So that there are instances among them of men, who, named with Scripture names,a singularly common fashion on the island,and in childhood naturally imbibing the stately dramatic thee and thou of the Quaker idiom; still, from the audacious, daring, and boundless adventure of their subsequent lives, strangely blend with these unoutgrown peculiarities, a thousand bold dashes of character, not unworthy a Scandinavian sea-king, or a poetical Pagan Roman.
島上的人們還有個習慣,那就是用《圣經》中的人物為自己起名字。他們的稱呼中,有“你”與“您”的區別,顯得有禮有節;然而他們的血液之中卻始終流淌著冒險的成分,勇猛與大無畏的精神,使他們可以成為斯堪的那維亞的海中之霸,也可以成為頗有詩人氣質的羅馬教徒。
And when these things unite in a man of greatly superior natural force, with a globular brain and a ponderous heart; who has also by the stillness and seclusion of many long night-watches in the remotest waters, and beneath constellations never seen here at the north, been led to think untraditionally and independently; receiving all nature's sweet or savage impressions fresh from her own virgin voluntary and confiding breast, and thereby chiefly, but with some help from accidental advantages, to learn a bold and nervous lofty language,that man makes one in a whole nation's census,a mighty pageant creature, formed for noble tragedies.
這種不乏浪漫色彩的勇猛性格蘊育出了像比勒達船長這種靜如處女、動若脫兔的人物,隱居于如此荒蠻之海域,從來沒有見過被領導,也有如此的獨立性格;他身上有與大自然相諧的寧和與恬美,也有自然斗士的桀驁不馴。他是悲劇中的偉人,支配別人成了他人格的一種病態表現。