Chapter 17

by Herman Melville

　　Yes, despite the Dansker's pithy insistence as to the Master-at-armsbeing at the bottom of these strange experiences of Billy on board theIndomitable, the young sailor was ready to ascribe them to almostanybody but the man who, to use Billy's own expression, "always had apleasant word for him." This is to be wondered at. Yet not so much to bewondered at. In certain matters, some sailors even in mature life remainunsophisticated enough. But a young seafarer of the disposition of ourathletic Foretopman, is much of a child-man. And yet a child's utterinnocence is but its blank ignorance, and the innocence more or lesswanes as intelligence waxes. But in Billy Budd intelligence, such as itwas, had advanced, while yet his simplemindedness remained for the mostpart unaffected. Experience is a teacher indeed; yet did Billy's yearsmake his experience small. Besides, he had none of that intuitiveknowledge of the bad which in natures not good or incompletely soforeruns experience, and therefore may pertain, as in some instances ittoo clearly does pertain, even to youth.And what could Billy know of man except of man as a mere sailor? Andthe old-fashioned sailor, the veritable man-before-the-mast, the sailorfrom boyhood up, he, tho' indeed of the same species as a landsman, isin some respects singularly distinct from him. The sailor is frankness,the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demandingthe long head; no intricate game of chess where few moves are made instraightforwardness, and ends are attained by indirection; an oblique,tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.Yes, as a class, sailors are in character a juvenile race. Eventheir deviations are marked by juvenility. And this more especiallyholding true with the sailors of Billy's time. Then, too, certain thingswhich apply to all sailors, do more pointedly operate, here and there,upon the junior one. Every sailor, too, is accustomed to obey orderswithout debating them; his life afloat is externally ruled for him; heis not brought into that promiscuous commerce with mankind whereunobstructed free agency on equal terms -- equal superficially, at least-- soon teaches one that unless upon occasion he exercise a distrustkeen in proportion to the fairness of the appearance, some foul turn maybe served him. A ruled undemonstrative distrustfulness is so habitual,not with business-men so much, as with men who know their kind in lessshallow relations than business, namely, certain men-of-the-world, thatthey come at last to employ it all but unconsciously; and some of themwould very likely feel real surprise at being charged with it as one oftheir general characteristics.