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diff --git a/toolkit/components/narrate/test/moby_dick.html b/toolkit/components/narrate/test/moby_dick.html new file mode 100644 index 0000000000..0beaa20fd1 --- /dev/null +++ b/toolkit/components/narrate/test/moby_dick.html @@ -0,0 +1,218 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html> +<head> +<title>Moby Dick - Chapter 1. Loomings</title> +</head> +<body> + <h1>Moby Dick</h1> + <h2>Chapter 1. Loomings</h2> + <p> + Call me Ishmael. <span>Some <span>years</span></span> ago—never mind how + long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular + to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the + watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and + regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the + mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find + myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the + rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an + upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me + from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking + people's hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I + can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical + flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. + There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in + their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings + towards the ocean with me. + </p> + <p> + There now is your insular city of the Manhattoes, belted round by wharves + as Indian isles by coral reefs—commerce surrounds it with her surf. + Right and left, the streets take you waterward. Its extreme downtown is + the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by + breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land. Look at the + crowds of water-gazers there. + </p> + <p> + Circumambulate the city of a dreamy Sabbath afternoon. Go from Corlears + Hook to Coenties Slip, and from thence, by Whitehall, northward. What do + you see?—Posted like silent sentinels all around the town, stand + thousands upon thousands of mortal men fixed in ocean reveries. Some + leaning against the spiles; some seated upon the pier-heads; some looking + over the bulwarks of ships from China; some high aloft in the rigging, as + if striving to get a still better seaward peep. But these are all + landsmen; of week days pent up in lath and plaster—tied to counters, + nailed to benches, clinched to desks. How then is this? Are the green + fields gone? What do they here? + </p> + <p> + But look! here come more crowds, pacing straight for the water, and + seemingly bound for a dive. Strange! Nothing will content them but the + extremest limit of the land; loitering under the shady lee of yonder + warehouses will not suffice. No. They must get just as nigh the water as + they possibly can without falling in. And there they stand—miles of + them—leagues. Inlanders all, they come from lanes and alleys, + streets and avenues—north, east, south, and west. Yet here they all + unite. Tell me, does the magnetic virtue of the needles of the compasses + of all those ships attract them thither? + </p> + <p> + Once more. Say you are in the country; in some high land of lakes. Take + almost any path you please, and ten to one it carries you down in a dale, + and leaves you there by a pool in the stream. There is magic in it. Let + the most absent-minded of men be plunged in his deepest reveries—stand + that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead + you to water, if water there be in all that region. Should you ever be + athirst in the great American desert, try this experiment, if your caravan + happen to be supplied with a metaphysical professor. Yes, as every one + knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever. + </p> + <p> + But here is an artist. He desires to paint you the dreamiest, shadiest, + quietest, most enchanting bit of romantic landscape in all the valley of + the Saco. What is the chief element he employs? There stand his trees, + each with a hollow trunk, as if a hermit and a crucifix were within; and + here sleeps his meadow, and there sleep his cattle; and up from yonder + cottage goes a sleepy smoke. Deep into distant woodlands winds a mazy way, + reaching to overlapping spurs of mountains bathed in their hill-side blue. + But though the picture lies thus tranced, and though this pine-tree shakes + down its sighs like leaves upon this shepherd's head, yet all were vain, + unless the shepherd's eye were fixed upon the magic stream before him. Go + visit the Prairies in June, when for scores on scores of miles you wade + knee-deep among Tiger-lilies—what is the one charm wanting?—Water—there + is not a drop of water there! Were Niagara but a cataract of sand, would + you travel your thousand miles to see it? Why did the poor poet of + Tennessee, upon suddenly receiving two handfuls of silver, deliberate + whether to buy him a coat, which he sadly needed, or invest his money in a + pedestrian trip to Rockaway Beach? Why is almost every robust healthy boy + with a robust healthy soul in him, at some time or other crazy to go to + sea? Why upon your first voyage as a passenger, did you yourself feel such + a mystical vibration, when first told that you and your ship were now out + of sight of land? Why did the old Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the + Greeks give it a separate deity, and own brother of Jove? Surely all this + is not without meaning. And still deeper the meaning of that story of + Narcissus, who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he + saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But that same image, + we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It is the image of the + ungraspable phantom of life; and this is the key to it all. + </p> + <p> + Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I begin to + grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious of my lungs, I do + not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to sea as a passenger. For to + go as a passenger you must needs have a purse, and a purse is but a rag + unless you have something in it. Besides, passengers get sea-sick—grow + quarrelsome—don't sleep of nights—do not enjoy themselves + much, as a general thing;—no, I never go as a passenger; nor, though + I am something of a salt, do I ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a + Captain, or