months or weeks as the case may be. I survived myself; my death and burial were locked up in my chest. I looked round me tranquilly and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault.

Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.