The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket quotes

He was now thoroughly insensible, and there was no probability that he would be otherwise for many hours.

It is hardly possible to conceive the extremity of my terror.

The fumes of the wine lately taken had evaporated, leaving me doubly timid and irresolute. I knew that I was altogether incapable of managing the boat, and that a fierce wind and strong ebb tide were hurrying us to destruction.

In no affairs of mere prejudice, pro or con, do we deduce inferences with entire certainty, even from the most simple data.

It might be supposed that a catastrophe such as I have just related would have effectually cooled my incipient passion for the sea.

but my mother went into hysterics at the bare mention of the design; and, more than all, my grandfather, from whom I expected much, vowed to cut me off with a shilling if I should ever broach the subject to him again.

These difficulties, however, so far from abating my desire, only added fuel to the flame.

I determined to go at all hazards; and, having made known my intentions to Augustus, we set about arranging a plan by which it might be accomplished.

Now, at least, I was in possession of my senses. The paws of some huge and real monster were pressing heavily upon my bosom—his hot breath was in my ear—and his white and ghastly fangs were gleaming upon me through the gloom.

Had a thousand lives hung upon the movement of a limb or the utterance of a syllable, I could have neither stirred nor spoken.

The beast, whatever it was, retained his position without attempting any immediate violence, while I lay in an utterly helpless, and, I fancied, a dying condition beneath him.

As I fell the carving-knife was shaken out from the waistband of my pantaloons, and dropped with a rattling sound to the floor.

Never did any strain of the richest melody come so sweetly to my ears!

With the intensest anxiety I listened to ascertain the effect of the noise upon Augustus—for I knew that the person who called my name could be no one but himself. All was silent for some moments. At length I again heard the word “Arthur!”

He spoke to the men in a voice hardly articulate, entreated them not to set him adrift, but to return to their duty, and promising to land them wherever they chose, and to take no steps for bringing them to justice.

He might as well have spoken to the winds.

Two of the ruffians seized him by the arms and hurled him over the brig’s side into the boat, which had been lowered while the mate went below.

… the brains of Greely as he was in the act of discharging a musket at me, and immediately afterward a roll of the brig throwing him in contact with Hicks, he seized him by the throat, and, by dint of sheer strength, strangled him instantaneously.

Thus, in far less time than I have taken to tell it, we found ourselves masters of the brig.

The only person of our opponents who was left alive was Richard Parker. This man, it will be remembered, I had knocked down with a blow from the pump-handle at the commencement of the attack.

We rushed aft, when, suddenly, a wide yaw threw her off full five or six points from the course she had been running, and, as she passed under our stern at the distance of about twenty feet, we had a full view of her decks.

Shall I ever forget the triple horror of that spectacle?

Twenty-five or thirty human bodies, among whom were several females, lay scattered about between the counter and the galley in the last and most loathsome state of putrefaction. We plainly saw that not a soul lived in that fated vessel!

We plainly saw that not a soul lived in that fated vessel! Yet we could not help shouting to the dead for help!

Yes, long and loudly did we beg, in the agony of the moment, that those silent and disgusting images would stay for us, would not abandon us to become like them, would receive us among their goodly company!

We were raving with horror and despair—thoroughly mad through the anguish of our grievous disappointment.

… its crimsoned head, and, after eyeing us for a moment as if stupefied, arose lazily from the body upon which it had been feasting, and, flying directly above our deck, hovered there a while with a portion of clotted and liver-like substance in its beak.

The horrid morsel dropped at length with a sullen splash immediately at the feet of Parker.

May God forgive me, but now, for the first time, there flashed through my mind a thought, a thought which I will not mention, and I felt myself making a step toward the ensanguined spot.

As the gull relieved it of its weight, it swung round and fell partially over, so that the face was fully discovered.

Never, surely, was any object so terribly full of awe!

The eyes were gone, and the whole flesh around the mouth, leaving the teeth utterly naked. This, then, was the smile which had cheered us on to hope! this the—but I forbear.

Never, surely, was any object so terribly full of awe! The eyes were gone, and the whole flesh around the mouth, leaving the teeth utterly naked.

