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If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Herman Melville - Mariner and Mystic - -Author: Raymond M. Weaver - -Release Date: November 15, 2015 [EBook #50461] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERMAN MELVILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - - - - - HERMAN MELVILLE - - Mariner and Mystic - - RAYMOND M. WEAVER - -[Illustration: - - _Engraved on wood, by L. F. Grant._ - _From a photograph._ -] - -[Illustration: Signature--Herman Melville] - - - - - HERMAN MELVILLE - MARINER AND MYSTIC - - BY - RAYMOND M. WEAVER - - [Illustration] - - [Illustration] - - NEW YORK - GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - - - - COPYRIGHT, 1921, - BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY - - [Illustration] - - PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - - - - -TO - -PROFESSOR FRANKLIN T. BAKER - - “--_il maestro cortese_” - - - - -To Professor Carl Van Doren, to Miss Cora Paget, and to Mrs. Eleanor -Melville Metcalf, I am, in the writing of this book, very especially -indebted. By Professor Van Doren’s enthusiasm and scholarship I was -instigated to a study of Melville. It has been my privilege to enjoy -Miss Paget’s very valuable criticism and assistance throughout the -preparation of this volume. Mrs. Metcalf gave me access to all the -surviving records of her grandfather: Melville manuscripts, letters, -journals, annotated books, photographs, and a variety of other -material. But she did far more. My indebtedness to Mrs. Metcalf’s vivid -interest, her shrewd insight, her keen sympathy can be stated only in -superlatives. To Mrs. and Mr. Metcalf I owe one of the richest and most -pleasant associations of my life. - - RAYMOND M. WEAVER. - - _October 1, 1921._ - - - - -Most of the letters of Melville to Hawthorne included in this volume -are quoted from _Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife_, by Julian -Hawthorne. These letters, and other citations from Mr. Hawthorne’s -memoir, are included through the courtesy of Messrs. Houghton Mifflin -Company. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - CHAPTER PAGE - I DEVIL’S ADVOCATE 15 - II GHOSTS 33 - III PARENTS AND EARLY YEARS 53 - IV A SUBSTITUTE FOR PISTOL AND BALL 77 - V DISCOVERIES ON TWO CONTINENTS 98 - VI PEDAGOGY, PUGILISM AND LETTERS 113 - VII BLUBBER AND MYSTICISM 128 - VIII LEVIATHAN 153 - IX THE PACIFIC 170 - X MAN-EATING EPICURES--THE MARQUESAS 194 - XI MUTINY AND MISSIONARIES--TAHITI 215 - XII ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR 233 - XIII INTO THE RACING TIDE 250 - XIV ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AGAIN 283 - XV A NEIGHBOUR OF HAWTHORNE’S 305 - XVI THE GREAT REFUSAL 334 - XVII THE LONG QUIETUS 349 - BIBLIOGRAPHY 385 - INDEX OF NAMES 391 - - - - -ILLUSTRATIONS - - - HERMAN MELVILLE _Frontispiece_ - PAGE - MELVILLE’S GRANDFATHERS 40 - GENERAL PETER GANSEVOORT - MAJOR THOMAS MELVILLE - ALLAN MELVILLE 56 - MARIA GANSEVOORT MELVILLE 64 - IN 1820 - IN 1865 - A PAGE FROM ONE OF MELVILLE’S JOURNALS 104 - THROWING THE HARPOON 136 - SOUNDING 136 - SPERM WHALING. THE CAPTURE 160 - ONE OF SIX WHALING PRINTS 160 - “TOBY.” RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE 164 - IN 1846 - IN 1865 - EVANGELISING POLYNESIA 184 - RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE. IN 1885 200 - FIRST HOME OF THE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN TAHITI 224 - THE FLEET OF TAHITI 224 - ELIZABETH SHAW MELVILLE 272 - ARROWHEAD 312 - THE FIREPLACE. ARROWHEAD 312 - HERMAN MELVILLE. IN 1868 352 - MELVILLE AS ARTIST 368 - MELVILLE’S CHILDREN 376 - - - - - HERMAN MELVILLE - Mariner and Mystic - - - - -HERMAN MELVILLE - - - - -CHAPTER I - -DEVIL’S ADVOCATE - - -“If ever, my dear Hawthorne,” wrote Melville in the summer of 1851, “we -shall sit down in Paradise in some little shady corner by ourselves; -and if we shall by any means be able to smuggle a basket of champagne -there (I won’t believe in a Temperance Heaven); and if we shall then -cross our celestial legs in the celestial grass that is forever -tropical, and strike our glasses and our heads together till both -ring musically in concert: then, O my dear fellow mortal, how shall -we pleasantly discourse of all the things manifold which now so much -distress us.” This serene and laughing desolation--a mood which in -Melville alternated with a deepening and less tranquil despair--is a -spectacle to inspire with sardonic optimism those who gloat over the -vanity of human wishes. For though at that time Melville was only -thirty-two years old, he had crowded into that brief space of life a -scope of experience to rival Ulysses’, and a literary achievement of -a magnitude and variety to merit all but the highest fame. Still did -he luxuriate in tribulation. Well-born, and nurtured in good manners -and a cosmopolitan tradition, he was, like George Borrow, and Sir -Richard Burton, a gentleman adventurer in the barbarous outposts of -human experience. Nor was his a kid-gloved and expensively staged -dip into studio savagery. “For my part, I abominate all honourable -respectable toils, trials, and tribulations of every kind whatsoever,” -he declared. And as proof of this abomination he went forth penniless -as a common sailor to view the watery world. He spent his youth and -early manhood in the forecastles of a merchantman, several whalers, -and a man-of-war. He diversified whale-hunting by a sojourn of four -months among practising cannibals, and a mutiny off Tahiti. He returned -home to New England to marry the daughter of Chief Justice Shaw of -Massachusetts, and to win wide distinction as a novelist on both sides -of the Atlantic. Though these crowded years had brought with them -bitter hardship and keen suffering, he had sown in tears that he might -reap in triumph. But when he wrote to Hawthorne he felt that triumph -had not been achieved. Yet he needed but one conclusive gesture to -provoke the world to cry this as a lie in his throat: one last sure -sign to convince all posterity that he was, indeed, one whom the gods -loved. But the gods fatally withheld their sign for forty years. -Melville did not die until 1891. - -None of Melville’s critics seem ever to have been able to forgive him -his length of days. “Some men die too soon,” said Nietzsche, “others -too late; there is an art in dying at the right time.” Melville’s -longevity has done deep harm to his reputation as an artist in dying, -and has obscured the phenomenal brilliancy of his early literary -accomplishment. The last forty years of his history are a record of -a stoical--and sometimes frenzied--distaste for life, a perverse and -sedulous contempt for recognition, an interest in solitude, in etchings -and in metaphysics. In his writings after 1851 he employed a world of -pains to scorn the world: a compliment returned in kind. During the -closing years of his life he violated the self-esteem of the world -still more by rating it as too inconsequential for condemnation. He -earned his living between 1866 and 1886 as inspector of Customs in New -York city. His deepest interest came to be in metaphysics: which is but -misery dissolved in thought. It may be, to the all-seeing eye of truth, -that Melville’s closing years were the most glorious of his life. But -to the mere critic of literature, his strange career is like a star -that drops a line of streaming fire down the vault of the sky--and then -the dark and blasted shape that sinks into the earth. - -There are few more interesting problems in biography than this offered -by Melville’s paradoxical career: its brilliant early achievement, -its long and dark eclipse. Yet in its popular statement, this -problem is perverted from the facts by an insufficient knowledge of -Melville’s life and works. The current opinion was thus expressed by -an uncircumspect critic at the time of Melville’s centenary in 1919: -“Owing to some odd psychological experience, that has never been -definitely explained, his style of writing, his view of life underwent -a complete change. From being a writer of stirring, vivid fiction, he -became a dreamer, wrapping himself up in a vague kind of mysticism, -that rendered his last few books such as _Pierre: or The Ambiguities_ -and _The Confidence Man: His Masquerade_ quite incomprehensible, and -certainly most uninteresting for the average reader.” - -Unhampered by diffidence--because innocent of the essential -facts--critics of Melville have been fluent in hypothesis to account -for this “complete change.” A German critic patriotically lays the -blame on Kant. English-speaking critics, with insular pride, have -found a sufficiency of disruptive agencies nearer at home. Some impute -Melville’s decline to Sir Thomas Browne; others to Melville’s intimacy -with Hawthorne; others to the dispraise heaped upon _Pierre_. Though -there is a semblance of truth in each, such attempts at explanation -are, of course, too shallow and neat to merit reprobation. But there -is another group of critics, too considerable in size and substance to -be so cavalierly dismissed. This company accounts for Melville’s swift -obscuration in a summary and comprehensive manner, by intimating that -Melville went insane. - -Such an intimation is doubtless highly efficacious to mediocrity in -bolstering its own self-esteem. But otherwise it is without precise -intellectual content. For insanity is not a definite entity like -leprosy, measles, and the bubonic plague, but even in its most precise -use, denotes a conglomerate group of phenomena which have but little -in common. Science, it is true, speaking through Nordau and Lombroso, -has attempted to show an intimate correlation between genius and -degeneracy; and if the creative imagination of some of the disciples -of Freud is to be trusted, the choir invisible is little more than -a glorified bedlam. Plato would have accepted this verdict with -approval. “From insanity,” said Plato, “Greece has derived its greatest -benefits.” But the dull and decent Philistine, untouched by Platonic -heresies, justifies his sterility in a boast of sanity. The America in -which Melville was born and died was exuberantly and unquestionably -“sane.” Its “sanity” drove Irving abroad and made a recluse of -Hawthorne. Cooper alone throve upon it. And of Melville, more ponderous -in gifts and more volcanic in energy than any other American writer, -it made an Ishmael upon the face of the earth. With its outstanding -symptoms of materialism and conformity it drove Emerson to pray for -an epidemic of madness: “O Celestial Bacchus! drive them mad.--This -multitude of vagabonds, hungry for eloquence, hungry for poetry, -starving for symbols, perishing for want of electricity to vitalise -this too much pasture, and in the long delay indemnifying themselves -with the false wine of alcohol, of politics, of money.” - -From this it would appear that a taste for insanity has been widespread -among poets, prophets and saints: men venerated more by posterity -than by their neighbours. It is well for Socrates that Xantippe did -not write his memoirs: but there was sufficient libel in hemlock. In -ancient and mediæval times, of course, madness, when not abhorred as a -demoniac possession, was revered as a holy and mysterious visitation. -To-day, witch-burning and canonisation have given place to more refined -devices. The herd must always be intolerant of all who violate its -sacred and painfully reared traditions. With an easy conscience it has -always exterminated in the flesh those who sin in the flesh. In times -less timid than the present it dealt with sins of the spirit with -similar crude vindictiveness. We boast it as a sign of our progress -that we have outgrown the days of jubilant public crucifixions and -bumpers of hemlock: and there is ironic justice in the boast. Openly to -harbour convictions repugnant to the herd is still the unforgivable sin -against that most holy of ghosts--fashionable opinion; and carelessly -to let live may be more cruel than officiously to cause to die. - -Melville sinned blackly against the orthodoxy of his time. In his -earlier works, he confined his sins to an attack upon Missionaries -and the starchings of civilisation: sins that won him a _succes de -scandal_. The London Missionary Society charged into the resulting -festivities with its flag at half mast. Cased in the armour of the -Lord, it with flagrant injustice attacked his morals, because it -smarted under his ideas. But when Melville began flooding the very -foundations of life with torrents of corrosive pessimism, the world at -large found itself more vulnerable in its encasement. It could not, -without absurdity obvious even to itself, accuse Melville of any of the -cruder crimes against Jehovah or the Public. Judged by the bungling -provisions of the thirty-nine articles and the penal code, he was not -a bad man: more subtle was his iniquity. As by a divine visitation, -the Harper fire of 1853 effectually reduced _Pierre_--his most frankly -poisonous book--to a safely limited edition. And the public, taking the -hint, ceased buying his books. In reply, Melville earned his bread as -Inspector of Customs. The public, defeated in its righteous attempts at -starvation, hit upon a more exquisite revenge. It gathered in elegiacal -synods and whispered mysteriously: “He went insane.” - -To view Melville’s life as a venturesome romantic idyll frozen in -mid-career by the _deus ex machina_ of some steadily descending Gorgon -is possible only by a wanton misreading of patent facts. Throughout -Melville’s long life his warring and untamed desires were in violent -conflict with his physical and spiritual environment. His whole -history is the record of an attempt to escape from an inexorable and -intolerable world of reality: a quenchless and essentially tragic -Odyssey away from home, out in search of “the unpeopled world behind -the sun.” In the blood and bone of his youth he sailed away in brave -quest of such a harbour, to face inevitable defeat. For this rebuff -he sought both solace and revenge in literature. But by literature he -also sought his livelihood. In the first burst of literary success he -married. Held closer to reality by financial worry and the hostages of -wife and children, the conflict within him was heightened. By a vicious -circle, with brooding disappointment came ill health. “Ah, muskets the -gods have made to carry infinite combustion,” he wrote in _Pierre_, -“and yet made them of clay.” The royalties from his books proved -inadequate for the support of his family, so for twenty years he earned -a frugal living in the customs houses in New York. During his leisure -hours he continued to write, but never for publication. Two volumes of -poetry he privately printed. His last novel, surviving in manuscript, -he finished a few months before his death. Though it is for the second -half that his critics have felt bound to regret, it seems that in -serenity and mental equipoise, the last state of this man was better -than the first. - -In his early manhood he wrote in _Mardi_: “Though essaying but a -sportive sail, I was driven from my course by a blast resistless; and -ill-provided, young, and bowed by the brunt of things before my prime, -still fly before the gale.... If after all these fearful fainting -trances, the verdict be, the golden haven was not gained;--yet in bold -quest thereof, better to sink in boundless deeps than float on vulgar -shoals; and give me, ye gods, an utter wreck, if wreck I do.” To the -world at large, it has been generally believed that the Gods ironically -fulfilled his worst hopes. - -One William Cranston Lawton, in an _Introduction to the Study of -American Literature_--a handy relic of the parrot judgment passed -upon Melville during the closing years of his life--so enlightens -young America: “He holds his own beside Cooper and Marryat, and boy -readers, at least, will need no introduction to him. Nor will their -enjoyment ever be alloyed by a Puritan moral or a mystic double -meaning.” And Barrett Wendell, in _A Literary History of America_--a -volume that modestly limits American literature of much value not only -to New England, but even tucks it neatly into the confines of Harvard -College--notes with jaunty patronage: “Herman Melville with his books -about the South Seas, which Robert Louis Stevenson is said to have -declared the best ever written, and his novels of maritime adventure, -began a career of literary promise, which never came to fruition.” - -These typical pronouncements, unperverted by the remotest touch of -independent judgment, transcend Melville’s worst fears. “Think of it!” -he once wrote to Hawthorne. “To go down to posterity is bad enough, any -way; but to go down as a ‘man who lived among the cannibals!’ When I -think of posterity in reference to myself, I mean only the babes who -will probably be born in the moment immediately ensuing upon my giving -up the ghost. I shall go down to them, in all likelihood. _Typee_ will -be given to them, perhaps, with their gingerbread.” In that mythical -anomaly known as the “popular mind,” Melville has, indeed, survived as -an obscure adventurer in strange seas and among amiable barbarians. -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ have lived on as minor classics. Though there have -been staccato and sporadic attacks upon the ludicrous inadequacy of the -popular judgment upon Melville, not until recently, and then chiefly -in England has there been any popular and concerted attempt to take -Melville’s truer and more heroic dimensions. An editorial in the London -_Nation_ for January 22, 1921, thus bespeaks the changing temper of the -times: - -“It is clear that the wind of the spirit, when it once begins to blow -through the English literary mind, possesses a surprising power of -penetration. A few weeks ago it was pleased to aim a simultaneous -blast in the direction of a book known to some generations of men as -_Moby-Dick_. A member of the staff of _The Nation_ was thereupon moved -in the ancient Hebrew fashion to buy and to read it. He then expressed -himself on the subject, incoherently indeed, but with signs of emotion -as intense and as pleasingly uncouth as Man Friday betrayed at the -sight of his long-lost father. While struggling with his article, and -wondering what the deuce it could mean, I received a letter from a -famous literary man, marked on the outside ‘Urgent,’ and on the inner -scroll of the manuscript itself ‘A Rhapsody.’ It was about _Moby-Dick_. -Having observed a third article on the same subject, of an equally -febrile kind, I began to read _Moby-Dick_ myself. Having done so I -hereby declare, being of sane intellect, that since letters began there -never was such a book, and that the mind of man is not constructed so -as to produce such another; that I put its author with Rabelais, Swift, -Shakespeare, and other minor and disputable worthies; and that I advise -any adventurer of the soul to go at once to the morose and prolonged -retreat necessary for its deglutition.” - -Having earlier been hailed in France as an “American Rabelais;” prized -in England by the author of _The City of Dreadful Night_; greeted by -Stevenson with slangy enthusiasm as a “howling cheese;” rated by Mr. -Masefield as unique among writers of the sea; the professed inspirer of -Captain Hook of Sir James Barrie’s _Peter Pan_, Melville is beginning -to appear as being vastly more than merely a “man who lived among the -cannibals” and who returned home to write lively sea stories for boys. - -The wholesale neglect of Melville at the hands of his -countrymen--though explained in some part as a consummation of -Melville’s best efforts--has not been merely unintelligent, but -thoroughly discreditable. For Melville, from any point of view, is -one of the most distinguished of our writers, and there is something -ludicrous in being before all the world--as, assuredly, we sometimes -are--in recognising our own merit where it is contestable, and in -neglecting it where it is not. - -It has been our tradition to cherish our literature for its embodiment -of Queen Victoria’s fireside qualities. The repudiation of this -tradition--as a part of our repudiation of all tradition--has made -fashionable a wholesale contempt for our native product. “I can’t read -Longfellow” is frequently remarked; “he’s so subtle!” Our critical -estimates have laboured under the incubus of New England provincialism: -a provincialism preserved in miniature in the first pages of -Lowell’s essay on Thoreau. At present we need to have the eminence -of the section recalled to us; but during the period of Melville’s -productivity, it was at its apex, and in its bosom Melville wrote. This -man, whose closest literary affinities were Rabelais, Zola, Sir Thomas -Browne, Rousseau, Meredith, and Dr. John Donne,--a combination to make -the uninitiated blink with incredulity--was indebted to Nathaniel -Hawthorne for the best makeshift for companionship he was ever to -know: one of the most subtly ironical associations the imps of comedy -ever brought about. Nor was the comedy lessened by Mrs. Hawthorne’s -presence upon the scene. Shrewd was her instinctive resentment of -her husband’s friend. Viewed by his neighbours “as little better -than a cannibal and a ‘beach comber’”--such was the report of the -late Titus Munson Coan in a letter to his mother written immediately -after a pilgrimage to Melville in the Berkshires--Melville turned to -Hawthorne for understanding. Frank Preston Stearns, in his _Life and -Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne_ (1906) says that for Hawthorne “the -summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means brilliant.... Hawthorne’s -chief entertainment seems to have been the congratulatory letters -he received from distinguished people.... For older company he had -Herman Melville and G. P. R. James, whose society he may have found -as interesting as that of more distinguished writers.” But Mrs. -Hawthorne had studied Melville with a closer scrutiny and was not so -easily convinced of Melville’s insignificance. Melville had visited -the Hawthornes in the tiny reception room of the Red House, where Mrs. -Hawthorne “sewed at her stand and read to the children about Christ;” -in the drawing room, where she disposed “the embroidered furniture,” -and where, in the farther corner, stood “Apollo with his head tied on;” -in Hawthorne’s study, which to Mrs. Hawthorne’s wifely adoration was -consecrated by “his presence in the morning.” Mrs. Hawthorne looked -from the “wonderful, wonderful eyes” of her husband--each eye “like a -violet with a soul in it,”--to Melville’s eyes, and confessed to her -mother her grave and jealous suspicion of Melville: “I am not quite -sure that _I do not think him_ a very great man.... A man with a true, -warm heart, and a soul and an intellect,--with life to his finger-tips; -earnest, sincere and reverent; very tender and _modest_.... He has very -keen perceptive power; but what astonishes me is, that his eyes are not -large and deep. He seems to see everything very accurately; and how he -can do so with his small eyes, I cannot tell. They are not keen eyes, -either, but quite undistinguished in any way. His nose is straight and -rather handsome, his mouth expressive of sensibility and emotion. He is -tall, and erect, with an air free, brave and manly. When conversing, he -is full of gesture and force, and loses himself in his subject. There -is no grace nor polish. Once in a while, his animation gives place -to a singularly quiet expression, out of these eyes to which I have -objected; an indrawn, dim look, but which at the same time makes you -feel that he is at that moment taking deepest note of what is before -him. It is a strange, lazy glance, but with a power in it quite unique. -It does not seem to penetrate through you, but to take you into itself. -I saw him look at Una so, yesterday, several times.” - -Mrs. Hawthorne must ever enjoy a lofty eminence as one of Melville’s -most penetrating critics. Her husband dwelt apart, and less because he -found the atmosphere of New England wholly uncongenial than because he -shared his wife’s conviction that he was like a star. And shrewdly his -wife resented the presence of a second luminary--treacherously veiled -and of heaven knows what magnitude!--in her serene New England sky. -Time may yet harp her worst fears aright. - -For despite his comparative obscurity, Melville is--as cannot be too -frequently iterated--one of the chief and most unusual figures in our -native literature. And his claim to such high distinction must rest -upon three prime counts. - -First--because most obvious--Melville was the literary discoverer of -the South Seas. And though his ample and rapidly multiplying progeny -includes such names as Robert Louis Stevenson, Charles Warren Stoddard, -John La Farge, Jack London, Louis Becke, A. Safroni-Middleton, Somerset -Maugham, and Frederick O’Brien, he is still unsurpassed in the manner -he originated. On this point, all competent critics are agreed. - -Melville’s second achievement is most adequately stated by the -well-known English sea-writer, W. Clark Russell, in _A Claim of -American Literature_ (reprinted from _The North American Review_ in -_The Critic_ for March 26, 1892). “When Richard Henry Dana, and Herman -Melville wrote,” says Russell, “the commercial sailor of Great Britain -and the United States was without representation in literature.... Dana -and Melville were Americans. They were the first to lift the hatch and -show the world what passes in a ship’s forecastle; how men live down -in that gloomy cave, how and what they eat, and where they sleep; -what pleasures they take, what their sorrows and wrongs are; how they -are used when they quit their black sea-parlours in response to the -boatswain’s silver summons to work on deck by day and by night. These -secrets of the deep Dana and Melville disclosed.... Dana and Melville -created a new world, not by the discovery, but by the interpretation of -it. They gave us a full view of the life led by tens of thousands of -men whose very existence, till these wizards arose, had been as vague -to the general land intelligence as the shadows of clouds moving under -the brightness of the stars.” And to Melville and Dana, so Russell -contends, we owe “the first, the best and most enduring revelation of -these secrets.” On this score, Conrad, Kipling, and Masefield must own -Melville as master. - -Melville’s third and supreme claim to distinction rests upon a single -volume, which, after the order of Melchizedek, is without issue and -without descent: “a work which is not only unique in its kind, and a -great achievement” to quote a recent judgment from England, “but is -the expression of an imagination that rises to the highest, and so -is amongst the world’s great works of art.” This book is, of course, -_Moby-Dick_, Melville’s undoubted masterpiece. “In that wild, beautiful -romance”--the words are Mr. Masefield’s--“Melville seems to have spoken -the very secret of the sea, and to have drawn into his tale all the -magic, all the sadness, all the wild joy of many waters. It stands -quite alone; quite unlike any other book known to me. It strikes a note -which no other sea writer has ever struck.” - -The organising theme of this unparalleled volume is the hunt by the -mad Captain Ahab after the great white whale which had dismembered -him of his leg; of Captain Ahab’s unwearied pursuit by rumour of its -whereabouts; of the final destruction of himself and his ship by its -savage onslaught. On the white hump of the ancient and vindictive -monster Captain Ahab piles the sum of all the rage and hate of mankind -from the days of Eden down. - -Melville expresses an ironical fear lest his book be scouted “as a -monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a hideous and -intolerable allegory.” Yet fabulous allegory it is: an allegory of -the demonism at the cankered heart of nature, teaching that “though -in many of its visible aspects the world seems formed in love, the -invisible spheres were formed in fright.” Thou shalt know the truth, -and the truth shall make you mad. To the eye of truth, so Melville -would convince us, “the palsied universe lies before us as a leper;” -“all deified Nature absolutely paints like a harlot, whose allurements -cover nothing but the charnal house within.” To embody this devastating -insight, Melville chooses as a symbol, an albino whale. “Wonder ye then -at the fiery hunt?” - -An artist who goes out to find sermons in stones does so at the -peril of converting his stone pile into his mausoleum. His danger is -excessive, if, having his sermons all ready, he makes it his task -to find the stones to fit them. Allegory justifies itself only when -the fiction is the fact and the moral the induction; only when its -representation is as imaginatively real as its meaning; only when the -stones are interesting boulders in a rich and diversified landscape. -So broadly and vividly is _Moby-Dick_ based on solid foundation that -even the most literal-minded, innocent of Melville’s dark intent, have -found this book of the soul’s daring and the soul’s dread a very worthy -volume. One spokesman for this congregation, while admitting that “a -certain absorption of interest lies in the nightmare intensity and -melodramatic climax of the tale,” finds his interest captured and held -far more by “the exposition of fact with which the story is loaded -to the very gunwale. No living thing on earth or in the waters under -the earth is so interesting as the whale. How it is pursued, from the -Arctic to the Antarctic; how it is harpooned, to the peril of boat and -crew; how, when brought to the side, ‘cutting in’ is accomplished; -how the whale’s anatomy is laid bare; how his fat is redeemed--to be -told this in the form of a narrative, with all manner of dramatic but -perfectly plausible incidents interspersed, is enough to make the book -completely engrossing without the white whale and Captain Ahab’s fatal -monomania.” - -So diverse are the samples out of which _Moby-Dick_ is compounded, yet -so masterful is each of its samples, that there is still far from -universal agreement as to the ground colour of this rich and towering -fabric. Yet by this very disagreement is its miraculous artistry -affirmed. - -In _Moby-Dick_, all the powers and tastes of Melville’s complex genius -are blended. _Moby-Dick_ is at once indisputably the greatest whaling -novel, and “a hideous and intolerable allegory.” As Mr. Frank Jewett -Mather, Jr. has said, “Out of the mere episodes and minor instances of -_Moby-Dick_, a literary reputation might be made. The retired Nantucket -captains Bildad and Peleg might have stepped out of Smollett. Father -Mapple’s sermon on the book of Jonah is in itself a masterpiece, and -I know few sea tales that can hold their own with the blood feud of -Mate Rodney and sailor Steelkilt.” Captain Hook of _Peter Pan_ is -but Captain Boomer of _Moby-Dick_ with another name: and this an -identity founded not on surmise, but on Sir James Barrie’s professed -indebtedness to Melville. There are, in _Moby-Dick_, long digressions, -natural, historical and philosophical, on the person, habits, manners -and ideas of whales; there are long dialogues and soliloquies such as -were never spoken by mortal man in his waking senses, conversations -that for sweetness, strength and courage remind one of passages from -Dekker, Webster, Massinger, Fletcher and the other old dramatists loved -both by Melville and by Charles Lamb; in the discursive tradition of -Fielding, Sir Thomas Browne and the anatomist of melancholy, Melville -indulges freely in independent moralisings, half essay, half rhapsody; -withal, scenes like Ishmael’s experience at the “Spouter-Inn” with a -practising cannibal for bed-fellow, are, for finished humour, among the -most competent in the language. When Melville sat down to write, always -at his knee stood that chosen emissary of Satan, the comic spirit: a -demoniac familiar never long absent from his pages. - -There are those, of course, who would hold against Dante his -moralising, and against Rabelais his broad humour. In like manner, -peculiarity of temperament has necessarily coloured critical judgment -of _Moby-Dick_. But though critics may mouth it as they like about -digressions, improbability, moralising reflections, swollen talk, or -the fetish of art now venerated with such articulate inveteracy, -all wonderfully agree upon the elementary force of _Moby-Dick_, -its vitality, its thrilling power. That it achieves the effect of -illusion, and to a degree peculiar to the highest feats of the creative -imagination, is incontestable. No writer has more. On this point it -is simply impossible to praise Melville too highly. What defects -_Moby-Dick_ has are formal rather than substantial. As Thackeray once -impatiently said of Macaulay: “What critic can’t point them out?” It -was the contention of James Thomson that an overweening concern for -formal impeccability is a fatal sign of weakened vitality. Intensity of -imagination--and Melville exhibited it prodigally in _Moby-Dick_--is an -infinitely rarer and more precious gift than technical sophistication. -Shakespeare has survived, despite his “monstrous irregularities.” But -since Shakespeare, as Francis Thompson has observed, there has been a -gradual decline from imperfection. Milton, at his most typical, was -far too perfect; Pope was ruined by his quest for the quality. No -thoughtful person can contemplate without alarm the idolatry bestowed -upon this quality by the contemporary mind: an idolatry that threatens -to reduce all art to the extinction of unendurable excellence. How -insipid would be the mere adventures of a Don Quixote recounted by a -Stevenson. - -The astonishing variety of contradictory qualities synthesised in -_Moby-Dick_ exists nowhere else in literature, perhaps, in such -paradoxical harmony. These qualities, in differences of combination and -emphasis, are discoverable, however, in all of Melville’s writings. -And he published, besides anonymous contributions to periodicals, ten -novels and five volumes of poetry (including the two volumes privately -printed at the very close of his life). There survives, too, a bulk -of manuscript material: a novel, short stories, and a body of verse. -And branded on everything that Melville wrote is there the mark of the -extraordinary personality that created _Moby-Dick_. - -Though some of Melville’s writing is distinctly disquieting in -devastating insight, and much of it is very uneven in inspiration, -none of it is undistinguished. Yet only four of his books have ever -been reprinted. The rest of his work, long since out of print, -is excessively rare, some of it being practically unavailable. -The scarcity of a book, however, is not invariably a sign of its -insignificance. It is one of the least accessible of Melville’s -books that Mr. Masefield singles out for especial distinction. “The -book I love best of his,” says Mr. Masefield, “is one very difficult -to come by. I think it is his first romance, and I believe it has -never been reprinted here. It is the romance of his own boyhood. I -mean _Redburn_. Any number of good pens will praise the known books, -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ and _Moby-Dick_ and _White-Jacket_, and will tell -their qualities of beauty and romance. Perhaps _Redburn_ will have -fewer praises, so here goes for _Redburn_; a boy’s book about running -away to sea.” Even more difficult of access is _Pierre_--a book at -the antipodes from _Redburn_. Far from being a boy’s book, _Pierre_ -was prophetic of the pessimism of Hardy and the subtlety of Meredith. -From _Redburn_ to _Pierre_; from _Typee_, a spirited travel-book on -Polynesia, to _Clarel_, an intricate philosophical poem in two volumes: -these mark the antithetical extremes of the art that mated poetry and -blubber, whaling and metaphysics. The very complexity and versatility -of Melville’s achievement has been an obstacle in the way of his just -appreciation. Had Mandeville turned from his _Travels_, to write _The -City of Dreadful Night_, the incompatibility would have been no less -extraordinary or bewildering. - -Indeed, Melville’s complete works, in their final analysis, are a -long effort towards the creation of one of the most complex, and -massive, and original characters in literature: the character known -in life as Herman Melville. “I am like one of those seeds taken out -of the Egyptian Pyramids,” he wrote to Hawthorne while he was in the -middle of _Moby-Dick_, “which, after being three thousand years a seed -and nothing but a seed, being planted in English soil, it developed -itself, grew to greenness, and then fell to mould. So I. Until I was -twenty-five, I had no development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I -date my life. But I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of the -bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall to the mould. It seems to -me now that Solomon was the truest man who ever spoke, and yet that he -_managed_ the truth with a view to popular conservatism.” - -Blighted by disillusionment, and paralysed by doubt, Melville came to -treat as an irrelevancy, the making of books. “He informed me that he -had ‘pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated,’” wrote Hawthorne -in his _Note-book_, after Melville visited him in Southport, England, -in 1856; “but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation. It -is strange how he persists--as he has persisted ever since I knew him, -and probably long before--in wandering to and fro over these deserts, -as dismal and monotonous as the sandhills amidst which we were sitting. -He can neither believe nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is -too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other.” If, -in contempt for the orthodox interpolations by which pious scribes -attempted to sweeten Solomon’s bitter message, Melville ever _managed_ -truth as he saw it, it was more to violate popular conservatism -than to propitiate it. “We incline to think that God cannot explain -His own secrets,” he editorially wrote Hawthorne in 1851, “and that -He would like a little information upon certain points Himself. We -mortals astonish Him as much as He us.” And as Melville grew in -disillusionment, he grew in astonishment. In his relentless pessimism -he boasted himself “in the happy condition of judicious, unencumbered -travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with -nothing but a carpet bag,--that is to say, the Ego.” It was his ripest -conviction that the exclamation point and the triumphant perpendicular -pronoun were interchangeable signs. But to the end, he bristled with -minor revelations. - -Though he boasted that he crossed the frontier into Eternity with -nothing but a carpet bag, he had, in fact, sent more bulky consignments -on ahead. And at the final crack of doom, this dead and disappointed -mariner may yet rise to an unexpected rejoicing. For at that time of -ultimate reckoning, according to the eschatology of Mr. Masefield, -“then the great white whale, old Moby-Dick, the king of all the whales, -will rise up from his quiet in the sea, and go bellowing to his mates. -And all the whales in the world--the sperm-whales, the razor-back, -the black-fish, the rorque, the right, the forty-barrel Jonah, the -narwhal, the hump-back, the grampus and the thrasher--will come to him, -‘fin-out,’ blowing their spray to the heavens. Then Moby-Dick will call -the roll of them, and from all the parts of the sea, from the north, -from the south, from Callao to Rio, not one whale will be missing. Then -Moby-Dick will trumpet, like a man blowing a horn, and all that company -of whales will ‘sound’ (that is, dive), for it is they that have the -job of raising the wrecks from down below. - -“Then when they come up the sun will just be setting in the sea, far -away to the west, like a ball of red fire. And just as the curve of it -goes below the sea, it will stop sinking and lie there like a door. -And the stars and the earth and the wind will stop. And there will be -nothing but the sea, and this red arch of the sun, and the whales with -the wrecks, and a stream of light upon the water. Each whale will have -raised a wreck from among the coral, and the sea will be thick with -them--row-ships and sail-ships, and great big seventy-fours, and big -White Star boats, and battleships, all of them green with the ooze, -but all of them manned by singing sailors. And ahead of them will go -Moby-Dick, towing the ship our Lord was in, with all the sweet apostles -aboard of her. And Moby-Dick will give a great bellow, like a fog-horn -blowing, and stretch ‘fin-out’ for the sun away in the west. And all -the whales will bellow out an answer. And all the drowned sailors will -sing their chanties, and beat the bells into a music. And the whole -fleet of them will start towing at full speed towards the sun, at the -edge of the sky and water. I tell you they will make white water, those -ships and fishes. - -“When they have got to where the sun is, the red ball will swing open -like a door, and Moby-Dick, and all the whales, and all the ships -will rush through it into an anchorage in Kingdom Come. It will be -a great calm piece of water, with land close aboard, where all the -ships of the world will lie at anchor, tier upon tier, with the hands -gathered forward, singing. They’ll have no watches to stand, no ropes -to coil, no mates to knock their heads in. Nothing will be to do except -singing and beating on the bell. And all the poor sailors who went -in patched rags, my son, they’ll be all fine in white and gold. And -ashore, among the palm-trees, there’ll be fine inns for the seamen.” -And there, among a numerous company, will be Fayaway, and Captain Ahab, -and Jack Chase, and Jarl, and Toby, and Pierre, and Father Mapple, and -Jackson, and Doctor Long Ghost, and Kory-Kory, and Bildad, and Peleg, -and Fedallah, and Tashetego, and Marnoo, and Queequeg. But it seems -hardly likely that Melville will there find Hawthorne to tempt by a -basket of champagne into some little shady corner, there to cross their -legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and to discourse -pleasantly of all the things manifold which once so much distressed -them. In my Father’s house are many mansions. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -GHOSTS - - “We are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards full of - buried dead, that start to life before us. And all our dead sires, - verily, are in us; _that_ is their immortality. From sire to son, - we go on multiplying corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are - resurrections. Every thought’s a soul of some past poet, hero, sage. - We are fuller than a city.”--HERMAN MELVILLE: _Mardi_. - - -The High Gods, in a playful and prodigal mood, gave to Melville, to -Julia Ward Howe, to Lowell, to Kingsley, to Ruskin, to Whitman, and to -Queen Victoria, the same birth year. On August 1, 1819, Herman Melville -was born at No. 6 Pearl Street, New York City. - -Melville’s vagabondage as a common sailor on a merchantman, on whaling -vessels, and in the United States Navy, together with his Bohemian -associations with cannibals, mutineers, and some of the choicest dregs -of our Christian civilisation, must have wrenched a chorus of groans -from a large congregation of shocked ancestral ghosts. For Melville was -descended from a long and prolific line of the best American stock. -Through his mother, Maria Gansevoort, he traced back to the earliest -Dutch emigrants to New York; through his father, Allan Melville, to -pre-revolutionary Scotch-Irish emigrants to New England. Both of his -grandfathers distinguished themselves in the Revolutionary War. His -ancestors, on both sides, came to this country in the days when some of -the best blood of Europe was being transferred to America. - -Though Melville was too ironic a genius ever to have been guilty -of the ill-breeding that makes an ostentation of ancestry, still -he looked back upon his descent with self-conscious pride: a pride -drawn by childhood absorption from his parents who, by resting on the -achievements of their forebears, added several cubits to their stature. -Lacking the prophetic vision to glory in being ancestors, they chose -the more comfortable rôle of parading as descendants. Melville’s -father, Allan, was sufficiently absorbed in his genealogy to compile, -in 1818, an elaborately branching family tree that sent its master -root back to one Sir Richard de Melvill, del Compte de Fife, a worthy -of the thirteenth century. And at the proud conclusion of his labours -he inscribed the Melville motto, _Denique Coelum_--“Heaven at last.” -Melville’s mother, Maria Gansevoort, though too absorbed in domesticity -to compete with Allan in drawing up a parallel document, still sat -opposite her spouse with a stiff spine, conscious that she could -counter his ancestry, grandfather for grandfather. It is true, she had -no thirteenth century count to fall back upon; and though her line lost -itself in a cluster of breweries, they were very substantial breweries, -and owned by a race of stalwart and affluent and uncompromising -burghers. Her ancestor, Harmen Harmense Van Gansevoort, was brewing in -Beverwyck as early as 1660, and with sufficient success to acquire such -extended investments in land that he bequeathed to his heirs a baronial -inheritance. During the centuries following his death his name crossed -itself with that of the Van Rensselaers, the Ten Broeks, the Douws, the -Van Schaicks,--with the proudest names that descended from the earlier -Colonial Dutch families. Melville’s mother, Maria, is remembered as a -cold, proud woman, arrogant in the sense of her name, her blood, and -the affluence of her forebears. - -She was the only daughter and oldest child in a family of six, of -General Peter Gansevoort and Catharine Van Schaick. Her father, born -in Albany, New York, July 17, 1749, was among the outstanding patriots -of the American Revolution. He was among the troops which accompanied -Schuyler, in 1775, in his advance towards Canada. In December of the -same year he was with Montgomery, as Major, in the unfortunate assault -upon Quebec. In the summer of 1777, when Burgoyne’s semi-barbarous -invading army was slowly advancing down Lake Champlain and the Hudson, -he was Colonel in command of Fort Stanwix. By his obstinate and gallant -defence of Fort Stanwix in August, 1777, he prevented the juncture -of St. Leger with Burgoyne, and so changed the course of the whole -subsequent campaign. Washington keenly and warmly recognised this, -and Congress passed a vote of thanks to Colonel Gansevoort. Peter -Gansevoort did other brilliant service in the Revolutionary War, and -in 1809, when the War of 1812 was approaching, he was made brigadier -general in the United States army. He was sheriff of Albany County from -1790 to 1792, and regent of the University of New York from 1808 until -his death in 1812. - -Of his sons, Hon. Peter Gansevoort, who was born in Albany in 1789, was -long one of the most prominent and honoured citizens of Albany. The -elder son, General Herman Gansevoort, from whom Melville received his -name, lived at Gansevoort, a village in the township of Northumberland, -Saratoga County, New York. In 1832-33, the brothers built on the -site of the birthplace of their father what is now the Stanwix -Hotel. As a boy, Melville spent most of his summers as guest of the -Gansevoorts, and in his novel _Pierre_, the childhood recollections of -his hero are transparent autobiographical references to his own early -memories. “On the meadows which sloped away from the shaded rear of -the manorial mansion, far to the winding river, an Indian battle had -been fought, in the earlier days of the colony, and in that battle the -great-grandfather of Pierre, mortally wounded, had sat unhorsed on his -saddle in the grass, with his dying voice still cheering his men in the -fray.... Far beyond these plains, a day’s walk for Pierre, rose the -storied heights, where in the Revolutionary War his grandfather had -for several months defended a rude but all-important stockaded fort, -against the repeated combined assaults of Indians, Tories and Regulars. -From behind that fort, the gentlemanly but murderous half-breed, -Brandt, had fled, but survived to dine with General (Gansevoort) in the -amiable times that followed that vindictive war. All the associations -of Saddle-Meadows were full of pride to Pierre. The (Gansevoort) deeds -by which their estate had been so long held, bore the cyphers of three -Indian kings, the aboriginal and only conveyancers of those noble woods -and plains. Thus loftily, in the days of his circumscribed youth, -did Pierre glance along the background of his race.... Or how think -you it would be with this youthful Pierre if every day, descending to -breakfast, he caught sight of an old tattered British banner or two, -hanging over an arched window in the hall: and those banners captured -by his grandfather, the general, in fair fight?” - -On February 22, 1832, so it is recorded in Joel Munsell, _The Annals -of Albany_ (Vol. IX, Albany, 1859) “the military celebrated the -centennial anniversary of the birthday of Washington. Col. Peter -Gansevoort, on this occasion, presented to the artillery a large -_brass Drum_, a trophy of the revolution, taken from the British on -the 22nd August, 1777, at Fort Stanwix, by his father, General Peter -Gansevoort.” The sound of this drum was tapping in Melville’s memory, -when he goes on to ask: “Or how think you it would be if every time -he heard the band of the military company of the village, he should -distinctly recognise the peculiar tap of a British kettle-drum also -captured by his grandfather in fair fight, and afterwards suitably -inscribed on the brass and bestowed upon the Saddle-Meadows Artillery -Corps? Or how think you it would be, if sometimes of a mild meditative -Fourth of July morning in the country, he carried out with him into -the garden by way of ceremonial cane, a long, majestic, silver-tipped -staff, a Major-General’s baton, once wielded on the plume-nodding -and musket-flashing review by the same grandfather several times -here-in-before mentioned?” - -Not content to leave this a rhetorical query, Melville answers his own -catechism in unambiguous terms: “I should say that considering Pierre -was quite young and very unsophisticated as yet, and withal rather -high-blooded; and sometimes read the History of the Revolutionary War, -and possessed a mother who very frequently made remote social allusions -to the epaulettes of the Major-General his grandfather;--I should say -that upon all these occasions, the way it must have been with him was -a very proud, elated sort of way.” - -Melville did not preserve throughout his long life this early and proud -elation in his descent, and in later years he thought it necessary to -apologise for the short-sighted and provincial self-satisfaction that -he absorbed from his parents in his early youth. “And if this seem but -too fond and foolish in Pierre,” he pleads in a mood both of apology -and of prophecy; “and if you tell me that this sort of thing in him -showed him no sterling Democrat, and that a truly noble man should -never brag of any arm but his own; then I beg you to consider again -that this Pierre was but a youngster as yet. And believe me, you will -pronounce Pierre a thorough-going Democrat in time; perhaps a little -too Radical altogether to your fancy.” - -Radical he came to be, indeed: it was the necessary penalty of being -cursed with an intelligence above that of the smug and shallow -optimism of his country and his period. Democratic he may have been, -but only in the most unpopular meaning of that once noble term. He -was a democrat in the same relentless sense that Dante or Milton were -democrats. Lucifer rebelled, let it be remembered, to make Heaven -“safe for Democracy:” the first experiment in popular government. -“Hell,” says Melville, “is a democracy of devils.” In _Mardi_, Melville -indulges lengthy reflections on a certain “chanticleer people” who -boast boisterously of themselves: “Saw ye ever such a land as this? -Is it not a great and extensive republic? Pray, observe how tall we -are; just feel of our thighs; are we not a glorious people? We are all -Kings here; royalty breathes in the common air.” Before the spectacle -of this lusty republicanism, Melville exhibits unorthodox doubts. -“There’s not so much freedom here as these freemen think,” he makes a -strolling deity observe; “I laugh and admire.... Freedom is more social -than political. And its real felicity is not to be shared. _That_ is -of a man’s own individual getting and holding. Little longer, may it -please you, can republics subsist now, than in days gone by. Though -all men approached sages in wisdom, some would yet be more wise than -others; and so, the old degrees would be preserved. And no exemption -would an equality of knowledge furnish, from the inbred servility of -mortal to mortal; from all the organic causes, which inevitably divide -mankind into brigades and battalions, with captains at their heads. -Civilisation has not ever been the brother of equality.” - -As Melville grew away from boyhood, he came to distinguish between the -accidentals and the essentials that distinguish man from man. At his -mother’s breast he had absorbed with her milk a vivid and exaggerated -belief that the accidents concomitant upon birth that range men into -artificial classes, were ingrain in the very woof of the universe. -When he later discovered that his parents tinted life with a very -perishable dye, he also found, set below their cheap calico patterns, -an unchangeable texture of sharper and deeper and more variegated -colours. And he discovered, too, that his uncritical boyhood pride in -his blood was, withal, not entirely a mere savage delight in calico -prints. - -He was, as he boasts in the sub-title of _Redburn_, “the -son-of-a-gentleman,” reared in an environment rich with the mellowing -influences of splendid family traditions. And these associations -left an indelible stamp upon him. In _Mardi_, in speaking of the -impossibility of belying one’s true nature while at sea and in the -fellowship of sailors, he offers himself as an example to point. -“Aboard of all ships in which I have sailed,” he says, “I have -invariably been known by a sort of drawing-room title. Not,--let me -hurry to say,--that I put hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or -ascended the rigging with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never -better than my vocation. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a -hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate of mine -upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty, though it carried me -to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, in the most wolfish blast that -ever howled. Whence, then, this annoying appellation? for annoying it -most assuredly was. It was because of something in me that could not -be hidden; stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise -incomprehensible deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions to -belle-lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.” - -Though his grandfather, General Peter Gansevoort, had been dead -seven years when Melville was born, so vital were the relics of him -that surrounded Melville’s boyhood, so reverently was his memory -tended by his first child and only daughter, that the image of Peter -Gansevoort was one of the most potent influences during Melville’s most -impressionable years. The heroic presence that dominated Melville’s -imagination, “measured six feet four inches in height; during a -fire in the old manorial mansion, with one dash of the foot, he had -smitten down an oaken door, to admit the buckets of his negro slaves; -Pierre had often tried on his military vest, which still remained an -heirloom at Saddle-Meadows, and found the pockets below his knees, -and plenty additional room for a fair-sized quarter-cask within its -buttoned girth; in a night scuffle in the wilderness before the -Revolutionary War, he had annihilated two Indian savages by making -reciprocal bludgeons of their heads. And all this was done by the -mildest hearted, the most blue-eyed gentleman in the world, who, -according to the patriarchal fashion of those days, was a gentle, -white-haired worshipper of all the household gods; the gentlest -husband and the gentlest father; the kindest master to his slaves; -of the most wonderful unruffledness of temper; a serene smoker of -his after dinner pipe; a forgiver of many injuries; a sweet-hearted, -charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, childlike, blue-eyed, -divine old man; in whose meek, majestic soul the lion and the lamb -embraced--fit image of his God.” His portrait was to Melville “a -glorious gospel framed and hung upon the wall, and declaring to all -people, as from the Mount, that man is a noble, god-like being, full -of choicest juices; made up of strength and beauty.” Most of the -images of God that Melville met in actual secular embodiment, suffered -tragically by comparison with this image of mortal perfection which -Melville nursed in his heart. Most men that Melville met, in falling -short of the mythical excellence of Peter Gansevoort, whom he never -knew in the flesh, seemed to Melville, to be libels upon their Divine -Original. According to Melville’s account, he could never look upon -his grandfather’s military portrait without an infinite and mournful -longing to meet his living aspect in actual life. Yet such was the -temper of Melville’s mind, his life such a tragic career of dreaming -of elusive perfection, dreams invariably to be dashed and bruised and -shattered by an incompatible reality, that it is safe to surmise--with -no impiety to the memory of Peter Gansevoort--that had Melville known -his maternal grandfather, the old General’s six feet four of blood and -bone would have shrunk, with his extravagance of all human excellence, -to more truly historical dimensions. - -MELVILLE’S GRANDFATHERS - -[Illustration: GENERAL PETER GANSEVOORT] - -[Illustration: MAJOR THOMAS MELVILLE] - -Melville’s paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melville, who died in -1832, when Melville was thirteen years old, inspired his grandson to -no such glowing tributes. Born in Boston, in 1751, an only child, -he was left an orphan at the age of ten. It appears by the probate -records on the appointment of his guardian in 1761, that he inherited -a considerable fortune from his father. He was reared by his maternal -grandmother, Mrs. Mary Cargill. Mrs. Mary Cargill’s brother was the -celebrated and eccentric dissenter and polemic writer, John Abernethy -of Dublin, who in his _Tracts_ (collected in 1751) measured swords -with Swift himself triumphantly; her son, David, was both a celebrated -warrior against the Indians, and the father of twenty-three children, -fifteen of whom were sons. Whatever the immediate male relatives of -Mrs. Mary Cargill did, it would appear, they did vigorously, and on an -enterprising scale. She was herself an old lady of very independent -ideas about the universe, and her grandson, Thomas Melville--Melville’s -grandfather,--perpetuated much of her independence. Indifferent to -the caprices of fashion, Thomas Melville persisted until his death in -1832, in wearing the old-fashioned cocked hat and knee breeches. Oliver -Holmes said of him: “His aspect among the crowds of a later generation -reminded me of a withered leaf which has held to its stem through the -storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still clinging to its -bough while the new growths of spring are bursting their buds and -spreading their foliage all around it.” - -And so the Autocrat wrote: - - “I saw him once before, - As he passed by the door, - And again - The pavement stones resound - As he totters o’er the ground - With his cane. - - They say that in his prime, - Ere the pruning-knife of Time - Cut him down, - Not a better man was found - By the Crier on his round - Through the town. - - But now he walks the streets, - And he looks at all he meets - Sad and wan. - And he shakes his feeble head - And it seems as if he said, - ‘They are gone.’ - - The mossy marbles rest - On the lips that he has pressed - In their bloom, - And the names he loved to hear - Have been carved for many a year - On the tomb. - - My grandmamma has said,-- - Poor old lady, she is dead - Long ago-- - That he had a Roman nose, - And his cheek was like a rose - In the snow: - - But now his nose is thin, - And it rests upon his chin - Like a staff, - And a crook is in his back, - And a melancholy crack - In his laugh. - - I know it is a sin - For me to sit and grin - At him here; - But the old three-cornered hat, - And the breeches, and all that, - Are so queer! - - And if I should live to be - The last leaf upon the tree - In the spring, - Let them smile as I do now, - At the old forsaken bough, - Where I cling.” - -In his boyhood, Thomas Melville was sent by his grandmother (who lived -on till her grandson was thirty years old, clinging as tenaciously to -life as to every other good thing she set hands upon) to the College -of New Jersey, now Princeton. He was graduated in 1769. From both -Princeton and Harvard he later received an M.A. Between 1771 and -1773 he visited his relatives in Scotland. During this visit he was -presented with the freedom of the city of St. Andrews and of Renfrew. -He returned to Boston to become a merchant and to enter with spirit -into the patriotic ferment then so actively brewing. He was a member of -the Long Room Club, in sympathy with the Sons of Liberty, and with Paul -Revere, one of the “Indians” to take part in the Boston Tea Party of -December 16, 1773. There still survive a few unbrewed leaves from this -cargo of tea: the carefully preserved shakings from Major Melville’s -shoes, resurrected when he relaxed into slippers immediately upon his -return home from the excitements of revolutionary defiance. Though -Major Melville was, throughout his life, an extreme conservative, it -was his very conservatism that fired him to revolution. He believed -that what needed to be conserved was the constitutional--British -constitutional--rights of his country, not the innovation of Hanoverian -tyranny. He commanded a detachment sent to Nantucket, the centre of -whaling, to watch the movement of the British fleet; in the expedition -into Rhode Island, in 1778, he took the rank of Major in Croft’s -regiment of Massachusetts artillery. His resignation, dated Boston, -Oct. 21, 1778, states “that he had been almost three years in said -service and would willingly continue to serve, but owing to inadequate -pay and subsequent inability to support his family he felt compelled -to resign his commission.” In 1789 he was commissioned by Washington -as naval officer of the port of Boston: a commission renewed by all -succeeding presidents down to Andrew Jackson’s time in 1824. Major -Melville was the nearest surviving male relative of the picturesque -General Robert Melville, who was the first and only Captain General and -Governor-in-Chief of the islands ceded to England by France in 1763, -and at the time of his death in 1809, with one exception, the oldest -General in the British Army. - -In 1779, Major Melville was elected fire ward of Boston, and when -he resigned in 1825, he was offered a vote of thanks “for the zeal, -intrepidity and judgment with which he has on all occasions discharged -his duties as fire ward for forty-six years in succession, and for -twenty-six as chairman of the board.” In those days, volunteer fire -companies were fashionable sporting clubs, and such was the distinction -attached to membership that a premium was often paid for the privilege -of belonging to such an exclusive and diverting fraternity. Melville’s -father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, was Fire -Warden between 1818 and 1821. Melville’s grandfather and future -father-in-law may have met at many a fire and, for all we know to -the contrary, the intimacy between the Shaws and the Melvilles that -culminated in Herman’s marriage, may have been first kindled by a -burning house. - -The tradition survives of Major Melville that the excitement of running -to fire grew upon him like gambling upon more sedentary mortals, and -that his death was caused by over-fatigue and exposure at a fire near -his house he attended at the age of eighty-one. - -Of Melville’s two grandmothers, Catharine Van Schaick and Priscilla -Scollay, there is no mention in any of his writings. It is a -peculiarity of Melville’s writings indeed, completely to disregard all -of his female relatives,--with the notable exceptions of his mother, -his mother-in-law, and his wife. - -Major Thomas Melville, by his marriage with Priscilla Scollay, is said -to have aggravated an already ample fortune, though the terms of his -resignation from the Revolutionary army argue a dwindling of income -during unsettled times. The Scollays, one of the oldest of Boston -families, were related to Melville not only by direct blood descent, -but Melville’s great-great-uncle, John Melville (who died in London in -1798) married Deborah Scollay, Melville’s great-aunt. Deborah Scollay, -Priscilla’s sister, was the first of thirteen children; Priscilla the -tenth. The Scollays, in brave competition with the Melvilles and -the Gansevoorts, seem to have devoutly accepted the Mosaic edict to -increase and multiply: they were, as Carlyle says of Dr. Thomas Arnold, -of “unhastening, unresting diligence.” Major Thomas Melville had -eleven children by his wife Priscilla, Melville’s father Allan being -the fourth child and second son. Of the influence of Allan’s numerous -brothers and sisters upon Melville there are scant records to show. His -aunt Priscilla, however, mentioned him in her will. - -Allan’s oldest sister, Mary (1778-1859) married Captain John DeWolf -II. of Bristol, Rhode Island. In _Moby-Dick_, in offering instances -of ships being charged upon by whales, Melville quotes from the -_Voyages_ of Captain Langsdorff, a member of Admiral Krusenstern’s -famous Discovery Expedition in the beginning of the last century. In -the passage quoted by Melville is mentioned a Captain D’Wolf. “Now, the -Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship in question,” -says Melville, “is a New Englander, who, after a long life of unusual -adventures as a sea captain, this day resides in the village of -Dorchester, near Boston. I have the honour of being a nephew of his. I -have particularly questioned him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. -He substantiates every word.” In _Redburn_, Melville speaks of “an -uncle of mine, an old sea-captain, with white hair, who used to sail -to a place called Archangel in Russia, and who used to tell me that -he was with Captain Langsdorff, when Captain Langsdorff crossed over -by land from the sea of Okotsk in Asia to St. Petersburg, drawn by -large dogs in a sled.... He was the very first sea captain I had ever -seen, and his white hair and fine handsome florid face made so strong -an impression upon me that I have never forgotten him, though I only -saw him during this one visit of his to New York, for he was lost in -the White Sea some years after.” Just what, if anything besides two -contradictory statements--Melville owed to this uncle it would be -worthless to surmise. - -Another of Melville’s uncles, however, Thomas--Allan’s older -brother--played an important rôle in Melville’s development. After an -eventful residence of twenty-one years in France, Thomas returned to -America with his wife Françoise Raymonde Eulogie Marie des Douleurs -Lamé Fleury, shortly before the War of 1812. Enlisted in the army, he -was sent to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with the rank of Major. After -the war he continued in Pittsfield, and with his family set up at what -is now Broadhall. - -Broadhall, built by Henry Van Schaek in 1781, bought by Elkanah Watson -in 1807, was, in 1816, acquired by Major Thomas Melville of the cocked -hat. His son, Major Thomas Melville of the French wife, lived in -Broadhall until 1837, when he moved to Galena, Illinois, where he died -on August 1--Melville’s birthday--1845. By a parallel irony of fate, -just as the Stanwix House of the Gansevoorts is now a hotel, Broadhall -of the Melvilles is now a country club. - -It was a strange transplanting, that of Major Thomas Melville and -his wife, Marie des Douleurs, from Paris to the rustic crudities of -the farming outskirts of civilisation. Marie des Douleurs rapidly -pined and wilted in the harsh brusque air. A bundle of her letters -survive, written in a delicate drooping hand: letters that might have -been written by a wasted and homesick nun. In 1814, within the space -of a single month, Mrs. Thomas Melville and two of her children died -of consumption. Thomas, of more vigorous stock, survived to marry -again--this time to Mary Anna Augusta Hobard, and to take actively to -farming. He achieved a local reputation for his successful devotion -to the soil; presiding at meetings of the Berkshire Agricultural -Association, and winning a first prize at a ploughing match at the -Berkshire Fair. As a boy, Melville was sent to alternate his visits to -the Gansevoorts by trips to his uncle at Pittsfield. The single record -of his life at Broadhall is preserved in _The History of Pittsfield_ -(1876) “compiled and written, under the general direction of a -committee, by J. E. A. Smith.” Melville says: - -“In 1836 circumstances made me the greater portion of a year an inmate -of my uncle’s family, and an active assistant upon the farm. He was -then grey haired, but not wrinkled; of a pleasing complexion, but -little, if any, bowed in figure; and preserving evident traces of the -prepossessing good looks of his youth. His manners were mild and -kindly, with a faded brocade of old French breeding, which--contrasted -with his surroundings at the time--impressed me as not a little -interesting, not wholly without a touch of pathos. - -“He never used the scythe, but I frequently raked with him in the hay -field. At the end of the swath he would at times pause in the sun and, -taking out his smooth worn box of satinwood, gracefully help himself to -a pinch of snuff, while leaning on his rake; quite naturally: and yet -with a look, which--as I recall it--presents him in the shadowy aspect -of a courtier of Louis XVI, reduced as a refugee to humble employment -in a region far from gilded Versailles. - -“By the late October fire, in the great hearth of the capacious kitchen -of the old farm mansion, I remember to have seen him frequently sitting -just before early bed time, gazing into the embers, while his face -plainly expressed to a sympathetic observer that his heart, thawed to -the core under the influence of the general flame--carried him far away -over the ocean to the gay boulevards. - -“Suddenly, under the accumulation of reminiscences, his eye would -glisten and become humid. With a start he would check himself in his -reverie, and give an ultimate sigh; as much as to say ‘ah, well!’ and -end with an aromatic pinch of snuff. It was the French graft upon the -New England stock, which produced this autumnal apple: perhaps the -mellower for the frost.” - -It was immediately following upon the heels of this sojourn in -Pittsfield in 1836, that Melville went down to the sea and shipped -before the mast. Of Melville’s companionship with his Pittsfield -cousins during this visit, nothing seems to be known. Melville’s uncle, -Thomas, had two children living at the time: Anna Marie Priscilla, who -died in Pittsfield in 1858, and Pierre François Henry Thomas Wilson, -thirteen years Melville’s senior, who in 1842 died in the Sandwich -Islands. That Pierre’s adventures to the far corners of the earth may -have had some influence upon Melville’s taking to a ship is a tempting -surmise; but a surmise whose only cogency is its possibility. - -Whatever the influence of Pittsfield in sending Melville to sea, it -was to Pittsfield he finally returned, when, after wide wanderings, -he faced homeward. The old Major, his uncle, was dead, and Broadhall, -descended to one of his sons, was rented as a hotel. During the summer -of 1850, Melville and his wife boarded at Broadhall. In October of the -same year, they settled in Pittsfield, not at Broadhall, as has been -repeatedly stated, but at a neighbouring farm, christened Arrowhead -by Melville. Arrowhead was Melville’s home for the following thirteen -years. - -Melville’s great-grandfather, Allan--father of _The Last Leaf_--came to -America in 1748, and settled in Boston as a merchant. This Allan was -the son of Thomas Melville, a clergyman of the Scotch Kirk. This Thomas -Melville was from 1718 to 1764 minister of Scoonie Parish, Levin, -Fifeshire. In 1769 he “ended his days in a state of most cheerful -tranquillity.” - -Thomas Melville of Scoonie was second in lineal descent from Sir John -Melville of Carnbee: a worthy knighted by James VI. According to Sir -Robert Douglas’ _The Baronage of Scotland_ (Edinburgh, 1798), this Sir -John Melville of Carnbee was thirteenth in direct blood descent from -one Sir Richard Melvill, a man of distinction in the reign of Alexander -III, and who in 1296 was compelled to swear allegiance to Edward I of -England when he overran Scotland. - -If this remote tracing of Melville’s descent were a discovery of facts -unknown to Melville, it would be an ostentatious irrelevancy to flaunt -it in his biography. But Melville was ironically conscious of his -lineage, and when his earlier novels had won him reputation at home -and in England as an entertaining literary vagabond, in France (see -the typically patronising _Études sur la Littérature et les Mœurs des -Anglo-Américains du XIXe Siècle_--Paris, 1851--by M. Philarete Chasles) -as a representative product of a crude and traditionless civilisation, -he took satirical unction to his soul at the illustrious associations -that clung around his ancient name. In his own person he felt that he -contradicted the conceit of the European world “that in demagogical -America the sacred Past hath no fixed statues erected to it, but (that) -all things irreverently seethe and boil in the vulgar caldron of -an everlasting, uncrystallising Present.” Founding his defence upon -the knowledge of his own ancestry, he maintained in _Pierre_ that if -America so chose to glorify herself, she could make out a good general -case with England in the little matter of long pedigrees--pedigrees, -that is, without a flaw. In monarchical Europe, Melville takes pains -to contend, the proudest families are but grafted families that -successively live and die on the eternal soil of a name. In the pride -of unbroken lineal blood descent from a thirteenth century count, he -matched his blood and patronym with the most honoured in England. “If -Richmond, and St. Albans, and Grafton, and Portland, and Buccleugh, -be names almost as old as England herself, the present Dukes of those -names stop in their own genuine pedigrees at Charles II., and there -find no very fine fountain; since what we would deem the least glorious -parentage under the sun, is precisely the parentage of a Buccleugh, -for example; whose ancestress could not well avoid being a mother, it -is true, but had incidentally omitted the preliminary rites. Yet a -King was the sire.... All honour to the names, and all courtesy to the -men; but if St. Albans tell me he is all-honourable and all-eternal, -I must politely refer him to Nell Gwynne.” Melville bitterly resented -the fashionable foreign imputation that his was a rootless and upstart -people. Through its grilling of bars sinister, he viewed the superior -pretensions of monarchical aristocracy with his finger at his nose. “If -in America,” he boasted, “the vast mass of families be as the blades of -grass, yet some few there are that stand as the oak; which, instead of -decaying, annually puts forth new branches; whereby Time, instead of -subtracting, is made to capitulate into a multiple virtue.” - -If Melville took over-elaborate pains to point to himself as swinging -at the dizzy crest of such a patriarchal tree, it was not to derive -personal glory from mere altitude. By exhibiting the humorous -incompatibility between his destiny and his descent, he strove to show, -at one and the same time, both the absurdity of all pride in blood, and -the ironic poignancy of his own apparent defeat. - -Melville’s parents, however, qualified their ancestral pride with no -such ironic considerations. With whole-hearted gratitude they thanked -God for their descent; nor did they, in their thanksgiving, fail to -acknowledge, with becoming humility, a Heavenly Father who, in power -and glory, transcended even terrestrial counts and brewers. - -Allan was always a man of devout protestations; and although he always -signed his own name with an underscoring of tangled flourishes, he -wrote the name of God--and his correspondence is liberally scattered -with Deity--with three conspicuous capitals of his most ornate -penmanship. Melville was patently modelling the father of Pierre after -his own male parent, when he recorded Pierre’s father’s platitudinous -insistence “that all gentlemanhood was vain, all claims to it -preposterous and absurd, unless the primeval gentleness and golden -humanities of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into the complete -texture of the character, that he who pronounced himself gentleman, -could also rightly assume the meek but knightly style of Christian.” - -Allan, proud in the sense of this humility, in untangling his descent -back to Sir John Melville of Carnbee, seems to have rested serenely in -the pious faith that he had established his kinship to all the titled -and illustrious Melvilles in history. So he carried his head high--as -he felt a republican should--and with a generous and comprehensive -fraternity claimed as his more than kith--as indeed they were--an -impressive congregation of courtiers, scholars and divines. - -So prolific has been the Melville family, so extended its history, that -its intricate branchings from the veritable Aaron’s rod in which it -had its source, have never been completely untangled by even the most -arduous genealogical historians. With what directness and potency the -different Melville strains were active in Melville’s blood it would be -utterly absurd to pretend to determine. But if not forces in Melville’s -blood, Allan made them vital presences in his son’s boyhood imagination. - -The most illustrious of this shadowy company of adopted ancestors -was the old Viking, Andrew Melville (1545-1622), the dauntless -“Episcopomastrix” or “Scourge of Bishops,” second in fame among Scotch -reformers only to John Knox. In October, 1577, at an interview between -Andrew and the Regent Morton, the latter, irritated at the intrepidity -of the assembly, exclaimed: “There will never be quiet in this country -till half a dozen of you be hanged!” Whereupon Andrew, in language -Morton dared not resent, exclaimed: “Hark! Sir; threaten your courtiers -after that manner. It is the same to me whether I rot in the air or in -the ground. The earth is the Lord’s. Patria est ubicunque est bene.” -Another Andrew (1624-1706) among these ghostly presences was a soldier -of fortune who in the preface of his _Memoires de M. de Chevalier -de Melville_ (Amsterdam, 1704) was eulogised for his valour and his -protestantism. - -Conspicuous in Allan’s library was a copy of the _Memoirs of His Own -Life by Sir James Melvil of Hallhill_ (London, 1683), bearing the -autograph of Allan’s great-grandfather, Thomas Melville of Scoonie. -This volume had been brought to America by Allan’s grandfather in -1746, and was cherished by Melville’s father as a record of the part -played by his exuberant ancestors in the turbulent affairs of Elizabeth -and Mary, Queen of Scots. From this volume Allen taught his children -of Sir James’ father, John Melville, Lord of Raith in Fife, who, -“although there was not the least suspicion of anie fault, yitt lost -he his head, becaus he was known to be one that unfainedlie favoured -the truthe;” of Sir James’ brother, William, who was able to speak -perfectly “the Latin, the Dutche, the Flemyn, and the Frenche tongue;” -of another brother of Sir James, Sir Robert Melville, who “spak brave -and stout language to the consaill of England, so that the quen herself -boisted him of his lyf.” But all of the details of Sir James’ racy -account of his own adventures were not fit entertainment for the sons -of New England Unitarians. Yet many of these unpuritan accounts are -in Melville’s own vein, as witness the recounting of the incident -that befell Sir James at the age of fourteen, when, in company with -the French Ambassador, Monluc, Bishop of Valence, he was entertained -in Ireland by one O’Docherty who lived in “a dark tour.” It appears -that the Bishop paid such disquieting attention to O’Docherty’s -daughter that the father substituted another bait to the Prelate’s -susceptibilities: a substitution that produced an awkward scene in -etiquette. For the second lady mistook a phial “of the maist precious -balm that grew in Egypt, which Soliman the great Turc had given in a -present to the same bishop” for something to eat; and this “because it -had an odoriphant smell.” “Therefore she licked it clean out.” During -this process of consumption, O’Docherty’s daughter, disengaged from the -Bishop, turned to Sir James for solace, with an offer to elope. Sir -James was cautious for his fourteen years, and convinced the lady of -the superfluousness of migratory impulses. - -Contemporary with Allan, there lived in Scotland, direct descendants -of these Elizabethan Melvilles. One year before Herman’s birth, -Allan, with admirable republican simplicity, decided, during one of -the frequent business trips that took him across the Atlantic, to -look up his titled Scotch cousins, and pay them the compliments of -his dutiful respects. The record of this adventure is preserved in -Allan’s journal, bound in vellum of a lurid emerald green. The entries -are characteristically business-like, and stoically naked of personal -reflections: - - _May 22, 1818_--Visited Melville house, the seat of the - Earl of Leven & Melville at 2 P.M., 14 miles--the - Earl & Family being absent, left them at 4 A.M. & - dined at the New Inn at the Junction of the Perth, - Cupar & Dundee Roads, 6 miles. - - _May 26, 1818_--Reached Melville house at 1/2 past 3 - P.M.--10 miles--& met with a very hospitable & - friendly reception from his lordship & family. - - _May 27, 1818_--Left Melville house at 1/2 past 11 in - his lordship’s gig with a lacquey to meet the coach - at the New Inn. - -It would, perhaps, be entertaining to know just exactly what Alexander, -7th Earl of Levin and 6th Earl of Melville, who was also Viscount -Kirkaldie, Lord Melville of Monymaill, Lord Bolgonie, and Lord Raith, -Monyraill and Balwearie, thought in his heart of Allan Melville of -Boston, merchant, and importer of commodities from France. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -PARENTS AND EARLY YEARS - - “In general terms we have been thus decided in asserting the great - genealogical and real-estate dignity of some families in America, - because in so doing we poetically establish the richly aristocratic - condition of Master Pierre Glendinning, for whom we have claimed - some special family distinction. And to the observant reader the - sequel will not fail to show how important is this circumstance, - considered with reference to the singularly developed character and - most singular life-career of our hero. Nor will any man dream that - the last chapter was merely intended for a foolish bravado, and not - with a solid purpose in view.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Pierre_. - - -Samuel Butler, who with Thomas Huxley cherished certain unorthodox -convictions as to “the unfathomable injustice of the Universe,” found -the make-shift of family life not the least of natural evils. In a -more benevolent adjustment of the human animal to its environment, -so Butler declared, children would be spared the incubus of parents. -After the easeful death of their progenitors, they would be hatched, -cocoon-like, from an ample and comfortable roll of bank-notes of high -denomination. And it is a foregone surety that, had Samuel Butler -known Herman Melville’s parents, he would not have been moved to -soften his impeachment of the way of all flesh. For the household -of Allan Melville bore striking resemblances to that of the most -self-important of the Pontifexes. Both John Pontifex and Allan -Melville, judged either by the accepted standards of their own time -or to-day, were good men: to his God, his neighbours, his wife, his -children, each did his duty relentlessly. And each, as Melville, with -obvious autobiographical reference, says of the father of Pierre, “left -behind him in the general voice of the world, a marked reputation as a -Christian and a gentleman; in the heart of his wife, a green memory of -many healthy days of unclouded and joyful wedded life.” But each also -left behind him a son who in the end was to cherish his memory with -some misgivings. Allan was less fortunate than John Pontifex in that -though he died rich in virtue, he died with no corresponding abundance -of corruptible riches. Nothing in his life so ill became him as his -bequest of poverty to his widow and eight children. - -Herman, the second son and third child, was thirteen years old at the -time of Allan’s decease: young enough to cherish up into early manhood -the most fantastic idealisation of his father. “Children begin by -loving their parents,” a modern cynic has said; “later the children -grow to understanding, and sometimes, they forgive.” As Melville grew -in maturity of years, he did not grow in charity toward his parents. In -his novel _Pierre_ he seems to draw malicious delight in pronouncing, -under a thin disguise, an imaginary libel upon his father’s memory. -There he desecrated in fiction what he had once fondly cherished in -life. Aside from its high achievement as a work of art, this dark wild -book of incest and death is of the greatest importance as a document -in autobiography. Most of the characters in _Pierre_ are unmistakably -idealisations of clearly recognisable originals. The hero, Pierre -Glendinning, is a glorification of Melville; the widowed mother, Marie -Glendinning, owes much more to Melville’s mother, Maria Gansevoort, -than the initials of her name. And in this book, Melville exorcises the -ghost of his father, and brings him forth to unearth from the past a -skeleton that Melville seems to have manufactured in the closet of a -vindictive subconsciousness. - -“Blessed and glorified in his tomb beyond Prince Mausolus,” wrote -Melville at the age of thirty-three, “is that mortal sire, who, after -an honourable, pure course of life, dies, and is buried, as in a choice -fountain, in the filial breast of a tender-hearted and intellectually -appreciative child. But if fate preserve the father to a later time, -too often the filial obsequies are less profound, the canonisation less -ethereal.” - -As has been said, Melville was thirteen when, in 1832, his father -died. And at that time, as for years following, there survived from -Allan in Melville’s memory “the impression of a bodily form of rare -manly virtue and benignity, only rivalled by the supposed perfect -mould in which his virtuous heart had been cast.” In _Redburn_ he -says of his youthful idealisation of Allan: “I always thought him a -marvellous being, infinitely purer and greater than I was, who could -not by any possibility do wrong or say an untruth.” And as a gesture -expressive of this piety for his father’s memory, he took but one -book with him to Liverpool when at the age of seventeen he worked his -way across the Atlantic in a merchantman. This was an old dog-eared -guide-book that had belonged to his father. On the map in this book, -Allan, with characteristic precision, had traced with a pen a number -of dotted lines radiating in all directions from Riddough’s Hotel at -the foot of Lord Street: marks that delineated his various excursions -in the town. As Melville planned his itinerary while in Liverpool, he -was in the first place to visit Riddough’s Hotel, where his father -had stopped more than thirty years before; and then, with the map in -his hand, to follow Allan through the town, according to the dotted -lines in the diagram. “For this,” says Melville, “would be performing -a filial pilgrimage to spots which would be hallowed to my eyes.” -Because Melville had failed to take into account the mutability of -cities, he was disappointed to find some of the shrines hallowed by his -father’s visits no longer in existence. But the very bitterness of his -disappointment was an eloquent tribute to his father’s memory. - -Allan himself was born in 1782, second son, and fourth child, in -a family of eleven children. Of his early life, almost nothing is -known. Though he was born into a well-to-do family of considerable -cultivation, he seems never to have been exposed to the boasted -advantages of a university education. He was, however, a rather -extensively travelled man. At the age of eighteen, as if to set a -precedent for his son, he made his first trip abroad. But whereas -Melville went as a sailor before the mast, to land in Liverpool as -a penniless itinerant, Allan was two years in Paris as a guest, in -comfortable circumstances, of a well-to-do uncle. Before his marriage -in 1814, Allan made five other pilgrimages to Europe; and once, after -his marriage, he crossed the Atlantic again. This last trip he would -not have taken but from urgency of business: “It will be a most painful -sacrifice to part from my beloved wife and children,” he says, in -prospect of the journey; “but duty towards them requires it.” Allan -acclimated himself to France as a young man, and so acquired a mastery -of the French language. He is said to have spoken French like a native: -a bilingual accomplishment that Melville never even remotely acquired. -Melville boasted a smattering of a Polynesian dialect or two: but so -imperfect was this smattering that it moved Stevenson to complain that -Melville, like Charles Lamb, “had no ear.” - -In the journal which Allan kept from 1800 to 1831, there survives -a meticulously accurate account of his wanderings up and down upon -the face of Christendom. On the fly-leaf of the journal, under the -title “Recapitulations of Voyages and Travels from 1800 to 1822 both -inclusive,” he gives, in ledger-like summary, this statement of his -peregrinations: - - “by land 24425 miles. - by water 48460 miles. - days at sea, etc. 643.” - -That part of his early life that he spent outside of Europe, he -distributed between Boston and Albany. Allan was a man to turn to -account all of his resources. His knowledge of French he converted into -a business asset, by setting up as a merchant-importer trafficking in -dry-goods and notions from France: “razors, children’s white leather -gloves, leghorn hats, and taffeta ribbons” being a typical shipment. - -[Illustration: _From a Painting made in Paris, 1810._] - -[Illustration: Signature--Allan Melville] - -It was in Albany that Allan met Maria Gansevoort: a meeting of which -his journal is austerely ignorant. If there ever were any romance in -Allan’s life he must have emulated Pepys and recorded it in cipher, -and then, with a caution deeper than Pepys’, have burned the cryptic -revelation. It is true that in _Pierre_, Melville attempts to brighten -his father’s pre-marital years by imputing to him a lively vitality -in his youth: but the evidence for this imputation hangs upon a most -tenuous thread of ambiguities. Yet now that it has transpired that -even the sober Wordsworth under similar circumstances succumbed to -the flesh, it is not impossible, on the face of it, that Allan, in -the unredeemed years before his comparatively late marriage, -may have been anointed in mortality. But in his later life--as was -Wordsworth--he was a paragon of propriety, and he must be acquitted -of indiscretion until more damning facts are mustered to accuse him. -All surviving evidence presents him as a model of rigid decorum. In -so far as he has revealed himself, all but the most restrained and -well-behaved and standardised emotions fell within the forbidden -degrees. It is certain that no flower ever gave _him_ thoughts too deep -for tears. - -His courtship seems to have been a model of discretion, and might well -have been modelled after Mrs. Hannah More’s _Coelebs in Search of a -Wife_. There survive two gifts that he made while he was meditating -on the serious verge of matrimony. A year before his marriage he -bought, fresh from the press, a copy of _The Pleasures of Imagination_ -by Mark Akenside, M.D., with a critical essay on the poem, by Mrs. -Barbauld, prefixed. Whether either Allan or Maria ever read a line of -Dr. Akenside we do not know: Maria’s copy, it must be confessed, is -suspiciously well-preserved. But Allan had the authority of _Coelebs_ -that “the condensed vigour, so indispensable to blank verse, the -skilful variation of the pause, the masterly structure of the period, -and all the occult mysteries of the art, can, perhaps, be best learned -from Akenside.” That the poet’s object was “to establish the infinite -superiority of mind over unconscious matter, even in its fairest -terms,” gave Allan opportunity to pay Maria a veiled compliment. - -This same Anna Letitia Barbauld, whose introductory essay gave the -final stamp of respectability to Dr. Akenside, had, in a chapter of -advice to young girls, earlier remarked, and with best-intentioned -seriousness, that “An ass is much better adapted than a horse to -show off a lady.” It may be so. In any event, Allan inscribed on the -fly-leaf of Dr. Akenside’s effusion: - - MISS MARIA GANSEVOORT - FROM HER FRIEND - A. M. - -The emotions that smouldered beneath this chaste inscription he vented, -and with no compromise to himself, in a tropical tangle of copy-book -flourishes that he made below his initials. - -The second gift is also a book--Mrs. Chapone’s _Letters on the -Improvement of the Mind_. Lydia Languish, it is true, had, on a -memorable occasion, with unblushing deceit, placed Mrs. Chapone and the -reverend Fordyce ostentatiously on a table together. But it is certain -that Allan was not consciously furnishing Miss Gansevoort with any of -the stage-properties of hypocrisy. Mrs. Chapone’s pronouncements were -then being accepted by the adoring middle class as Protestant Bulls. -And Allan purchased Mrs. Chapone’s little volume with his ear to the -verdict of Mrs. Delany, who wrote: “They speak to the heart as well as -to the head; and I know no book (next to the Bible) more entertaining -or edifying.” - -It was within a few months before his marriage that Allan, in the most -orthodox manner of that “Happy Half Century” so happily celebrated by -Miss Agnes Repplier, undertook to heighten the virtues of Miss Maria -Gansevoort by exposing her to the “pure and prevailing superiority” -of Mrs. Chapone. For Allan was a cautious man, and marriage, he knew, -was a step not lightly to be made. “I do not want a Helen, or a Saint -Cecilia, or a Madame Dacier,” said Coelebs, in sketching an ideal wife; -“yet must she be elegant or I could not love her; sensible, or I could -not respect her; prudent, or I could not confide in her; well-informed, -or she could not educate my children; well-bred, or she could not -entertain my friends; pious, or I should not be happy with her, because -the prime comfort in a companion for life is the delightful hope that -she will be a companion for eternity.” - -Maria was patently elegant, well-bred and pious. The present of Dr. -Akenside and Mrs. Chapone gave her generous opportunity of coming to -be well-informed. But Allan did not hesitate to make further and more -direct contributions to her information. Prudence he rated prime among -virtues; and he approached marriage with Miltonic preconceptions. By -no means confident that the eternal truths enunciated by Mrs. Chapone -would penetrate Maria’s female intellect, Allan prudently summarised -the most sacred verities of the volume in two manuscript introductions. -Maria’s copy of the _Letters_ bears three inscriptions made by Allan on -three separate fly-leaves. The first is in a formal upright hand, rigid -in propriety: - - “Prudence should be the governing principle of Woman’s existence, - domestick life her peculiar sphere; no rank can exempt her from an - observation of the laws of the former, from an attention to the - duties of the latter. To neglect both is to violate the sacred - statutes of social happiness, and to frustrate the all-wise intention - of that Providence who framed them.” - -In the second inscription, made with acknowledgment to Miss Owensong, -Allan takes all the precautions of a Coelebs to make certain that at -his table “the eulogist of female ignorance might dine in security -against the intrusion and vanity of erudition.” The inscription reads: - - “The liberal cultivation of the female _mind_ is the best security - for the virtues of the female _heart_; and genius, talents and grace, - where regulated by prudence and governed by good sense, are never - incompatible with domestic qualities or meek and modest virtues.” - -On the third fly-leaf, this double pronouncement is presented to “Miss -Maria Gansevoort” and “from A. M.” Allan had doubtless learned from -Mrs. Chapone that “our feelings are not given us for ornament, but to -spur us on to right action.” And Miss Maria may have taken to heart -Mrs. Chapone’s dictum that “compassion is not impressed upon the human -heart, only to adorn the fair face with tears and to give an agreeable -languor to the eyes.” There survives no trace of a record of Allan’s -indulging emotions for decorative purposes. How far his sentiments were -moved in “right action” to melt Miss Maria to becoming compassion can -never be known. During the months immediately before the marriage, -however, the even tenor of Allan’s journal is jolted by the unusual -acknowledgment of the existence of his sisters, and the bald mention of -a specified number of miles covered in a “pleasure wagon.” Miss Maria, -when not his undisputed property by rites of holy matrimony, he never -mentions in his journal. - -Maria kept no journal; if she presented Allan with inscribed volumes, -Allan has eradicated all such breaches of maiden modesty. The only -intimate records of Maria that survive are three of her letters, -comments upon her in Allan’s letters, Melville’s elaborate idealisation -of her in the person of the mother of Pierre, and a vague memory handed -down orally by her descendants. - -MARIA GANSEVOORT MELVILLE - -[Illustration: - - In 1820 -] - -[Illustration: - - In 1865 -] - -Maria was born in 1791 and died in 1871. Of her girlhood, little -or nothing is very specifically known. After Melville’s marriage, -she spent the greater part of the remaining years of her life as a -dependant in his household, and the oral traditions that survive -of her do not halo her memory. She is remembered in such terms as -“cold,” “worldly,” “formal,” “haughty” and “proper”; as putting -the highest premium upon appearances; as frigidly contemptuous of -Melville’s domestic economy, and of the home-made clothes of his four -children. Though she condescended eight times to motherhood, such -was her animal vigour and her ferocity of pride that she preserved -to her death a remarkable regality of appearance. She is said to -have made a completely competent wife to Allan, superior both to any -undue intellectual distractions, and to any of the demoralisations -of domesticity. She managed his household, she bore and reared his -children, and she did both with a vigorous and unruffled efficiency, -without sign of worry or regret. There persists the story--significant -even if apocryphal--that each afternoon, enthroned upon a high -four-poster, she would nap in order to freshen herself for Allan’s -evening arrival, her children seated silently on a row of low stools -ranged on the floor at the side of her bed. In his death, as in his -life, she cherished the image of Allan--with that of her father, -General Gansevoort--as the mirror of manly perfection. - -In _Pierre_, Melville is said to have drawn an essentially accurate -portrait of his mother in the character and person of Mrs. Glendinning. -Mrs. Glendinning is presented as a “haughty widow; a lady who -externally furnished a singular example of the preservative and -beautifying influences of unfluctuating rank, health, and wealth, when -joined to a fine mind of medium culture, uncankered by any inconsolable -grief, and never worn by sordid cares. In mature age, the rose still -miraculously clung to her cheek; litheness had not yet completely -uncoiled itself from her waist, nor smoothness unscrolled itself from -her brow, nor diamondness departed from her eyes.” Proudly conscious -of this preservation, never, even in the most intimate associations of -life, did she ever appear “in any dishabille that was not eminently -becoming.” For “she was vividly aware how immense was that influence, -which, even in the closest ties of the heart, the merest appearances -make upon the mind.” And to her pride of appearance she added “her -pride of birth, her pride of affluence, her pride of purity, and all -the Semiramian pride of woman:” a pride “which in a life of nearly -fifty years had never betrayed her into a single published impropriety, -or caused her one known pang of the heart.”