25. CHAPTER XXV.
POSTSCRIPT.
In behalf of the dignity of whaling, I would fain advance
naught but substantiated facts. But after embattling his facts,
an advocate who should wholly suppress a not unreasonable
surmise, which might tell eloquently upon his cause—such an
advocate, would he not be blameworthy?
It is well known that at the coronation of kings and queens,
even modern ones, a certain curious process of seasoning them
for their functions is gone through. There is a saltcellar of state,
so called, and there may be a caster of state. How they use
the salt, precisely—who knows? Certain I am, however, that
a king's head is solemnly oiled at his coronation, even as a head
of salad. Can it be, though, that they anoint it with a view of
making its interior run well, as they anoint machinery? Much
might be ruminated here, concerning the essential dignity of
this regal process, because in common life we esteem but meanly
and contemptibly a fellow who anoints his hair, and palpably
smells of that anointing. In truth, a mature man who uses
hair-oil, unless medicinally, that man has probably got a quoggy
spot in him somewhere. As a general rule, he can't amount to
much in his totality.
But the only thing to be considered here, is this—what kind
of oil is used at coronations? Certainly it cannot be olive oil,
nor macassar oil, nor castor oil, nor bear's oil, nor train oil, nor
cod-liver oil. What then can it possibly be, but sperm oil in
its unmanufactured, unpolluted state, the sweetest of all oils?
Think of that, ye loyal Britons! we whalemen supply your
kings and queens with coronation stuff!
