Knight of Wands

 

Meaning: Passion, desire, ambition. The call to action that began with the Page of Wands goes further to implementation with this card.

Depiction: Embarking on the first stage of his  seaward journey, Ishmael with Queequeg is now aboard the Moss, bound from New Bedford to Nantucket via the Acushnet River. as described in the text below. Queequeg holds his harpoon. (In terms of the original RWS card, the knight's horse is the ship).

Text: Chapter 13 - Wheelbarrow
At last, passage paid, and luggage safe, we stood on board the schooner. Hoisting sail, it glided down the Acushnet river. On one side, New Bedford rose in terraces of streets, their ice-covered trees all glittering in the clear, cold air. Huge hills and mountains of casks on casks were piled upon her wharves, and side by side the world-wandering whale ships lay silent and safely moored at last; while from others came a sound of carpenters and coopers, with blended noises of fires and forges to melt the pitch, all betokening that new cruises were on the start; that one most perilous and long voyage ended, only begins a second; and a second ended, only begins a third, and so on, for ever and for aye. Such is the endlessness, yea, the intolerableness of all earthly effort.

View of New Bedford from the Acushnet River

Comments: Ishmael and Queequeg are turning up a lot in this suit, as they will in the suit of Cups.