... “Infinite Haughtiness -had first fashioned her; and then the haughty world had further moulded -her; nor had a haughty Ritual omitted to finish her.” Nor must Allan’s -moralisings, and Dr. Akenside, and Mrs. Barbauld, and Mrs. Chapone, be -denied their due credit in contributing to the finished product. - -Between Maria and her son there existed a striking personal -resemblance. From his mother, too, Melville seems to have inherited a -constitution of very remarkable vigour, and all the white intensity -of the Gansevoort aptitude for anger. But here the resemblance -ceased. In the youthful Pierre, Mrs. Glendinning felt “a triumphant -maternal pride,” for in her son “she saw her own graces strangely -translated into the opposite sex.” But of his mother’s love for -him, Pierre entertained precocious and Meredithian suspicions: “She -loveth me, ay;--but why? Had I been cast in a cripple’s mould, how -then? Now do I remember that in her most caressing love, there ever -gleamed some scaly, glittering folds of pride.... Before my glass she -stands--pride’s priestess--and to her mirrored image, not to me, she -offers up her offering of kisses.” - -Strangely must she have been baffled by this mirrored image of -herself,--fascinated, and at the same time contemptuously revolted. -What sympathy, what understanding could she know for this thing of -her blood that in obscurity, in poverty, a failure in the eyes of -the world, returned from barbarism to dream wild dreams that were -increasingly unsalable? As a boy, all his passionate cravings for -sympathy, for affection, were rebuffed by her haughty reserve, and -recoiled within him. Fatherless and so mothered, he felt with Pierre, -“that deep in him lurked some divine unidentifiableness, that owed -no earthly kith or kin. Yet was this feeling entirely lonesome and -orphan-like. He felt himself driven out an infant Ishmael into the -desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany and comfort him.” In -_Redburn_, with the mother image like a fury in his heart, he describes -himself as “a sort of Ishmael.” “Call me Ishmael,” is the striking -opening sentence of _Moby-Dick_; and its no less striking close: “On -the second day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. -It was the devious cruising _Rachel_, that in retracing search after -her missing children, only found another orphan.” Of his mother he is -reported to have said in later life: “She hated me.” - -It seems not altogether fantastic to contend that the Gorgon face that -Melville bore in his heart; the goading impalpable image that made -his whole life a pilgrimage of despair: that was the cold beautiful -face of his mother, Maria Gansevoort. One shudders to think how such a -charge would have violated Maria’s proprieties. But in the treacherous -ambiguities of _Pierre_, Melville himself hovers on the verge of this -insight. Pierre is haunted by a mysterious face, which he thus invokes: -“The face!--the face!--The face steals down upon me. Mysterious girl! -who art thou? Take thy thin fingers from me; I am affianced, and not to -thee. Surely, thou lovest not me?--that were most miserable for thee, -and me. What, _who_ art thou? Oh! wretched vagueness--too familiar to -me, yet inexplicable,--unknown, utterly unknown!” To the mind of Pierre -it was a face “backward hinting of some irrevocable sin; forward, -pointing to some inevitable ill; hovering between Tartarian misery and -Paradisaic beauty.” In _Pierre_, this face, “compounded so of hell and -heaven,” is the instrument by which the memory of Pierre’s father is -desecrated, Pierre’s mother is driven to insanity and death, and Pierre -himself is utterly ruined. _Pierre_ is a book to send a Freudian into -ravishment. - -Allan Melville, aged thirty-two, and Maria Gansevoort, nine years -younger, were married on the fourth of October, 1814. In his journal, -Allan has left this record of their wedding-trip. - - _October 4, 1814_--Left Albany at 11 A.M. in a hack with - Mrs. M. and Helen (his youngest sister, in her - sixteenth year). Dined at Stottard’s, Lapan, & - slept at Beths Lebanon. - - _October 5, 1814_--Left Lebanon at 9, dined at Pittsfield - & slept at Worthington. - - _October 6, 1814_--Left Worthington at 1/2 past 9, dined at - Southampton & slept at Belchertown. - - _October 7, 1814_--Left Belchertown at 9, dined at - Brookfield & slept at Worcester. - - _October 8, 1814_--Left Worcester at 1/2 past 9, dined at - Farmingham & arrived at Boston at 5 P.M. - -For five years following this initial daily shifting of bed and board, -Allan and his wife lived in Albany. The monotony of this residence was -broken by the birth of two children,--Gansevoort, and Helen Marie,--and -Allan’s trip to Europe in the spring of 1818: the enforced business -trip, already mentioned, that took him to the home of his titled -Scotch cousins. Upon his return he resolved to leave Albany, and -settle in what he appreciatively called “the greatest universal mart -in the world.” On May 12, 1819, he records in his journal: “Commenced -Housekeeping at No. Park Street, New York. Mrs. M. & the children who -had been to a visit to her Mother at Albany since 6th April, having -joined me on this day, to my great joy.” - -Three months after Allan’s moving to “the greatest universal mart in -the world,” Maria presented him with a third child, and second son, -who was christened after Maria’s brother, Herman. At this time, Allan -seems to have accepted the excitements of childbirth so casually -that Melville’s birth passed unrecorded in his father’s journal. The -first surviving record of Melville’s existence is unromantic enough. -In a letter dated October 7, 1820, Allan wrote: “Helen Marie suffers -most from what we term the whooping cough but which I am sometimes -suspicious is only influenza. But Gansevoort and Herman are as yet -slightly affected.” - -At this time, Allan seems to have prospered in business, for on -September 20, 1820, he reported to his mother: “We have hired a cook & -nurse and only want a waiter to complete our domestic establishment.” - -Herman’s infancy seems to have been untroubled by any event more -startling than a growing aggregation of brothers and sisters, -occasional trips to Boston, and periodic pilgrimages to Albany with -his mother to be exhibited to his grandmother Gansevoort. There are -frequent references to his ailing health. In April, 1824, Allan -complains that “Gansevoort has lost much of his ruddy appearance, while -Herman who has never entirely regained his health again looks pale, -thin and dejected.” - -At this time Allan signed “a 4 yrs. lease at $300 per annum free of -taxes, for a new brick 2 story house replete with conveniences, to be -handsomely furnished in the most modern style under my own direction & -a vacant lot of equal size attached to it which will be invaluable as -a play ground for the children. It is situated in Bleecker, the first -south, and parallel to Bond St.... An open, dry & elevated location -equidistant from Broadway & the Bowery, in plain sight of both & almost -uniting the advantages of town & country, but its distance from my -store, nearly two miles, will compel me to dine from my family most -of the time, a serious objection to us all, but we shall be amply -compensated by a residence which will obviate the necessity of their -leaving town every summer, which deprives me altogether of their -society. I shall also remove professionally on the 1st of May to No. -102 Pearl St. upstairs in the very focus of Business & surrounded -by the auction rooms which have become the Rialto of the modern -merchants but where I dare say even Shylock would be shy of making his -appearance.” - -By December 29, 1824, we hear of Herman that “he attends school -regularly but does not appear so fond of his Book as to injure his -health. He has turned into a great tease & daily puts Gansevoort’s -patience to flight who cannot bear to be plagued by such a little -fellow.” - -On the same date, Maria writes to her brother about pickling oysters, -500 of which she sent to Albany as a gift to his family. The picture -of her life that she then gives is evidence that she had cherished the -counsels that “her friend A. M.” had appended to Mrs. Chapone. She -tells of a call she received before eleven o’clock. “Although the hour -was early, all things were neat & in order & my ladyship was dressing -herself preparatory to sitting down to her sewing.” She boasts of this -fact, she says, in shamed recollection of the time her brother and Mr. -Smyth were ushered into a parlour out of order. “It is the first time -a thing of this kind has ever happened to me & for my credit as a good -housekeeper, I hope it will be the last.” In conclusion she reports: -“This afternoon Mr. M. & myself, induced by the enlivening rays of -the setting sun, strolled down the Bowery & after an agreeable walk -returned home with renovated spirits.” - -In December, 1825, Allan is moved to “lament little Herman’s melancholy -situation, but we trust in humble confidence that the GOD of the widow -and the fatherless will yet restore him.” By the following May, Allan’s -humble confidence seems to have been rewarded not only by Herman’s -recovery, but by the birth of another child. In the midst of a business -letter--the usual repository of Allan’s raptures--he with unwonted -vivacity so celebrates his paternal felicity: “The Lovely Six!! are -all well, and, while the youngest though both last & least is a sweet -child of promise, & bids fair to become the fairest of the fair--so -much for affection, now for business.” - -On August 10, 1826, Melville was sent out upon his first trip from home -unaccompanied by his parents. His destination was his mother’s people -in Albany, and his custodian during the trip a Mr. Walker. Allan shifts -his responsibility for his son on the shoulders of his brother-in-law, -Peter Gansevoort, in these terms: - -“I now consign to your especial care & patronage my beloved son Herman, -an honest hearted double-rooted Knickerbocker of the true Albany -stamp, who, I trust, will do equal honour in due time to ancestry, -parentage & kindred. He is very backward in speech & somewhat slow in -comprehension, but you will find him as far as he understands men and -things both solid & profound & of a docile & amiable disposition. If -agreeable, he will pass the vacation with his grandmother & yourself & -I hope he may prove a pleasant auxiliary to the Family circle--I depend -much on your kind attention to our dear Boy who will be truly grateful -to the least favour--let him avoid green fruit & unseasonable exposure -to the Sun & heat, and having taken such good care of Gansevoort -last Summer I commit his Brother to the same hands with unreserved -confidence. & with love to our good mother and yourself in which Maria, -Mary & the children most cordially join I remain very truly Your Friend -& Brother, Allan Melville.” - -At the foot of this document, Allan appended in pencil: “please turn -over.” On the reverse of the letter is scribbled a breathless last -request: “Have the goodness to procure a pair of shoes for Herman, time -being insufficient to have a pair made here.” - -When Allan here pronounces Melville “very backward in speech & somewhat -slow in comprehension,” he puts his son in a large class of genius -conspicuous for a deferred revelation of promising intelligence. Scott, -occupied in building up romances, was dismissed as a dunce; Hume, -the youthful thinker, was described by his mother as “uncommon weak -minded.” Goldsmith was a stupid child; Fanny Burney did not know her -letters at the age of eight. Byron showed no aptitude for school work. -And Chatterton, up to the age of six and a half, was, on the authority -of his mother, “little better than an absolute fool.” Allan scorned to -take solace from such facts, however. He consoled himself with the fact -that though his son was dull, he was at least “docile & amiable.” - -Melville spent the summer of 1826 with the Gansevoorts. And he looked -back upon it as perhaps the most fortunate privilege of his youth, that -this first visit to Albany set the precedent for a whole series of -similar summers. He is idealising from his own experience when he says -of Pierre: “It had been his choice fate to have been born and nurtured -in the country, surrounded by scenery whose uncommon loveliness was the -perfect mould of a delicate and poetic mind; while the popular names -of its finest features appealed to the proudest patriotic and family -associations of the historic line of Glendinning.” Nor does he hesitate -to reiterate that Pierre’s was a “choice fate”: “For to a noble -American youth this indeed--more than in any other land--this indeed -is a most rare and choice lot.” Each summer, for as long as his school -vacations would permit, Melville shared the choice lot of Pierre. -But Allan, unconverted to Melville’s Wordsworthian creed, regularly -recalled his son to the city with the opening of school. - -This is the recall for the year 1826, dated “12 Sept. Tuesday, 4 P.M.”: -“We expect Gansevoort on Sunday, at fartherest, when we wish Herman -also to be here, that they may recommence their studies together on -Monday next, with equal chances of preferment, & without any feelings -of jealousy or ideas of favoritism--besides they may thus acquire -a practical lesson whose influence may endure forever, for if they -understand early, that inclination must always yield to Duty, it will -become a matter of course when their vacations expire to bid a fond -adieu to friends & amusements, & return home cheerfully to their books, -& they will consequently imbibe habits of Order & punctuality, which -bear sweet blossoms in the dawn of life, golden fruits in ‘the noon of -manhood’ & a rich harvest for the garners of old age--business is about -as dull and unprofitable as the most bitter foe to general prosperity, -if such a being exists in human shape, could desire it, & it requires -a keener vision than mine, to discern among the signs of the times, any -real symptoms of future improvement.” - -The summer of 1827 Melville spent with his grandparents in Boston; the -two following summers in Albany. - -On February 28, 1828, Allan reported to his brother-in-law Peter -Gansevoort: “We have taken a house on Broadway (No. 675--if I mistake -not) for 5 years @ $575 without taxes--being the 2d beyond the marble -buildings & nearly opposite Bond Street. The house is a modern 2 -stories built 4 years since for the owner & has only been occupied by -his family. The lot is 200 feet deep through to Mercer St., Maria is -charmed with the house & situation.” - -But Allan never lived to see this lease expire. The dull business of -which he earlier complained settled upon him, and in 1830 the prospects -in New York were so hopeless that he moved back to Albany, to die two -years later, leaving his wife and eight children practically penniless. - -But before Allan moved away from New York, Herman had time to write the -earliest manuscript of his that survives. It reads: - - 11th of October, 1828. - - DEAR GRANDMOTHER - - This is the third letter that I ever wrote so you must not think - it very good. I now study geography, gramar, writing, Speaking, - Spelling, and read in the Scientific class book. I enclose in this - letter a drawing for my dear grandmother. Give my love to grandmamma, - Uncle Peter and Aunt Mary. And my Sisters and also to allan, - - Your affectionate grandson - - HERMAN MELVILLE. - -In _Redburn_, Melville speaks “of those delightful days before my -father was a bankrupt, and died, and we moved from the city”; or again, -speaking of Allan: “he had been shaken by many storms of adversity, -and at last died a bankrupt.” Allan’s journal, however, which he -kept until within a few months of his death, is proudly superior to -anything suggestive of the outrageousness of fortune: its hard glazed -surface betrays to the end no crack in the veneer. Beyond a persistent -tradition, and Melville’s iterated statement, no further evidence of -Allan’s financial reverses has transpired. - -It is certain, however, that after Allan’s death his family found -themselves in straitened circumstances. After 1830, the most specific -evidence known to exist about the whereabouts and condition of -Melville’s family is preserved in old Albany Directories, as follows: - - 1830: no Melvilles mentioned. - - 1831: Melville, Allan, 446 s. Market. - house 338 n. Market. - - 1832: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market. - Melville, widow Maria, cor. of n. Market & Steuben. - - 1833: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market. - Melville, widow Maria, 282 n. Market. - - 1834: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market, - res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl. - Melville, Herman, clerk in N. Y. State Bank, res. 3 - Clinton Square n. Pearl. - Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl. - - 1835: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market, - res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl. - Melville, Herman, clerk at 364 s. Market, res. 3 Clinton - Square n. Pearl. - Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl. - -After 1835 the family scattered, Melville to begin his wanderings on -land and sea,--Gansevoort to drift about Albany for two years, Maria -and the rest of the children to move to Lansingburg--now a part of -Albany. - -The publication of the _Celebration of the Semi-Centennial Anniversary -of the Albany Academy_ (Albany, 1862) in its list of alumni, and the -date of their entrance, offers the following record: - - 1831: Melville, Allan. - 1830: Melville, Gansevoort. - 1830: Melville, Herman. - -This Semi-Centennial Anniversary Celebration took place in Tweedle -Hall, which, so says the publication, “was crowded with an appropriate -audience.” “The meeting was presided over by the Honourable PETER -GANSEVOORT, the President of the Board of Trustees,” the publication -goes on to say, “and by his side were his associates and the guests of -the festival, among whom was warmly welcomed HERMAN MELVILLE, whose -reputation as an author has honoured the Academy, world-wide.” As -Melville sat there, “the Rev. Doc. FERRIS ... made prayer to Heaven the -source of that knowledge which shall not vanish away;” Orlando Mead, -LL.D., read a Historical Discourse; and “at successive periods the -exercises were diversified by the music of _Home, Sweet Home_ or _Rest, -Spirit, Rest_, and of other appropriate harmonies.” What recollections -of his school-days at the Albany Academy were then passing through -Melville’s head, we haven’t sufficient knowledge of his schooling to -guess. As part of the celebration, Alexander W. Bradford, who was a -student at the Academy between 1825 and 1832, spoke of the “domestic -discords and fights between the Latins and the English, and the more -fierce and bitter foreign conflicts waged between the Hills and the -Creeks, the latter being a pugnacious tribe of barbarians who inhabited -the shores of Fox Creek;” of “the weekly exhibitions in the Gymnasium -grand with the beauty of Albany;” of “the lectures and experiments in -chemistry, which being in the evening, were favoured by the presence of -young ladies as well as gentlemen.” In what capacity, if any, Melville -figured in these activities there is no way of knowing. - -Dr. Henry Hun, now President of the Albany Academy, in answer to a -request for information about Melville, answers: “Unfortunately, the -records of the Albany Academy were burned in 1888. It is impossible to -say how long he remained in the school or what results he achieved. -He probably took the Classical Course, as most of the brighter boys -took it. It was really a Collegiate Course, and the Head-master -(or Principal as he was then called) Dr. T. Romeyn Beck was an -extraordinary man, but one who did not spare the rod, but gave daily -exhibitions in its use.” In a postscript Dr. Hun adds: “It was a -God-fearing school.” - -Joseph Henry, at one time teacher at the Albany Academy, later head -of the Smithsonian Institute, in an address before the Association -for the Advancement of Science, in session in Albany in 1851, said of -Melville’s Alma Mater: “The Albany Academy was and still is one of the -first, if not the very first, institution of its kind in the United -States. It early opposed the pernicious maxim that a child should be -taught nothing but what it could perfectly understand, and that the -sole object of instruction is to teach a child to think.” - -Since Melville was in 1834 employed as clerk in the New York State -Bank (a post he doubtless owed to his uncle, Peter Gansevoort, who -was one of the Trustees) he must have ceased to enjoy the advantages -of the Albany Academy before that date. During the time of Melville’s -attendance, the same texts were used by all students alike during their -first three years at the Albany Academy. This, then, would seem to be -a list of the texts (offered by the courtesy of Dr. Hun) studied by -Melville: - - 1st Year: - Latin Grammar - Historia Sacra - Turner’s Exercises (begun) - Latin Reader - Irving’s Universal History - - 2d Year: - Latin Reader continued - Turner’s Exercises - Cornelius Nepos - Irving’s Grecian and Roman Histories - Roman Antiquities - - 3d Year: - Cæsar, Ovid, Latin Prosody - Turner’s Exercises, Translations - Irving’s Grecian Antiquities - Mythology and Biography - Greek Grammar - -J. E. A. Smith, in the _Biographical Sketch of Herman Melville_ that in -1891 he wrote for _The Evening Journal_ of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, -says of Melville’s school-days: - -“In 1835, Professor Charles E. West ... was president of the Albany -Classical Institute for boys, and Herman Melville became one of his -pupils. Professor West now remembers him as a favourite pupil, not -distinguished for mathematics, but very much so in the writing of -‘themes’ or ‘compositions’ and fond of doing it, while the great -majority of pupils dreaded it as a task, and would shirk it if they -could.” - -In 1835, Melville was clerk in his brother’s shop. If J. E. A. Smith’s -record is accurate, Melville was at the time alternating business with -education. - -The greater part of 1836 was spent by Melville, according to his own -account, already quoted, in the household of his uncle Major Thomas -Melville, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. - -J. E. A. Smith in his _Biographical Sketch_ so supplements Melville’s -account: “Besides his labours with his uncle in the hay field, he was -for one term teacher of the common school in the ‘Sykes district’ under -Washington mountain, of which he had some racy memories--one of them -of a rebellion in which some of the bigger boys undertook to ‘lick’ -him--with what results, those who remember his physique and character -can well imagine.” - -The only other records we have of Melville’s boyhood and early youth -are the scattered recollections preserved in his published works. -Such, throughout his life, were the veering whims of his blood, -that he recalled these earlier years with no unity of retrospect. -The confessions of St. Augustine are a classical warning of the -untrustworthiness of even the most conscientious memory. To call -memory the mother of the Muses, is too frequently but a partial and -euphemistic naming of her offspring. So when Melville writes of early -years, now in rhapsody and then in bitterness, the result, though -always valuable autobiography, is not invariably, of course, strict -history. - -Some of his idealisations of his life with the Gansevoorts have -already been given. Through the refracting films of memory he -at times looked back upon “those far descended Dutch meadows ... -steeped in a Hindooish haze” and proud of his name and his “double -revolutionary descent,” he viewed himself with Miltonic self-esteem as -a “fine, proud, loving, docile, vigorous boy.” And there is no reason -to suspect him of perverting the truth. Behind these are “certain -shadowy reminiscences of wharves, and warehouses, and shipping, which -a residence in a seaport during early childhood had supplied me.” And -with them he blended remembrances “of winter evenings in New York, -by the well-remembered sea-coal fire, when my father used to tell my -brother and me of the monstrous waves at sea, mountain high; of the -masts bending like twigs; and all about Havre, and Liverpool, and about -going up into the ball of St. Paul’s in London. Indeed, during my early -life, most of my thoughts of the sea were connected with the land; -but with fine old lands, full of mossy cathedrals and churches, and -long, narrow crooked streets without sidewalks, and lined with strange -houses. And especially I tried hard to think how such places must look -on rainy days and Saturday afternoons; and whether indeed they did have -rainy days and Saturdays there, just as we did here, and whether the -boys went to school there, and studied geography and wore their shirt -collars turned over, and tied with a black ribbon; and whether their -papas allowed them to wear boots instead of shoes, which I so much -disliked, for boots looked so manly.” - -Melville confesses here to a precocious exercise of the poetic -imagination: a type of imagination for which the consistent -disappointments of his life were to be the invariable penalty. In -the prosaic man, in Benjamin Franklin, for example, the imagination -does not, as it did with Melville, enrich the immediate facts of -experience with amplifications so vivid that the reality is in danger -of being submerged. In the prosaic man, the imagination works in a -safely utilitarian fashion, combining images for practical purposes -under the supervision of a matter-of-fact judgment. And though it may -indeed bring the lightning from the clouds, it makes the transfer not -to glorify the firmament, but to discipline the lightning and to make -church steeples safe from the wrath of God. Melville’s was the type of -imagination whose extreme operation is exemplified in William Blake. -“I assert for myself,” said Blake, “that I do not behold the outward -creation, and that it is to me hindrance and not action. ‘What,’ it -will be questioned, ‘when the sun rises, do you not see a round disk -of fire something like a guinea?’ Oh! no! no! I see an innumerable -company of the heavenly host, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord -God Almighty!’ I question not my corporeal eye any more than I would -question a window concerning a sight. I look through it, and not with -it.” Though Allan Melville chose as courtship gift a copy of _Pleasures -of Imagination_, the pleasures he derived from the exercise of this -faculty were of a sort that both Blake and his son would have thought -tame in the extreme. Allan saw the world with his eyes alone, he -proudly believed, the world as it really is. It was both the blessing -and the curse of his son that his was the gift of “second sight.” - -“We had several pieces of furniture in the house,” says Melville, -speaking of his childhood days, “which had been brought from Europe”: -furniture that had been imported by Allan, some of which is still in -the possession of Melville’s descendants. “These I examined again and -again, wondering where the wood grew: whether the workmen who made them -still survived, and what they could be doing with themselves now.” -Could Allan have known what was going on in the head of his son, he -would have been as alarmed as was the father of Anatole France when -the young Thibault undertook to emulate St. Nicholas of Patras and -distribute his riches to the poor. - -Even as a child, he was lured by the romance of distance, and he -confesses how he used to think “how fine it would be, to be able to -talk about remote barbarous countries; with what reverence and wonder -people would regard me, if I had just returned from the coast of Africa -or New Zealand: how dark and romantic my sunburnt cheeks would look; -how I would bring home with me foreign clothes of rich fabric and -princely make, and wear them up and down the streets, and how grocers’ -boys would turn their heads to look at me, as I went by. For I very -well remembered staring at a man myself, who was pointed out to me -by my aunt one Sunday in church, as the person who had been in stony -Arabia and passed through strange adventures there, all of which with -my own eyes I had read in the book which he wrote, an arid-looking book -in a pale yellow cover. - -“‘See what big eyes he has,’ whispered my aunt, ‘they got so big, -because when he was almost dead in the desert with famishing, he all -at once caught sight of a date tree, with the ripe fruit hanging on -it.’ Upon this, I stared at him till I thought his eyes were really of -an uncommon size, and stuck out from his head like those of a lobster. -When church was out, I wanted my aunt to take me along and follow the -traveller home. But she said the constables would take us up, if we -did; and so I never saw the wonderful Arabian traveller again. But he -long haunted me; and several times I dreamt of him, and thought his -great eyes were grown still larger and rounder; and once I had a vision -of the date tree.” - -It is one of the few certainties of life that a child who has once -stood fixed before a piece of household furniture worrying his head -about whether the workman who made it still be alive; who after seeing -an Arabian traveller in church goes home and has a vision of a date -tree: such a child is not going to die an efficiency expert. At the age -of fifteen Melville found himself faced with the premature necessity of -coming to some sort of terms with life on his own account. Helped by -his uncle, he tried working in a bank. The experiment seems not to have -been a success. His next experiment was clerk in his brother’s store. -But banking and clerking seem to have been equally repugnant. Melville -had a taste for landscape, so his next experiment was as farmer and -country school-keeper. But farming, interspersed with pedagogy and -pugilism, fired Melville to a mood of desperation. “Talk not of the -bitterness of middle age and after-life,” he later wrote; “a boy can -feel all that, and much more, when upon his young soul the mildew has -fallen.... Before the death of my father I never thought of working for -my living, and never knew there were hard hearts in the world.... I had -learned to think much, and bitterly, before my time.” So he decided -to slough off the tame respectabilities of his well-to-do uncles, and -cousins, and aunts. Goaded by hardship, and pathetically lured by the -glamorous mirage of distance, with all the impetuosity of his eighteen -summers he planned a hegira. “With a philosophical flourish Cato -throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. This is my -substitute for pistol and ball.” - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -A SUBSTITUTE FOR PISTOL AND BALL - - “When I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, - plumb down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. - True, they rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to - spar, like a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort - of thing is unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honour, - particularly if you come of an old established family in the land, - the Van Rensselaers, or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than - all, if just previous to putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have - been lording it as a country schoolmaster, making the tallest boys - stand in awe of you, 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.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Moby-Dick_. - - -When, at the age of seventeen, Melville cut loose from his mother, his -kind cousins and aunts, and sympathising sisters, he was stirred by -motives of desperation, and by the immature delusion that happiness -lies elusive and beckoning, just over the world’s rim. It was a -drastic escape from the intolerable monotony of prosaic certainties -and aching frustrations. “Sad disappointments in several plans which -I had sketched for my future life,” says Melville, “the necessity of -doing something for myself, united with a naturally roving disposition, -conspired within me, to send me to sea as a sailor.” - -In _Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-boy Confessions and -Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman_ (1849) Melville has left what -is the only surviving record of his initial attempt “to sail beyond -the sunset.” Luridly vivid and exuberant was his imagination, flooding -the world of his childhood and fantastically transmuting reality. At -the time of his first voyage, Melville was, it is well to remember, a -boy of seventeen. He was not old enough, not wise enough, to regard -his dreams as impalpable projections of his defeated desires: desires -inflamed by what Dr. Johnson called the “dangerous prevalence of -imagination,” and which, in “sober probability” could find no actual -satisfaction. Had Melville been a nature of less impetuosity, or of -less abundant physical vitality, he might have moped tamely at home and -“yearned.” But with the desperate Quixotic enterprise of a splendid but -embittered boy, he sallied forth into the unknown to put his dreams to -the test. When it was reported to Carlyle that Margaret Fuller made -boast: “I accept the universe,” unimpressed he remarked: “Gad! she’d -better.” Melville, when only seventeen, had not yet come to Carlyle’s -dyspeptic resignation to the cosmic order. “As years and dumps -increase; as reflection lends her solemn pause, then,” so Melville -says, in substance, in a passage on elderly whales, “in the impotent, -repentant, admonitory stage of life, do sulky old souls go about all -alone among the meridians and parallels saying their prayers.” Lacking -Dr. Johnson’s elderly wisdom, Melville believed there to be some -correlation between happiness and geography. He was not willing to -take resignation on faith. Not through “spontaneous striving towards -development,” but through necessity and hard contact with nature and -men does the recalcitrant dreamer accept Carlyle’s dictum. With drastic -experience, most men come at last to have a little commonsense knocked -into their heads,--and a good bit of imagination knocked out, as -Wordsworth, for one, discovered. - -Melville’s recourse to the ocean in 1837, as that of Richard Henry -Dana’s three years before, was a heroic measure, calculated either to -take the nonsense out of both of them, or else to drive them straight -either to suicide, madness, or rum-soaked barbarism. To both boys, it -was a crucial test that would have ruined coarser or weaker natures. -Dana came from out the ordeal purged and strengthened, toned up to the -proper level, and no longer too fine for everyday use. Though as years -went by, so says C. F. Adams, his biographer, “the freshness of the -great lesson faded away, and influences which antedated his birth and -surrounded his life asserted themselves, not for his good.” - -Because of lack of contemporary evidence, the immediate influences of -Melville’s first experience in the forecastle, cannot be so positively -stated. _Redburn_, the only record of the adventure, was not written -until twelve years after Melville had experienced what it records. -Extraordinarily crowded was this intervening span of twelve years. -But despite the fulness of intervening experience--or, maybe, because -of it--the universe still stuck in his maw: it was a bolus on which -he gagged. _Redburn_ is written in embittered memory of Melville’s -first hegira. In the words of Mr. H. S. Salt: “It is a record of -bitter experience and temporary disillusionment--the confessions of -a poor, proud youth, who goes to sea ‘with a devil in his heart’ and -is painfully initiated into the unforeseen hardships of a sea-faring -life.” In 1849 he was still unadjusted to unpalatable reality, and -in _Redburn_ he seems intent upon revenging himself upon his early -disillusion by an inverted idealism,--by building for himself, “not -castles, but dungeons in Spain,”--as if, failing to reach the moon, -he should determine to make a Cynthia of the first green cheese. And -this inverted idealism he achieves most effectively by recording with -photographic literalness the most hideous details of his penurious -migration. His romantic realism--reminding one of Zola and certain -pages out of Rousseau--he alternates with malicious self-satire, -and its obverse gesture, obtrusive self-pity. To those austere and -classical souls who are proudly impatient of this style of writing, -it must be insisted with what Arnold called “damnable iteration” that -_Redburn_ purports to be the confessions of a seventeen-year-old lad. -Autobiographically, the book is, of course, of superlative interest. -But despite its unaccountable neglect, and Melville’s ostentation of -contempt for it, it is none the less important, in the history of -letters, as a very notable achievement. Mr. Masefield and W. Clark -Russell alone, of competent critics, seem to have been aware of its -existence. It is _Redburn_ that Mr. Masefield confesses to loving -best of Melville’s writings: this “boy’s book about running away to -sea.” Mr. Masefield thinks, however, that “one must know New York and -the haunted sailor-town of Liverpool to appreciate that gentle story -thoroughly.” - -When Melville wrote _Redburn_ in 1849, there was no book exactly -like it in our literature, its only possible forerunners being -Nathaniel Ames’ _A Mariner’s Sketches_ (1830) and Dana’s _Two -Years before the Mast_ (1840). The great captains had written of -their voyages, it is true; or when they themselves left no record, -their literary laxity was usually corrected by the querulousness -of some member of their ship’s company. Great compilations such as -Churchill’s, or Harris’, or Hakluyt’s _The Principal Navigations, -Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation: made by -sea or overland to the remotest and farthest different quarters of -the earth at any time within the Compass of these 1600 years_, or -no less luxuriously entitled works, such as the fine old eighteenth -century folio of Captain Charles Johnson’s _A General History of the -Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street -Robbers, etc., To which is added, A Genuine Account of the Voyages -and Plunders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, interspersed with several -diverting tales, and pleasant songs, and adorned with the Heads of -the Most Remarkable Villains, curiously Engraven_, are monuments to -the prodigious wealth of the early literature of sea adventure. The -light of romance colours these maritime exploits, and even upon the -maturest gaze there still lingers something of the radiance with which -the ardent imagination of boyhood gilds the actions and persons of -these fierce sea-warriors, treacherous, cruel and profligate miscreants -though the most picturesque of them were. - -But these hardy adventurers were men of action; men proud of their own -exploits, but untouched by any corrupt self-consciousness of their -Gilbert-and-Sullivan, or Byronic possibilities; men untempted to offer -any superfluous encouragement to the deep blue sea to “roll.” And -though many of them--Captain Cook, for example--ran away to sea to ship -before the mast, they in later years betray no temptings to linger with -attention over their days of early obscurity. Even _The Book of Things -Forgotten_ passes over the period of Cook’s life in the forecastle. He -began as an apprentice, he ended as a mate. That is all. As regards -the life he led as a youth on board the merchant ship there is no -account: a silence that forces Walter Besant in his _Captain Cook_ to -a page or two of surmise as a transition to more notable sureties. An -appreciation of the romance of the sea, and of the humbler details of -the life of the common sailor is one of our most recent sophistications. - -In fiction, it is true, Smollett had his sailors, as did Scott, -and Marryat, and Cooper,--to mention only the most notable names. -Provoked to originality by a defiant boast, Cooper wrote the earliest -first-rate sea-novel: a story concerning itself exclusively with the -sea. Remarkable is the clearness and accuracy of his description of -the manœuvres of his ships. He makes his vessels “walk the waters -like a thing of life.” “I have loved ships as I have loved men,” says -Melville. And Cooper before him, as Conrad after him, have by similar -love given personality to vessels. Among his company of able seamen, -Cooper has his Long Tom Coffin: and these are more picturesque, and -perhaps more real than his Lord Geoffrey Cleveland, his Admiral -Bluewater, his Griffith, and his other quarterdeck people. But sea-life -as Cooper knew it was sea-life as seen from the quarterdeck, and from -the quarterdeck of the United States navy. - -Marryat, it is true, makes his Newton Foster a merchant sailor. But -Marryat knew nothing of the hidden life of the merchant service. He had -passed his sea-life in the ships of the States, and he knew no more of -what passed in a merchantman’s forecastle than the general present day -land intelligence knows of what passes in a steamer’s engine room. Dana -and Melville were the first to lift the hatch and show the world what -passes in a ship’s forecastle. Dana disclosed these secrets in a single -volume; Melville in a number of remarkable narratives, the first of -which was _Redburn_. - -Dana’s is a trustworthy and matter-of-fact account in the form of a -journal; a vigorous, faithful, modest narrative. With very little -interest exhibited in the feeling of his own pulse, he recounts the -happenings aboard the ship from day to day. Melville’s account is more -vivid because more intimate. As is the case with George Borrow, his eye -is always riveted upon himself. He minutely amplifies his own emotions -and sensations, and with an incalculable gain over Dana in descriptive -vividness. One would have to be colour blind to purple patches to fail -to recognise in _Redburn_ streaks of the purest Tyrean dye. Between -Melville and Dana the answer is obvious as to “who fished the murex up?” - -“It was with a heavy heart and full eyes,” says Melville, “that my -mother parted from me; perhaps she thought me an erring and a wilful -boy, and perhaps I was; but if I was, it had been a hard-hearted world, -and hard times that had made me so.” - -Dressed in a hunting jacket; one leg of his trousers adorned with an -ample and embarrassing patch; armed with a fowling piece which his -older brother Gansevoort had given him, in lieu of cash, to sell in -New York; without a penny in his pocket: Melville arrived in New York -on a fine rainy day in the late spring of 1837. Dripping like a seal, -and garbed like a housebreaker, he walked across town to the home of a -friend of Gansevoort’s, where he was dried, warmed and fed. - -Philo of Judea has descended to posterity blushing because he had a -body. Melville survives, rosy in animality: but his was never Philo’s -scarlet of shame. Melville was a boy of superb physical vigour: and -his blackest plunges of discouragement and philosophical despair were -always wholesomely amenable to the persuasions of food and drink. It -was Carlyle’s conviction that with stupidity and a good digestion man -can bear much: had Melville been gifted with stupidity, he would have -needed only regular meals to convert him into a miracle of cheerful -endurance. “There is a savour of life and immortality in substantial -fare,” he later wrote; “we are like balloons, which are nothing till -filled.” When Melville sat down to the well-stocked table at his -friend’s house in New York he was a very miserable boy. But his misery -was not invulnerable. “Every mouthful pushed the devil that had been -tormenting me all day farther and farther out of me, till at last I -entirely ejected him with three successive bowls of Bohea. That night -I went to bed thinking the world pretty tolerable after all.” - -Next day, accompanied by his brother’s friend, whose true name Melville -disguises under the anonymity of Jones, Melville walked down to the -water front. - -At that time, and indeed until as recently as thirty years ago, the -water front of a great sea-port town like New York showed a towering -forest of tall and tapering masts reaching high up above the roofs of -the water-side buildings, crossed with slender spars hung with snowy -canvas, and braced with a maze of cordage: a brave sight that Melville -passes over in morose silence. He postpones until his arrival in -Liverpool the spicing of his account with the blended smells of pitch, -and tar, and old-ropes, and wet-wood, and resin and the sharp cool tang -of brine. Nor does Melville pause to conjure up the great bowsprits -and jib-booms that stretched across the street that passed the foot -of the slips. Though Melville has left a detailed description of the -Liverpool docks--not failing to paint in with a dripping brush the -blackest shadows of the low life framing that picturesque scene--it was -outside his purpose to give any hint of the maritime achievement of the -merchant service in which he was such an insignificant unit. - -The maritime achievement of the United States was then almost at the -pinnacle of its glory. At that time, the topsails of the United States -flecked every ocean, and their captains courageous left no lands -unvisited, no sea unexplored. From New England in particular sailed -ships where no other ships dared to go, anchoring where no one else -ever dreamed of looking for trade. And so it happened, as Ralph D. -Paine in his _The Old Merchant Marine_ has pointed out, that “in the -spicy warehouses that overlooked Salem Harbour there came to be stored -hemp from Luzon, gum copal from Zanzibar, palm oil from Africa, coffee -from Arabia, tallow from Madagascar, whale oil from the Antarctic, -hides and wool from the Rio de la Plata, nutmeg and cloves from -Malaysia.” With New England originality and audacity, Boston shipped -cargoes of ice to Calcutta. And for thirty years a regular trade in -Massachusetts ice remained active and lucrative: such perishable -freight out upon a four or five months’ voyage across the fiery -Equator, doubling Da Gama’s cape and steering through the furnace heat -of the Indian Ocean. In those days the people of the Atlantic seacoast -from Maryland northward found their interests vitally allied with -maritime adventure. There was a generous scattering of sea-faring folk -among Melville’s forebears of our early national era; and Melville’s -father, an importing merchant, owed his fortunes in important part, to -the chances of the sea. The United States, without railroads, and with -only the most wretched excuses for post-roads, were linked together by -coasting ships. And thousands of miles of ocean separated Americans -from the markets in which they must sell their produce and buy their -luxuries. Down to the middle of the last century, one of the most vital -interests of the United States was in the sea: an interest that deeply -influenced the thought, the legislature and the literature of our -people. And during this period, as Willis J. Abbott, in his _American -Merchant Ships and Sailors_ has noted, “the sea was a favourite career, -not only for American boys with their way to make in the world, but for -the sons of wealthy men as well. That classic of New England seamanship -_Two Years Before the Mast_ was not written until the middle of the -19th century, and its author went to sea, not in search of wealth, -but of health. But before the time of Richard Henry Dana, many a -young man of good family and education--a Harvard graduate, like him, -perhaps--bade farewell to a home of comfort and refinement and made -his berth in a smoky, fetid forecastle to learn the sailor’s calling. -There was at that time less to engage the activities and arouse the -ambitions of youth than now, and the sea offered a most promising -career.... Ships were multiplying fast, and no really lively and alert -seaman need stay long in the forecastle.” The brilliant maritime growth -of the United States, after a steady development for two hundred years, -was, when Melville sailed in 1837, within twenty-five years of its -climax. It was to reach its peak in 1861, when the aggregate tonnage -belonging to the United States was but a little smaller than that of -Great Britain and her dependencies, and nearly as large as the combined -tonnage of all other nations of the world, Great Britain excepted. -Vanished fleets and brave memories--a chronicle of America which had -written its closing chapters before the Civil War! - -But this state of affairs,--if, indeed, he was even vaguely conscious -of its existence,--left Melville at the time of his first shipping, -completely cold. It is doubtless true that Maria would have respected -him more if he had attempted to justify his sea-going by assuring her -that at that time it was to no degree remarkable for seamen to become -full-fledged captains and part owners at the age of twenty-one, or -even earlier. And Maria would have listened impressed to such cogent -evidence as the case of Thomas T. Forbes, for example, who shipped -before the mast at the age of thirteen, and was commander of the -_Levant_ at twenty; or the case of William Sturges, afterwards the -head of a firm which at one time controlled half the trade between -the United States and China, who shipped at seventeen, and was a -captain and manager in the China trade at nineteen. But such facts -touched Melville not at all. “At that early age,” he says, “I was as -unambitious as a man of sixty.” Melville’s brother, Tom, came to be a -sea-captain. Melville’s was a different destiny. - -So he trudged with his friend among the boats along the water front, -where, after some little searching, they hit upon a ship for Liverpool. -In the cabin they found the suave and bearded Captain, dapperly -dressed, and humming a brisk air as he promenaded up and down: not such -a completely odious creature, despite Melville’s final contempt for -him. The conversation was concluded by Melville signing up as a “boy,” -at terms not wildly lucrative for Melville. - -“Pray, captain,” said Melville’s amiable bungling friend, “how much do -you generally pay a handsome fellow like this?” - -“Well,” said the captain, looking grave and profound, “we are not so -particular about beauty, and we never give more than three dollars to -a green lad.” - -Melville’s next move was to sell his gun: an experience which gives -him occasion to discourse on pawn shops and the unenviable hardships -of paupers. With the two and a half dollars that he reaped by the -sale of his gun, and in almost criminal innocence of the outfit -he would need, he bought a red woollen shirt, a tarpaulin hat, a -belt, and a jack-knife. In his improvidence, he was ill provided, -indeed, with everything calculated to make his situation aboard ship -at all comfortable, or even tolerable. He was without mattress or -bed-clothes, or table-tools; without pilot-cloth jackets, or trousers, -or guernsey frocks, or oil-skin suits, or sea-boots and the other -things which old seamen used to carry in their chests. As he himself -says, his sea-outfit was “something like that of the Texan rangers, -whose uniform, they say, consists of a shirt collar and a pair of -spurs.” His purchases made, he did a highly typical thing: “I had only -one penny left, so I walked out to the end of the pier, and threw the -penny into the water.” - -That night, after dinner, Melville went to his room to try on his red -woollen shirt before the glass, to see what sort of a looking sailor -he would make. But before beginning this ritual before the mirror, he -“locked the door carefully, and hung a towel over the knob, so that no -one could peep through the keyhole.” It is said that throughout his -life Melville clung to this practice of draping door-knobs. “As soon -as I got into the shirt,” Melville goes on to say, “I began to feel -sort of warm and red about the face, which I found was owing to the -reflection of the dyed wool upon my skin. After that, I took a pair of -scissors and went to cutting my hair, which was very long. I thought -every little would help in making me a light hand to run aloft.” - -Next morning, before he reached the ship, it began raining hard, so it -was plain there would be no getting to sea that day. But having once -said farewell to his friends, and feeling a repetition of the ceremony -would be awkward, Melville boarded the ship, where a large man in a -large dripping pea-jacket, who was calking down the main-hatches, -directed him in no cordial terms to the forecastle. Rather different -was Dana’s appearance on board the brig _Pilgrim_ on August 14, 1834, -“in full sea-rig, with my chest containing an outfit for a two or three -years’ voyage.” Nor did Dana begin in the forecastle. - -In the dark damp stench of that deserted hole, Melville selected an -empty bunk. In the middle of this he deposited the slim bundle of his -belongings, and penniless and dripping spent the day walking hungry -among the wharves: a day’s peregrination that he recounts with vivid -and remorseless realism. - -At night he returned to the forecastle, where he met a thick-headed -lad from Lancaster of about his own years. Glad of any companionship, -Melville and this lubber boy crawled together in the same bunk. But -between the high odour of the forecastle, the loud snoring of his -bed-fellow, wet, cold and hungry, he went up on deck, where he walked -till morning. When the groceries on the wharf opened, he went to make -a breakfast of a glass of water. This made him qualmish. “My head was -dizzy, and I went staggering along the walk, almost blind.” - -By the time Melville got back to the ship, everything was in an uproar. -The pea-jacket man was there ordering about men in the riggings, and -people were bringing off chickens, and pigs, and beef, and vegetables -from the shore. Melville’s initial task was the cleaning out of the -pig-pen; after this he was sent up the top-mast with a bucket of a -thick lobbered gravy, which slush he dabbed over the mast. This over, -and, in the increasing bustle everything having been made ready to -sail, the word was passed to go to dinner fore and aft. “Though the -sailors surfeited with eating and drinking ashore did not touch the -salt beef and potatoes which the black cook handed down into the -forecastle: and though this left the whole allowance to me; to my -surprise, I found that I could eat little or nothing; for now I only -felt deadly faint, but not hungry.” - -Only a lunatic, of course, would expect to find very commodious or airy -quarters, any drawing-room amenities, Chautauqua uplift, or Y.M.C.A. -insipidities aboard a merchantman of the old sailing days. Nathaniel -Ames, a Harvard graduate who a little before Melville’s time shipped -before the mast, records that on his first vessel, men seeking berths -in the forecastle were ordered to bring certificates of good character -from their clergymen: an unusual requirement, surely. In more than one -memoir, there is mention of a “religious ship”: an occasional mention -that speaks volumes for the heathenism of the majority. Dana says of -one of the mates aboard the _Pilgrim_: “He was too easy and amiable -for the mate of a merchantman. He was not the man to call a sailor a -‘son of a bitch’ and knock him down with a hand-spike.” And J. Grey -Jewell, sometime United States Consul at Singapore, in his book _Among -Our Sailors_ makes a sober and elaborately documented attempt to strip -the life of a sailor of its romantic glamour, to show that it is not a -“round of fun and frolic and jollity with the advantages of seeing many -distant lands and people thrown in”: an effort that would seem to be -unnecessary except to boy readers of Captain Marryat and dime thrillers. - -Melville’s shipmates were, it goes without saying, rough and illiterate -men. With typical irony, he says that with a good degree of complacency -and satisfaction he compared his own character with that of his -shipmates: “for I had previously associated with persons of a very -discreet life, so that there was little opportunity to magnify myself -by comparing myself with my neighbours.” In a more serious mood, he -says of sailors as a class: “the very fact of their being sailors -argues a certain restlessness and sensualism of character, ignorance, -and depravity. They are deemed almost the refuse of the earth; and the -romantic view of them is principally had through romances.” And their -chances of improvement are not increased, he contends, by the fact -that “after the vigorous discipline, hardships, dangers and privations -of a voyage, they are set adrift in a foreign port, and exposed to a -thousand enticements, which, under the circumstances, would be hard -even for virtue to withstand, unless virtue went about on crutches.” -It was a tradition for centuries fostered in the naval service that -the sailor was a dog, a different human species from the landsman, -without laws and usages to protect him. This tradition survived among -merchant sailors as an unhappy anachronism even into the twentieth -century, when an American Congress was reluctant to bestow upon seamen -the decencies of existence enjoyed by the poorest labourer ashore. -Melville’s shipmates did not promise to be men of the calibre of which -Maria Gansevoort would have approved. - -With his ship, the _Highlander_, streaming out through the Narrows, -past sights rich in association to his boyish recollection; streaming -out and away from all familiar smells and sights and sounds, Melville -found himself “a sort of Ishmael in the ship, without a single friend -or companion, and I began to feel a hatred growing up in me against -the whole crew.” In other words, Melville was a very homesick boy. But -he blended common sense with homesickness. “My heart was like lead, -and I felt bad enough, Heaven knows; but I soon learnt that sailors -breathe nothing about such things, but strive their best to appear all -alive and hearty.” And circumstances helped him live up to this gallant -insight. For, as he says, “there was plenty of work to be done, which -kept my thoughts from becoming too much for me.” - -Melville was a boy of stout physical courage, game to the marrow, and -in texture of muscle and bone a worthy grandson of General Gansevoort. -What would have ruined a sallow constitution, he seems to have thriven -upon. “Being so illy provided with clothes,” he says, “I frequently -turned into my bunk soaking wet, and turned out again piping hot and -smoking like a roasted sirloin, and yet was never the worse for it; for -then, I bore a charmed life of youth and health, and was daggerproof -to bodily ill.” With alacrity and good sportsmanship, he went at his -duties. Before he had been out many days, he had outlived the acute -and combined miseries of homesickness and seasickness; the colour was -back in his cheeks, he is careful to observe with Miltonic vanity. -Soon he was taking especial delight in furling the top-gallant sails -and royals in a hard wind, and in hopping about in the riggings like -a Saint Jago’s monkey. “There was a wild delirium about it,” he says, -“a fine rushing of the blood about the heart; and a glad thrilling and -throbbing of the whole system, to find yourself tossed up at every -pitch into the clouds of a stormy sky, and hovering like a judgment -angel between heaven and earth; both hands free, with one foot in the -rigging, and one somewhere behind you in the wind.” - -The food, of course, was neither dainty nor widely varied: an unceasing -round of salt-pork, stale beef, “duff,” “lobscouse,” and coffee. “The -thing they called _coffee_,” says Melville with keen descriptive -effort, “was the most curious tasting drink I ever drank, and tasted -as little like coffee as it did like lemonade; though, to be sure, it -was generally as cold as lemonade. But what was more curious still, was -the different quality and taste of it on different mornings. Sometimes -it tasted fishy, as if it were a decoction of Dutch herring; and then -it would taste very salt, as if some _old horse_ or sea-beef had been -boiled in it; and then again it would taste a sort of cheesy, as if -the captain had sent his cheese-parings forward to make our coffee of; -and yet another time it would have such a very bad flavour that I was -almost ready to think some old stocking heel had been boiled in it. -Notwithstanding the disagreeableness of the flavour, I always used to -have a strange curiosity every morning to see what new taste it was -going to have; and I never missed making a new discovery and adding -another taste to my palate.” - -Withal, Melville might have fared much worse, as contemporaneous -accounts more than adequately prove. Even in later days, Frank T. -Bullen was able to write: “I have often seen the men break up a couple -of biscuits into a pot of coffee for breakfast, and after letting it -stand for a minute or two, skim off the accumulated scum of vermin -from the top--maggots, weevils, etc., to the extent of a couple of -tablespoonsful, before they could shovel the mess into their craving -stomachs.” Melville never complains of maggots or weevils in his -biscuits, nor does he complain of being stinted food; during this -period, both common enough complaints. The cook, it is true, did not -sterilise everything he touched. “I never saw him wash but once,” says -Melville, “and that was at one of his own soup pots one dark night when -he thought no one saw him.” But as has already been imputed to Melville -for righteousness, his was not a squeamish stomach, and despite the -usual amount of filth on board the _Highlander_, his meals seem to -have gone off easily enough. He has left this pleasant picture of the -amenities of food-taking: “the sailors sitting cross-legged at their -chests in a circle, and breaking the hard biscuit, very sociably, over -each other’s heads, which was very convenient, indeed, but gave me the -headache, at least for the first four or five days till I got used to -it; and then I did not care much about it, only it kept my hair full of -crumbs; and I had forgot to bring a fine comb and brush, so I used to -shake my hair out to windward over the bulwarks every evening.” - -Though the forecastle was, to characterise it quietly, a cramped -and fetid hole, dimly lighted and high in odour, Melville came to -be sufficiently acclimated to it to enjoy lying on his back in his -bunk during a forenoon watch below, reading while his messmates -slept. His bunk was an upper one, and right under the head of it was -a bull’s-eye, inserted into the deck to give light. Here he read an -account of _Shipwrecks and Disasters at Sea_, and a large black volume -on _Delirium Tremens_: Melville’s share in the effects of a sailor -whose bunk he occupied, who had, in a frenzy of drunkenness, hurled -himself overboard. Here Melville also struggled to read Smith’s _Wealth -of Nations_. “But soon I gave it up for lost work,” says Melville; “and -thought that the old backgammon board we had at home, lettered on the -back _The History of Rome_, was quite as full of matter, and a great -deal more entertaining.” - -The forecastle, however, was not invariably the setting for scenes so -idyllic. Drunkenness there was aplenty, especially at the beginning of -the voyage both from New York and from Liverpool. Of the three new men -shipped at Liverpool, two were so drunk they were unable to engage in -their duties until some hours after the boat quit the pier; but the -third, down on the ship’s papers as Miguel Saveda, had to be carried in -by a crimp and slung into a bunk where he lay locked in a trance. To -heighten the discomforts of the forecastle, there was soon added to the -stench of sweated flesh, old clothes, tobacco smoke, rum and bilge, a -new odour, attributed to the presence of a dead rat. Some days before, -the forecastle had been smoked out to extirpate the vermin over-running -her: a smoking that seemed to have been fatal to a rodent among the -hollow spaces in the side planks. “At midnight, the larboard watch, to -which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every man waked, he -exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed to be heightened by -the shaking up of the bilge-water, from the ship’s rolling. - -“‘Blast that rat!’ cried the Greenlander. - -“‘He’s blasted already,’ said Jackson, who in his drawers had crossed -over to the bunk of Miguel. ‘It’s a water-rat, shipmates, that’s dead; -and here he is’--and with that he dragged forth the sailor’s arm, -exclaiming ‘Dead as a timber-head!’ - -“Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the light, which he -held to the man’s face. ‘No, he’s not dead,’ he cried, as the yellow -flame wavered for a moment at the seaman’s motionless mouth. But hardly -had the words escaped when, to the silent horror of all, two threads -of greenish fire, like a forked tongue, darted out between his lips; -and in a moment the cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of -worm-like flames. - -“The light dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; while covered -all over with spires and sparkles of flame, that faintly crackled -in the silence, the uncovered parts of the body burned before us, -precisely like a phosphorescent shark in a midnight sea. The eyes were -open and fixed; the mouth was curled like a scroll, while the whole -face, now wound in curls of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim -defiance, and eternal death. Prometheus blasted by fire on the rock. - -“One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man’s name, -tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle joint; and as if -there was something peculiar in the painted flesh, every vibrating -letter burned so white that you might read the flaming name in the -flickering ground of blue. - -“‘Where’s that damned Miguel?’ was now shouted down among us by the -mate. - -“‘He’s gone to the harbour where they never weigh anchor,’ coughed -Jackson. ‘Come down, sir, and look.’ - -“Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate sprang down in -a rage; but recoiled at the burning body as if he had been shot by a -bullet. ‘Take hold of it,’ said Jackson at last, to the Greenlander; -‘it must go overboard. Don’t stand shaking there, like a dog; take -hold of it, I say!--But stop!’ and smothering it all in the blankets, -he pulled it partly out of the bunk. - -“A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the phosphorescent -sparkles of the sea, leaving a coruscating wake as it sank.” - -After this, Melville ceased reading in the forecastle. And indeed no -other sailor but Jackson would stay in the forecastle alone, and none -would laugh or sing there: none but Jackson. But he, while the rest -would be sitting silently smoking on their chests, or on their bunks, -would look towards the nailed-up bunk of Miguel and cough, and laugh, -and invoke the dead man with scoffs and jeers. - -Of Melville’s shipmates, surely this Jackson was the most remarkable: a -fit rival to Conrad’s Nigger of the Narcissus. Max and the Greenlander -were merely typical old tars. Mr. Thompson, the grave negro cook, with -his leaning towards metaphysics and his disquisitions on original sin, -together with his old crony, Lavendar the steward, with his amorous -backslidings, his cologne water, and his brimstone pantaloons, though -mildly diverting, were usual enough. Blunt, too, with his collection of -hair-oils, and his dream-book, and his flowing bumpers of horse-salts, -though picturesque, was pale in comparison with Jackson. Larry, the -old whaler, with his sentimental distaste for civilised society, was a -forerunner of Mr. H. L. Mencken; and as such, deserves a more prominent -mention. “And what’s the use of bein’ _snivelized_?” he asks Melville; -“snivelized chaps only learn the way to take on ’bout life, and snivel. -Blast Ameriky, I say. I tell ye, ye wouldn’t have been to sea here, -leadin’ this dog’s life, if you hadn’t been snivelized. Snivelization -has been the ruin on ye; and it’s sp’iled me complete: I might have -been a great man in Madagasky; it’s too darned bad! Blast Ameriky, I -say.” - -But flat, stale and unprofitable seem the whole ship’s company in -comparison with the demoniacal Jackson. Sainte-Beuve, in reviewing an -early work of Cooper’s, speaks enthusiastically of Cooper’s “faculté -créatrice qui enfante et met au monde des caractères nouveaux, et -en vertu de laquelle Rabelais a produit ‘Panurge,’ Le Sage ‘Gil -Blas,’ et Richardson ‘Clarissa.’” In _The Confidence Man_ Melville -spends a chapter discussing “originality” in literature. The phrase -“quite an original” he maintains, in contempt of Sainte-Beuve, is “a -phrase, we fancy, oftener used by the young, or the unlearned, or the -untravelled, than by the old, or the well-read, or the man who has -made the grand tour.” This faculty of creating “originals”--which is, -after all, as both Melville and Flaubert clearly saw, but a quality of -observation--Melville had to an unusual degree. In this incongruous -group of striking “originals” Jackson deserves, as Melville says, a -“lofty gallows.” - -“Though Tiberius come in the succession of the Cæsars, and though -unmatchable Tacitus has embalmed his carrion,” writes Melville in -the luxurious cadence of Sir Thomas Browne which some of his critics -have stigmatised as both the sign and cause of his later “madness,” -“yet do I account this Yankee Jackson full as dignified a personage -as he, and as well meriting his lofty gallows in history, even though -he was a nameless vagabond without an epitaph, and none but I narrate -what he was. For there is no dignity in wickedness, whether in purple -or rags: and hell is a democracy of devils, where all are equals. In -historically canonising on earth the condemned below, and lifting -up and lauding the illustrious damned, we do but make ensamples of -wickedness; and call upon ambition to do some great iniquity to be sure -of fame.” - -When Melville came to know Jackson, nothing was left of him but the -foul lees and dregs of a man; a walking skeleton encased in a skin as -yellow as gamboge, branded with the marks of a fearful end near at -hand: “like that of King Antiochus of Syria, who died a worse death, -history says, than if he had been stung out of the world by wasps and -hornets.” In appearance he suggests Villon at the time when the gallows -spared him the death-penalty of his vices. He looked like a man with -his hair shaved off and just recovering from the yellow fever. His hair -had fallen out; his nose was broken in the middle; he squinted in one -eye. But to Melville that squinting eye “was the most deep, subtle, -infernal-looking eye that I ever saw lodged in a human head. I believe -that by good rights it must have belonged to a wolf, or starved tiger; -at any rate I would defy any oculist to turn out a glass eye half so -cold and snaky and deadly.” He was a foul-mouthed bully, and “being -the best seaman on board, and very overbearing every way, all the men -were afraid of him, and durst not contradict him or cross his path in -anything.” And what made this more remarkable was, that he was the -weakest man, bodily, of the whole crew. “But he had such an over-awing -way with him; such a deal of brass and impudence, such an unflinching -face, and withal was such a hideous mortal, that Satan himself would -have run from him.” The whole crew stood in mortal fear of him, and -cringed and fawned before him like so many spaniels. They would rub his -back after he was undressed and lying in his bunk, and run up on deck -to the cook-house to warm some cold coffee for him, and fill his pipe, -and give him chews of tobacco, and mend his jackets and trousers, and -watch and tend and nurse him every way. “And all the time he would sit -scowling on them, and found fault with what they did: and I noticed -that those who did the most for him were the ones he most abused.” -These he flouted and jeered and laughed to scorn, on occasion breaking -out in such a rage that “his lips glued together at the corners with a -fine white foam.” - -His age it was impossible to tell: for he had no beard, and no wrinkles -except for small crow’s-feet about the eyes. He might have been thirty, -or perhaps fifty years. “But according to his own account, he had been -at sea ever since he was eight years old, when he first went to sea as -a cabin-boy in an Indiaman, and ran away at Calcutta.” And according to -his own account, too, he had passed through every kind of dissipation -and abandonment in the worst parts of the world. He had served in -Portuguese slavers on the coast of Africa, and with diabolical relish -would tell of the middle passage where the slaves were stowed, heel -and point, like logs, and the suffocated and dead were unmanacled and -weeded out from the living each morning before washing down the decks. -Though he was apt to be dumb at times, and would sit with “his eyes -fixed, and his teeth set, like a man in the moody madness,” yet when -he did speak his whole talk was full of piracies, plagues, poisonings, -seasoned with filth and blasphemy. “Though he never attended churches -and knew nothing of Christianity; no more than a Malay pirate; and -though he could not read a word, yet he was spontaneously an atheist -and an infidel; and during the long night watches, would enter into -arguments to prove that there was nothing to be believed; nothing to be -loved, and nothing worth living for; but everything to be hated in the -wide world. He was a Cain afloat; branded on his yellow brow with some -inscrutable curse; and going about corrupting and searing every heart -that beat near him.” - -The last scene in his eventful history took place off Cape Cod, when, -in a stiff favourable breeze, the captain was impatient to make his -port before a shift of wind. Four sullen weeks previous to this had -Jackson spent in the forecastle without touching a rope. Every day -since leaving New York Jackson had seemed to be growing worse and -worse, both in body and mind. “And all the time, though his face -grew thinner and thinner, his eyes seemed to kindle more and more, -as if he were going to die out at last, and leave them burning like -tapers before his corpse.” When, after these four weeks of idleness, -Jackson, to the surprise of the crew, came up on deck, his aspect was -damp and death-like; the blue hollows of his eyes were like vaults -full of snakes; and issuing so unexpectedly from his dark tomb in the -forecastle, he looked like a man raised from the dead. - -“Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson was -tottering up the rigging; thus getting the start of them, and securing -his place at the extreme weather-end of the topsail yard--which in -reefing is accounted the place of honour. For it was one of the -characteristics of this man that though when on duty he would shy away -from mere dull work in a calm, yet in tempest time he always claimed -the van and would yield to none. - -“Soon we were all strung along the main-topsail yard; the ship rearing -and plunging under us like a runaway steed; each man griping his -reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the sail over towards -Jackson, whose business it was to confine the reef corner to the yard. - -“His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, leaning -backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope like a bridle. At -all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion with sailors, whose -spirits seem then to partake of the commotion of the elements as they -hang in the gale between heaven and earth; and then it is, too, that -they are the most profane. - -“‘Haul out to windward!’ coughed Jackson, with a blasphemous cry, and -he threw himself back with a violent strain upon the bridle in his -hand. But the wild words were hardly out of his mouth when his hands -dropped to his side, and the bellying sail was spattered with a torrent -of blood from his lungs. - -“As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson fell -headlong from the yard, and with a long seethe, plunged like a diver -into the sea. - -“It was when the ship had rolled to windward, which, with the long -projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him strike far out upon -the water. His fall was seen by the whole upward-gazing crowd on deck, -some of whom were spotted with the blood that trickled from the sail, -while they raised a spontaneous cry, so shrill and wild that a blind -man might have known something deadly had happened. - -“Clutching our reef-joints, we hung over the stick, and gazed down -to the one white bubbling spot which had closed over the head of our -shipmate; but the next minute it was brewed into the common yeast of -the waves, and Jackson never arose. We waited a few minutes, expecting -an order to descend, haul back the fore-yard, and man the boats; but -instead of that, the next sound that greeted us was, ‘Bear a hand and -reef away, men!’ from the mate.” - - - - -CHAPTER V - -DISCOVERIES ON TWO CONTINENTS - - “If you read of St. Peter’s, they say, and then go and visit it, ten - to one, you account it a dwarf compared to your high-raised ideal. - And, doubtless, Jonah himself must have been much disappointed when - he looked up to the domed midriff surmounting the whale’s belly, and - surveyed the ribbed pillars around him. A pretty large belly, to be - sure, thought he, but not so big as it might have been.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Redburn_. - - -The merchantman on which Melville shipped was not a Liverpool liner, -or packet-ship, plying in connection with a sisterhood of packets. -She was a _regular trader_ to Liverpool; sailing upon no fixed days, -and acting very much as she pleased, being bound by no obligation of -any kind, though in all her voyages ever having New York or Liverpool -for her destination. Melville’s craft was not a greyhound, not a very -fast sailer. The swifter of the packet ships then made the passage -in fifteen or sixteen days; the _Highlander_, travelling at a more -matronly pace, was out on the Atlantic a leisurely month. - -“It was very early in the month of June that we sailed,” says Melville; -“and I had greatly rejoiced that it was that time of year; for it -would be warm and pleasant upon the ocean I thought; and my voyage -would be like a summer excursion to the seashore for the benefit of -the salt water, and a change of scene and society.” But the fact was -not identical with Melville’s fancy, and before many days at sea, he -found it a galling mockery to remember that his sisters had promised -to tell all enquiring friends that he had gone “_abroad_”: “just as if -I was visiting Europe on a tour with my tutor.” Though his thirty days -at sea considerably disabused him--for the time--of the unmitigated -delights of ocean travel in the forecastle; still always in the vague -and retreating distance did he hold to the promise of some stupendous -discovery still in store. Finally, one morning when he came on deck, he -was thrilled to discover that he was, in sober fact, within sight of -a foreign land: a shore-line that in imagination he transformed into -the seacoast of Bohemia. “A foreign country actually visible!” But as -he gazed ashore, disillusion ran hot upon the heels of his romantic -expectations. - -“Was that Ireland? Why, there was nothing remarkable about that; -nothing startling. If _that’s_ the way a foreign country looks, I might -as well have stayed at home. Now what, exactly, I had fancied the shore -would look like, I can not say; but I had a vague idea that it would be -something strange and wonderful.” - -The next land they sighted was Wales. “It was high noon, and a long -line of purple mountains lay like a bank of clouds against the east. -But, after all, the general effect of these mountains was mortifyingly -like the general effect of the Kaatskill Mountains on the Hudson River.” - -It was not until midnight of the third day that they arrived at the -mouth of the Mersey. Before the following daybreak they took the first -flood. - -“Presently, in the misty twilight, we passed immense buoys, and caught -sight of distant objects on shore, vague and shadowy shapes, like -Ossian’s ghosts.” And then it was that Melville found leisure to lean -over the side, “trying to summon up some image of Liverpool, to see how -the reality would answer to my concept.” - -As the day advanced, the river contracted, and in the clear morning -Melville got his first sharp impression of a foreign port. - -“I beheld lofty ranges of dingy ware-houses, which seemed very -deficient in the elements of the marvellous; and bore a most unexpected -resemblance to the ware-houses along South Street in New York. -There was nothing strange, nothing extraordinary about them. There -they stood; a row of calm and collected ware-houses; very good and -substantial edifices, doubtless, and admirably adapted to the ends had -in view by the builders: but yet, these edifices, I must confess, were -a sad and bitter disappointment to me.” - -Melville was six weeks in Liverpool. Of this part of his adventure, he -says in _Redburn_: “I do not mean to present a diary of my stay there. -I shall here simply record the general tenor of the life led by our -crew during that interval; and will proceed to note down, at random, -my own wanderings about town, and impressions of things as they are -recalled to me now after the lapse of so many (twelve) years.” - -Not the least important detail of these six weeks is the fact that -Melville and his ship-mates were very well fed at the sign of the -Baltimore Clipper. “The roast beef of Old England abounded; and so -did the immortal plum-puddings and the unspeakably capital gooseberry -pies.” Owing to the strict but necessary regulations of the Liverpool -docks, no fire of any kind was allowed on board the vessels within -them. And hence, though the sailors of the _Highlander_ slept in the -forecastle, they were fed ashore at the expense of the ship’s owners. -This, in a large crew remaining at Liverpool more than six weeks, as -the _Highlander_ did, formed no inconsiderable item in the expenses of -the voyage. The Baltimore Clipper was one of the boarding houses near -the docks which flourished on the appetite of sailors. At the Baltimore -Clipper was fed not only the crew of the _Highlander_, but, each in -a separate apartment, a variety of other crews as well. Since each -crew was known collectively by the name of its ship, the shouts of the -servant girls running about at dinner time mustering their guests must -have been alarming to an uninitiated visitor. - -“Where are the _Empresses of China_?--Here’s their beef been smoking -this half-hour”--“Fly, Betty, my dear, here come the _Panthers_”--“Run, -Molly, my love; get the salt-cellars for the _Splendids_”--“You, Peggy, -where’s the _Siddons’_ pickle-pot?”