Not P but Moby-Dick (9)

[David Morris]

I think the LAST THING Melville wants to reader to do with this passage is
to conclude “BAD.”  That’s not the way one should read this book.

On Fri, Sep 8, 2023 at 9:51 AM Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com>
wrote:

> 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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> >
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>