Not P but Moby-Dick (9)

[Ian Livingston]

In the archaic sense, which I think applies here, "conscience" may mean
simply "consciousness." Of course, Melville would push the meaning a bit to
include those thoughts of good or ill behavior that replay themselves from
memory into the present moments of his restless hours in the bunk where he
would be sleeping if his memory didn't outplay his present surroundings for
his attention.

On Fri, Sep 8, 2023 at 5:22 AM Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The following excerpt is from Chapter 29:
>
> Didn’t that Dough-Boy, the steward, tell me that of a morning he always
> finds the old man’s hammock clothes all rumpled and tumbled, and the sheets
> down at the foot, and the coverlid almost tied into knots, and the pillow a
> sort of frightful hot, as though a baked brick had been on it? A hot old
> man! I guess he’s got what some folks ashore call a conscience; it’s a kind
> of Tic-Dolly-row they say—worse nor a toothache. Well, well; I don’t know
> what it is, but the Lord keep me from catching it.
>
> Does "conscience" here mean "guilty conscience", or is it something else?
> --
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>