--“I say, Judy, are you never coming -with that pudding for the _Sultans_?” - -It was to the Baltimore Clipper that Jackson immediately led the -ship’s crew when they first sprang ashore: up this street and down -that till at last he brought them to their destination in a narrow -lane filled with boarding-houses, spirit-vaults and sailors. While -Melville’s shipmates were engaged in tippling and talking with -numerous old acquaintances of theirs in the neighbourhood who thronged -about the door, he sat alone in the dining-room appropriated to the -_Highlanders_ “meditating upon the fact that I was now seated upon an -English bench, under an English roof, in an English tavern, forming an -integral part of the British empire.” - -Melville examined the place attentively. “It was a long narrow little -room, with one small arched window with red curtains, looking out upon -a smoky, untidy yard, bounded by a dingy brick wall, the top of which -was horrible with pieces of broken old bottles stuck into mortar. A -dull lamp swung overhead, placed in a wooden ship suspended from the -ceiling. The walls were covered with a paper, representing an endless -succession of vessels of all nations continually circumnavigating the -apartment. From the street came a confused uproar of ballad-singers, -bawling women, babies, and drunken sailors.” - -It was during this disenchanting examination that the realisation began -to creep chillingly over Melville that his prospect of seeing the -world as a sailor was, after all, but very doubtful. It seems never -to have struck him before that sailors but hover about the edges of -terra-firma; that “they land only upon wharves and pier-heads, and -their reminiscences of travel are only a dim recollection of a chain of -tap-rooms surrounding the globe.” - -Melville’s six weeks in Liverpool offered him, however, opportunity -to make slightly more extended observations. During these weeks he -was free to go where he pleased between four o’clock in the afternoon -and the following dawn. Sundays he had entirely at his own disposal. -But withal, it was an excessively limited and distorted version of -England that was open for his examination. Except for his shipmates, -his very distant cousin, the Earl of Leven and Melville and Queen -Victoria and such like notables, he knew by name no living soul in -the British Isles. And neither his companions in the forecastle, -nor the remote and elaborately titled strangers of Melville House, -offered encouragement of an easy and glowing intimacy. With but three -dollars as his net capital--money advanced him in Liverpool by the -ship--and without a thread of presentable clothing on his back, he -could not hope promiscuously to ingratiate himself either by his purse -or the adornments of his person. Thus lacking in the fundamentals of -friendship, his native charms stood him in little stead. So alone he -walked the streets of Liverpool and gratuitously saw the sights. - -While on the high seas, Melville had improved his fallow hours by -poring over an old guide-book of Liverpool that had descended to him -from his father. This old family relic was to Melville cherished with -a passionate and reverent affection. Around it clustered most of the -fond associations that are the cords of man. It had been handled by -Allan amid the very scenes it described; it bore some “half-effaced -miscellaneous memoranda in pencil, characteristic of a methodical -mind, and therefore indubitably my father’s”: jottings of “a strange, -subdued, old, midsummer interest” to Melville. And on the fly-leaves -were crabbed inscriptions, and “crayon sketches of wild animals and -falling air-castles.” These decorations were the handiwork of Melville -and his brothers and sisters and cousins. Of his own contributions, -Melville says: “as poets do with their juvenile sonnets, I might write -under this horse, ‘_Drawn at the age of three years_,’ and under -this autograph, ‘_Executed at the age of eight_.’” This guide-book -was to Melville a sacred volume, and he expresses a wish that he -might immortalise it. Addressing this unpretentious looking little -green-bound, spotted and tarnished guide-book, he exclaims: “Dear book! -I will sell my Shakespeare, and even sacrifice my old quarto Hogarth, -before I will part from you. Yes, I will go to the hammer myself, ere -I send you to be knocked down in the auctioneer’s scrambles. I will, -my beloved; till you drop leaf from leaf, and letter from letter, you -shall have a snug shelf somewhere, though I have no bench for myself.” - -To the earlier manuscript additions to this guide-book, Melville added, -while on the Atlantic, drawings of ships and anchors, and snatches of -Dibdin’s sea-poetry. And as he lay in his bunk, with the aid of this -antiquated volume he used to take “pleasant afternoon rambles through -the town, down St. James street and up Great George’s, stopping at -various places of interest and attraction” so familiar seemed the -features of the map. But in this vagabondage of reverie he was but -preparing for himself a poignant disillusionment. Lying in the dim, -reeking forecastle, with his head full of deceitful day-dreams, he -was being tossed by the creaking ship towards a bitter awakening. The -Liverpool of the guide-book purported to be the Liverpool of 1808. The -Liverpool of which Melville dreamed was, of course, without date and -local habitation. When Melville found himself face to face with the -solid reality of the Liverpool of 1837, he was offered an object-lesson -in mutability. As the brute facts smote in the face of his cherished -sentimentalisings, he sat his concrete self down on a particular shop -step in a certain street in Liverpool, reflected on guide-books and -luxuriated in disenchantment. “Guide-books,” he then came to see, “are -the least reliable books in all literature: and nearly all literature, -in one sense, is made up of guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our -fathers went; but how few of those former places can their posterity -trace.” In the end he sealed his moralising by the pious reflection -that “there is one Holy Guide-Book that will never lead you astray if -you but follow it aright.” There can be no doubt that the ghost of -Allan, retracing its mundane haunts at that moment trailed its shadowy -substance through the offspring of its discarded flesh. - -If this same paternal ghost, recognising its kinship with this -obstruction of blood and bone, tracked in futile affection at -Melville’s heels through Liverpool, only a posthumous survival of its -terrestrial Calvinism could have spared it an agonised six weeks; only -the sardonic optimism of a faith in predestination could have saved -Allan’s shade from consternation and fear at the chances of Melville’s -flesh. Or it may be that Allan was sent as a disembodied spectator -to haunt Melville’s wake, by way of penance for his pre-ghostly -theological errors. In any event, Melville, on occasion, took Allan -through the most hideous parts of Liverpool. Of evenings they strolled -through the narrow streets where the sailors’ boarding-houses were. -“Hand-organs, fiddlers, and cymbals, plied by strolling musicians, -mixed with the songs of seamen, the babble of women and children, and -groaning and whining of beggars. From the various boarding-houses -proceeded the noise of revelry and dancing: and from the open -casements leaned young girls and old women chattering and laughing -with the crowds in the middle of the street.” In the vicinity were -“notorious Corinthian haunts which in depravity are not to be matched -by anything this side of the pit that is bottomless.” Along Rotten-row, -Gibraltar-place and Boodle-alley Melville surveyed the “sooty and -begrimed bricks” of haunts of abomination which to Melville’s boyish -eyes (seen through the protecting lens of Allan’s ghost) had a -“reeking, Sodom-like and murderous look.” Melville excuses himself in -the name of propriety from particularising the vices of the residents -of this quarter; “but kidnappers and resurrectionists,” he declares, -“are almost saints and angels to them.” - -Melville satirically pictures himself as pathetically innocent to the -iniquities of the flesh and the Devil when he left home to view the -world. He was, he says, a member both of a Juvenile Total Abstinence -Association and of an Anti-Smoking Society organised by the Principal -of his Sunday School. With dire compunctions of conscience--which had -been considerably weakened by sea-sickness--Melville had his first -swig of spirits--administered medicinally to him by a paternal old -tar,--before they were many hours out upon the Atlantic. But neither -on the high seas nor in England does he seem to have been prematurely -tempted by the bottle. And this, for the adequate reason that united -to his innocence of years, his very limited finances spared him the -solicitations of toping companions as well as the luxury of precocious -solitary tippling. Though at the beginning of the voyage he refused the -friendly offer of a cigar, he less austerely eschewed tobacco by the -time he again struck land. Melville did not, throughout his life, hold -so strictly to the puritanical prohibitions of his boyhood. - -[Illustration: A PAGE FROM ONE OF MELVILLE’S JOURNALS] - -The youthful member of the Anti-Smoking Society came in later years to -be a heroic consumer of tobacco, and the happiest hours of his life -were haloed with brooding blue haze. “Nothing so beguiling,” he wrote -in 1849, “as the fumes of tobacco, whether inhaled through hookah, -narghil, chibouque, Dutch porcelain, pure Principe, or Regalia.” -On another occasion he expressed a desire to “sit cross-legged and -smoke out eternity.” And the youthful pillar of the Juvenile Total -Abstinence Association, growing in wisdom as he took on years, lived to -do regal penance for his unholy childhood pledge. His avowed refusal to -believe in a Temperance Heaven would seem to imply a conviction that it -is only the damned who never drink. In his amazing novel _Mardi_--which -won him acclaim in France as “_un Rabelais Americain_”--wine flows -in ruddy and golden rivers. And the most brilliantly fantastic -philosophising, the keenest wit of the demi-gods that lounge through -this wild novel, are concomitant upon the heroic draining of beaded -bumpers. In _Mardi_, Melville celebrates the civilising influences of -wine with the same devout and urbane affection to be found in Horace -and Meredith. On occasion, however, he seems to share Baudelaire’s -conviction that “one should be drunk always”--and drunk on wine in -the manner of the best period. He quotes with approval the epitaph -of Cyrus the Great: “I could drink a great deal of wine, and it did -me a great deal of good.” In _Clarel_ he asks: “At Cana, who renewed -the wine?” In the riotous chapter wherein “Taji sits down to Dinner -with five-and-twenty Kings, and a royal Time they have,” there is an -exuberant tilting of calabashes that would have won the esteem even of -Socrates and Pantagruel. One wonders if Rabelais, in his youth, did not -belong to some Juvenile Total Abstinence Society, or if Socrates, who -both lived and died over a cup, had not as a boy committed an equally -heinous sacrilege to Dionysus. - -On board the _Highlander_ Melville was too young yet to have come to -a sense of the iniquity of the deadly virtues. He was not thereby, -however, tempted to the optimism of despair that preaches that because -God is isolated in His Heaven, all is right with the world. Even -at seventeen Melville had keenly felt that much in the world needs -mending. And at seventeen--more than at any other period--he felt -moved to exert himself to set the world aright. Ashipboard, the field -of his operations being very limited, he cast a missionary eye upon -the rum-soaked profanity and lechery of his ship-mates. “I called to -mind a sermon I had once heard in a church in behalf of sailors,” -says Melville, “when the preacher called them strayed lambs from the -fold, and compared them to poor lost children, babes in the wood, or -orphans without fathers or mothers.” Overflowing with the milk of human -kindness at the sad condition of these amiable outcasts, Melville, -during his first watch, made bold to ask one of them if he was in the -habit of going to church. The sailor answered that “he had been in -a church once, some ten or twelve years before, in London, and on a -week-day had helped to move the Floating Chapel round the Battery from -North River.” This first and last effort of Melville’s to evangelise a -shipmate ended in winning Melville hearty ridicule. “If I had not felt -so terribly angry,” he says, “I should certainly have felt very much -like a fool. But my being so angry prevented me from feeling foolish, -which is very lucky for people in a passion.” Though Melville made no -further effort to save the souls of his shipmates, his own seems not -to have been jeopardised by any hankering after the instruments of -damnation. - -As has been said, he was without friends, both ashipboard and later -ashore; a complete absence of companionship that on occasion inspired -him with a parched desire for some friend to whom to say “how sweet -is solitude.” He craved in his isolation, he says, “to give his whole -soul to another; in its loneliness it was yearning to throw itself -into the unbounded bosom of some immaculate friend.” In _Redburn_, -Melville spends a generous number of pages in celebrating his encounter -with a good-for-nothing but courtly youth whom he calls Harry Bolton. -“He was one of those small, but perfectly formed beings with curling -hair, and silken muscles, who seem to have been born in cocoons. His -complexion was a mantling brunette, feminine as a girl’s; his feet -were small; his hands were white; and his eyes were large, black and -womanly: and, poetry aside, his voice was as the sound of a harp.” How -much of Harry Bolton is fact, how much fiction, is impossible to tell. -The most significant thing about him is Melville’s evident affection -for him, no matter who made him. In _Redburn_, this engaging dandy -kidnaps Melville, and takes him for a mysterious night up to London: -a night spent, to Melville’s consternation, in a gambling palace of -the sort that exists only in the febrile and envious imagination of -vitriolic puritans. In his description of this escapade, Melville owes -more, perhaps, to his early spiritual guides than to any first-hand -observation. This flight to London in _Redburn_, its abrupt reversal, -and the escape to America of Harry Bolton, may, of course, all be -founded on sober fact. But there is a lack of verisimilitude in the -recounting that prompts to the suspicion that in this part of the -narrative, Melville is making brave and unconvincing concessions to -romance. Not, of course, that Melville in his youth was incapable of -the wild impetuosity of suddenly leaving his ship and running up to -London with an engagingly romantic stranger: he did more impulsive and -far more surprising things than that before he died. But his account -of this adventure in _Redburn_ reads hollow and false. Harry Bolton -must be discounted as myth until he is more cogently substantiated as -history. - -In Liverpool Melville seems to have spent his leisure in company with -his thoughts, wandering along the docks and about the city. Each -Sunday morning he went regularly to church; Sunday afternoons he spent -walking in the neighbouring country. His most vivid impressions of -Liverpool were of the terrible poverty he saw, and it is doubtful if -there is a more ruthless piece of realism in the language than his -account in _Redburn_ of the slow death through starvation of the mother -and children that Melville found lying in a cellar, and whose lives -he tried in vain to save. The green cold bodies in the morgue, the -ragpickers, the variety of criminals that haunt the shadows of the -docks: these too came in for characterisation. - -The noblest sight that Melville found in England, it would seem, -was the truck-horses he saw round the docks. “So grave, dignified, -gentlemanly and courteous did these fine truck horses look--so full -of calm intelligence and sagacity, that often I endeavoured to get -into conversation with them as they stood in contemplative attitudes -while their loads were preparing.” And Melville admired the truckmen -also. “Their spending so much of their valuable lives in the high-bred -company of their horses seems to have mended their manners and improved -their taste; but it has also given to them a sort of refined and -unconscious aversion to human society.” Though Melville grew to a most -uncomplimentary rating of the human biped, he always cherished a very -deep reverence for some of his four-footed brothers. “There are unknown -worlds of knowledge in brutes,” he wrote; “and whenever you mark a -horse, or a dog, with a peculiarly mild, calm, deep-seated eye, be sure -he is an Aristotle or a Kant, tranquilly speculating upon the mysteries -in man.” - -The trip back across the Atlantic, after six weeks in Liverpool, -though longer than the out-bound passage, was for Melville less of -an ordeal. He was no longer a bewildered stranger in the forecastle -or in the riggings, so he turned his eye to other parts of the ship. -It was the steerage of the _Highlander_ packed with its four or five -hundred emigrants, that gave him most bitter occasion to reflect -on the criminal nature of the universe. Because of insufficient -provisions in food for an unexpectedly prolonged voyage, the dirty -weather, and the absence of the most indispensable conveniences, -these emigrants suffered almost incredible hardships. Before they -had been at sea a week, to hold one’s head down the fore hatchway, -Melville says, was like holding it down a suddenly opened cesspool. -The noisome confinement in this close unventilated and crowded -den, and the deprivation of sufficient food, helped by personal -uncleanliness, brought on a malignant fever among the emigrants. The -result was the death of some dozens of them, a panic throughout the -ship, and a novel indulgence in spasmodic devotions. “Horrible as the -sights of the steerage were, the cabin, perhaps, presented a scene -equally despairing. Trunks were opened for Bibles; and at last, even -prayer-meetings were held over the very tables across which the loud -jest had been so often heard.” - -But with the coming of fair winds and fine weather the pestilence -subsided, and the ship steered merrily towards New York. The steerage -was cleaned thoroughly with sand and water. The place was then -fumigated, and dried with pieces of coal from the gallery: so that when -the _Highlander_ streamed into New York harbour no stranger would have -imagined, from her appearance, that the _Highlander_ had made other -than a tidy and prosperous voyage. “Thus, some sea-captains take good -heed that benevolent citizens shall not get a glimpse of the true -condition of the steerage while at sea.” - -As they came into the Narrows, “no more did we think of the gale and -the plague; nor turn our eyes upward to the stains of blood still -visible on the topsail, whence Jackson had fallen. Oh, he who has never -been afar, let him once go from home, to know what home is. Hurra! -Hurra! and ten thousand times hurra! down goes our anchor, fathoms down -into the free and independent Yankee mud, one handful of which was now -worth a broad manor in England.” - -Melville spent the greater part of the night “walking the deck -and gazing at the thousand lights of the city.” At sunrise, the -_Highlander_ warped into a berth at the foot of Wall street, and the -old ship was knotted, stem and stern, to the pier. This knotting of -the ship was the unknotting of the bonds of the sailors; for, the ship -once fast to the wharf, Melville and his shipmates were free. So with -a rush and a shout they bounded ashore--all but Melville. He went -down into the forecastle and sat on a chest. The ship he had loathed, -while he was imprisoned in it, grew lovely in his eyes when he was -free to bid it forever farewell. In the tarry old den he sat, the only -inhabitant of the deserted ship but for the mate and the rats. He sat -there and let his eyes linger over every familiar old plank. “For the -scene of suffering is a scene of joy when the suffering is past,” he -says, inverting the reflection of Dante; “and the silent reminiscence -of hardship departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.” -According to this philosophy, the more accumulated and overwhelming the -hardships we survive, the richer and sweeter will be the ensuing hours -of thoughtful recollection. For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. -And pleasure’s crown of pleasure is remembering sorrier things. So -indoctrinated, Melville should have viewed the concluding scene with -the captain of the _Highlander_, on the day the sailors drew their -wages, with eternal thanksgiving. - -“Seated in a sumptuous arm-chair, behind a lustrous inlaid desk, sat -Captain Riga, arrayed in his City Hotel suit, looking magisterial -as the Lord High Admiral of England. Hat in hand, the sailors stood -deferentially in a semi-circle before him, while the captain held the -ship-papers in his hand, and one by one called their names; and in -mellow bank notes--beautiful sight!--paid them their wages.... The -sailors, after counting their cash very carefully, and seeing all was -right, and not a bank-note was dog-eared, in which case they would have -demanded another, salaamed and withdrew, leaving me face to face with -the Paymaster-general of the Forces.” - -Melville stood awhile, looking as polite as possible, he says, and -expecting every moment to hear his name called. But no such name -did he hear. “The captain, throwing aside his accounts, lighted a -very fragrant cigar, took up the morning paper--I think it was the -_Herald_--threw his leg over one arm of the chair, and plunged into the -latest intelligence from all parts of the world.” - -Melville hemmed, and scraped his foot to increase the disturbance. The -Paymaster-general looked up. Melville demanded his wages. The captain -laughed, and taking a long inspiration of smoke, removed his cigar, and -sat sideways looking at Melville, letting the vapour slowly wriggle and -spiralise out of his mouth. - -“Captain Riga,” said Melville, “do you not remember that about four -months ago, my friend Mr. Jones and myself had an interview with you in -this very cabin; when it was agreed that I was to go out in your ship, -and receive three dollars per month for my services? Well, Captain -Riga, I have gone out with you, and returned; and now, sir, I’ll thank -you for my pay.” - -“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the captain. “_Mr. Jones!_ Ha! Ha! I -remember Mr. Jones: a very gentlemanly gentleman; and stop--_you_, too, -are the son of a wealthy French importer; and--let me think--was not -your great-uncle a barber?” - -“No!” thundered Melville, his Gansevoort temper up. - -Captain Riga suavely turned over his accounts. “Hum, hum!--yes, here it -is: Wellingborough Redburn, at three dollars a month. Say four months, -that’s twelve dollars: less three dollars advanced in Liverpool--that -makes it nine dollars; less three hammers and two scrapers lost -overboard--that brings it to four dollars and a quarter. I owe you four -dollars and a quarter, I believe, young gentleman?” - -“So it seems,” said Melville with staring eyes. - -“And now let me see what you owe me, and then we’ll be able to square -the yards, Monsieur Redburn.” - -“Owe him!” Melville confesses to thinking; “what do I owe him but a -grudge.” But Melville concealed his resentment. Presently Captain Riga -said: “By running away from the ship in Liverpool, you forfeited your -wages, which amount to twelve dollars; and there has been advanced to -you, in money, hammers and scrapers, seven dollars and seventy-five -cents; you are therefore indebted to me for precisely that sum. I’ll -thank you for the money.” He extended his open palm across the desk. - -The precise nature of Melville’s eloquence at this juncture of his -career has not been recorded. Penniless, he left the ship, to trail -after his shipmates as they withdrew along the wharf to stop at a -sailors’ retreat, poetically denominated “The Flashes.” Here they all -came to anchor before the bar. - -“Well, maties,” said one of them, at last--“I s’pose we shan’t see each -other again:--come, let’s splice the mainbrace all round, and drink to -the _last voyage_.” - -And so they did. Then they shook hands all round, three times three, -and disappeared in couples through the several doorways. - -Melville stood on the corner in front of “The Flashes” till the last -of his shipmates was out of sight. Then he walked down to the Battery, -and within a stone’s throw of the place of his birth, sat on one of the -benches, under the summer shade of the trees. It was a quiet, beautiful -scene, he says; full of promenading ladies and gentlemen; and through -the fresh and bright foliage he looked out over the bay, varied with -glancing ships. “It would be a pretty fine world,” he thought, “if I -only had a little money to enjoy it.” He leaves it ambiguous whether or -not he imbibed his optimism at “The Flashes.” Equally veiled does he -leave the mystery by which he came by the money to pay his passage on -the steamboat up to Albany: a trip he took that afternoon. “I pass over -the reception I met with at home; how I plunged into embraces, long and -loving,” he says:--“I pass over this.” - -For the home we return to, is never the home that we leave, and the -more desperate the leave-taking, the more bathetic the return. - - - - -CHAPTER VI - -PEDAGOGY, PUGILISM AND LETTERS - - “It is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals - in the mines, much earthly rubbish has first to be troublesomely - handled and thrown out; so, in digging in one’s soul for the fine - gold of genius, much dulness and common-place is first brought to - light. Happy would it be, if the man possessed in himself some - receptacle for his own rubbish of this sort: but he is like the - occupant of a dwelling, whose refuse cannot be clapped into his own - cellar, but must be deposited in the street before his own door, for - the public functionaries to take care of.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Pierre_. - - -The record of the next three and a half years of Melville’s life is -extremely scant. What he was doing and thinking and feeling must be -left almost completely to surmise. In the brief record of his life -preserved in the Commonplace Book of his wife, this period between -Liverpool and the South Seas is dismissed in a single sentence: “Taught -school at intervals in Pittsfield and in Greenbush (now East Albany) -N. Y.” Arthur Stedman (who got his facts largely from Mrs. Melville), -in his “Biographical and Critical Introduction” to _Typee_, slightly -enlarges upon this statement. “A good part of the succeeding three -years, from 1837 to 1840,” says Stedman, “was occupied with school -teaching. While so engaged at Greenbush, now East Albany, N. Y., he -received the munificent salary of ‘six dollars a quarter and board.’ -He taught for one term at Pittsfield, Mass., ‘boarding around’ with -the families of his pupils, in true American fashion, and early -suppressing, on one memorable occasion, the efforts of his larger -scholars to inaugurate a rebellion by physical force.” J. E. A. Smith, -in his _Biographical Sketch_ already cited, dates this “memorable” -mating of pedagogy and pugilism somewhat earlier. - -Besides teaching during these years, Melville was engaged in another -activity, which all of his biographers--if they knew of it at all--pass -over in decent silence: an activity to which Melville devotes a whole -book of _Pierre_. - -“It still remains to be said,” says Melville, “that Pierre himself had -written many a fugitive thing, which had brought him not only vast -credit and compliments from his more immediate acquaintances, but -the less partial applauses of the always intelligent and extremely -discriminating public. In short, Pierre had frequently done that -which many other boys have done--published. Not in the imposing form -of a book, but in the more modest and becoming way of occasional -contributions to magazines and other polite periodicals. Not only -the public had applauded his gemmed little sketches of thought and -fancy; but the high and mighty Campbell clan of editors of all sorts -had bestowed upon them those generous commendations which, with one -instantaneous glance, they had immediately perceived was his due.... -One, after endorsingly quoting that sapient, suppressed maxim of Dr. -Goldsmith’s, which asserts that whatever is new is false, went on to -apply it to the excellent productions before him; concluding with this: -‘He has translated the unruffled gentleman from the drawing-room into -the general levee of letters; he never permits himself to astonish; is -never betrayed into anything coarse or new; as assured that whatever -astonishes is vulgar, and whatever is new must be crude. Yes, it is the -glory of this admirable young author, that vulgarity and vigour--two -inseparable adjuncts--are equally removed from him.’” - -In _Pierre_, Melville spends more than twenty-five closely printed -pages--half satirical, half of the utmost seriousness--discussing his -own literary growth: a passage of the highest critical and biographical -interest. In its satirical parts the passage is consistently -double-edged; therein, Melville ironically praises his early writing -for possessing those very defects which his maturer work was damned -for not exhibiting. It is doubtless true that his juvenile works were -“equally removed from vulgarity and vigour.” They were “characterised -throughout by Perfect Taste,” as he makes one critic observe “in an -ungovernable burst of admiring fury.” But the Perfect Taste was the -Perfect Taste of Hannah More, and Dr. Akenside, and _Lalla Rookh_. With -the publication of _Typee_, Melville was charged not only with the -crimes of vulgarity and vigour, but with the milder accompanying vices -of indecency and irreverence. His earliest writings were untouched -by any of these taints. In _Pierre_, Melville speaks of “a renowned -clerical and philological conductor of a weekly religious periodical, -whose surprising proficiency in the Greek, Hebrew and Chaldaic, to -which he had devoted by far the greater part of his life, peculiarly -fitting him to pronounce unerring judgment upon works of taste in the -English.” Melville makes this critic thus deliver himself on Pierre’s -early efforts in letters: “He is blameless in morals, and harmless -throughout.” Another “unhesitatingly recommended his effusions to the -family circle.” A third had no reserve in saying that “the predominant -end and aim of this writer was evangelical piety.” Melville is here -patently satirising the vitriolic abuse which _Typee_ and _Omoo_ -provoked. - -Only two of Melville’s earliest effusions, written before the world had -“fairly Timonised him” are known to survive. These appeared in _The -Democratic Press and Lansingburgh Advertiser_ for May 4, and May 18, -1839. The first is signed “L. A. V.”; the second, known to exist only -in a single mutilated clipping, in lacking the closing paragraphs, -can give no evidence as to concluding signature. Copies of these two -articles are preserved among Melville’s papers, each autographed by him -in faded brown ink. The interest of the earlier paper is heightened by -this inscription, in Melville’s hand, boldly scrawled across the inner -margin: “When I woke up this morning, what the Devil should I see but -your cane along in bed with me. I shall keep it for you when you come -up here again.” It is more easy to imagine Melville’s astonishment -in waking to find such a stately novelty as a walking-stick for a -bed-fellow, than to fancy how the walking-stick found itself in such -an unusual environment. It is about as futile to inquire into the -history and meaning of this incident as soberly to debate “what songs -the sirens sang and what name Achilles bore among the daughters of the -King of Scyros.” It is certain, however, that the Sirens had little -hand in Melville’s juvenile effusions. And of this fact Melville grew -to be keenly aware. “In sober earnest,” he says in _Pierre_, “those -papers contained nothing uncommon; indeed, those fugitive things were -the veriest commonplace.” Yet as the initial literary efforts of a -man who wrote _Typee_ and _Moby-Dick_ they are intensely interesting: -interesting, like the longer prayers of St. Augustine, less because -of their content than because of the personality from which they were -derived. - -What would seem to be Melville’s first published venture in letters is -here given, nearly complete. - - For the Democratic Press - - FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING DESK - - No. 1 - - MY DEAR M----, I can imagine you seated on that dear, delightful, - old-fashioned sofa; your head supported by its luxurious padding, and - with feet perched aloft on the aspiring back of that straight limbed, - stiff-necked, quaint old chair, which, as our facetious W---- assured - me, was the identical seat in which old Burton composed his Anatomy - of Melancholy. I see you reluctantly raise your optics from the - huge-clasped quarto which encumbers your lap, to receive the package - which the servant hands you, and can almost imagine that I see those - beloved features illumined for a moment with an expression of joy, - as you read the superscription of your gentle protégé. Lay down I - beseech you that odious black-lettered volume and let not its musty - and withered leaves sully the virgin purity and whiteness of the - sheet which is the vehicle of so much good sense, sterling thought, - and chaste and elegant sentiment. - - You remember how you used to rate me for my hang-dog modesty, my - _mauvaise honte_, as my Lord Chesterfield would style it. Well! - I have determined that hereafter you shall not have occasion to - inflict upon me those flattering appellations of “Fool!” “Dolt!” - “Sheep!” which in your indignation you used to shower upon me, with a - vigour and a facility which excited my wonder, while it provoked my - resentment. - - And how do you imagine that I rid myself of this annoying hindrance? - Why, truly, by coming to the conclusion that in this pretty corpus of - mine was lodged every manly grace; that my limbs were modelled in - the symmetry of the Phidian Jupiter; my countenance radiant with the - beams of wit and intelligence, the envy of the beaux, the idol of the - women and the admiration of the tailor. And then my mind! why, sir, I - have discovered it to be endowed with the most rare and extraordinary - powers, stored with universal knowledge, and embellished with every - polite accomplishment. - - Pollux! what a comfortable thing is a good opinion of one’s self when - I walk the Broadway of our village with a certain air, that puts me - down at once in the estimation of any intelligent stranger who may - chance to meet me, as a _distingué_ of the purest water, a blade of - the true temper, a blood of the first quality! Lord! how I despise - the little sneaking vermin who dodge along the street as though they - were so many footmen or errand boys; who have never learned to carry - the head erect in conscious importance, but hang that noblest of - the human members as though it had been boxed by some virago of an - Amazon; who shuffle along the walk with a quick uneasy step, a hasty - clownish motion, which by the magnitude of the contrast, set off to - advantage my own slow and magisterial gait, which I can at pleasure - vary to an easy, abandoned sort of carriage, or to the more engaging - alert and lively walk, to suit the varieties of time, occasion, and - company. - - And in society, too--how often have I commiserated the poor wretches - who stood aloof, in a corner, like a flock of scared sheep; while - myself, beautiful as Apollo, dressed in a style which would extort - admiration from a Brummel, and belted round with self-esteem as with - a girdle, sallied up to the ladies--complimenting one, exchanging a - repartee with another; tapping this one under the chin, and clasping - this one round the waist; and finally, winding up the operation by - kissing round the whole circle to the great edification of the fair, - and to the unbounded horror, amazement and ill-suppressed chagrin of - the aforesaid sheepish multitude; who with eyes wide open and mouths - distended, afforded good subjects on whom to exercise my polished - wit, which like the glittering edge of a Damascus sabre “dazzled all - it shone upon.” - - * * * * * - - By my halidome, sir, this same village of Lansingburgh contains - within its pretty limits as fair a set of blushing damsels as one - would wish to look upon on a dreamy summer day!--When I traverse - the broad pavements of my own metropolis, my eyes are arrested - by beautiful forms flitting hither and thither; and I pause to - admire the elegance of their attire, the taste displayed in their - embellishments; the rich mass of the material; and sometimes, it may - be, at the loveliness of the features, which no art can heighten and - no negligence conceal. - - But here, sir, here--where woman seems to have erected her throne, - and established her empire; here, where all feel and acknowledge her - sway, she blooms in unborrowed charms; and the eye undazzled by the - profusion of extraneous ornament, settles at once upon the loveliest - faces which our clayey natures can assume. - - * * * * * - - Nor, my dear M., does there reign in all this bright display, - that same monotony of feature, form, complexion, which elsewhere - is beheld; no, here are all varieties, all the orders of Beauty’s - architecture; the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, all are here. - - I have in “my mind’s eye, Horatio,” three (the number of the Graces, - you remember) who may stand, each at the head of their respective - orders. - - * * * * * - - When I venture to describe the second of this beautiful trinity, - I feel my powers of delineation inadequate to the task; but - nevertheless I will try my hand at the matter, although like an - unskilful limner, I am fearful I shall but scandalise the charms I - endeavour to copy. - - Come to my aid, ye guardian spirits of the Fair! Guide my awkward - hand, and preserve from mutilation the features ye hover over and - protect! Pour down whole floods of sparkling champagne, my dear - M----, until your brain grows giddy with emotion; con over the - latter portion of the first Canto of Childe Harold, and ransack your - intellectual repository for the loveliest visions of the Fairy Land, - and you will be in a measure prepared to relish the epicurean banquet - I shall spread. - - The stature of this beautiful mortal (if she be indeed of earth) is - of that perfect height which, while it is freed from the charge of - being low, cannot with propriety be denominated tall. Her figure is - slender almost to fragility but strikingly modelled in spiritual - elegance, and is the only form I ever saw which could bear the trial - of a rigid criticism. - - Every man who is gifted with the least particle of imagination, must - in some of his reveries have conjured up from the realms of fancy, - a being bright and beautiful beyond everything he had ever before - apprehended, whose main and distinguishing attribute invariably - proves to be a form the indescribable loveliness of which seems to - - “--Sail in liquid light, - And float on seas of bliss.” - - The realisation of these seraphic visions is seldom permitted us; but - I can truly say that when my eyes for the first time fell upon this - lovely creature, I thought myself transported to the land of Dreams, - where lay embodied, the most brilliant conceptions of the wildest - fancy. Indeed, could the Promethean spark throw life and animation - into the Venus de Medici, it would but present the counterpart of - ----. - - Her complexion has the delicate tinge of the Brunett, with a little - of the roseate hue of the Circassian; and one would swear that none - but the sunny skies of Spain had shone upon the infancy of the being, - who looks so like her own “dark-glancing daughters.” - - * * * * * - - And then her eyes! they open their dark, rich orbs upon you like the - full moon of heaven, and blaze into your very soul the fires of day! - Like the offerings laid upon the sacrificial altars of the Hebrew, - when in an instant the divine spark falling from the propitiated - God kindled them in flames; so, a single glance from that Oriental - eye as quickly fires your soul, and leaves your bosom in a perfect - conflagration! Odds Cupids and Darts! with one broad sweep of vision - in a crowded ball-room, that splendid creature would lay around - her like the two-handed sword of Minotti, hearts on hearts, piled - round in semi-circles! But it is well for the more rugged sex that - this glorious being can vary her proud dominion, and give to the - expression of her eye a melting tenderness which dissolves the most - frigid heart and heals the wounds she gave before. - - If the devout and exemplary Mussulman who dying fast in the faith of - his Prophet anticipates reclining on beds of roses, gloriously drunk - through all the ages of eternity, is to be waited on by Houris such - as these: waft me ye gentle gales beyond this lower world and - - “Lap me in soft Lydian airs!” - - But I am falling into I know not what extravagances, so I will - briefly give you a portrait of the last of these three divinities, - and will then terminate my tiresome lucubrations. - - * * * * * - - Here, my dear M----, closes this catalogue of the Graces, this - chapter of Beauties, and I should implore your pardon for trespassing - so long on your attention. If you, yourself, in whose breast may - possibly be extinguished the amatory flame, should not feel an - interest in these three “counterfeit presentments,” do not fail to - show them to ---- and solicit her opinion as to their respective - merits. - - Tender my best acknowledgments to the Major for his prompt attention - to my request, and, for yourself, accept the assurance of my - undiminished regard; and hoping that the smiles of heaven may - continue to illuminate your way, - - I remain, ever yours, - L. A. V. - -These “chaste and elegant sentiments” are, surely, “embellished with -every polite accomplishment.” Melville called down the Nine Gods, and a -host of minor deities; he ransacked Athens, Rhodes, Cyprus, Circassia, -Lydia, Lilliputia, Damascus, this world and the next, for geographical -adornments; he called up Burton, Shakespeare, Scott, Byron, Milton, -Coleridge and Chesterfield, as well as Prometheus and Cinderella, -Mahomet and Cleopatra, Madonnas and Houris, Medici and Mussulman, -to strew carelessly across his pages. “Not in vain,” says Melville -of the idealisation of himself in the character of Pierre, “had he -spent long summer afternoons in the deep recesses of his father’s -fastidiously picked and decorous library.” Not in vain, either, had -he been submitted to three years of elementary drill in the classics -at the Albany Academy. “Not that as yet his young and immature soul -had been accosted by the wonderful Mutes, and through the vast halls -of Silent Truth, had been ushered into the full, secret, eternally -inviolable Sanhedrim, where the Poetic Magi discuss, in glorious -gibberish, the Alpha and Omega of the Universe,” says Melville; “but -among the beautiful imaginings of the second and third degree of -poets he freely and comprehendingly ranged.” Melville was always a -wide if desultory reader, more and more interested after the manner -of Sir Thomas Browne, and the Burton with reference to whom he began -his career in letters, in “remote and curious illusions, wrecks of -forgotten fables, antediluvian computations, obsolete and unfamiliar -problems, riddles that no living Œdipus would care to solve.” And this -preoccupation--first made manifest in _Mardi_ (1849)--must always stand -in the way of his most typical writings ever becoming widely popular. -His earliest known piece of juvenile composition is interesting as -revealing the crude beginnings of one of the manners superbly mastered -in parts of _Moby-Dick_. This early effusion, by revealing so crudely -the defects of his qualities, reads as a dull parody of one of his most -typical later manners. - -With a Miltonic confidence in his own gifts, Melville came to view -these earlier pieces as the first “earthly rubbish” of his “immense -quarries of fine marble.” Melville goes on to say that “no commonplace -is ever effectually got rid of, except by essentially emptying one’s -self of it into a book; for once trapped into a book, then the book can -be put into the fire and all will be well.” “But they are not always -put into the fire,” he said with regret. And because of his own laxity -in cremation, his crude first fruits stalk abroad to accuse him. - -At this early period, Melville had nothing very significant to say; but -he seems to have been urged to say it with remorseless pertinacity. -In _Pierre_, he satirises his youthful and reckless prolixity where -he speaks of his manuscripts as being of such flying multitudes that -“they were to be found lying all round the house; gave a great deal of -trouble to the housemaids in sweeping; went for kindlings to the fires; -and forever flitting out of the windows, and under the doorsills, into -the faces of people passing the manorial mansion.” - -Having nothing very particular to write about, he followed an ancient -tradition, and wrote of love. In _Pierre_, which is Melville’s -spiritual autobiography, and in _Pierre_ alone, does Melville -elaborately busy himself with romantic affection. And in _Pierre_, -his is no sugared and conventional preoccupation. He traces his own -development through the love-friendship of boyhood, the miscellaneous -susceptibility of adolescence, to a crucifixion in manhood between the -images of his wife and his mother. His first _Fragment from a Writing -Desk_ seems to have been conceived at a time before his “innumerable -wandering glances settled upon some one specific object.” - -His second _Fragment from a Writing Desk_ concerns itself with an -allegorical quest of elusive feminine loveliness: a kind of _Coelebs -in Search of a Wife_, allegorised and crossed with _Lalla Rookh_. -It survives, as has been said, only as a fragment of a Fragment. -Its conclusion must remain a mystery until some old newspaper file -disgorges its secrets. It begins as follows: - - For the Democratic Press - - FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING DESK - - No. 2 - - “Confusion seize the Greek!” exclaimed I, as wrathfully rising from - my chair, I flung my ancient Lexicon across the room and seizing - my hat and cane, and throwing on my cloak, I sallied out into the - clearer air of heaven. The bracing coolness of an April evening - calmed my aching temples, and I slowly wended my way to the river - side. I had promenaded the bank for about half an hour, when - flinging myself upon the grassy turf, I was soon lost in revery, and - up to the lips in sentiment. - - I had not lain more than five minutes, when a figure effectually - concealed in the ample folds of a cloak, glided past me, and hastily - dropping something at my feet, disappeared behind the angle of an - adjoining house, ere I could recover from my astonishment at so - singular an occurrence. - - “Cerbes!” cried I, springing up, “here is a spice of the marvellous!” - and stooping down, I picked up an elegant little, rose-coloured, - lavender-scented billet-doux, and hurriedly breaking the seal (a - heart, transfixed with an arrow) I read by the light of the moon, the - following:-- - - “GENTLE SIR: - - If my fancy has painted you in genuine colours, you will on the - receipt of this, incontinently follow the bearer where she will lead - you. - - INAMORITA.” - -“The deuce I will!” exclaimed I,--“But soft!”--And I re-perused this -singular document, turned over the billet in my fingers, and examined -the hand-writing, which was femininely delicate, and I could have sworn -was a woman’s. Is it possible, thought I, that the days of romance are -revived?--No, “The days of chivalry are over!” says Burke. - -As I made this reflection, I looked up, and beheld the same figure -which had handed me this questionable missive, beckoning me forward. -I started towards her; but, as I approached, she receded from me, -and fled swiftly along the margin of the river at a pace which, -encumbered as I was with my heavy cloak and boots, I was unable to -follow; and which filled me with sundry misgivings, as to the nature -of the being, who could travel with such amazing celerity. At last, -perfectly breathless, I fell into a walk; which, my mysterious fugitive -perceiving, she likewise lessened her pace, so as to keep herself still -in sight, although at too great a distance to permit me to address -her.” - -The hero hastens after his guide but always she eludes him. Piqued by -her repeated escapes, he stops in a rage, and relieves his feelings -in “two or three expressions that savoured somewhat of the jolly -days of the jolly cavaliers.” And under the circumstances, he felt -fully justified in his profanity. “What! to be thwarted by a woman! -Peradventure; baffled by a girl? Confusion! It was too bad! To be -outwitted, generated, routed, defeated, by a mere rib of the earth? It -could not be borne!” Recovering his temper, he followed his capricious -guide out of the town, into a shadowy grove to “an edifice, which -seated on a gentle eminence, and embowered amidst surrounding trees, -bore the appearance of a country villa.” - -“The appearance of this spacious habitation was anything but inviting; -it seemed to have been built with a jealous eye to concealment; and its -few, but well-defended windows were sufficiently high from the ground, -as effectually to baffle the prying curiosity of the inquisitive -stranger. Not a single light shone from the narrow casement; but all -was harsh, gloomy and forbidding. As my imagination, ever alert on -such an occasion, was busily occupied in assigning some fearful motive -for such unusual precautions, my leader suddenly halted beneath a -lofty window, and making a low call, I perceived slowly descending -therefrom, a thick silken cord, attached to an ample basket, which -was silently deposited at our feet. Amazed at this apparition, I was -about soliciting an explanation: when laying her fingers impressively -upon her lips, and placing herself in the basket, my guide motioned -me to seat myself beside her. I obeyed; but not without considerable -trepidation: and in obedience to the same low call which had procured -its descent, our curious vehicle, with sundry creakings, rose in air.” - -This airy jaunt terminated, of course, in an Arabian Nights exterior, -which Melville particularises after the “voluptuous” traditions of -_Vathek_ and _Lalla Rookh_. “The grandeur of the room,” of course, -“served only to show to advantage the matchless beauty of its inmate.” -This matchless beauty was, after established tradition, “reclining -on an ottoman; in one hand holding a lute.” Her fingers, too, “were -decorated with a variety of rings, which as she waved her hand to me -as I entered, darted forth a thousand coruscations, and gleamed their -brilliant splendours to the sight.” - -“As I entered the apartment, her eyes were downcast, and the expression -of her face was mournfully interesting; she had apparently been lost -in some melancholy revery. Upon my entrance, however, her countenance -brightened, as with a queenly wave of the hand, she motioned my -conductress from the room, and left me standing, mute, admiring and -bewildered in her presence.” - -“For a moment my brain spun round, and I had not at command a single of -my faculties. Recovering my self-possession, however, and with that, my -good-breeding, I advanced en cavalier and, gracefully sinking on one -knee, I bowed my head and exclaimed ‘Here do I prostrate myself, thou -sweet Divinity, and kneel at the shrine of thy--’” - -But here, just at the climax of the quest, the clipping is abruptly -torn, and the reader is left cruelly suspended. - -From the publication of _Lalla Rookh_, in 1817, to the publication -of Thackeray’s _Our Street_ in 1847, there settled upon letters and -life in England an epidemic of hankering for the exotic. At the -instigation of _Lalla Rookh_, England made a prim effort to be “purely -and intensely Asiatic,” and this while delicately avoiding “the -childishness, cruelty, and profligacy of Asia.” In the fashionable -literature of the period, the harem and the slave-market unburdened its -gazelles and its interior decorations, and by a resort to divans and -coruscating rubies, and ottar of roses, and lutes, and warm panting -maidens, the “principled goodness” of Anglo-Saxon self-righteousness -was thrilled to a discreet voluptuousness. - -In his second _Fragment_, Melville has caught at some of the drift-wood -of this great tidal wave that was washed across the Atlantic. And in -acknowledgment of this early indebtedness, he in _Pierre_ speaks of -Tom Moore with an especial burst of enthusiasm, mating him with Hafiz, -Anacreon, Catullus and Ovid. - -Reared in a New England environment that had been soberly tempered by -Mrs. Chapone and Mrs. Barbauld, Melville had, under the goadings of -poverty, the frustrations of his environment, and the teasing lure of -some stupendous discovery awaiting him at the rainbow’s end, plunged -into the hideousness of life in the forecastle of a merchantman. -At both extremes of his journey he reaped only disillusion. As a -practically penniless sailor in Liverpool he enjoyed the freedom of -the streets: and the architecture of the city impressed him less -than did the sights of the poverty and viciousness to which he was -especially exposed. Back he came to Lansingburg, to the old pump in the -yard, the stiff-corseted decorum, and the threadbare and pretentious -proprieties of his mother, to decline into the enforced drudgery -of teaching school. The sights of Liverpool and the forecastle had -given no permanent added beauty to home. He did not comfortably fit -into any recognised socket of New England respectability. He sought -escape in books, in amateur authorship. And Burton, and Anacreon, -and Tom Moore are not guaranteed to reconcile a boy in ferment to a -tame and repugnant environment. He was like a strong wine that clears -with explosive violence. He had been to sea once, and there acquired -some skill as a sailor. The excitement and hardship and downrightness -of ocean life, when viewed through the drab of the ensuing years, -treacherously suffered a sea-change. After three and a half years of -mounting desperation, he was ripe for a transit clean beyond the pale -of civilisation. - -“I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote,” he later -wrote in an effort to explain his second hegira; “I love to sail -forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” The trip to Liverpool -had slammed the sash on one magic casement; but the greater part of the -watery world was still to be viewed. “Why,” he asks himself perplexed -at his own mystery, “is almost every healthy boy with a robust healthy -soul, at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why did the old -Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a separate -deity, and own brother to Jove? Surely all this is not without meaning. -And still deeper the story of Narcissus, who because he could not grasp -the tormenting, mild image he saw in the fountain, plunged into it and -was drowned. But that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and -oceans. It is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is -the key to all.” The key he here offers to the heart of his mystery is -itself locked in mystery; though when he compared himself to Narcissus -tormented by the irony of being two, Melville may have been hotter on -the trail of the truth than he was aware. His deepest insight, perhaps, -came to him one midnight, out on the Pacific, where in the glare and -the wild Hindoo odour of the tryworks of a whaler in full operation, -he fell asleep at the helm. “Starting from a brief standing sleep,” he -says, “I was horribly conscious of something fatally wrong. I thought -my eyes were open; I was half conscious of putting my fingers to the -lids and mechanically stretching them still further apart. But, spite -of all this, I could see no compass before me to steer by. Nothing -seemed before me but a jet of gloom, now and then made ghastly by -flashes of redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, -rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven ahead as -rushing from all havens astern.” - -In a headlong retreat from all havens astern, on January 3, 1841, -Melville shipped on board the _Acushnet_, a whaler bound for the South -Seas. - - - - -CHAPTER VII - -BLUBBER AND MYSTICISM - - “And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet - undiscovered prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real - repute in that small but high hushed world which I might not be - unreasonably ambitious of; if hereafter I shall do anything that, - upon the whole, a man might rather have done than to have left - undone; if, at my death, my executors, or more properly my creditors, - find any precious MSS. in my desk, then here I prospectively ascribe - all the honour and the glory to whaling; for a whale-ship was my Yale - College and my Harvard.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Moby-Dick_. - - -In 1892, the year after Melville’s death, Arthur Stedman wrote a -“Biographical and Critical Introduction” to _Typee_. During the final -years of Melville’s sedulous isolation, Arthur Stedman was--with the -minor exception of the late Dr. Titus Munson Coan, whose Missionary -parentage Melville seems never to have quite forgiven him--the single -man who clung to Melville with any semblance of personal loyalty. -Stedman was unwavering in his belief that in his earlier South -Sea novels, Melville had attained to his highest achievement: an -achievement that entitled Melville to more golden opinions, Stedman -believed, than Melville ever reaped from a graceless generation. To -Stedman--as to Dr. Coan--Melville’s later development into mysticism -and metaphysics was a melancholy perversity to be viewed with a -charitable forbearance, and forgiven in the fair name of Fayaway. -Dr. Coan repeatedly used to recount, with a sigh at his frustration, -how he made persistent attempts to inveigle Melville into Polynesian -reminiscences, always to be rebuffed by Melville’s invariable -rejoinder: “That reminds me of the eighth book of Plato’s _Republic_.” -This was a signal for silence and leave-taking. What was the staple -of Stedman’s conversation is not known. But despite the fact that -Melville was to him a crabbed and darkly shadowed hieroglyph, he clung -to Melville with a personal loyalty at once humorous and pathetic. -Melville to him was the “man who lived with the cannibals,” and -merited canonisation because of this intimacy with unholy flesh. -Stedman published in the New York _World_ for October 11, 1891, -a tribute to his dead friend, significantly headed: _“Marquesan” -Melville. A South Sea Prospero who Lived and Died in New York. The -Island Nymphs of Nukuheva’s Happy Valley._ While Stedman was not -necessarily responsible for this caption, it is, nevertheless, a just -summary of the fullest insight he ever got into Melville’s life and -works. The friendship between Petrarch and Boccaccio is hardly less -humorous than the relationship between Melville and Stedman; and surely -Melville has suffered more, in death, if not in life, from the perils -of friendship than did Petrarch: more even than did Baudelaire from the -damaging admiration of Gautier. When one’s enemy writes a book, one’s -reputation is less likely to be jeopardised by literary animosity than -it is by the best superlatives of self-appointed custodians of one’s -good name. But as Francis Thompson has observed, it is a principle -universally conceded that, since the work of a great author is said to -be a monument, the true critic does best evince his taste and sense -by cutting his own name on it. Critical biographers have contrived -a method to hand themselves down to posterity through the gods of -literature, as did the Roman emperors through the gods of Olympus--by -taking the heads off their statues, and clapping on their own instead. -Criticism is a perennial decapitation. - -“I have a fancy,” says Stedman, in his _Biographical and Critical -Introduction_, “that it was the reading of Richard Henry Dana’s _Two -Years Before the Mast_ which revived the spirit of adventure in -Melville’s breast. That book was published in 1840, and was at once -talked of everywhere. Melville must have read it at the time, mindful -of his own experience as a sailor. At any rate, he once more signed -a ship’s articles, and on January 1, 1841, sailed from New Bedford -harbour in the whaler _Acushnet_, bound for the Pacific Ocean and the -sperm fishery.” - -In the second part of this statement, Stedman attempts to stick to the -letter: but there is a flaw in his text. That Melville sailed in the -_Acushnet_ is corroborated by a statement in the journal of Melville’s -wife; in the record surviving in Melville’s handwriting, headed “what -became of the ship’s company on the whaleship _Acushnet_, according -to Hubbard, who came back in her (more than a four years’ voyage) and -visited me in Pittsfield in 1850;” as well as by surviving letters -written by Richard Tobias Greene, the Toby of _Typee_. - -The roster of Melville’s ship is preserved in Alexander Starbuck’s -bulky _History of the American Whale Fishery from its Earliest -Inception to the Year 1876_ (published by the author, Waltham, Mass., -1878). Starbuck rates the _Acushnet_ as a ship of 359 tons, built in -1840. Her managing owners are reported as having been Bradford Fuller & -Co. Under command of Captain Pease she sailed from Fairhaven, bound for -the whaling grounds of the Pacific, on January 3, 1841, and returned to -Fairhaven on May 13, 1845, laden with 850 barrels of sperm oil, 1350 -barrels of whale oil, and 13500 pounds of whale-bone. On July 18, 1845, -she started upon her second voyage, under command of Captain Rogers, to -return June 7, 1848, stocked with 500 barrels of sperm oil, 800 barrels -of whale oil, and 6000 pounds of whale-bone. On December 4, 1847, she -had a boat stove by a whale, with the loss of the third mate and four -of the crew. Her third voyage, begun August 31, 1848, under command -of Captain Bradley, was her last. As by some malicious fatality, the -_Acushnet_ was lost on St. Lawrence Island on August 31, 1851, within a -month of the time when Melville brought _Moby-Dick_ to its tragic close. - -Between Stedman’s and Starbuck’s accounts of the time and place of -Melville’s sailing there is a discrepancy of half a mile and two days. -This discrepancy, however, does not necessarily impugn Stedman’s -accuracy. Fairhaven is just across the Acushnet river from New -Bedford, and “sailing from New Bedford” may be like “sailing from New -York”--which is often in reality “sailing from Hoboken.” - -Stedman dates Melville’s sailing January 1; Starbuck, January 3. -Melville launches the hero of _Moby-Dick_ neither from New Bedford nor -from Fairhaven, but from Nantucket. Ishmael begins his fatal voyage -aboard the _Pequod_ on December 25; and there is a fitting irony in -the fact that on the day that celebrates the birth of the Saviour -of mankind, the _Pequod_ should sail forth to slay Moby-Dick, the -monstrous symbol and embodiment of unconquerable evil. - -That Dana’s book should have fired Melville to an impetuous and -romantic jaunt to the South Seas, though an ill-favoured statement, is -Stedman’s very own. When a boy concludes the Christmas holidays by a -mid-winter plunge into the filthy and shabby business of whaling; when -a young man inaugurates the year not among the familiar associations -of the gods of his hearth, but among semi-barbarous strangers of the -forecastle of a whaler: to make such a shifting of whereabouts a sign -of jolly romantic exuberance, is engagingly naïve in its perversity. - -Just what specific circumstances were the occasion of Melville’s escape -into whaling will probably never be known: what burst of demoniac -impulse, either of anger, or envy, or spite; what gnawing discontent; -what passionate disappointment; what crucifixion of affection; what -blind impetuosity; what sinister design. But in the light of his -writings and the known facts of his life it seems likely that his -desperate transit was made in the mid-winter of his discontent. That -the reading of Dana’s book should have filled his head with a mere -adolescent longing for brine-drenched locomotion and sent him gallantly -off to sea is a surmise more remarkable for simplicity than insight. - -Melville never wearies of iterating his “itch for things remote.” Like -Thoreau, he had a “naturally roving disposition,” and of the two men it -is difficult to determine which achieved a wider peregrination. It was -Thoreau’s proud boast: “I have travelled extensively in Concord.” He -believed that Concord, with its sylvan environment, was a microcosm “by -the study of which the whole world could be comprehended,” and so, this -wildest of civilised men seldom strayed beyond its familiar precincts. -His was a heroic provincialism, that cost him little loss either in -worldliness or in wisdom. Though his head went swimming in the Milky -Way, his feet were well-rooted in New England sod. “One world at a -time” was the programme he set himself for digesting the universe: and -he looked into the eyes of this world with cold stoical serenity. - -Melville made no such capitulation with reality. Between the obdurate -world of facts and his ardent and unclarified desires there was always, -to the end of his life, a blatant incompatibility. Alongside the hard -and cramping world of reality, and in more or less sharp opposition -to it, he set up a fictitious world, a world of heart’s desire; and -unlike Thoreau, he hugged his dream in jealous defiance of reality. -It is, of course, an ineradicable longing of man to repudiate the -inexorable restrictions of reality, and return to the happy delusion -of omnipotence of early childhood, an escape into some land of heart’s -desire. Goethe compared the illusions that man nourishes in his breast -to the population of statues in ancient Rome which were almost as -numerous as the population of living men. Most men keep the boundaries -between these two populations distinct: a separation facilitated by the -usual dwindling of the ghostly population. Flaubert once observed that -every tenth-rate provincial notary had in him the debris of a poet. -As Wordsworth complains, as we grow away from childhood, the vision -fades into the light of common day. Thoreau clung to his visions; but -they were, after all, cold-blooded and well-behaved visions. And by -restricting himself to “one world at a time,” by mastering his dream, -he mastered reality. Alcott declared that Thoreau thought he dwelt in -the centre of the universe, and seriously contemplated annexing the -rest of the planet to Concord. The delicacy of the compliment to the -rest of the planet has never been adequately appreciated. Melville’s -more violent and restive impulses never permitted him to feel any -such flattering attachment to his whereabouts, whether it was Albany, -Liverpool, Lima, Tahiti or Constantinople. Like Rousseau, who confessed -himself “burning with desire without any definite object,” Melville -always felt himself an exile from the seacoast of Bohemia. But his -nostalgia, his indefinite longing for the unknown, was not, in any -literal sense, “homesickness” at all. As Aldous Huxley has observed: - - “Those find, who most delight to roam - ’Mid castles of remotest Spain - That there’s, thank Heaven, no place like home - So they put out upon their travels again.” - -That Melville came to no very pleasant haven of refuge in the -forecastle of the _Acushnet_ is borne out by his drastic preference -to be eaten by cannibals rather than abide among the sureties of the -ship and her company. That he “left the ship, being oppressed with hard -fare and hard usage, in the summer of 1842 with a companion, Richard T. -Greene (Toby) at the bay of Nukuheva in the Marquesas Islands” is the -statement in the journal of his wife vividly elaborated in _Typee_. - -Of Melville’s history aboard the _Acushnet_ there is no straightforward -account. _Redburn_, _Typee_, _Omoo_ and _White-Jacket_ are transparent -chapters in autobiography. From his experiences on board the _Acushnet_ -Melville draws generously in _Moby-Dick_: but these experiences do -not for one moment pretend to be the whole of the literal truth. Only -an insanity as lurid as Captain Ahab’s would mistake _Moby-Dick_ for -a similarly reliable report of personal experiences. _Moby-Dick_ is, -indeed, an autobiography of adventure; but adventure upon the highest -plane of spiritual daring. Incidentally, it also offers the fullest, -and truest, and most readable history of an actual whaling cruise -ever written. But it is not a “scientific” history. The “scientific” -historian, proudly unreadable, thanks God that he has no style to tempt -him out of the strict weariness of counting-house inventories; and in -despair of presenting the truth, he boasts a make-shift veracity. The -truest historians are, of course, the poets--and their histories are -“feigned.” Melville, writing in the capacity of poet, was licensed in -the best interests of truth to expurgate reality. And though Captain -Ahab’s hunt of the abhorred Moby-Dick belongs as essentially to the -realm of poetry as does the quest of the Holy Grail, it is, withal, in -its lower reaches, so broadly based on a foundation of solid reality -that it is possible, by considering _Moby-Dick_ in double conjunction -with the few facts explicitly known of Melville during the period -of his whaling cruise, and the wealth of facts known of whaling in -general, to block in, with a considerable degree of certainty, the -contours of his experiences aboard the _Acushnet_. - -By all odds, the chief chapter in the history of whaling is the story -of its rise and practical extinction in the Southern New England -States. In this limited geographical area, trade in “oil and bone” was -pursued with an alacrity, an enterprise and a prosperity unparalleled -in the world’s history. When, in 1841, Melville boarded the _Acushnet_, -American whaling, after a development through nearly two centuries, -was within a decade of its highest development, within two decades of -its precipitous decay. The doom of whale-oil lamps and sperm candles -was ultimately decided in 1859 with the opening of the first oil well -in Pennsylvania, and sealed by the Civil War. Melville knew American -whaling at the prime of its golden age, and taking it at its crest, he -raised it in fiction to a dignity and significance incomparably higher -than it ever reached in literal fact. - -At the beginning of _Moby-Dick_, Melville culls from the most -incongruous volumes an anthology of comments upon Leviathan, beginning -with the Mosaic comment “And God created great whales,” and ending, -after eclectic quotations from Pliny, Lucian, Rabelais, Sir Thomas -Browne, Spenser, Hobbes, Bunyan, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Paley, -Blackstone, Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, Darwin, and dozens of others -(including an excerpt “From ‘Something’ Unpublished”) ends on the old -whale song: - - “Oh, the rare old whale, mid storm and gale - In his ocean home will be - A giant in might, where might is right, - And King of the boundless sea.” - -Rather than conventionally distribute his quotations throughout the -book as chapter headings, Melville offers them all in a block at the -beginning of the volume, somewhat after the manner of Franklin’s grace -said over the pork barrel. And extraordinarily effective is this -device of Melville’s in stirring the reader’s interest to a sense of -the wonder and mystery of this largest of all created live things, of -the wild and distant seas wherein he rolls his island bulk; of the -undeliverable, nameless perils of the whale with all the attending -marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds. Even before the -reader comes to the superb opening paragraph of _Moby-Dick_, the great -flood-gates of the wonder-world are swung open, and into his inmost -soul, as into Melville’s, “two by two there float endless processions -of the whale, and midmost of them all, one grand hooded phantom, like -a snow hill in the air.” - -The literature of whaling slopes down from _Moby-Dick_, both before and -after, into a wilderness of several hundred volumes. - -There is but one attempt at a comprehensive history of whaling: Walter -S. Tower’s _A History of the American Whale Fishery_ (Philadelphia, -1907). This slender volume first makes a rapid survey of the sources -and proceeds from these to a cautious selection of the outstanding -documented facts which by “economic interpretation” it presents as -a consecutive story. Devoid of literary pretension, it is admirable -in accuracy, compactness and clarity. The most comprehensive popular -treatment of American whaling is to be found in Hyatt Verrill’s _The -Real Story of the Whaler_ (1916): a more exuberant but less workmanly -book than Tower’s. Representative shorter surveys are to be found both -in Winthrop L. Martin’s very able _The American Merchant Marine_ (1902) -and Willis J. Abbot’s _American Merchant Ships and Sailors_ (1902). - -Although the literature of whaling extends by repeated dilutions from -“economic interpretations” to infant books, the classical sources for -this extended literature tally less than a score. The great work on -the _Fisheries and Fishing Industries of the United States_, prepared -under the direction of G. Brown Goode in 1884, contains two articles -on whaling of the first magnitude of importance: _Whalemen, Vessels, -Apparatus and Methods of the Whale Fishery_ and a _History of the -Present Condition of the Whale Fishery_. The facts presented in these -last two encyclopædic treatments are drawn principally from Alexander -Starbuck’s _History of the American Whale Fishery from Its Earliest -Inception to the Year 1874_, published in 1876, and C. M. Scammon’s -_Marine Mammals of the North Western Coast of North America, with an -Account of the American Whale Fishery_, published in 1874. Lorenzo -Sabine’s _Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American Seas_, -published in 1870, while prior to the monumental works of Starbuck and -Scammon in date of publication, enjoys no other priority. The most -complete and detailed treatment of the origin and early development -of whaling is to be found in William Scoresby’s _An Account of the -Arctic Regions_, dated 1820. Scoresby--“the justly renowned,” according -to Melville; “the excellent voyager”--was an English naval officer, -and in his discussion of the whale fishery he deals solely with the -European and principally with the British industry. But Scoresby’s book -is principally a classic as regards the earlier history of whaling. -Scoresby seems to have convinced all later historians in this field of -the folly of further research. Melville knew Scoresby’s book--“I honour -him for a veteran,” Melville confesses--and drew from its erudition in -_Moby-Dick_. Obed Macy’s _History of Nantucket_, published in 1836, is -one of the few important original sources for the history of whaling, -and the most readable. Melville expresses repeated indebtedness -to Macy. Macy’s record has the tang of first-hand experience, and -the flavour of local records. Because of the fact that many of the -records from which this fine old antiquary of whales drew have since -been destroyed by fire, his book enjoys the heightened authority of -being a unique source. According to Anatole France, the perplexities -of historians begin where events are related by two or by several -witnesses, “for their evidence is always contradictory and always -irreconcilable.” The fire at Nantucket blazed a royal road to truth. -Daniel Ricketson, in his _History of New Bedford_ (1850) attempted to -emulate Macy. And though Ricketson’s sources, as Macy’s, have been -largely destroyed by fire, his authority, though irrefutable in so far -as it goes, is less detailed and comprehensive. - -[Illustration: THROWING THE HARPOON] - -[Illustration: SOUNDING] - -Of published personal narrative of whale-hunting, Owen Chase’s -_Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Ship Wreck of the -Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket_, published in 1821, as well as F. D. -Bennett’s two-volume _Narrative of a Voyage Round the World_, published -1833-36, were drawn from by Melville in _Moby-Dick_. The account of -the sinking of the _Essex_ is important as being the source from which -Melville borrowed, with superb transformation, the catastrophe with -which he closes _Moby-Dick_. The sinking of the _Essex_--recounted -in _Moby-Dick_--is the first and best known instance of a ship being -actually sent to the bottom by the ramming of an infuriated whale, -and in its sequel it is one of the most dreadful chapters of human -suffering in all the hideous annals of shipwreck. “I have seen Owen -Chase,” Melville says in _Moby-Dick_, “who was chief mate of the -_Essex_ at the time of the tragedy: I have read his plain and faithful -narrative: I have conversed with his son; and all within a few miles -of the scene of the tragedy.” Melville may here be using a technique -learned from Defoe. - -Though in _Moby-Dick_ Melville makes several references to J. Ross -Browne’s _Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes on a Sojourn on -the Island of Zanzibar_, mildly praising some of his drawings while -reprobating their reproduction, he owes no debt to J. Ross Browne. -Melville and Browne wrote of whaling with purposes diametrically -opposed. Melville gloried in the romance of whales, and horsed on -Leviathan, through a briny sunset dove down through the nether-twilight -into the blackest haunted caverns of the soul. Browne provokes no such -rhetorical extravagance of characterisation. He sat soberly and firmly -down on a four-legged chair before a four-legged desk and wrote up his -travels. “My design,” he says, “is simply to present to the public -a faithful delineation of the life of a whaleman. In doing this, I -deem it necessary that I should aim rather at the truth itself than -at mere polish of style.” So Browne made a virtue of necessity, and -convinced that “history scarcely furnishes a parallel for the deeds of -cruelty” then “prevalent in the whale fishery,” he sent his book forth -“to show in what manner the degraded condition of a portion of our -fellow-creatures can be ameliorated.” In a study of Melville’s life, -Browne is important as presenting an ungarnished account of typical -conditions aboard a whaler at the time Melville was cruising in the -_Acushnet_. Useful in the same way are R. Delano’s _Wanderings and -Adventures; Being a Narrative of Twelve Years’ Life in a Whaleship_ -(1846) and Captain Davis’ spirited overhauling of his journal kept -during a whaling trip, published in 1872 under the title _Nimrod of the -Sea_. - -Though whales and Pilgrim Fathers would, at first blush, seem to belong -to two mutually repugnant orders of nature, yet were they, by force -of circumstance, early thrown into a warring intimacy. And strangely -enough, in this armed alliance, it was the whale who made the first -advances. Richard Mather, who came to Massachusetts Bay colony in 1635, -records in his journal, according to Sabine, the presence off the New -England coast of “mighty whales spewing up water in the air like the -smoke of a chimney ... of such incredible bigness that I will never -wonder that the body of Jonah could be in the belly of a whale.” From -this and other evidence it seems undoubted that in early colonial days -whales were undaunted by the strict observances of the Pilgrims, and -browsed in great numbers, even on Sabbath, within the sight of land. -Yet, despite this open violation of Scripture, the resourceful Puritan -pressed them into the service of true religion. Believing that - - Whales in the sea - God’s voice obey, - -they tolerated leviathan as an emissary more worthy than Elijah’s -raven. And whenever an obedient whale, harkening to the voice of God -in the wilderness, was cast ashore, a part of his bulk was fittingly -appropriated for the support of the ministry. - -Tower establishes the fact that among the first colonists there were -men at least acquainted with, if not actually experienced in whaling. -And it is quite generally accepted that the settlement of Massachusetts -was prompted not only by a protestant determination to worship God -after the dictates of a rebellious conscience, but by a no less firm -determination to vary Sunday observances with the enjoyment on secular -days of unrestricted fishing. As a result of this double Puritan -interest in worship and whaling, the history of the American whaling -fishery begins almost with the settlement of the New England colonies. - -By the end of the seventeenth century, whaling was established as a -regular business, if still on a comparatively small scale, in the -different Massachusetts colonies, especially from Cape Cod; from the -towns at the eastern end of Long Island, and from Nantucket. With the -very notable exceptions of New London, Connecticut, and New Bedford and -the neighbouring ports in Buzzard’s Bay, every locality subsequently -to become important in its whaling interests was well launched in -this enterprise before 1700. New London did not begin whaling until -the middle of the eighteenth century. New Bedford, though almost the -last place to appear as a whaling port--and this immediately before -the Revolution--was destined to stand, within a century after its -beginnings in whaling, the greatest whaling port the world has ever -known, the city which, in the full glory of whaling prosperity, would -send out more vessels than all other American ports combined. - -The earliest colonial adventurers in whaling were men who by special -appointment were engaged to be on the lookout for whales cast ashore. -Emboldened by commerce with drift-whales, these Puritan whalemen soon -took to boats to chase and kill whales which came close in, but which -were not actually stranded. - -In 1712, through the instrumentality of Christopher Hussey, Providence -utilised a hardship to His creature to work a revolution in whaling. -Hussey, while cruising along the coast, was caught up by a strong -northerly wind, and despite his prayers and his seamanship was blown -out to sea. When the sky cleared, Hussey’s craft was nowhere to be -seen by the anxious watchers on shore. After awaiting his return for a -decent number of days, his wife and neighbours at home gave him up as -lost. But in the middle of their tribulations, a familiar sail dipped -over the horizon, and Hussey slowly headed landward, dragging a dead -sperm whale in tow: the first sperm whale known to have been taken by -an American whaler. - -Hussey’s exploit marked a radical change in whaling methods. All -Nantucket lusted after sperm whales. The indomitable islanders began -immediately to fit vessels, usually sloops of about thirty tons, to -whale out in the “deep.” These little vessels were fitted out for -cruises of about six weeks. On their narrow decks there was no room for -the apparatus necessary to “try out” the oil. So the blubber stripped -from the whale was cast into the hold, the oil awaiting extraction -until the vessel returned. Then the reeking whale fat, its stench -smiting the face of heaven, was transferred to the huge kettles of -the “try houses.” There is an old saying that a nose that is a nose -at all can smell a whaler twenty miles to windward. The New England -indifference to the stenches of whaling suggests that the Puritan -contempt for the flesh was not a virtue but a deformity. - -Other whaling communities ventured out after the sperm whale in the -wake of Nantucket. Year after year the colonial whalemen pushed further -and further out into the “deep” as their gigantic quarry retreated -before them. In 1774, Captain Uriah Bunker, in the brig _Amazon_ of -Nantucket, made the first whaling voyage across the equinoctial line to -the Brazil Banks and, according to local tradition, returned to port -with a “full ship” on April 19, 1775, just as the redcoats were in full -retreat from Concord Bridge. - -The Revolutionary War dealt a terrific blow to American whaling. -Massachusetts was regarded as the hotbed of the Revolutionary spirit, -and that colony was also the centre of the fishing industries. Hence, -in 1775, “to starve New England,” Parliament passed the famous act -restricting colonial trade to British ports, and placing an embargo -on fishing on the Banks of Newfoundland or on any other part of the -North American coast. It was this same measure which inspired Burke in -his Speech on _Conciliation_ to his superbly eloquent tribute to the -exploits of the American whalemen. When the war began there were in -the whole American fleet between three and four hundred vessels--of an -aggregate of about thirty-three thousand tons. The annual product of -this fleet was, according to Starbuck’s estimate, “probably at least -45,000 barrels of spermaceti oil, and 8,500 barrels of right whale oil, -and of bone nearly or quite 75,000 pounds.” Of all whaling communities, -the island of Nantucket held out most stoutly,--aided by Melville’s -grandfather, who was sent to Nantucket in command of a detachment to -watch the movements of the British fleet. Yet when the war ended in -1783, Macy says that of the one hundred and fifty Nantucket vessels, -only two or three old hulks remained. In Nantucket, the money loss -exceeded one million dollars. So many of the young and active men -perished in the war that in the eight hundred Nantucket families there -were two hundred and two widows and three hundred and forty-two orphan -children. - -But even in the face of such prodigal disaster, the fiery spirit of -Nantucket was unquenchable. When the news came of the peace of 1783, -the _Bedford_, just returned to Nantucket from a voyage, was hastily -laden with oil and cleared for London. This was, as a contemporary -London newspaper remarks, “the first vessel which displayed the -thirteen rebellious stripes of America in any British port.” - -Through the four decades following the Revolutionary War, the American -whale fishery lived a precarious existence of constant ups and downs. -The whaling voyages were greatly lengthened during this period, -however. In 1789 Nantucket whalemen first went hunting the sperm whale -off Madagascar, and in 1791 six whaleships fitted out at Nantucket for -the Pacific Ocean. - -The years between 1820 and 1835 were marked mainly by stable conditions -and by a steady but gradual growth. In 1820 the Pacific whaling was -extended to the coast of Japan, and within the next few years the -whalers were going to all parts of the South Sea and Indian Ocean. And -these years marked, too, the falling of Nantucket from her hundred -years of pre-eminence in whaling, and the emergence of New Bedford as -incomparably the greatest whaling port in the history of the world. It -was a Nantucket whaler, however, who in 1835 captured the first right -whale on the northwest coast of America, thereby opening one of the -most important grounds ever visited by the whaling fleet. - -The Golden Age of whaling falls between 1835 and 1860. In 1846 the -whaling fleet assumed the greatest proportions it was ever to know. In -that year, the fleet numbered six hundred and eighty ships and barks, -thirty-four brigs, and twenty-two schooners, with an aggregate of -somewhat over two hundred and thirty thousand tons. The value of the -fleet alone at that time exceeded twenty-one million dollars, while all -the investments connected with the business are estimated, according -to Tower, at seventy million dollars, furnishing the chief support of -seventy thousand persons. This great industry, so widespread in its -operation, emanated, at the time of its most extensive development, -from a cluster of thirty-eight whaling ports distributed along the -southern New England coast from Cape Cod to New York, and on the -islands to the south. The greatest of all the whaling ports, from 1820 -onward, was New Bedford. - -During the really great days of the whale fishery, the Pacific was by -all odds the chief fishing ground. During the early eighteen-thirties, -the Nantucket fleet began cruising mainly in the Pacific, and after -1840, the Nantucket whalers hunted there almost exclusively. The -Nantucket fleet was soon followed by the majority of the New Bedford -fleet, and a large proportion of the New London and Sag Harbor vessels. - -These vessels, manned by a mixed company of Quakers, farm boys, and a -supplementary compound of the dredgings of the terrestrial globe, would -usually be gone for three years, not infrequently for four or five. -As long as the craft held, and the food lasted, and an empty barrel -lay in the hold, the captain kept to the broad ocean, eschewing both -the allurements of home and the seductions of tattooed Didoes. When -at last they sailed into the harbour of their home ports, weed-grown, -storm-beaten, patched and forlorn, they usually looked, as Verrill -says, more like the ghosts of ancient wrecks than seaworthy carriers of -precious cargo manned by crews of flesh and blood. After a few months -of repair and overhauling in port, these vessels were refitted for -another cruise, and off they sailed again for another space of years. -It thus happened that the veteran whalers of Nantucket and New Bedford -and the sister ports could look back upon whole decades of their lives -spent cruising upon the high seas: a fact that Melville amplifies with -a cadence he learned from the Psalms. Of the Nantucketer he says: “For -the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen -having but a right of way through it. He alone resides and riots on -the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and -fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. _There_ is his home; -_there_ lies his business, which a Noah’s flood would not interrupt, -though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea, -as prairie cocks on the prairie; he hides among the waves, he climbs -them as chamois hunters climb the Alps. For years he knows not the -land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another -world, more strangely than the moon would to an earthsman. With the -landless gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep -between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight of -land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under his very -pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.” - -The number of supplies, and the variety of articles required in fitting -out a whaling ship for a cruise, was, of course, prodigious. For aside -from the articles required in whaling, it was necessary that a whaling -vessel should sail prepared for any emergency, and equipped to be -absolutely independent of the rest of the world for years at a time, -housekeeping upon the wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, -doctors, bakers and bankers. Aside from the necessary whaling -equipment, there were needed supplies for the men, ship’s stores and a -dizzy number of incidentals: “spare boats, spare spars, and spare lines -and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a spare Captain and a -duplicate ship.... While other hulls are loaded down with alien stuff, -to be transferred to foreign wharves, the world-wandering whale-ship -carries no cargo but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. -She has a whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is -ballasted with utilities. Hence it is, that, while other ships may have -gone to China from New York, and back again, touching at a score of -ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may not have sighted one -grain of soil; her crew having seen no man but floating seamen like -themselves. So that did you carry them the news that another flood had -come; they would answer--‘Well, boys, here’s the ark!’” N. H. Nye, a -New Bedford outfitter, published in 1858 an inventory of _Articles for -a Whaling Voyage_: a shopping list totalling some 650 entries, useful -once to whalers with fallible memories, useful now to landsmen with -lame imaginations. - -When, from such a port as Nantucket or New Bedford, a whaling vessel -was preparing to sail, there would be no house, perhaps, without some -interest in the cruise. Each took a personal pride in the success of -the whalers: a pride clinched by the economic dependence of nearly -every soul in the community upon the whalemen’s luck. During the -time of continual fetching and carrying preparatory to the sailing -in _Moby-Dick_, no one was more active, it will be remembered, than -Aunt Charity Bildad, that lean though kind-hearted old Quakeress of -indefatigable spirit. “At one time she would come on board with a -jar of pickles for the steward’s pantry; another time with a bunch -of quills for the chief mate’s desk, where he kept his log; a third -time with a roll of flannel for the small of some one’s rheumatic -back.” Hither and thither she bustled about, “ready to turn her hand -and her heart to anything that promised to yield safety, comfort -and consolation to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother -Bildad was concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of -well-saved dollars.” Nor did she forsake the ship even after it had -been hauled out from the wharf. She came off in the whaleboat with a -nightcap for the second mate, her brother-in-law, and a spare Bible for -the steward. Such were the conditions in whaling-towns like Nantucket -or New Bedford that there was nothing remarkable in Aunt Charity’s -behaviour. In such communities, “whale was King.” The talk of the -street was, as Abbot observes, of big catches and the price of oil and -bone. The conversation in the shaded parlours, where sea-shell, coral, -and the trophies of Pacific cruises were the chief ornaments, was, -in an odd mixture of Quaker idiom, of prospective cruises or of past -adventures, of distant husbands and sons, the perils they braved, and -when they might be expected home. Col. Joseph C. Hart, in his _Miriam -Coffin, or the Whale Fishermen: a Tale_ (1834) offers perhaps the -truest and most vivid picture of life in Nantucket when whaling was at -its prime. Speaking of himself in the third person in the dedication, -Hart describes his book as being “founded on facts, and illustrating -some of the scenes with which he was conversant in his earlier days, -together with occurrences with which he is familiar from tradition and -association.” Though reprinted in California in 1872, _Miriam Coffin_ -is now very difficult to come by. It should be better known. - -The extended voyages of the American whaleman were made in heavy, -bluff-bowed and “tubby” crafts that were designed with fine contempt -for speed, comfort or appearance. In writing of Nantucket whaling -during the period about 1750, Macy says: “They began now to employ -vessels of larger size, some of 100 ton burden, and a few were -square-rigged.” For over a century thereafter the changes in whaling -vessels were almost solely in size. With the opening of the Pacific, -the longer voyages and the desire for larger cargoes led, as a -necessary result, to the employment of larger vessels. The first -Nantucket ship sailing to the Pacific in 1791 was of 240-ton burden. -By 1826, Nantucket had seventy-two ships carrying over 280 tons each, -and before 1850 whalers of 400 to 500 tons burden were not unusual. The -_Acushnet_, it will be remembered, was rated as a ship of 359 tons. - -The vessels used in whaling, built, as has been said, less with a view -to speed than to carrying capacity, had a characteristic architecture. -The bow was scarce distinguishable from the stern by its lines, and the -masts stuck up straight, without that rake which adds so much to the -trim appearance of a clipper. Three peculiarities chiefly distinguished -the whalers from other ships of the same general character. (1) At each -mast head was fixed the “crow’s-nest”--in some vessels a heavy barrel -lashed to the mast, in others merely a small platform laid on the -cross-trees, with two hoops fixed to the mast above, within which the -look-out could stand in safety. Throughout Melville’s experiences at -sea, in the merchant marines, in whalers, and in the navy, it appears -that his happiest moments were spent on mast-heads. (2) On the deck, -amidships, stood the “try-works,” brick furnaces holding two or three -great kettles, in which the blubber was reduced to odourless oil. (3) -Along each rail were heavy, clumsy wooden cranes, or davits, from which -hung the whale boats--never less than five, sometimes more--while still -others were lashed to the deck. For these boats were the whales’ sport -and playthings, and seldom was a big “fish” made fast without there -being work made for the ship’s carpenter. - -As for the crow’s-nest, and the business of standing mast-heads, -Melville has more than a word to say. As Sir Thomas Browne wrote in the -_Garden of Cyrus_ of “the Quincuncial Lozenge, or Net-Work Plantations -of the Ancients, Artificially, Naturally, Mystically Considered,” to -find, as Coleridge remarks, “quincunxes in heaven above, quincunxes in -earth below, quincunxes in the mind of man, quincunxes in tones, in -optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in everything,” so Melville -finds the visible and invisible universe a symbolic prefiguring of all -the detailed peculiarities of whaling. In the town of Babel he finds -a great stone mast-head that went by the board in the dread gale of -God’s wrath; and in St. Simon Stylites, he discovers “a remarkable -instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads, who was not to be driven -from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly -facing everything out to the last, literally died at his post.” And in -Napoleon upon the top of the column of Vendome, in Washington atop his -pillar in Baltimore, as in many another man of stone or iron or bronze, -he sees standers of mast-heads. - -In most American whalemen, the mast-heads were manned almost -simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; and this even though -she often had fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail before reaching -her proper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ -voyage, she found herself drawing near home with empty casks, then her -mast-heads were frequently kept manned, even until her skysail-poles -sailed in among the spires of her home port. - -The three mast-heads were kept manned from sunrise to sunset, the -seamen taking regular turns (as at the helm) and relieving each other -every two hours, watching to catch the faint blur of vapour whose -spouting marks the presence of a whale. “There she blows! B-l-o-o-ws! -Blo-o-ows!” was then sung out from the mast-head: the signal for the -chase. - -As for Melville, he tries to convince us he kept very sorry watch, -as in the serene weather of the tropics, he perched “a hundred feet -above the silent decks, striding along the deep, as if the masts were -gigantic stilts, while beneath you and between your legs, as it were, -swim the huge monsters of the deep, even as ships once sailed between -the boots of the famous Colossus of old Rhodes.” There, through his -watches, he used to swing, he says, “lost in the infinite series of the -sea, with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently -rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves you into -languor.” “I used to lounge up the rigging very leisurely, resting in -the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or any one else off duty whom I -might find there; then ascending a little way further, and throwing a -lazy leg over the topsail yard, take a preliminary view of the watery -pastures, and so at last mount to my ultimate destination.” According -to Melville’s own representation, the _Acushnet_ was not a pint of oil -richer for all his watching in the thought-engendering altitude of -the crow’s-nest. He admonishes all ship-owners of Nantucket to eschew -the bad business of shipping “romantic, melancholy, absent-minded -young men, disgusted with the cankering cares of earth”: young men -seeking sentiment--as did he--in tar and blubber. “Childe Harold not -infrequently perches himself upon the mast-head of some luckless -disappointed whaleship,” he warns prosaic ship-owners, “young men -hopelessly lost to all honourable ambition,” and indifferent to the -selling qualities of “oil and bone.” It is well both for Melville and -Captain Pease, the testy old skipper of the ship _Acushnet_, that he -could not see into the head of Melville as he hung silently perched in -his dizzy lookout. “Lulled into such an opium-like listlessness of -vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded youth by the blending -cadence of waves with thoughts, that at last he loses his identity; -takes the mystic ocean at his feet for the visible image of that -deep, blue, bottomless soul, pervading mankind and nature; and every -strange, half-seen, gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every -dimly-discovered, uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to -him the embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul -by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy spirit -ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through time and space; -like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, forming at last a part of -every shore the round globe over.” - -When, from the mast-head, eyes less abstracted than Melville’s -sighted a whale, the daring and excitement of the ensuing pursuit in -the whale-boats left Melville less occasion, during such energetic -intervals, to luxuriate in high mysteries. And it seems likely that -Melville was of more value to the ship’s owners when in a whale-boat -than riding the mast-head. - -Through long years of whaling these boats had been developed until -practical perfection had been reached. Never has boat been built -which for speed, staunchness, seaworthiness and hardiness excels the -whaleboat of the Massachusetts whalemen. These mere cockleshells, sharp -at both ends and clean-sided as a mackerel, were about twenty-seven -feet long by six feet beam, with a depth of twenty-two inches amidships -and thirty-seven inches at the bow and stern. These tiny clinker-built -craft can ride the heaviest sea, withstand the highest wind, resist -the heaviest gale. Incredible voyages have been made in these whaling -boats, not the least remarkable being the three months’ voyage of two -boats that survived the wreck of the _Essex_ in 1819, or the even -more remarkable six months’ voyage of the whaling boat separated from -the _Janet_ in 1849. In _Mardi_ Melville describes a prolonged voyage -in a whale-boat. In this account Melville takes one down to the very -plane of the sea. He is speaking from experience when he says: “Unless -the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your chip upon one of their -lordly crests, your sphere of vision is little larger than it would be -at the bottom of a well. At best, your most extended view in any one -direction, at least, is in a high slow-rolling sea; when you descend -into the dark misty spaces, between long and uniform swells. Then, -for the moment, it is like looking up and down in a twilight glade, -interminable; where two dawns, one on each hand, seem struggling -through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.” - -Of his first lowering in pursuit of a whale, he says in _Moby-Dick_: -“It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The vast swells of -the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they made, as they -rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic bowls in a boundless -bowling-green; the brief suspended agony of the boat, as it would tip -for an instant on the knife-like edge of the sharper waves, that seemed -almost threatening to cut it in two; the sudden profound dip into the -watery glens and hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the -top of the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other -side:--all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, and -the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, and wondrous sight of the ivory -_Pequod_ bearing down upon her boats with outstretched sails, like a -wild hen after her screaming brood;--all this was thrilling. Not the -raw recruit, marching from the bosom of his wife into the fever heat -of his first battle; not the dead man’s ghost encountering the first -unknown phantom in the other world,--neither of these can feel stranger -and stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time finds -himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the hunted sperm -whale.” - -After this first lowering, Melville returned to the ship to indulge -in the popular nautical diversion of making his will. This ceremony -concluded, he says he looked round him “tranquilly and contentedly, -like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience sitting inside the bars of -a snug family vault. Now then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the -sleeves of my frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and -destruction, and the devil fetch the hindmost.” - -In _Moby-Dick_, whales are sighted, chased, and captured; nor does -Melville fail to give detailed accounts of these activities or of the -ensuing “cutting in” and the “trying” of the oil. One of the most -vivid scenes in _Moby-Dick_ is the description of the “try-works” in -operation. - -“By midnight,” says Melville, “the works were in full operation. -We were clean from the carcass; sail had been made; the wind was -freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. But that darkness was -licked up by the fierce flames, which at intervals forked forth from -the sooty flues, and illuminated every rope in the rigging, as with -the famed Greek fire.... The hatch, removed from the top of the works, -now afforded a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were -the Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooners, always the whaleship’s -stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing masses of blubber -into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires beneath, till the -snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors to catch them by the -feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen heaps. To every pitch of the -ship there was a pitch of the boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness -to leap into their faces. Opposite the mouth of the works, on the -further side of the wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served -for a sea-sofa. Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, -looking into the red heat of the fire, their tawny features, now all -begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and the contrasting -barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these strangely revealed in the -capricious emblazonings of the works. As they narrated to each other -their unholy adventures, their tales of terror told in words of mirth; -their uncivilised laughter forked upwards out of them, like the flames -from the furnace: to and fro, in their front, the harpooners wildly -gesticulated with their huge pronged forks and dippers; the wind howled -on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, yet steadfastly -shot her red hell further and further into the blackness of the sea and -the night; and scornfully champed, and viciously spat round her on all -sides.” During this scene Melville stood at the helm, “and for long -silent hours guarded the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for -that interval, in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, -the madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the -fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire these -at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I began to yield -to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever would come over me at a -midnight helm.” - -In a chapter on dreams, in _Mardi_, one of the wildest chapters -Melville ever wrote, and the one in which he profoundly searched into -the heart of his mystery, he compares his dreams to a vast herd of -buffaloes, “browsing on to the horizon, and browsing on round the -world; and among them, I dash with my lance, to spear one, ere they all -flee.” In this world of dreams, “passing and repassing, like Oriental -empires in history,” Melville discerned, “far in the background, hazy -and blue, their steeps let down from the sky, Andes on Andes, rooted on -Alps; and all round me, long rolling oceans, roll Amazons and Orinocos; -waver, mounted Parthians; and to and fro, toss the wide woodlands: -all the world an elk, and the forest its antlers. Beneath me, at the -equator, the earth pulses and beats like a warrior’s heart, till I know -not whether it be not myself. And my soul sinks down to the depths, -and soars to the skies; and comet-like reels on through such boundless -expanses, that methinks all the worlds are my kin, and I invoke them to -stay in their course. Yet, like a mighty three decker, towing argosies -by scores, I tremble, gasp, and strain in my flight, and fain would -cast off the cables that hamper.” - -On that night that Melville drowsed at the helm of the _Acushnet_ while -she was “freighted with savages, and laden with fire, and burning a -corpse, and plunging into that blackness of blackness” his soul sank -deep into itself, and he seems to have awakened to recognise in the -ship that he drowsily steered, the material counterpart of the darkest -mysteries of his own soul. It was then that he awoke to be “horribly -conscious” that “whatever swift rushing thing I stood on was not so -much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens astern.” And -in reflecting upon that insight Melville plunges into the lowest abyss -of disenchantment. “The truest of men was the Man of Sorrows,” he says, -“and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine -hammered steel of woe. All is vanity. All.... He who ... calls Cowper, -Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and throughout -a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing wise, and therefore -jolly; not that man is fitted to sit down on tombstones, and break the -green damp mould with unfathomably wondrous Solomon.” - -The greatest of all dreamers conquer their dreams; others, who are -great, but not of the greatest, are mastered by them, and Melville -was one of these. There is a passage in the works of Edgar Allan Poe -that Melville may well have pondered when he awoke at the helm of the -_Acushnet_ after looking too long into the glare of the fire: “There -are moments when, even to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad -humanity may assume the semblance of a hell; but the imagination of man -is no Carathes to explore with impunity its every cavern. All the grim -legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether fanciful; -but, like the demons in whose company Afrasiab made his voyage down the -Oxus, they must sleep or they will devour us--they must be suffered to -slumber or we perish.” - - - - -CHAPTER VIII - -LEVIATHAN - - “At the battle of Breviex in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping - ancestor Froissart informs me, ten good knights, being suddenly - unhorsed, fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered - by their armour. Whereupon the rascally burglarious peasants, their - foes, fell to picking their visors; as burglars, locks; as oystermen - oysters; to get at their lives. But all to no purpose. And at last - they were fain to ask aid of a blacksmith; and not till then were - the inmates of the armour despatched. Days of chivalry these, when - gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths! Yes, they were glorious - times. But no sensible man, given to quiet domestic delights, would - exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a heroic bivouac, in a - wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in Normandy; every knight - blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly striving to cool his - cold coffee in his helmet.” - - HERMAN MELVILLE: _Mardi_. - - -It was the same Edmund Burke who movingly mourned the departure of -the epic virtues of chivalry, who in swift generalities celebrated -the heroic enterprise of the hunters of leviathan. But Burke viewed -both whaling and knight-errantry from a safe remove of time or place, -and the crude everyday realities of each he smothered beneath billows -of gorgeous generalisation. Burke offers a notable instance wherein -romance and rhetoric conspired to glorify two human activities that -are glorious only in expurgation. Piracy is picturesque in its -extinction, and to the snugly domesticated imagination there is both -virtue and charm in cut-throats and highwaymen. Even the perennial -newspaper accounts of massacre and rape doubtless serve to keep sweet -the blood of many a benevolent pew-holder. The incorrigible tendency -of the imagination to extract sweet from the bitter, honey from the -carcass of the lion, makes an intimate consideration of the filthy -soil from which some of its choicest illusions spring, downright -repugnant to wholesomemindedness. Intimately considered, both whaling -and knight-errantry were shabby forms of the butchering business. Their -virtues were but the nobler vices of barbarism: vices that take on a -semblance of nobility only when measured against the deadly virtues of -emasculated righteousness. In flight from the deadly virtues, Melville -was precipitated into the reeking barbarism of the forecastle of a -whaling ship. Whaling he applied as a counter-irritant to New England -decorum, and he seems to have smarted much during the application. He -was blessed with a high degree of the resilience of youthful animal -vigour, it is true; and there is solace for all suffering, the godly -tell us--omitting the ungodly solaces of madness and suicide. It will -be seen that whaling prompted Melville to extreme measures. The full -hideousness of his life on board the _Acushnet_ has not yet transpired. - -The chief whaling communities--those of Nantucket and Buzzard’s -Bay--were originally settled by Quakers. The inhabitants of these -districts in general retained in an uncommon measure throughout the -golden age of whaling, the peculiarities of the Quaker. Never perhaps -in the history of the world has there been mated two aspects of life -more humorously incompatible than whale-hunting and Quakerism. This -mating produced, however, a race of the most sanguinary of all sailors; -a race of fighting Quakers: in Melville’s phrase, “Quakers with a -vengeance.” Though refusing from conscientious scruples to bear arms -against land invaders, yet these same Quakers inimitably invaded the -Atlantic and the Pacific; and though sworn foes to human bloodshed, -yet did they, in their straight-bodied coats, spill tons and tons of -leviathan gore. And so, as Melville goes on to point out, “there are -instances among them of men who, named with Scripture names, 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.” - -The two old Quaker captains of _Moby-Dick_, Bildad and Peleg, are -typical of the race that made Nantucket and New Bedford the greatest -whaling ports in all history. Peleg significantly divides all good -men into two inclusive categories: “pious good men, like Bildad,” -and “swearing good men--something like me.” The “swearing good men,” -Melville would seem to imply, in sacrificing piety to humanity, while -standing lower in the eyes of God, stood higher in the hearts of their -crew. Though Bildad never swore at his men, so Melville remarks, “he -somehow got an inordinate quantity of cruel, unmitigated hard work out -of them.” - -Typical of the cast of mind of the whaling Quaker is Captain Bildad’s -farewell to ship’s company on board the ship in which he was chief -owner: “God bless ye, and have ye in His holy keeping. Be careful in -the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave the boats needlessly, ye harpooners; -good white cedar plank is raised full three per cent, within the -year. Don’t forget your prayers, either. Don’t whale it too much a’ -Lord’s day, men; but don’t miss a fair chance either; that’s rejecting -Heaven’s good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, Mr. Stubb; it -was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch at the islands, Mr. Flask, -beware of fornication. Good-bye, good-bye!” - -The old log-books most frequently begin: “A journal of an intended -voyage from Nantucket by God’s permission.” And typical is the closing -sentence of the entry in George Gardener’s journal for Saturday, -January 21, 1757: “So no more at Present all being in health by the -Blessing of God but no whale yet.” - -At first, the New England vessels were manned almost entirely by -American-born seamen, including a certain proportion of Indians and -coast-bred negroes. But as the fishery grew, and the number of vessels -increased, the supply of hands became inadequate. Macy says that as -early as about 1750 the Nantucket fishery had attained such proportions -that it was necessary to secure men from Cape Cod and Long Island to -man the vessels. Goode says: “Captain Isaiah West, now eighty years -of age (in 1880), tells me that he remembers when he picked his crew -within a radius of sixty miles of New Bedford; oftentimes he was -acquainted, either personally or through report, with the social -standing or business qualifications of every man on his vessel; and -also that he remembers the first foreigner--an Irishman--that shipped -with him, the circumstance being commented on at that time as a -remarkable one.” Time was, however, when it was easy to gather at New -Bedford or New London a prime crew of tall and stalwart lads from the -fishing coast and from the farms of the interior of New England. Maine -furnished a great many whalemen, and for a long time the romance of -whaling held out a powerful fascination for adventurous farmer boys of -New Hampshire, Vermont, and Upper New York. During Melville’s time the -farms of New England still supplied a contingent of whalers. In writing -of New Bedford he says: “There weekly arrive in this town scores of -green Vermonters and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory -in the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; fellows -who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the axe and snatch the -whale-lance. Many are as green as the Green Mountains whence they -came. In some things you would think them but a few hours old. Look -there! that chap strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and -swallow-tailed coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife. -Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak.” Of -course, these farm-boys were of the verdant innocence Melville paints -them when they signed the ship’s papers, not knowing a harpoon from -a handspike. It is a curious paradox in the history of whaling,--a -paradox best elaborated by Verrill,--that the ship’s crew were almost -never sailors. The captain, of course, the officers and the harpooners -were usually skilled and efficient hands. But so filthy was the work -aboard the whaler, and so perilous; so brutal the treatment of the -crew, and so hazardous the actual earnings, that competent deep-water -sailors stuck to the navy or the merchant marine. When Melville shipped -from Honolulu as an “ordinary seaman in the United States Navy,” he -soon found occasion “to offer up thanksgiving that in no evil hour had -I divulged the fact of having served in a whaler; for having previously -marked the prevailing prejudice of men-of-war’s-men to that much -maligned class of mariners, I had wisely held my peace concerning stove -boats on the coast of Japan.” And in _Redburn_ he says “that merchant -seamen generally affect a certain superiority to ‘blubber-boilers,’ as -they contemptuously style those who hunt the leviathan.” - -When the farmer lads came down to the sea no more in adequate numbers, -the whaleships were forced to fill their crews far from home, and to -take what material they could get. Shipping offices, with headquarters -at the whaling ports, employed agents scattered here and there in -the principal cities, especially in the Middle West and the interior -of New England. These agents received ten dollars for each man they -secured for the ship’s crew. Besides this, each agent was paid for -the incidental expenses of transportation, board, and outfit of every -man shipped. By means of lurid advertisements and circulars, these -agents with emancipated conscience, made glowing promises to the -desperate and the ignorant. Each prospective whaleman was promised a -“lay” of the ship’s catch. For in the whaling business, no set wages -were paid. All hands, including the captain, received certain shares -of the profits called “lays.” The size of the lay was proportioned to -the degree of importance pertaining to the respective duties of the -ship’s company. The captain usually received a lay of from one-twelfth -to one-eighteenth; green hands about the one-hundred-and-fiftieth. -What lay Melville received is not known. Bildad is inclined to think -that the seven hundred and seventy-seventh lay was not too much for -Ishmael; but Bildad was a “pious good man.” Peleg, the “swearing good -man,” after a volcanic eruption with Bildad, puts Ishmael down for -the three hundredth lay. Though this may exemplify the relation that, -in Melville’s mind, existed between profanity and kindness, it tells -us, unfortunately, nothing of the prospective earnings of Melville’s -whaling. Of one thing, however, we can be fairly certain: Melville did -not drive a shrewd and highly profitable bargain. The details of his -life bear out his boast: “I am one of those that never take on about -princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world is ready to board -and lodge me, while I put up at the grim sign of the Thunder Cloud.” - -Each prospective whaler, besides being assured a stated fraction -of the ship’s earnings, was by the agents promised an advance of -seventy-five dollars, an outfit of clothes, as well as board and -lodging until aboard ship. From this imaginary seventy-five dollars -were deducted all the expenses which the agent defrayed, as well as -the ten dollars head payment. By a shameless perversion of exaggerated -charges, a really competent outfitter managed to ship his embryo -whalemen without a cent of the promised advance. The agent who shipped -J. Ross Browne and his unfortunate friend, was a suave gentleman of -easy promises. “Whaling, gentlemen, is tolerably hard at first,” -Browne makes him say, “but it’s the finest business in the world -for enterprising young men. Vigilance and activity will insure you -rapid promotion. I haven’t the least doubt but you’ll come home boat -steerers. I sent off six college students a few days ago, and a poor -fellow who had been flogged away from home by a vicious wife. A whaler, -gentlemen, is a place of refuge for the distressed and persecuted, a -school for the dissipated, an asylum for the needy! There’s nothing -like it. You can see the world; you can see something of life.” - -The first half of one of the truest and most popular of whaling -chanteys, a lyric which must have been sung with heartfelt conviction -by thousands of whalemen, runs: - - ’Twas advertised in Boston, - New York and Buffalo, - Five hundred brave Americans - A-whaling for to go. - - They send you to New Bedford, - The famous whaling port; - They send you to a shark’s store - And board and fit you out. - - They send you to a boarding-house - For a time to dwell. - The thieves there, they are thicker - Than the other side of Hell. - - They tell you of the whaling ships - A-going in and out. - They swear you’ll make your fortune - Before you’re five months out. - -The second half of this ballad celebrates the hardships of life aboard -ship: the poor food and the brutality of the officers. With this -side of whaling we know that Melville was familiar. But of the usual -preliminaries of whaling recounted by Browne and summarised in the -chantey, Melville says not a word, either in _Moby-Dick_ or elsewhere. -Nor does tradition or history supplement this autobiographical -silence. On this point, we know nothing. Surely it would be intensely -interesting to know how far egotism conspired with art in guiding -Melville in the writing of the masterful beginning of _Moby-Dick_. - -No matter by what process Melville found his way to the _Acushnet_, -the whaling fleet was, indeed, at the time of his addition to it, “a -place of refuge for the distressed and persecuted, a school for the -dissipated, an asylum for the needy.” J. Ross Browne was warned before -his sailing that New Bedford “was the sink-hole of iniquity; that the -fitters were all blood-suckers, the owners cheats, and the captains -tyrants.” - -Though the arraignment was incautiously comprehensive, Browne -confesses to have looked back upon it as a sound warning. The boasted -advantages of whaling were not selfishly withheld from any man, no -matter what the race, or the complexion of his hide or his morals. -The Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Scotch, -Irish, in fact, men of almost every country of Europe, and this with -no jealous discrimination against Asia, Africa, or the Islands of the -Pacific, were drawn upon by the whale fleet during the days of its -greatest prosperity. “And had I not been, from my birth, as it were, a -cosmopolite,” Melville remarks parenthetically in _Redburn_. It would -have been difficult for him to find a more promising field for the -exercise of this inherited characteristic, than was whaling in 1841: -and this, indeed, without the nuisance of leaving New Bedford. “In -thoroughfares nigh the docks,” he says, “any considerable seaport will -frequently offer to view the queerest nondescripts from foreign ports. -Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean mariners will -sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent street is not unknown to -Lascars and Malays; and in Bombay, in the Apollo Green, live Yankees -have often scared the natives. But New Bedford beats all Water street -and Wapping. In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; but -in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street corners; -savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their bones unholy flesh. -It makes a stranger stare.” It will be remembered that Ishmael spends -his first night in New Bedford in bed with one of these very cannibals; -and on the following morning, in a spirit of amiable and transcendent -charity, goes down on his knees with his tattooed bed-fellow before a -portable wooden deity: an experience fantastic and highly diverting, -nor at all outside the bounds of possibility. It is a fact to chasten -the optimism of apostles of the promiscuous brotherhood of man, that as -the whaling crews grew in cosmopolitanism, they made no corresponding -advances towards the Millennium. Had Nantucket and New Bedford but -grown to the height of their whaling activities in the fourth century, -they might have sent enterprising agents to the African desert to -tempt ambitious cenobites with offers of undreamed-of luxuries of -mortification. These holy men might have worked miracles in whaling, -and transformed the watery wilderness of the Pacific into a floating -City of God. But in the nineteenth century of grace, the kennel-like -forecastle of the whaler was the refuge not of the athletic saint, but -of the offscourings of all races, the discards of humanity, and of -this fact there is no lack of evidence. Nor did Melville’s ship-mates, -on the whole, seem to have varied this monotony. There survives this -record in his own hand: - - “_What became of the ship’s company on the whale-ship ‘Acushnet,’ - according to Hubbard who came back home in her (more than a four - years’ voyage) and visited me in Pittsfield in 1850._ - - “_Captain Pease_--returned & lives in asylum at the Vineyard. - - “_Raymond_, 1st Mate--had a fight with the Captain & went ashore at - Payta. - - “_Hall_, 2nd Mate--came home & went to California. - - “_3rd Mate_, Portuguese, went ashore at Payta. - - “_Boatswain_, either ran away or killed at Ropo one of the Marquesas. - - “_Smith_, went ashore at Santa, coast of Peru, afterwards committed - suicide at Mobile. - - “_Barney_, boatswain, came home. - - “_Carpenter_, went ashore at Mowee half dead with disreputable - disease. - - “_The Czar._ - - “_Tom Johnson_, black, went ashore at Mowee, half dead (ditto) & died - at the hospital. - - “_Reed_, mulatto--came home. - - “_Blacksmith_, ran away at San Francisco. - - “_Blackus_, little black, ditto. - - “_Bill Green_, after several attempts to run away, came home in the - end. - - “_The Irishman_, ran away, coast of Colombia. - - “_Wright_, went ashore half dead at the Marquesas. - - “_Jack Adams_ and _Jo Portuguese_ came home. - - “_The Old Cook_, came home. - - “_Haynes_, ran away aboard of a Sidney ship. - - “_Little Jack_, came home. - - “_Grant_, young fellow, went ashore half dead, spitting blood, at - Oahu. - - “_Murray_, went ashore, shunning fight at Rio Janeiro. - - “_The Cooper_, came home.” - -Of the twenty-seven men who went out with the ship, only the Captain, -the Second Mate, a Boatswain, the Cook, the Cooper and six of the -mongrel crew (one of which made several futile attempts to escape) -came back home with her. The First Mate had a fight with the Captain -and left the ship; the Carpenter and four of the crew went ashore to -die, two at least with venereal diseases, another went ashore spitting -blood, another to commit suicide. - -[Illustration: SPERM WHALING. THE CAPTURE. - -Drawing by A. Van Beest, R. Swain Gifford and Benj. Russell, 1850.] - -[Illustration: ONE OF SIX WHALING PRINTS. LONDON, 1750.] - -With this company Melville was intimately imprisoned on board the -_Acushnet_ for fifteen months. Of the everyday life of Melville in -this community we know little enough. In _Moby-Dick_ Melville has left -voluminous accounts of the typical occupations of whaling but beyond -this nothing certainly to be identified as derived from life on the -_Acushnet_. The ship’s company on board the _Pequod_, in so far as is -known, belong as purely to romance as characters of fiction can. It -doubtless abbreviates the responsibilities of the custodians of public -morals, that the staple of conversation on board the _Acushnet_, the -scenes enacted in the forecastle and elsewhere in the ship, shall -probably never be known. In _Typee_ Melville says of the crew of -the _Acushnet_, however: “With a very few exceptions, our crew was -composed of a parcel of dastardly and mean-spirited wretches, divided -among themselves, and only united in enduring without resistance the -unmitigated tyranny of the captain.” - -Of the “very few exceptions” that Melville spares the tribute of -contemptuous damnation, one alone does he single out for portraiture. -“He was a young fellow about my own age,” says Melville in _Typee_, of -a seventeen-year-old shipmate, “for whom I had all along entertained -a great regard; and Toby, such was the name by which he went among -us, for his real name he would never tell us, was every way worthy -of it. He was active, ready, and obliging, of dauntless courage, and -singularly open and fearless in the expression of his feelings. I -had on more than one occasion got him out of scrapes into which this -had led him; and I know not whether it was from this cause, or a -certain congeniality of sentiment between us, that he had always shown -a partiality for my society. We had battled out many a long watch -together, beguiling the weary hours with chat, song, and story, mingled -with a good many imprecations upon the hard destiny it seemed our -common fortune to encounter.” - -Toby, like Melville, had evidently not been reared from the cradle to -the life of the forecastle; a fact that, despite his anxious effort, -Toby could not entirely conceal. “He was one of that class of rovers -you sometimes meet at sea,” says Melville, “who never reveal their -origin, never allude to home, and go rambling over the world as if -pursued by some mysterious fate they cannot possibly elude.” - -By the spell of the senses, too, Melville was attracted to Toby. “For -while the greater part of the crew were as coarse in person as in -mind,” says Melville, “Toby was endowed with a remarkably prepossessing -exterior. Arrayed in his blue frock and duck trousers, he was as smart -a looking sailor as ever stepped upon a deck; he was singularly small -and slightly made, with great flexibility of limb. His naturally dark -complexion had been deepened by exposure to the tropical sun, and a -mass of jetty locks clustered about his temples, and threw a darker -shade into his large black eyes.” - -There is preserved among Melville’s papers a lock of hair, unusually -fine and soft in texture, but not so much “jetty” as of a rich -red-black chestnut colour, and marked “a lock of Toby’s hair,” and -dated 1846 the year of the publication of _Typee_. When Melville and -Toby parted in the Marquesas, each came to think that the other had -most likely been eaten by the cannibals. Upon the publication of -_Typee_, Toby was startled into delight to learn of Melville’s survival -and to rub his eyes at the flattering portrayal of himself. In a letter -of his to Melville, dated June 16, 1856, he says: “I am still proud of -the immortality with which you have invested me.” The extent of the -first extremity of his pride is not recorded. But in his first flush -of immortality he seems to have sent Melville a lock of his hair, an -amiable vanity, perhaps, at Melville’s celebration of his personal -charms. - -There survives with the lock of hair a daguerreotype of Toby, also of -1846. There are also two other photographs: the three strewn over a -period of thirty years. These three photographs make especially vivid -the regret at the lack of any early picture of Melville. Melville’s -likeness is preserved only in bearded middle-age: and such portraiture -gives no more idea of his youthful appearance than does Toby’s -washed-out maturity suggest his Byronic earlier manner. There is -every indication that Melville was a young man of a very conspicuous -personal charm. From his books one forms a vivid image of him in the -freshness and agility and full-bloodedness of his youth. To bring this -face to face with the photographs of his middle age is a challenge to -the loyalty of the imagination. All known pictures of Melville postdate -his creative period. They are pictures of Melville the disenchanted -philosopher. As pictures of Melville the adventurer and artist, they -survive as misleading posthumous images. - -Of Toby’s character, Melville says: “He was a strange wayward being, -moody, fitful, and melancholy--at times almost morose. He had a quick -and fiery temper too, which, when thoroughly roused, transported him -into a state bordering on delirium. No one ever saw Toby laugh. I mean -in the hearty abandonment of broad-mouthed mirth. He did sometimes -smile, it is true; and there was a good deal of dry, sarcastic humour -about him, which told the more from the imperturbable gravity of his -tone and manner.” - -After escaping from the _Acushnet_ with Melville into the valley of -Typee, Toby in course of time found himself back to civilisation, where -the history of his life that he kept so secret aboard the _Acushnet_ -came more fully to be known. - -“TOBY” - -RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE - -[Illustration: - - In 1846] - -[Illustration: - - In 1865 -] - -Toby, or Richard Tobias Greene, was, according to notices in Chicago -papers at the time of his death on August 24, 1892, born in Dublin, -Ireland, in 1825. He was as a child brought to America by his father, -who settled in Rochester, New York, where Toby “took public school -and academic courses.” Before he was seventeen he shipped aboard the -_Acushnet_, there to fall in with Melville and to accompany him into -the uncorrupted heart of cannibalism. Toby returned to civilisation -to study law with John C. Spencer, “the noted attorney whose son was -executed for mutiny at Canandaigua, New York,” and was, in time, -admitted to the bar. He relinquished jurisprudence for journalism, -and was for some indefinite period editor of the _Buffalo Courier_. -He restlessly varied his activities by assisting in constructing the -first telegraph line west of New York State, and opened the first -telegraph office in Ohio, at Sandusky. For some years he published the -_Sandusky Mirror_. In 1857 he moved to Chicago and took a place on -the _Times_. With the Civil War he enlisted in the 6th Infantry of -Missouri and for three years was “trusted clerk at General Grant’s -headquarters.” He was discharged June, 1864, to enlist again October -19, 1864, in the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. With the end of the war -he returned to Chicago, ruined in health. Yet he continued to exert -himself as a public-minded citizen, and at his funeral were “many -fellow Masons, comrades from the G.A.R. and others who came to pay -their respects to the late traveller, editor and soldier.” - -After the publication of _Typee_ there were delighted exchanges of -recognition and gratitude between him and Melville. And though these -two men grew further and further apart with years, there continued -between them an irregular correspondence and a pathetic loyalty to -youthful associations: felicitations that grew to be as conscientious -and hollow as the ghastly amiabilities of a college reunion. Toby’s -son, born in 1854, he named Herman Melville Greene (a compliment to -Melville adopted by some of his later shipmates in the navy); and -Melville presented his namesake with a spoon--the gift he always made -to namesakes. Toby’s nephew was named Richard Melville Hair, and -another spoon was shipped west. In 1856 Toby wrote Melville he had -read Melville’s most recent book, _Piazza Tales_. Toby’s critical -efforts exhausted themselves in the comment: “_The Encantadas_ called -up reminiscences of the _Acushnet_, and days gone by.” In 1858, when -Melville was lecturing about the country, Toby addressed a dutiful -letter to his “Dear Old Shipmate,” asking that Melville visit him -while in Cleveland. If the visit was ever made, it has not transpired. -In 1860 Toby wrote to Melville: “Hope you enjoy good health and can -yet stow away five shares of duff! I would be delighted to see you -and ‘freshen the nip’ while you would be spinning a yarn as long as -the main-top bowline.” In acknowledgment Melville during the year -following sent Toby the gift of a spoon. In reply Toby observes: “My -mind often reverts to the many pleasant moonlight watches we passed -together on the deck of the _Acushnet_ as we whiled away the hours -with yarn and song till eight bells.” Even to the third generation -Toby’s descendants were “proud of the immortality” with which Melville -had invested Toby. Miss Agnes Repplier has written on _The Perils of -Immortality_. There are perils, too, in immortalisation. - -But in the days of Toby’s unredeemed immortality on board the -_Acushnet_ before he joined the Masons and the Grand Army of the -Republic, Toby was to Melville a singularly grateful variation to the -filth and hideousness and brutality of the human refuse with which he -cruised the high seas in search of oil and bone. - -Melville was fifteen months on board the _Acushnet_; and for the last -six months of this period he was out of sight of land; cruising “some -twenty degrees to the westward of the Gallipagos”--“cruising after the -sperm-whale under the scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the -billows of the wide-rolling Pacific--the sky above, the sea around, and -nothing else.” - -The ship itself was, at the expiration of this period, deplorable in -appearance. The paint on her sides, burnt up by the scorching sun, -was puffed up and cracked. She trailed weeds after her; about her -stern-piece an unsightly bunch of barnacles had formed; and every -time she rose on a sea, she showed her copper torn away, or hanging -in jagged strips. The only green thing in sight aboard her was the -green paint on the inside of the bulwarks, and that, to Melville, was -of “a vile and sickly hue.” The nearest suggestion of the grateful -fragrance of the loamy earth, was the bark which clung to the wood used -for fuel--bark gnawed off and devoured by the Captain’s pig--and the -mouldy corn and the brackish water in the little trough before which -the solitary tenant of the chicken-coop stood “moping all day long on -that everlasting one leg of his.” - -The usage on board in Melville’s ship, as in that of J. Ross Browne -and many another, had been tyrannical in the extreme. In _Typee_ -he says: “We had left both law and equity on the other side of the -Cape.” And Captain Pease, arbitrary and violent, promptly replied to -all complaints and remonstrances with the butt-end of a hand-spike, -“so convincingly administered as effectually to silence the aggrieved -party.” - -“The sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had been doled -out in scanty allowance.” The provisions on board the _Acushnet_ -had consisted chiefly of “delicate morsels of beef and pork, cut -on scientific principles from every part of the animal and of all -conceivable shapes and sizes, carefully packed in salt and stored away -in barrels; affording a never-ending variety in their different degrees -of toughness, and in the peculiarities of their saline properties. -Choice old water, too, two pints of which were allowed every day to -every soul on board; together with ample store of sea-bread, previously -reduced to a state of petrification, with a view to preserve it either -from decay or consumption in the ordinary mode, were likewise provided -for the nourishment and gastronomic enjoyment of the crew.” Captain -Davis, in his _Nimrod of the Sea_, suggests that petrification is not -the worst state of ship’s-biscuits; he recounts how with mellower fare -“epicures on board hesitate to bite the ship-bread in the dark, and the -custom is to tap each piece as you break it off, to dislodge the large -worms that breed there.” - -The itinerary of this fifteen months’ cruise is not known. In -_Moby-Dick_ Melville says: “I stuffed a shirt or two into my -carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape Horn and the -Pacific.” In _Omoo_, Melville speaks of “an old man-of-war’s-man whose -acquaintance I had made at Rio de Janeiro, at which place the ship -touched in which I sailed from home.” In _White-Jacket_ and _Omoo_ he -speaks of whaling off the coast of Japan. And in _Moby-Dick_, in a -passage that reads like an excerpt from the Book of Revelations, he -indicates a more frigid whereabouts: “I remember the first albatross -I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard upon the -Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I ascended to the -overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the main hatches, I saw a -regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, and with a hooked, Roman -bill sublime. At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, -as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings -shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king’s -ghost in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange -eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. As Abraham -before the angels, I bowed myself; the white thing was so white, its -wings so wide, and in those for ever exiled waters, I had lost the -miserable warping memories of traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at -that prodigy of plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that -darted through me then. But at last I awoke; when the white fowl flew -to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!” - -But what waters the _Acushnet_ sailed, and what shores she touched -before she dropped anchor in the Marquesas, little positively is known. - -The last eighteen or twenty days, however, during which time the light -trade winds silently swept the _Acushnet_ towards the Marquesas, were -to Melville, when viewed in retrospect, “delightful, lazy, languid.” -Land was ahead! And with the refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass -in prospect, Melville and the whole ship’s company resigned themselves -to a disinclination to do anything, “and spreading an awning over the -forecastle, slept, ate, and lounged under it the livelong day.” The -promise of the ship’s at last breaking through the inexorable circle -of the changeless horizon into the fragrance of firm and loamy earth, -gave Melville an eye for the sea-scape he had formerly abhorred. “The -sky presented a clear expanse of the most delicate blue, except along -the skirts of the horizon, where you might see a thin drapery of pale -clouds which never varied their form or colour. The long, measured, -dirge-like swell of the Pacific came rolling along, with its surface -broken by little tiny waves, sparkling in the sunshine. Every now and -then a shoal of flying fish, scared from the water under the bows, -would leap into the air, and fall the next moment like a shower of -silver into the sea.” - -In later years, memory treacherously transformed this watery -environment upon which Melville and Toby had vented their youthful and -impotent imprecations. From his farm in the Berkshire Hills, he looked -back regretfully upon his rovings over the Pacific, and by a pathetic -fallacy, convinced himself that in them “the long supplication of my -youth was answered.” The spell of the Pacific descended upon him not -while he was cruising the Pacific, however, but while he was busy upon -his farm in Pittsfield, “building and patching and tinkering away in -all directions,” as he described his activities to Hawthorne. - -Strangely jumbled anticipations haunted Melville, he says, as drowsing -on the silent deck of the _Acushnet_ he was being borne towards land: -towards the Marquesas, one of the least known islands in the Pacific. - -“The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish things does -the very name spirit up!” exclaims Melville in excited prospect. -“Naked houris--cannibal banquets--groves of cocoa-nut--coral -reefs--tattooed chiefs--and bamboo temples; sunny valleys planted -with bread-fruit-trees--carved canoes dancing on the flashing blue -waters--savage woodlands guarded by horrible idols--_heathenish rites -and human sacrifices_.” - -After fifteen months aboard the _Acushnet_, Melville was ripe to -discover alluring Edenic beauties in tropical heathendom. And in the -end, so intolerable was the prospect of dragging out added relentless -days under the guardianship of Captain Pease, that as a last extremity, -Melville preferred to risk the fate of Captain Cook, and find a -strolling cenotaph in the bellies of a tribe of practising cannibals. - - - - -CHAPTER IX - -THE PACIFIC - - “There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose - gentle awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; - like those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried - Evangelist St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, - wide-rolling watery prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four - continents, the waves should rise and fall, and ebb, and flow - unceasingly; for here, millions of mixed shades and shadows, drowned - dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; all that we call lives and souls, - lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing like slumberers in their beds; - the ever-rolling waves but made so by their restlessness.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Moby-Dick_. - - -First sighted by Balboa in the year 1513, and for more than two -centuries regarded by the Spaniards as their own possession, these -midmost waters of the world lay locked behind one difficult and -dangerous portal. During these centuries the Indian Ocean and the -Atlantic--but arms of the Pacific--were gloomy with mysteries. The -Spanish sailors used to chant a litany when they saw St. Elmo’s Fire -glittering on the mast-head, and exorcised the demon of the waterspout -by elevating their swords in the form of crosses. Mermaids still lived -in the tranquil blue waters. The darkness of the storm was thronged -with gigantic shadowy figures. The pages of Purchas and Hackluyt -offer no lack of supernatural visitations. Thus superstition joined -with substantial danger to guard the entrance to the Pacific. Balboa -himself was beheaded. Everybody who had to do with Magellan’s first -passage into the Pacific came to a bad end. The captain was murdered -in a brawl by the natives of the Philippines; the sailor De Lepe, who -first sighted the straits from the mast-head, was taken prisoner by the -Algerians, embraced the faith of the False Prophet, and so lost his -everlasting soul; Ruy Falero died raving mad. There was a fatality upon -the whole ship’s company. - -Two years before Magellan’s memorable voyage, the western boundary of -the Pacific had been approached by the Portuguese, Francisco Serrano -having discovered the Molucca Islands immediately after the conquest -of Malacca by the celebrated Albuquerque. To stimulate exertion, and -to preclude contention in the rivalry of dominion between Portugal and -Spain, Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander the Sixth, drew a line down the -map through the western limits of the Portuguese province of Brazil, -and allotted to Portugal all heathen lands she should discover on -the eastern half of this line; to Spain, all heathen lands to the -west. So shadowy was the knowledge of geography at the time that this -apportionment of His Holiness left it doubtful to which hemisphere the -Moluccas belonged; and the precious spices peculiar to those islands -rendered the decision important. To ascertain this was the purpose of -Magellan’s voyage across the Pacific. In this waste of waters Magellan -made two discoveries: a range of small islands--including Guam among -its number--which he named Ladrones, on account of the thievish -disposition of the natives; and, at the cost of his life, one of the -islands which has since been called the Philippines. - -The voyage of Magellan proved that by the allotment of Alexander the -Sixth, the Pacific belonged to Spain. And though for eight generations -the Spaniards were hereditary lords of the Pacific, they soon grew -greedy and jealous and lazy in their splendid and undisturbed monopoly. -Once or twice, it is true, the English devils took the great galleon: -but only once or twice in all these years. Lesser spoils occasionally -fell into the hands of pirates; for did not Dampier take off Juan -Fernandez a vessel laden with “a quantity of marmalade, a stately and -handsome mule, and an immense wooden image of the Virgin Mary”? Towns, -too, were occasionally sacked. But the Spaniards feared little danger, -and ran few risks. They grew richer and lazier, and troubled themselves -little in exploring the great expanse of the Pacific. They coasted the -Americas as far north as California, which they half-suspected to be -an island. The Galapagos, Juan Fernandez, and Masafuera they knew; a -part of China, a part of Japan, the Philippines, Celebes, Timor, and -the Ladrones. Voyages across the Pacific between Manilla and Acapulco -were not infrequent: but these voyages were sterile in discovery. The -traditional route, once through the Straits of Magellan, was to touch -at Juan Fernandez, coast South America, stand in at Panama, turn out to -sea again, appear off Acapulco, and then sail in the parallel of 13° N. -to the Ladrones. The Abbé Raynal states that the strictest orders were -given by the Spanish Government prohibiting captains on any account -to deviate from the track laid down on their charts during the voyage -between these places. - -In the darkness of this uncharted ocean there was believed to stretch -a great southern continent of fabulous wealth and beauty: the Terra -Australis Incognita that survived pertinaciously in the popular -imagination until the time of Captain Cook. Members of the Royal -Society had proved, beyond doubt, that the right balance of the earth -required a southern continent; geographers pointed out how Quiros, Juan -Fernandez and Tasman had touched at various points of this continent. -Politicians and poets agreed that treasures of all kinds would be found -there,--though they varied in their appropriation of these Utopian -resources. The controversy over the existence of this continent was -vehemently revived in 1770 by the appearance of Alexander Dalrymple’s -_An Historical Collection of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the -South Pacific Ocean_. Dalrymple was an ardent advocate of the reality -of the Terra Australis Incognita, and to encourage an experimental -confirmation of his faith, he dedicated his handsome quarto: “To the -man who, emulous of Magellan and the heroes of former times, undeterred -by difficulties and unseduced by pleasure, shall persist through every -obstacle, and not by chance but by virtue and good conduct succeed in -establishing an intercourse with a Southern Continent.” Dr. Kippis, -Captain Cook’s biographer, writing in 1788, says he remembers how -Cook’s “imagination was captivated in the early part of his life with -the hypothesis of a southern continent. He has often dwelt upon it with -rapture.” The year following Dalrymple’s dedication, Captain Cook, back -from his first voyage in the Pacific, was commissioned by the Earl of -Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, to go out and settle once and -for all the mystery of the Southern Continent. So long as this mystery -remained unsettled, the Pacific stretched a great limbo pregnant with -the wildest fancies. Between the times of Magellan and Captain Cook -there was no certainty as to what revelations it held to disgorge. - -It was in 1575 that Drake climbed the hill and the tree upon its summit -from which could be seen both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans. -“Almighty God,” this devout pirate exclaimed, “of thy holiness give me -life and leave to sail in an English ship upon that sea!” God heard -his prayer, and blessed him with rich pirate spoils in the Pacific, -and honoured him at home by a “stately visit” from the Queen. Yet he -died at sea, and in a leaden coffin his body was dropped into the -ocean slime. Cavendish continued the British tradition of lucrative -piracy, and in 1586 captured the great plate galleon. This stimulated -competition in high-sea robbery, until in 1594, the capture of Sir -Richard Hawkins daunted even English courage. - -In 1595, Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, departing from the beaten track -across the Pacific on his way to occupy the Solomon Islands which he -had discovered twenty-eight years earlier, chanced upon a new group -of islands which he named Las Marquesas de Mendoca, in honour of his -patron Mendoca, Marquis of Cenete, and viceroy of Peru. He had mass -said on shore, refitted his vessels, planted a few crosses in devout -memorial, to die before he accomplished the object of his voyage, and -to leave the Marquesas unmolested by visitors until visited by Captain -Cook in 1774. It was in the Marquesas, of course, that Melville lived -with the cannibals. - -The seventeenth century saw the Dutch upon the Pacific. During the -greater part of the century, England was busy with troublesome affairs -at home; the Spanish were too indolent to bestir themselves. Unmolested -by competition, the great Dutch navigators, Joris Spilbergen, La -Maire, Schouten, and, most famous of all, Tasman, drifted among the -islands of the extreme southwest. It was not until 1664 that the -French sailed upon the Pacific. To the end of the century belong the -buccaneers--Morgan, Sawkin, Edward Cooke, Woodes, Rogers, Cowley, -Clipperton, Shelvocke and Dampier. William Dampier, the greatest of -these voyagers, crossed the Pacific, missing all islands but New -Zealand. He added but little to the stock of knowledge that had been -already collected from the narratives of Tasman, or Schouten. W. -Clark Russell, in his life of Dampier, suggests it as probable “that -his failure, coupled with the despondent tone that characterises his -narrative, went far to retard further explorations of the South Seas. -It was no longer disputed that a vast body of land stood in those -waters. All that Dampier said in its favour was theoretical; all that -he had to report as an eye-witness, all that he could speak to as -facts, was extremely discouraging.” The myth of the entrancing beauties -and voluptuous charms of the South Seas owes nothing to Dampier except, -perhaps, a delayed inception. Of the inhabitants of the South Seas he -reports that they had the most unpleasant looks and the worst features -of any people he ever saw; and, says he: “I have seen a great variety -of Savages.” He speaks of them as “blinking Creatures,” with “black -skins and Hair frizzled, tall, thin, etc.” - -Russell considered the depressing influence of Dampier’s recorded -adventures manifested in the direction given to later navigators. -Byron in 1764, Wallis, Mouat, and Cartaret in 1766, were despatched on -voyages round the world to search the South Seas for new lands; but -only one of them, Cartaret, deviated from Dampier’s track, confining -his explorations in this way to a glance at New Guinea and New Britain, -to the discovery of New Ireland, lying adjacent to the island Dampier -sailed around, and to giving names to the Solomon and other groups. -Both Byron and Wallis, it is true, did enter the archipelago of the -Society Islands, Wallis discovering island after island, until he -reached Tahiti. Wallis’s account of Otaheite--on the authority of -the London Missionary Society “to be pronounced so as to rhyme with -the adjective _mighty_”--and its people, occupies a great part of -his narrative. Though his reception was not without a show of arms -and bloodshed, the native women exerted themselves tirelessly to do -unselfish penance for the hostile behaviour of the native males. Oammo, -the ruling chief, retired from the scene, leaving the felicitation -of the strangers in the hands of his consort, Oberea, “whose whole -character,” according to the observations of the London Missionary -Society, “for sensuality exceeded even the usual standard of Otaheite.” -In the establishment of friendship that ensued, Wallis sent Lieutenant -Furneaux ashore to erect a British pennant, and in defiance of the -Pope, to take formal possession of the island in the name of King -George the Third. Hopelessly unimpressed by the whole transaction, -the natives took down the flag during the night, and for a long time -afterwards the ruling chieftains wore it about their persons as a badge -of royalty. Oberea’s hospitality was requited by a parting gift of some -turkeys, a gander, a goose, and a cat. Oberea’s live stock figures -repeatedly in the later annals of Tahiti. - -Early in April, 1768, Tahiti was again visited by Europeans. Louis de -Bougainville was in Tahiti only eight days. But, if Bougainville’s -account be not the bravado of patriotism, during that period his ship’s -company seem to have outdone their English predecessors in sensuality -and open indecency. Several murders were committed more privately. And -the natives, with an eye for the detection of such matters, exposed -among the ship’s crew a woman who had sailed from France disguised -in man’s apparel. Bougainville attached to himself a native youth, -Outooroo, brother of a chieftain; Outooroo accompanied Bougainville -to France. Within a few weeks after sailing from Tahiti, Bougainville -discovered that Outooroo, as well as others aboard, were infected with -venereal disease. Wallis very specifically asserts that his ship’s -company were untouched by disreputable symptoms six months before, and -still longer after their visit at Tahiti. In any event, before the -first year had elapsed after the discovery of Tahiti, its inhabitants -were exhibiting unmistakable signs of their contact with civilisation. -In 1799, the London Missionary Society gave warning to the world: “The -present existence, and the general prevalence of the evil, is but too -obvious; and it concurs with other dreadful effects of sensuality, to -threaten the entire population of this beautiful island, if it is not -seasonably averted by the happy influence of the gospel.” The steady -extinction of the Polynesian races would seem to indicate that this -happy influence has, to date, not been efficacious. When Pope Alexander -the Sixth gave to the indolent Spanish the heathen for inheritance, His -Holiness was being used by a mysterious Providence as the guardian of -heathendom. It was not until he had been for over two centuries and a -half in his tomb, that the heretical and more enterprising English came -to dispel the Egyptian darkness that hung protectingly over most of -the islands of the Pacific, and to expose a competent barbarism to the -devastating aggressions of civilisation. - -Everybody knows how in 1769 the Royal Society, discovering that there -would happen a transit of Venus, and that this interesting astronomical -event would be best observed from some place in the Pacific, hit upon -James Cook--Byron, Wallis and Cartaret all being in the Pacific at -the time--master in the Royal Navy, to command the expedition. The -Marquesas were chosen as the place for the observation; but while the -expedition was being fitted out, Captain Wallis returned to England, -bringing news of the discovery of Tahiti. So well known is the story -of Captain Cook that few can boast the distinction of total ignorance -of his three voyages to the Pacific,--the first in command of an -astronomical expedition, the second in search of a Southern Continent, -the third in quest of a Northwest Passage; of his discoveries and -adventures in every conceivable part of the Pacific; of his repeated -returns to Tahiti; of his finally being killed on the island called by -him Owhyhee, murdered despite the fact that he had shown a power of -conciliation granted to no other navigator in these seas. For, a long -time ago, there lived, on the island of Hawaii, Lono the swine-god. -He was jealous of his wife, and killed her. Driven to frenzy by the -act, he went about boxing and wrestling with every man he met, crying, -“I am frantic with my great love.” Then he sailed away for a foreign -land, prophesying at his departure: “I shall return in after times on -an island bearing cocoa-nut trees, swine, and dogs.” When, after a -year’s absence, Cook returned to Hawaii, he arrived the day after a -great battle, and the victorious natives were absolutely certain that -Cook was the great swine-god, Lono, who long ages ago had departed mad -with love, now, to add lustre to their triumph, returned on an island -bearing cocoa-nut trees, swine, and dogs. This attribution of deity was -hardly complimentary to Cook’s crew. And in time the islanders tired -of their enthusiasm and the expense of entertaining strolling deities. -After sixteen days of prodigal hospitality, the natives began stroking -the sides and patting the bellies of the sailors, telling them, partly -by signs, partly by words, it was time to go. They went. But a week -afterwards the ship returned. There was a quarrel. Among some people a -quarrel leads to a fight. In a fight somebody naturally gets killed. -Or, it may have been,--Walter Besant suggests,--that perhaps it may -have occurred to some native humourist to wonder how a god would look -and behave with a spear stuck right through him. Cook fell into the -water, and spoke no more. - -In his life, as in his death, Cook enjoyed all the successes. Boswell -dined with him at Sir John Pringle’s on April 2, 1776, and reported the -glowing event to Dr. Johnson. A snuff-box was carved out of the planks -of one of his vessels, and presented to James Fenimore Cooper. Fanny -Burney records with pride her father’s meeting the famous navigator, -whom she herself met in society and in her own home. Joseph Priestly -contemplated accompanying Cook to the South Seas. An artist--W. -Hodges--was officially appointed to accompany him to perpetuate his -exploits in oil. He read learned papers before the Royal Society, for -one of which the counsel adjudged him the Copley Gold Medal. Six times -was his portrait painted, and once was it seriously proposed that Dr. -Johnson be appointed his official biographer. Not even by Omai, a -native of Tahiti that Captain Furneaux brought to England, was Captain -Cook’s glory eclipsed. And Omai was received by the King, was painted -by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was laden with gifts when he was taken back -to Tahiti by Captain Cook on his third voyage. Omai, too, attended -meetings of the Royal Society, and it is to his credit that he behaved -himself fairly well. It was regretted by the Directors of the London -Missionary Society that though “great attention was paid to him by some -of the nobility, it was chiefly directed to his amusement, and tended -rather to augment than to diminish his habitual profligacy.” In 1785-6, -there was repeatedly performed at Covent Garden Theatre a pantomime -named after him. The characters, besides Omai, were Towha, the Guardian -Genius of Omai’s Ancestors; Otoo, Father of Omai; Harlequin, Servant -to Omai. To give a blend of edification to romance, the performance -included, so a surviving play-bill announces, “a Procession exactly -representing the dresses, weapons and manners of the Inhabitants of -Otaheite, New Zealand, Tanna, Marquesas, Friendly, Sandwich and Easter -Islands, and other countries visited by Captain Cook.” In 1789, so -vividly was the tragic end of Captain Cook still mourned, that at the -Theatre-Royal, Covent Garden, was presented a spectacular tribute -posted as _The Death of Captain_. It was “a Grand Serious Pantomimic -Ballet, in Three Parts, as now exhibiting in Paris with uncommon -applause, with the Original French Music, New Scenery, Machinery, and -other Decorations.” This performance may have been inspired by an -_Ode on the Death of Captain Cook_ penned by Miss Seward, the Swan of -Lichfield: an ode praised by her fellow-townsman, Dr. Johnson. In 1774 -there appeared in London “An Epistle from Oberea, Queen of Otaheite, -to Joseph Banks, Esq., translated by T. Q. Z., Esq., Professor of -the Otaheite Language in Dublin, and of all the Languages of the -Undiscovered Islands in the South Seas, enriched with Historical and -Explanatory Notes,” and so novel and popular was the South Sea manner, -that its author was mistaken for a wit, and his efforts at humour -repeatedly and laboriously imitated. As a corrective to such levity, -there appeared in 1779 an effusion in verse, adorned with vignette -depicting Tahitian women dancing, entitled _The Injured Islanders; or, -The Influence of Art upon the Happiness of Nature_. There is no lack -of evidence to prove that the exploits of Captain Cook brought the -South Seas, and especially Tahiti, into exuberant and irresponsible -popularity. Nor did business enterprise nap during the festivities. -Information which had been received of the great utility of the -bread-fruit, induced the merchants and planters of the British West -Indies to request that means might be used to transplant it thither. -For this purpose a ship was benevolently commissioned by George the -Third: the _Bounty_, commanded by Lieutenant Bligh. The voyage of the -_Bounty_ ended in a horrible tragedy and an intensely interesting -romance. The story of the mutiny of the _Bounty_, and its astonishing -sequels, joined further to vitalise the interest in the South Seas. A -frigate, significantly called the _Pandora_, was sent out from England -to Tahiti to seize the _Bounty_ mutineers. Though the _Pandora_ was -despatched as a messenger of justice, the usual course of festivity, -amusement and debaucheries was uninterrupted during the continuance of -the ship at Tahiti. And the year following, with British doggedness, -Captain Bligh returned to accomplish the purpose of his former -voyage which had been frustrated by mutiny. In 1793, the _Daedalus_, -Vancouver’s storeship, stopped at Tahiti, leaving behind a Swedish -sailor with a taste for savagery. The same year an American whaler, the -_Matilda_, was wrecked off Tahiti, and the crew, delighted at their -good fortune, betrayed no inclination for an immediate departure. - -But while the frivolous, the sentimental, and the ungodly were busy -converting Tahitian savagery into a Georgian idyll, the well-starched -Wesleyan conscience crackled in horror at the black unredemption of the -South Sea heathen. “The discoveries made in the great southern seas by -the voyages undertaken at the command of his present majesty, George -the Third,” says a spokesman for the community, “excited wonderful -attention, and brought, as it were, into light a world till then almost -unknown. The perusal of the accounts of these repeated voyages could -not but awaken, in such countries as our own, various speculations, -according as men were differently affected. But when these islands were -found to produce little that would excite the cupidity of ambition, or -answer the speculations of the interested”--well, then it was that the -protestant conscience bestirred itself, and on September 25, 1795, -founded the London Missionary Society. It celebrated its first birthday -by determining to begin work with the islands of the southern ocean, -“as these, for a long time past, had excited peculiar attention. Their -situation of mental ignorance and moral depravity strongly impressed on -our minds the obligation we lay under to endeavour to call them from -darkness into marvellous light. The miseries and diseases which their -intercourse with Europeans had occasioned seemed to upbraid our neglect -of repairing, if possible, these injuries; but above all, we longed to -send to them the everlasting gospel, the first and most distinguished -of blessings which Jehovah has bestowed upon the children of men.” - -A select committee of ministers, approved for evangelical principles -and ability, was appointed to examine the candidates for the -mission--who applied in great numbers--as to their views, capacity, -and “knowledge in the mystery of godliness.” Thirty missionaries -were chosen: four ministers, six carpenters, two shoemakers, two -bricklayers, two tailors (one of whom, “late of the royal artillery”), -two smiths, two weavers, a surgeon, a hatter, a cotton manufacturer, a -cabinet maker, a harness maker, a tinsmith, a cooper, and a butcher. -There were three women and three children also in the party. On August -10, 1796, on the ship _Duff_, commanded by Captain Wilson, who had -been wonderfully converted to God, this band, in chorus with a hundred -voices, sang “Jesus, at thy command--we launch into the deep” as they -sailed out of Spithead. The singing, it is said, produced “a pleasing -and solemn sensation.” On Sunday, March 5, 1797, after an uneventful -voyage, the _Duff_ dropped anchor at Tahiti. Seventy-four canoes came -out to welcome the strangers and broke the Sabbath by crowding about -the decks, “dancing and capering like frantic persons.” Nor was the -first impression made upon the Missionaries entirely favourable; “their -wild disorderly behaviour, strong smell of cocoa-nut oil, together -with the tricks of the arreoies, lessened the favourable impression we -had formed of them; neither could we see aught of that elegance and -beauty in their women for which they had been so greatly celebrated.” -Conversation with the natives was facilitated by the presence of two -tattooed Swedes--one formerly of the crew of the _Matilda_, the other -left by the _Daedalus_. During sermon and prayer the natives were -quiet and thoughtful, “but when the singing struck up, they seemed -charmed and filled with amazement; sometimes they would talk and -laugh, but a nod of the head brought them to order.” Next day,--for -they arrived on the Sabbath,--some of the missionaries landed and were -presented with the house King Pomare had built for Captain Bligh. This -important matter settled, the chief thought it time to enquire after -entertainment; “first sky-rockets, next the violin and dancing, and -lastly the bagpipe.” Lacking such diversions, the missionaries offered -a few solos on the German flute,--and “it plainly appeared that more -lively music would have pleased them better.” - -Domestic arrangements established, to the great diversion of the -natives, the missionaries tried to get some clothes on some of them. -The queen had to rip open the garments, it is true, to get into them; -but one Tanno Manoo, who was given a warm week-day dress, and a showy -morning gown and petticoat for the Sundays, “when dressed, made a very -decent appearance; taking more pains to cover her breasts, and even to -keep her feet from being seen, than most of the ladies of England have -of late done.” The natives were deeply perplexed by the proprieties of -the Missionaries, and especially by what to them seemed the unnatural -chastity of the men. - -Since the Missionaries had resolved to distribute their blessings, they -sent a party of brethren to make investigations on the Marquesas. The -first visitors the ship received from the shore were “seven beautiful -young women, swimming quite naked, except for a few green leaves -tied round their middle; nor did our mischievous goats even suffer -them to keep their green leaves, but as they turned to avoid them -they were attacked on each side alternately, and completely stripped -naked.” Such, too, was their “symmetry of features, that as models -for the statuary and painter their equals can seldom be found.” As -they danced about the deck, frequently bursting out into mad fits of -laughter, or talking as fast as their tongues could go, surely they -must have convinced more than one of the meditative brethren of the -total depravity of man. Nor did these shameless savages confine their -excursions to the decks. “It was not a little affecting to see our own -seamen repairing the rigging, attended by a group of the most beautiful -females, who were employed to pass the ball, or carry the tar-bucket, -etc.; and this they did with the greatest assiduity, often besmearing -themselves with the tar in the execution of their office. No ship’s -company, without great restraints from God’s grace, could ever have -resisted such temptations.” - -Harris and Crook, two of the brethren, daring temptation, decided to -stay at the Marquesas, and were moved ashore. But before the _Duff_ -sailed back to Tahiti, Harris was found on the shore about four -o’clock one morning “in a most pitiable plight, and like one out of -his senses.” It appears that the Marquesan chief Tenae, taking Crook -upon an inland jaunt, had departed, conferring upon Harris all the -privileges of domesticity. Tenae’s wife, sharing her husband’s ideas -of hospitality, was troubled at Harris’ reserve. So, “finding herself -treated with total neglect, became doubtful of his sex,” says the -London Missionary Society in a report dedicated to George the Third, -“and acquainted some of the other females with her suspicion, who -accordingly came in the night, when he slept, and satisfied themselves -concerning that point, but not in such a peaceable way but that they -awoke him. Discovering so many strangers, he was greatly terrified; -and, perceiving what they had been doing, was determined to leave a -place where the people were so abandoned and given up to wickedness; -a cause which should have excited a contrary resolution.” Harris was -forty years old at the time, and by trade a cooper. - -Crook, however, remained in the Marquesas for eighteen months, where, -alone, he tried to enlighten and improve the natives. The Marquesas had -a bad reputation among whalemen, and though they had been occasionally -visited by enterprising voyagers--by Fanning, Krusenstern, Porter, -and Finch--they for long remained especially virulent in their native -depravity. It is true that Crook returned after many years to place -among the Marquesans four converted natives from the Society Islands. -In 1834, two missionaries from England, accompanied by Darling from -Tahiti and several converted natives, recommenced the arduous work of -evangelising this ferocious people. During four years the faithful -Stallworthy patiently toiled at his station, when in 1838 a French -frigate landed two Catholic priests in the very and the only spot then -cultivated by an English protestant labourer. These fellow-workers in -Christ competed for the souls of heathens. Though, in 1839, to even -the odds, Stallworthy received a reinforcement of one of his English -brethren, after two years the English missionaries found it impossible -“to maintain usefully their ground against the united influence of -heathen barbarism, popish craft, French power, and French profligacy.” -Thus “ravished from the Protestant charity that had so long watched for -its salvation,” the Marquesans, when discovered by Melville, were in -large part virgin in their barbarism. - -At Tahiti, the brethren of the London Missionary Society continued to -work unrestingly, and against incredible discouragement. The natives -were, as Captain Cook discovered, “prodigious expert” as thieves. One -snatcher-up of unconsidered trifles, when by way of punishment chained -to a pillar with a padlock, not only contrived to get away, but to -steal the padlock. Yet, by the representation of the London Missionary -Society, “their honesty to one another seems unimpeachable,” and they -cultivated a Utopian sense of property: “They have no writing or -records, but memory or landmarks. Every man knows his own; and he would -be thought of all characters the basest, who should attempt to infringe -on his neighbour, or claim a foot of land that did not belong to him, -or his adopted friend.” Indeed, despite the reprobation dealt out to -them in tracts compiled for Sunday-school edification (Mrs. F. L. -Mortimer’s _The Night of Toil_ being a typically diverting libel), the -London Missionary Society, in its official reports, was--paradoxically -enough--their most convincing apologist. The natural beauties of their -country were again expatiated upon to the glory of the First Artist. -So prodigal was the natural abundance of Tahiti that the brethren -glorified it by converting it into a temptation. One of the brethren -wrote in his journal: “O Lord, how greatly hast thou honoured me, -that thousands of thy dear children should be praying for _me_, a -worm! Lord, thou hast set me in a heathen land, but a land, if I may -so speak, with milk and honey. O put more grace and gratitude into -my poor cold heart, and grant that I may never with Jeshurun grow -fat and kick.” The natives themselves were untroubled by any such -compunctions. “Their life is without toil,” the brethren reported, -“and every man is at liberty to do, go and act as he pleases, without -the distress of care or apprehension of want: and as their leisure is -great, their sports and amusements are various.” Their personal beauty, -their almost ostentatious cleanliness, their boundless generosity, -were by the London Missionary Society insisted upon. The best of them, -however, lived “in a fearfully promiscuous intercourse,” and emulated -the classical Greeks in infanticide and other reprehensible practices. -Yet do the brethren allow that “in their dances alone is immodesty -permitted; it may be affirmed, they have in many instances more refined -ideas of decency than ourselves. They say that Englishmen are ashamed -of nothing, and that we have led them to public acts of indecency -never before practised among them.” But then, as the London Missionary -Society says in another place: “Their ideas, no doubt, of shame and -delicacy are very different from ours; they are not yet advanced to any -such state of civilisation and refinement.” At their departure from -native custom, however, they were untroubled by contrition. When asked -“what is the true atonement for sin?” they answered, “Hogs and pearls.” -When the pleasant novelty of being exhorted and preached to wore off, -they did not behave impeccably during the devotions of the brethren. -They often cried out “lies” and “nonsense” during the sermon. At other -times they tried to make each other laugh by repeating sentences after -the brethren, or by playing antics, and making faces. Many of the -natives used to lie down and sleep as soon as the sermon began, while -“others were so trifling as to make remarks upon the missionaries’ -clothes, or upon their appearance. Thus Satan filled their hearts -with folly, lest they should believe and be saved.” All the best -inducements the brethren could hold out to tempt them into “the divine -life” moved them not. “You talk to us of salvation, and we are dying,” -they said; “we want no other salvation than to be cured of our diseases -and to live here always, and to eat and talk.” So unappreciative were -they of the efforts of the brethren that they explained the presence -of the missionaries in Tahiti as growing out of a sensible desire -to escape from the ugliness and worry and brutality of European -civilisation. As for the lacerated solicitude and strange unselfishness -of the brethren to confer upon each of them a soul with all of its -pestering responsibilities: that, they found totally incomprehensible. - -[Illustration: “We are going to church, you see; and Kanoa, my Hawaiian -associate, is blowing a shell to call the people to meeting, as we have -no bell. Kanoa’s wife, with one of her children is just behind us. Be -sure to look at the king, son of the one who was killed, in his long -shirt, and under his umbrella. The queen will come too, for both are -very regular in their attendance; and, what is better still, we hope -they are Christians. - -“You may say, perhaps, that some things in this picture look more like -breaking the Sabbath than keeping it; and you are quite right. - -“The woman whom you see is a heathen, carrying her husband’s skull -as she goes on a visit to some other village. A party of the natives -are pressing scraped cocoanuts in an oil-press, to get the oil to -buy tobacco with. The dog is one of the many, as heathenish as their -masters.” - - From _Story of the Morning Star_, - By Rev. Hiram Bingham. - - EVANGELIZING POLYNESIA] - -Excluding all considerations of intellect--in which both the -Missionaries and the Polynesians seem to have been about equally -endowed--the abyss between the brethren and the heathen was the abyss -that separated John Knox from Aristophanes and the Greek Anthology: -the abyss between the animal integrity of classical antiquity and the -Hebraic heritage of the agonised conscience. Reason may pass back and -forth over this chasm: but no man once touched by the traditions of -Christianity can ever again sling his heart back across the abyss. -If he attempt the feat--as witness the _Intimate Journals_ of Paul -Gauguin--he but adds corruption to crucifixion, and there is no doubt -as to the last state of that man. - -If the fall from innocence was begun in Eden, it was sealed beyond -redemption in Bethlehem. For at the time of the inception of -Christianity, the pagan world was going to its doom, and its death -agonies were frightful in the extreme. Something had to be done to -save humanity,--and something drastic. And humanity--which was at the -same time the priest and the victim--found in the cross the justest -symbol of its triumph in utter human defeat. More effectively to -slander this world, Heaven was set up in libellous contrast; in order -to heap debasement upon the flesh, the spirit was opposed to it as -an infinitely precious eternal entity, tainted by contact with its -mortal habitation. Blessedness lay not in harmony, but in division, -and utter confusion was mistaken for total depravity. “For the flesh -lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these -are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things -that ye would.” But these things classical antiquity did--being given -over to a reprobate mind, so St. Paul tells us. The Wesleyan brethren -found in Polynesia the same untroubled indulgence in “unrighteousness, -fornication and wickedness,” that had so troubled St. Paul. But in -Tahiti there were no signs of the intellect that classical antiquity -exhibited in the days of its reprobation. And though the Polynesians -seemed to have thriven on unrighteousness, the brethren itched to -infect them with misgivings, and this in a Holy Name. Melville -was profoundly stirred to loathing at these efforts: a loathing -heightened by the later contentions introduced into Tahiti by the rival -proselyting of French Catholic missionaries. Lost in doubt and shame at -such spectacles, in _Clarel_ he thus invokes Christ: - - “By what art - Of conjuration might the heart - Of heavenly love, so sweet, so good, - Corrupt into the creeds malign - Begetting strife’s pernicious brood, - Which claimed for patron thee divine? - Anew, anew, - For this thou bleedest, Anguished Face; - Yea, thou through ages to accrue, - Shall the Medusa shield replace: - In beauty and in terror too - Shall paralyse the nobler race-- - Smite or suspend, perplex, deter-- - Tortured, shall prove the torturer.” - -The brethren in Tahiti were without any of Melville’s misgivings. -Their faith was extraordinary. No less extraordinary was the native -imperviousness to salvation. After the brethren had ceased to be an -amusing novelty with gifts to bestow, the natives submitted them -to neglect and mockery. Revolts against King Pomare and constant -war kept the brethren in peril of their lives without releasing -them to celestial jubilation. The Napoleonic wars cut them off from -communication with England. During the first twelve years they heard -from home only three times. These days of fruitless trial sifted the -party. Many of the brethren seized any opportunity that offered to -sail away on chance trading vessels. Of the seven who remained, two -died. In 1801 eight new brethren came out to reinforce the number, then -reduced to four. In 1804 old King Pomare died, and his son Oto became -King under the title Pomare II. In the wars that followed, the mission -seemed broken up: their house was burned, the printing press destroyed, -and six of the brethren removed from Tahiti to Huahine. Two remained, -however, to carry on the forlorn hope. But after all these years -Pomare’s heart began to soften. His gods seemed to be standing him in -little stead. Defeated in battle, he escaped to Eimeo, and invited -the missionaries to follow him. Here he ate a sacred turtle, and when -no harm came to him he dared still further. Meanwhile it was proposed -in England that proselyting in Polynesia be discontinued, since after -sixteen years not one conversion had been effected. But those of -undaunted faith protested. The ship bearing fresh supplies and news of -the revived determination of those at home to prosecute the work was -met in mid-ocean with the cargo of the rejected idols of the Tahitians. -In a church seven hundred and twelve feet long, with twenty-nine doors -and three pulpits, all paid for by himself,--the church in which -Melville witnessed Sunday devotion--King Pomare had himself moistened -on the forehead with the water of life. - -Backed by their royal patron, the Missionaries undertook to convert -Tahiti into a Polynesian Chautauqua. As Mrs. Helen Barrett Montgomery -says, in her _Christus Redemptor_: “We cannot follow the glowing story -of how the King had a code of laws made and read it to seven thousand -of his people, who, by solemn vote, made these the law of the land.” In -1839, Captain Hervey, in command of a whale-ship, reported of Tahiti: -“It is the most civilised place I have been at in the South Seas. They -have a good code of laws and no liquors are allowed to be landed on the -island. It is one of the most gratifying sights the eye can witness -to see, on Sunday, in their church, which holds about four thousand, -the Queen near the pulpit with all her subjects about her, decently -apparelled and seemingly in pure devotion.” Three years later, Melville -attended one of these services, and was less favourably impressed. - -In 1823, the French establishment of the _Œuvre de la propagation de -la Foi_ formed at Lyons, and soon cast a beneficent eye upon North -and South America and the islands of Oceania. In 1814, soon after the -restoration of the Bourbons, the Abbé Coudrin had founded the Society -of Picpus “to promote the revival of the Roman Catholic religion in -France, and to propagate it by missions among unbelievers or pagans.” -This establishment received Papal sanction in 1817, and was placed -under “the special protection of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary.” In -1833, the Congregation of the Propaganda, with the confirmation of the -Sovereign Pontiff, confided to the Society of Picpus the conversion of -all the islands of the Pacific ocean. Two apostolic prefectures were -established. M. E. Rouchouse was made bishop of Nilolopis, in partibus, -and apostolic vicar of Eastern Oceania; M. C. Liansu was appointed as -his prefect; two priests, Caret and Laval, and a catechist, Columban, -or Murphy, were placed under his direction. In May, 1834, the Catholic -missionaries arrived at Valparaiso, bound for the South Seas. - -The benefits of the True Faith were not to advance into the Pacific -unassisted by the secular arm. Two officers of the French Navy, -Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz, in their _Considerations générales -sur la Colonisation Française dans l’Oceanie_ thus speak for the less -purely religious interests of France: “It is impossible for a traveller -who may visit the islands of the Pacific, not to speculate on the -destiny of the happy groups scattered over its bosom. The first thing -that strikes him is the sight of men, consecrated to a religious work, -meddling with the temporal affairs of these free people, whom they -have brought under their domination, under pretence of directing their -consciences.... When the rapid multiplication of the population of all -European countries is considered, it is evident that before long a -European colony will be formed in each of the innumerable islands of -the Pacific, and missionary efforts merit therefore all the attention -of the government.... On the signal from the first cannon that shall -be fired in Europe, a protecting flag will be seen to rise on each of -these islands now so peaceful. God grant that the tri-coloured flag of -our nation may show itself with honour!” - -At this time, it was a law of Tahiti that before a foreigner could -have leave to reside on the island, permission must be granted by -Queen Pomare and the chiefs. The Catholic missionaries, aware of this -regulation, succeeded, however, in effecting a landing disguised as -carpenters, and to this island, partly idolatrous, partly heretic, -they gave the salutation of peace. Pomare, however, was unappreciative -of their salute, and refused to the disguised priests permission -to remain. This exclusion, in its sequel, raised the most delicate -questions of international diplomacy, and bestirred Pomare to -scatter anxious letters broadcast over the face of the earth. Her -correspondence included a cosmopolitan company of Commodores and -Admirals, Queen Victoria, the President of the United States, and -Louis Philippe of France. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars, in command of the -_Venus_, was despatched to Tahiti under special orders, “to make the -Queen and the inhabitants feel that France is a great and powerful -nation.” The _Venus_ arrived at Tahiti, August 27, 1838, and proceeded -to summary justice. Under the pressure of a broadside, Pomare was -obliged to beg pardon of the most Christian King. “I am only,” she -wrote to Louis Philippe, “the sovereign of a little insignificant -island; may glory and power be with your majesty; let your anger cease; -and pardon me the mistake that I have made.” - -It was further demanded of Pomare that she pay “a great and powerful -nation” the sum of two thousand dollars as a more solid reparation for -her bad behaviour. Pomare was appalled at the magnitude of this sum: -there was no such amplitude of wealth in her treasury. The missionaries -were moved in compassion to finance her political indiscretion. But -in the next humiliation dealt out to her, the brethren were unable to -offer much assistance. The French Admiral bore instructions to require -that the French flag be hoisted the day following the receipt of the -two thousand dollars, and that it be honoured by Pomare with a salute -of twenty-one guns. The situation was awkward. Pomare was very short -of powder. She assured the Admiral she had not enough for more than -five shots. The Admiral paced the deck, and passed his fingers through -his hair in considerable agitation. “What will they say in France,” -said the patriotic commander, “when they know that I furnished the -powder to salute my own flag?” The difficulty was great. An expedient -was necessary, and the Admiral hit upon one: “Mr. Consul,” said he to -the Rev. Pritchard, and British Consul, “I can give you some powder, -and you can do with it as you please.” According to the French report, -Pritchard “himself loaded the bad cannon on the little island and -directed the firing;” and soon after, the French observed Pritchard -to look “thin and bilious, with an appearance of pride, and the cold -dignity so natural to the English.” - -But the visiting Admiral had not yet completed his duty to “the -justly irritated King of the French.” He condescended to visit the -Queen on purpose to introduce Moerenhaut as French consul. Moerenhaut -had been American consul at Tahiti, but had been relieved of the -responsibilities of that office at a request of Pomare to the President -of the United States. Moerenhaut’s life, in all of its varied and -unsavoury details, has yet to be written: it would make an entertaining -supplement to the _Police Gazette_. Moerenhaut himself adventured in -letters, and in his _Voyages aux îles du Grand Ocean_ he exposes many -of the corrupt practices that he himself was instrumental in bringing -about. The Admiral and Moerenhaut, in the name of Louis Philippe, drew -up a convention with Pomare “to establish the right of French subjects -to stay in the territory of the Tahitian sovereign.” - -During these proceedings, Captain Dumont D’Urville, cruising the -Pacific, arrived at the Marquesas with two corvettes, the _Astrolabe_ -and the _Zélé_, hot from the Gambier islands, the seat of Bishop -Rouchouse. At Gambier, when “all were gay and cheerful,” D’Urville -had been enlightened as to the true character of the heretical -missionaries: “oppressors of the poor Tahitians; in short, vampires, -whose cruelties and inquisitorial tortures were as atrocious as their -hypocrisy was disgusting.” Before he left the jovial board, his -indignation was so high that “he felt the honour of his flag” required -that he sail to Tahiti and dispense “exemplary chastisement.” Upon his -arrival at the Marquesas he was surprised to find Du Petit-Thouars, -who had been there, already departed. There was value to his visit, -however, in giving to the pious efforts of Bishop Rouchouse the support -of a few broadsides. But there were other scenes at the Marquesas of -which Bishop Rouchouse, in good conscience, could not have approved. -Melville asserts that while the _Acushnet_ was at the Marquesas, “our -ship was wholly given up to every species of riot and debauchery.” -In the official account of the voyages of Captain Dumont D’Urville -is a more detailed account of a similar surrender. Melville says of -the dances of the women of the Marquesas: “There is an abandoned -voluptuousness in their character that I dare not attempt to describe.” -The French, in their official reports, exhibit a greater courage. - -Captain Dumont D’Urville arrived in Tahiti nine days after the -submission of Pomare, and the day following his arrival he accompanied -Admiral Du Petit-Thouars on a visit to the Queen. He had not yet cooled -in his patriotic indignation, so he addressed Pomare severely, and with -gratifying results: “I perceived that Pomare was deeply affected, and -that tears began to fall from her eyes, as she threw them on me with -an evident expression of anger. At the same moment I also perceived -that Captain Du Petit-Thouars endeavoured to diminish the effect of my -words by some little liberties that he was taking with the Queen; such -as pulling gently her hair, and patting her cheeks; he even added that -she was foolish to be so much affected.” - -When her French visitors sailed away, Pomare on November 8, 1838, -despatched a letter to her sister sovereign, Victoria, to implore “the -shelter of her wing, the defence of her lion, and the protection of her -flag.” The Tahitians expressed their sense of the favours being forced -upon them by the French by passing a law prohibiting “the propagation -of any religious doctrines, or the celebration of any religious -worship, opposed to that true gospel of old propagated in Tahiti by the -missionaries from Britain; that is, these forty years past.” - -This breach of international courtesy brought Captain Laplace on the -_Artémise_ out to Tahiti “to obtain satisfaction from the Lutheran -evangelists who had forced themselves on a simple and docile people.” -As the _Artémise_ was off the coast, on April 22, 1839, she struck on -a coral reef: an accident that resulted in the officers and crew being -lodged on shore for two months. These two months must have given the -brethren bitter fruit for reflection upon the ease with which their -years of unselfish striving could be obliterated. According to the -account of Louis Reybaud of the _Artémise_: “From the first, the most -perfect harmony prevailed between the ship’s company and the natives. -Each of the latter chose his _tayo_,--that is, another self--among the -sailors. Between _tayos_ everything is common. At night, the _tayos_, -French and Tahitian, went together to the common hut. Every sailor has -thus a house, a wife, a complete domestic establishment. As jealousy is -a passion unknown to these islanders, it may be imagined what resources -and pleasures such an arrangement afforded our crew. The natives were -delighted with the character of our people; they had never met with -such gaiety, expansiveness, and kindness in any other foreigners. The -beach presented the aspect of a continual holiday, to the great scandal -of the missionaries. We have seen how the men managed, and what friends -they found. The officers were not less fortunate. The island that -Bougainville called the _New Cytherea_ does not belie its name. When -the evening set in, every tree along the coast shaded an impassioned -pair; and the waters of the river afforded an asylum to a swarm of -copper-coloured nymphs, who came to enjoy themselves with the young -midshipmen. Wherever you walked you might hear the _oui! oui! oui!_ the -word that all the women have learnt with marvellous facility. It would -have been far more difficult to teach them to say _non!_” - -Among these relaxations, Captain Laplace found time publicly to declare -to the islanders “how shameful and even dangerous it was to violate -the faith of treaties, and how unjust and barbarous was intolerance.” -Before his sailing, Captain Laplace commanded Pomare to come aboard -the _Artémise_ to sign a treaty guaranteeing no discrimination against -the French. Pomare’s despondency at the beginning of the proceedings -was solaced by champagne and brandy. Casimir Henricy, who accompanied -the _Artémise_ throughout her circumnavigatory voyage, says: “When the -spirits of the party were sufficiently elevated to find everything -good, and while the hands were yet sufficiently steady not to let the -pen drop, the treaty was produced as the crowning act of the festivity. -M. Laplace thought he had gained a great victory over Polynesian -diplomacy; and, certainly, never was a political horizon more bright in -flowers and bottles.” - -While Tahiti was the theatre of these religious and political cabals, -more important and decisive measures occupied the mighty minds of -Europe. The captains who had punished and conventionalised Pomare -and her people had made their reports in person to their sovereign -in Paris, and to the ministers of state, who had indicated their -instructions. Honours and titles were awarded to the successful -officers, and on their showing it was resolved that the Marquesas -should first be taken possession of, and then Tahiti. Rear-Admiral Du -Petit-Thouars was commissioned to execute the seizure. On board the -_Reine Blanche_, accompanied by three frigates and three corvettes, -he touched Fatu-Heva, the southernmost of the Marquesas, on April 26, -1842, and culminated his triumphant progress through the group in the -bay of Tyohee at Nukuheva on May 31. - -The _Acushnet_ arrived at Nukuheva at a memorable time. “It was in the -summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands,” says Melville; “the -French had then held possession of them for several weeks.” - - - - -CHAPTER X - -MAN-EATING EPICURES--THE MARQUESAS - - “‘Why, they are cannibals!’ said Toby on one occasion when I - eulogised the tribe. ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘but a more humane, - gentlemanly and amiable set of epicures do not probably exist in the - Pacific.’” