Chapter 7 Summary

The captain is an intellectual, one who loves books and who never goes to sea without bringing new ones with him to fill the hours on board. A captain leads an essentially lonely life, and Starry Vere particularly favors biography, history, and realistic writers like Montaigne to fill his solitary hours. Thanks to his intellectual bent and the kind of reading he indulges himself in, he is possessed of very firm convictions, which the narrator notes is a good thing considering the troubled period he finds himself in.

Some of his officers found Starry Vere dry and bookish and not an ideal companion. They acknowledge that as a seaman he is superior, but personally they find him a bit too pedantic. To make a point, he sometimes cites authorities that only one as well read as he would know about, not taking into...