at least in his late-20s | "I had been four voyages in the merchant [service]—” (XVI)
suicidal | "This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship." (I)
practical | " I always go to sea as a sailor, because they make a point of paying me for my trouble." (I)
a dreamer | "I — being left completely to myself at such a thought-engendering altitude" (XXXV)
a journeyman | "been a stone-mason... a great digger of ditches, canals, and wells, and wine-vaults, cellars, and cisterns of all sorts" (CIV)
an educator | "The transition is a keen one, I assure you, from a schoolmaster to a sailor, and requires a strong decoction of Seneca and the Stoics to enable you to grin and bear it." (1)
death-aware | "I thought I might as well go below and make a rough draft of my will... This was the fourth time in my nautical life that I had done the same thing." (XLVI)
a liar | "I know it to be true; it happened on this ball; I trod the ship; I knew the crew; I have seen and talked with Steelkilt since the death of Radney.'" (LIV)
unwed to women | "but there is no place like a bed for confidential disclosures between friends. Man and wife, they say, there open the very bottoms of their souls..." (X)
married to a man | "he pressed his forehead against mine, clasped me round the waist, and said that henceforth we were married" (X)
seeking | "I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote. I love to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts. Not ignoring what is good, I am quick to perceive a horror, and could still be social with it" (I)