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Typee_. - - -It was sunset when the _Acushnet_ came within sight of the loom of -the mountains of the Marquesas. Innumerable sea-fowls, screaming and -whirling in spiral tracts had, for some days previous, been following -the vessel as harbingers from land. As the ship drew nearer to green -earth, several of man-of-war’s-hawks, with their blood-red bills and -raven plumage, had circled round the ship in diminishing circles -until Melville was able distinctly to mark the strange flashing of -their eyes; and then, as if satisfied by their observations, they -would sail up into the air as if to carry sinister warning on ahead. -Then,--driftwood on the oily swells; and finally had come the glad -announcement from aloft--given with that peculiar prolongation of sound -that a sailor loves--“Land ho!” - -After running all night with a light breeze straight for the island, -the _Acushnet_ was in easy distance of the shore by morning. But -as the _Acushnet_ had approached the island from the side opposite -to Tyohee--christened by Captain Porter, Melville remembered, -Massachusetts Bay,--they were obliged to sail some distance along -the shore. Melville was surprised not to find “enamelled and softly -swelling plains, shaded over by delicious groves, and watered by -purling brooks.” Instead he found himself cruising along a bold -rock-bound coast, dashed high against by the beating surf, and broken -here and there into deep inlets that offered sudden glimpses of -blooming valleys, deep glens, waterfalls and waving groves. As the ship -sailed by the projecting and rocky headlands with their short inland -vistas of new and startling beauty, one of the sailors exclaimed to -Melville, pointing with his hand in the direction of the treacherous -valley: “There--there’s Typee. Oh, the bloody cannibals, what a meal -they’d make of us if we were to take it into our heads to land! but -they say they don’t like sailors’ flesh, it’s too salt. I say, matey, -how should you like to be shoved ashore there, eh?” Melville shuddered -at the question, he says, little thinking that within the space of a -few weeks he would actually be a captive in that self-same valley. - -Towards noon they swung abreast of their harbour. No description can -do justice to its beauty, Melville tells us. But its beauty was to him -not an immediate discovery. All that he saw was the tri-coloured flag -of France trailing over the stern of six vessels, whose black hulls and -bristling broadsides floated incongruously in that tranquil bay. - -The first emissary from the shore to welcome the _Acushnet_ was a -visitor in that interesting state of intoxication when a man is amiable -and helpless: a south-sea vagabond, once a lieutenant in the English -navy, recently appointed pilot to the harbour by the invincible French. -He was aided by some benevolent person out of his whale-boat into -the _Acushnet_, and though utterly unable to stand erect or navigate -his own body, he magnanimously proffered to steer the ship to a good -anchorage: a feat Captain Pease did for himself, despite the amazing -volubility of the visitor in contrary commands. - -This renegade from Christendom and humanity was of a type not -infrequently met with in accounts of the South Seas. At Hannamanoo, -Melville came across another such--a white man in the South Sea -girdle, and tattooed on the face, living among a tribe of savages -and apparently settled for life, so perfectly satisfied seemed he -with his circumstances. This man was an Englishman,--Lem Hardy he -called himself,--who had deserted from a trading brig touching at -Hannamanoo for wood and water some ten years previous. Aboard the -_Acushnet_ he told his history. “Thrown upon the world a foundling, -his paternal origin was as much a mystery to him as the genealogy of -Odin; and scorned by everybody, he fled the parish workhouse when a -boy, and launched upon the sea. He had followed it for several years, -a dog before the mast, and now he had thrown it up forever.” He had -gone ashore as a sovereign power, armed with a musket and a bag of -ammunition, and soon became, what he was when Melville found him, -military leader of the tribe, war-god of the entire island, living -under the sacred protection of an express edict of the taboo, his -person inviolable forever. In _Iles Marquises, ou Nouka-Hiva, Histoire, -Géographie, Mœurs et Considérations Générales_ (Paris, 1843) by -Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz is to be found (pages 356-359) a history -of two more of these vagabonds: one Joseph Cabri, a Frenchman, and one -E. Roberts, an Englishman. Cabri returned to Europe, for a time, to -find the novelty of his tattooing both an embarrassment and a source of -livelihood. He was examined by grave learned societies, was presented -before several crowned heads, and submitted his person to intimate -examination to any one who would pay his fee. In 1818 he died in -obscurity and poverty in Valenciennes, his birth place. His historians -regret that his precious person was not preserved in alcohol to -delight the inquiring mind of later generations. The Pacific, it would -appear, was early a place of refuge for men with an insurmountable -homesickness for the mud. Melville soon came to believe that the -gifts of civilisation to the South Seas were without exception very -doubtful blessings; he came to be a special pleader for the barbaric -virtues; when these virtues were practised by legitimate barbarians; -but the spectacle of such men as Hardy fell beyond the pale of his -unusually broad sympathies. Though he was despairingly alert to the -vices of Christendom, never was he betrayed into a corrupt hankering to -recapitulate into savagery. Though he excused the cannibalism of the -Marquesans as an amiable weakness, he gazed upon Hardy “with a feeling -akin to horror.” Hardy’s tattooing was to Melville the outward and -visible sign of the lowest degradation to which a mortal, nurtured in a -civilisation that had for thousands of years a pathetically imperfect -struggle striven to some significance above the beast, could possibly -descend. “What an impress!” Melville exclaimed in superlative loathing. -“Far worse than Cain’s--_his_ was perhaps a wrinkle, or a freckle, -which some of our modern cosmetics might have effaced.” But Hardy’s -tattooing was to Melville a mark indelible of the blackest of all -betrayals. - -More worthy emissaries than the pilot to the port of Tyohee were to -welcome Melville to the Marquesas. The entrance of the _Acushnet_ -brought from the shore a flotilla of native canoes. “Such strange -outcries and passionate gesticulations I never certainly heard or saw -before,” Melville says. “You would have thought the islanders were on -the point of flying at one another’s throats, whereas they were only -amiably engaged in disentangling their boats.” Melville was surprised -at the strange absence of a single woman in the invading party, not -then knowing that canoes were “taboo” to women, and that consequently, -“whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, she puts in requisition -the paddles of her own fair body.” - -As the _Acushnet_ approached within a mile and a half of the foot of -the bay, Melville noticed a singular commotion in the water ahead of -the vessel: the women, swimming out from shore, eager to embrace the -advantages of civilisation. “As they drew nearer,” Melville says, -“and as I watched the rising and sinking of their forms, and beheld -the uplifted right arm bearing above the water the girdle of tappa, -and their long dark hair trailing beside them as they swam, I almost -fancied they could be nothing else but so many mermaids. Under slow -headway we sailed right into the midst of these swimming nymphs, and -they boarded us at every quarter; many seizing hold of the chain-plates -and springing into the chains; others, at the peril of being run over -by the vessel in her course, catching at the bob-stays, and wreathing -their slender forms about the ropes, hung suspended in the air. All -of them at length succeeded in getting up the ship’s side, where -they clung dripping with the brine and glowing with the bath, their -jet-black tresses streaming over their shoulders, and half enveloping -their otherwise naked forms. There they hung, sparkling with savage -vivacity, laughing gaily at one another, and chattering away with -infinite glee. Nor were they idle the while, for each performed the -simple offices of the toilet for the other. Their luxuriant locks, -wound up and twisted into the smallest possible compass, were freed -from the briny element; the whole person carefully dried, and from a -small little round shell that passed from hand to hand, anointed with -a fragrant oil: their adornments were completed by passing a few loose -folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around the waist. Thus -arrayed, they no longer hesitated, but flung themselves lightly over -the bulwarks, and were quickly frolicking about the decks. Many of -them went forward, perching upon the headrails or running out upon the -bowsprit, while others seated themselves upon the taffrail, or reclined -at full length upon the boats.” - -The ship was fairly captured, and it yielded itself willing prisoner. -In the evening, after anchor had been struck, the deck was hung with -lanterns, and the women, decked in flowers, danced with “an abandoned -voluptuousness” that was a prelude “to every species of riot and -debauchery.” According to Melville’s account, on board the _Acushnet_ -“the grossest licentiousness and the most shameful inebriety prevailed, -with occasional and but short-lived interruptions, through the whole -period of her stay.” - -Nor were the French at the Marquesas neglectful of their duties to the -islanders. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars had stationed about one hundred -soldiers ashore, according to Melville’s account. Every other day -the troops marched out in full regalia, and for hours went through -all sorts of military evolutions to impress a congregation of naked -cannibals with the superior sophistications of Christendom. “A -regiment of the Old Guard, reviewed on a summer’s day in the Champs -Elysées,” Melville vouches, “could not have made a more critically -correct appearance.” The French had also with them, to enrich their -harvest of savage plaudits, a _puarkee nuee_, or “big hog”--in more -cultivated language, a horse. One of the officers was commissioned to -prance up and down the beach at full speed on this animal, with results -that redounded to the glory of France. This horse “was unanimously -pronounced by the islanders to be the most extraordinary specimen of -zoology that had ever come under their observation.” - -It would be an ungracious presumption to contend that the French, while -at the Marquesas, exhibited to the natives only the sterner side of -civilisation. The behaviour of the French at Tahiti leaves room for -the hope that they were no less gallant at the Marquesas. An officer -of the _Reine Blanche_, writing at sea on October 10, 1842, of the -exploits of his countrymen at Tahiti, says, in part: “In the evening, -more than a hundred women came on board. At dinner time, the officers -and midshipmen invited them gallantly to their tables; and the repasts, -which were very gay, were prolonged sufficiently late at night, so -that fear might keep on board those of the women who were afraid to -sail home by the doubtful light of the stars.” The last three lines of -this letter were suppressed by the _Journal de Debats_, it is true, -but given in the _National_ and other journals. Three days later the -letter was officially pronounced “inexact” by the _Moniteur_, which -courageously asserted that “it is utterly false that a frigate has been -the theatre of corruption, in any country whatever; and French mothers -may continue to congratulate themselves that their sons serve in the -navy of their country.” - -While the Frenchmen at the Marquesas--no less than the Americans, one -hopes with pardonable patriotic jealousy--were giving their mothers -at home cause for congratulation, Melville came to the determination -to leave the ship; “to use the concise, point-blank phrase of the -sailors, I had made up my mind to ‘run away.’” And that his reasons -for resolving to take this step were numerous and weighty, he says, -may be inferred from the fact that he chose rather to risk his fortune -among cannibals than to endure another voyage on board the _Acushnet_. -In _Typee_ he gives a general account of the captain’s bad treatment -of the crew, and his non-fulfilment of agreements. Life aboard the -_Acushnet_ has already been sufficiently expatiated upon. - -Melville knew that immediately adjacent to Nukuheva, and only separated -from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, lay the lovely valley -of Happar, whose inmates cherished the most friendly relations with -the inhabitants of Nukuheva. On the other side of Happar, and closely -adjoining it, lay the magnificent valley of the dreaded Typee, the -unappeasable enemies of both these tribes. These Typees enjoyed a -prodigious notoriety all over the islands. The natives of Nukuheva, -Melville says, used to try to frighten the crew of the _Acushnet_ -“by pointing to one of their own number and calling him a Typee, -manifesting no little surprise when we did not take to our heels at so -terrible an announcement.” But having ascertained the fact that the -tribes of the Marquesas dwell isolated in the depths of the valleys, -and avoided wandering about the more elevated portions of the islands, -Melville concluded that unperceived he might effect a passage to the -mountains, where he might easily and safely remain, supporting himself -on such fruits as came in his way, until the sailing of the ship. The -idea pleased him greatly. He imagined himself seated beneath a cocoanut -tree on the brow of the mountain, with a cluster of plantains within -easy reach, criticising the ship’s nautical evolutions as she worked -her way out of the harbour, and contrasting the verdant scenery about -him with the recollections of narrow greasy decks and the vile gloom of -the forecastle. - -Melville at first prided himself that he was the only person on board -the _Acushnet_ sufficiently reckless to attempt an idyllic sojourn -on an island of irreclaimable cannibals. But Toby’s perennially -hanging over the side of the ship, gazing wistfully at the shore in -moody isolation, coupled with Melville’s knowledge of Toby’s hearty -detestation of the ship, of his dauntless courage, and his other -engaging traits as companion in high adventure, led Melville to -share with Toby his schemes. A few words won Toby’s most impetuous -co-operation. Plans were rapidly made and ratified by an affectionate -wedding of palms, when, to elude suspicion, each repaired to his -hammock to spend a last night aboard the _Acushnet_. - -[Illustration: In 1855 - - RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE - - Editor of the _Sandusky Mirror_] - -On the morrow, with as much tobacco, ship’s biscuit and calico as they -could stow in the front of their frocks, Melville and Toby made off for -the interior of Nukuheva,--but not before Melville “lingered behind -in the forecastle a moment to take a parting glance at its familiar -features.” Their five days of marvellous adventures that landed them -finally in the valley of Typee has abidingly tried the credulity of -Melville’s readers--though never for an instant their patience. -After reading these adventures, Stevenson expressed his slangy approval -by hailing Melville as “a howling cheese.” It has been questioned in -passing whether or not the number of days that two strong male humans, -going through incredible exertion, can support themselves upon a hunk -of bread soaked in sweat and ingrained with shreds of tobacco, must -not be fewer than Melville makes out. And did they, in sober verity, -critics have asked, lower themselves down the cliff by swinging from -creeper to creeper with horrid gaps between them--was it as steep -as Melville says, and the creepers as far apart? And did they, on -another occasion, as Melville asserts, break a second gigantic fall by -pitching on the topmost branches of a very high palm tree? During these -thrilling and terrible five days, hardship runs hard on the heels of -hardship, and each obstacle as it presents itself, seems, if possible, -more unsurmountable than the last. There is no way out of this, one -says for the tenth time: but the sagacity and fearless confidence -of Toby--to whom let glory be given--and the manful endurance of -Melville through parching fever and agonising lameness, disappoint the -lugubrious reader. On the third day after their escape, their ardour -is cooled to a resolve to forego futile ramblings for a space. They -crawled under a clump of thick bushes, and pulling up the long grass -that grew around, covered themselves completely with it to endure -another downpour. While the exhausted Toby slept through the violent -rain, Melville tossed about in a raging fever, without the heart to -wake Toby when the rain ceased. Chancing to push aside a branch, -Melville was as transfixed with surprised delight as if he had opened a -sudden vista into Paradise. He “looked straight down into the bosom of -a valley, which swept away in long wavy undulations to the blue waters -in the distance. Midway towards the sea, and peering here and there -amidst the foliage, might be seen the palmetto-thatched houses of its -inhabitants glistening in the sun that had bleached them to a dazzling -whiteness. The vale was more than three leagues in length, and about a -mile across its greatest width. Everywhere below me, from the base of -the precipice upon whose very verge I had been unconsciously reposing, -the surface of the vale presented a mass of foliage, spread with such -rich profusion that it was impossible to determine of what description -of trees it consisted. But perhaps there was nothing about the scenery -I beheld more impressive than those silent cascades, whose slender -threads of water, after leaping down the steep cliffs, were lost amidst -the rich foliage of the valley. Over all the landscape there reigned -the most hushed repose, which I almost feared to break, lest, like the -enchanted gardens of the fairy tale, a single syllable might dissolve -the spell.” Toby was awakened and called into consultation. With his -usual impetuosity, Toby wanted promptly to descend into the valley -before them; but Melville restrained him, dwelling upon the perilous -possibility of its inhabitants being Typees. Toby was with difficulty -reined to circumspection, and off Melville and his companion started -on a wild goose chase for a valley on the other side of the ridge. -So fruitless and disheartening did this attempt prove, that Melville -was reduced to the wan solace that it was, after all, better to die -of starvation in Nukuheva than to be fed on salt beef, stale water -and flinty bread in the forecastle of the _Acushnet_. Yet Toby was -dauntless. Despite the defeats of the preceding day, Toby awoke on the -following morning as blithe and joyous as a young bird. Melville’s -fever and his swollen leg, however, had left him not so exultant. - -“What’s to be done now?” Melville inquired, after their morning repast -of a crumb of sweat-mixed biscuit and tobacco,--and rather doleful was -his inquiry, he confesses. - -“Descend into that same valley we descried yesterday,” rejoined Toby, -with a rapidity and loudness of utterance that led Melville to suspect -almost that Toby had been slyly devouring the broadside of an ox in -some of the adjoining thickets. “Come on, come on; shove ahead. There’s -a lively lad,” shouted Toby as he led the way down a ravine that jagged -steeply along boulders and tangled roots down into the valley; “never -mind the rocks; kick them out of the way, as I do; and to-morrow, old -fellow, take my word for it, we shall be in clover. Come on;” and so -saying he dashed along the ravine like a madman. - -Thus was piloted down into the heart of barbarism the man who was to -emerge as the first Missionary Polynesia ever sent to Christendom. And -on the chances of Toby’s contagious impetuosity hung the annexation -of a new realm to the kingdom of the imagination and the discovery -of a new manner in the history of letters. For on that day, when -Melville and Toby struggled down that ravine like Belzoni worming -himself through the subterranean passages of the Egyptian catacombs, -the Polynesians were without a competent apologist, and the literary -possibilities of the South Seas were unsuspected. - -Literature was, of course, already elaborated with fantastic patterns -drawn from barbarism, and the Indians of Aphra Behn and Voltaire had -given place to the redmen of Cooper. Earlier than this, however, the -great discoverers, in their wealth of records, had given many an -account of their contacts with savage peoples. But one searches in -vain among these records for any very vivid sense that the savage and -the Christian belong to the same order of nature. At best, one gathers -the impression that in savagery God’s image had been multiplied in an -excess of contemptible counterfeits. Melville reports that as late -as his day “wanton acts of cruelty are not unusual on the part of -sea captains landing at islands comparatively unknown. Indeed, it is -almost incredible, the light in which many sailors regard these naked -heathens. They hardly consider them human. But it is a curious fact, -that the more ignorant and degraded men are, the more contemptuously -they look upon those whom they deem their inferiors.” John G. Paton -records in his _Autobiography_ how, in 1860, three traders gleefully -told him that to humble the natives of Tanna, and to diminish their -numbers, they had let out on shore at different ports, four men ill -with the measles--an exceedingly virulent disease among savage peoples. -“Our watchwords are,” these jolly traders said, “‘sweep the creatures -into the sea, and let white men occupy the soil.’” This sentiment -belongs more to a fixed human type, than to a period, of course: and -that type has frequently taken to sailing strange seas. In treachery, -cruelty, and profligacy, the exploits of European discoverers contain -some of the rosiest pages in the history of villainy. - -These sickening pages of civilised barbarism soon won to the savage -ardent apologists, however, who applied an old technique of libel by -imputing to the unbreeched heathen a touching array of the superior -virtues. Montaigne was among the first to come forward in this -capacity. “We may call them barbarous in regard to reasons rules,” -he said, “but not in respect to us that exceed them in all kinde of -barbarisme. Their warres are noble and generous, and have as much -excuse and beautie, as this humane infirmitie may admit: they ayme -at nought so much, and have no other foundation amongst them, but -the meere jelousie of vertue.” Once in full current of idealisation -Montaigne goes on to write as if he soberly believed that savage -peoples were descended from a stock that Eve had conceived by an angel -before the fall. In his dithyramb on the nobilities of savagery, -Montaigne was unhampered by any first-hand dealings with savages, and -he was far too wise ever to betray the remotest inclination to improve -his state by migrating into the bosom of their uncorrupted nobility. - -The myth of the “noble savage” was a taking conceit, however, and -when Rousseau taught the world the art of reverie, he taught it also -an easy vagabondage into the virgin forest and into the pure heart of -the “natural man.” In describing Rousseau’s influence on the drawing -rooms, Taine says that “The fops dreamed between two madrigals of -the happiness of sleeping naked in the virgin forest.” Rousseau’s -savage, “attached to no place, having no prescribed task, obeying no -one, having no other law than his own will,” was, of course, a wilful -backward glance to the vanished paradise of childhood, not a finding of -ethnology. Yet ethnology may prate as it will, the “noble savage” is a -myth especially diverting to the over-sophisticated, and like dreams -of the virgin forest, thrives irrepressibly among the upholsterings -of civilisation. The soft and ardent dreamer, no less than the sleek -and parched imagination of Main Street, find compensation for the -defeats of civilisation in dreams of a primitive Arcadia. While the -kettle is boiling they relax into slippers and make the grand tour. -Chateaubriand--whose life, according to Lemaître, was a “magnificent -series of attitudes”--showed incredible hardihood of attitudinising -in crossing the Atlantic in actual quest of the primitive. In the -forest west of Albany he did pretend to find some satisfaction in -wild landscape. He showed his “intoxication” at the beauties of wild -nature by taking pains to do “various wilful things that made my guide -furious.” But Chateaubriand was less fortunate in his contact with -savagery than he was with nature. His first savages he found under a -shed taking dancing lessons from a little Frenchman, who, “bepowdered -and befrizzled” was scraping on a pocket fiddle to the prancings of -“ces messieurs sauvages et ces dames sauvagesses.” Chateaubriand -concludes with a reflection: “Was it not a crushing circumstance for -a disciple of Rousseau?” And it is an indubitable fact that if the -present-day disciples of the South Sea myth would show Chateaubriand’s -hardihood and migrate to Polynesia, they would find themselves in -circumstances no less “crushing.” - -Melville was the first competent literary artist to write with -authority about the South Seas. In his day, a voyage to those distant -parts was a jaunt not lightly to be undertaken. In the Pacific -there were islands to be discovered, islands to be annexed, and -whales to be lanced. As for the incidental savage life encountered -in such enterprise, that, in Montaigne’s phrase, was there to be -bastardised, by applying it to the pleasures of our corrupted taste. -These attractions of whaling and patriotism--with incidental rites -to Priapus--had tempted more than one man away from the comfort of -his muffins, and more than one returned to give an inventory of -the fruits of the temptation. The knowledge that these men had of -Polynesia was ridiculously slight: the regular procedure was to -shoot a few cannibals, to make several marriages after the manner of -Loti. The result is a monotonous series of reports of the glorious -accomplishments of Christians: varied on occasions with lengthy and -learned dissertations on heathendom. But they are invariably writers -with insular imagination, telling us much of the writer, but never -violating the heart of Polynesia. - -The Missionaries, discreetly scandalised at the exploitation of unholy -flesh, went valiantly forth to fight the battle of righteousness -in the midst of the enemy. The missionaries came to be qualified -by long first-hand contact to write intimately of the heathen: but -their records are redolent with sanctity, not sympathy. The South Sea -vagabonds were the best hope of letters: but they all seem to have died -without dictating their memoirs. William Mariner, it is true, thanks -to a mutiny at the Tongo Islands in 1805, was “several years resident -in those islands:” and upon Mariner’s return, Dr. John Martin spent -infinite patience in recording every detail of savage life he could -draw from Mariner. Dr. Martin’s book is still a classic in its way: -detailed, sober, and naked of literary pretensions. This book is the -nearest approach to _Typee_ that came out of the South Seas before -Melville’s time. So numerous have been the imitators of Melville, so -popular has been the manner that he originated, that it is difficult -at the present day to appreciate the novelty of _Typee_ at the time of -its appearance. When we read Mr. Frederick O’Brien we do not always -remember that Mr. O’Brien is playing “sedulous ape”--there is here -intended no discourtesy to Mr. O’Brien--to Melville, but that in -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ Melville was playing “sedulous ape” to nobody. Only -when _Typee_ is seen against the background of _A Missionary Voyage to -the Southern Pacific Ocean performed in the years 1796, 1797, 1798 in -the Ship Duff_ (1799) and Mariner’s _Tonga_ (1816) (fittingly dedicated -to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the Royal Society, and companion of -Captain Cook in the South Seas) can Melville’s originality begin to -transpire. - -This originality lies partly, of course, in the novelty of Melville’s -experience, partly in the temperament through which this experience -was refracted. Melville himself believed his only originality was his -loyalty to fact. He bows himself out of the Preface “trusting that -his anxious desire to speak the ungarnished truth will gain him the -confidence of his readers.” - -When Melville’s brother Gansevoort offered _Typee_ for publication -in England, it was accepted not as fiction but as ethnology, and was -published as _Melville’s Marquesas_ only after Melville had vouched for -its entire veracity. - -Though Melville published _Typee_ upright in the conviction that he had -in its composition been loyal both to veracity and truth, his critics -were not prone to take him at his word. And he was to learn, too, that -veracity and truth are not interchangeable terms. Men do, in fact, -believe pretty much what they find it most advantageous to believe. We -live by prejudices, not by syllogisms. In _Typee_, Melville undertook -to show from first-hand observation the obvious fact that there are two -sides both to civilisation and to savagery. He was among the earliest -of literary travellers to see in barbarians anything but queer folk. -He intuitively understood them, caught their point of view, respected -and often admired it. He measured the life of the Marquesans against -that of civilisation, and wrote: “The term ‘savage’ is, I conceive, -often misapplied, and indeed when I consider the vices, cruelties, -and enormities of every kind that spring up in the tainted atmosphere -of a feverish civilisation, I am inclined to think that so far as the -relative wickedness of the parties is concerned, four or five Marquesan -Islanders sent to the United States as missionaries, might be quite as -useful as an equal number of Americans dispatched to the Islands in a -similar capacity.” Civilisation is so inured to anathema,--so reassured -by it,--indeed, that Melville could write a vague and sentimental -attack upon its obvious imperfections with the cool assurance that each -of his readers, applying the charges to some neighbour, would approve -in self-righteousness. But one ventures the “ungarnished truth” about -any of the vested interests of civilisation at the peril of his peace -in this world and the next. It was when Melville focussed his charge -and wrote “a few passages which may be thought to bear rather hard -upon a reverend order of men” with incidental reflections upon “that -glorious cause which has not always been served by the proceedings of -some of its advocates,” that all the musketry of the soldiers of the -Prince of Peace was aimed at his head. Melville himself was a man whose -tolerance provoked those who sat in jealous monopoly upon warring -sureties to accuse him of license. He specifies his delight in finding -in the valley of Typee that “an unbounded liberty of conscience seemed -to prevail. Those who were pleased to do so were allowed to repose -implicit faith in an ill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat -shapeless arms crossed upon his breast; whilst others worshipped an -image which, having no likeness either in heaven or on earth, could -hardly be called an idol. As the islanders always maintained a discrete -reserve with regard to my own peculiar views on religion, I thought it -would be excessively ill-bred in me to pry into theirs.” This boast -of delicacy did not pass unnoticed by “a reverend order of men.” The -vitriolic rejoinder of the London Missionary Society would seem to -indicate that there may be two versions of “the ungarnished truth.” It -should be stated, however, that the English editions of _Typee_ contain -strictures against the Missionaries that were omitted in the American -editions. But even Melville’s unsanctified critics showed an anxiety -to repudiate him. Both _Typee_ and _Omoo_ were scouted as impertinent -inventions, defying belief in their “cool sneering wit and perfect want -of heart.” Melville’s name was suspiciously examined as being a _nom -de plume_ used to cover a cowardly and supercilious libel. A gentleman -signing himself G. W. P. and writing in the _American Review_ (1847, -Vol. IV, pp. 36-46) was scandalised by Melville’s habit of presenting -“voluptuous pictures, and with cool deliberate art breaking off always -at the right point, so as without offending decency, he may excite -unchaste desire.” After discovering in Melville’s writing a boastful -lechery, this gentleman undertakes to discountenance Melville on three -scores: (1) only the impotent make amorous boasts; (2) Melville had -none of Sir Epicure Mammon’s wished-for elixir; (3) the beauty of -Polynesian women is all myth. - -Unshaken in the conviction of his loyalty to fact, Melville discovered -that the essence of originality lies in reporting “the ungarnished -truth.” - -On the subject of “originality” in literature, Melville says in -_Pierre_: “In the inferior instances of an immediate literary success, -in very young writers, it would be almost invariably observable, that -for that instant success they were chiefly indebted to some rich and -peculiar experience in life, embodied in a book, which because, for -that cause, containing original matter, the author himself, forsooth, -is to be considered original; in this way, many very original books -being the product of very unoriginal minds.” It is none the less true, -however, that though Melville and Toby both lived among the cannibals, -it was Melville, not Toby, who wrote _Typee_. - -For four months Melville was held in friendly captivity by the Typees. -His swollen leg was healed by native doctors--but not without prolonged -pain and anxiety--he was fed, he was amused, he was lionised by -the valley. His hosts were savages; they were idolaters, they were -inhuman beasts who licked their lips over the roasted thighs of their -enemies; and at the same time they were crowned with flowers, sometimes -exquisite in beauty, courteous in manners, and engaged all day long in -doing not only what they enjoyed doing, but what, so far as Melville -could judge, they had every right to enjoy doing. With Toby, Melville -was consigned to the household of Kory-Kory. Kory-Kory, though a tried -servitor and faithful valet, was, Melville admits, in his shavings and -tattoos, a hideous object to look upon--covered all over with fish, -fowl, and monster, like an illustrated copy of Goldsmith’s _Animated -Nature_. Kory-Kory’s father, Marheyo, a retired gentleman of gigantic -frame, was an eccentric old fellow, who seems to have been governed -by no fixed principles whatever. He employed the greater part of his -time in throwing up a little shed just outside the house, tinkering -away at it endlessly, without ever appearing to make any perceptible -advance. He would eat, sleep, potter about, with fine contempt for -the proprieties of time or place. “Frequently he might have been -seen taking a nap in the sun at noonday, or a bath in the stream at -midnight. Once I beheld him eighty feet from the ground, in the tuft of -a cocoanut tree, smoking, and often I saw him standing up to the waist -in water, engaged in plucking out the stray hairs of his beard, using -a piece of mussel-shell for tweezers. I remember in particular his -having a choice pair of ear-ornaments, fabricated from the teeth of -some sea-monster. These he would alternately wear and take off at least -fifty times in the course of a day, going and coming from his little -hut on each occasion with all the tranquillity imaginable. Sometimes -slipping them through the slits in his ears, he would seize his spear -and go stalking beneath the shadows of the neighbouring groves, as if -about to give a hostile meeting to some cannibal knight. But he would -soon return again, and hiding his weapon under the projecting eaves -of the house, and rolling his clumsy trinkets carefully in a piece of -tappa, would resume his more pacific operations as quietly as if he had -never interrupted them.” - -Kory-Kory’s mother was, so Melville reports, the only industrious -person in all the valley of Typee: “bustling about the house like a -country landlady at an unexpected arrival: forever giving the young -girls tasks to perform, which the little huzzies as often neglected; -poking into every corner, and rummaging over bundles of old tappa, -or making a prodigious clatter among the calabashes. She could not -have employed herself more actively had she been left an exceedingly -muscular and destitute widow, with an inordinate supply of young -children, in the bleakest part of the civilised world.” Yet was hers -withal the kindliest heart imaginable. “Warm indeed,” Melville says, -“are my remembrances of the dear, good, affectionate old Tinor!” - -There also belonged to the household, three young men, “dissipated, -good-for-nothing, roystering blades of savages,” and several girls. Of -these, Melville has immortalised Fayaway, his most constant companion. -He has anatomised her charms in the manner of his first _Fragment from -a Writing-Desk_. But it is Fayaway in action, not Fayaway in still -life, that survives in the imagination. At Melville’s intercession, the -taboo against women entering a boat was lifted. Many hours they spent -together swimming, or floating in the canoe: diversions heightened in -their heinousness by the fact that Fayaway for the most part clung to -the primitive and summer garb of Eden--and the costume became her. -Nor did Melville’s depravity cease with his unblushing approval of -nakedness. “Strange as it may seem,” Melville writes in the ’40’s, -“there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female appears to more -advantage than in the act of smoking.” Fayaway not only smoked,--but -she smoked a pipe, as they drifted in the canoe. One day, as they were -gliding along, Fayaway “seemed all at once to be struck with a happy -idea. With a wild exclamation of delight, she disengaged from her -person the ample robe of tappa which was knotted over her shoulder (for -the purpose of shielding her from the sun), and spreading it out like -a sail, stood erect with upraised arms in the head of the canoe. We -American sailors pride ourselves upon our straight clean spars, but a -prettier mast than Fayaway made was never shipped aboard of any craft.” -John La Farge has painted Fayaway in this attitude. - -And the occupation of Toby during all this? Soon after their arrival, -Toby had been despatched to Nukuheva under pretence of procuring relief -for Melville’s swollen leg, actually to facilitate his and Melville’s -escape. Toby never again returned to Typee. He had been treacherously -beguiled on board a whaler, unable to escape until he left his vessel -at New Zealand. “After some further adventures,” says Melville in -_The Story of Toby_, written in July, 1846, ten days after the two -men discovered each other’s existence through the instrumentality of -_Typee_, and published as a “sequel” to that novel, “Toby arrived home -in less than two years after leaving the Marquesas.” - -While Melville had the companionship of Toby in Typee, he was even then -eager to get back to civilisation. That savagery was good for savages -he never wearied of contending. But despite the idyllic delights of -Typee--an idyll with a sombre background, however--Melville was never -tempted to resign himself to its vacant animal felicity. Melville, -unlike Baudelaire and Whitman, was not stirred by the advantages of -“living with the animals.” While among them, he evinced a desire -neither to adopt their ways, nor to change them. He made them pop-guns, -he astonished them by exhibiting the miracle of sewing. He tried to -teach them to box. “As not one of the natives had soul enough in him -to stand up like a man, and allow me to hammer away at him, for my own -personal satisfaction and that of the king, I was necessitated to -fight with an imaginary enemy, whom I invariably made to knock under to -my superior prowess.” - -Among the bachelors of the Ti, the men’s club of the valley, he -chatted, he smoked, he drowsed: he witnessed the Feast of the -Calabashes when, for the livelong day “the drums sounded, the priests -chanted, and the multitude roared and feasted”--a scene reminiscent of -a University whole-heartedly given over to “campus activity.” A mock -battle was staged for his diversion. He entered the funeral fastnesses -where the effigies of former heroes eternally paddled canoes adorned by -the skulls of their enemies. He mused by pools, splashing with laughing -bronze nymphs. Yet withal, Melville was a captive in the valley. His -lameness, too, returned. His hosts began to make friendly but insistent -suggestions that he be tattooed--a suggestion superlatively repugnant -to him. He heard, moreover, the clamour of a cannibal feast, and lifted -the cover of a tub under which lay a fresh human skeleton. Under these -circumstances he taught old Marheyo two English words: _Home_ and -_Mother_. But he did not complete the trinity. _Forsan et haec olim -meminisse juvabit._ It was time for him to depart. - -One profoundly silent noon, as Melville lay lame and miserable under -Kory-Kory’s roof, Mow-Mow, the one-eyed chief, appeared at the door, -and leaning forward towards Melville, whispered: _Toby pemi ena_--“Toby -has arrived.” That evening Mow-Mow’s dead body floated on the Pacific, -a boat-hook having been mortally hurled at his throat. And it was -Melville who hurled the boat-hook. - -An Australian whaler, touching at the harbour of Nukuheva, had been -informed of Melville’s detention in Typee. Desirous of adding to his -crew, the Captain had sailed round thither, and “hove to” off the -mouth of the bay. Chary of the man-eating propensities of the Typees, -the Captain sent in a boat-load of taboo natives from the other -harbour, with an interpreter at their head, to procure Melville’s -release. Accompanied by a throng of armed natives, Melville was -carried down to the shore--being too lame to walk the distance. A -gun and an extravagant bounty of powder and calico were offered for -Melville’s release: but this bounty was clamorously and indignantly -rejected. Karakoee, the head of the ransoming party, was menaced by -furious gestures, and forced out into the sea, up to his waist in -the surf. Blows were struck, wounds were given, and blood flowed. In -the excitement of the fray, Melville was left to the guardianship of -Marheyo, Kory-Kory, and Fayaway. Throwing to these three the articles -that had been brought for his ransom, Melville bounded into the boat -which was in immediate readiness to pull off towards the ship. It -was not until the boat was about fifty yards from the shore that the -savages recovered from their astonishment at Melville’s alacrity in -escape. Then Mow-Mow and six or seven warriors rushed into the sea and -hurled their javelins at the retreating boat--and some of the weapons -passed as close as was desirable. The wind was freshening every minute, -and was right in the teeth of the retreating party. Karakoee, who was -steering the boat, gave many a look towards a jutting point of the bay -they had to pass. When they came within a hundred yards of the point, -the savages on the shore dashed into the water, swimming out towards -the boat: and by the time Melville’s party reached the headland, the -savages were spread right across the boat’s course. The rowers got -out their knives and held them ready between their teeth. Melville -seized the boat-hook. Mow-Mow, with his tomahawk between his teeth, was -nearest to the boat, ready the next instant to seize one of the oars. -“Even at the moment I felt horror at the act I was to commit; but it -was no time for pity or compunction, and with a true aim, and exerting -all my strength, I dashed the boat-hook at him. I struck him below the -throat, and forced him downward.” Mow-Mow’s body arose in the wake of -the boat, but not to attack again. Another savage seized the gunwale, -but the knives of the rowers so mauled his wrists, that before many -moments the boat was past all the Typees, and in safety. In the closing -tableau, Melville fell fainting into the arms of Karakoee. - -Though later, when Melville was a sailor in the United States Navy, -he touched at the Marquesas, he never again set foot within the -valley of Typee. Melville had known the Typees in their uncorrupted -glory--strong, wicked, laughter-loving and clean. Mr. O’Brien visited -Typee not many years ago, to find it pathetically fallen from its high -estate. “I found myself,” he says, “in a loneliness indescribable and -terrible. No sound but that of a waterfall at a distance parted the -sombre silence.... Humanity was not so much absent as gone, and a -feeling of doom and death was in the motionless air, which lay like a -weight, upon leaf and flower. The thin, sharp buzzing of the _nonos_ -was incessant.” Mr. O’Brien discovered in the heart of the valley fewer -than a dozen people who sat within the houses by cocoanut-husk fires, -the acrid smoke of which daunted the _nonos_. “They have clung to their -lonely _paepaes_ despite their poverty of numbers and the ferocity of -the _nonos_. They had clearings with cocoanuts and breadfruits, but -they cared no longer to cultivate them, preferring rather to sit sadly -in the curling fumes and dream of the past. One old man read aloud the -_Gospel of St. John_ in Marquesan, and the others listlessly listened, -seeming to drink in little comfort from the verses, which he recited in -the chanting monotone of their _uta_.... Nine miles in length is Typee, -from a glorious cataract that leaps over the dark buttress wall where -the mountain bounds the valley, to the blazing beach. And in all this -extent of marvellously rich land, there are now this wretched dozen -natives, too old or listless to gather their own food.” - -Thou hast conquered, O Galilean! - - - - -CHAPTER XI - -MUTINY AND MISSIONARIES--TAHITI - - “Ah, truant humour. But to me - That vine-wreathed urn of Ver, in sea - Of halcyons, where no tides do flow - Or ebb, but waves bide peacefully - At brim, by beach where palm trees grow - That sheltered Omai’s olive race-- - Tahiti should have been the place - For Christ in advent.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Clarel_. - - -It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that Melville made -good his escape from the valley of Typee. The Australian whaler--called -by Melville the _Julia_--which had broken his four months’ captivity, -lay with her main-topsail aback, about a league from the land. “She -turned out to be a small, slatternly looking craft, her hull and -spars a dingy black, rigging all slack and bleached nearly white, and -everything denoting an ill state of affairs aboard. Leaning carelessly -over the bulwarks were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking fellows in -Scotch caps and faded blue frocks; some of them with cheeks of mottled -bronze, to which sickness soon changes the rich berry-brown of a -seaman’s complexion in the tropics.” So extraordinary was Melville’s -appearance--“a robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, -my hair and beard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of my -recent adventure”--that as the boat came alongside, a low cry ran fore -and aft the deck. Immediately on gaining the deck, Melville was beset -on all sides by questions. - -Indeed, never afterwards, it appears, could Melville escape a like -curiosity. Henceforth he was to be “the man who lived among the -cannibals.” Nor does he always seem to have been so uncommunicative as -he grew in later years. In the Preface to _Omoo_, after recording the -fact that he kept no journal during his wanderings in the South Seas, -he says: “The frequency, however, with which these incidents have been -verbally related, has tended to stamp them upon the memory.” There -is novelty in his logic: all twice-told tales are not always just-so -stories. He says, too, in the Preface to _Typee_: “The incidents -recorded in the following pages have often served, when ‘spun as a -yarn,’ not only to relieve the weariness of many a night-watch at sea, -but to excite the warmest sympathies of the author’s shipmates.” - -Upon being taken aboard the _Julia_, Melville was almost immediately -seen by the captain, a young, pale, slender, sickly looking creature, -who signed Melville up for one cruise, engaging to discharge him at the -next port. - -Life on board the _Julia_ was, if anything, worse than life on board -the _Acushnet_. In the first place, Melville was ill. Not until three -months after his escape from Typee did he regain his normal strength. -And, as always, Melville looked back with regret upon leaving the life -he had so wanted to escape from while he was in the midst of it. “As -the land faded from my sight,” he says, “I was all alive to the change -in my condition. But how far short of our expectations is oftentimes -the fulfilment of the most ardent hopes. Safe aboard of a ship--so -long my earnest prayer--with home and friends once more in prospect, -I nevertheless felt weighed down with a melancholy that could not be -shaken off.” Melville felt he was leaving cannibalism forever--and the -departure shot a pang into his heart. - -The ship’s company were a sorry lot: reduced by desertion from -thirty-two to twenty souls, and more than half of the remaining were -more or less unwell from a long sojourn in a dissipated port. Some -were wholly unfit for duty; one or two were dangerously ill. The rest -managed to stand their watch, though they could do little. The crew -was, for the most part, a typical whaling crew: “villains of all -nations and dyes; picked up in the lawless Spanish Main, and among the -savages of the islands.” The provisions, too, on board the _Julia_ were -notoriously bad, even for a whaler. Melville’s regret at leaving Typee -was not mere wanton sentimentality. - -The captain was despised by all aboard. He was commonly called “The -Cabin Boy,” “Paper Jack,” “Miss Guy” and other descriptive titles. -Though sheepish looking, he was a man of still, timid cunning that did -not endear him to Melville. - -The mate, John Jermin, was of the efficient race of short thick-set -men: bullet headed, with a fierce little squint out of one eye, and a -nose with a rakish tilt to one side. His was the art of knocking a man -down with irresistible good humour, so the very men he flogged loved -him like a brother. He had but one failing: he abhorred weak infusions, -and cleaved manfully to strong drink. He was never completely sober: -and when he was nearly drunk he was uncommonly obstreperous. - -Jermin was master of every man aboard except the ship’s carpenter,--a -man so excessively ugly he went by the name of “Beauty.” As -ill-favoured as Beauty was in person, he was no less ugly in temper: -his face had soured his heart. Melville witnessed an encounter between -Jermin and Beauty: an encounter that showed up clearly the state of -affairs on board. While Beauty was thrashing Jermin in the forecastle, -the captain called down the scuttle: “Why, why, what’s all this about? -Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin--carpenter, carpenter: what are you doing down -there? Come on deck; come on deck.” In reply to this, Doctor Long Ghost -cried out in a squeak, “Ah! Miss Guy, is that you? Now, my dear, go -right home, or you’ll get hurt.” The captain dipped his head down the -scuttle to make answer, to receive, full in the face, the contents of a -tin of soaked biscuit and tea-leaves. Things were not well aboard the -_Julia_. - -But it was Doctor Long Ghost--he who so mocked the captain--who -figures most largely in Melville’s history: a man remarkable both in -appearance and in personality. He was over six feet--a tower of bones, -with a bloodless complexion, fair hair and a pale unscrupulous grey -eye that twinkled occasionally with the very devil of mischief. At the -beginning of the cruise of the _Julia_, as ship’s doctor, he had lived -in the cabin with the captain. But once on a time they had got into a -dispute about politics, and the doctor, getting into a rage, had driven -his argument home with his fist, and left the captain on the floor, -literally silenced. The captain replied by shutting him up in his -state-room for ten days on a diet of bread and water. Upon his release -he went forward with his chests among the sailors where he was welcomed -as a good fellow and an injured man. - -The early history of Doctor Long Ghost he kept to himself; but it was -Melville’s conviction that he had certainly at some time or other -spent money, drunk Burgundy, and associated with gentlemen. “He quoted -Virgil, and talked of Hobbes of Malmsbury, besides repeating poetry -by the canto, especially Hudibras.” In the most casual manner, too, -he could refer to an amour he had in Palermo, his lion hunting before -breakfast among the Kaffirs, and the quality of coffee he had drunk in -Muscat. - -Melville was in no condition, physically, to engage in the ship’s -duties, so he and Doctor Long Ghost fraternised in the forecastle, -where they were treated by the crew as distinguished guests. There they -talked, played chess--with an outfit of their own manufacture--and -there Melville read the books of the Long Doctor, over and over again, -not omitting a long treatise on the scarlet fever. - -At its best, the forecastle is never an ideal abode: but the forecastle -of the _Julia_--its bunks half wrecked, its filthy sailors’ pantry, and -its plague of rats and cockroaches--must have made the _Highlander_ -seem as paradise in retrospect. The forecastle of the _Julia_, -Melville says, “looked like the hollow of an old tree going to decay. -In every direction the wood was damp and discoloured, and here and -there soft and porous. Moreover, it was hacked and hewed without -mercy, the cook frequently helping himself to splinters for kindling -wood.” The viciousness of the crew of the _Julia_, did not, of course, -perceptibly enhance the charms of the forecastle. Nor was Melville’s -estate made more enviable when the man in the bunk next to his went -wildly delirious. One night Melville was awakened from a vague dream of -horrors by something clammy resting on him: his neighbour, with a stark -stiff arm reached out into Melville’s bunk, had during the night died. -The crew rejoiced at his death. - -For weeks the _Julia_ tacked about among the islands of the South -Seas. The captain was ill, and Jermin steered the _Julia_, to Tahiti, -to arrive off the island the moment that Admiral Du Petit-Thouars was -firing, from the _Reine Blanche_, a salute in honour of the treaty he -had just forced Pomare to sign. - -But to the astonishment of the crew, Jermin kept the ship at sea, -fearing the desertion of all his men if he struck anchor. His purpose -was to set the sick captain ashore, and to resume the voyage of the -_Julia_ at once, to return to Tahiti after a certain period agreed -upon, to take the captain off. The crew were in no mood to view this -manœuvre with indifference. Melville and Long Ghost cautioned them -against the folly of immediate mutiny, and on the fly-leaf of an old -musty copy of _A History of the Most Atrocious and Bloody Piracies_, a -round-robin was indited, giving a statement of the crew’s grievances, -and concluding with the earnest hope that the consul would at once come -off and see how matters stood. Pritchard, the missionary consul, was at -that time in England; his place was temporarily filled by one Wilson, -son of the well-known missionary of that name, and no honour to his -ancestor. It did not promise well for the crew that Wilson was an old -friend of Captain Guy’s. - -The round-robin was the prelude to iniquitous bullying and stupidity -on the part of Wilson, Jermin, and Captain Guy. To the crew, it seemed -that justice was poisoned at the fountain head. They gazed on the -bitter waters, did a stout menagerie prance, and raged into mutiny. -Then it was, after one of the men had all but succeeded in maliciously -running the _Julia_ straight upon a reef, that the good ship was -piloted into the harbour of Papeetee, and the crew--including Melville -and the Long Doctor, who were misjudged because of the company they -kept--were for five days and nights held in chains on board the _Reine -Blanche_. At the end of that time they were tried, one by one, before -a tribunal composed of Wilson and two elderly European residents. -Melville was examined last. One of the elderly gentlemen condescended -to take a paternal interest in Melville. “Come here, my young friend,” -he said; “I’m extremely sorry to see you associated with these bad -men; do you know what it will end in?” Melville was in no mood for -smug and salvationly solicitations. He had already declared that his -resolution with respect to the ship was unalterable: he stuck to this -resolution. Wilson thereupon pronounced the whole crew clean gone in -perversity, and steeped in abomination beyond the reach of clemency. He -then summoned a fat old native, Captain Bob--and a hearty old Bob he -proved--giving him directions to marshal the crew to a place of safe -keeping. - -Along the Broom Road they were led: and to Melville, escaped from the -forecastle of the _Julia_ and the confined decks of the frigate, the -air breathed spices. “The tropical day was fast drawing to a close,” -he says; “and from where we were, the sun looked like a vast red fire -burning in the woodlands--its rays falling aslant through the endless -ranks of trees, and every leaf fringed with flame.” - -About a mile from the village they came to the _Calabooza -Beretanee_--the English jail. - -The jail was extremely romantic in appearance: a large oval native -house, with a dazzling white thatch, situated near a mountain stream -that, flowing from a verdant slope, spread itself upon a beach of small -sparkling shells, and then trickled into the sea. But the jail was ill -adapted for domestic comforts, the only piece of furniture being two -stout pieces of timber, about twenty feet in length, gouged to serve -as stocks. John La Farge, in his _Reminiscences of the South Seas_, -says: “We try to find, by the little river that ends our walk, on this -side of the old French fort, the calaboose where Melville was shut up. -There is no one to help us in our search; no one remembers anything. -Buildings occupy the spaces of woodland that Melville saw about him. -Nothing remains but the same charm of light and air which he, like all -others, has tried to describe and to bring back home in words. But the -beach is still as beautiful as if composed by Claude Lorraine.” - -In this now-departed calaboose, Melville and the rest were kept in very -lenient captivity by Captain Bob. Captain Bob’s notion of discipline -was delightfully vague. He insensibly remitted his watchfulness, -and the prisoners were free to stroll further and further from the -Calabooza. After about two weeks--for days melted deceptively into each -other at Tahiti--the crew was again summoned before Wilson, again to -declare themselves unshaken in their obstinate refusal to sail again -with Captain Guy. So back to the Calabooza they were sent. - -The English Missionaries left their cards at the Calabooza in the -shape of a package of tracts; three of the French priests--whom the -natives viewed, so Melville says, as “no better than diabolical -sorcerers”--called in person. One of the priests--called by Melville, -Father Murphy--discovered a compatriot among the crew, and celebrated -the discovery by sending a present of a basket of bread. Such was -the persuasion of the gift that, on Melville’s count, “we all turned -Catholics, and went to mass every morning, much to Captain Bob’s -consternation. He threatened to keep us in the stocks, if we did not -desist.” - -After three weeks Wilson seems to have begun to suspect that it was not -remotely impossible that he was making a laughing stock of himself in -his futile attempt to break the mutineers into contrition. So off the -_Julia_ sailed, manned by a new crew. But before sailing, Jermin served -his old crew the good turn of having their chests sent ashore. And when -each was in possession of his sea-chest, the Calabooza was thronged -with Polynesians, each eager to take a _tayo_, or bosom friend. - -Though technically still prisoners, Melville and his former shipmates -were allowed a long rope in their wanderings. Melville improved his -leisure by attending, each Sunday, the services held in the great -church which Pomare had built to be baptised in. In _Omoo_, Melville -gives a detailed account of a typical Sabbath, and then launches into -chapters of discussion upon the fruits of Christianity in Polynesia. - -At church Melville had observed, among other puzzlingly incongruous -performances, a young Polynesian blade standing up in the congregation -in all the bravery of a striped calico shirt, with the skirts -rakishly adjusted over a pair of white sailor trousers, and hair well -anointed with cocoanut oil, ogling the girls with an air of supreme -satisfaction. And of those who ate of the bread-fruit of the Eucharist -in the morning, he knew several who were guilty of sad derelictions the -same night. Desiring, if possible, to find out what ideas of religion -were compatible with this behaviour, he and the Long Doctor called upon -three sister communicants one evening. While the doctor engaged the -two younger girls, Melville lounged on a mat with Ideea, the eldest, -dallying with her grass fan, and improving his knowledge of Tahitian. - -“The occasion was well adapted to my purpose, and I began. - -“‘Ah, Ideea, mickonaree oee?’ the same as drawling out--‘By the by, -Miss Ideea, do you belong to the church?’ - -“‘Yes, me mickonaree,’ was the reply. - -“But the assertion was at once qualified by certain reservations; so -curious that I cannot forbear their relation. - -“‘Mickonaree _ena_’ (church member _here_), exclaimed she, laying her -hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the adverb. In the same -way, and with similar exclamations, she touched her eyes and hands. -This done, her whole air changed in an instant; and she gave me to -understand, by unmistakable gestures, that in certain other respects -she was not exactly a ‘mickonaree.’ In short, Ideea was - - “‘A sad good Christian at the heart-- - A very heathen in the carnal part.’” - -“The explanation terminated in a burst of laughter, in which all three -sisters joined; and for fear of looking silly, the doctor and myself. -As soon as good-breeding would permit, we took leave.” - -It is Melville’s contention that the very traits in the Tahitians -which induced the London Missionary Society to regard them as the most -promising subjects for conversion, were, in fact, the most serious -obstruction to their ever being Christians. “An air of softness in -their manners, great apparent ingenuousness and docility, at first -misled; but these were the mere accompaniments of an indolence, -bodily and mental; a constitutional voluptuousness; and an aversion -to the least restraint; which, however fitted for the luxurious state -of nature, in the tropics, are the greatest possible hindrances to -the strict moralities of Christianity.” Of the Marquesans, Melville -says in _Typee_: “Better it will be for them to remain the happy and -innocent heathens and barbarians that they now are, than, like the -wretched inhabitants of the Sandwich islands, to enjoy the mere name -of Christians without experiencing any of the vital operations of true -religion, whilst, at the same time, they are made the victims of the -worst vices and evils of civilised life.” - -Paul Gauguin, in his _Intimate Journals_, seems to share Melville’s -conviction that the Polynesians are disqualified by nature to -experience “any of the vital operations of the spirit.” In speaking of -the attempts of the missionaries to introduce marriage into Polynesia -he remarks cynically: “As they are going out of the church, the groom -says to the maid of honour, ‘How pretty you are!’ And the bride says to -the best man ‘How handsome you are!’ Very soon one couple moves off to -the right and another to the left, deep into the underbrush where, in -the shelter of the banana trees and before the Almighty, two marriages -take place instead of one. Monseigneur is satisfied, and says, ‘We are -beginning to civilise them.’” - -The good intentions of the Missionaries Melville does not question. But -high faith and low intelligence is a dangerous if not uncommon mating -of qualities. “It matters not,” he says, “that the earlier labourers in -the work, although strictly conscientious, were, as a class, ignorant, -and in many cases, deplorably bigoted: such traits have, in some -degree, characterised the pioneers of all faith. And although in zeal -and disinterestedness, the missionaries now on the island are, perhaps, -inferior to their predecessors, they have, nevertheless, in their -own way, at least, laboured hard to make a Christian people of their -charge.” - -As a result of this labour idolatry was done away with; the entire -Bible was translated into Tahitian; the morality of the islanders -was, on the whole, improved. These accomplishments Melville freely -admits. But in temporal felicity, “the Tahitians are far worse off -now than formerly; and although their circumstances, upon the whole, -are bettered by the missionaries, the benefits conferred by the -latter become utterly insignificant, when confronted with the vast -preponderance of evil brought by other means.” Melville found that -there was still at Tahiti freedom and indolence; torches brandished -in the woods at night; dances under the moon, and women decked with -flowers. But he also found the Missionaries intent upon the abolition -of the native amusements and customs--in their crowning efforts, -decking the women out in hats “said to have been first contrived and -recommended by the missionaries’ wives; a report which, I really trust, -is nothing but a scandal.” To Melville’s eyes, Tahiti was neither Pagan -nor Christian, but a bedraggled bastard cross between the vices of two -incompatible traditions. And in this blend he saw the promise of the -certain extinction of the Polynesians. The Polynesians themselves were -not blind to the doom upon them. Melville had heard the aged Tahitians -singing in a low sad tone a song which ran: “The palm trees shall grow, -the coral shall spread, but man shall cease.” - -[Illustration: FIRST HOME OF THE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN TAHITI - -From a report of The London Missionary Society, published in 1799.] - -[Illustration: THE FLEET OF TAHITI - -From an engraving after Hodges, the artist who accompanied Captain Cook -to the South Seas.] - -Melville’s plea was that Christendom treat Polynesia with -reasonableness, and Christian charity: perhaps the two rarest qualities -in the world. His plea was not without results; he unloosed upon -himself exhibitions of venom of the whole-hearted sort that enamour -a misanthrope to life. _The Living Age_ (Vol. XXVII) reprinted from -the _Eclectic Review_ a tribute which began: “Falsehood is a thing of -almost invincible courage; overthrow it to-day, and with freshened -vigour it will return to the lists to-morrow. _Omoo_ illustrates this -fact. We were under the illusion that the abettors of infidelity -and the partisans of popery had been put to shame by the repeated -refutation and exposure of their slanders against the Protestant -Missions in Polynesia; but Mr. Melville’s production proves that shame -is a virtue with which these gentry are totally unacquainted, and that -they are resharpening their missiles for another onset.” This review -then made it its object “to show that his statements respecting the -Protestant Mission in Tahiti are perversions of the truth--that -he is guilty of deliberate and elaborate misrepresentation, and ... -that he is a prejudiced, incompetent, and truthless witness.” It was -taken for granted that Melville was guilty of the heinous crime of -being a Catholic. From this presumption it was easy to understand that -Melville’s plea for sweetness and light was but the vicious ravings of -a man “foiled and disappointed by the rejection of Mariolatry and the -worship of wafers and of images, and of dead men by the Bible-reading -Tahitians.” By a convincing--if not cogent--technique of controversy, -Melville’s evidence was impugned by a discounting of the morals of the -witness: a Catholic, and a disseminator of the “worst of European vices -and the most dreadful of European diseases.” - -Melville was twenty-eight years old when he Quixotically championed -the heathen in the name of a transcendental charity which he believed -to be Christian. Amiable Protestant brethren undertook to disabuse him -of his naïve belief that the guardians of the faith of Christendom -invariably regulate their conduct in the spirit of Christ. As Melville -grew in wisdom he grew in disillusion: and his early tilt at the -London Missionary Society contributed to his rapid growth. At the -age of thirty-three he wrote in _Pierre_--a book planned to show the -impracticability of virtue--that “God’s truth is one thing, and man’s -truth another.” He then maintained that the history of Christendom for -the last 1800 years showed that “in spite of all the maxims of Christ, -that history is as full of blood, violence, wrong, and iniquity of -every kind, as any previous portion of the world’s story.” He says in -_Clarel_: - - “The world is portioned out, believe: - The good have but a patch at best, - The wise their corner; for the rest-- - Malice divides with ignorance.” - -Melville points out that Christ’s teachings seemed folly to the Jews -because Christ carried Heaven’s time in Jerusalem, while the Jews -carried Jerusalem time there. “Did He not expressly say ‘My wisdom is -not of this world?’ Whatever is really peculiar in the wisdom of Christ -seems precisely the same folly to-day as it did 1850 years ago.” In -_Clarel_, he goes further, and calls the world - - “a den - Worse for Christ’s coming, since His love - (Perverted) did but venom prove.” - -Though such a heretical idea was, to the Protestant brethren, of -course, clean gone on the farthest side of damnation, yet were Melville -and these same brethren working upon an identical major premise: each -was righteously convinced that he was about his Father’s business--each -was attempting to rout the other in the name of Christ. The brethren -rode forth in the surety of triumph; Melville retired within himself -convinced that defeat was not refutation, and that his way had been, -withal, the way of Heavenly Truth. And since his way bore but bitter -fruit, he shook the dust of the earth from his feet, convinced that -such soil was designed to nourish only iniquity. “Where is the earnest -and righteous philosopher,” he asks, framing his question to include -himself in that glorious minority, “who looking right and left, and up -and down through all the ages of the world, the present included; where -is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck with a -sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may be Lord of, -He is not Lord of this: for else this world would seem to give Him the -lie; so utterly repugnant seem its ways to the instinctively known ways -of Heaven.” In this world, he grew to feel, a wise man resigns himself -to the world’s ways. “When we go to heaven,” he taught, “it will be -quite another thing. There, we can freely turn the left cheek, because -the right cheek will never be smitten. There they can freely give all -to the poor, for _there_ there will be no poor to give to.” And this, -he contended, was a salutary doctrine: “I hold up a practical virtue to -the vicious; and interfere not with the eternal truth, that, sooner or -later, downright vice is downright woe.” His milk of human kindness was -not sweetened by the thunder of the Protestant brethren. - -Resigned to the insight that while on earth no wise man aims at heaven -except by a virtuous expediency, he accepted the London Missionary -Society as one of the evils inherent in the universe, and leaving it -to its own fate, looked prophetically forward to the Inter-Church -World Movement. In _The Confidence Man_ he makes one of the characters -say: “Missions I would quicken with the Wall Street spirit. For if, -confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to be gained but through -the auxiliary agency of worldly means, then, to the surer gaining -of such spiritual ends, the example of worldly policy in worldly -projects should not by spiritual projectors be slighted. In brief, the -conversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as depending on human -effort, would, by the world’s charity, be let out on contract. So much -by bid for converting India, so much for Borneo, so much for Africa. -You see, this doing good in the world by driblets is just nothing. I -am for doing good in the world with a will. I am for doing good to the -world once for all, and having done with it. Do but think of the eddies -and maelstroms of pagans in China. People here have no conception of -it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, pauper pagans are found dead -in the streets like so many nipped peas in a bin of peas. To be an -immortal being in China is no more distinction than to be a snow-flake -in a snow-squall. What are a score or two of missionaries to such -a people? I am for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body and -converting the Chinese _en masse_ within six months of the debarkation. -The thing is then done, and turn to something else.” And in _Clarel_: - - “But preach and work: - You’ll civilise the barbarous Turk-- - Nay, all the East may reconcile: - That done, let Mammon take the wings of even, - And mount and civilise the saints in heaven.” - -But when Melville was in Tahiti he harboured less emancipated notions -than he later achieved. He was then to all outward seeming little -better than a beach-comber, disciplined for his participation in a -mutiny he and the Long Doctor had ineffectively tried to prevent, and -in the end abandoned by his ecclesiastical guardians to drift among the -natives of Tahiti, and to find his way back home any way he could. - -The authorities at Tahiti left the party at the Calabooza to its own -disintegration: a sore on the island cured not by surgery but by -neglect. Gradually the mutineers melted out of sight. - -With the Long Doctor, Melville sailed across to the neighbouring island -of Imeeo, there to hire themselves out as field-labourers to two -South Sea planters: one a tall, robust Yankee, born in the backwoods -of Maine, sallow, and with a long face; the other, a short florid -little Cockney. This strange pair had cleared about thirty acres -in the isolation of the wild valley of Martair, where they worked -with invincible energy, and struggling against all odds to farm in -Polynesia, and with Heaven knows what ideas of making a fortune on -their crude plantation. - -Melville had tried farming in Pittsfield, and he liked the labour -even less in Polynesia than he did in Christendom. The Long Doctor -throve not at all hoeing potatoes under a tropical sun, all the while -saying masses as he watered the furrows with his sweat. Both Melville -and the Long Doctor enjoyed the hunt they took in the wilds of the -mountains: but back to the mosquitoes, the sweet-potatoes, and the -hardships of agriculture, they decided to launch forth again upon the -luck of the open road. What clothes they had were useless rags. So -barefooted, and garbed like comic opera brigands or mendicant grandees, -they started out on a tour of discovery around the island of Imeeo. -After about ten days of pleasant adventure and hospitality from the -natives they arrived at Partoowye to be accepted into the household of -an aristocratic-looking islander named Jeremiah Po-Po, and his wife -Arfretee. This was a household of converts: “Po-Po was, in truth, a -Christian,” Melville says: “the only one, Arfretee excepted, whom I -personally knew to be such, among all the natives of Polynesia.” - -Arfretee fitted out Melville and the Doctor each with a new sailor -frock and a pair of trousers: and after a bath, a pleasant dinner, and -a nap, they came forth like a couple of bridegrooms. - -Melville was in Partoowye, as guest of Po-Po, for about five weeks. -At that time it was believed that Queen Pomare--who was then in poor -health and spirits, and living in retirement in Partoowye--entertained -some idea of making a stand against the French. In this event, she -would, of course, be glad to enlist all the foreigners she could. -Melville and the Long Doctor played with the idea of being used by -Pomare as officers, should she take to warlike measures. But in this -scheme they won little encouragement. For though Pomare had, previous -to her misfortunes, admitted to her levees the humblest sailor who -cared to attend upon Majesty, she was, in her eclipse, averse to -receiving calls. - -Shut off from an immediate prospect of interviewing Pomare, Melville -improved his time by studying the native life, and by visiting a whaler -in the harbour--the _Leviathan_--taking the precaution to secure -himself a bunk in the forecastle should he fail of a four-poster at -Court. His heart warmed to the _Leviathan_ after his first visit of -inspection on board. “Like all large, comfortable old whalers, she had -a sort of motherly look:--broad in the beam, flush decks, and four -chubby boats hanging at her breast.” The food, too, was promising. “My -sheath-knife never cut into better sea-beef. The bread, too, was hard, -and dry, and brittle as glass; and there was plenty of both.” The mate -had a likeable voice: “hearing it was as good as a look at his face.” -But Melville still clung to the hope of winning the ear of Pomare. -Although there was, Melville says, “a good deal of waggish comrades’ -nonsense” about his and Long Ghost’s expectation of court preferment, -“we nevertheless really thought that something to our advantage might -turn up in that quarter.” - -Pomare was then upward of thirty years of age; twice stormily married; -and a good sad Christian again,--after lapses into excommunication; -she eked out her royal exchequer by going into the laundry business, -publicly soliciting, by her agents, the washing of the linen belonging -to the officers of ships touching in her harbours. Her English sister, -Queen Victoria, had sent her a very showy but uneasy headdress--a -crown. Having no idea of reserving so pretty a bauble for coronation -days, which came so seldom, her majesty sported it whenever she -appeared in public. To show her familiarity with European customs, she -touched it to all foreigners of distinction--whaling captains and the -like--whom she happened to meet in her evening walk on the Broom Road. - -Melville discovered among Pomare’s retinue a Marquesan warrior, -Marbonna,--a wild heathen who scorned the vices and follies of the -Christian court of Tahiti and the degeneracy of the people among whom -fortune had thrown him. Through the instrumentality of Marbonna, who -officiated as nurse of Pomare’s children, Melville and the Doctor at -last found themselves admitted into the palace of Pomare. - -“The whole scene was a strange one,” Melville says; “but what most -excited our surprise was the incongruous assemblage of the most costly -objects from all quarters of the globe. Superb writing-desks of -rosewood, inlaid with silver and mother-of-pearl; decanters and goblets -of cut glass; embossed volumes of plates; gilded candelabras; sets of -globes and mathematical instruments; laced hats and sumptuous garments -of all sorts were strewn about among greasy calabashes half-filled with -_poce_, rolls of old tappa and matting, paddles and fish-spears. A -folio volume of Hogarth lay open, with a cocoanut shell of some musty -preparation capsized among the miscellaneous furniture of the Rake’s -apartment.” - -While Melville and the Doctor were amusing themselves in this museum of -curiosities, Pomare entered, unconscious of the presence of intruders. - -“She wore a loose gown of blue silk, with two rich shawls, one red, the -other yellow, tied about her neck. Her royal majesty was barefooted. -She was about the ordinary size, rather matronly; her features not very -handsome; her mouth voluptuous; but there was a care-worn expression -in her face, probably attributable to her late misfortunes. From her -appearance, one would judge her about forty; but she is not so old. As -the Queen approached one of the recesses, her attendants hurried up, -escorted her in, and smoothed the mats on which she at last reclined. -Two girls soon appeared, carrying their mistress’ repast; and then, -surrounded by cut glass and porcelain, and jars of sweetmeats and -confections, Pomare Vahinee I., the titular Queen of Tahiti, ate fish -and _poee_ out of her native calabashes, disdaining either knife or -spoon.” - -The interview between the Queen and her visitors was brief. Long Ghost -strode up bravely to introduce himself. The natives surrounding the -Queen screamed. Pomare looked up, surprised and offended, and waved the -Long Doctor and Melville out of the house. Though Melville was later to -view a South American King, was to win the smile of Victoria and meet -Lincoln, Pomare was the first and only Polynesian Queen he ever saw. - -Disappointed at going to court, feeling that they could no longer -trespass on Po-Po’s hospitality, “and then, weary somewhat of life in -Imeeo, like all sailors ashore, I at last pined for the billows.” - -The Captain of the _Leviathan_--a native of Martha’s Vineyard--was -unwilling without persuasion to accept Melville, however. What with -Melville’s associations with Long Ghost, and the British sailor’s frock -Arfretee had given him, the Captain suspected Melville of being from -Sydney: a suspicion not intended as flattery. Unaccompanied by Long -Ghost, Melville finally interviewed the Captain, to find that worthy -mellowed at the close of a spirituous dinner. “After looking me in the -eye for some time, and by so doing, revealing an obvious unsteadiness -in his own visual organs, he begged me to reach forth my arm. I did so; -wondering what on earth that useful member had to do with the matter -in hand. He placed his fingers on my wrist; and holding them there for -a moment, sprang to his feet; and, with much enthusiasm, pronounced me -a Yankee, every beat of my pulse.” Another bottle was called, which -the captain summarily beheaded with the stroke of a knife, commanding -Melville to drain it to the bottom. “He then told me that if I would -come on board his vessel the following morning, I would find the ship’s -articles on the cabin transom.... So, hurrah for the coast of Japan! -Thither the ship was bound.” - -The Long Doctor, on second thought, decided to eschew the sea for a -space. A last afternoon was spent with Po-Po and his family. “About -nightfall, we broke away from the generous-hearted household and -hurried down to the water. It was a mad, merry night among the sailors. -An hour or two after midnight, everything was noiseless; but when the -first streak of dawn showed itself over the mountains, a sharp voice -hailed the forecastle, and ordered the ship unmoored. The anchors came -up cheerily; the sails were soon set; and with the early breath of the -tropical morning, fresh and fragrant from the hillsides, we slowly -glided down the bay, and we swept through the opening in the reef.” - -Melville never saw or heard from Long Ghost after their parting on that -morning. - - - - -CHAPTER XII - -ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR - - “Oh, give me the rover’s life--the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let - me feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into the saddle once more. - I am sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and - reek of towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs. Let - me snuff thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny in thy spray. Forbid it, - sea-gods! intercede for me with Neptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that - no dull clod may fall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that swallowed - up Pharaoh and all his hosts; let me lie down with Drake, where he - sleeps in the sea.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _White-Jacket_. - - -In 1898, there appeared the _Memories of a Rear-Admiral Who Has Served -for More Than Half a Century in the Navy of the United States_. S. -R. Franklin, the author of this volume, had lived a long and useful -life, with no design during his years of activity, it would seem, -of bowing himself out of the world as a man-of-letters. But in the -leisure of elderly retirement, he was persuaded by his friends to -get rid of his reminiscences once for all by putting them into a -book. Rear-Admiral Franklin took an inventory of his rich life, and -accepted the challenge. Had he not roamed about the globe since he -was sixteen years of age? And he had known a dozen famous Admirals, -three Presidents, three Emperors, two Popes, five Christian Kings and -a properly corresponding number of Queens, not to mention a whole army -of lesser notables. - -In 1842, as midshipman aboard the _United States_ frigate, Franklin -cruised the Pacific. The _United States_ stopped at Honolulu, touched -at the Marquesas. Franklin reports that the Bay of Nukuheva “makes one -of the most beautiful harbours I have ever seen.” But upon the natives -he bestowed the contempt of a civilised man: “for the Marquesans were -cannibals of the worst kind, and no one who desired to escape roasting -ever ventured away from the coast.” The _United States_ did not remain -long in these waters, “where there was nothing to do but look at a lot -of half-naked savages.” So off sailed the frigate to Tahiti, where a -queen came aboard. But Franklin cannot remember whether it was Pomare -or some other queen: “Ladies of that rank were not uncommon in those -days in the South Seas.” - -Franklin had then been cruising among the islands of the Pacific for -some months, and he was “not sorry when the time came to get under way -for the coast.” Men of Franklin’s type are a credit to civilisation: -men proud of their heritage, but unobtrusive in their pride. Franklin -was unmoved by any sanctimonious hankering to improve the heathen, or -by any romantic anxiety to ease into the mud of barbarism. “Savage and -half-civilised life becomes very irksome,” he says, “when the novelty -is worn off.” - -“At Tahiti,” he goes on to state, “we picked up some seamen who were -on the Consul’s hands. They were entered on the books of the ship, and -became a portion of the crew. One of the number was Herman Melville, -who became famous afterwards as a writer and an admiralty lawyer. He -had gone to sea for his health, and found himself stranded in the -South Pacific. I do not remember what the trouble was, but he and his -comrades had left the ship of which they were a portion of the crew. -Melville wrote a book, well known in its day, called _White-Jacket_, -which had more influence in abolishing corporal punishment in the Navy -than anything else. This book was placed on the desk of every member of -Congress, and was a most eloquent appeal to the humane sentiment of the -country. As an evidence of the good it did, a law was passed soon after -the book appeared abolishing flogging in the Navy absolutely, without -substituting any other mode of punishment in its stead; and this was -exactly in accord with Melville’s appeal.” - -“I do not think that I remember Melville at all,” Franklin goes on to -say; “occasionally will flash across my memory a maintop-man flitting -across about the starboard gangway with a white jacket on, but there -is not much reality in the picture which it presents to my mind. In -his book he speaks of a certain seaman, Jack Chase, who was Captain -of the maintop, of whom I have a very distinct recollection. He was -about as fine a specimen of seaman as I have ever seen in all my -cruising. He was not only that, but he was a man of intelligence, and -a born leader. His top-mates adored him, although he kept them up to -the mark, and made every man do his share of work. Melville has given -him considerable space in his book, and seems to have had intense -admiration for him. He mentions also a number of officers whom it is -not difficult to recognise. The Commanding Officer, who had a very red -face, he called Captain Claret; a small but very energetic Midshipman, -who made himself felt and heard about the decks, he called Mr. Pert; -the Gunner was ‘Old Combustibles.’ He gives no names, but to any one -who served in the Frigate _United States_ it was easy to recognise -the men by their sobriquets. Melville certainly did a grand work in -bringing his ability as a writer and his experience as a seaman to bear -upon the important matter--I mean corporal punishment--which had been -the subject of so much discussion in and out of Congress.” - -The essential accuracy of Melville’s account of life on board the -Frigate _United States_ is thus, in the above as in other passages, -vouched for by a Rear-Admiral. Franklin, himself, however, is not -exhaustively familiar with the life and works of Melville, making him -an “admiralty lawyer” who went to sea for his health. And according to -Franklin’s account, Melville shipped on board the _United States_ from -Tahiti. According to Melville’s own account, he left Eimeo--from the -harbour of Tamai--not on board a man-of-war, but on board an American -whaler bound for the fishing grounds off Japan. - -The itinerary of Melville’s rovings in the Pacific after he left Tahiti -cannot be stated with any detailed precision. In an Appendix to the -American edition of _Typee_, Melville says: “During a residence of four -months at Honolulu, the author was in the confidence of an Englishman -who was much employed by his lordship”--Sir George Paulet. In both -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ he speaks of conditions in the Sandwich Islands with -the familiarity of first-hand observation. The Frigate _United States_ -sailed from Hampton Roads early in January, 1842. It doubled the Horn -late in February, and joined the Pacific squadron at Valparaiso. -After spending the winter of 1842-3 off Monterey, the _United States_ -returned to Callao in the spring, and sailed for Honolulu, arriving in -the early summer of 1843. According to his own account, Melville left -Tahiti in the autumn of 1842. The _United States_ left Tahiti in the -summer of 1843. Melville speaks of revisiting the Marquesas and Tahiti -after the experiences recorded in _Typee_ and _Omoo_. In _Typee_ he -says: “Between two and three years after the adventures recorded in -this volume, I chanced, while aboard a man-of-war, to touch at these -islands”--the Marquesas. Though in this statement Melville is patently -careless in his chronology, there is no reason to doubt his geography. -According to the hypothesis that offers fewest difficulties--and none -of these at all serious--it would appear that Melville left the Society -Islands in the autumn of 1842, on board a whaler bound for the coast -of Japan, to arrive in Honolulu some time in the early part of 1843, -where, according to Arthur Stedman, he was “employed as a clerk.” In -the Introductory Note to _White-Jacket_ he says: “In the year 1843 I -shipped as ‘ordinary seaman’ on board a United States frigate, then -lying in a harbour of the Pacific Ocean. After remaining in the frigate -for more than a year, I was discharged from the service upon the -vessel’s arrival home.” Melville was discharged in Boston, in October, -1844. It would appear that Melville shipped on board the _United -States_, from Honolulu, in the summer of 1843, touching again at the -Marquesas and at Tahiti, and returning home by way of the Peruvian -ports. - -Of Melville’s experiences between the time of his leaving the Society -Islands and that of his homeward cruise as a sailor in the United -States Navy, nothing is known beyond the meagre details already stated. - -In _White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War_ (1850) Melville has -left a fuller account, however, of his experiences on board the _United -States_. The opening of _White-Jacket_ finds Melville at Callao, on -the coast of Peru--the last harbour he touched in the Pacific. In -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ he had already recounted his adventures in the South -Seas, with all the crispness and lucidity of fresh discovery. While on -board the _United States_ he returned to old harbours, and sailed past -familiar islands. But _White-Jacket_ is not a _Yarrow Revisited_. - -On the showing of _White-Jacket_, Melville’s life in the navy -was, perhaps, the happiest period in his life. It is true that in -_Typee_ he wrote: “I will frankly confess that after passing a few -weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher estimate of -human nature than I had ever before entertained. But, alas, since -then I have been one of the crew of a man-of-war, and the pent-up -wickedness of five hundred men has nearly overturned all my previous -theories.” And in _White-Jacket_ he has many a very dark word to say -for the navy. Sailors, as a class, do, of course, entertain liberal -notions concerning the Decalogue; but in this they resemble landsmen, -both Christian and cannibal. And in Melville’s day--as before and -after--from a frigate’s crew might be culled out men of all callings -and vocations, from a backslidden parson to a broken-down comedian. It -is an old saying that “the sea and the gallows refuse nothing.” But -withal, more than one good man has been hanged. “The Navy,” Melville -says, “is the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. -Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and here -the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin.” According to -this version, a typical man-of-war was a sort of State Prison afloat. -“Wrecked on a desert shore,” Melville says, “a man-of-war’s crew could -quickly found an Alexandria by themselves, and fill it with all the -things which go to make up a capital.” The _United States_, surely, -lacked in none of the contradictions that go to make up a metropolis: -“though boasting some fine fellows here and there, yet, on the whole, -charged to the combings of hatchways with the spirit of Belial and -unrighteousness.” Or it was like a Parisian lodging house, turned -upside down: the first floor, or deck, being rented by a lord; the -second by a select club of gentlemen; the third, by crowds of artisans; -and the fourth--on a man-of-war a basement of indefinite depth, with -ugly-looking fellows gazing out at the windows--by a whole rabble of -common people. - -The good or bad temper, the vices and virtues of men-of-war’s men were -in a great degree attributable, Melville states, to their particular -stations and duties aboard ship. Melville congratulated himself upon -enjoying one of the most enviable posts aboard the frigate. It was -Melville’s office to loose the main-royal when all hands were called -to make sail: besides his special offices in tacking ship, coming to -anchor, and such like, he permanently belonged to the starboard watch, -one of the two primary grand divisions of the ship’s company. And in -this watch he was a main-top-man; that is, he was stationed in the -main-top, with a number of other seamen, always in readiness to execute -any orders pertaining to the main-mast, from above the main-yard. In -Melville’s time, the tops of a frigate were spacious and cosy. They -were railed in behind so as to form a kind of balcony, that looked -airily down upon the blue, boundless, dimpled, laughing, sunny sea, -and upon the landlopers below on the deck, sneaking about among the -guns. It was a place, too, to test one’s manhood in rough weather. From -twenty to thirty loungers could agreeably recline there, cushioning -themselves on old sails and jackets. In being a main-top-man, -Melville prided himself that he belonged to a fraternity of the most -liberal-hearted, lofty-minded, gay, elastic, and adventurous men on -board ship. “The reason for their liberal-heartedness was, that they -were daily called upon to expatiate themselves all over the rigging. -The reason for their lofty-mindedness was, that they were high lifted -above the petty tumults, carping cares, and paltrinesses of the decks -below.” And Melville attributed it to his having been a main-top-man, -and that in the loftiest yard of the frigate, the main-royal-yard, -“that I am now enabled to give such a free, broad, off-hand, -bird’s-eye, and more than all, impartial account of our man-of-war -world; withholding nothing; inventing nothing; nor flattering, nor -scandalising any; but meting out to all--commodore and messenger boy -alike--their precise descriptions and deserts.” - -Melville says that the main-top-men, with amiable vanity, accounted -themselves the best seamen in the ship; brothers one and all, held -together by a strong feeling of _esprit de corps_. Their loyalty was -especially centred in their captain, Jack Chase--a prime favourite -and an oracle among the men. Upon Jack Chase’s instigation they -all wore their hats at a peculiar angle; he instructed them in the -tie of their neck handkerchiefs; he protested against their wearing -vulgar _dungaree_ trousers; he gave them lessons in seamanship. And he -solemnly conjured them, with unmitigated detestation, to eschew the -company of any sailor suspected of having served in a whaler. On board -the _United States_, Melville wisely held his peace “concerning stove -boats on the coast of Japan.” - -Melville’s admiration for Jack Chase was perhaps the happiest -wholehearted surrender he ever gave to any human being. Jack Chase was -“a Briton and a true-blue; tall and well-knit, with a clear open eye, -a fine broad brow, and an abounding nut-brown beard. No man ever had -a better heart or a bolder. He was loved by the seamen and admired by -the officers; and even when the captain spoke to him, it was with a -slight air of respect. No man told such stories, sang such songs, or -with greater alacrity sprang to his duty. The main-top, over which -he presided, was a sort of oracle of Delphi; to which many pilgrims -ascended, to have their perplexities or difficulties settled.” Jack -was a gentleman. His manners were free and easy, but never boisterous; -“he had a polite, courteous way of saluting you, if it were only to -borrow a knife. He had read all the verses of Byron, all the romances -of Scott; he talked of Macbeth and Ulysses; but above all things was he -an ardent admirer of Camoen’s _Lusiad_, part of which he could recite -in the original.” He spoke a variety of tongues, and was master of an -incredible richness of Byronic adventure. “There was such an abounding -air of good sense and good feeling about the man that he who could not -love him, would thereby pronounce himself a knave. I thanked my sweet -stars that kind fortune had placed me near him, though under him, -in the frigate; and from the outset, Jack and I were fast friends. -Wherever you may be now rolling over the blue billows, dear Jack, take -my best love along with you,” Melville wrote; “and God bless you, -wherever you go.” And this sentiment Melville cherished throughout his -life. Almost the last thing Melville ever wrote was the dedication -of his last novel, _Billy Budd_--existing only in manuscript, and -completed three months before his death to “Jack Chase, Englishman, -wherever that great heart may now be, Here on earth or harboured in -Paradise, Captain in the war-ship in the year 1843, In the U. S. -Frigate _United States_.” - -In _White-Jacket_, Melville glows with the same superlative admiration -for Jack Chase that Ouida, or the Duchess, exhibit in portraying -their most irresistible cavaliers; an enthusiasm similar to that of -Nietzsche’s for his Übermensch. So contagious is Melville’s love -for his ship-mate that strange infections seem to have been caught -therefrom. Though it is certainly not true that “all the world loves a -lover,” Melville’s affection for Jack Chase won him at least one rather -startling proof that Shakespeare’s dictum is not absolutely false. The -proof came in the following form: - - “No 2, Guthuee Port, Arbrooth 13 May 1857 - - “_Herman Melville Esquire_ - - “Author of the white Jacket Mardi and others, Honour’d Sir Let it - not displease you to be addressed by a stranger to your person not - so to your merits, I have read the white jacket with much pleasure - and delight ‘I found it rich in wisdom and brilliant with beauty, - ships and the sea and those who plow it with their belongings on - shore--those subjects are idintified with Herman Melvil’s name for - he has most unquestioneably made them his own,, No writer not even - Marryat himself has observed them more closely or pictured them more - impressively, a delightful book it is. I long exceedingly to read - Mardi, but how or where to obtain it is the task? I have just now - received an invitation to cross the Atlantic from a Mr and Mrs Weed - Malta between Bolston springs and saratoga Countie, ,, as also from - Mr Alexer Muler my own Cousin, Rose bank Louistown - - “I have for this many a day been wishing to see you ‘to hear you - speak to breath the same air in which you dwell’ Are you the picture - of him you so powerfully represent as the Master piece of all Gods - works Jack Chase?