Alas, however, the Captain got the worst of it in the end. He smirks longest who smirks lasts. The Captain wasn't wary enough. Natural anger, natural passion has its unremitting enemy in the idealist. And the ship was already tainted with idealism. A good deal more so, apparently, than Herman Melville's ships were. Which reminds us that Melville was once going to be flogged. In _White Jacket._ And he, too, would have taken it as the last insult. In my opinion, there are worse insults than floggings. I would rather be flogged than have most people "like" me. Melville too had an Intercedor: a quiet, self-respecting man, not a saviour. The man spoke in the name of Justice. Melville was to be unjustly whipped. The man spoke honestly and quietly. Not in any Salvationist spirit. And the whipping did not take place. Justice is a great and manly thing. Saviourism is a despicable thing. Sam was justly whipped. It was a passional justice. But Melville's whipping would have been a cold, disciplinary injustice. A foul thing. Mechanical _justice_ even is a foul thing. For true justice makes the heart's fibres quiver. You can't be cold in a matter of real justice. Already in those days it was no fun to be a captain. You had to learn already to abstract yourself into a machine-part, exerting machine-control. And it is a good deal bitterer to exert machine-control, selfless, ideal control, than it is to have to obey, mechanically. Because the idealists who mechanically obey almost always hate the _man_ who must give the orders. Their idealism rarely allows them to exonerate the man for the office. Dana's captain was one of the real old-fashioned sort. He gave himself away terribly. He should have been more wary, knowing he confronted a shipful of enemies and at least two cold and deadly idealists, who hated all "masters" on principle. "As he went on, his passion increased, and he danced about on the deck, calling out as he swung the rope, 'If you want to know what I flog you for. I'll tell you. It's because I like to do it!--Because I like to do it!--It suits me. That's what I do it for!' "The man writhed under the pain. My blood run cold, I could look no longer. Disgusted, sick and horror-stricken, I turned away and leaned over the rail and looked down in the water. A few rapid thoughts of my own situation, and the prospect of future revenge, crossed my mind; but the falling of the blows, and the cries of the man called me back at once. At length they ceased, and, turning round, I found that the Mate, at a signal from the captain, had cut him down."