AND

How wonderful it's been, I wouldn't change a day of it. Even now, somewhere out there, the sperm whales are breeding and I'm a part of them. Go to it, whales! Soon enough somebody like me'll come along and stick a harpoon in you. Have fun while you can!

Captain Hoxworth had never taken great pleasure in this children, allowing them to develop as they would, but now with Noelani gone he suddenly transformed himself into the benevolent old head of the family, and it became his habit to convene his son and his three daughters with their families and to sit benignly at the head of his table, dispensing charm and affection. He spoke of the old days in the South Pacific and of his adventures in China. It was his opinion that a man had to wait until he was dead to know the meaning of God, unless he happened to have known the sea in his youth.

"To sail before the mast when you're thirteen, to know the abuse of the wind and foul captains, to find the spiritual solace that arises from the fo'c's'l, and then to drive yourself inch by inch to the captaincy and then ownership of the vessel, these are the ultimate tests of a man. It's in such contests with fate that a man comes to know exactly how he stands with God. And don't you forget it, you young men who came to your positions the easy way," and he looked sharply at his son Bromley and his sons-in-law: Janders, Whipple, Hale.