Evening star., 1901-10-05
Tragedy and Pathos of the Past Have
No Visible Sign Now.
HISTORY FADED FROM MEMS MINDS
The Watch Towers Have Given
Way to Pleasure Resorts.
SILENr OLD SEA CAPTAINS
Copyright, 19o1.)

Copyright, 19o1)
Written for The Evening Star by Frank T. B1llen.
Regard it how 1 will, Nantucket strikes
me as most pathetically lonely. This L
know will seem strange to many who have
visited the wonderful old town in these later
days of it's existence and have found 1t
transformed into favorite summer resort,
which is growing more and more popular
year by year. Its quaint, cobble paved
streets just now are thronged with gay
visitors from many states, its ship-deserted
wharves ring with merry laughter and its
beautiful beach is dotted with groups of
pleasure and health-seeking bathers. while
an excellent band makes night melodious
in the broad old-fashioned market place.
where the visitors sit or stand around after
the days eXertions.
But in spite of all this gayety Nantucket
will persist, to my thinking, at any rate in
wearing air of being deserted, bereft of
her reason to be. Her glorious past still
clingS about her like the aroma of faded
rose petals in long unused bureaus, and on
every hand the mental vision will discern
evidences of what Nantucket once was, and
that, as men count time, not very long ago.
l say mental vision advisedly, for per-
haps one of the most striking proofs of the
breVlty of mems memorieS-the ease with
which they will allow the most majestic
and die-that can be found anywhere will
be found in Nantucket. 1t is a most pro-
found mystery to me how in town Ike
this, which should surely occupy place in
the very foremost ranks of Americas slo-
rious history, it is possible to roam every
where without meeting any outward and
visible sign of its departed greatness. Do
American citizens realize, / wonder, what
tn, sperm whale fishery was to not merely
New England, but the whole of the infant
colony, and later to the herculean babe of
their young republic? Is it possible that
Americans can have forgotten what kind
of men they were-these strong, silent
islanders, who. not content with Drawing the
perls of the deep, nowhere more periIous
than around these intricate shores, added to
them a hundred-foid by initiating traffic
which had for its central factor the most
Titanic warfare the world has ever wit
messed, warfare mightier by far than any
of which Homer sang, but which, alas has
produced no Homer to give ii the need of
deathless verse 1t deserves? 1t seems al
most insulting SO to imagine, and yet l
fear there Is no way to avoid such an idea.
More than that. cannot help feeling that
such memories as do survive have been al
lowed In the outward expression to become
trivial and jejune-no more worthy of the
town the state, or the nation than would
have been lumber monument decked out
in gaudy meretriciousness of paint to the
fragrant memory of Lincoln or Garfield.
The Mighty Fallen.
The reason for such feelings Of mine is
that in Nantucket 1 saw a poor, pitiful
broadsheet pasted on the walls Of a mean
building grandiloquently styled the Athe-
naeum Museum. 1t set forth that within
might be seen the lower jaw of a giant
sperm whale, fully furnished with teeth,
and many other curiosities, the charge to
view which would be fifteen cents! L did
not go in, for l felt sick at heart L should
have expected to find Jaws of sperm
whales. arches of their monstrous ribs,
colossal fragments of their vertebrae, the
splendid chariots Of their skulls, adorning
the lawns Of those pretty houses round
about, scattered in lavish profusion every
where, stupendous trophies of the long,
long fight that did so much to establish the
foundation of this magnificent land, and en-
during memorials to the prowess of the
warriors who had brought them from out
of the vast mysterious deep, had collected
them from the confines of the round world
Had l seen such a bill pasted on tenn
porary booth in a mushroom English sea-
side resort 1 should have smiled sadly and
passed on thinking, possibly How art the
mighty fallen!" The monarch of the deep's
gigantic remains being made the objects of
a SiX-penny show! But to find such an
atrocity perpetrated here in Nantucket
where, If anywhere; should have expected
to see not merely a splendid statue to Her
man Melville, but an heroic group in mar
bic or bronze of a whaleboat's crew attack
ing sperm whale set up In the market
shock as | have not yet been able to re-
cover from. In word, the bill. the build
ing and the environment thereof seemed to
me unutterably paltry and unworthy Of so
stupendous past.
Well, have unpacked my heart O. words
even If have not fallen ''a-cursing, like a
very drab," and feel better. Now. can
go on to report what saw that was really
full of the tragedy, the pathos. of the past.
There is square, red-brick building
labeled custom house, which Is also the
United States meteorological station, at the
head of one Of the deserted wharves. In
the town end Of this building there is
room wherein may be met in the cool of
the evening little company of ancient
men who have been through all the seas
of all the world engaged in that mighty,
never-ending warfare between man and
beast that is summed up in the two words
sperm whaling" Several of them have
lived far beyond the allotted span Of life,
but all. with the exception of an occasional
slight deafness. look hale and vigorous to
such a degree that one is compelled to be-
lieve their long. long voyages have gen.
Grated such a store of vitality in them as
nothing but accident can dissipate.
But whalemen who survive in this most
dangerous of all callings have a habit of
living to grand and forceful old age. And
they bear about with them their certif-
Gates of fitness to so survive, since it is
certain that no maIfe.an spend many years
in the chase of the cachalot without having
developed those qualities in highest meas
ure which we have all agreed to regard as
the hallmarks of manhood.
Thinking Of Old Days.
But, alas. these old captains are taci-
turnity incarnate. They sit for hours smok-
ing or Illuminating with eyes that apparent
ly stare into vacancy, but are really / be-
fieve, looking backward across the great
deep of the past upon the splendid phan-
tasmagoria of their lives. Occasionally an
ejaculatory remark is made upon some
TAKING
From Moonshine