a Cook. I abandon the glory and distinction of such offices to + those who like them. For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable + toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as + much as I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships, + barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as cook,—though + I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook being a sort of + officer on ship-board—yet, somehow, I never fancied broiling fowls;—though + once broiled, judiciously buttered, and judgmatically salted and peppered, + there is no one who will speak more respectfully, not to say + reverentially, of a broiled fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous + dotings of the old Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, + that you see the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the + pyramids. + </p> + <p> + No, when I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, + plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, + they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like + a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is + unpleasant enough. It touches one's sense of honour, particularly if you + come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, or + Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to putting + your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country + schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you. The transition + is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires + a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear + it. But even this wears off in time. + </p> + <p> + What of it, if some old hunks of a sea-captain orders me to get a broom + and sweep down the decks? What does that indignity amount to, weighed, I + mean, in the scales of the New Testament? Do you think the archangel + Gabriel thinks anything the less of me, because I promptly and + respectfully obey that old hunks in that particular instance? Who ain't a + slave? Tell me that. Well, then, however the old sea-captains may order me + about—however they may thump and punch me about, I have the + satisfaction of knowing that it is all right; that everybody else is one + way or other served in much the same way—either in a physical or + metaphysical point of view, that is; and so the universal thump is passed + round, and all hands should rub each other's shoulder-blades, and be + content. + </p> + <p> + Again, I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying + me for my trouble, whereas they never pay passengers a single penny that I + ever heard of. On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there + is all the difference in the world between paying and being paid. The act + of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction that the two + orchard thieves entailed upon us. But <i>being paid</i>,—what will compare + with it? The urbane activity with which a man receives money is really + marvellous, considering that we so earnestly believe money to be the root + of all earthly ills, and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. + Ah! how cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition! + </p> + <p> + Finally, I always go to sea as a sailor, because of the wholesome exercise + and pure air of the fore-castle deck. For as in this world, head winds are + far more prevalent than winds from astern (that is, if you never violate + the Pythagorean maxim), so for the most part the Commodore on the + quarter-deck gets his atmosphere at second hand from the sailors on the + forecastle. He thinks he breathes it first; but not so. In much the same + way do the commonalty lead their leaders in many other things, at the same + time that the leaders little suspect it. But wherefore it was that after + having repeatedly smelt the sea as a merchant sailor, I should now take it + into my head to go on a whaling voyage; this the invisible police officer + of the Fates, who has the constant surveillance of me, and secretly dogs + me, and influences me in some unaccountable way—he can better answer + than any one else. And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed + part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time + ago. It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more + extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run + something like this: + </p> + <p> + "<i>Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.</i> + "WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL. "BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN." + </p> + <p> + Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the + Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others + were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy + parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I cannot + tell why this was exactly; yet, now that I recall all the circumstances, I + think I can see a little into the springs and motives which being + cunningly presented to me under various disguises, induced me to set about + performing the part I did, besides cajoling me into the delusion that it + was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating + judgment. + </p> + <p> + Chief among these motives was the overwhelming idea of the great whale + himself. Such a portentous and mysterious monster roused all my curiosity. + Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his island bulk; the + undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale; these, with all the attending + marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped to sway me to + my wish. With other men, perhaps, such things would not have been + inducements; but as for me, I am tormented with an everlasting itch for + things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous + coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and + could still be social with it—would they let me—since it is + but well to be on friendly terms with all the inmates of the place one + lodges in. + </p> + <p> + By reason of these things, then, the whaling voyage was welcome; the great + flood-gates of the wonder-world swung open, and in the wild conceits that + swayed me to my purpose, two and two there floated into my inmost soul, + endless processions of the whale, and, mid most of them all, one grand + hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air. + </p> +</body> +</html> |