This, then, was the smile which had cheered us on to hope!

this the—but I forbear. The brig, as I have already told, passed under our stern, and made its way slowly but steadily to leeward. With her and with her terrible crew went all our gay visions of deliverance and joy.

This, then, was the smile which had cheered us on to hope! this the—but I forbear. The brig, as I have already told, passed under our stern, and made its way slowly but steadily to leeward.

With her and with her terrible crew went all our gay visions of deliverance and joy.

Deliberately as she went by, we might possibly have found means of boarding her, had not our sudden disappointment and the appalling nature of the discovery which accompanied it laid entirely prostrate every active faculty of mind and body.

The wine had evidently produced in them a species of delirium, which, perhaps, I had been prevented from feeling by the immersion I had undergone since drinking it. They talked incoherently, and about matters unconnected with our condition, Peters repeatedly asking me questions about Nantucket.

Augustus, too, I remember, approached me with a serious air, and requested me to lend him a pocket-comb, as his hair was full of fish-scales, and he wished to get them out before going on shore.

Parker appeared somewhat less affected, and urged me to dive at random into the cabin, and bring up any article which might come to hand.

There was about him an air of self-possession which I had not noticed in him until now, and before he opened his lips my heart told me what he would say.

He proposed, in a few words, that one of us should die to preserve the existence of the others.

… over every species of finesse by which I could trick some one of my fellow-sufferers to draw the short straw, as it had been agreed that whoever drew the shortest of four splinters from my hand was to die for the preservation of the rest.

Before anyone condemn me for this apparent heartlessness, let him be placed in a situation precisely similar to my own.

At length delay was no longer possible, and, with a heart almost bursting from my bosom, I advanced to the region of the forecastle, where my companions were awaiting me. I held out my hand with the splinters, and Peters immediately drew.

He made no resistance whatever, and was stabbed in the back by Peters, when he fell instantly dead. I must not dwell upon the fearful repast which immediately ensued.

Such things may be imagined, but words have no power to impress the mind with the exquisite horror of their reality.

Let it suffice to say that, having in some measure appeased the raging thirst which consumed us by the blood of the victim, and having by common consent taken off the hands, feet, and head, throwing them together with the entrails, into the sea, we …

Thus, in my own case, I now feel it impossible to realize the full extent of the misery which I endured during the days spent upon the hulk.

The incidents are remembered, but not the feelings which the incidents elicited at the time of their occurrence.

I only know, that when they did occur, I then thought human nature could sustain nothing more of agony.

The incidents are remembered, but not the feelings which the incidents elicited at the time of their occurrence.

I only know, that when they did occur, I then thought human nature could sustain nothing more of agony.

We continued our voyage for some weeks without any incidents of greater moment than the occasional meeting with whaling-ships, and more frequently with the black or right whale, so called in contradistinction to the spermaceti. These, however, were chiefly found south of the twenty-fifth parallel.

If, however, the blade was passed down accurately between the two veins, a perfect separation was effected, which the power of cohesion did not immediately rectify.

The phenomena of this water formed the first definite link in that vast chain of apparent miracles with which I was destined to be at length encircled.

The fate of our poor companions was no longer a matter of uncertainty. We alone had escaped from the tempest of that overwhelming destruction.

We were the only living white men upon the island.

… fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which we began to anticipate the feelings with which we shall fall—to picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last struggle, and the half swoon, and the final bitterness of the rushing and headlong descent.

And now I found these fancies creating their own realities, and all imagined horrors crowding upon me in fact.

I felt my knees strike violently together, while my fingers were gradually but certainly relaxing their grasp. There was a ringing in my ears, and I said, “This is my knell of death!” And now I was consumed with the irrepressible desire of looking below.

It was in vain I endeavored to banish these reflections, and to keep my eyes steadily bent upon the flat surface of the cliff before me.

The more earnestly I struggled not to think, the more intensely vivid became my conceptions, and the more horribly distinct.

At length arrived that crisis of fancy, so fearful in all similar cases, the crisis in which we began to anticipate the feelings with which we shall fall—to picture to ourselves the sickness, and dizziness, and the last struggle, and the half swoon, and the …