"there a 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 dicerns, 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, all 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 more momentous, now seems but a part of the general joke. there is nothing like the perils of whaling (touring) to breed this free and easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it i now regarded this whole voyage (tour) of the Pequod (Van), and the great White Whale it's object."
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