-- - - “write me dear sir and say where Omidi ’sto be gote, I do much admire - the American Authors Washington Irver Mrs Stowe Allan Edgar Po the - Late James Abbott and last though not least your good self--Did you - ever read the history of Jeffery Rudel he was a young Noble man of - Provence and reconed one of the handsomest and polite persons of his - age. he lived in the time of Richard the first sir named cour de Lion - who invited Jeffery to his court and it was there he first heard - of the beauty wit, learning and virtue of the Countess of Tripoly - by which he became so enamoured that he resolved upon seeing her - purchased a vesel and in opesition to the King and the luxury of a - Court set sail for Tripoly the obgect of his affections realised his - most sanguine expectations. - - “were you to cross the atlantic you should receive a cordeial - reception from Mr George Gordon my-beloved & only brother & I’d - bid you welcome to old s’’t Thomas a Becket famed for kindness to - strangers.-- - - “permite me Dear Sir to subskribe myself your friend although unseen - and at a Distance - - “ELIZA GORDON - - “Heaven first sent letters, - For some wretches aid, - Some banished Lover - Or some Captive maid - - “POPE.” - -Besides the “Master piece of all Gods works Jack Chase” and his -comrades of the main-top, Melville was fortunate in finding a few -other ship-mates to admire. There was Lemsford, “a gentlemanly young -member of the after-guard,” a poet, to whose effusions Melville was -happy to listen. “At the most unseasonable hours you would behold -him, seated apart, in some corner among the guns--a shot-box before -him, pen in hand, and eyes ‘in a fine frenzy rolling.’ Some deemed -him a conjurer; others a lunatic. The knowing ones said that he must -be a crazy Methodist.” Another of Melville’s friends was Nord. Before -Melville knew him, he “saw in his eye that the man had been a reader -of good books; I would have staked my life on it, that he had seized -the right meaning of Montaigne.” With Nord, Melville “scoured all the -prairies of reading; dived into the bosoms of authors, and tore out -their hearts.” Melville’s friend Williams “was a thorough-going Yankee -from Maine, who had been both a pedlar and a pedagogue in his day. He -was honest, acute, witty, full of mirth and good humour--a laughing -philosopher.” Beyond these, Melville was chary of his friendship, -despite the personal intimacies imposed by the crowded conditions on -shipboard. For living on board a man-of-war is like living in a market, -where you dress on the doorsteps and sleep in the cellar. - -Yet even on board the _United States_ Melville did find it possible to -get some solitude. “I am of a meditative humour,” he says, “and at sea -used often to mount aloft at night, and, seating myself on one of the -upper yards, tuck my jacket about me and give loose to reflection. In -some ships in which I have done this, the sailors used to fancy that -I must be studying astronomy--which, indeed, to some extent, was the -case. For to study the stars upon the wide, boundless ocean, is divine -as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions from the -plain.” - -Melville was not only fortunate in his friends on the top, and -above, but also in the mess to which he belonged: “a glorious set of -fellows--Mess No. 1!--numbering, among the rest, my noble Captain Jack -Chase. Out of a pardonable self-conceit they called themselves the -_Forty-two-pounder Club_; meaning that they were, one and all, fellows -of large intellectual and corporeal calibre.” - -In _White-Jacket_, Melville’s purpose was to present the variegated -life aboard a man-of-war; to give a vivid sense of the complexity of -the typical daily existence aboard a floating armed city inhabited by -five hundred male human beings. And no one else has ever done this so -successfully as has Melville. “I let nothing slip, however small,” he -says; “and feel myself actuated by the same motive which has prompted -many worthy old chroniclers to set down the merest trifles concerning -things that are destined to pass entirely from the earth, and which, -if not preserved in the nick of time, must infallibly perish from the -memories of man. Who knows that this humble narrative may not hereafter -prove the history of an obsolete barbarism?” For _White-Jacket_ is, -certainly, written with no intent to glorify war. It is a book that -a militaristic country would do well to suppress. “Courage,” Melville -teaches therein, “is the most common and vulgar of the virtues.” Of a -celebrated and dauntless fighter he says: “a hero in this world;--but -what would they have called him in the next?” “As the whole matter of -war is a thing that smites common sense and Christianity in the face,” -he contends, “so everything connected with it is utterly foolish, -unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring of the Feejee Islands, -cannibalism, saltpetre, and the devil.” - -But Melville’s anti-militaristic convictions in no sense perverted his -astonishingly vital presentation of life on board the _United States_. -Though in contemplation he despised war, and was open-eyed to the -abuses and iniquity on all sides of him on board the frigate; in actual -fact he seems to have been unusually happy as a sailor in the navy, -among his comrades of the top. The predominant mood of the book is the -rollicking good-humour of high animal spirits. - -There were black moments in his pleasant routine, however: the terrible -nipping cold, and blasting gales, and hurricanes of sleet and hail -in which he furled the main-sail in rounding Cape Horn; the flogging -he witnessed; his watches at the cot of his mess-mate Shenley in the -subterranean sick-bay, and Shenley’s death and burial at sea; the -barbarous amputation he witnessed, and the death of the sick man at -the hands of the ship’s surgeon--a scene that Flaubert might well have -been proud to have written. And there were ugly experiences during the -cruise that were among the most lurid in his life. - -Throughout the cruise, it seems, for upward of a year he had been an -efficient sailor, alert in duties, circumspect in his pleasures, liked -and respected by his comrades. The ship homeward bound, and he within -a few weeks of being a freeman, he heard the boatswain’s mate bawling -his name at all the hatchways and along the furtherest recesses of the -ship: the Captain wanted him at the mast. Melville’s heart jumped to -his throat at the summons, as he hurriedly asked Fluke, the boatswain’s -mate at the fore-hatchway, what was wanted of him. - -“Captain wants you at the mast,” Fluke replied. “Going to flog ye, I -guess.” - -“For what?” - -“My eyes! you’ve been chalking your face, hain’t ye?” - -Swallowing down his heart, he saw, as he passed through the gangway -to the dread tribunal of the frigate, the quartermaster rigging -the gratings; the boatswain with his green bag of scourges; the -master-at-arms ready to help off some one’s shirt. On the charge of a -Lieutenant, Melville was accused by the Captain of failure in his duty -at his station in the starboard main-lift: a post to which Melville had -never known he was assigned. His solemn disclaimer was thrown in his -teeth, and for a thing utterly unforeseen, and for a crime of which he -was utterly innocent, he was about to be flogged. - -“There are times when wild thoughts enter a man’s breast, when he seems -almost irresponsible for his act and his deed,” writes the grandson of -General Peter Gansevoort. “The Captain stood on the weather-side of the -deck. Sideways, on an unobstructed line with him, was the opening of -the lee-gangway, where the side-ladders are suspended in port. Nothing -but a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this opening, -which was cut right to the level of the Captain’s feet, showing the -far sea beyond. I stood a little to windward of him, and, though he -was a large, powerful man, it was certain that a sudden rush against -him, along the slanting deck, would infallibly pitch him headforemost -into the ocean, though he who so rushed must needs go over with him. -My blood seemed clotting in my veins; I felt icy cold at the tips of -my fingers, and a dimness was before my eyes. But through that dimness -the boatswain’s mate, scourge in hand, loomed like a giant, and Captain -Claret, and the blue sea seen through the opening at the gangway, -showed with an awful vividness. I cannot analyse my heart, though it -then stood still within me. But the thing that swayed me to my purpose -was not altogether the thought that Captain Claret was about to degrade -me, and that I had taken an oath with my soul that he should not. No, I -felt my man’s manhood so bottomless within me, that no word, no blow, -no scourge of Captain Claret could cut me deep enough for that. I -but swung to an instinct within me--the instinct diffused through all -animated nature, the same that prompts even a worm to turn under the -heel. The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of -dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not given to us -without a purpose.” - -Captain Claret ordered Melville to the grating. The ghost of Peter -Gansevoort, awakening in Melville, measured the distance between -Captain Claret and the sea. - -“Captain Claret,” said a voice advancing from the crowd. Melville -turned to see who this might be that audaciously interrupted at a -juncture like this. It was a corporal of marines, who speaking in a -mild, firm, but extremely deferential manner, said: “I know that man, -and I know that he would not be found absent from his station if he -knew where it was.” This almost unprecedented speech inspired Jack -Chase also to intercede in Melville’s behalf. But for these timely -intercessions, it is very likely that Melville would have ended that -day as a suicide and a murderer. There is no lack of evidence, both in -his writings and in the personal recollections of him that survive, -that the headlong violence of his passion, when deeply stirred, balked -at no extremity. And that day as the scourge hung over him for an -offence he had not committed, he seems to have been as murderously -roused as at any other known moment in his life. Though hating war, he -boasted “the inalienable right to kill”: and the ghost of Mow-Mow, at -the day of final reckoning, can attest that this boast was not lightly -given. Like the whaling Quakers that he so much admired, he was “a -pacifist with a vengeance.” - -This scene happened during the run of the _United States_ from Rio -to the Line. At Rio, Melville had gone ashore with Jack Chase and -a few other discreet and gentlemanly top-men. But of the dashing -adventures--if any--that they had on land, Melville is silent: “my -man-of-war alone must supply me with the staple of my matter,” he -says; “I have taken an oath to keep afloat to the last letter of my -narrative.” - -In so far as fine weather and the ship’s sailing were concerned, the -whole run from Rio to the Line was one delightful yachting. Especially -pleasant to Melville during this run were his quarter watches in -the main-top. Removed from the immediate presence of the officers, -he and his companions could there enjoy themselves more than in any -other part of the ship. By day, many of them were industrious making -hats or mending clothes. But by night they became more romantically -inclined. Seen from this lofty perch, of moonlight nights, the frigate -must have been a glorious sight. “She was going large before the -wind, her stun’-sails set on both sides, so that the canvases on the -main-mast and fore-mast presented the appearance of two majestic, -tapering pyramids, more than a hundred feet broad at the base, and -terminating in the clouds with the light cope-stone of the royals. That -immense area of snow-white canvas sliding along the sea was indeed -a magnificent spectacle. The three shrouded masts looked like the -apparition of three gigantic Turkish Emirs striding over the ocean.” -From there, too, the band, playing on the poop, would tempt them to -dance; Jack Chase would well up into song during silent intervals: -songs varied by sundry yarns and twisters of the top-men. - -One pleasant midnight, after the _United States_ had crossed the -Line and was running on bravely somewhere off the coast of Virginia, -the breeze gradually died, and an order was given to set the -main-top-gallant-stun’-sail. The halyards not being rove, Jack Chase -assigned to Melville that eminently difficult task. That this was a -business demanding unusual sharp-sightedness, skill, and celerity is -evident when it is remembered that the end of a line, some two hundred -feet long, was to be carried aloft in one’s teeth and dragged far out -on the giddiest of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about -through all sorts of intricacies, was to be dropped, clear of all -obstructions, in a straight plumb-line right down to the deck. - -“Having reeved the line through all the inferior blocks,” Melville -says, “I went out to the end of the weather-top-gallant-yard-arm, and -was in the act of leaning over and passing it through the suspended -jewel-block there, when the ship gave a plunge in the sudden swells -of the calm sea, and pitching me still further over the yard, threw -the heavy skirts of my jacket right over my head, completely muffling -me. Somehow I thought it was the sail that had flapped, and under that -impulse threw up my hands to drag it from my head, relying upon the -sail itself to support me meanwhile. Just then the ship gave another -jerk, and head foremost I pitched over the yard. I knew where I was, -from the rush of air by my ears, but all else was a nightmare. A bloody -film was before my eyes, through which, ghost-like, passed and repassed -my father, mother, and sisters. An unutterable nausea oppressed me; I -was conscious of groping; there seemed no breath in my body. It was -over one hundred feet that I fell--down, down, with lungs collapsed as -in death. Ten thousand pounds of shot seemed tied to my head, as the -irresistible law of gravitation dragged me, head foremost and straight -as a die, towards the infallible centre of the terrequeous globe. All -I had seen, and read, and heard, and all that I had thought and felt -in my life--seemed intensified in one fixed idea in my soul. But dense -as this idea was, it was made up of atoms. Having fallen from the -projecting yard-arm end, I was conscious of a collected satisfaction in -feeling, that I should not be dashed on the deck, but would sink into -the speechless profound of the sea. - -“With the bloody, blind film before my eyes, there was a still stranger -hum in my head, as if a hornet were there; and I thought to myself, -Great God! this is Death! Yet these thoughts were unmixed with alarm. -Like frost-work that flashes and shifts its scared hues in the sun, all -my braided, blended emotions were in themselves icy cold and calm. - -“So protracted did my fall seem, that I can even now recall the feeling -of wondering how much longer it would be, ere all was over and I -struck. Time seemed to stand still, and all the worlds seemed poised on -their poles, as I fell, soul-becalmed, through the eddying whirl and -swirl of the Maelstrom air. - -“At first, as I have said, I must have been precipitated head foremost; -but I was conscious, at length, of a swift, flinging motion of my -limbs, which involuntarily threw themselves out, so that at last I must -have fallen in a heap. This is more likely, from the circumstance that -when I struck the sea, I felt as if some one had smote me slantingly -across the shoulder and along part of my right side. - -“As I gushed into the sea, a thunder-boom sounded in my ear; my soul -seemed flying from my mouth. The feeling of death flooded over me -with the billows. The blow from the sea must have turned me, so that -I sank almost feet foremost through a soft, seething, foamy lull. -Some current seemed hurrying me away; in a trance I yielded, and sank -deeper and deeper into the glide. Purple and pathless was the deep -calm now around me, flecked by summer lightnings in an azure afar. The -horrible nausea was gone; the bloody, blind film turned a pale green; I -wondered whether I was yet dead, or still dying. But of a sudden some -fashionless form brushed my side--some inert, coiled fish of the sea; -the thrill of being alive again tingled in my nerves, and the strong -shunning of death shocked me through. - -“For one instant an agonising revulsion came over me as I found myself -utterly sinking. Next moment the force of my fall was expended; and -there I hung, vibrating in the mid-deep. What wild sounds then rang -in my ear! One was a soft moaning, as of low waves on the beach; the -other wild and heartlessly jubilant, as of the sea in the height of a -tempest. Oh soul! thou then heardest life and death: as he who stands -upon the Corinthian shore hears both the Ionian and the Ægean waves. -The life-and-death poise soon passed; and then I found myself slowly -ascending, and caught a dim glimmering of light. Quicker and quicker I -mounted; till at last I bounded up like a buoy, and my whole head was -bathed in the blessed air.” - -With his knife, Melville ripped off his jacket, struck out boldly -towards the elevated pole of one of the life-buoys which had been cut -away, and was soon after picked up by one of the cutters from the -frigate. - -“Ten minutes after, I was safe on board, and, springing aloft, was -ordered to reeve anew the stun’-sail-halyards, which, slipping through -the blocks when I had let go the end, had unrove and fallen to the -deck.” Amphitrite had, indeed, interceded with Neptune, and the -sea-gods strove to answer Melville’s prayer. But Melville always, even -in the lowest abyss of despair, clung passionately to life. And the -night he was hurled from the mast he was hurled from among friends, and -into waters that washed the neighbouring shores of his birth. - -Melville’s long wanderings were nearly at an end. With the home port -believed to be broad on their bow, under the stars and a meagre moon in -her last quarter, the main-top-men gathered aloft in the top, and round -the mast they circled, “hand in hand, all spliced together. We had -reefed the last top-sail; trained the last gun; blown the last match; -bowed to the last blast; been tranced in the last calm. We had mustered -our last round the capstan; been rolled to grog the last time; for the -last time swung in our hammocks; for the last time turned out at the -sea-gull call of the watch. We had seen our last man scourged at the -gangway; our last man gasp out the ghost in the stifling sick-bay; our -last man tossed to the sharks.” - -And there Melville has left this brother band--with the anchor still -hanging from the bow--with the land still out of sight. “I love an -indefinite infinite background,” he says,--“a vast, heaving, rolling, -mysterious rear!” - - - - -CHAPTER XIII - -INTO THE RACING TIDE - - “As the vine flourishes, and the grape empurples close up to the very - walls and muzzles of cannoned Ehrenbreitstein; so do the sweetest - joys of life grow in the very jaws of its peril.”--HERMAN MELVILLE: - _Pierre_. - - -“Until I was twenty-five,” Melville once wrote to Hawthorne, “I had no -development at all.” When the cable and anchor of the _United States_ -were all clear, and when he bounded ashore on his native soil, Melville -was in his twenty-fifth year. “From my twenty-fifth year,” he wrote -Hawthorne, “I date my life.” - -His three years of wandering, crowded as they were with alienating -experiences, had, of course, worked deep changes in him: changes more -radical than in the dizzy whirl of strangely peopled adventures it was -possible for him to gauge. In memory, the fitful fever of the past, -deceitfully seems to strive not. But we delude ourselves when we fancy -that it sleeps well. During his far driftings, Melville had clung -reverently to thoughts of home, his imagination treacherously caressing -those very scenes whose intimate contact had filled him with revulsion. -“Do men ever hate the thing they love?” he asks in _White-Jacket_, -perplexed at the paradox of this perpetual recoil. He was eternally -looking both before and after, but never with the smug and genial -after-dinner optimism of Rabbi Ben Ezra. The insufficient present was -always poisoned, to him, by bitter margins of pining and regret. In -headlong escape from his household gods he had been landed among South -Sea islands that in retrospect he viewed as “authentic Edens.” Yet even -in Paradise did he feel himself an exile, teaching old Marheyo to say -“Home” and “Mother,” converting into sacred words the countersigns of -a former Hell. He tells in _White-Jacket_, how, with the smell of tar -in his nostrils, out of sight of land, with a stout ship under his -feet, and snuffing the ocean air, in the silence and solitude of the -deep, during the long night watches used to come thronging about his -heart “holy home associations.” And he closes _White-Jacket_ with the -reflection that “Life’s a voyage that’s homeward-bound!” But he sailed -with sealed orders. - -Of Melville’s impressions upon his return he has left no record. During -his three years of whaling and captivity among cannibals, and mutiny, -and South Sea driftings, and adventures in the Navy, life at home had -gone along in its regular necessary way; and the scenes of his youth, -despite their transformation in his memory, lived on in solid fact -unchanged. The identical trees in the Boston Common blotted out the -same patterns against the New England stars; none of the streets had -swerved from off their prim and angular respectability. His mother he -found living in Lansingburg, just out from Albany, N. Y. There was the -same starched calico smell to his sister’s dresses, the same clang-tint -to his mother’s voice. Such was the calibre of his imagination, that he -must have found life at Lansingburg unbelievably like he knew it must -be, yet very different from what he was prepared to find. - -His brothers must have first appeared intimate strangers to him. His -elder brother, Gansevoort, had given up his hat and fur shop, was -well established in law and had won a creditable name for himself -in politics. His younger brother, Allan, was beginning a successful -legal career, with his name emblazoned on a door at 10 Wall Street. -Maria was, after all, a Gansevoort; she was not too proud to keep her -brothers reminded that she had borne sons. Melville’s youngest brother, -Tom, had sprung from boyhood into the self-conscious maturity of youth. - -From vagabondage in Polynesia to the stern yoke of self-supporting -citizenship was a dizzy transition. But Melville did not clear it at -a bound. The very violence of the impact between the two antipodal -types of experience for a time must have stunned Melville to their -incompatibility. Tanned with sea-faring, exuberant in health, rosy -with the after-glow of his proud companionship with Jack Chase, and -the respect and affection he had won from his associates on board the -_United States_, he was effulgent with amazing tales--the enviable -hero of endless incredible adventures. His home-coming may well have -been not only a staggering, but a joyous adventure. For he entered -Lansingburg trailing clouds of glory. He was panoplied in romance; and -though bodily he was in a suburb of Albany, his companion image was -the distant adventurer he saw mirrored in the admiring and jealous -imagination of his friends. With what melancholy--if any--he viewed -this reflected image, and to what degree he was, Narcissus-wise, -conscious of its irony, we do not know. But if _Typee_ and _Omoo_ be -any index of his mood, he returned home happier and wholesomer than at -any other period of his life. Before many years, unsolved problems of -his youth were to reassert themselves, heightened in difficulty and in -pertinacity. Yet for a time, at least, so it would appear, he reaped -very substantial benefits from his escape beyond civilisation. - -According to J. E. A. Smith, Melville was soon beset by his enthralled -and wide-eyed friends to put his experiences into a book. Even if such -a challenge had never been made, it is difficult to see how Melville -could have escaped plunging into literature. For the hankering for -letters had earlier stirred in Melville’s blood,--a hankering that -he had before succumbed to, swathing a vacuity of experience in the -grave-wrappings of rhetoric and prolixity. Now he was rich in matter; -because of the very straitened circumstances of his family, he was -faced again by the necessity of earning some money if he stayed at -home; and in so far as we know, he was untempted to venture forth -either as vagabond or efficiency expert. - -Soon after his arrival home he must have settled down to composition. -For the manuscript of _Typee_ was bought in London by John Murray, by -an agreement dated December, 1845. - -At the time of the completion of _Typee_, Melville’s brother, -Gansevoort, was starting for London as Secretary to the American -Legation under Minister McLane. Gansevoort threw _Typee_ in among his -luggage, to try its luck among British publishers. Whether _Typee_ had -previously been refused in the United States has not yet transpired. -In any event, John Murray bought the English rights to print a -thousand copies of _Typee_--a purchase that cost him £100. Murray did -not close the sale, however, until he was assured that _Typee_ was a -sober account of actual experiences. _Typee_ appeared in two parts in -Murray’s “Colonial and Home Library.” Part I appeared on February 26, -1846; Part II on April 1 of the same year. - -Encouraged by the temerity of John Murray, Wiley and Putnam of New -York bought the American rights for _Typee_. And by an agreement made -in England, _Typee_ appeared simultaneously in New York and London: -in America under the title, _Typee, a Peep at Polynesian Life During -Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas_. In 1849, Harper -Brothers took over _Typee_, and issued it shorn of some of the passages -the Missionaries had found most objectionable. Up to January 1, 1849, -Wiley and Putnam had sold 6,392 copies of _Typee_: a sale upon which -Melville gained $655.91. Up to April 29, 1851, 7,437 copies of _Typee_ -had been sold in England, netting Melville, if accounts surviving in -Allan’s hand be correct, $708.40. - -Under the date of April 3, 1846--two days after the appearance in -England of Part II of _Typee_, Gansevoort wrote Melville the following -letter--the last letter, it appears, he ever wrote: - - “MY DEAR HERMAN: - - “Herewith you have copy of the arrangement with Wiley & Putnam for - the publication in the U. S. of your work on the Marquesas. The - letter of W. & P. under date of Jan. 13th is the result of a previous - understanding between Mr. Putnam and myself. As the correspondence - speaks for itself, it is quite unnecessary to add any comment. By - the steamer of to-morrow I send to your address several newspaper - comments and critiques of your book. The one in the _Sun_ was written - by a gentleman who is very friendly to myself, and who may possibly - for that reason have made it unusually eulogistic. - - “Yours of Feb. 28 was rec’d a few days ago by the daily packet - from Joshua Bates. I am happy to learn by it that the previous - intelligence transmitted by me was ‘gratifying enough.’ I am glad - that you continue busy, and on my next or the after that will - venture to make some suggestions about your next book. In a former - letter you informed me that Allan had sent you $100 home, the fruit - of my collection. (I refer to the money sent at your request). It - appears that this was not so, for Allan informs me that the $100 - was part of the £90 s 10--making £100 which I sent out by the - Jan. 2 Steamer. Allan seems to find it entirely too much trouble - to send me the monthly accounts of receipts and disbursements. I - have received no accounts from him later than up to Nov. 30th and - consequently am in a state of almost entire ignorance as to what - is transpiring at No. 10, Wall Street. This is very unthinking in - him, for my thoughts are so much at home that much of my time is - spent in disquieting apprehensions as to matters & things there. I - continue to live within my income, but to do so am forced to live - a life of daily self-denial. I do not find my health improved by - the sedentary life I have to lead here. The climate is too damp & - moist for me. I sometimes fear I am gradually breaking up. If it - be so--let it be--God’s will be done. I have already seen about as - much of London society as I care to see. It is becoming a toil to - me to make the exertion necessary to dress to go out, and I am now - leading a life really as quiet as your own in Lansingburg.--I think I - am growing phlegmatic and cold. Man stirs me not, nor women either. - My circulation is languid. My brain is dull. I neither seek to win - pleasure or avoid pain. A degree of insensibility has been long - stealing over me, & now seems completely established, which, to my - understanding, is more akin to death than life. Selfishly speaking, - I never valued life very much--it were impossible to value it less - than I do now. The only personal desire I now have is to be out - of debt. That desire waxes stronger within me as others fade. In - consideration of the little egotism which my previous letters to you - have contained, I hope that mother, brothers & sister will pardon - this babbling about myself. - - “Tom’s matter has not been forgotten. You say there is a subject, - etc., etc., ‘on which I intended to write but will defer it.’ What do - you allude to? I am careful to procure all the critical notices of - _Typee_ which appear & transmit them to you. The steamer which left - Boston on the 1st inst. will bring me tidings from the U. S. as to - the success of _Typee_ there. I am, with love and kisses to all, - - “Affectionately, Your brother, - - “GANSEVOORT MELVILLE.” - -With this letter, Gansevoort enclosed fourteen lines from Act III, -Scene I of _Measure for Measure_, beginning “Ah, but to die.” On -May 12, he was dead. His countrymen celebrated his decease. _The -Wisconsin,_ a newspaper published in Milwaukee, for example, published, -on July 1, a florid tribute to his memory, declaring him “dear -to the people of the West.” “And though he died young in years,” -the _Wisconsin_ goes on to say, “for genius, thrilling eloquence -and enlarged patriotism, he was known to the people from Maine to -Louisiana.” - -But already had Melville achieved a wider, if less beatified, -reputation. The notice that _Typee_ attracted extended considerably -beyond either Maine or Louisiana. And its success was none the less -brilliant because it was in part a _succes de scandal_. Christendom has -progressed since 1846, and _Typee_ has, for present-day readers, lost -its charm of indelicacy. Yet, despite the violation of the proprieties -of which Melville was accused, Longfellow records in his journal for -July 29, 1846: “In the evening we finished the first volume of _Typee_, -a curious and interesting book with glowing descriptions of life in -the Marquesas.” There is no indication that even Longfellow found it -discreet to omit any passages as he read _Typee_ to his family before -the fire. It is to be remembered, however, that in 1851 the _Scarlet -Letter_ was attacked as being nothing but a deliberate attempt to -attract readers by pandering to the basest taste: “Is the French era -actually begun in our literature?” a shocked reviewer asked. - -The appearance of _Omoo_ on January 30, 1847, augmented Melville’s -notoriety, and contributed to his fame. Both _Typee_ and _Omoo_ -stirred up a whole regiment of critics, at home, in England and -in France. France was patronising, of course, after the manner of -the period; but France flattered Melville by the prolixity of her -patronage. The interest of France in Melville was not a merely literary -absorption, however. Melville had arrived at the Marquesas in the wake -of Admiral Du Petit-Thouars; and at Tahiti Melville had been a prisoner -on board the _Reine Blanche_. In England, Melville was flattered not -only by vitriolic evangelistical damnation, and the uncritical flatter -of Gansevoort’s friends, but even _Blackwood’s_, the most anti-American -of British journals, said of _Omoo_: “Musing the other day over our -matutinal hyson, the volume itself was laid before us, and we found -ourselves in the society of Marquesan Melville, the Phœnix of modern -voyages--springing, it would seem, from the mingled ashes of Captain -Cook and Robinson Crusoe.” Writing of _Typee_, the insular _John Bull_ -said: “Since the joyous moment when we first read _Robinson Crusoe_ and -believed it, we have not met so bewitching a book as this narrative -of Herman Melville’s.” The _London Times_ descended to amiability and -said: “That Mr. Melville will favour us with his further adventures in -the South Seas, we have no doubt whatever. We shall expect them with -impatience, and receive them with pleasure. He is a companion after our -own hearts. His voice is pleasant, and we are sure that if we could -see his face it would be a pleasant one.” While such pronouncements -were no earnest of fame, they may have contributed somewhat to augment -Melville’s royalties. And in _Mardi_--written before Melville’s secular -critics began to assail him--Melville took a violent fling at his -reviewers. “True critics,” he said, “are more rare than true poets. A -great critic is a sultan among satraps; but pretenders are thick as -ants striving to scale a palm after its aerial sweetness. Oh! that an -eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill!” Withal, when Melville wrote -_Mardi_ he had spent some reflection on the nature of Fame, and mocked -at those who console themselves for the neglect of their contemporaries -by bethinking themselves of the glorious harvest of bravos their ghosts -will reap. And time, he saw, was an undertaker, not a resurrectionist: -“He who on all hands passes for a cipher to-day, if at all remembered, -will be sure to pass to-morrow for the same. For there is more -likelihood of being overrated while living than of being underrated -when dead.” - -Noticed by reviewers, and encouraged by payments from his publishers, -Melville began to look more hopefully at the world. In _Clarel_ he -later wrote: “The dagger-icicle draws blood; but give it sun.” He -seemed at last to have stepped decoratively and profitably into his -assigned niche in the cosmic order. It was delightful to rehearse -outlived pleasures and hardships; and it was a lucrative delight: -by writing, too, some men had achieved fame. And so, undeterred -by the wail of the Preacher of Jerusalem, Melville settled to the -multiplication of books. He would perpetuate his reveries--and he -doubted not that sparkling wines would crown his cup. Then it was that -the beckoning image of an ultimate earthly felicity swam over the -beaded brim. - -Melville had dedicated _Typee_ to Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of -Massachusetts. The Shaws and the Melvilles were friends of years’ -standing. When a student at Amherst, Lemuel Shaw had been engaged to -Melville’s aunt, Nancy. “To his death,” says Frederic Hathway Chase in -his _Lemuel Shaw_, “Shaw carefully preserved two tender notes written -in the delicate hand of his first betrothed, timidly referring to -their immature plans for the future and her admiration and love for -him. The untimely death of the young lady, unhappily cut short their -youthful dreams, and not until he was thirty-seven years of age were -Shaw’s affections again engaged. The intimacy between Shaw and the -Melville family, however, continued after the young lady’s death.” Yet -were the demands of Shaw’s affections not satisfied by his intimacy -with the Melvilles or by the two love-letters among his precious -belongings. He married twice; the first time in 1818 to Elizabeth -Knapp; the second time in 1827 to Hope Savage. By each wife he had two -children. By Elizabeth, John Oakes, who died in 1902; and Elizabeth, -who married Melville. By Hope, was born to him Lemuel, who lived till -1884, and Samuel Savage, born in 1833 in the Shaw home at 49 Mount -Vernon Street, Boston, where he lived till his death in 1915. Melville -heartily detested his brothers-in-law. - -On March 19, 1846, Melville wrote from Lansingburg to Chief Justice -Shaw: - - “MY DEAR SIR: - - “Herewith you have one of the first bound copies of _Typee_ I have - been able to procure--the dedication is very simple, for the world - would hardly have sympathised to the full extent of those feelings - with which I regard my father’s friend and the constant friend of all - his family. - - “I hope that the perusal of this little narrative of mine will afford - you some entertainment, even if it should not possess much other - merit. Your knowing the author so well, will impart some interest - to it.--I intended to have sent at the same time with this copies - of _Typee_ for each of my aunts, but have been disappointed in - not receiving as many as I expected.--I mention, however, in the - accompanying letter to my Aunt Priscilla that they shall soon be - forthcoming. - - “Remember me most warmly to Mrs. Shaw & Miss Elizabeth, and to all - your family, & tell them I shall not soon forget that agreeable visit - to Boston. - - “With sincere respect, Judge Shaw, I remain gratefully & truly yours, - - “HERMAN MELVILLE. - - “CHIEF JUSTICE SHAW, - ”Boston.” - -The Aunt Priscilla mentioned in this letter was a sister of Melville’s -father--fifth child of Major Thomas Melville. She was born in 1784, and -upon her death in 1862, she showed that her appreciation of Melville’s -earlier solicitude had been substantial, by bequeathing him nine -hundred dollars. The Miss Elizabeth of the letter, the only daughter of -Chief Justice Shaw, and Melville were married on August 4, 1847. - -On the evidence of surviving records, Melville’s father had resigned -himself to the institution of marriage as to one of the established -conveniences of Christendom. Allan was a practical man, and he soberly -saw that he gained more than he lost by generously sharing his bed -and the fireside zone with a competent accessory to his domestic -comforts. If he was ever a romantic lover, it was in the folly of his -youth. Though romantic love be a tingling holiday extravagance, he -mistrusted--and Allan never doubted his wisdom--its everyday useability -for a cautious and peace-loving man. And since Dante had married Gemma -Donati, since Petrarch had had children by an unknown concubine, Maria -had reason to congratulate herself that Allan evinced for her no -adoration of the kind lavished upon the sainted Beatrice or upon the -unattainable Laura. - -In his approach to marriage, Melville showed none of the prosaic -circumspection of his father. From his idealisation of the proud -cold purity of Maria, Melville built up a haloed image of the wonder -and mystery of sanctified womanhood: without blemish, unclouded, -snow-white, terrible, yet serene. And before this image Melville -poured out the fulness of his most reverential thoughts and beliefs. -The very profundity of his frustrated love for Maria, and the accusing -incompatibility between the image and the fact, made his early life a -futile and desperate attempt to escape from himself. The peace, and at -the same time the stupendous discovery that he craved: that he found -neither at home nor over the rim of the world. When with Maria, he had -craved to put oceans between them; when so estranged, he was parched to -return. - -In his wanderings, he had seen sights, and lived through experiences to -disabuse him of his fantastic idealisation of woman. In fact, however, -such experiences may but tend to heighten idealisation. In the Middle -Age, the Blessed Mother was celebrated in a duality of perplexing -incompatibility: she was at once the Virgin Mother of the Son of God, -and the patron of thieves, harlots and cutthroats. She was at once an -object of worship and a subject of farce. She was woman. Protestantism, -restoring woman to her original Hebraic dignity of a discarded rib, -evinced in marriage an essentially biological interest, and regulated -romantic love into uxoriousness. Allan was a good Protestant. But -neither Mrs. Chapone nor Fayaway were able to precipitate Melville -into that form of heresy. Fayaway was Fayaway: and her father was a -cannibal. Civilisation had given her no veils; Christianity had given -her no compunctons. She was neither a mystery nor a sin. Untouched did -she leave the sacred image in his heart. - -To Elizabeth Shaw, Melville transferred his idealisation of his -mother. In _Pierre_ he says: “this softened spell which wheeled the -mother and son in one orbit of joy seemed a glimpse of the glorious -possibility, of the divinest of those emotions which are incident to -the sweetest season of love.” In _Pierre_, Melville declared that the -ideal possibilities of the love between mother and son, seemed “almost -to realise here below the sweet dreams of those religious enthusiasts, -who paint to us a Paradise to come, when etherealised from all dross -and stains, the holiest passion of man shall unite all kindreds and -climes in one circle of pure and unimpaired delight.” And in this -“courteous lover-like adoration” of son for mother, Melville saw the -“highest and airiest thing in the whole compass of the experience of -our mortal life.” And “this heavenly evanescence,” Melville declares, -“this nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible -tenderness and attentiveness,” is, “in every refined and honourable -attachment, contemporary with courtship.” In _Pierre_, Melville -spends a chapter of dithyramb in celebration of this sentiment which, -inspired by one’s mother, one transfers to all other women honourably -loved. “Love may end in age, and pain and need, and all other modes -of human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love’s first sigh is -never breathed, till after love hath laughed. Love has not hands, but -cymbals; Love’s mouth is chambered like a bugle, and the instinctive -breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy.” And during his -courtship of Elizabeth Shaw, it seems that in Melville were “the -audacious immortalities of divinest love.” - -None of Melville’s letters of courtship survive. There are more direct -evidences of the fruits of his love, than of its early bloom. There -are, however, two letters of his wife’s, written during the month of -the marriage. The first was written during the wedding trip. - - “CENTER HARBOR, Aug. 6th, 1847. - - “MY DEAR MOTHER: - - “You know I promised to write you whenever we came to a stopping - place, and remained long enough. We are now at Center Harbor, a most - lonely and romantic spot at the extremity of Winnipiscogee Lake, - having arrived last evening from Concord--and we intend to remain - until to-morrow. One object in stopping so long and indeed principal - one was to visit ‘Red Hill’--a mountain (commanding a most beautiful - view of the lake) about four miles distant. But to-day it is so - cloudy and dull, I am afraid we shall not be able to accomplish - it--so you see I have a little spare time, and improve it by writing - to relieve any anxiety you may feel. Though this is but the third day - since our departure, it seems as if a long time had passed, we have - seen so many places of novelty and interest. The stage ride yesterday - from Franklin here, though rather fatiguing, was one of great - attraction from the beautiful scenery. To-morrow we again intend to - take the stage to Conway, and from there to the White Mountains. I - will write again from there, and tell you more of what I have seen, - but now I send this missive more to let you know of our safety and - well-being than anything else. - - “I hope by this time you have quite recovered from your - indisposition, and that I shall soon hear from you to be assured - of it--I hardly dare to trust myself to speak of what I felt in - leaving home, but under the influence of such commingling thoughts, - it entirely escaped me to tell you of any place to which you might - address a letter to me so that I should be sure to get it. Now I - am _very_ anxious and impatient to hear from you, and I hope you - will lose no time in writing if it be only a very few lines. Herman - desires to add a postscript to my letter, and he will tell you when - and where to write so that I may get it. - - “Remember me with affection to father and ask him to let me have - a letter from him soon, to all members of the family and to Mrs. - Melville and the girls--my mother and sisters--how strangely it - sounds. Accept a great deal of love for yourself, my dear mother, - and believe me as ever, your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth--even - though I add to it--Melville--for the first time. - - “Friday morning. - - “MY DEAR SIR: - - “At my desire Lizzie has left a small space for a word or two.--We - arrived here last evening after a pleasant ride from Franklin, the - present terminus of the Northern Rail Road. The scenery was in many - places very fine, & we caught some glimpses of the mountain region - to which we are going. Center Harbor where we now are is a very - attractive place for a tourist, having the lake for boating and - trouting, and plenty of rides in the vicinity, besides Red-Hill, the - view from which is said to be equal to anything of the kind in New - England. A rainy day, however, has thus far prevented us from taking - our excursion, to enjoy the country.--To-morrow, I think we shall - leave for Conway and thence to Mt. Washington & so to Canada. I trust - in the course of some two weeks to bring Lizzie to Lansingburgh, - quite refreshed and invigourated from her rambles.--Remember me to - Mrs. Shaw & the family, and tell my mother that I will write to her - in a day or two. - - “Sincerely yours, - - “HERMAN MELVILLE. - - “Letters directed within four or five days from now, will probably - reach us at Montreal.” - -The second letter explains itself: - - “LANSINGBURGH, Aug. 28th, 1847. - - “MY DEAR MOTHER: - - “We arrived here safe and well yesterday morning, and I intended to - have written a few lines to you then, but I was so tired, and had - so much to do to unpack and put away my things, I deferred it until - to-day. - - “We left Montreal on Tuesday evening and the next day in the - afternoon hailed Whitehall, at the foot of Lake Champlain, after - a very pleasant sail on that beautiful piece of water. The next - question was whether we should proceed to Lansingburgh by stage or - take the canal boat. We thought stage riding would be rather tame - after the beautiful scenery of Vermont, and as I had never been in - a canal boat in my life, Herman thought we had better try it for - the novelty. This would expedite our journeying, too, and having - once set our faces homeward, we were not disposed to delay. Being - fully forewarned of the inconvenience we might expect in passing a - night on board a canal boat--a crowded canal boat, too, and fully - determined to meet them bravely, we stepped on board--not without - some misgivings, however, as we saw the crowds of men, women and - children come pouring in, with trunks and handbags to match. Where so - many people were to store themselves at night was a mystery to be yet - unravelled, and what they all _did_ do with themselves is something - I have not yet found out. Well, night drew on--and after sitting on - deck on trunks or anything we could find (and having to bob our heads - down every few minutes when the helmsman sang out ‘Bridge!’ or ‘Low - Bridge!’) it became so damp and chilly that I was finally driven - below. - - “Here was a scene entirely passing description. The Ladies’ ‘Saloon!’ - they politely termed it so, so we were informed by a red and gilt - sign over it. A space about as large as my room at home, was - separated from the gentlemen’s ‘Saloon’ by a curtain only. About 20 - or 25 women were huddled into this. Each one having two children - apiece of all ages, sexes, and sizes, said children, as is usual on - such occasions, lifting up their respective voices, very loud indeed, - in one united chorus of lamentations. - - “A narrow row of shelves was hooked up high on each side and on - these some & more fortunate mothers had closely packed their - sleeping babies while they sat by to prevent their rolling out. I - looked round in vain for a place to stretch my limbs, but it was - not to be thought of--but after a while by a fortunate chance I - got a _leaning_ privilege, and fixing my carpet-bag for a pillow, - I made up my mind to pass the night in this manner. One by one the - wailing children dropped off to sleep and I had actually lost myself - in a sort of doze, when a new feature in the case became apparent. - Stepping carefully over the outstretched forms on the floor came - two men, each bearing a pile of boards or little shelves like those - already suspended. These they hooked up against the sides in the - smallest conceivable spaces, using every available inch of room--and - were intended to sleep (!) upon. I immediately pounced upon one of - them which I thought might be accessible, and was just consulting - with myself as to the best means of getting onto it, when I was - politely requested by one of the sufferers to take the shelf above - from which she wished to remove her children to the one I thought to - occupy--of course I complied, and after failing in several awkward - attempts, I managed to climb and crawl into this narrow aperture like - a bug forcing its way through the boards of a fence. Sweltering and - smothering I watched the weary night hours pass away, for to sleep - in such an atmosphere was impossible. I rose at 3 o’clock, thinking - it was five, spent a couple of hours curled up on the floor, and was - right glad when Herman came for me, with the joyful intelligence that - we were actually approaching Whitehall--the place of our destination. - He also passed a weary night, though his sufferings were of the - opposite order--for while I was suffocating with the heat and bad - atmosphere, he was on deck, chilled and half-frozen with the fog and - penetrating dampness, for the gentlemen’s apartment was even more - crowded than the ladies’--so much so that they did not attempt to - hang any shelves for them to lie upon. All they could do was to sit - bolt upright firmly wedged in and if one of them presumed to _lean_ - at all or even to _nod_ out of the perpendicular it was thought - a great infringement of rights, and he was immediately called to - order. So Herman preferred to remain on deck all night to being in - this crowd. We left the boat and took the cars about an hour’s ride - from Lansingburgh, and surprised the family at 6 o’clock in the - morning before they were up. We were very warmly welcomed and cared - for and soon forgot our tribulations of the canal boat. I was much - disappointed to miss the boys--they had only left the day before--it - was too bad--I am looking forward with such impatience to see you - and father, and sincerely hope nothing will happen to prevent your - coming. - - “I suppose we shall not be long here. Allan is looking out for a - house in N. Y. and will be married next month. - - “You know a proposition was made before I came here that I should - furnish my own room, which for good reasons were then set aside--but - if it is not too late now, I should like very much to do it if we go - to N. Y.--but we can talk about that when I see you. I must bring my - scribbling to a close, after I have begged you or somebody to write - me. I have not received a single line since I left home. How did the - dinner party go off? I want to hear about everything and everybody - at home. Please give my warmest love to all and believe me your - affectionate daughter, - - “ELIZABETH S. M. - - “Herman desires his kindest remembrances to all.” - -Soon after the marriage, Melville and his wife moved from Lansingburg -to New York, where they lived with Melville’s brother, Allan, and his -household of sisters. The letters of Mrs. Melville’s are the only -surviving records of the intimate details of this domestic arrangement. -They are interesting, too, as revelation of the character of Mrs. -Melville. The three following are typical: - - “NEW YORK, Dec. 23rd, 1847. - - “Thank you, dear Mother, for your nice long letter. I was beginning - to be afraid you had forgotten your part of the contract for that - week, but Saturday brought me evidence to the contrary and made us - even. And I should have written you earlier, but the days are so - short, and I have so much to do, that they fly by without giving me - half the time I want. Perhaps you will wonder what on earth I have - to occupy me. Well in fact I hardly know exactly myself, but true - it is little things constantly present themselves and dinner time - comes before I am aware. We breakfast at 8 o’clock, then Herman goes - to walk and I fly up to put his room to rights, so that he can sit - down to his desk immediately on his return. Then I bid him good-bye, - with many charges to be an industrious boy and not upset the inkstand - and then flourish the duster, make the bed, etc., in my own room. - Then I go downstairs and read the papers a little while, and after - that I am ready to sit down to my work whatever it may be--darning - stockings--making or mending for myself or Herman--at all events, - I haven’t seen a day yet, without _some_ sewing or other to do. If - I have letters to write, as is the case to-day, I usually do that - first--but whatever I am about I do not much more than get thoroughly - engaged in it, than ding-dong goes the bell for luncheon. This is - half-past 12 o’clock--by this time we must expect callers, and so - must be dressed immediately after lunch. Then Herman insists upon - taking a walk of an hour’s length at least. So unless I can have rain - or snow for an excuse, I usually sally out and make a pedestrian - tour a mile or two down Broadway. By the time I come home it is two - o’clock and after, and then I must make myself look as bewitchingly - as possible to meet Herman at dinner. This being accomplished, I - have only about an hour of available time left. At four we dine, and - after dinner is over, Herman and I come up to our room and enjoy a - cosy chat for an hour or so--or he reads me some of the chapters he - has been writing in the day. Then he goes down town for a walk, looks - at the papers in the reading room, etc., and returns about half-past - seven or eight. Then my work or my book is laid aside, and as he does - not use his eyes but very little by candle light, I either read to - him, or take a hand at whist for his amusement, or he listens to our - reading or conversation, as best pleases him. For we all collect in - the parlour in the evening, and generally one of us reads aloud for - the benefit of the whole. Then we retire very early--at 10 o’clock - we all disperse. Indeed we think that quite a late hour to be up. - This is the general course of daily events so you see how my time is - occupied; but sometime--dear me! we have to go and make calls! and - then good-bye to everything else for _that_ day! for upon my word, - it takes the whole day, from 1 o’clock till four! and then perhaps - we don’t accomplish more than two or three, if unluckily they chance - to be in--for everybody lives so far from everybody else, and all - Herman’s and Allan’s friends are _so_ polite, to say nothing of Mrs. - M.’s old acquaintances, that I am fairly sick and tired of returning - calls. And no sooner do we do up a few, than they all come again, and - so it has to be gone over again. - - “You know ceremonious calls were always my abomination, and where - they are all utter strangers and we have to send in our cards to - show who we are, it is so much the worse. Excepting calls, I have - scarcely visited at all. Herman is not fond of parties, and I don’t - care anything about them here. To-morrow night, for a great treat, we - are going to the opera--Herman & Fanny and I--and this is the first - place of public amusement I have attended since I have been here but - somehow or other I don’t care much about them now. - - “I am glad to hear that father and all are so well--except Sam--how - is his cough now? don’t forget to tell us when you write. - - “If Susan Haywood and Fanny Clarke are at our house please give my - love to them and ask Susan to answer my letter. How is Mrs. Marcus - Morton and Mrs. Hawes? I hope you will be able to write me this week - though I know _your_ time is very much occupied--but then you know - any letter--even the shortest and most hurried is acceptable and - better than none--though I must confess my prejudice sins in favour - of _long_ ones--but I am glad to hear _anything_ from home. You - addressed my last letter just right and it came very straight--but - Allan’s name is spelt with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’--as Allan--not - Allen--different names, you see--I am hoping that sometime or other - father will find time to write to me--though I know he is so much - occupied with other matters. - - “Thank you for your kindness about the picture box--as I do not need - any article at present, I will keep the dollar till I do--it will be - the same thing, you know, and I have already got such a New Year’s - present in the big box upstairs--by the way, in about a week more, it - will be time to open it. Oh, what do you think about my calling on - Mrs. Joe Henshaw and Josephine--they are living here and came here - after I did, so perhaps I ought to call first if it is best for me - to visit them--being connected with the Haywoods perhaps it would be - better to renew the acquaintance. What do you think about it? Please - tell me when you write, and get their address from Aunt Haywood, if - you think I had better call. I am afraid you are tired of this long - letter; but I have done now. Good-bye, and love to all. - - “Affectionately yours, - - “ELIZABETH S. MELVILLE. - - “P. S. I have a letter from Mrs. Warpwell a few days since--I didn’t - know she had lost one of her twins before. Why didn’t you tell me? My - love to Mrs. Sullivan. I hope she is quite well again. Tell Lem we - expect him next month in his mention to make us a visit.” - - “NEW YORK, Feb. 4th, 1848. - - “103 Fourth Avenue. - - “MY DEAR MOTHER: - - “Every day for the last week I have been trying to write to you, - but have been prevented. I received your letter by Lemuel with much - pleasure and the next time you write I want you to tell me more about - Carrie--how she and the small baby are getting along--and whether she - took ether when she was sick and if so, with what effect. What they - have decided to name the baby and all about it. Your presents were - very acceptable--Herman was much gratified with your remembrance to - him--and intends to make his acknowledgment for himself. You forgot - Kate in the multitude of Melvilles--so I just gave her my share of - the bill you enclosed without saying anything about it--knowing you - would not intentionally leave her out--or rather I gave the bill to - Helen for herself, Fanny and Kate, as she could get what they most - wanted better than I--so it’s all right now, and I will take the will - for the deed and thank you all the same. - - “The key of the basket that you wanted me to send--you know--I have - _no bills_ there whatever--you have them all. I only have an account - of the expenditure and a memorandum of the bills that were paid--not - the item of the bills. If you have an opportunity where it will come - safe I should like to have you send me that basket very much. - - “You speak of a Mr. Crocker whom you wish me to receive. If he will - call I shall be very happy to see him. You know we are recently - renumbered and our address now is ‘No. 103 Fourth Avenue’, ‘between - 11th & 12th Streets’--it is safer to add for a time. - - “Lem seems to be enjoying himself highly with the amusements out of - doors, and the society within. Last night he went to a masked ball, - under the auspices of Mrs. Elwell, through Aunt Marat’s kindness, - and a very fine appearance he presented, I can assure you, in an - old French court dress--with a long curled horse-hair wig, chapeau - bras--knee breeches, long stockings, buckles, snuff box and all--it - was a very becoming dress to him, and exactly suited to his carriage - and manners--I wish you could have seen him. We went to a party - ourselves last evening, but we had a deal of fun helping him to - dress--he went masked of course, but being introduced by Mrs. Elwell - was very kindly received--taking Mrs. Dickinson (the hostess) down - to supper, and doing the polite thing to the nine Misses Dickinson. - He enjoyed it much, as you may suppose, and did not get home till - four o’clock in the morning, and even then the ball had not broken - up. At this present moment--11 o’clock--I believe he is dozing on the - parlour sofa--to gain strength to go to the opera this evening. - - “We have been very dissipated this week for us, for usually we are - very quiet. Wednesday evening we passed at Mrs. Thurston’s and were - out quite late--last night at a party--a very pleasant one too, where - by the way--I passed off for Miss Melville and as such was quite a - belle!! And to-night in honour of our guest, we go to the Opera. We - have resolved to stop after this though and not go out at all for - while Herman is writing the effect of keeping late hours is very - injurious to him--if he does not get a full night’s rest or indulges - in a late supper, he does not feel right for writing the next day. - And the days are too precious to be thrown away. And to tell the - truth I don’t think he cares _very_ much about parties either, and - when he goes it is more on my account than his own. And it’s no - sacrifice to me, for I am quite as contented, and more--to stay at - home so long as he will stay with me. He has had communications from - London publishers with very liberal offers for the book in hand--and - one from Berlin to translate from the first sheets into German--but - as yet he has closed with none of them, and will not in a hurry. - - “I believe I forgot in my last to acknowledge the receipt of a paper - from father--I was very glad of it--please present my thanks--I - have intended to write to father for a good while--but I like to - have answers to my letters--so if father has not time to write in - reply, you must write for him. Give my love to him and to all the - family--and when you see Susan Morton ask her to write to me. - - “Tell Aunt Lucretia I was delighted to get her note, and I will write - to her. - - “Now I have written you a famous long letter and I hope you will - write me as long a one very soon, for I have not heard from home for - more than a week now--not since Lem came. - - “Give my love to Mrs. Sullivan, and believe me as ever truly yours, - - “E. S. MELVILLE.” - - “NEW YORK, May 5th, 1848. - - “MY DEAR MOTHER: - - “I am very much occupied to-day but I snatch a few moments to reply - to your letter which though rather tardy in forthcoming was very - acceptable. But you did not tell me what I most wanted to know--about - Sam. And your indefinite allusion to it, when we were all waiting to - hear, was rather tantalising. Does ‘this season’ means _now_ in his - present vacation, or sometime in the course of the year? I suppose - his vacation has already commenced if he is out at Milton, then why - not let him come immediately and make his visit, because if he waits - till warm weather it will not be nearly so pleasant or so beneficial - for him. Maria Percival writes me that she is coming on soon and he - might come with her. Please write me something _definite_ about it, - as soon as you can, and do let him come. We want him to very much, - and the sooner the better. - - “You ask about our coming to Boston but I guess the house will be - ready to _clean again_ by that time--for it will not be before - July, perhaps August. Herman of course will stick to his work till - ‘the book’ is published and his services are required till the last - moment--correcting proof, etc. The book is done now, in fact (you - need not mention it) and the copy for the press is in progress, but - when it is published on both sides of the water a great deal of delay - is unavoidable and though Herman will have some spare time after - sending the proof sheets to London which will be next month sometime - probably he will not want to leave New York till the book is actually - on the book-sellers’ shelves. And then I don’t care about leaving - home till my cold is over because I could not enjoy my visit so much. - So though I am very impatient for the time to come I must e’en wait - as best I may and enjoy the anticipation. - - “We are looking out for Tom to return every day, his ship has been - reported in the papers several times lately as homeward bound and - Herman wrote to the owner at Westport and received answer that he - looked for the ship the first of May. That has already past and we - are daily expecting a letter to announce her actual arrival. Then - Herman will have to go over to Westport for Tom and see that he is - regularly discharged and paid, and bring him home. As yet he, Tom, - is in entire ignorance of the changes that have taken place in his - family and of their removal to New York. So he will be much surprised - I think. As you may suppose, Mother is watching and counting the days - with great anxiety for he is the baby of the family and his mother’s - pet. - - “Augusta is going to Albany in a few days to visit the Van - Renssalaers. They have been at her all winter to go up the river but - she would not, and now Mr. Van Renssalaer is in town and will not go - back without her. And in a few weeks Helen is going to Lansingburgh - to visit Mrs. Jones. - - “I should write you a longer letter but I am very busy to-day copying - and cannot spare the time so you must excuse it and all mistakes. I - tore my sheet in two by mistake thinking it was my copying (for we - only write on one side of the page) and if there is no punctuation - marks you must make them yourself for when I copy I do not punctuate - at all but leave it for a final revision for Herman. I have got so - used to write without (.) I cannot always think of it. - - “Please write me _very soon_ this week--if only a few lines and tell - me about Sam’s coming. - - “My love to all, to father when you write and to Sue Morton if she is - at our house, Mrs. Hawes etc. and believe me as ever your affectionate - - “E. S. MELVILLE. - - “Miss Savage & Miss Lincoln called to see me a day or two ago. - - “Please spell Allan’s name with an A, not E. _Allan_, not _Allen_.” - -During this period, the household at 103 Fourth Avenue was busy getting -_Redburn_ and _Mardi_ ready for the press. Melville’s sister Augusta -seems to have been exhaustless in copying manuscript. Melville’s -mother-in-law reports “Miss Augusta is all energy, united with much -kindness.” Augusta also evinced a strong religious bent, and during -song services--which she loved to attend--she used to grip her hymnal -athletically, and beat time with an aggressive rhythm. Her Hymn Book -survives, pasted up with dozens of clippings of hymns and prayers, a -“selection” entitled _The Sinner’s Friend_, and the vivacious couplet: - - “Jesus, mine’s a pressing case. - Oh, more grace, _more grace, MORE GRACE_!” - -[Illustration: ELIZABETH SHAW MELVILLE] - -But song-services, and copying manuscript, were not enough to fill -Augusta’s busy days. In January, 1848, she was commissioned to find -a name satisfactory for Melville’s first child. Mrs. Herman Melville -was in Boston to be with her mother and family at the time of the -childbirth. On January 27, 1849, Augusta wrote from New York to “My -dear Lizzie, My sweet Sister,” reporting that she had been “searching -the Genealogical Tree” with designs upon an ancestor with a choice -name: and she spends two very diverting and animated pages recounting -her adventures among the branches. Her search was rewarded to her -satisfaction: “_Malcolm Melville!_ how easily it runs from my pen; how -sweetly it sounds to my ear; how musically it falls upon my heart. -Malcolm Melville! Methinks I see him in his plaided kilts, with his -soft blue eyes, & his long flaxen curls. How I long to press him to my -heart. There! I can write no more. The last proof sheets are through. -_Mardi’s_ a book.” Augusta concludes with a quotation from _Mardi_: -“‘Oh my own Kagtanza, child of my prayers. Oro’s blessing on thee!’” - -In her search of the Genealogical Tree, Augusta had contemptuously -brushed by all female branches: she had determined that Melville’s -first child should be a son--and a son with blue eyes and blond -hair--and in her choice of a name for the unborn infant, she -contemptuously ignored the possibility of the child turning out to be -a girl. On February 16, 1849, was born in Boston, to Melville and his -wife, their first child. There was potency in Augusta’s prayers. It was -a boy. - -On April 14, 1849, _Mardi_ appeared, published, as was _Omoo_, by -Harper and Brothers in America, by Richard Bentley in London. _Redburn_ -appeared on August 18 of the same year. By February 22, 1850 (the date -of Melville’s fifth royalty account from Harper and Brothers), 2,154 -copies of _Mardi_, and 4,011 copies of _Redburn_ had been sold. On -February 1, 1848, Melville had overdrawn his account with Harper’s to -the extent of $256.03. On December 5, 1848, Harper’s advanced Melville -$500; on April 28, 1848, $300; on July 2, 1849, $300; on September 14, -1849, $500. Though _Mardi_ and _Redburn_ had had a fairly generous -sale, the deduction of his royalties on February 22, 1850, left him -in debt to Harper’s $733.69. The outlook was not bright for the -responsibilities of fatherhood. - -On April 23, Melville sent to his father-in-law a note “conveying -the intelligence of Lizzie’s improving strength, and Malcolm’s -precocious growth. Both are well.” Melville went on to say that -Samuel, the brother-in-law for whom he felt not the most enthusiastic -affection, was expected by all “to honour us with his presence during -the approaching vacation: and I have no doubt he will not find it -difficult to spend his time pleasantly with so many companions.” Does -Melville here imply that for himself, as a sensible man, he would -prefer more solitude? In conclusion, Melville says: “I see that _Mardi_ -has been cut into by the _London Atheneum_, and also burnt by the -common hangman by the _Boston Post_. However, the _London Examiner_ -& _Literary Gazette_ & other papers this side of the water have done -differently. These attacks are matters of course, and are essential to -the building up of any permanent reputation--if such should ever prove -to be mine--‘There’s nothing in it!’ cried the dunce when he threw -down the 47th problem of the 1st Book of Euclid--‘There’s nothing in -it!’--Thus with the posed critic. But Time, which is the solver of all -riddles, will solve _Mardi_.” - -The riddle of _Mardi_ goes near to the heart of the riddle of -Melville’s life. “Not long ago,” Melville says in the preface to -_Mardi_, “having published two narratives of voyages in the Pacific, -which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, the thought -occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance of Polynesian adventure, -and publishing it as such; to see whether the fiction might not, -possibly, be received for a verity: in some degree the reverse of my -previous experience. This thought was the germ of others, which have -resulted in _Mardi_.” - -_Mardi_, as _Moby-Dick_, starts off firmly footed in reality. The -hero, discontented on board a whaler, hits upon the wild scheme of -surreptitiously cutting loose one of the whale boats, and trusting to -the chances of the open Pacific. It is sometimes the case that an old -mariner will conceive a very strong attachment for some young sailor, -his shipmate--a Fidus-Achates-ship, a league of offence and defence, a -copartnership of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good-feeling. -Such a relationship existed between the hero of _Mardi_ and his Viking -shipmate Jarl. Jarl was an old Norseman to behold: his hands as brawny -as the paws of a bear; his voice as hoarse as a storm roaring round the -peak of Mull; his long yellow hair waving about his head like a sunset. -In the crow’s-nest of the ship the project of escape was confided to -Jarl. Jarl advised with elderly prudence, but seeing his chummy’s -resolution immovable, he changed his wrestling to a sympathetic hug, -and bluntly swore he would follow through thick and thin. The escape -was successfully made, and for days the two men drifted at sea: and -it was an eventful if solitary drifting. After sixteen days in their -open boat, “as the expanded sun touched the horizon’s rim, a ship’s -uppermost spars were observed, traced like a spider’s web against -its crimson disk. It looked like a far-off craft on fire.” Bent upon -shunning a meeting--though Jarl “kept looking wistfully over his -shoulder; doubtlessly praying Heaven that we might not escape”--they -lowered sail. As the ship bore down towards them, they saw her to -be no whaler--as they had feared--but a small, two-masted craft in -unaccountable disarray. They lay on their oars, and watched her in -the starlight. They hailed her loudly. No return. Again. But all was -silent. So, armed with a harpoon, they eventually boarded the strange -craft. The ship was in a complete litter; the deserted tiller they -found lashed. Though it was a nervous sort of business, they explored -her interior. Many were the puzzling sights they saw; but except for a -supernatural sneeze from the riggings, there was no evidence of life -aboard. At dawn, however, they discovered, in the maintop, a pair of -South Sea Islanders: Samoa, and Annatoo. “To be short, Annatoo was a -Tartar, a regular Calmuc; and Samoa--Heaven help him--her husband.” -Upon this pair, Melville has lavished chapter after chapter of the most -finished and competent comedy. Annatoo is as perfect, in her way, as is -Zuleika Dobson. And Samoa--well, Samoa, on occasion, thinks it discreet -to amputate his wounded arm. - -“Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the most part, -accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking to his couch in -despair, the savage would disdain to recline. - -“More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and surgeon, -cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. No unusual thing, -for the warriors of Varvoo to saw off their own limbs, desperately -wounded in battle. But owing to the clumsiness of the instrument -employed--a flinty, serrated shell--the operation has been known to -last several days. Nor will they suffer any friend to help them; -maintaining, that a matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better -attended to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate -themselves at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. But, -though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with the practice -of surgery, they never cut off their own heads, that ever I heard; a -species of amputation to which, metaphorically speaking, many would-be -independent sort of people in civilised lands are addicted. - -“Samoa’s operation was very summary. A fire was kindled in the little -caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce much smoke. He then -placed his arm upon one of the windlass bitts (a short upright timber, -breast-high), and seizing the blunt cook’s axe would have struck the -blow; but for some reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo -was assigned to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just above -the elbow, was no longer Samoa’s; and he saw his own bones; which -many a centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness of the operation -was safety to the subject. The weight and bluntness of the instrument -both deadened the pain and lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then -scorched, and held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood -vanished. From that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but -little. - -“But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously averse to -burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; since in that -case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown and follow it; and how, -that equally dreading to keep the thing near him, he at last hung it -aloft from the topmast-stay; where yet it was suspended, bandaged over -and over in cerements. The hand that must have locked many others in -friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, for fowls -of the air nor fishes of the sea. - -“Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as Haman? Or the -living trunk below? Was the arm severed from the body, or the body from -the arm? The residual part of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it -was he. But which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, -is the worm proper?” - -There are more cosy pleasures aboard the old ship, however, than -amputation: “Every one knows what a fascination there is in wandering -up and down in a deserted old tenement in some warm, dreamy country; -where the vacant halls seem echoing of silence, and the doors creak -open like the footsteps of strangers; and into every window the old -garden trees thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; -and ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind it -the mice rattle like dice. Up and down in such old spectre houses one -loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place be haunted by some -marvellous story. - -“And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, very much -such a fancy had I, for prying about our little brigantine, whose -tragic hull was haunted by the memory of the massacre, of which it -still bore innumerable traces.” - -After delightful and exciting, and irresponsible days spent sailing -without chart, they find the vessel unseaworthy, leaking in every pore; -so again they take to their whale boat soon to fall in with strangers. -With this meeting, _Mardi_ swings into allegory,--and then it is that -Melville first tries his hand at the orphic style. - -This second part of _Mardi_ in its manner defies simple -characterisation, though its purpose is simple enough. It is a quest -after Yillah, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island of Delight. A voyage is -made through the civilised world for her: and though they find occasion -for much discourse on international politics, and an array of other -topics, Yillah is not found. And in an astonishing variety of fantastic -and symbolic scenes--many conceived in the manner of the last three -books of Rabelais--they go on in futile search for her. They search -among the Islands of “those Scamps the Plujii,” where all evil which -the inhabitants could impute neither to the gods nor to themselves were -blamed upon the Plujii. There they meet an “old woman almost doubled -together, both hands upon her abdomen; in that manner running about -distracted.” When asked of the occasion of her distraction she screamed -“The Plujii! The Plujii!” affectionately caressing the field of their -operations. - -“And why do they torment you?” she was soothingly asked. - -“How should I know? and what good would it do me if I did?” - -And on she ran. - -“Hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking of some -twenty unripe bananas, I rather fancied that that circumstance might -have had something to do with her suffering. But whatever it was, all -the herb-leeches on the island would not have been able to alter her -own opinions on the subject.” - -They visit jolly old Borabolla, and discuss the hereafter of fish. “As -for the possible hereafter of the whale,” says Melville, “a creature -eighty feet long without stockings, and thirty feet round the waist -after dinner is not inconsiderably to be consigned to annihilation.” -They are entertained by the gentry of Pimminee, and their host, being -told they were strolling divinities, demigods from the sun “manifested -not the slightest surprise, observing incidentally, however, that the -eclipses there must be a sad bore to endure.” They are entertained -by the pallid and beautiful youth Donjalolo, with wives thirty in -number, corresponding in name to the nights of the moon: wives “blithe -as larks, more playful than kittens,” though “but supplied with -the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia could desire.” Over flowing -calabashes they discourse of super-men, and vitalism, and toad-stools, -and fame, and thieves, and teeth, and democracy, and an interminable -variety of other irrelevant and diverting matters. Incredible is the -rich variety of _Mardi_. - -There is infinite laughter in the book--but the laughter is at bottom -the laughter of despair. “It is more pleasing to laugh, than to weep,” -Montaigne has said. But Montaigne preferred laughter not for that -reason, but because “it is more distainfull, and doth more condemne us -than the other. And me thinkes we can never bee sufficiently despised -according to our merit.” Melville’s laughter, however, grew out of a -desolation less emancipated than Montaigne’s. “Let us laugh: let us -roar: let us yell.” Melville makes the philosopher in _Mardi_ say: -“Weeds are torn off at a fair; no heart bursts but in secret; it is -good to laugh though the laugh be hollow. Women sob, and are rid of -their grief; men laugh and retain it. Ha! ha! how demoniacs shout; how -all skeletons grin; we all die with a rattle. Humour, thy laugh is -divine; hence mirth-making idiots have been revered; and so may I.” -And one of the ultimate discoveries of the book is: “Beatitude there -is none. And your only Mardian happiness is but exemption from great -woes--no more. Great Love is sad; and heaven is Love. Sadness makes -the silence throughout the realms of space; sadness is universal and -eternal.” - -For _Mardi_, in its intention to show the vanity of human wishes, is -a kind of _Rasselas_; but because of its “dangerous predominance of -imagination,” it is a _Rasselas_ Dr. Johnson would have despised. -And the happiness sought in _Mardi_ is of a brand of felicity unlike -anything the Prince of Abyssinia ever had any itching to enjoy. _Mardi_ -is a quest after some total and undivined possession of that holy -and mysterious joy that touched Melville during the period of his -courtship: a joy he had felt in the crucifixion of his love for his -mother; a joy that had dazzled him in his love for Elizabeth Shaw. -When he wrote _Mardi_ he was married, and his wife was with child. And -_Mardi_ is a pilgrimage for a lost glamour. - -In these wanderings in search of Yillah, the symbol of this faded -ecstasy, the hero of _Mardi_ is pursued by three shadowy messengers -from the temptress Hautia; she who was descended from the queen who had -first incited Mardi to wage war against beings with wings. Despairing -of ever achieving Yillah, Melville in the end turned towards the island -of Hautia, called Flozella-a-Nina, or “The Last-Verse-of-the-Song.” -“Yillah was all beauty, and innocence; my crown of felicity; my heaven -below:--and Hautia, my whole heart abhorred. Yillah I sought; Hautia -sought me. Yet now I was wildly dreaming to find them together. In some -mysterious way seemed Hautia and Yillah connected.” - -They land on the shore of Hautia’s bower of bliss, when “all the sea, -like a harvest plain, was stacked with glittering sheaves of spray. And -far down, fathoms on fathoms, flitted rainbow hues:--as seines-full of -mermaids; half-screening the bower of the drowned.” Hautia lavished -him with flowers, and with wine, that like a blood-freshet ran through -his veins, she the vortex that draws all in. “But as my hand touched -Hautia’s, down dropped a dead bird from the clouds.” And at the end -of the madness into which Hautia had betrayed him, he and she stood -together--“snake and victim: life ebbing from out me, to her.” - -In _Pierre_, Melville sadly reflects upon “the inevitable evanescence -of all earthly loveliness: which makes the sweetest things of life only -food for ever-devouring and omnivorous melancholy.” And the nuptial -embrace, he says, breaks love’s airy zone. The etherealisations of the -filial breast, he wrote, while contemporary with courtship, _preceding_ -the final banns and the rites, “like the bouquet of the costliest -German wines, too often evaporate upon pouring love out to drink in the -disenchanting glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.” “I am Pluto -stealing Proserpine,” says Pierre; “and every accepted lover is. I am -of heavy earth, and she of airy light. By heaven, but marriage is an -impious thing!” - -Yillah was to Melville lost for ever; and in Hautia was a final -disillusionment. And on the shore, awaiting to destroy, “stood the -three pale sons of him I had slain to gain the lost maiden, sworn to -hunt me round eternity.” - -“‘Hail! realm of shades!’”--so _Mardi_ concludes--“and turning my -prow into the racing tide, which seized me like a hand omnipotent, I -darted through. Churned in foam, that outer ocean lashed the clouds; -and straight in my white wake, headlong dashed a shallop, three fixed -spectres leaning o’er its prow: three arrows poising. And thus, -pursuers and pursued fled on, over an endless sea.” - -Within a week of the completion of _Mardi_, Melville’s wife wrote to -her mother: - -“I suppose by this time that you have received Sam’s letter and are -relieved of anxiety concerning his safe arrival. I was very glad to -see him at last & hope he will enjoy his vacation. You need not fear -his getting too much excited--he will not take too much exercise, -for he can always get in an omnibus when he feels tired of walking. -Yesterday he went down town with Tom--to the Battery--and to a gallery -of paintings--and in the afternoon took a short walk with the girls. We -should have gone to Brooklyn, but it was very cloudy and looked like -rain--but we are going to-day as soon as I get done my copying (by -the way we are nearly through--shall finish this week). Sam is very -well and finds much amusement, especially in the ‘ad-i-s-h-e-e-e-s!’ -(radishes) screamed continually under our window in every variety of -cracked voices. - -“I was very much pleased with my presents especially the ‘boots’ which -fit me admirably--but I meant that to be a business transaction--else -I should not have sent. ‘Tapes’ are _always_ useful, especially if one -has a husband who is continually breaking strings off of drawers as -mine is--the cuffs were very pretty also--Herman was very much pleased -with his pocket-book & says ‘he has long needed such an article, for -his bank bills accumulate to such an extent he can find no place to put -them.’ - -“Mother feels very uneasy because Tom wants to go to sea again--he has -been trying for a place in some store ever since he came home but not -succeeding, is discouraged and says he must go to sea immediately. -Herman has written Mr. Parker (Daniel P.) to see if he can send him out -in one of his ships. I hope he will, if Tom must go, for Mr. Parker -would be likely to take an interest in him and promote him. - -“And now for something which I hardly know whether to write you or not -I feel so undecided about it. My cold is very bad indeed, perhaps worse -than it has ever been so early, and I attribute it entirely to the warm -dry atmosphere so different from the salt air I have been accustomed -to. And Herman thinks I had better go back to Boston with Sam to see -if the change of air will not benefit me. And he will come on for me -in two or three weeks, if he can--and then in August when he takes his -vacation he will take me there again. But I don’t know as I can make -up my mind to go and leave him here--and besides I’m afraid to trust -him to finish up the book without me! That is, taking all things into -consideration I’m afraid I should not feel at ease enough to enjoy my -visit without him with me. But there is time enough to consider about -it before Sam goes--and if my cold continues so bad I think I shall go. -But I must go to my writing else I shall not get done in time to go to -Brooklyn.” - - - - -CHAPTER XIV - -ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AGAIN - - “You said you were married, I think? Well, I suppose it is wise, - after all. It settles, centralises, and confirms a man, I have heard. - Yes, it makes the world definite to him; it removes his morbid - subjectiveness, and makes all things objective; nine small children, - for instance, may be considered objective. Marriage, hey!--A fine - thing, no doubt, no doubt:--domestic--pretty--nice, all round.--So - you are married?” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Pierre_. - - -In October, 1849, at the age of thirty, five years after his return -from the South Seas, and two years after his marriage, Melville again -left home. His departure was not prompted by any lack of diversion at -home: there had been plenty of it at 103 Fourth Avenue. Melville’s -brothers Allan and Tom, his sisters Augusta, Fanny and Helen, his -mother, his wife, and the visits from Boston of the Shaws, had been a -sufficiently varied company to divert any lover of humanity, and to -enamour a misanthrope to the family hearth. Withal, Melville was not -only a husband, but a father: and duties towards the support of the -company with whom he lived were blatantly clear. For this support he -depended solely upon the earnings from his books. In three years he -had published five volumes: _Typee_, _Omoo_, _Mardi_ (in two volumes) -and _Redburn_. Though he had attracted wide attention as a writer, he -was, nevertheless, in debt to his publishers. Despite sisters, and -brothers, and wives, and babies, and mothers, and callers, he had -stuck relentlessly to his desk, and another book--_White-Jacket_--he -had finished in manuscript. His, as well as his sister Augusta’s, was -“a pressing case.” So he decided to go to England, to make personal -intercession with publishers, hoping thereby to improve his income from -the other side of the Atlantic. - -On October 11, 1849, after a detention of three or four days, owing -to wind and weather, he went on board the tug _Goliath_ a little -after noon. A violent storm was blowing from the west, and with some -confusion the passengers were transferred to the _Southampton_, a -regular London liner that lay in the North River. By half-past five, -with yards square, and sailing in half a gale, Melville was again out -of sight of land. - -“As the ship dashed on,” says Melville in his journal of the trip, -“under double-reefed topsails, I walked the deck, thinking of what -they might be doing at home, and of the last familiar faces I saw on -the wharf--Allan was there, and George Duyckinck, and a Mr. McCurdy, a -rich merchant of New York, who had seemed somewhat interested in the -prospect of his son (a sickly youth of twenty, bound for the grand -tour) being very romantic. But to my great delight, the promise that -the Captain had given me at an early day, he now made good; and I find -myself in the individual occupancy of a large state-room. It is as -big almost as my own room at home; it has a spacious berth, a large -wash-stand, a sofa, glass, etc., etc. I am the only person on board who -is thus honoured with a room to himself. I have plenty of light, and a -little thick glass window in the side, which in fine weather I may open -to the air. I have looked out upon the sea from it, often, tho not yet -24 hours on board.” - -The George Duyckinck who was among the party that had waved him off -was, of course, one of two Duyckinck brothers who published in 1855 -the two volume _Cyclopædia of American Literature_: a work vituperated -in its day for shocking omissions and inaccuracies. Both the work and -its critics have now fallen into a decent oblivion. Withal, in this -same antiquated _Cyclopædia_ is to be found one of the best informed -summaries of the first half of Melville’s life ever printed. - -On October 12, Melville records in his journal his impressions upon -finding himself again on the ocean. “Walked the deck last night -till about eight o’clock,” he says, “then made up a whist party and -played till one of the number had to visit his room from sickness. -Retired early and had a sound sleep. Was up betimes and aloft, to -recall the old emotions of being at the mast-head. Found that the -ocean looked the same as ever. Have tried to read but find it hard -work. However, there are some very pleasant passengers on board, -with whom to converse. Chief among these is a Mr. Adler, a German -scholar, to whom Duyckinck introduced me. He is author of a formidable -lexicon (German or English); in compiling which he almost ruined his -health. He was almost crazy, he tells me, for a time. He is full of -the German metaphysics and discourses of Kant, Swedenborg, etc. He -has been my principal companion thus far. There is also a Mr. Taylor -among the passengers, cousin of James Bayard Taylor, the pedestrian -traveller. There is a Scotch artist on board, a painter, with a most -unpoetical looking child, a young-one all cheeks and forehead, the -former preponderating. Young McCurdy I find to be a lisping youth of -genteel capacity, but quite disposed to be sociable. We have several -Frenchmen and Englishmen. One of the latter has been hunting, and -carries over with him two glorious pairs of antlers (moose) as trophies -of his prowess in the Woods of Maine. We have also a middle-aged -English woman, who sturdily walks the decks and prides herself upon -her sea-legs, and being an old tar.” There was also aboard “a Miss -Wilbur (I think) of New York.” Melville reports of Miss Wilbur -that she “is of a marriageable age, keeps a diary, and talks about -‘winning souls to Christ.’” In the evening, Melville “walked the -deck with the German, Mr. Adler, till a late hour, talking of ‘Fixed -Fate, Free-will, free-knowledge absolute’ etc. His philosophy is -_Coleridgean_; he accepts the Scriptures as divine, and yet leaves -himself free to inquire into Nature. He does not take it, that the -Bible is absolutely infallible, and that anything opposed to it in -Science must be wrong. He believes that there are things not of God and -independent of Him,--things that would have existed were there no God; -such as that two and two make four; for it is not that God so decrees -mathematically, but that in the very nature of things, the fact is -thus.” - -On the following morning, Melville was up early. “Opened my bull’s -eye window, and looked out to the East. The sun was just rising--the -horizon was red;--a familiar sight to me, reminding me of old times. -Before breakfast, went up to the mast-head by way of gymnastics. About -ten o’clock the wind rose, the sun fell, and the deck looked dismally -empty. By dinner time, it blew half a gale, and the passengers mostly -retired to their rooms, sea-sick. After dinner, the rain ceased, but it -still blew stiffly, and we were slowly forging along under close-reefed -top-sails--mainsail furled. I was walking the deck, when I perceived -one of the steerage passengers looking over the side; I looked too, -and saw a man in the water, his head completely lifted above the -waves,--about twelve feet from the ship, right amast the gangway. For -an instant, I thought I was dreaming; for no one else seemed to see -what I did. Next moment, I shouted ‘Man Overboard!’ and turned to go -aft. I dropped overboard the tackle-fall of the quarter-boat, and swung -it toward the man, who was now drifting close to the ship. He did not -get hold of it, and I got over the side, within a foot or two of the -sea, and again swung the rope toward him. He now got hold of it. By -this time, a crowd of people--sailors and others--were clustering about -the bulwarks; but none seemed very anxious to save him. They warned -_me_, however, not to fall overboard. After holding on to the rope, -about a quarter of a minute, the man let go of it and dropped astern -under the mizzen chains. Four or five of the seamen jumped over into -the chains and swung him more ropes. But his conduct was unaccountable; -he could have saved himself, had he been so minded. I was struck by the -expression of his face in the water. It was merry. At last he dropped -off under the ship’s counter, and all hands cried ‘He’s gone!’ Running -to the taffrail we saw him again, floating off--saw a few bubbles, and -never saw him again. No boat was lowered, no sail was shaken, hardly -any noise was made. The man drowned like a bullock. It afterward turned -out, that he was crazy, and had jumped overboard. He had declared he -would do so, several times; and just before he did jump, he had tried -to get possession of his child, in order to jump into the sea, with the -child in his arms. His wife was miserably sick in her berth.” - -In the steerage another crazy man was reported. But his lunacy turned -out to be delirium tremens, consequent upon “keeping drunk for the last -two months.” - -Sunday the fourteenth was “a regular blue devil day; a gale of wind, -and everybody sick. Saloons deserted, and all sorts of nausea heard -from the state-rooms. Managed to get thro’ the day somehow, by reading -and walking the deck, tho’ the last was almost as much as my neck was -worth. Saw a lady with a copy of _Omoo_ in her hand two days ago. Now -and then she would look up at me, as if comparing notes. She turns out -to be the wife of a young Scotchman, an artist, going out to Scotland -to sketch scenes for his patrons in Albany, including Dr. Armsby. He -introduced himself to me by mentioning the name of Mr. Twitchell who -painted my portrait gratis. He is a very unpretending young man, and -looks more like a tailor than an artist. But appearances are etc.--” -The portrait painted by Mr. Twitchell is now not known to exist. - -Monday broke fair. “By noon the passengers were pretty nearly all on -deck, convalescent. They seem to regard me as a hero, proof against -wind and weather. My occasional feats in the rigging are regarded -as a species of tight-rope dancing. Poor Adler, however, is hardly -himself again. He is an exceedingly amiable man, and a fine scholar -whose society is improving in a high degree. This afternoon Dr. -Taylor and I sketched a plan for going down the Danube from Vienna -to Constantinople; thence to Athens on the steamer; to Beyrout and -Jerusalem--Alexandria and the Pyramids. From what I learn, I have no -doubt this can be done at a comparatively trifling expense. Taylor has -had a good deal of experience in cheap European travel, and from his -knowledge of German is well fitted for a travelling companion thro -Austria and Turkey. I am full (just now) of this glorious Eastern -jaunt. Think of it:--Jerusalem and the Pyramids--Constantinople, the -Egean and also Athens!--The wind is not fair yet, and there is much -growling consequently. Drank a small bottle of London stout to-day for -dinner, and think it did me good. I wonder how much they charge for it? -I must find out.” - -On the sixteenth his journal looks back towards home. “What’s little -Barney about?” he asks of his son Malcolm. And of his wife: “Where’s -Orianna?” Four days later, having been “annoyed towards morning by a -crying baby adjoining” he repeats this simple catechism. - -The entire morning of the eighteenth--the day delightful and the ship -getting on famously--Melville spent “in the maintop with Adler and Dr. -Taylor, discussing our plans for the grand circuit of Europe and the -East. Taylor, however, has communicated to me a circumstance that may -prevent him from accompanying us--something of a pecuniary nature. He -reckons our expenses at $400.” Though Melville played with this idea -of the trip into the East for some days, he in the end was forced by -lack of funds to give it up. Not until 1856 did he see Greece, and -Constantinople, and the Holy Land, and then under tragic circumstances. - -The rest of the week went by eventlessly. Melville read, lounged, -played cards, went into the Ladies’ Saloon for the first time, there -to “hear Mrs. Gould, the opera lady, sing.” When he comes to Sunday, -October 21, he is unusually laconic: on ship board at least, Melville -was in a mood to sympathise with Fielding’s liberties with the -calendar in _Tom Jones_ in counting six secular days as a full week. -“Cannot remember what happened to-day,” he writes; “it came to an end -somehow.” But on the morrow, his memory cleared. “I forgot to mention -that _last night_ about 9:30 P. M., Adler and Taylor came into my -room, and it was proposed to have whiskey punches, which we _did_ have -accordingly. Adler drank about three tablespoons full--Taylor four or -five tumblers, etc. We had an extraordinary time and did not break up -till after two in the morning. We talked metaphysics continually, and -Hegel, Schlegel, Kant, etc., were discussed under the influence of -the whiskey. I shall not forget Adler’s look when he quoted La Place -the French astronomer--‘It is not necessary, gentlemen, to account -for these worlds by the hypothesis’, etc. After Adler retired, Taylor -and I went out on the bowsprit--splendid spectacle.” Three days later -there was further inducement to metaphysical discussion. “By evening -blew a very stiff breeze and we dashed on in magnificent style. Fine -moonlight night, and we rushed on thro’ snow-banks of foam. McCurdy -invited Adler, the Doctor and I into his room and ordered champagne. -Went on deck again and remained till near midnight. The scene was -indescribable--I never saw such sailing before.” - -On Saturday, October 27: “Steered our course in a wind. I played -shuffle-board for the first time. Ran about aloft a good deal. McCurdy -invited Adler, Taylor and I to partake of some _mulled wine_ with him, -which we did, in my room. Got--all of us--riding on the German horse -again. Taylor has not been in Germany in vain. We sat down to whist, -and separated at about three in the morning.” - -On the morrow, “Decks very wet, and hard work to take exercise. (‘Where -dat old man?’) Read a little, dozed a little and to bed early.” So -passed another vacant Sabbath. In the margin opposite “Where dat old -man?” Melville’s wife has added in pencil: “Macky’s baby words.” -Melville thrice quotes this question of Malcolm’s--and each time Mrs. -Melville explains it in the margin, and initials her explanation each -time. The third time she writes: “First words of baby Malcolm’s. E.S.M.” - -Monday was wet and foggy. Some of the passengers were sick. “In the -afternoon tried to create some amusement by arraigning Adler before -the Captain in a criminal charge. In the evening put the Captain in -the chains, and argued the question ‘which was best, a monarchy or -a republic?’ Had some good sport during the debate--the Englishman -wouldn’t take part in it tho’.--After claret and stout with Monsieur -Moran and Taylor, went on deck and found it a moonlight midnight. Wind -astern. Retired at 1 A. M.” - -On November 1, Melville wrote: “Just three weeks from home, and made -the land--Start Point--about 3 P. M.--well up channel--passed the -Lizzard. Very fine day--great number of ships in sight. Thro’ these -waters Blake’s and Nelson’s ships once sailed. Taylor suggested that -he and I should return McCurdy’s civilities. We did, and Captain -Griswold joined and ordered a pitcher of his own. The Captain is a -very intelligent and gentlemanly man--converses well and understands -himself. I never was more deceived in a person than I was in him. -Retired about midnight. Taylor played a rare joke upon McCurdy this -evening, passing himself off as Miss Wilbur, having borrowed her cloak, -etc. They walked together. Shall see Portsmouth to-morrow morning.” - -Saturday, Nov. 3rd: “Woke about six o’clock with an insane idea that -we were going before the wind, and would be in Portsmouth in an hour’s -time. Soon found out my mistake. About eight o’clock took a pilot, who -brought some papers two weeks old. Made the Isle of Wight about 10 A. -M. High land--the Needles--Wind ahead and tacking. Get in to-night or -to-morrow--or next week or year. Devilish dull, and too bad altogether. -Continued tacking all day with a light wind from West. Isle of Wight -in sight all day and numerous ships. In the evening all hands in high -spirits. Played chess in the ladies’ saloon--another party at cards; -good deal of singing in the gentlemen’s cabin and drinking--very -hilarious and noisy. Last night every one thought. Determined to go -ashore at Portsmouth. Therefore prepared for it, arranged my trunk to -be left behind--put up a shirt or two in Adler’s carpet bag and retired -pretty early.” - -Sunday, Nov. 4th: “Looked out of my window first thing upon rising and -saw the Isle of Wight again--very near--ploughed fields, etc. Light -head wind--expected to be in a little after breakfast time. About 10 -A. M. rounded the Eastern end of the Isle, when it fell flat calm. -The town in sight by telescope. Were becalmed about three or four -hours. Foggy, drizzly; long faces at dinner--no porter bottles. Wind -came from the West at last. Squared the yards and struck away from -Dover--distant 60 miles. Close reefed the topsails so as not to run too -fast. Expect now to go ashore to-morrow morning early at Dover--and -get to London via Canterbury Cathedral. Mysterious hint dropped me -about my green coat. It is now eight o’clock in the evening. I am alone -in my state-room--lamp in tumbler. Spite of past disappointments, -I _feel_ that this is my last night aboard the _Southampton_. This -time to-morrow I shall be on land, and press English earth after the -lapse of ten years--_then a sailor_, now H. M. author of _Peedee_, -_Hullabaloo_ and _Pog-Dog_. For the last time I lay aside my ‘log’ to -add a line or two to Lizzie’s letter the last I shall write aboard. -(‘Where dat old man?--Where looks?’)” - -The account of his experiences in England is preserved in a separate -note-book, formally beginning: “Commenced this journal at 25 Craven -Street at 6-1/2 P. M. on Wednesday, Nov. 7, 1849--being just arrived -from dinner at a chop house, and feeling like it.” - -“_Mon. Nov. 5th, 1849_: Having at the invitation of McCurdy cracked -some champagne with him, I returned about midnight to my state-room, -and at four in the morning was wakened by the Captain in person, saying -we were off Dover. Dressed in a hurry, ran on deck, and saw the lights -ashore. A cutter was alongside, and after some confusion in the dark, -we got off in her for the shore. A comical scene ensued, the boatman -saying we could not land at Dover, but only at Deal. So to Deal we -went, and were beached there just at break of day. Some centuries ago a -person called Julius Cæsar jumped ashore about in this place, and took -possession. It was Guy Fawkes day also. Having left our baggage (that -is, Taylor, Adler and myself) to go round by ship to London, we were -wholly non-encumbered, and I proposed walking to Canterbury--distant -18 miles, for an appetite to breakfast. So we strode thru this quaint -old town of Deal, one of the Cinque Ports, I believe, and soon were in -the open country. A fine Autumnal morning and the change from ship to -shore was delightful. Reached Sandwich (6 miles) and breakfasted at a -tumble down old inn. Finished with ale and pipes, visited ‘Richbors’ -Castle’--so called--a Roman fortification near the sea shore. An -imposing ruin, the interior was planted with cabbages. The walls -some ten feet thick grown over with ivy. Walked to where they were -digging--and saw, defined by a trench, the exterior wall of a circus. -Met the proprietor--an antiquary--who regaled me with the history of -the place. Strolled about the town, on our return, and found it full of -interest as a fine specimen of the old Elizabethan architecture. Kent -abounds in such towns. At one o’clock took the 2nd class (no 3rd) cars -for Canterbury. The cathedral is on many accounts the most remarkable -in England. Henry II, his wife, and the Black Prince are here--and -Becket. Fine cloisters. There is a fine thought expressed in one of the -inscriptions on a tomb in the nave. Dined at the Falstaff Inn near the -Westgate. Went to the theatre in the evening, & was greatly amused at -the performance: More people on the stage than in the boxes. Ineffably -funny, the whole affair. All three of us slept in one room at the -inn--odd hole. - -“_Tuesday, Nov. 6th_: Swallowed a glass of ale and away for the R. -R. Station & off for London, distant some 80 miles. Took the third -class car--exposed to the air, devilish cold riding against the wind. -Fine day--people sociable. Passed thro Penshurst (P. S.’s place & -Tunbridge--fine old ruin that). Arrived at London Bridge at noon. -Crossed at once over into the city and down at a chop-house in the -Poulberry--having eaten nothing since the previous afternoon dinner. -Went and passed St. Paul’s to the Strand to find our house. They -referred us elsewhere. Very full. Secured room at last (one for each) -at a guinea and a half a week. Very cheap. Went down to the Queen’s -Hotel to inquire after our ship friends--(on the way green coat -attracted attention)--not in. Went to Drury Lane at Julien’s Promenade -Concerts (admittance 1 s.) A great crowd and fine music. In the reading -room to see ‘Bentley’s Miscellany’ with something about _Redburn_. (By -the way, stopped at a store in the Row & inquired for the book, to see -whether it had been published. They offered it to me at a guinea). At -Julien’s also saw Blackwoods’ long story about a short book. It’s very -comical. Seemed so, at least, as I had to hurry on it. But the wonder -is that the old Tory should waste so many papers upon a thing which I, -the author, know to be trash, and wrote it to buy some tobacco with. A -good wash & turned in early. - -“_Thursday, Nov. 8th_: Dressed, after breakfast at a coffee-house, and -went to Mr. Bentley’s. He was out of town at Brighton. The notices -of _Redburn_ were shown me.--Laughable. Staid awhile, and then to -Mr. Murray’s, out of town. Strolled about and went into the National -Gallery. Dined with the Doctor & Adler, and after dark a ramble thro’ -Chancery Lane and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, we turned into Holborn & so to -the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street. Went into the pit at the hall -price--one shilling. The part of a Frenchman was very well played. So -also, skater on the ice. - -“_Friday, Nov. 9th_: Breakfasted late and went into Cheapside to see -the ‘Lord Mayor’s show’ it being the day of the great civic feast & -festivities. A most bloated pomp, to be sure. Went down to the bridge -to see the people crowding there. Crossed by Westminster, thro’ the -Parks to the Edgeware Road, & found the walk delightful, the sun coming -out a little, and the air not cold. While on one of the bridges, the -thought struck me again that a fine story might be written about a Blue -Monday in November London--a City of Dis (Dante’s) Cloud of Smoke--the -damned, etc., coal boxes, oily waters, etc.--its marks are left upon -you, etc., etc., etc.” - -In _Israel Potter_ (1855) Melville devoted one chapter to a description -of London Bridge: a chapter entitled: “In the City of Dis.” The -description begins: “It was late on a Monday morning in November--a -Blue Monday--a Fifth of November--Guy Fawkes’ Day!--very blue, foggy, -doleful and gunpowdery, indeed.” Melville had been husbanding for six -years the impressions gathered on November 9, 1849. - -On November 10, Melville received a reply to the note he had sent -to Bentley announcing his presence in London. Bentley expressed a -willingness to come up from Brighton to see Melville at any time -convenient to Melville. Melville appointed “Monday noon, in New -Burlington Street,” and went forth again to explore the city. He -visited the Temple Courts. By way of Cock Lane--reflecting on Dr. -Johnson’s Ghost--he walked on to the Charter House, “where I had a -sociable chat with an old pensioner who guided me through some fine old -cloisters, kitchens, chapels.” Saturday night, with Adler, he strolled -over to Holborn “vagabonding thro’ the courts and lanes and looking in -at windows. Stopped at a penny theatre--very comical. Adler afraid. To -bed early.” On Sunday Melville went “down to Temple Church to hear the -music,” looked in at St. Paul’s, and then, with Adler, “took a bus for -Hampton Court.” They enjoyed the ride down, the pictures at Hampton -Court, and then dinner at the Adelphi in the evening. - -On Monday, Melville saw Bentley. “Very polite,” says Melville. “Gave -me his note for £100 at ten days for _Redburn_. Couldn’t do better, -he said. He expressed much anxiety and vexation at the state of the -copyright question. Proposed my new book _White-Jacket_ to him and -showed him the table of contents. He was much pleased with it, and -notwithstanding the vexatious and uncertain state of the copyright -matter, he made me the following offer: To pay me £200 for the first -thousand copies of the book (the privilege of publishing that number) -and as we might afterwards arrange concerning subsequent editions. A -liberal offer. But he could make no advance--left him and called upon -Mr. Murray. Not in. Out of town.... Walked to St. Paul’s and sat over -an hour in a dozy state listening to the chanting of the choir. Felt -homesick and sentimentally unhappy.” - -To sweeten his blood, he sallied forth, with Adler, early on the -morrow, “to see the last end of the Mannings. An innumerable crowd in -all the streets. Police by hundreds. Men and women fainting. The man -and wife were hung side by side--still unreconciled to each other--what -a change from the time they stood up to be married together! The mob -was brutish. All in all, a most wonderful, horrible, and unspeakable -scene.--Breakfasted about 11 A. M. and went to the Zoological Gardens, -Regent’s Park. Very pretty. Fine giraffes. Dreary and rainy day.” - -On the morrow “Rigged up again, and in my _green_ jacket called -upon Mr. Murray in Albemarle Street. He was very civil, much vexed -about copyright matters. I proposed _White-Jacket_ to him--he seemed -decidedly pleased and has since sent for the proof sheets, according -to agreement. That evening we went to the New Strand Theatre, to -see Coleman’s _The Clandestine Marriage_.” Melville’s comment upon -Leigh Murray, who played Melvil, would do credit to the lost diary of -Mrs. Pepys: “the finest leg I ever saw on a man--a devilishly well -turned-out man, upon my soul.” - -The day following--November 15--was by the Queen appointed as a day -of special thanksgiving. Melville again sallied forth sight-seeing. On -the morrow he made two attempts to see Murray; the second found him -in. “Very polite--but would not be in his line to publish my book.” On -November 17, Colbour declined Melville’s offer of £200 for a thousand -copies of _White-Jacket_, “and principally because of the cussed -state of the copyright. Bad news enough--I shall not see Rome--I’m -floored--appetite unimpaired, however.” On the 19th, he saw Longman, to -be told “they bided by the original terms.” On the twentieth, he saw -Moxen, the publisher. “Found him in--sitting alone in a back room. He -was at first very stiff, cold, clammy and clumsy. Managed to bring him -to, tho, by clever speeches. Talked of Charles Lamb--he warmed up and -ended by saying he would send me a copy of his works. He said he had -often put Lamb to bed--drunk. He spoke of Dana--he published D’s book -here.” Moxen sent Melville copies of Lamb’s works: but Moxen did not -accept Melville’s invitation to publish _White-Jacket_. - -On November 22--after a jovial evening spent over porter, gin, brandy, -whiskey, and cigars--Melville rose late, and with a headache. So he -rode out to Windsor, to inspect the state apartments,--which he found -“cheerlessly damned fine”--and to view the Royal Stables. “On the way -down from the town, met the Queen coming from visiting the sick Queen -Dowager. Carriage and four going past with outriders. The Prince with -her. My English friend bowed, so did I--salute returned by the Queen -but not by the Prince. I would commend to the Queen, Rowland’s Kalydon -for clarifying the complexion. She is an amiable domestic woman though, -I doubt not, and God bless her, say I, and long live the ‘Prince of -Whales’--The stables were splendid.” - -On Friday, November 23, at quarter to eleven, Melville “had just -returned from Mr. Murray’s where I dined agreeable to invitation. It -was a most amusing affair. Mr. Murray was there in a short vest and -dress coat, looking quizzical enough; his footman was there also, -habited in small clothes and breeches, revealing a despicable pair -of sheepshanks. The impudence of the fellow in showing his legs, and -such a pair of legs too! in public, I thought extraordinary. The -ladies should have blushed, one would have thought, but they did not. -Lockhart was there also, in a prodigious white cravat (made from Walter -Scott’s shroud, I suppose). He stalked about like a half galvanised -ghost,--gave me the tips of two skinny fingers, when introduced to -me, or rather, I to him. Then there was a round faced chap by the -name of Cook--who seemed to be Murray’s factotum. His duty consisted -in pointing out the portraits on the wall and saying that this or -that one was esteemed a good likeness of the high and mighty ghost -Lockhart. There were four or five others present, nameless, fifth-rate -looking varlets and four lean women. One of them proved agreeable in -the end. She had visited some time in China. I talked with her some -time. Besides these there was a footman or boy in a light jacket with -bell-buttons.” - -The lines following, Melville has heavily crossed out. They are, -in most part, decipherable, however, and they are not excessively -complimentary either to his host or the guest of honour. “I managed to -get through, though, somehow,” Melville continues after this blotted -abuse, “by conversing with Dr. Holland, a very eminent physician, -it seems,--and a very affable, intelligent man who has travelled -immensely. After the ladies withdrew, the three decanters, port, -sherry and claret, were kept going the rounds with great regularity. -I sat next to Lockhart and seeing that he was a customer who was -full of himself and expected great homage, and knowing him to be a -thoroughgoing Tory and fish-blooded Churchman and conservative, and -withal editor of the _Quarterly_--I refrained from playing the snob -to him like the rest--and the consequence was he grinned at me his -ghastly smiles. After returning to the drawing-room coffee and tea were -served. I soon after came away.” After two more blotted lines, Melville -concludes: “Oh, Conventionalism, what a ninny thou art, to be sure. And -now I must turn in.” - -Melville continued to interview publishers, and publishers continued -to chasten him with reflections on the state of the copyright laws. -Between times he amused himself as best he could; but there was -little novelty, brilliancy or excitement in the amusement. He was once -entertained very formally at dinner, however: a Baroness Somebody -on his left, an anonymous Baron opposite him, and near him at table -“a most lovely young girl, a daughter of Captain Chamier, the sea -novelist.” And in these brilliant surroundings, he saw a copy of -_Typee_ on a table in the drawing room. He ran upon an old friend -of Gansevoort’s, too, and as a result was betrayed into sober and -sentimental reflections. “No doubt, two years ago, or three, Gansevoort -was writing here in London, about the same hour as this--alone in his -chamber, in profound silence, as I am now. This silence, is a strange -thing. No wonder the Greeks deemed it the vestibule to the higher -mysteries.” - -He paid for his sentimentality, however, by passing “a most -extraordinary night--one continuous nightmare--till daybreak. -Hereafter, if I should be condemned to purgatory, I shall plead the -night of November 25, 1849, in extenuation of the sentence.” - -On November 27, he abruptly left England, to find himself, two days -following, “right snugly roomed in the fifth story of a lodging house -No. 12 & 14 Rue de Bussy, Paris. It is the first night I have taken -possession,” he says, “and the chambermaid has lighted a fire of wood, -lit the candle and left me alone, at 11 o’clock P. M. On first gazing -round, I was struck by the apparition of a bottle containing a dark -fluid, a glass, a decanter of water, and a paper package of sugar -(loaf) with a glass basin next to it. I protest all this was not in the -bond. But tho if I use these things they will doubtless be charged to -me, yet let us be charitable, so I ascribe all this to the benevolence -of Madame Capelle, my most polite, pleasant and Frenchified landlady -below. I shall try the brandy before writing more--and now to resume -my Journal.” The account of Israel Potter’s first night in Paris, -after Benjamin Franklin shows him into lodgings in the Latin Quarter, -is certainly built upon Melville’s experience on this occasion. -Israel finds in his room a heavy plate glass mirror; and among the -articles genially reflected therein, he notes: “seventh, one paper of -loaf sugar, nicely broken into sugar-bowl size; eighth, one silver -teaspoon; ninth, one glass tumbler; tenth, one glass decanter of cool -pure water; eleventh, one sealed bottle containing a richly hued -liquid, and marked ‘Otard.’” Melville makes a chapter out of Israel’s -adventures with this bottle of Otard,--a chapter in which Benjamin -Franklin unburdens himself of much almanac moralising upon the almanac -virtues. - -Despite the Otard, and the snug quarters, and the diversions of -Paris--diversions somewhat restricted by Melville’s complete inability -to speak French--Melville was not happy every moment he was in France. -“Fire made, and tried to be comfortable. But this is not home and--but -no repinings.” Adler was in Paris at the time, however, and this -somewhat cheered his solitude. Yet on December 2, when Melville left -Adler after an evening of eau de vie and cigars, he “strolled out into -a dark rainy night and made my melancholy way across the Pont (rather -a biscuit’s toss of the Morgue) to my sixth story apartment.” And once -safely in his room, he complained: “I don’t like that mystic door -tapestry leading out of the closet.” On the following day he “looked in -at the Morgue,” and “bought two pair of gloves and one pair of shoes -for Lizzie.” That night, he dined with Adler, and “talked high German -metaphysics till ten o’clock.” - -He visited the Hotel de Cluny, and found “the house just the house -I’d like to live in.” He made a half-hearted effort to see Rachel -at the Theatre Française, but failed. He saw the obvious sights and -on December 6 hurried away from Paris. He closes the record of his -departure with a “Selah!” Even in Paris, he speaks of taking his “usual -bath” upon getting up in the morning. - -He touched at Brussels: and despite its architecture, “a more dull, -humdrum place I never saw:” he hurried through Cologne, where he -found “much to interest a pondering man like me.” From Cologne he was -headed for Coblenz: but he looked forward to the voyage with little -eagerness: “I feel homesick to be sure--being all alone with not a soul -to talk to--but the Rhine is before me, and I must on.” Of Coblenz he -wrote: “Most curious that the finest wine of all the Rhine is grown -right under the guns of Ehrenbreitstein.” “Opposite is this frowning -fortress--and some 4000 miles away is America and Lizzie. To-morrow I -am _homeward_-bound! Hurrah and three cheers!” “In the horrible long -dreary cold ride to Ostend on the coach, in a fit of the nightmare -was going to stop at a way-place, taking it for the place of my -destination.” - -By December 13, he was back to his old chamber overlooking the Thames. -Upon his arrival he was vaguely told “a gentleman from St. James called -in his coach,” and “was handed, with a meaning flourish, a note sealed -with a coronet.” The note was from the Duke of Rutland,--perversely -called at times by Melville, _Mr._ Rutland--inviting Melville to visit -Belvoir Castle “at any time after a certain day in January.” “Cannot -go,” Melville writes--“I am homeward bound, and Malcolm is growing all -the time.” He called at Bentley’s for letters. “Found one from Lizzie -and Allan. Most welcome but gave me the blues most horribly. Felt like -chartering a small boat and starting down the Thames embarked for New -York.” So he drank some punch to cheer him, and walked down the Strand -to buy a new coat, “so as to look decent--for I found my green coat -plays the devil with my respectability here.” He haunted the bookshops, -and “at last succeeded in getting the much desired copy of Rousseau’s -_Confessions_,” as well as an 1686 folio of Sir Thomas Browne. - -On December 15, Melville “rigged for Bentley, whom I expect to meet at -1 P. M. about _White-Jacket_. Called but had not arrived from Brighton. -Walked about a little and bought a cigar case for Allan in Burlington -Arcade. Saw some pretty things for presents--but could not afford to -buy.” So back to his room he came, and filled up the time before four -o’clock, when he was to call again at Bentley’s, by writing up his -journal. “He does not know that I am in town,” Melville writes--“I -earnestly hope that I shall be able to see him and I shall be able to -do something about that ‘pesky’ book.” - -At six o’clock, Melville was back again in his room. “Hurrah and three -cheers! I have just returned from Mr. Bentley’s and have concluded an -arrangement with him that gives me to-morrow his note for two hundred -pounds (sterling). It is to be at 6 months and I am almost certain -I shall be able to get it cashed at once. This takes a load off my -heart. The two hundred pounds is in anticipiation, for the book is not -to be published till the last of March next. Hence the long time of the -note. The above mentioned sum is for the first 1000 copies, subsequent -editions (if any) to be jointly divided between us. At eight to-night I -am going to Mrs. Daniels’. What sort of an evening is it going to be? -Mr. Bentley invited me to dinner for Wednesday at 6 P. M. This will do -for a memorandum of the enjoyment. I have just read over the Duke of -Rutland’s note, which I had not fully perused before. It seems very -cordial. I wish the invitation was for next week, instead of being -so long ahead, but this I believe is the mode here for these sort of -invitations into the country. (Memo. At 1 P. M. on Monday am to call at -Mr. Bentley’s.)” - -Under Sunday, December 16, Melville wrote: “Last night went in a cab to -Lincoln’s Inn Fields and found Mrs. Daniel and daughters. Very cordial. -The elder ‘daught’ remarkably sprightly and the mother as nice an old -body as any one could desire. Presently there came in several ‘young -gents’ of various complexions. We had some coffee, music, dancing, -and after an agreeable evening I came away at 11 o’clock, and walking -to the Cock near Temple Bar, drank a glass of stout and home to bed -after reading a few chapters in _Tristram Shandy_, which I have never -yet read. This morning breakfasted at 10 at the Hotel De Sabloneue -(very nice cheap little snuggery being closed on Sundays). Had a sweet -omelette which was delicious. Thence walked to St. Thomas’s Church, -Charter House, to hear my famed namesake (almost) ‘The Reverend H. -Melvill.’ I had seen him placarded as to deliver a charity sermon. -The church was crowded--the sermon admirable (granting the Rev. -gentleman’s premises). Indeed he deserves his reputation. I do not -think that I hardly ever heard so good a discourse before--that is for -an ‘orthodox’ divine. It is now 3 P. M. I have had a fire made and am -smoking a cigar. Would that one I knew were here. Would that the Little -One too were here,--I am in a very painful state of uncertainty. I am -all eagerness to get home--I ought to be home. My absence occasions -uneasiness in a quarter where I most beseech heaven to grant repose. -Yet here I have before me an open prospect to get some curious ideas -of a style of life which in all probability I shall never have again. -I should much like to know what the highest English aristocracy really -and practically is. And the Duke of Rutland’s cordial invitation to -visit him at the castle furnishes me with just the thing I want. If I -do not go, I am confident that hereafter I shall reprimand myself for -neglecting such an opportunity of procuring ‘material.’ And Allan and -others will account me a ninny.--I would not debate the matter a moment -were it not that at least three whole weeks must elapse ere I start -for Belvoir Castle--three weeks! If I could but get over them! And if -the two images would only down for that space of time. I must light a -second cigar and resolve it over again. (1/2 past 6 P. M.) My mind is -made, rather is irrevocably resolved upon my first determination. A -visit into Leicester would be very agreeable--at least very valuable, -and in one respect, to me--but the three weeks are intolerable. -To-morrow I shall go down to London Dock and book myself a state-room -on board the good ship _Independence_. I have just returned from a -lonely dinner at the Adelphi, where I read the Sunday papers. An -article upon the ‘Sunday School Union’ particularly struck me. Would -that I could go home in a steamer--but it would take an extra $100 out -of my pocket. Well, it’s only thirty days--one month--and I can weather -it somehow.” - -On Monday, Melville concluded his arrangements with Bentley, who gave -him a note for two hundred pounds sterling at six months. Melville also -walked down to the London Docks to inspect the _Independence_. “She -looks small and smells ancient,” Melville writes. “Only two or three -passengers engaged. I liked Captain Fletcher, however. He enquired -whether I was a relative of Gansevoort Melville and of Herman Melville. -I told him I was. I engaged my passage and paid ten pounds down.... -Thence home; and out again, and took a letter for a Duke to the post -office and a pair of pants to be altered to a tailor.” - -On Tuesday, Melville made another of his many pilgrimages to the old -book stores about Great Green Street and Lincoln’s Inn. “Looked over -a lot of ancient books of London. Bought one (A. D. 1766) for 3 and 2 -pence. I want to use it in case I serve up the Revolutionary narrative -of the beggar.” What was the title of this “ancient book of London” -is not known, and hence it is impossible to know what use he put it -to, when in _Israel Potter_ he did finally “serve up the Revolutionary -narrative of the beggar.” The same day he “stopped at a silversmith’s -(corner of Craven St. & Strand) and bought a solid spoon for the boy -Malcolm--a fork, I mean. When he arrives to years of mastication I -shall invest him with this fork--as in yore they did a young knight, -with his good sword. Spent an hour or so looking over _White-Jacket_ -preparatory to sending it finally to Bentley--who, tho he has paid his -money has not received his wares. At 6 I dine with him.” - -The dinner with Bentley went off well. Melville “had a very pleasant -evening indeed” and “began to like” his publisher “very much.” Melville -reported that “He seems a very fine, frank, off-handed old gentleman. -We sat down in a fine old room hung round with paintings (dark walls). -A party of fourteen or so. There was a Mr. Bell there--connected with -literature in some way or other. At all events an entertaining man and -a scholar--but looks as if he loved old Pat. Also Alfred Henry Forester -(‘Alfred Crowquill’)--the comic man. He proved a good fellow--free -and easy and no damned nonsense, as there is about so many of these -English. Mr. Bentley has one daughter, a fine woman of 25 and married, -and four sons--young men. They were all at table. Some time after 11, -went home with Crowquill, who invites me to go with him Thursday and -see the Pantomime rehearsal at the Surrey Theatre.” - -The following evening Melville dined with Mr. Cook--whom he had -despised, at first meeting, as Murray’s factotum--in Elm Court, Temple, -“and had a glorious time till noon of night. It recalled poor Lamb’s -‘Old Benchers.’ Cunningham the author of _Murray’s London Guide_ was -there and was very friendly. Mr. Rainbow also, and a grandson Woodfall, -the printer of Junius, and a brother-in-law of Leslie the printer. -Leslie was prevented from coming. Up in the 5th story we dined.” -With a typical departure from the conventional orthography, Melville -pronounced the evening, “The Paradise of Batchelors.” - -In _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine_ for April, 1854, Melville published -a sketch entitled _Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids_. In -1854 he was living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in a household of -women and young children--three of his sisters, his mother, his wife, -and three of his own children. So surrounded, he had relinquished -none of the pleasant memories of that December evening, in 1849, in -those high chambers near Temple-Bar. “It was the very perfection of -quiet absorption of good living, good drinking, good feeling, and -good talk,” Melville wrote in 1854. “We were a band of brothers. -Comfort--fraternal, household comfort, was the grand trait of the -affair. Also, you could plainly see that these easy-hearted men had no -wives or children to give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were -travellers, too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without -any twinges of their conscience touching desertion of the fireside.” -The antithesis of this, Melville pictures in the second part of his -account--_The Tartarus of Maids_. - -Yet just on the eve of his going to these high festivities in the -Temple, a letter was left him--“from home!” The letter reported: “All -well and Barney (“Baby boy,” Mrs. Melville has written in annotation on -the margin of the journal) more bouncing than ever, thank heaven.” On -the following day, Melville began and finished the _Opium Eater_, and -pronounced it “a most wonderful book.” - -On December 24, Melville was in Portsmouth. On Christmas morning he -jumped into a small boat with the Captain and a meagre company of -passengers, and “pulled off for the ship about a mile and a half -distant. Upon boarding her we at once set sail with a fair wind, and -in less than 24 hours passed the Land’s End and the Scilly Isle--and -standing boldly out on the ocean stretched away for New York. I shall -keep no further diary. I here close it, with my departure from England, -and my pointing for home.” - -On a blank page at end of his journal, he jotted some brief “Memoranda -of things on the voyage.” He noted Sir Thomas Browne’s reference to -cannibals in _Vulgar Errors_, and the fact that Rousseau, as a school -master “could have killed his scholars sometimes.” He observed that “a -Dandy is a good fellow to scout and room with;” and copied out from Ben -Jonson “Talk as much folly as you please--so long as you do it without -blushing, you may do it with impunity.” He itemised in his journal, -too, the books obtained while abroad: a 1692 folio of Ben Jonson; -a 1673 folio of Davenant; a folio of Beaumont and Fletcher; a 1686 -folio of Sir Thomas Browne, and a folio of Marlowe’s plays. He brought -with him, also, a _Hudibras_, a _Castle of Otranto_, a _Vathek_, a -_Corinne_, besides the confessions of Rousseau and of DeQuincey, and -the autobiography of Goethe. The other books were guides, old maps, and -other material for _Israel Potter_. - -Melville arrived at 103 Fourth Avenue, on February 2, 1850. Mrs. -Melville, in her journal, thus summarises her husband’s trip. “Summer -of 1849 we remained in New York. He wrote _Redburn_ and _White-Jacket_. -Same fall went to England and published the above. Stayed eleven weeks. -Took little satisfaction in it from mere homesickness, and hurried -home, leaving attractive invitations to visit distinguished people--one -from the Duke of Rutland to pass a week at Belvoir Castle--see his -journal.” - -Of his life after his return home, she says: “We went to Pittsfield and -boarded in the summer of 1850. Moved to Arrowhead in fall--October, -1850.” - -On September 27, 1850, Bayard Taylor dispatched from the Tribune -Office, New York, a note to Mary Angew. “Scarcely a day passes,” Taylor -wrote, “but some pleasant recognition is given me. I was invited last -Friday to dine with Bancroft and Cooper; on Saturday with Sir Edward -Belcher and Herman Melville. These things seem like mockeries, sent to -increase the bitterness of my heart.” It is not unlikely that Melville -and Taylor fed and drank and smoked together on that Saturday evening, -and that they parted, each envying the other as a happy and successful -man. - - - - -CHAPTER XV - -A NEIGHBOUR OF HAWTHORNE’S - - “And here again, not unreasonably, might invocation go up to those - three Weird Ones, that tend Life’s loom. Again we might ask them, - what threads are these, oh, ye Weird Ones, that ye wove in the years - foregone?” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Pierre_. - - -At the time when Melville moved into the Berkshire Hills, the region -around Lenox boasted the descriptive title: “a jungle of literary -lions”--a title amiably ferocious in its provincial vanity. In this -region, it is true, Jonathan Edwards had written his treatises -on predestination, and with sardonic optimism had gloated over -the beauties of hell; here Catherine Sedgewick wrote her amiable -insipidities; here Elihu Burritt, “the learned Blacksmith” wrote out -his _Sparks_; here Bryant composed; here Henry Ward Beecher indited -many _Star-Papers_; here Headley and Holmes, Lowell and Longfellow, -Curtis and G. P. R. James, Audubon and Whipple, Mrs. Sigourney and -Martineau, Fanny Kemble and Frederick Bremer and the Goodale sisters -either visited or lived. Impressed by this array of names--an array -deceptively impressive to the New England imagination,--local pride has -not blushed to explain: “By the river Arno, in the ‘lake region’ of -Cumberland and Westmoreland, or on the placid river which flows through -the Concord meadows, what congestion of literary associations! Like the -instinct of the bee which, separated by great distances from the hive, -possesses the infallible sense of direction for its return, so, too, -the lovely ‘nooks and corners’ on the earth’s surface are irresistibly -and unerringly attracting choice spirits, which some way are sure to -find them out and pre-empt them in the interests of their craft or -clan. Berkshire is no exception to this.” - -When, in 1850, both Melville and Hawthorne moved into the Berkshires, -these literary wilds were tamely domesticated, and sadly thinned of -prowling genius. The coming of Melville and Hawthorne, however, marked -the most important advent ever made into these regions. For there -Melville wrote _Moby-Dick_; and there Melville and Hawthorne were to be -thrown into an ironical intimacy. - -In the autumn of 1850, Melville bought a spacious gambrel-roofed -farmhouse at Pittsfield, situated along Holmes Road and not far from -Broadhall, formerly the home of his uncle, and familiar to Melville’s -youth. Melville named the place Arrowhead. To Arrowhead he brought his -retinue of female relatives, and set about to alternate farming with -literature. - -In the first of the _Piazza Tales_ (1856), in _I and My Chimney_ -(_Putnam’s Magazine_, March, 1856), and in _The Rose-wood Table_ -(_Putnam’s Magazine_, May, 1856), Melville has left descriptions of -Arrowhead, its inmates, and the surrounding country. - -“When I removed into the country,” Melville says in the _Piazza Tales_, -“it was to occupy an old-fashioned farmhouse which had no piazza--a -deficiency the more regretted because not only did I like piazzas, -as somehow combining the cosiness of indoors with the freedom of -outdoors, and it is so pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, -but the country round about was such a picture, that in berry time no -boy climbs hill or crosses vale without coming upon easels planted in -every nook, and sunburned painters painting there. A very paradise of -painters. The circle of the stars cut by the circle of the mountains. -At least, so it looks from the house; though once upon the mountains, -no circle of them can you see. Had the site been chosen five rods off, -this charmed circle would not have been. - -“The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of the Hearth -Stone Hill, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy Stone, to which, each -Thanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to come. So long ago that -in digging for the foundation, the workmen used both spade and axe -fighting the Troglodytes of those subterranean parts--sturdy roots of -a sturdy wood, encamped upon what is now a long landslide of sleeping -meadow, sloping away off from my poppy bed. Of that knit wood but one -survivor stands--an elm, lonely through steadfastness. - -“Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; or else Orion -in the zenith flashed down his Damocles’ sword to him some starry -night, and said: ‘Build there.’ For how, otherwise, could it have -entered the builder’s mind that, upon the clearing being made, such a -purple prospect would be his? Nothing less than Greylock, with all his -hills about him, like Charlemagne among his peers. - -“A piazza must be had. - -“The house was wide--my fortune narrow ... upon but one of the -four sides would prudence grant me what I wanted. Now which side? -Charlemagne, he carried it. - -“No sooner was ground broken than all the neighbourhood, neighbour -Dives in particular, broke too--into a laugh. Piazza to the north! -Winter piazza! Wants, of winter midnights, to watch the Aurora -Borealis, I suppose; hope he’s laid in a good store of polar muffs and -mittens. - -“That was in the lion month of March. Not forgotten are some of the -blue noses of the carpenters and how they scouted at the greenness of -the cit, who would build his sole piazza to the north. But March don’t -last forever; patience, and August comes. And then, in the cool elysium -of my northern bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill -a pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory of his -piazza to the south. - -“But, even in December, this northern piazza does not repel--nipping -cold and gusty though it be, and the north wind, like any miller, -bolting by the snow in finest flour--for then, once more, with frosted -beard, I pace the sleety deck, weathering Cape Horn. - -“In summer, too, Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded of -the sea. For not only do long ground-swells roll the slanting grain, -and little wavelets of the grass ripple over upon the low piazza, as -their beach, and the blown down of dandelions is wafted like the spray, -and the purple of the mountains is just the purple of the billows, and -a still August noon broods over the deep meadows, as a calm upon the -Line; but the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the -silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange house, -rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, on the -Barbary coast, an unknown sail.” - -In _I and My Chimney_ Melville makes the old chimney at Arrowhead -the chief character in a sketch of his domestic life at Pittsfield: -himself and his wife, both freely idealised, are the other actors. -This chimney, twelve feet square at the base, was built by Capt. -David Bush who erected the house in 1780. It has three fireplaces on -the first floor and the one formerly used for the kitchen fireplace -is large enough for a log four feet long. This fireplace is panelled -in pine, and above it hangs an Indian tomahawk, found and hung there -by Melville. Around it are many nooks and cupboards. In _I and My -Chimney_ Melville wrote: “And here I keep mysterious cordials of a -choice, mysterious flavour, made so by the constant naturing and subtle -ripening of the chimney’s gentle heat, distilled through that warm -mass of masonry. Better for wines it is than voyages to the Indies; my -chimney itself is a tropic. A chair by my chimney in a November day is -as good for an invalid as a long season spent in Cuba. Often I think -how grapes might ripen against my chimney. How my wife’s geraniums bud -there! But in December. Her eggs too--can’t keep them near the chimney -on account of hatching. Ah, a warm heart has my chimney.” - -Col. Richard Lathers, in his reminiscences of his Pittsfield residence, -writes: “One of my nearest neighbours at Pittsfield was Herman -Melville, author of the interesting and very original sea tales, -_Typee_ and _Omoo_ (which were among the first books to be published -simultaneously in London and New York), and of various other volumes -of prose and verse. I visited him often in his well-stocked library, -where I listened with intense pleasure to his highly individual views -of society and politics. He always provided a bountiful supply of good -cider--the product of his own orchard--and of tobacco, in the virtues -of which he was a firm believer. Indeed, he prided himself on the -inscription painted over his capacious fireplace: ‘I and my chimney -smoke together,’ an inscription I have seen strikingly verified more -than once when the atmosphere was heavy and the wind was east.” - -When Melville set up his family at Arrowhead, Hawthorne had already -been settled at Lenox, some miles away, for a number of months. “I have -taken a house in Lenox”--so he announced his removal--“I long to get -into the country, for my health is not what it has been. An hour or two -in a garden and a daily ramble in country air would keep me all right.” - -Though Melville and Hawthorne were at this time neither in very -affluent circumstances, Hawthorne was, to all outward appearances, -the more straitened of the two. He described his new home as “the -very ugliest little bit of an old red farmhouse you ever saw,” “the -most inconvenient and wretched house I ever put my head in.” His -wife, however, was not so precipitous in her damnation, and writing -to her mother on June 23, 1850, said: “We are so beautifully arranged -(excepting the guest-chamber), and we seem to have such a large -house _inside_, though outside the little reddest thing looks like -the smallest of ten-feet houses. Enter our old black tumble-down -gate,--no matter for that,--and you behold a nice yard, with an oval -grass-plot and a gravel walk all round the borders, a flower-bed, -some rose-bushes, a raspberry-bush, and I believe a syringa, and also -a few tiger-lilies; quite a fine bunch of peonies, a stately double -rose-columbine, and one beautiful Balsam Fir tree, of perfect pyramidal -form, and full of a thousand melodies. The front door is wide open. -Enter and welcome.” Mrs. Hawthorne then elaborates upon the wealth -of beauty she finds in her tactful disposition of the pictures, the -furniture, and flowers, in the cramped interior. In this tabernacle -she enshrined her two small children; and in the “immortal endowments” -of her husband, she was inarticulate in felicity. “I cannot possibly -conceive of my happiness,” she wrote, “but, in a blissful kind of -confusion, live on. If I can only be so great, so high, so noble, -so sweet, as he in any phase of my being, I shall be glad. I am not -deluded nor mistaken, as the angels know now, and as all my friends -well know, in open vision!” - -Of the actual daily events at Arrowhead and the Red House there is a -great inequality in the wealth of records. Of the Red House we know -much; of Arrowhead we know only too little. Though Mrs. Hawthorne was -always childlike in her modesty and simplicity, “her learning and -her accomplishments were rare and varied.” She not only read Latin, -Greek and Hebrew, but she kept an invaluable journal of the momentous -trifles of her husband’s life; and she wrote letters home that her -Mother very properly preserved for posterity. Mrs. Melville positively -knew no Hebrew; and what accounts of her husband she wrote have all -disappeared. Only one letter of hers of this period survives: - - “ARROWHEAD, Aug. 3, 1851. - - “MY DEAR MOTHER: - - “I have been trying to write to you ever since Sam came, but could - not well find a chance. As it proved, I was not mistaken in supposing - the little parcel he brought was a present from you, though I had no - letter. The contents were beautiful and very acceptable. Do accept my - best thanks for them. We were delighted to see Sam Savage on Tuesday, - but as he did not notify us of the day we were not in waiting for him - at the depot. However, he found his way out to us. To-day he and Sam - have gone over to Lebanon to see the Shakers. The girls were much - pleased with the collars, and Mother M. with her remembrance. The - scarf you sent me was very handsome, but I am almost sorry you did - not keep it for yourself, for it does not seem to me as if I should - ever wear it--and certainly not this summer as I go nowhere not even - to church. It will look very handsome with my new shawl, if ever I do - wear it, though. - - “You need not be afraid of the boys staying too long--I am only sorry - that they cannot stay longer, but they think or rather Sam Savage - thinks he must go to Red Hook this week. You know we do not make any - difference for them and let them do just as they please and take - care of themselves. Yesterday they went with Herman and explored a - neighbouring mountain. - - “Oh, you will be glad to hear, and I meant to have written it to - father the other day, that in consideration of the recent decisions - with regard to the copyright question, Mr. Bentley is to give Herman - £150 and half profits after, for his new book--a much smaller sum - than before, to be sure, but certainly worth waiting for--and quite - generous on Mr. Bentley’s part considering the unsettled state of - things. - - “I cannot write any more--it makes me terribly nervous--I don’t know - as you can read this I have scribbled it so.” - -At the time of Melville’s moving to Arrowhead he was writing -_Moby-Dick_. In the brief life of Melville in her journal, Mrs. -Melville says: “Wrote _White-Whale_ or _Moby-Dick_ under unfavourable -circumstances--would sit at his desk all day not writing anything till -four or five o’clock--then ride to the village after dark--would be up -early and out walking before breakfast--sometimes splitting wood for -exercise. Published _White-Whale_ in 1851--wrote _Pierre_, published -1852. We all felt anxious about the strain on his health in the spring -of 1853.” - -When Hawthorne moved to Lenox he was forty-six years old--Melville’s -senior by fifteen years. “Bidding good-bye for ever to literary -obscurity and to Salem,” Mr. Julian Hawthorne says in his _Nathaniel -Hawthorne and His Wife_, “Hawthorne now turned his face towards the -mountains. The preceding nine months had told upon his health and -spirits: and, had _The Scarlet Letter_ not achieved so fair a success, -he might have been long in recovering his normal frame of mind. But -the broad murmur of popular applause, coming to his unaccustomed ears -from all parts of his native country, and rolling in across the sea -from academic England, gave him the spiritual refreshment born of the -assurance that our fellow-creatures think well of the work we have -striven to make good. Such assurance is essential, sooner or later, to -soundness and serenity of mind. No man can attain secure repose and -happiness who has never found that what moves and interests him has -power over others likewise. Sooner or later he will begin to doubt -either his own sanity or that of all the rest of the world.” Melville -was never to know any such repose and happiness. - -Within the sanctities of the Red House, and among the solitudes of -the surrounding country, Hawthorne enjoyed all the companionship he -desired. In 1842, Mrs. Hawthorne had written to her mother: “Mr. -Hawthorne’s abomination of visiting still holds strong, be it to see -no matter what angel;” and in 1850, Hawthorne was no more eager for -alliances even with celestials. Not, indeed, that he was indifferent to -his fellowmen: that, his literary vocation would not permit. In _Sights -from a Steeple_ he states: “The most desirable mode of existence might -be that of a spiritualised Paul Pry, hovering invisible round men and -women, witnessing their deeds, searching into their hearts, borrowing -brightness from their felicity, and shade from their sorrow, and -retaining no emotion peculiar to himself.” Hawthorne’s son writes: -“Now Hawthorne, both by nature and by training, was of a disposition -to throw himself imaginatively into the shoes (as the phrase is) of -whatever person happened to his companion. For the time being, he -would seem to take their point of view and to speak their language; -it was the result partly of a subtle sympathy and partly of a cold -intellectual insight, which led him half consciously to reflect what -he so clearly perceived. Thus, if he chatted with a group of rude -sea-captains in the smoking-room of Mrs. Blodgett’s boarding-house, -or joined a knot of boon companions in a Boston bar-room, or talked -metaphysics with Herman Melville on the hills of Berkshire, he would -aim to appear in each instance a man like as they were; he would have -the air of being interested in their interests and viewing life by -their standards. Of course, this was only apparent; the real man stood -aloof and observant.” “Seeing his congenial aspect towards their little -round of habits and beliefs, they would leap to the conclusion that he -was no more and no less than one of themselves; whereas they formed -but a tiny arc in the great circle of his comprehension.” Yet even -when not in the rôle of unimpassioned spectator, Hawthorne was not -the man to sit in pharisaical judgment upon his fellows. In _Fancy’s -Show-Box_ he wrote: “Man must not disclaim his brotherhood, even -with the guiltiest, since, though his hand be clean, his heart has -surely been polluted by the flitting phantoms of iniquity.” Emerson -once said that there was no crime he could not commit: an amiable -vanity he shared with many a more prosaic fellow. Hawthorne studied -his own pure heart and learned that “men often over-estimate their -capacity for evil.” “I used to think,” he wrote, “that I could imagine -all feelings, all passions, and states of the heart and mind.” Again: -“Living in solitude till the fulness of time was come, I still kept -the dew of my youth and the freshness of my heart. Had I sooner made -my escape into the world, I should have grown hard and rough, and been -covered with earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by -rude encounters with the multitude.” G. P. Lathrop, in his _Study of -Hawthorne_, says: “The visible pageant is only of value to him as it -suggests the viewless host of heavenly shapes that hang above it like -an idealising mirage.” Yet never for a second did he lose himself among -these heavenly visitations. He was eminently a man of sound sense: as -W. C. Brownell has pointed out, he was “distinctly the most hard-headed -of our men of genius.” His son said of him: “He was the slave of no -theory and no emotion; he always knew, so to speak, where he was and -what he was about.” His nature clearly was self-sustaining. He never -felt the need of the support that in the realm of the affections is the -reward of self-surrender. “He had no doubt an ideal family life,” W. C. -Brownell points out--“that is to say, ideal in a peculiar way, for he -had it on rather peculiar terms, one suspects. These were, in brief, -his own terms. He was worshipped, idolised, canonised, and on his side -it probably required small effort worthily to fill the rôle a more -ardent nature would have either merited less or found more irksome. He -responded at any rate with absolute devotion. His domestic periphery -bounded his vital interests.” - -[Illustration: ARROWHEAD] - -[Illustration: THE FIREPLACE - -ARROWHEAD] - -J. E. A. Smith, however, who knew Hawthorne in the flesh, undertakes -to portray Hawthorne in less austere outline. In his book _Taghconic: -The Romance and Beauty of the Hills_ (Boston, 1879) J. E. A. Smith, -writing under the pseudonym “Godfrey Greylock,” says: “But that Mr. -Hawthorne’s heart was warm and tender, I am well assured by more than -one circumstance, which I do not know that I am at liberty to recall -here. But there can be no wrong in mentioning the origin, as I have -heard it, of the brotherly friendship between him and Herman Melville. -As the story was told me, Mr. Hawthorne was aware that Melville was -the author of a very appreciative review of the _Scarlet Letter_ which -appeared in the _Literary World_, edited by their common friends, the -Duyckincks; but this very knowledge, perhaps, kept two very sensitive -men shy of each other, although thrown into company. But one day it -chanced that when they were out on a picnic excursion, the two were -compelled by a thunder-shower to take shelter in a narrow recess of the -rocks of Monument Mountain. Two hours of enforced intercourse settled -the matter. They learned so much of each other’s character, and found -that they held so much of thought, feeling and opinion in common, that -the most intimate friendship for the future was inevitable.” - -Mr. Julian Hawthorne reports that Herman Melville--or Omoo, as they -called him,--soon became familiar and welcome at the Red House. In -a letter dated September 4, 1850, Mrs. Hawthorne reported to her -mother: “To-day, Mr. Hawthorne and Mr. Melville have gone to dine -at Pittsfield.” It is in this letter that Mrs. Hawthorne wrote the -characterisation of Melville quoted in Chapter I. - -Hawthorne finished _The House of the Seven Gables_ on January 27, 1851. -The four months following Hawthorne gave over to a vacation. “He had -recovered his health,” his son says, “he had done his work, he was -famous, and the region in which he dwelt was beautiful and inspiriting. -At all events, he made those spring days memorable to his children. He -made them boats to sail on the lake, and kites to fly in the air; he -took them fishing and flower-gathering, and tried (unsuccessfully for -the present) to teach them swimming. Mr. Melville used to ride or drive -up, in the evenings, with his great dog, and the children used to ride -on the dog’s back.”... “It was with Herman Melville that Hawthorne -held the most familiar intercourse at this time, both personally and -by letter.” Hawthorne’s son quotes “characteristic disquisitions” -by Melville; “but Hawthorne’s answers, if he wrote any,” Mr. Julian -Hawthorne goes on to say, entertaining a philosophical doubt in the -face of Melville’s specific mention of letters from Hawthorne, “were -unfortunately destroyed by fire.” - -What would appear to be the earliest of the surviving letters of -Melville to Hawthorne follows: - - “PITTSFIELD, Wednesday morning. - - “MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,-- - - “Concerning the young gentleman’s shoes, I desire to say that a - pair to fit him, of the desired pattern, cannot be had in all - Pittsfield,--a fact which sadly impairs that metropolitan pride I - formerly took in the capital of Berkshire. Henceforth Pittsfield must - hide its head. However, if a pair of _bootees_ will at all answer, - Pittsfield will be very happy to provide them. Pray mention all this - to Mrs. Hawthorne, and command me. - - “‘_The House of the Seven Gables_: A Romance. By Nathaniel Hawthorne. - One vol. 16mo, pp. 344.’ The contents of this book do not belie - its rich, clustering, romantic title. With great enjoyment we - spent almost an hour in each separate gable. This book is like a - fine old chamber, abundantly, but still judiciously, furnished - with precisely that sort of furniture best fitted to furnish it. - There are rich hangings, wherein are braided scenes from tragedies! - There is old china with rare devices, set out on the carved buffet; - there are long and indolent lounges to throw yourself upon; there - is an admirable sideboard, plentifully stored with good viands; - there is a smell as of old wine in the pantry; and finally, in one - corner, there is a dark little black-letter volume in golden clasps, - entitled _Hawthorne: A Problem_. It has delighted us; it has piqued - a re-perusal; it has robbed us of a day, and made us a present of - a whole year of thoughtfulness; it has bred great exhilaration and - exultation with the remembrance that the architect of the Gables - resides only six miles off, and not three thousand miles away, - in England, say. We think the book, for pleasantness of running - interest, surpasses the other works of the author. The curtains are - more drawn; the sun comes in more; genialities peep out more. Were - we to particularise what most struck us in the deeper passages, we - would point out the scene where Clifford, for a moment, would fain - throw himself forth from the window to join the procession; or the - scene where the judge is left seated in his ancestral chair. Clifford - is full of an awful truth throughout. He is conceived in the finest, - truest spirit. He is no caricature. He is Clifford. And here we - would say that, did circumstances permit, we should like nothing - better than to devote an elaborate and careful paper to the full - consideration and analysis of the purport and significance of what - so strongly characterises all of this author’s writings. There is a - certain tragic phase of humanity which, in our opinion, was never - more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne. We mean the tragedies of - human thought in its own unbiassed, native, and profounder workings. - We think that into no recorded mind has the intense feeling of the - usable truth ever entered more deeply than into this man’s. By - usable truth, we mean the apprehension of the absolute condition of - present things as they strike the eye of the man who fears them not, - though they do their worst to him,--the man who, like Russia or the - British Empire, declares himself a sovereign nature (in himself) - amid the powers of heaven, hell, and earth. He may perish; but so - long as he exists he insists upon treating with all Powers upon an - equal basis. If any of those other Powers choose to withhold certain - secrets, let them; that does not impair my sovereignty in myself; - that does not make me tributary. And perhaps, after all, there is - _no_ secret. We incline to think that the Problem of the Universe - is like the Freemason’s mighty secret, so terrible to all children. - It turns out, at last, to consist in a triangle, a mallet, and an - apron,--nothing more! We incline to think that God cannot explain His - own secrets, and that He would like a little information upon certain - points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But it is - this _Being_ of the matter; there lies the knot with which we choke - ourselves. As soon as you say _Me_, a _God_, a _Nature_, so soon you - jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. Yes, that word is - the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, and you would have Him - in the street. - - “There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He says NO! in - thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him say _yes_. For all men - who say yes, lie; and all men who say no,--why, they are in the happy - condition of judicious, unincumbered travellers in Europe; they cross - the frontiers into Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,--that is - to say, the Ego. Whereas those _yes_-gentry, they travel with heaps - of baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the Custom - House. What’s the reason, Mr. Hawthorne, that in the last stages of - metaphysics a fellow always falls to _swearing_ so? I could rip an - hour. You see, I began with a little criticism extracted for your - benefit from the _Pittsfield Secret Review_, and here I have landed - in Africa. - - “Walk down one of these mornings and see me. No nonsense; come. - Remember me to Mrs. Hawthorne and the children. - - “H. MELVILLE. - - “P. S. The marriage of Phœbe with the daguerreotypist is a fine - stroke, because of his turning out to be a _Maule_. If you pass - Hepzibah’s cent-shop, buy me a Jim Crow (fresh) and send it to me by - Ned Higgins.” - -When, at the end of this letter, Melville found himself in Africa, he -mistook gravely if he imagined he occupied the same continent with -Hawthorne. Emile Montégut, it is true, has described Hawthorne as a -“romancier pessimiste.” Pessimist Hawthorne doubtless was,--a pessimist -being precisely a nature without illusions. Hawthorne of course had, -as Brownell has sufficiently taken pains to show, “the good sense, -the lack of enthusiasm, the disillusioned pessimism of the man of -the world.” Hawthorne did say “No!” to life: but never, as Melville -deceived himself into believing, “in thunder.” Such an emphatic denial -would have been an expression of ardour: and Hawthorne was as without -ardour as he was without illusion. Both Melville and Hawthorne were, in -a sense, pessimists. Both were repelled by reality; both were quite out -of sympathy with their time and its tendencies. But they had arrived at -this centre of meeting from opposite points of the compass. Hawthorne -was a pessimist from lack of illusions; the ardour of illusion, -because of its exuberance in Melville, was at the basis of Melville’s -despair. Hawthorne took the same severely fatalistic view of himself -and the life about him, as he did of life in his books. He accepted -the universe as being unalterable, and towards his own destiny he felt -satisfaction without elation. Like the Mohammedans who believe that -they are preordained--but preordained to conquer,--so Hawthorne in his -Calvinism, despite his depressed moods, had no serious doubts as to his -election. Melville’s endless questioning of “Providence and futurity, -and of everything else that lies beyond human ken” were to Hawthorne -merely a weariness of the flesh: he was satisfied in his fatalism, and -without interest in speculation. - -The next two letters announce that _Moby-Dick_ is going through the -press,--but they contain other incidental matter that must have been -interesting--as a “human document” at least--even to Hawthorne. It is -true that at this time, so his own son says, “Hawthorne became a sort -of Mecca of pilgrims with Christian’s burden upon their backs. Secret -criminals of all kinds came to him for counsel and relief.” He was -weary, perhaps, of human documents: and Melville came to him, not for -counsel, but in the intimate fraternity of the disenchanted. - - “PITTSFIELD, June 29, 1851. - - “MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,-- - - “The clear air and open window invite me to write to you. For some - time past I have been so busy with a thousand things that I have - almost forgotten when I wrote you last, and whether I received an - answer. This most persuasive season has now for weeks recalled me - from certain crotchety and over-doleful chimeras, the like of which - men like you and me, and some others, forming a chain of God’s - posts round the world, must be content to encounter now and then, - and fight them the best way we can. But come they will,--for in the - boundless, trackless, but still glorious wild wilderness through - which these outposts run, the Indians do sorely abound, as well as - the insignificant but still stinging mosquitoes. Since you have been - here, I have been building some shanties of houses (connected with - the old one) and likewise some shanties of chapters and essays. I - have been ploughing and sowing and raising and printing and praying, - and now begin to come out upon a less bristling time, and to enjoy - the calm prospect of things from a fair piazza at the north of the - old farmhouse here. - - “Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to be urgent - with. The _Whale_ is only half through the press; for, wearied with - the long delays of the printers, and disgusted with the heat and - dust of the Babylonish brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the - country to feel the grass, and end the book reclining on it, if I - may. I am sure you will pardon this speaking all about myself; for - if I _say_ so much on that head, be sure all the rest of the world - are thinking about themselves ten times as much. Let us speak, - though we show all our faults and weaknesses,--for it is a sign of - strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it; not in set way and - ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation. - But I am falling into my old foible,--preaching. I am busy, but shall - not be very long. Come and spend a day here, if you can and want - to; if not, stay in Lenox, and God give you long life. When I am - quite free of my present engagements, I am going to treat myself to - a ride and a visit to you. Have ready a bottle of brandy, because I - always feel like drinking that heroic drink when we talk ontological - heroics together. This is rather a crazy letter in some respects, - I apprehend. If so, ascribe it to the intoxicating effects of the - latter end of June operating upon a very susceptible and peradventure - feeble temperament. Shall I send you a fin of the _Whale_ by way of a - specimen mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked, though the hell-fire - in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have - cooked it ere this. This is the book’s motto (the secret one), _Ego - non baptiso te in nomine_--but make out the rest yourself. - - “H. M.” - - “MY DEAR HAWTHORNE,-- - - “I should have been rumbling down to you in my pine-board chariot a - long time ago, were it not that for some weeks past I have been more - busy than you can well imagine,--out of doors,--building and patching - and tinkering away in all directions. Besides, I had my crops to - get in,--corn and potatoes (I hope to show you some famous ones - by and by),--and many other things to attend to, all accumulating - upon this one particular season. I work myself; and at night my - bodily sensations are akin to those I have so often felt before, - when a hired man, doing my day’s work from sun to sun. But I mean - to continue visiting you until you tell me that my visits are both - supererogatory and superfluous. With no son of man do I stand upon - any etiquette or ceremony, except the Christian ones of charity and - honesty. I am told, my fellow-man, that there is an aristocracy of - the brain. Some men have boldly advocated and asserted it. Schiller - seems to have done so, though I don’t know much about him. At any - rate, it is true that there have been those who, while earnest in - behalf of political equality, still accept the intellectual estates. - And I can well perceive, I think, how a man of superior mind can, - by its intense cultivation, bring himself, as it were, into a - certain spontaneous aristocracy of feeling,--exceedingly nice and - fastidious,--similar to that which, in an English Howard, conveys a - torpedo-fish thrill at the slightest contact with a social plebeian. - So, when you see or hear of my ruthless democracy on all sides, you - may possibly feel a touch of a shrink, or something of that sort. - It is but nature to be shy of a mortal who boldly declares that a - thief in jail is as honourable a personage as Gen. George Washington. - This is ludicrous. But Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. - Try to get a living by Truth--and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! - Let any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, - the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church on his own - pulpit bannister. It can hardly be doubted that all Reformers are - bottomed upon the truth, more or less; and to the world at large are - not reformers almost universally laughing-stocks? Why so? Truth is - ridiculous to men. Thus easily in my room here do I, conceited and - garrulous, revere the test of my Lord Shaftesbury. - - “It seems an inconsistency to assert unconditional democracy in all - things, and yet confess a dislike to all mankind--in the mass. But - not so.--But it’s an endless sermon,--no more of it. I began by - saying that the reason I have not been to Lenox is this,--in the - evening I feel completely done up, as the phrase is, and incapable - of the long jolting to get to your house and back. In a week or so, - I go to New York, to bury myself in a third-story room, and work and - slave on my _Whale_ while it is driving through the press. _That_ is - the only way I can finish it now,--I am so pulled hither and thither - by circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing - mood in which a man _ought_ always to compose,--that, I fear, can - seldom be mine. Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is for - ever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. My dear Sir, a - presentiment is on me,--I shall at last be worn out and perish, like - an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces by the constant attrition of - the wood, that is, the nutmeg. What I feel most moved to write, that - is banned,--it will not pay. Yet, altogether, write the _other_ way I - cannot. So the product is a final hash, and all my books are botches. - I’m rather sore, perhaps, in this letter; but see my hand!--four - blisters on this palm, made by hoes and hammers within the last few - days. It is a rainy morning; so I am indoors, and all work suspended. - I feel cheerfully disposed, and therefore I write a little bluely. - Would the Gin were here! If ever, my dear Hawthorne, in the eternal - times that are to come, you and I shall sit down in Paradise, in - some little shady corner by ourselves; and if we shall by any means - be able to smuggle a basket of champagne there (I won’t believe in a - Temperance Heaven), and if we shall then cross our celestial legs in - the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and strike our glasses - and our heads together, till both musically ring in concert,--then, - O my dear fellow-mortal, how shall we pleasantly discourse of all - the things manifold which now so distress us,--when all the earth - shall be but a reminiscence, yea, its final dissolution an antiquity. - Then shall songs be composed as when wars are over; humorous, comic - songs,--‘Oh, when I lived in that queer little hole called the - world,’ or, ‘Oh, when I toiled and sweated below,’ or, ‘Oh, when - I knocked and was knocked in the fight’--yes, let us look forward - to such things. Let us swear that, though now we sweat, yet it is - because of the dry heat which is indispensable to the nourishment - of the vine which is to bear the grapes that are to give us the - champagne hereafter. - - “But I was talking about the _Whale_. As the fishermen say, ‘he’s - in his flurry’ when I left him some three weeks ago. I’m going to - take him by his jaw, however, before long, and finish him up in - some fashion or other. What’s the use of elaborating what, in its - very essence, is so short-lived as a modern book? Though I wrote - the Gospels in this century, I should die in the gutter.--I talk - all about myself, and this is selfishness and egotism. Granted. - But how help it? I am writing to you; I know little about you, but - something about myself. So I write about myself,--at least, to you. - Don’t trouble yourself, though, about writing; and don’t trouble - yourself about visiting; and when you _do_ visit, don’t trouble - yourself about talking. I will do all the writing and visiting and - talking myself.--By the way, in the last _Dollar Magazine_ I read - ‘The Unpardonable Sin.’ He was a sad fellow, that Ethan Brand. I - have no doubt you are by this time responsible for many a shake and - tremour of the tribe of ‘general readers.’ It is a frightful poetical - creed that the cultivation of the brain eats out the heart. But it’s - my _prose_ opinion that in most cases, in those men who have fine - brains and work them well, the heart extends down to hams. And though - you smoke them with the fire of tribulation, yet, like veritable - hams, the head only gives the richer and the better flavour. I stand - for the heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be a fool - with a heart, than Jupiter Olympus with his head. The reason the - mass of men fear God, and _at bottom dislike_ Him, is because they - rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him all brain like a watch. - (You perceive I employ a capital initial in the pronoun referring to - the Deity; don’t you think there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in - that usage?) Another thing. I was in New York for four-and-twenty - hours the other day, and saw a portrait of N. H. And I have seen and - heard many flattering (in a publisher’s point of view) allusions - to the _Seven Gables_. And I have seen _Tales_ and _A New Volume_ - announced, by N. H. So upon the whole, I say to myself, this N. H. - is in the ascendant. My dear Sir, they begin to patronise. All Fame - is patronage. Let me be infamous: there is no patronage in _that_. - What ‘reputation’ H. M. has is horrible. Think of it! To go down - to posterity is bad enough, any way; but to go down as a ‘man who - lived among the cannibals’! When I speak of posterity, in reference - to myself, I only mean the babies who will probably be born in the - moment immediately ensuing upon my giving up the ghost. I shall go - down to some of them, in all likelihood. _Typee_ will be given to - them, perhaps, with their gingerbread. I have come to regard this - matter of Fame as the most transparent of all vanities. I read - Solomon more and more, and every time see deeper and deeper and - unspeakable meanings in him. I did not think of Fame, a year ago, as - I do now. My development has been all within a few years past. I am - like one of those seeds taken out of the Egyptian Pyramids, which, - after being three thousand years a seed and nothing but a seed, being - planted in English soil, it developed itself, grew to greenness, - and then fell to mould. So I. Until I was twenty-five, I had no - development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I date my life. Three - weeks have scarcely passed, at any time between then and now, that - I have not unfolded within myself. But I feel that I am now come to - the inmost leaf of the bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall - to the mould. It seems to me now that Solomon was the truest man who - ever spoke, and yet that he a little _managed_ the truth with a view - to popular conservatism; or else there have been many corruptions and - interpolations of the text--In reading some of Goethe’s sayings, so - worshipped by his votaries, I came across this, ‘_Live in the all_.’ - That is to say, your separate identity is but a wretched one,--good; - but get out of yourself, spread and expand yourself, and bring to - yourself the tinglings of life that are felt in the flowers and the - woods, that are felt in the planets Saturn and Venus, and the Fixed - Stars. What nonsense! Here is a fellow with a raging toothache. ‘My - dear boy,’ Goethe says to him, ‘you are sorely afflicted with that - tooth; but you must _live in the all_, and then you will be happy!’ - As with all great genius, there is an immense deal of flummery in - Goethe, and in proportion to my own contact with him, a monstrous - deal of it in me. - - “H. MELVILLE. - - “P. S. ‘Amen!’ saith Hawthorne. - - “N. B. This ‘all’ feeling, though, there is some truth in. You must - often have felt it, lying on the grass on a warm summer’s day. Your - legs seem to send out shoots into the earth. Your hair feels like - leaves upon your head. This is the _all_ feeling. But what plays the - mischief with the truth is that men will insist upon the universal - application of a temporary feeling or opinion. - - “P. S. You must not fail to admire my discretion in paying the - postage on this letter.” - -When Melville speaks of “the calm, the coolness, the silent -grass-growing mood in which a man _ought_ to compose,” he has -caught a demoralisation from Hawthorne. _Moby-Dick_, he says, was -“broiled in hell-fire”; and the complete “possession” that mastered -Hawthorne during the composition of _The Scarlet Letter_ has been -amply attested. Each man once, and once only, wrestled with the angel -of his inspiration gloriously to conquer. But Hawthorne had little -relish for such athletics: he preferred the relaxation of painstaking -placidity. He said of _The Scarlet Letter_ that “he did not think it a -book natural for him to write.” The pity of it is that he was not more -frequently so unnatural. As an old man, Melville looked back upon his -achievement, and recanted the corruption he had learned from Hawthorne: - - ART - - In placid hours well-pleased we dream - Of many a brave unbodied scheme. - But form to lend, pulsed life create, - What unlike things must meet and mate; - A flame to melt--a wind to freeze; - Sad patience--joyous energies; - Humility--yet pride and scorn; - Instinct and study;--love and hate: - Audacity--reverence. These must mate, - And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart, - To wrestle with the angel--art. - -Apropos of the two letters last quoted, Mr. Julian Hawthorne says: “Mr. -Melville was probably quite as entertaining and somewhat less abstruse, -when his communications were by word of mouth. Mrs. Hawthorne used to -tell of one evening when he came in, and presently began to relate the -story of a fight which he had seen on an island in the Pacific, between -some savages, and of the prodigies of valour one of them performed with -a heavy club. The narrative was extremely graphic; and when Melville -had gone, and Mr. and Mrs. Hawthorne were talking over his visit, the -latter said, ‘Where is that club with which Mr. Melville was laying -about him so?’ Mr. Hawthorne thought he must have taken it with him; -Mrs. Hawthorne thought he had put it in the corner; but it was not -to be found. The next time Melville came, they asked him about it; -whereupon it appeared that the club was still in the Pacific island, if -it were anywhere.” - -In the entry in his journal for July 30, 1851, Hawthorne wrote: -“Proceeding homeward, we were overtaken by a cavalier on horseback, -who saluted me in Spanish, to which I replied by touching my hat. But, -the cavalier renewing his salutation, I regarded him more attentively, -and saw that it was Herman Melville! So we all went homeward together, -talking as we went. Soon Mr. Melville alighted, and put Julian in the -saddle; and the little man was highly pleased, and sat on the horse -with the freedom and fearlessness of an old equestrian, and had a ride -of at least a mile homeward. I asked Mrs. Peters to make some tea for -Herman Melville, and so she did; and after supper I put Julian to bed, -and Melville and I had a talk about time and eternity, things of this -world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all possible and -impossible matters, that lasted pretty deep into the night. At last he -rose, and saddled his horse and rode off to his own domicile, and I -went to bed....” - -On August 8, 1851, Hawthorne reports in his journal: “To-day Herman -Melville and the two Duyckincks came in a barouche, and we all went to -visit the Shaker establishment at Hancock.” Of the Shakers, Hawthorne -wrote: “They are certainly the most singular and bedevilled set of -people that ever existed in a civilised land.” One wonders what would -have been Hawthorne’s report of the valley of Typee. - -The next letter acknowledges a lost communication from Hawthorne. It is -dated, in Hawthorne’s writing: “received July 24, 1851.” - - “MY DEAR HAWTHORNE: This is not a letter, or even a note, but merely - a passing word to you said over your garden gate. I thank you for - your easy flowing long letter (received yesterday), which flowed - through me, and refreshed all my meadows, as the Housatonic--opposite - me--does in reality. I am now busy with various things, not - incessantly though; but enough to require my frequent tinkering; and - this is the height of the haying season, and my nag is dragging home - his winter’s dinners all the time. And so, one way and another, I am - not a disengaged man, but shall be very soon. Meanwhile, the earliest - good chance I get, I shall roll down to you, my good fellow, seeing - we--that is, you and I--must hit upon some little bit of vagabondage - before autumn comes. Greylock--we must go and vagabondise there. But - ere we start, we must dig a deep hole, and bury all Blue Devils, - there to abide till the last Day.... Good-bye.” - - HIS X MARK. - -And the last letter is a dithyramb of gratitude to Hawthorne for a -letter of Hawthorne’s (would that it survived!) in appreciation of -_Moby-Dick_. - - “PITTSFIELD, Monday Afternoon. - - “MY DEAR HAWTHORNE: - - “People think that if a man has undergone any hardship he should - have a reward; but for my part, I have done the hardest possible - day’s work, and then come to sit down in a corner and eat my supper - comfortably--why, then I don’t think I deserve any reward for my hard - day’s work--for am I not at peace? Is not my supper good? My peace - and my supper are my rewards, my dear Hawthorne. So your joy-giving - and exultation-breeding letter is not my reward for my ditcher’s work - with that book, but is the good goddess’s bonus over and above what - was stipulated for--for not one man in five cycles, who is wise, - will expect appreciative recognition from his fellows, or any one of - them. Appreciation! Recognition! Is love appreciated? Why, ever since - Adam, who has got to the meaning of this great allegory--the world? - Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories but - ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious gratuity. - In my proud, humble way,--a shepherd-king,--I was lord of a little - vale in the solitary Crimea; but you have now given me the crown of - India. But on trying it on my head, I found it fell down on my ears, - notwithstanding their asinine length--for it’s only such ears that - sustain such crowns. - - “Your letter was handed to me last night on the road going to Mr. - Morewood’s, and I read it there. Had I been at home, I would have - sat down at once and answered it. In me divine magnanimities are - spontaneous and instantaneous--catch them while you can. The world - goes round, and the other side comes up. So now I can’t write - what I felt. But I felt pantheistic then--your heart beat in my - ribs and mine in yours, and both in God’s. A sense of unspeakable - security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood - the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the - lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down and dine - with you and all the Gods in old Rome’s Pantheon. It is a strange - feeling--no hopelessness is in it, no despair. Content--that is it; - and irresponsibility; but without licentious inclination. I speak now - of my profoundest sense of being, not of an incidental feeling. - - “Whence came you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my - flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips--lo, they are yours and - not mine. I feel that the God-head is broken up like the bread at the - Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity - of feeling. Now, sympathising with the paper, my angel turns over - another leaf. You did not care a penny for the book. But, now and - then as you read, you understood the pervading thought that impelled - the book--and that you praised. Was it not so? You were archangel - enough to praise the imperfect body, and embrace the soul. Once you - hugged the ugly Socrates because you saw the flame in the mouth, and - heard the rushing of the demon,--the familiar,--and recognised the - sound; for you have heard it in your own solitudes. - - “My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric scepticisms steal over me now, - and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you thus. But, believe - me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But truth is ever incoherent, - and when the big hearts strike together, the concussion is a little - stunning. Farewell. Don’t write me a word about the book. That - would be robbing me of my miserable delight. I am heartily sorry I - ever wrote anything about you--it was paltry. Lord, when shall we - be done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, we have - done nothing. So, now, let us add _Moby-Dick_ to our blessing, and - step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest fish;--I have heard of - Krakens. - - “This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. - Possibly if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you - will missend it--for the very fingers that now guide this pen are - not precisely the same that just took it up and put it to the paper. - Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it is a long stage, and no - inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a - passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, - I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing - you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality. - - “What a pity that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should get such - gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to the children, and so, - good-bye to you, with my blessing. - - “HERMAN. - - “P. S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up of - Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have a paper-mill - established at one end of the house, and so have an extra riband for - foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I - should write a thousand--a million--a billion thoughts, all under the - form of a letter to you. The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet - responds. Which is the bigger? A foolish question--they are _one_. - - “H. - - “P. P. S. Don’t think that by writing me a letter, you shall always - be bored with an immediate reply to it--and so keep both of us - delving over a writing-desk eternally. No such thing! I sha’n’t - always answer your letters and you may do just as you please.” - -Hawthorne had written Melville a “plain, bluff letter,” and in reply -was to be told, with “infinite fraternity,” that “the god-head is -broken up like the bread at the Supper” and that he was one of the -pieces. Melville had dedicated _Moby-Dick_ to Hawthorne, and Hawthorne -made some sort of acknowledgment of the tribute. Melville, shrewdly -suspected him, however, of caring “not a penny” for the book, but in -archangelical charity praising less the “imperfect body” than the -“pervading thought” which “now and then” he understood. - -_Moby-Dick_ was an allegory, of course--but withal an allegory of a -solidity and substance that must have appeared to Hawthorne little -short of grossly shocking. Hawthorne had been praised from his “airy -and charming insubstantiality.” And of himself he wrote, with engaging -candour: “Whether from lack of power, or an unconquerable reserve, -the Author’s touches have often an effect of tameness.” Hawthorne’s -“reserve” is, of course, all myth. Both Hawthorne and Melville, though -each a recluse in life, overflow to the reader. And as Brownell says -of Hawthorne: “He does not tell very much, but apparently he tells -everything.” But to Hawthorne, Melville’s overflowing, like a spring -freshet, or a tidal wave, must have been little less than appalling. -Hawthorne’s was eminently a neat, fastidious style, as free from any -eccentricity or excess as from any particular pungency or colour. -Melville’s was extravagant, capricious, vigorous, and “unliterary”: the -energy of his undisciplined genius is its most significant quality. -After all, was it possible for Hawthorne to feel any deep sympathy for -Melville’s passionate enthusiasms, for Melville’s catholic toleration, -for Melville’s quenchless curiosity, for Melville’s varied laughter, -for Melville’s spiritual daring? It is true that Hawthorne found -Story’s “Cleopatra”--inspired, it might appear, by a fancy of the -young Victoria in discreet negligée--“a terrible, dangerous woman, -quite enough for the moment, but very like to spring upon you like a -tigress.” He never visited George Eliot because there was another Mrs. -Lewes. He was much troubled by the nude in art. He pronounced Margaret -Fuller’s “in many respects,” a “defective and evil nature,” and -“Providence was kind in putting her and her clownish husband and their -child on board that fated ship.” It is true that he wrote a graceful if -not very genial introductory essay--once mistaken for a marvel quite -eclipsing “Elia”--to relieve the dark tone of _The Scarlet Letter_. And -it is also true that he accepted the adoration of his wife with the -utmost gravity and appreciation. Mrs. Hawthorne, in one of her letters -to her mother, by a transition in praise of Hawthorne’s eyes--“They -give, but receive not”--comments at some length, on her husband’s -“mighty heart,” that “opens the bosom of men.” “So Mr. Melville,” she -says, “generally silent and incommunicative, pours out the rich floods -of his mind and experience to him, so sure of appreciation, so sure of -a large and generous interpretation.” - -What interpretation Hawthorne gave to _Moby-Dick_ has not transpired. -Hawthorne mentions _Moby-Dick_ once in his published works. In the -_Wonder Book_ he says: “On the hither side of Pittsfield sits Herman -Melville, shaping out the gigantic conception of his white whale, while -the gigantic shape of Greylock looms upon him from his study window.” -Only one available Hawthorne-Melville document is still unprinted: the -“Agatha” letter, mentioned by Mr. Julian Hawthorne. But the “Agatha” -letter says nothing of _Moby-Dick_; and though of impressive bulk, its -biographical interest is too slight to merit its publication. - -Born in hell-fire, and baptised in an unspeakable name, _Moby-Dick_ -is, with _The Scarlet Letter_, among the few very notable literary -achievements of American literature. There has been published no -criticism of Melville more beautiful or more profound than the essay -of E. L. Grant Watson on _Moby-Dick_ (_London Mercury_, December, -1920). It is Mr. Watson’s contention in this essay, that the _Pequod_, -with her monomaniac captain and all her crew, is representative of -Melville’s own genius, and in the particular sense that each character -is deliberately symbolic of a complete and separate element. Because -of the prodigal richness of material in _Moby-Dick_, the breadth and -vitality and solid substance of the setting of the allegory, the -high quality of _Moby-Dick_ as a psychological synthesis has very -generally been lost sight of. Like Bunyan, or Swift, Melville has -enforced his moral by giving an independent and ideal verisimilitude -to its innocent and unconscious exponents. The self-sustaining -vitality of Melville’s symbols has been magnificently vouched for by -Mr. Masefield in his vision of the final resurrection. And the superb -irony--whether unconscious or intended--of _Moby-Dick’s_ “towing -the ship our Lord was in, with all the sweet apostles aboard of -her,” would surely have delighted Melville. _Pilgrim’s Progress_ is -undoubtedly a tract; but, as Brownell observes, if it had been only -a tract, it would never have achieved universal canonisation. Both -_Pilgrim’s Progress_ and _Moby-Dick_ are works of art in themselves, -each leaning lightly--though of course to all the more purpose--on -its moral. Most persons probably read _Gulliver_ for the story, and -miss the satire. In the same way, a casual reader of _Moby-Dick_ -may skip the more transcendental passages and classify it as a book -of adventure. It is indeed a book of adventure, but upon the highest -plane of spiritual daring. Ahab is, of course, the atheistical captain -of the tormented soul; and his crew, so Melville says, is “chiefly -made of mongrel renegades, and cast-aways and cannibals.” And Ahab is -“morally enfeebled, also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or -rightmindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollitry of indifference -or recklessness of Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity of Flash!” -But Ahab is Captain; and his madness is of such a quality that the -white whale and all that is there symbolised, needs must render its -consummation, or its extinction. On the waste of the Pacific, ship -after ship passes the _Pequod_, some well laden, others bearing awful -tidings: yet all are sane. The _Pequod_ alone, against contrary winds, -sails on into that amazing calm, that extraordinary mildness, in which -she is destroyed by _Moby-Dick_. “There is a wisdom that is woe, and -there is a woe that is madness.” And in _Moby-Dick_, the woe and the -wisdom are mingled in the history of a soul’s adventure. - -Though _Moby-Dick_ is not only an allegory, but an allegory designed -to teach woeful wisdom, nowhere in literature, perhaps, can one find -such uncompromising despair so genially and painlessly administered. -Indeed, the despair of _Moby-Dick_ is as popularly missed as is the -vitriolic bitterness of _Gulliver_. There is an abundance of humour in -_Moby-Dick_, of course: and there is mirth in much of the laughter. -In _Moby-Dick_, it would appear, Melville has made pessimism a gay -science. “Learn to laugh, my young friends,” Nietzsche counsels, “if -you are at all determined to remain pessimists.” If there are tears, -he smiles gallantly as he brushes them aside. “There are certain -queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life,” -Melville says, “when a man takes this whole universe for a vast -practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discovers, and -more than suspects that the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. -There is nothing like the perils of whaling to breed this free and -easy sort of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I regard this -whole voyage of the _Pequod_, and the great white whale its object.” -And for the most part, he does. But he declares, withal, that “the -truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, and the truest of all books -is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of woe. -All is vanity. ALL.” _Moby-Dick_ was built upon a foundation of this -wisdom, and this woe; and so keenly did Melville feel the poignancy of -this woe, so isolated was he in his surrender to this wisdom, that this -wisdom and this woe, which he had learned from Solomon and from Christ, -he felt to be of that quality which in our cowardice we call madness. - - - - -CHAPTER XVI - -THE GREAT REFUSAL - - “My towers at last! These rovings end, - Their thirst is slacked in larger dearth: - The yearning infinite recoils, - For terrible is earth.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _L’Envoi_. - - -On a bleak and snowy November day in 1851, the Hawthorne family, with -their trunks, got into a large farm wagon and drove away from the -little red house. And with the departure of Hawthorne, Melville had -dreamed the last of his avenging dreams. There may have been some -association between the two men while Hawthorne was in West Newton, -and later in Concord, but no records survive. In 1856, on his way to -the Holy Land, Melville visited Hawthorne at Southport two days after -arriving in Liverpool. Melville’s account of the meeting is thus -recorded in his journal: - - “_Sunday, Nov. 9_: Stayed home till dinner. After dinner took - steamboat for Rock Ferry to find Mr. Hawthorne. On getting to R. F. - learned he had removed thence 18 months previous and was now residing - out of town. - - “_Monday, Nov. 10_: Went among the docks to see the Mediterranean - steamers. Saw Mr. Hawthorne at Consulate. Invited me to stay with - him during my sojourn at Liverpool. Dined at Anderson’s, a very nice - place, and charges moderate. - - “_Tuesday, Nov. 11_: Hawthorne for Southport, 20 miles distant on the - seashore, a watering place. Found Mrs. Hawthorne & the rest awaiting - tea for us. - - “_Wednesday, Nov. 12_: At Southport, an agreeable day. Took a long - walk by the sea. Sand & grass. Wild & desolate. A strong wind. Good - talk. In the evening stout & fox & geese. Julian grown into a fine - lad. Una taller than her brother. Mrs. Hawthorne not in good health. - Mr. Hawthorne stayed home with me. - - “_Thursday, Nov. 13_: At Southport till noon. Mr. H. & I took train - then for Liverpool. Spent rest of day putting enquiries among - steamers. - - “_Friday, Nov. 14_: Took bus for London Road. Called at Mr. - Hawthorne’s. Met a Mr. Bright. Took me to his club and luncheoned me - there. - - “_Sunday, Nov. 16_: Rode in the omnibus. Went out to Foxhill Park, - &c. Grand organ at St. George’s Hall.” - -Three days later, Melville was off for Constantinople. In his _English -Note-boo_k, under November 30th, 1856, Hawthorne wrote: - - “_November 30_: A week ago last Monday, Herman Melville came to - see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to do, and with - his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... We soon found - ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and - confidence.... He is thus far on his way to Constantinople. I do - not wonder that he found it necessary to take an airing through - the world, after so many years of toilsome pen-labour, following - upon so wild and adventurous a youth as his was. I invited him to - come and stay with us at Southport, as long as he might remain in - this vicinity, and accordingly he did come the next day.... On - Wednesday we took a pretty long walk together, and sat down in a - hollow among the sand-hills, sheltering ourselves from the high cool - wind. Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and - futurity, and of everything else that lies beyond human ken.... He - has a very high and noble nature, and is better worth immortality - than the most of us.... On Saturday we went to Chester together. I - love to take every opportunity of going to Chester; it being the one - only place, within easy reach of Liverpool, which possesses any old - English interest. We went to the Cathedral.”--And then architecture - gives place to personal comment. - -Mr. Julian Hawthorne reports of this meeting: “At Southport the chief -event of interest during the winter was a visit from Herman Melville, -who turned up at Liverpool on his way to Constantinople, and whom -Hawthorne brought out to spend a night or two with us. ‘He looked -much the same as he used to do; a little paler, perhaps, and a little -sadder, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner. I -felt rather awkward at first, for this is the first time I have met -him since my ineffectual attempt to get him a consular appointment -from General Pierce. However, I failed only from real lack of power -to serve him; so there was no reason to be ashamed, and we soon -found ourselves on pretty much the former terms of sociability and -confidence. Melville has not been well, of late; he has been affected -with neuralgic complaints, and no doubt has suffered from too constant -literary occupation, pursued without much success latterly; and his -writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of -mind. So he left his place in Pittsfield, and has come to the Old -World. He informed me that he had “pretty much made up his mind to be -annihilated”; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation, -and I think will never rest until he gets hold of some definite belief. -It is strange how he persists--and has persisted ever since I knew him, -and probably long before--in wandering to and fro over these deserts, -as dismal and monotonous as the sandhills amidst which we were sitting. -He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is -too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he -were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and -reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth -immortality than most of us.’ - -“Melville made the rounds of Liverpool under the guidance of Henry -Bright; and afterwards Hawthorne took him to Chester; and they parted -the same evening, ‘at a street corner, in the rainy evening. I saw him -again on Monday, however. He said that he already felt much better -than in America; but observed that he did not anticipate much pleasure -in his rambles, for that the spirit of adventure is gone out of him. -He certainly is much overshadowed since I saw him last; but I hope -he will brighten as he goes onward. He sailed on Tuesday, leaving -a trunk behind him, and taking only a carpet-bag to hold all his -travelling-gear. This is the next best thing to going naked; and as he -wears his beard and moustache, and so needs no dressing-case,--nothing -but a toothbrush,--I do not know a more independent personage. He -learned his travelling habits by drifting about, all over the South -Seas, with no other clothes or equipage than a red flannel shirt and -a pair of duck trousers. Yet we seldom see men of less criticisable -manners than he.’” - -There is no record of these two men ever meeting again. - -From the beginning, there had been, between Melville and Hawthorne, a -profound incompatibility. When they met, Melville was within one last -step of absolute disenchantment. One illusion, only, was to him still -unblasted: The belief in the possibility of a Utopian friendship that -might solace all of his earlier defeats. Ravished in solitude by his -alienation from his fellows, Melville discovered that the author of -_The Scarlet Letter_ was his neighbour. He came to know Hawthorne: and -his eager soul rushed to embrace Hawthorne’s as that of a brother in -despair. Exultant was his worship of Hawthorne, absolute his desire for -surrender. He craved of Hawthorne an understanding and sympathy that -neither Hawthorne, nor any other human being, perhaps, could ever have -given. His admiration for Hawthorne was, of course, as he inevitably -discovered, built upon a mistaken identity. Yet, on the evidence of -his letters, he for a time drew from this admiration moments both -of tensest excitement and of miraculous and impregnating peace. It -would be interesting, indeed, to know what _Moby-Dick_ owed to this -inspiration. It is patent fact, however, that with the publication of -_Moby-Dick_, and Hawthorne’s departure from Lenox, Melville’s creative -period was at its close. At the age of thirty-two, so brilliant, so -intense, so crowded had been the range of experience that burned -through him, that at the period of his life when most men are just -beginning to strike their gait, Melville found himself looking forward -into utter night. Nearly forty years before his death, he had come -to be the most completely disenchanted of all considerable American -writers. - -From his youth, Melville had felt the flagrant and stubborn discord -between aspiration and fact. He was born with an imagination of -very extraordinary vigour, and with a constitution of corresponding -vitality. In sheer capacity to feel, most American writers look pale -beside him. Fired by his rebellious imagination, and abetted by his -animal courage, he sallied forth in quest of happiness. Few men have -ever compassed such a span of experience as he crowded within the -thirty-two years of his quest; few men have lived with such daring, -with such intensity. And one by one, as he put his illusions to the -test, the bolts of his imagination, discharged against reality, but -blazed out charred avenues to despair. It was Dante, he says in -_Pierre_, who first “opened to his shuddering eyes the infinite cliffs -and gulfs of human mystery and misery;--though still more in the way of -experimental vision, than of sensational presentiment or experience.” -By the age of thirty-two, he had, by first-hand knowledge of life, -learned to feel the justice of Schopenhauer’s statement: “Where did -Dante find the material for his _Inferno_ if not from the world; and -yet is not his picture exhaustively satisfactory? But look at his -Paradise; when he attempted to describe it he had nothing to guide him, -this pleasant world could not offer a single suggestion.” This passage -is marked in Melville’s copy of Schopenhauer. And in _Pierre_ he wrote: -“By vast pains we mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come -to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift the -lid--and nobody is there!--appallingly vacant, as vast as the soul of -a man.” - -Melville’s disillusionment began at home. The romantic idealisation -of his mother gave place to a recoil into a realisation of the cold, -“scaly, glittering folds of pride” that rebuffed his tormented love; -and he studied the portrait of his father, and found it a defaming -image. In _Pierre_ this portrait thus addresses him: “To their young -children, fathers are not wont to unfold themselves.... Consider this -strange, ambiguous, smile; more narrowly regard this mouth. Behold, -what is this too ardent and, as it were, unchastened light in these -eyes. Consider. Is there no mystery here?” In _Pierre_, he thought that -there was. - -In his boyhood, poverty added its goad to launch him forth to find -happiness in distance. He discovered hideousness; and later, escaped -into virgin savagery, he saw by contrast the blatant defaults of -civilisation; and he learned that it was the dubious honour of the -white civilised man of being “the most ferocious animal on the face -of the earth.” In Tahiti he was brought face to face with the bigotry -and stupid self-righteousness of the proselyting Protestant mind; and -there he learned that Christianity--or what passes for it--may under -some circumstances be not a blessing but a blight. In _Typee_ and -_Omoo_ he innocently turned his hand to right matters to a happier -adjustment, soon to reap the reward of such temerity. In the navy he -was made hideously aware of the versatility of the human animal in -evil. There he found not only a rich panorama of human unloveliness, -but “evils which, like the suppressed domestic drama of Horace Walpole, -will neither bear representing, nor reading, and will hardly bear -thinking of.” There, he was also struck by the criminal stupidity of -war. In _White-Jacket_ he asked, “are there no Moravians in the Moon, -that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet of ours, -to civilise civilisation and Christianise Christendom?” He was, as he -calls himself, a “pondering man”: and in his evaluation of individual -human life he soon came to share the judgment of Josiah Royce, another -“pondering man”: “Call it human life. You can not find a comparison -more thoroughly condemning it.” And he marked Schopenhauer’s tribute to -his fellows: “They are just what they seem to be, and that is the worst -that can be said of them.” - -As “the man who lived among the cannibals” he was famous by the -age of twenty-eight. But when he attempted to put his earnest -convictions on paper, he was to discover that the value of the paper -deteriorated thereby. When he made this discovery he was married, -and a father: and debtors had to be held at bay by the point of the -pen. On April 30, 1851, Harper and Brothers denied him any further -advance on his royalties: they were making “extensive and expensive -improvements”--and besides, he had already overdrawn nearly seven -hundred dollars. - -He had, too, sought personal happiness in the illusion of romantic -love. The romantic lover is in especial peril of finding in marriage -the sobered discovery that all his sublime and heroic effort has -resulted simply in a vulgar satisfaction, and that, taking all things -into consideration, he is no better off than he was before. In his poem -_After the Pleasure Party_ (in _Timoleon_, 1891) Melville tells such -a “sad rosary of belittling pain.” As a rule, Theseus once consoled, -Ariadne is forsaken; and had Petrarch’s passion been requited, his -song would have ceased. Francesca and Paolo, romantic lovers who had -experienced the limits of their desire, were by Dante put in Hell: -and their sufficient punishment was their eternal companionship. -By the very ardour of his idealisation, Melville was foredoomed to -disappointment in marriage. Though both he and his wife were noble -natures--indeed for that very reason--their marriage was for each a -crucifixion. For between them there was deep personal loyalty without -understanding. Bacon once said, “he that hath wife and children -hath given hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great -enterprises, either of virtue or of mischief.” Melville gave such -hostages to fortune: but, such was his temperament, it is difficult -to believe that unencumbered he would have magnified his achievement. -Mrs. Melville is remembered as a gentle, gracious, loyal woman who bore -with him for over forty years, in his disillusion, his loss of health, -his poverty, his obscurity. And his father-in-law, Chief Justice Shaw, -befriended him with forbearance and with more substantial gifts. - -With the departure of Hawthorne from Lenox, Melville was left without -companionship and without illusions. And he was aware of the approach -of his Nemesis even before it overtook him. He confessed to Hawthorne -while finishing _Moby-Dick_ his feeling that he was approaching -the limit of his power. And these intimations were prophetic. With -_Moby-Dick_ his creative period closed. - -Of the end of this period his wife says: “Wrote _White Whale_ or -_Moby-Dick_ under unfavourable circumstances--would sit at his desk -all day not writing anything till four or five o’clock--then ride -to the village after dark--would be up early and out walking before -breakfast--sometimes splitting wood for exercise. Published _White -Whale_ in 1851.--Wrote _Pierre_: published 1852. We all felt anxious -about the strain on his health in Spring of 1853.” - -In _Pierre_, Melville coiled down into the night of his soul, to -write an anatomy of despair. The purpose of the book was to show -the impracticability of virtue: to give specific evidence, freely -plagiarised from his own psychology, that “the heavenly wisdom of -God is an earthly folly to man,” “that although our blessed Saviour -was full of the wisdom of Heaven, yet his gospel seems lacking in -the practical wisdom of the earth; that his nature was not merely -human--was not that of a mere man of the world”; that to try to live in -this world according to the strict letter of Christianity would result -in “the story of the Ephesian matron, allegorised.” The subtlety of -the analysis is extraordinary; and in its probings into unsuspected -determinants from unconsciousness it is prophetic of some of the -most recent findings in psychology. “Deep, deep, and still deep and -deeper must we go,” Melville says, “if we would find out the heart -of a man; descending into which is as descending a spiral stair in a -shaft, without any end, and where that endlessness is only concealed -by the spiralness of the stair, and the blackness of the shaft.” In -the winding ambiguities of _Pierre_ Melville attempts to reveal man’s -fatal facility at self-deception; to show that the human mind is like -a floating iceberg, hiding below the surface of the sea most of its -bulk; that from a great depth of thought and feeling below the level -of awareness, long silent hands are ever reaching out, urging us to -whims of the blood and tensions of the nerves, whose origins we never -suspect. “In reserves men build imposing characters,” Melville says; -“not in revelations.” _Pierre_ is not conspicuous for its reserves. - -_Pierre_ aroused the reviewers to such a storm of abuse that legend -has assigned Melville’s swift obscuration to this dispraise. The -explanation is too simple, as Mr. Mather contends. But there is, -doubtless, more than a half truth in this explanation. The abuse -that _Pierre_ reaped, coming when it did in Melville’s career, -and inspired by a book in which Melville with tragic earnestness -attempted an apologia of worldly defeat, must have seemed to him in -its heartlessness and total blindness to his purpose, a definitive -substantiation of the thesis of his book. - -_Pierre_ has been very unsympathetically handled, even by Melville’s -most penetrating and sympathetic critics. Mr. Frank Jewett Mather, -Jr., for example, in the second of his two essays on _Herman Melville_ -(_The Review_, August 9 and 16, 1919), says of _Pierre_ that “it is -perhaps the only positively ill-done book” of Melville’s. Mr. Mather -grants power to the book, but he finds it “repellent and overwrought.” -He recommends it only as a literary curiosity. And as a literary -curiosity Mr. Arthur Johnson studied its stylistic convolutions in _The -New Republic_ of August 27, 1919. It is certainly true, as Mr. Johnson -has said, that “the plot or theme, were it not so ‘done’ as to be -hardly decipherable, would be to-day considered rather ‘advanced.’” Mr. -Johnson contends that for morbid unhealthy pathology, it has not been -exceeded even by D. H. Lawrence. All this may be very excellent ethics, -but it is not very enlightening criticism. - -Melville wrote _Pierre_ with no intent to reform the ways of the -world. But he did write _Pierre_ to put on record the reminder that -the world’s way is a hypocritic way in so far as it pretends to be any -other than the Devil’s way also. In _Pierre_, Melville undertook to -dramatise this conviction. When he sat down to write, what seemed to -him the holiest part of himself--his ardent aspirations--had wrecked -itself against reality. So he undertook to present, in the character -of Pierre, his own character purged of dross; and in the character of -Pierre’s parents, the essential outlines of his own parents. Then he -started his hero forth upon a career of lofty and unselfish impulse, -intent to show that the more transcendent a man’s ideal, the more -certain and devastating his worldly defeat; that the most innocent -in heart are those most in peril of being eventually involved in -“strange, _unique_ follies and sins, unimagined before.” Incidentally, -Melville undertakes to show, in the tortuous ambiguities of _Pierre_, -that even the purest impulses of Pierre were, in reality, tainted of -clay. _Pierre_ is an apologia of Melville’s own defeat, in the sense -that in _Pierre_ Melville attempts to show that in so far as his own -defeat--essentially paralleling Pierre’s--was unblackened by incest, -murder, and suicide, he had escaped these disasters through accident -and inherent defect, rather than because of superior virtue. Pierre had -followed the heavenly way that leads to damnation. - -Such a thesis can be met by the worldly wisdom that Melville slanders -in _Pierre_, only with uncompromising repugnance. There can be no -forgiveness in this world for a man who calls the wisdom of this world -a cowardly lie, and probes clinically into the damning imperfections of -the best. His Kingdom is surely not of this world. And if this world -evinces for his gospel neither understanding nor sympathy, he cannot -reasonably complain if he reaps the natural fruits of his profession. -Melville agreed with the Psalmist: “Verily there is a reward for the -righteous.” But he blasphemed when he dared teach that the reward of -virtue and truth in this world must be wailing and gnashing of teeth. -Like Dante, Melville set himself up against the world as a party of -one. A majority judgment, though it has the power, has not necessarily -the truth. It is theoretically possible that Melville, not the world, -is right. But one can assent to Melville’s creed only on penalty -of destruction; and the race does not welcome annihilation. Hence -this world must rejoice in its vengeance upon his blasphemy: and the -self-righteous have washed their feet in the blood of the wicked. - -After _Pierre_, any further writing from Melville was both an -impertinence and an irrelevancy. No man who really believes that all -is vanity can consistently go on taking elaborate pains to popularise -his indifference. Schopenhauer did that thing, it is true; but -Schopenhauer was an artist, not a moralist; and he was enchanted with -disenchantment. Carlyle, too, through interminable volumes shrieked -out the necessity of silence. But after _Pierre_, Melville was without -internal urgings to write. “All profound things, and emotions of -things,” he wrote in _Pierre_, “are preceded and attended by silence.” -“When a man is really in a profound mood, then all merely verbal or -written profundities are unspeakably repulsive, and seem downright -childish to him.” Infinitely greater souls than Melville’s seem to -have shared this conviction. Neither Buddha nor Socrates left a single -written word; Christ wrote once only, and then in the sand. - -As if the gods themselves were abetting Melville in his recoil from -letters and his contempt for his hard-earned fame, the Harper’s fire -of 1853 destroyed the plates of all his novels, and practically all -of the copies of his books then in stock. One hundred and eighty-five -copies of _Typee_ were burned; 276 copies of _Omoo_; 491 copies of -_Mardi_; 296 copies of _Redburn_; 292 copies of _White-Jacket_; 297 -copies of _Moby-Dick_; 494 copies of _Pierre_. There survived only 10 -copies of _Mardi_, 60 copies of _Moby-Dick_ and 110 copies of _Pierre_. -All of these books except _Pierre_ were reissued, but with no rich -profit either to Harper’s or to Melville. A typical royalty account is -that covering the period between October 6, 1863, and August 1, 1864. -During this period, 54 copies of _Typee_ were sold; 56 of _Omoo_; 42 -of _Redburn_; 49 of _Mardi_; 29 of _White-Jacket_; 48 of _Moby-Dick_; -and 27 of _Pierre_. It was a fortunate year, indeed, for Melville that -brought him in $100 royalties. During most of his life, Melville’s -account with Harper’s was overdrawn: a fact that speaks more for the -generosity of his publisher than for the appreciation of his public. -Melville surely never achieved opulence by his pen. Convinced of the -futility of writing and effort, Melville wanted only tranquillity for -thought. But his health was breaking, and his family had to be fed. So -he looked about him for some unliterary employment. - -The following letter from Richard Henry Dana explains itself: - - “BOSTON, May 10, 1853. - - “DEAR SIR: - - “I am informed by the Chief Justice that my friend, Mr. Herman - Melville, has been named to the Government as a suitable person for - the American Consulship at the Sandwich Islands. - - “I acknowledge no little personal interest in Mr. Melville, but apart - from that, I know, from my early experience, and from a practice of - many years in Admiralty & Maritime causes, the great importance of - having a consul at the Sandwich Islands who knows the wants of our - vast Pacific Marine, and shall stand clear of those inducements of - trade consignments which lead so many consuls to neglect seamen and - lend their influence indiscriminately in favour of owners and masters. - - “Mr. Melville has been all over the Pacific Ocean, in all sorts of - maritime service & has the requisite acquaintance & interest to an - unusual degree. Beyond this, his reputation, general intelligence - & agreeable manners will be sure to make him a popular and useful - officer among all our citizens who visit the Islands. I cannot - conceive of a more appropriate appointment, & I sincerely hope it - will be given him. - - “If I knew the President or the Secretary of State, personally, I - would take the liberty to write them. As I do not, I beg you will use - whatever influence I may have in any quarter in his favour. - - “Very truly yours, - - “RICHARD H. DANA, JR. - - “ALLAN MELVILLE, ESQ.” - -Melville was not appointed to a consular post in the Pacific: so his -brother Allan busied himself in looking for an appointment elsewhere, -as the following letter, addressed to Hon. Lemuel Shaw, shows: - - “NEW YORK, June 11, 1853. - - “MY DEAR SIR: - - “Yours of the 8th reached me yesterday advising me of the recent - information you have received through a confidential source from - Washington respecting a consulate for Herman. - - “There can be no consulship in Italy, not even Rome, where the fees - would amount to sufficient to make it an object for Herman to accept - a position there. - - “I have positive information of the value of the Antwerp consulate - and understand it to be worth from $2,500 to $3,000. Should this be - tendered, Herman ought to accept it. - - “I don’t know that I can say anything more on this subject. - - “Herman is in town and will see you on your arrival. - - “Very truly yours, - - “ALLAN MELVILLE. - - “I may add that Herman has been specially urged for the Antwerp - position & that Mr. Hawthorne spoke to Mr. Cushing of that place. - - “A. M.” - -Of the domestic happenings at Arrowhead at this time, very little is -known. One letter of Mrs. Melville’s survives: - - “ARROWHEAD, Aug. 10th, 1853. - - “MY DEAR FATHER: - - “I did not mean that so long a time should elapse, of your absence - from home, without my writing you, especially when I have two letters - of yours to answer. It is not because I have not thought of you much - and often, but really because I can not find the time to seat myself - quietly down to write a letter--that is more than for a hasty scrawl - to mother occasionally--and inasmuch as my occupations are of the - useful and not the frivolous kind I know you will appreciate the - apology and accept it. Three little ones to look after and ‘do for’ - takes up no little portion of the day, and my baby is as restless a - little mortal as ever crowed. She is very well and healthy in every - respect, but not very fat, as she sleeps very little comparatively - and is very active. A few weeks since Malcolm made his début as a - scholar at the white school house of Dr. Holmes’. I was afraid he - would lose the little he already knew ‘of letters’ and as I could not - find the time to give him regular instruction, I sent him to school - rather earlier than I should have done otherwise. The neighbours’ - children call for him every morning, and he goes off with his pail - of dinner in one hand and his primer in the other, to our no small - amusement. The grand feature of the day to him seems to be the - ‘eating his dinner under the trees’--as he always gives that as - his occupation when asked what he does at school--and as his pail - is invariably empty when he returns, he does full justice to the - noon-tide meal. Stannie begins to talk a great deal, and seems to be - uncommonly forward for his age. He has a severe cough, which I think - will prove the whooping-cough as there is a great deal of it about at - present.” - -Failing of a consular appointment, Melville was forced to continue -writing. He busied himself with the story of the “revolutionary -beggar.” Melville based his story upon “a little narrative, forlornly -published on sleazy grey paper,” that he had “rescued by the -merest chance from the rag-pickers.” Copies of this narrative are -not excessively rare. The title page reads: “_Life and Remarkable -Adventures of Israel R. Potter_ (a native of Cranston, Rhode Island) -who was a soldier in the American Revolution, and took a distinguished -part in the Battle of Bunker Hill (in which he received three wounds) -after which he was taken Prisoner by the British, conveyed to England, -where for thirty years he obtained a livelihood for himself and family, -by crying ‘_Old Chairs to Mend_’ through the Streets of London.--In -May last, by the assistance of the American Consul, he succeeded -(in the 79th year of his age) in obtaining a passage to his native -country, after an absence of 48 years. Providence: Printed by Henry -Trumbull--1824 (Price 28 cents).” The result was _Israel Potter_, -published in book form by G. P. Putnam in 1855, after having appeared -serially in _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine_. _Israel Potter_ is, in most -part, a spirited narrative containing, so Mr. Mather states, “the best -account of a sea fight in American fiction.” It was praised, too, by -Hawthorne for its delineations of Franklin and John Paul Jones, and -doubtless deserves a wider recognition than has ever been given it. -Interestingly enough, the book is dedicated to Bunker Hill Monument. - -Between 1853 and 1856, Melville published twelve articles, inclusive -of _Israel Potter_, in _Putnam’s Magazine_ and in _Harper’s Monthly_. -Melville made from a selection from these his _Piazza Tales_ (1856), -published in New York by Dix and Edwards, in London by Sampson Low. -Of these, _The Bell Tower_, _Don Benito Cereno_ and _The Encantadas_ -show the last glow of Melville’s literary glamour, the final momentary -brightening of the embers before they sank into blackness and ash. -There exists a letter from _Putnam’s Monthly_, dated May 12, 1854, and -signed by Charles T. Briggs--refusing a still unpublished story of -Melville’s out of fear of “offending the religious sensibilities of -the public and the Congregation of Grace Church.” This letter is less -important because of its exquisite sensitiveness, than because of its -mention of a letter from Lowell; a letter in which Lowell is reported -to have read _The Encantadas_. According to Briggs’ communication, -Lowell was so moved that “the figure of the cross on the ass’ neck -brought tears into his eyes, and he thought it the finest touch of -genius he had seen in prose.” Swinburne speaks of “the generous -pleasure of praising”: this pleasure Lowell indulged frequently, and -in his wholesome and whole-hearted way. Of Hawthorne, Lowell said: -“The rarest creative imagination of the century, the rarest in some -ideal respects since Shakespeare.” _The Confidence Man_ was published -in 1857: but it was a posthumous work. Thereafter, Melville was to try -his hand at poetry, and with results little meriting the total oblivion -into which his poetry has fallen; and in his old age he was again to -turn to prose: but before Melville was half through his mortal life his -signal literary achievement was done. The rest, if not silence, was -whisper. - - - - -CHAPTER XVII - -THE LONG QUIETUS - - “The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. ‘His dinner is - ready. Won’t he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?’ - - “‘Lives without dining,’ said I, and closed the eyes. - - “‘Eh! He’s asleep, ain’t he?’ - - “‘With kings and counsellors,’ murmured I.” - - --HERMAN MELVILLE: _Bartleby the Scrivener_. - - -“The death of Herman Melville,” wrote Arthur Stedman, “came as a -surprise to the public at large, chiefly because it revealed the fact -that such a man had lived so long.” The New York _Times_ missed the -news of Melville’s death (on September 28, 1891) and published a few -days later an editorial beginning: - -“There has died and been buried in this city, during the current week, -at an advanced age, a man who is so little known, even by name, to the -generation now in the vigour of life, that only one newspaper contained -an obituary account of him, and this was of but three or four lines.” - -In 1885, Robert Buchanan published in the London _Academy_ a pasquinade -containing the following lines: - - “... Melville, sea-compelling man, - Before whose wand Leviathan - Rose hoary white upon the Deep, - With awful sounds that stirred its sleep; - Melville, whose magic drew Typee, - Radiant as Venus, from the sea, - Sits all forgotten or ignored, - While haberdashers are adored! - He, ignorant of the draper’s trade, - Indifferent to the art of dress, - Pictured the glorious South Sea maid - Almost in mother nakedness-- - Without a hat, or boot, or stocking, - A want of dress to most so shocking, - With just one chemisette to dress her - She _lives_--and still shall live, God bless her, - Long as the sea rolls deep and blue, - While Heaven repeats the thunder of it, - Long as the White Whale ploughs it through, - The shape my sea-magician drew - Shall still endure, or I’m no prophet!” - -In a footnote, Buchanan added: - -“I sought everywhere for this Triton, who is still living somewhere in -New York. No one seemed to know anything of the one great writer fit to -stand shoulder to shoulder with Whitman on that continent.” - -If this man, who had in mid-career been hailed at home and abroad as -one of the glories of our literature, died “forgotten and ignored,” it -was, after all, in accordance with his own desires. Adventurous life -and action was the stuff out of which his reputation had been made. -But in the middle of his life, he turned his back upon the world, and -in his recoil from life absorbed himself in metaphysics. He avoided -all unnecessary associations and absorbed in his own thoughts he lived -in sedulous isolation. He resisted all efforts to draw him out of -retirement--though such efforts were very few indeed. Arthur Stedman -tells us: “It is generally admitted that had Melville been willing to -join freely in the literary movements of New York, his name would have -remained before the public and a larger sale of his works would have -been insured. But more and more, as he grew older, he avoided every -action on his part and on the part of his family that might look in -this direction, even declining to assist in founding the Authors Club -in 1882.” With an aggressive indifference he looked back in _Clarel_ to - - “Adventures, such as duly shown - Printed in books, seem passing strange - To clerks which read them by the fire, - Yet be the wonted common-place - Of some who in the Orient range, - Free-lances, spendthrifts of their hire, - And who in end, when they retrace - Their lives, see little to admire - Or wonder at, so dull they be.” - -When Titus Munson Coan was a student at Williams College, prompted by -a youthful curiosity to hunt out celebrities, he called upon Melville -at Arrowhead. In an undated letter to his mother he thus recounted -the experience: “I have made my first literary pilgrimage--a call -upon Herman Melville, the renowned author of _Typee_, &c. He lives in -a spacious farm-house about two miles from Pittsfield, a weary walk -through the dust. But it was well repaid. I introduced myself as a -Hawaiian-American and soon found myself in full tide of talk--or rather -of monologue. But he would not repeat the experiences of which I had -been reading with rapture in his books. In vain I sought to hear of -Typee and those Paradise islands, but he preferred to pour forth his -philosophy and his theories of life. The shade of Aristotle arose like -a cold mist between myself and Fayaway. We have quite enough of Greek -philosophy at Williams College, and I confess I was disappointed in -this trend of the talk. But what a talk it was! Melville is transformed -from a Marquesan to a gypsy student, the gypsy element still remaining -strong in him. And this contradiction gives him the air of one who has -suffered from opposition, both literary and social. With his liberal -views he is apparently considered by the good people of Pittsfield as -little better than a cannibal or a ‘beach-comber.’ His attitude seemed -to me something like that of an Ishmael; but perhaps I judged hastily. -I managed to draw him out very freely on everything but the Marquesas -Islands, and when I left him he was in full tide of discourse on all -things sacred and profane. But he seems to put away the objective side -of life and to shut himself up in this cold North as a cloistered -thinker.” - -An article appearing in the New York _Times_, under the initials -O. G. H., a week after Melville’s death, said of him: - -“He had shot his arrow and made his mark, and was satisfied. With -considerable knowledge of the world, he had preferred to see it from a -distance.... I asked the loan of some of his books which in early life -had given me pleasure and was surprised when he said that he didn’t own -a single copy of them.... I had before noticed that though eloquent in -discussing general literature he was dumb when the subject of his own -writings was broached.” - -In her sketch of her husband’s life, Mrs. Melville says: “In February, -1855, he had his first attack of severe rheumatism--and in the -following June an attack of sciatica. Our neighbour in Pittsfield, Dr. -O. W. Holmes, attended and prescribed for him. A severe attack of what -he called crick in the back laid him up at his mother’s in Gansevoort -in March, 1858--and he never regained his former vigour and strength.” -In 1863, so runs the account of J. E. A. Smith, while Melville was in -process of moving from Arrowhead, “he had occasion for some household -articles he left behind, and, with a friend, started in a rude wagon to -procure them. He was driving at a moderate pace over a perfectly smooth -and level road, when a sudden start of the horse threw both occupants -from the wagon; probably on account of an imperfectly secured seat. -Mr. Melville fell with his back in a hollow of the frozen road, and -was very severely injured. Being conveyed to his home by Col. George -S. Willis, near whose farm on Williams Street the accident happened, -he suffered painfully for many weeks. This prolonged agony and the -confinement and interruption of work which it entailed, affected him -strangely. He had been before on mountain excursions a driver daring -almost to the point of recklessness.... After this accident he not -only abandoned the rides of which he had been so fond, but for a time -shrank from entering a carriage. It was long before the shock which -his system had received was overcome; and it is doubtful whether -it ever was completely.” Ill health certainly contributed more to -Melville’s retirement from letters than any of his critics--Mr. Mather -excepted--have ever even remotely suggested. - -[Illustration: HERMAN MELVILLE IN 1868] - -During the last half of his life, Melville twice journeyed far from -home. In her journal Mrs. Melville says: “In October, 1856, his health -being impaired by too close application, he again sailed for London. -He went up the Mediterranean to Constantinople and the Holy Land. For -much of his observation and reflection in that interesting quarter -see his poem of _Clarel_. Sailed for home on the steamer _City of -Manchester_ May 6, 1857. In May, 1860, he made a voyage to San -Francisco, sailing from Boston on the 30th of May with his brother -Thomas Melville who commanded the _Meteor_, a fast sailing clipper -in the China trade--and returning in November, he being the only -passenger. He reached San Francisco Oct. 12th--returned in the _Carter_ -Oct. 20 to Panama--crossed the Isthmus & sailed for New York on the -_North Star_. This voyage to San Francisco has been incorrectly given -in many of the papers of the day.” - -Of this trip to the Holy Land there survive, beside _Clarel_ and -Hawthorne’s accounts of the meeting _en route_, a long and closely -written journal that Melville kept during the trip, and twenty-one -shorter poems printed in _Timoleon_ under the caption “Fruit of Travel -Long Ago.” Typical of these shorter poems is - - THE APPARITION - - (The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view on the - approach to Athens) - - Abrupt the supernatural Cross, - Vivid in startled air, - Smote the Emperor Constantine - And turned his soul’s allegiance there - - With other power appealing down, - Trophy of Adam’s best! - If cynic minds you scarce convert - You try them, shake them, or molest. - - Diogenes, that honest heart, - Lived ere your date began: - Thee had he seen, he might have swerved - In mood nor barked so much at man. - -The journal was surely never written with a view to publication. It -is a staccato jotting down of impressions, chiefly interesting (as is -Dr. Johnson’s French journal) as another evidence of Melville’s scope -of curiosity and keenness of observation. A typical entry is that for -Saturday, December 13,--Melville’s first day in Constantinople: - -“Up early; went out; saw cemeteries where they dumped garbage. Sawing -wood over a tomb. Forest of cemeteries. Intricacies of the streets. -Started alone for Constantinople and after a terrible long walk found -myself back where I started. Just like getting lost in a wood. No plan -to streets. Pocket compass. Perfect labyrinth. Narrow. Close, shut -in. If one could but get _up_ aloft, it would be easy to see one’s -way out. If you could get up into a tree. Soar out of the maze. But -no. No names to the streets no more than to natural alleys among the -groves. No numbers, no anything. Breakfasted at 10 A. M. Took guide -($1.25 per day) and started for tour. Took Cargua for Seraglio. Holy -ground. Crossed some extensive grounds and gardens. Fine buildings of -the Saracenic style. Saw the Mosque of St. Sophia. Went in. Rascally -priests demanding ‘baksheesh.’ Fleeced me out of 1/2 dollar; following -me round, selling the fallen mosaics. Ascended a kind of hose way -leading up, round and round. Came into a gallery fifty feet above the -floor. Superb interior. Precious marbles. Prophyry & Verd antique. -Immense magnitude of the building. Names of the prophets in great -letters. Roman Catholic air to the whole. To the hippodrome, near which -stands the six towered mosque of Sultan Achmed; soaring up with its -snowy white spires into the pure blue sky. Like light-houses. Nothing -finer. In the hippodrome saw the obelisk with Roman inscription on the -base. Also a broken monument of bronze, representing three twisted -serpents erect upon their tails. Heads broken off. Also a square -monument of masoned blocks. Leaning over and frittered away,--like -an old chimney stack. A Greek inscription shows it to be of the time -of Theodoric. Sculpture about the base of the obelisk, representing -Constantine & wife and sons, &c. Then saw the ‘Burnt Column.’ Black and -grimy enough & hooped about with iron. Stands soaring up from among a -bundle of old wooden stakes. A more striking fire mount than that of -London. Then to the cistern of 1001 columns. You see a rounded knoll -covered with close herbage. Then a kind of broken cellar-way you go -down, and find yourself on a wooden, rickety platform, looking down -into a grove of marble pillars, fading away into the darkness. A -palatial sort of Tartarus. Two tiers of pillars, one standing on the -other; lower tier half buried. Here and there a little light percolates -through from breaks in the keys of the arches; where bits of green -struggle down. Used to be a reservoir. Now full of boys twisting silk. -Great hubbub. Flit about like imps. Whirr of the spinning Jenns. In -going down, (as into a ship’s hold) and wandering about, have to beware -the innumerable skeins of silk. Terrible place to be robbed or murdered -in. At whatever place you look, you see lines of pillars, like trees in -an orchard arranged in the quincunx style.--Came out. Overhead looks -like a mere shabby common, or worn out sheep pasture.--To the bazaar. -A wilderness of traffic. Furniture, arms, silks, confectionery, shoes, -saddles,--everything. (Cario) Covered overhead with stone arches, -with wide openings. Immense crowds. Georgians, Armenians, Greeks, -Jews & Turks are the merchants. Magnificent embroidered silk & gilt -sabres & caparisons for horses. You lose yourself & are bewildered and -confounded with the labyrinth, the din, the barbaric confusion of the -whole.--Went to Watch Tower within a kind of arsenal (Immense arsenal) -the tower of vast girth & height in the Saracenic style--a column. From -the top, my God, what a view! Surpassing everything. The Propontis, the -Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, the domes, the minarets, the bridges, the -men-of-war, the cypresses.--Indescribable. Went to the Pigeon Mosque. -In its court, the pigeons covered the pavement as thick as in the West -they fly in hosts. A man feeding them. Some perched upon the roof of -the colonnades & upon the fountain in the middle & on the cypresses. -Took off my shoes and went in. Pigeons inside, flying round in the -dome, in & out the lofty windows. Went to Mosque of Sultan Suleiman. -The third one in point of size and splendour. The Mosque is a sort of -marble mosque of which the minarets (four or six) are the stakes. In -fact when inside it struck me that the idea of this kind of edifice -was borrowed from the tent. Though it would make a noble ball room. -Off shoes and went in. This custom more sensible than taking off hat. -Muddy shoes; but never muddy head. Floor covered with mats & on them -beautiful rugs of great size & square. Fine light coming through the -side slits below the dome. Blind dome. Many Turks at prayer; lowering -head to the floor towards a kind of altar. Charity going on. In a -gallery saw lot of portmanteaux, chests & bags; as in a R. R. baggage -car. Put there for safe-keeping by men who leave home, or afraid of -robbers and taxation. ‘Lay not up your treasures where moth and rust do -corrupt’ &c. Fountains (a row of them) outside along the side of the -mosque for bathing the feet and hands of worshippers before going in. -Natural rock.--Instead of going in in stockings (as I did) the Turks -wear overshoes and doff them outside the mosque. The tent-like form -of the Mosque broken up & dumbfounded with infinite number of arches, -trellises, small domes, colonnades, &c, &c, &c. Went down to the -Golden Horn. Crossed bridge of pontoons. Stood in the middle and not a -cloud in the sky. Deep blue and clear. Delightful elastic atmosphere, -although December. A kind of English June cooled and tempered -sherbet-like with an American October; the serenity & beauty of summer -without the heat.--Came home through the vast suburbs of Galatea, -&c. Great crowds of all nations--money changers coins of all nations -circulate--placards in four or five languages: (Turkish, French, Greek, -Armenian) Lottery advertisements of boats the same. Sultan’s ship in -colours--no atmosphere like this for flags. You feel you are among the -nations. Great curse that of Babel; not being able to talk to a fellow -being, &c.--Have to tend to your pockets. My guide went with his hands -to his.--The horrible grimy tragic air of the Streets. (Ruffians of -Galatea) The rotten & wicked looking houses. So gloomy & grimy seem -as if a suicide hung from every rafter within.--No open spaces--no -squares or parks. You suffocate for room.--You pass close together. -The cafés of the Turks. Dingy holes, faded splendour, moth eaten. On -both sides rude seats and divans where the old musty Turks sit smoking -like conjurers. Saw in certain kiosks (pavilions) the crowns of the -late Sultan. You look through gilt gratings & between heavy curtains -of lace, at the sparkling things. Near the Mosque of Sultan Suleiman -saw the cemetery of his family--big as that of a small village, all his -wives and children and servants. All gilt and carved. The women’s tombs -carved with heads (women no souls). The Sultan Suleiman’s tomb & that -of his three brothers in a kiosk. Gilded like mantel ornaments.” - -_Clarel_ was, in 1876, printed at Melville’s expense. More accurately, -its printing was made possible by his uncle, Hon. Peter Gansevoort, -who, as Melville says in the dedication, “in a personal interview -provided for the publication of this poem, known to him by report, as -existing in manuscript.” - -Not the least impressive thing about _Clarel_ is its length: it extends -to 571 pages. Mr. Mather states: “Of those who have actually perused -the four books (of verse) and _Clarel_, I am presumably the only -survivor.” Mr. Mather is mistaken: there are two. But since, because of -the excessive length of _Clarel_ and the excessive scarcity of _John -Marr_ and _Timoleon_ (both privately printed in an edition of only -twenty-five copies) it would be over-optimistic to presume that there -will soon be a third, some account must be given of Melville’s poetry. - -Stevenson once said: “There are but two writers who have touched the -South Seas with any genius, both Americans: Melville and Charles -Warren Stoddard; and at the christening of the first and greatest, -some influential fairy must have been neglected; ‘He shall be able to -see’; ‘He shall be able to tell’; ‘He shall be able to charm,’ said -the friendly godmothers; ‘But he shall not be able to hear!’ exclaimed -the last.” When Stevenson wrote his passage, the artist in him seems -for the moment to have slept; taking no account of Melville’s frequent -mastery of the magic of words, he berates Melville’s genius for -misspelling Polynesian names as a defect of genius. That Melville had -an ear sensitive to the cadences of prose is shown by the facility with -which he on occasion caught the rhythm both of the Psalms and of Sir -Thomas Browne. Yet the same man who at his best is equalled only by Poe -in the subtle melody of his prose, at times fell into ranting passages -of obvious and intolerable parody of blank verse. The following from -_Mardi_ is an example: “From dawn till eve, the bright, bright days -sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory dying, lent their -lustre to the starry skies. So, long the radiant dolphins fly before -the sable sharks; but seized, and torn in flames--die, burning:--their -last splendour left, in sparkling scales that float along the sea.” -In his poetry, as in his prose, is the same incongruous mating of -astonishing facility and flagrant defect. It is the same paradox that -one finds in Browning and in Meredith,--whose poetry Melville’s more -than superficially resembles. Melville shared with these men a greater -interest in ideas than in verbal prettiness, and like the best of them, -when mastered by a refractory idea, he was not over-exquisite in his -regard for prosody and syntax in getting it said. When he had a mind -to, however, he could pound with a lustiness that should endear him to -those who delight in declamation contests: a contemptible distinction, -perhaps--but even that has been denied him. The poem to the Swamp -Angel, for example, the great gun that reduced Charleston, is fine in -its irony and vigour. The poem begins: - - There is a coal-black Angel - With a thick Afric lip - And he dwells (like the hunted and harried) - In a swamp where the green frogs dip - But his face is against a City - Which is over a bay by the sea, - And he breathes with a breath that is blastment - And dooms by a far degree. - -Though there are memorable lines and stanzas in _Battle-Pieces_, only -one of the poems in the volume has ever been at all noticed: _Sheridan -at Cedar Creek_, beginning: - - Shoe the steed with silver - That bore him to the fray, - When he heard the guns at dawning - Miles away; - When he heard them calling, calling-- - Mount! nor stay. - -The following letter to his brother Tom bears upon Melville’s -_Battle-Pieces_. - - “PITTSFIELD, May 25th, 1862. - - “MY DEAR BOY: (or, if that appears disrespectful) - “MY DEAR CAPTAIN: - - “Yesterday I received from Gansevoort your long and very entertaining - letter to Mamma from Pernambuco. Yes, it was very entertaining. - Particularly the account of that interesting young gentleman whom you - so uncivilly stigmatise for a jackass, simply because he improves - his opportunities in the way of sleeping, eating & other commendable - customs. That’s the sort of fellow, seems to me, to get along with. - For my part I love sleepy fellows, and the more ignorant the better. - Damn your wide-awake and knowing chaps. As for sleepiness, it is one - of the noblest qualities of humanity. There is something sociable - about it, too. Think of those sensible & sociable millions of good - fellows all taking a good long friendly snooze together, under the - sod--no quarrels, no imaginary grievances, no envies, heartburnings, - & thinking how much better that other chap is off--none of this: - but all equally free-&-easy, they sleep away & reel off their nine - knots an hour, in perfect amity. If you see your sleepy ignorant - jackass-friend again, give him my compliments, and say that however - others may think of him, I honour and esteem him.--As for your - treatment of the young man, there I entirely commend you. You - remember what the Bible says:-- - - “Oh ye who teach the children of the nations, - Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain, - I pray ye _strap_ them upon all occasions, - It mends their morals--never mind the pain.” - - “In another place the Bible says, you know, something about sparing - the strap & spoiling the child.--Since I have quoted poetry above, - it puts me in mind of my own doggerel. You will be pleased to learn - that I have disposed of a lot of it at a great bargain. In fact, a - trunk-maker took the whole lot off my hands at ten cents the pound. - So, when you buy a new trunk again, just peep at the lining & perhaps - you may be rewarded by some glorious stanza staring you in the - face & claiming admiration. If you were not such a devil of a ways - off, I would send you a trunk, by way of presentation-copy. I can’t - help thinking what a luckless chap you were that voyage you had a - poetaster with you. You remember the romantic moonlight night, when - the conceited donkey repeated to you about three cables’ length of - his verses. But you bore it like a hero. I can’t in fact recall so - much as a single _wince_. To be sure, you went to bed immediately - upon the conclusion of the entertainment; but this much I am sure of, - whatever were your sufferings, you never gave them utterance. Tom, my - boy, I admire you. I say again, you are a hero.--By the way, I hope - in God’s name, that rumour which reached your owners (C. & P.) a few - weeks since--that dreadful rumour is not true. They heard that you - had begun to take to--drink?--Oh no, but worse--to sonnet-writing. - That off Cape Horn instead of being on deck about your business, you - devoted your time to writing a sonnet on your mistress’ eyebrow, & - another upon her thumbnail.--‘I’ll be damned,’ says Curtis (he was - very profane) ‘if I’ll have a sonneteer among my Captains.’--‘Well, - if he has taken to poetising,’ says Peabody--‘God help the ship!’ - - * * * * * - - And now, my boy, if you knew how much laziness I overcame in writing - you this letter, you would think me, what I am - - “Always your affectionate brother, - - “HERMAN.” - -Melville’s family seem all to have been more sceptical of his verse -than they were of his prose. In 1859 Mrs. Melville wrote to her mother -“Herman has taken to writing poetry. You need not tell any one, for you -know how such things get around.” Mrs. Melville was too optimistic: -her husband’s indiscreet practice is still pretty much a secret to the -world at large. And _Clarel_, his longest and most important poem, is -practically impossible to come by. - -In 1884, Melville said of _Clarel_ in a letter to Mr. James Billson: “a -metrical affair, a pilgrimage or what not, of several thousand lines, -eminently adapted for unpopularity.” Though this is completely true, -Melville used in _Clarel_ more irony, vividness, and intellect than -the whole congregation of practising poets of the present day (a few -notable names excepted) could muster in aggregate. Yet with all this -wealth of the stuff of poetry, the poem never quite fulfils itself. In -_Clarel_ Melville brings together in the Holy Land a group of pilgrims; -pilgrims nearly all drawn from the life, as a study of his Journal of -1856-7 shows. In this group there are men devout and men sceptical, -some suave in orthodoxy, and some militant in doubt. There are dreamers -and men of action; unprincipled saints, and rakes without vice. In -the bleak and legend-haunted Holy Land Melville places these men, and -dramatises his own reactions to life in this setting. The problem of -faith is the pivot of endless discussion: and upon this pivot is made -to turn all of the problems of destiny that engage a “pondering man.” -These discussions take place against a panorama of desert and monastery -and shrine. In some of the interpolated songs of _Clarel_, Melville -almost achieved the lyric mood. - - My shroud is saintly linen, - In lavender ’tis laid; - I have chosen a bed by the marigold - And supplied me a silver spade. - -And there are, too, incidental legends and saints’ tales: - - Those legends which, be it confessed - Did nearer bring to them the sky-- - Did nearer woo it in their hope - Of all that seers and saints avow-- - Than Galileo’s telescope - Can bid it unto prosing science now. - -_Clarel_ is by all odds the most important record we have of what was -the temper of Melville’s deeper thoughts during his long metaphysical -period. Typical quotations have already been made. - -The most recurrent note of the poem is a parched desire for -companionship; a craving for - - A brother that he well might own - In tie of friendship. - - Could _I_ but meet - Some stranger of a lore replete, - Who, marking how my looks betray - The dumb thoughts clogging here my feet - Would question me, expound and prove, - And make my heart to burn with love. - - * * * * * - - Doubt’s heavy hand - Is set against us; and his brand - Still warreth for his natural lord - King Common-place. - - * * * * * - - Art thou the first soul tried by doubt? - Shall prove the last? Go, live it out. - But for thy fonder dream of love - In man towards man--the soul’s caress-- - The negatives of flesh should prove - Analogies of non-cordialness - In spirit. - - * * * * * - - Why then - Remaineth to me what? the pen? - Dead feather of ethereal life! - Nor efficacious much, save when - It makes some fallacy more rife. - My kin--I blame them not at heart-- - Would have me act some routine part. - Subserving family, and dreams - Alien to me--illusive schemes. - This world clean fails me: still I yearn. - Me then it surely does concern - Some other world to find. But where? - In creed? I do not find it there. - - * * * * * - - This side the dark and hollow bound - Lies there no unexplored rich ground? - _Some other world_: well, there’s the New-- - Ah, joyless and ironic too! - - * * * * * - - Ay, Democracy - Lops, lops; but where’s her planted bed? - The future, what is that to her - Who vaunts she’s no inheritor? - ’Tis in her mouth, not in her heart. - The past she spurns, though ’tis the past - From which she gets her saving part-- - That Good which lets her evil last. - - Behold her whom the panders crown, - Harlot on horseback, riding down - The very Ephesians who acclaim - This great Diana of ill fame! - Arch strumpet of an impious age, - Upstart from ranker villainage: - Asia shall stop her at the least - That old inertness of the East. - - * * * * * - - But in the New World things make haste: - Not only men, the _state_ lives fast-- - Fast breed the pregnant eggs and shells, - The slumberous combustibles - Sure to explode. ’Twill come, ’twill come! - One demagogue can trouble much: - How of a hundred thousand such? - - * * * * * - - Indeed, those germs one now may view: - Myriads playing pygmy parts-- - Debased into equality: - Dead level of rank commonplace: - An Anglo-Saxon China, see, - May on your vast plains shame the race - In the Dark Ages of Democracy. - - * * * * * - - Your arts advance in faith’s decay: - You are but drilling the new Hun - Whose growl even now can some dismay; - Vindictive is his heart of hearts. - He schools him in your mines and marts - A skilled destroyer. - - * * * * * - - Old ballads sing - Fair Christian children crucified - By impious Jews: you’ve heard the thing: - Yes, fable; but there’s truth hard by: - How many Hughs of Lincoln, say, - Does Mammon, in his mills, to-day, - Crook, if he does not crucify? - - The impieties of “Progress” speak; - What say _these_, in effect to God? - “How profits it? And who art Thou - That we should serve Thee? Of Thy ways - No knowledge we desire; _new_ ways - We have found out, and better. Go-- - Depart from us!”--And if He do? - Is aught betwixt us and the hells? - - * * * * * - - Against all this stands Rome’s array: - Rome is the Protestant to-day. - The Red Republic slinging flame - In Europe--she’s your Scarlet Dame. - Rome stands: but who may tell the end? - Relapse barbaric may impend, - Dismission into ages blind-- - Moral dispersion of mankind. - If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year, - Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear? - - * * * * * - - Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate, - The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell; - Science the feud can only aggravate-- - No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell, - The running battle of the star and clod - Shall run forever--if there is no God. - - * * * * * - - Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill resigned-- - Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind; - That like the crocus budding through the snow-- - That like a swimmer rising from the deep - That like a burning secret which doth go - Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep; - Emerge thou mayst from the last wheeling sea - And prove that death but routs life into victory. - -Though _Clarel_ is unconscionably long, and though there are arid -wastes strewn throughout its length, a patient reading is rewarded by -passages of beauty, and more frequently by passages of astonishing -vigour and daring. And it speaks more for the orthodoxy of America than -for her intellect, that _Clarel_--which reposes in the outer limbo of -oblivion--is about all she has to show, as Mr. Mather has observed, for -the poetical stirrings of the deeper theological waters which marked -the age of Matthew Arnold, Clough, Tennyson, and Browning. We should -blush for our neglect of a not unworthy representative. - -Besides _Battle-Pieces_ and _Clarel_, Melville printed for private -circulation two slender volumes: _John Marr and Other Sailors_ (1888) -and _Timoleon_ (1891): selections from a larger body of poetry, the -remainder of which is still preserved in manuscript. In these, the -inspiration flags throughout. Two of the better poems have already been -quoted. _John Marr_ was dedicated to W. Clark Russell, _Timoleon_ to -Elihu Vedder. - -In 1886, according to Arthur Stedman, Melville “felt impelled to write -Mr. Russell in regard to one of his newly published novels.” This -was the beginning of a correspondence between Russell and Melville. -Melville’s letters are not available. Russell’s reply to Melville’s -first letter follows: - - “July 21, 1886. - - “MY DEAR MR. HERMAN MELVILLE: - - “Your letter has given me a very great and singular pleasure. Your - delightful books carry the imagination into a maritime period so - remote that, often as you have been in my mind, I could never satisfy - myself that you were still amongst the living. I am glad, indeed, to - learn from Mr. Toft that you are still hale and hearty, and I do most - heartily wish you many years yet of health and vigour. - - “Your books I have in the American edition. I have _Typee_, _Omoo_, - _Redburn_, and that noble piece, _Moby-Dick_. These are all I have - been able to obtain. There have been many editions of your works - in this country, particularly the lovely South Sea sketches; but - the editions are not equal to those of the American publishers. - Your reputation here is very great. It is hard to meet a man whose - opinion as a reader is worth having who does not speak of your - works in such terms as he might hesitate to employ, with all his - patriotism, towards many renowned English writers. - - “Dana is, indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more - remarkable than the impression produced by Dana’s portraiture of the - homely inner life of a little brig’s forecastle. - - “I beg that you will accept my thanks for the kindly spirit in which - you have read my books. I wish it were in my power to cross the - Atlantic, for you assuredly would be the first whom it would be my - happiness to visit.... The condition of my right hand obliges me to - dictate this to my son; but painful as it is to me to hold a pen I - cannot suffer this letter to reach the hands of a man of so admirable - genius as Herman Melville without begging him to believe me to be, - with my own hand, his most respectful and hearty admirer, - - “W. CLARK RUSSELL.” - -Elihu Vedder and Melville never met or corresponded. The acknowledgment -of the dedication came only after Melville’s death. “I may not have -been very successful in a worldly way,” he said, “but the knowledge -that my art has gained me so many friends--even if unknown to me--makes -ample amends.” - -Schopenhauer was enabled to preserve his disillusions because he also -preserved his income. If a man is blessed with a comfortable fortune, -then it is easy for him to lead a tranquil and unpretentious existence, -sheltered from all intruders. But for an unsuccessful writer with a -wife, four children, and no income, to throw down the pen and retire -from the world (except for a season in California and another in the -Holy Land); the secret of such a feat should be popularised. The secret -transpires in the following letter to Melville from his father-in-law, -Justice Shaw. - - “BOSTON, 15 May, 1860. - - “MY DEAR HERMAN, - - “I am very glad to learn from your letter that you intend to accept - Thomas’ invitation to go on his next voyage. I think it affords - a fair prospect of being a permanent benefit to your health, and - it will afford me the greatest pleasure to do anything in my power - to aid your preparation, and make the voyage most agreeable and - beneficial to you. - - “The prospect of your early departure renders it proper and necessary - to bring to a definite conclusion the subject we have had a - considerable time under consideration, a settlement of the matter of - the Pittsfield estate, with a view to which you handed me your deeds, - when I was in Pittsfield last autumn. - - “You will recollect that when you proposed to purchase a house in - N. York I advanced to you $2000. and afterwards, when you purchased - the Brewster place, I again advanced you $3000. For these sums, as - well as for another loan of $500. afterwards, I took your notes. - This I did, not because I had then any fixed determination to treat - the advances as debts, to be certainly repaid, but I was in doubt at - the time in reference to other claims upon me, and how my affairs - would be ultimately arranged, what I should be able to do by way of - provision for my daughter, and I put these advances upon the footing - of loans until some future adjustment. - - “I always supposed that you considered the two first of the - above-named advances as having substantially gone into the purchase - of the Brewster farm, and that I had some equitable claim upon it - as security. I presume it was upon that ground that you once sent - me a mortgage of the estate prepared by your brother Allan. I never - put that mortgage on record nor made any use of it; and if the - conveyances are made, which I now propose, that mortgage will become - superseded and utterly nugatory. - - “What I now propose is to give up to you the above mentioned notes - in full consideration of your conveyance to me of your present - homestead, being all the Brewster purchase except what you sold to - Mr. Willis. This being done and the estate vested in me, I propose - to execute a deed conveying the same in fee to Elizabeth. This will - vest the fee as an estate of inheritance in her, subject of course - to your rights as her husband during your life. If you wish to know - more particularly what will be the legal effect and operation of - these conveyances Mr. Colt will explain it to you fully. I have - written to him and enclosed him a draft of a deed for you to execute - to me and my deed executed to be delivered to you and your notes to - be surrendered. I have explained the whole matter to Mr. Colt and I - have full confidence in his prudence and fidelity. I do not see any - advantage in giving the business any more notoriety than will arise - from putting the deeds on record. - - “Elizabeth now writes me that you wish the note for $600., given by - the town and coming from the sale of the Brewster place, that part of - it not sold to Mr. Willis, so placed that it may be applied as you - have heretofore, in your own mind, appropriated it, for building a - new barn. - - “I propose to treat this as I did the estate itself: first purchase - it of you for a full consideration and then apply it to Elizabeth’s - use. In looking for a consideration for this purchase there is the - interest of the above notes not computed in the consideration for the - deed and now amounting to several thousand dollars. - - “But there is another consideration, respecting which I have never - had any direct communication, I believe, but I can see no reason why - it should not be now clearly understood. When you went to Europe in - the fall of 1856 I advanced the money necessary for your outfit and - the expenses of your tour. This was done through your brother Allan - and amounted to about fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars. In my own - mind, though I took no note or obligation for it, I treated it like - the other advances, to be regarded as advance by way of loan or a - gift according to some future arrangement. I propose now to consider - that sum as a set off against the note of $600. and, as to all - beyond that, to consider it cancelled and discharged. This will make - the note mine. At the same time I propose to appropriate it to its - original use, to build a barn, in which case it will go to increase - the value of the estate already Elizabeth’s, or should anything occur - to prevent such use of the money I shall appropriate it in some other - way to her use. The effect of this arrangement will be to cancel and - discharge all debt and pecuniary obligation of every description - from you to myself. You will then leave home with the conscious - satisfaction of knowing that you are free from debt: that if by a - Providential dispensation you should be prevented from ever returning - to your beloved family, provision will have been made at least for a - home, for your wife and children. - - “Affectionately and ever faithfully - - “Your sincere friend - - “LEMUEL SHAW.” - -[Illustration: MELVILLE AS ARTIST] - -[Illustration] - -After his return from the Holy Land, Melville tried to eke out the -small income from his books and his farm by lecturing. J. E. A. Smith -says: “Between 1857 and 1861, a rage for lyceum lectures prevailed all -over the northern and western states. In Pittsfield the Burbank hall, -now Mead’s carriage repository, was filled at least once every week to -its full capacity of over a thousand seats, with eager and intelligent -listeners to the most brilliant orators in the country. Some of the -most noted authors, as well as orators, were induced to mount the -platform partly by the liberal pay which they received directly--and -also for the increased sale which it gave their books. Among these -was Herman Melville, who lectured in Burbank hall, and in Boston, -New York, Philadelphia, Montreal, St. Louis, San Francisco as well -as intermediate cities and towns. He did not take very kindly to the -lecture platform, but had large and well pleased audiences.” - -If his audiences were composed of people of the jaunty and shallow -provincialism of J. E. A. Smith--and J. E. A. Smith is a very fair -product of his country and his time--Melville’s distaste for their -prim, bland receptivity does not pass understanding. The place and -date of Melville’s lectures, together with the “liberal pay directly -received” follows. - - 1857-1858 - - November 24 Concord, Mass. $30.00 - December 2 Boston, Mass. 40.00 - „ 10 Montreal 50.00 - „ 30 New Haven, Conn. 50.00 - January 5 Auburn, N. Y. 40.00 - „ 7 Ithaca, N. Y. 50.00 - „ 10 Cleveland, Ohio 50.00 - „ 22 Clarksville 75.00 - Chillicothe, Ohio 40.00 - n. d. Cincinnati, Ohio 50.00 - Feb. 10 Charleston, Mass. 20.00 - „ 23 Rochester, N. Y. 50.00 - n. d. New Bedford, Mass. 50.00 - ------ - 645.00 - - Travelling expenses 221.30 - ------ - 423.70 - - 1858-9 - - Dec. 6, 1858 Yonkers, N. Y. $30.00 - „ 14, „ Pittsfield, Mass. 50.00 - Jan. 31, 1859 Boston, Mass. 50.00 - Feb. 7, „ New York, N. Y. 55.00 - „ 8, „ Baltimore, Md. 100.00 - „ 24, „ Chicago, Ill. 50.00 - „ 25, „ Milwaukee, Wisc. 50.00 - „ 28, „ Rockford, Ill. 50.00 - Mar. 2, „ Quincy, Ill. 23.50 - „ 16, „ Lynn, Mass. (2 lec) 60.00 - ------ - 518.50 - - 1859-60 - - November 7, Flushing, L. I. $30. - February 14, Danvers, Mass. 25. - „ 21, Cambridgeport, Mass. 55. - ---- - 110. - -For these lyceum gatherings, Melville prepared two lectures: one on the -_South Seas_, one on _Statuary in Rome_. - -On December 2, 1857, in competition with another Melville, a bareback -rider, who at the circus at Bingo “nightly performed before the élite -and respectability of the city,” Melville lectured on _Statuary -in Rome_. On December 3, 1857, the Boston _Journal_ thus reported -Melville’s lecture: - - “A large audience assembled last evening to listen to the author - of _Omoo_ and _Typee_. He began by asserting that in the realm of - art there was no exclusiveness. Dilettanti might accumulate their - technical terms, but that did not interfere with the substantial - enjoyment of those who did not understand them. As the beauties of - nature could be appreciated without a knowledge of botany, so art - could be enjoyed without the artist’s skill. With this principle in - view, he, claiming to be neither critic nor artist, would make some - plain remarks on the statuary of Rome. - - “As you approach the city from Naples, you are first struck by - the statues of the Church St. John Lateran. Here you have the - sculptured biographies of ancient celebrities. The speaker then - vividly described the statues of Demosthenes, Titus Vespasian, - Socrates, looking like an Irish comedian. Julius Cæsar, so sensible - and business-like of aspect that it might be taken for the bust of a - railroad president; Seneca, with the visage of a pawn broker; Nero, - the fast young man; Plato, with the locks and air of an exquisite, - as if meditating on the destinies of the world under the hand of a - hair-dresser. Thus these statues confessed, and, as it were, prattled - to us of much that does not appear in history and the written works - of those they represent. They seem familiar and natural to us--and - yet there is about them all a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. - It is to be hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, - although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may - have swallowed it up in humility. - - “The lecturer next turned to the celebrated Apollo Belvedere. This - stands alone by itself, and the impression made upon all beholders is - such as to subdue the feelings with wonder and awe. The speaker gave - a very eloquent description of the attitude and the spirit of Apollo. - The elevating effect of such statues was exhibited in the influence - they exerted upon the mind of Milton during his visit to Italy. - - “Among the most wonderful works of statuary is that of Lucifer and - his associates cast down from heaven. This is in Padua, and contains - three-score figures cut out of solid rock. The variety and power of - the group cannot be surpassed. The Venus de Medici, as compared with - the Apollo, was lovely and not divine. Mr. Melville said he once - surprised a native maiden in the precise attitude of the Venus. He - then passed to a rapid review of the Laocoon and other celebrated - sculptures, to show the human feeling and genius of the ancient - artists. None but a gentle heart could have conceived the idea of the - Dying Gladiator. The sculptured monuments of the early Christians, - in the vaults of the Vatican, show the joyous triumph of the new - religion--quite unlike the sombre momentoes of modern times. - - “The lecturer then eloquently sketched the exterior of the Vatican. - But nearly the whole of Rome was a Vatican--everywhere were fallen - columns and sculptured fragments. Most of these, it is true, were - works of Greek artists. And yet the grand spirit of Roman life - inspired them. Passing from these ancient sculptures, tribute was - paid to the colossal works of Benvenuto Cellini and Michael Angelo. - He regretted that the time would not allow him to speak of the - scenery and surroundings of the Roman sculptures--the old Coliseum, - the gardens, the Forum, and the villas in the environs. He sketched - some of the most memorable of the latter, and the best works they - contain. - - “He concluded by summing up the obvious teachings of these deathless - marbles. The lecture was quite interesting to those of artistic - tastes, but we fancy the larger part of the audience would have - preferred something more modern and personal.” - -The report of Melville’s other lecture is quoted from the Boston -_Journal_, January 31, 1859. - - “At the Tremont Temple last evening, Herman Melville, Esq., the - celebrated author and adventurer, delivered the ninth lecture of the - course under the auspices of the Mechanic Apprentices’ Association. - Subject--‘The South Seas.’ The audience was not large, but about - equal to the usual attendance at this and the Mercantile course. - - “On being introduced to the audience, Mr. Melville said that the - field of his subject was large, and he should not be expected to go - over it all: nor should he be expected to read again what had long - been in print, touching his own incidental adventures in Polynesia. - But he proposed to view the subject in a general manner, in a random - way, with here and there an incident by way of illustration. - - “He first referred to the title of the lecture, and the origin - and date of the name ‘South Seas’ which was older than the name - ‘Pacific,’ to which preference is usually given now. The voyages of - early navigators into the South Seas, and especially the Balboa, - commander of the petty port of Darien, from whence he had taken - formal possession of all the South Seas, and all lands and kingdoms - therein, in behalf of his masters, the King of Castile and Leon, were - noticed by the lecturer. - - “Magellan was the man who, after the first hazardous and tortuous - passage through the straits which now bear his name, gave the - peaceful ocean to which he came out the name of ‘Pacific.’ It was - California, said the lecturer, which first made the Pacific shores - the home of the Anglo-Saxons. Even now, there were many places in - this wide waste of waters which were not found upon the charts. - But what was known, and well known, afforded an abundant theme for - a lecture. The fish found in that water would furnish an abundant - subject, of which he named the sword fish, a different fish from - that of the same name found in our northern latitudes--and the devil - fish, over which a mystery hangs, like that over the sea-serpent in - northern waters. The birds, also, in those latitudes, might occupy a - full hour. The lecturer said he wondered that the renowned Agassiz - did not pack his carpet bag and betake himself to Nantucket, and from - thence to the South Seas, than which he could find no richer field. - - “Full of interest also were the fisheries of the South Seas and the - life of the whaling crews on the broad waters, or visiting lands. - Seldom, if ever, touched by any but themselves, was covered over with - a charm of novelty. Again the islands were an interesting study. Why, - asked the lecturer, do northern Englishmen, who own large yachts, - with which they sail up the Mediterranean, why don’t they go yachting - in the South Seas? The white race have a very bad reputation among - the Polynesians. With few exceptions they were considered the most - bloodthirsty, atrocious and diabolical race in the world. But there - were no dangers to voyagers if they treated the natives with common - kindness. - - “In the Pacific there were yet unknown and unvisited isles. There - were many places where a man might make himself a sylvan retreat and - for years, at least, live as much removed from Christendom as if in - another world. - - “The lecturer described an interview he had with a poetical young - man who called upon him to get his opinion upon what would be the - prospects of a number, say four score, of disciples of Fourier to - settle in the valley of Typee. He had not encouraged the scheme, - having too much regard for his old friends, the Polynesians. The - Mormons had also such a scheme in view--to discover a large island - in the Pacific, upon which they could increase and multiply. The - Polynesians themselves have ideas of the same nature. Every one - has heard of the voyage of Ponce de Leon to find the fountain of - perpetual youth. Equally poetical, and more unfamiliar, was the - adventure of Cama Pecar, who set sail alone from Hawaii to find the - fount of eternal joy, which was supposed to spring up in some distant - island where the people lived in perpetual joy and youth. Like all - who go to Paradise, he was never heard from again. A tranquil scene - from the South Seas was remembered by the lecturer. In a ship from a - port of the Pacific coast he had sailed five months, and came upon - an island where the natives lived in a state of total laziness. - Here they found a white man who was a permanent inhabitant, and - comfortably settled with three wives, who, however, failed to keep - his wardrobe in good order. - - “Wonderful tales were told of the adventures in the South Seas, and - the lecturer said that he believed that the books _Typee_ and _Omoo_ - gave scarcely a full idea of them, except that part which tells of - the long captivity in the valley of Typee. He had seen many of these - story tellers of adventures in the South Seas with good vouchers - of their tales in the shape of tattooing. A full and interesting - description of the process of tattooing with its various styles was - given. Tattooing was sometimes, like dress, an index of character, - and worn as an ornament which would never wear off and could not be - pawned, lost or stolen. The lecturer had successfully combated all - attempts to naturalise him by marks as from a gridiron, on his face, - for which he thanked God. - - “A brief notice was made of the islands of the Pacific, where the - Anglo-Saxons had settled, and civilised the people, and the lecturer - had been disgusted, and threw down a paper published in the Sandwich - Islands, which suggested the propriety of not having the native - language taught in the common schools. - - “In conclusion, the lecturer spoke of the desire of the natives of - Georges Island to be annexed to the United States. He was sorry to - see it, and, as a friend of humanity, and especially as a friend of - the South Sea Islanders, he should pray, and call upon all Christians - to pray with him, that the Polynesians might be delivered from all - foreign and contaminating influences. - - * * * * * - - “The lecture gave the most ample satisfaction, and was frequently - applauded.” - -Melville cut short his third year of lecturing to make the trip -to California with his brother. Upon his return, he again made an -unsuccessful attempt to be appointed to a consularship. Such a mission -took him to Washington in 1861. This trip was chiefly notable because -of the meeting of Melville and Lincoln. Melville recounted the -experience in a letter to his wife: “The night previous to this I was -at the second levee at the White House. There was a great crowd and a -brilliant scene--ladies in full dress by the hundreds--a steady stream -of two-and-two’s wound through the apartments shaking hands with Old -Abe and immediately passing on. This continued without cessation for an -hour and a half. Of course I was one of the shakers. Old Abe is much -better looking than I expected and younger looking. He shook hands like -a good fellow--working hard at it like a man sawing wood at so much per -cord.” - -Melville struggled on for two more years at Pittsfield, and in October, -1863, moved with his family to 104 East 26th Street, New York, where he -spent the remaining years of his life. His house in New York he bought -from his brother Allan, giving $7,750 (covered by mortgages and in time -paid for by legacies of his wife) and the Arrowhead place, valued at -$3,000. - -The last years in Pittsfield and the early years in New York were, in -financial hardship, perhaps the darkest in Melville’s life. He was in -ill health, and except for the pittance from his books he was without -income. His lectures were a desperate if not lucrative measure. But for -the generosity of his wife’s father, he would have been in destitution. - -On December 5, 1866, he was appointed Inspector of Customs in New -York--a post he held until January 1, 1886. He was sixty-seven years -old when he resigned. His wife had come into an inheritance that -allowed him an ultimate serenity in his closing years. - -[Illustration: - - MELVILLE’S CHILDREN - Malcolm, Frances, Elizabeth, Stanwix - (From left to right) -] - -R. H. Stoddard, in his _Recollections_, thus speaks of Melville: - - “My good friend Benedict sent me, one gloomy November forenoon, - this curt announcement of a new appointment in Herman Melville: ‘He - seems a good fellow, Dick, and says he knows you, though perhaps he - doesn’t, but anyhow be kind to him if this infernal weather will - let you be so to anybody.’ I bowed to the gentleman who handed the - note to me, in whom I recognised a famous writer whom I had met some - twenty-five years before; no American writer was more widely known in - the late forties and early fifties in his own country and in England - than Melville, who in his earlier books, _Typee_, _Omoo_, _Mardi_, - and _White Jacket_, had made himself the prose poet of the strange - islands and peoples of the South Seas. - - “Whether any of Melville’s readers understood the real drift of his - mind, or whether he understood it himself, has often puzzled me. - Next to Emerson he was the American mystic. He was more than that, - however, he was one of our great unrecognised poets, as he manifested - in his version of ‘Sheridan’s Ride,’ which begins as all students of - our serious war poetry ought to know: ‘Shoe the steed with silver - that bore him to the fray.’ Melville’s official duty during the last - years of my Custom-House life confined him to the foot of Gansevoort - Street, North River, and on a report that he might be changed to - some district on the East River, he asked me to prevent the change, - and Benedict said to me, ‘He shan’t be moved,’ and he was not; and - years later, on a second report of the same nature reaching him, I - saw Benedict again, who declared with a profane expletive, ‘He shall - stay there.’ And if he had not died about a dozen years ago he would - probably be there to-day, at the foot of Gansevoort Street.” - -It is interesting that a man of the intellect of R. H. Stoddard should -have found Melville’s mind such a shadowed hieroglyph. With Stoddard so -perplexed, it is less difficult to understand Melville’s preference for -solitude. - -In his copy of Schopenhauer, Melville underlined the phrase--“this -hellish society of men;” and he vigorously underscored the aphorism: -“When two or three are gathered together, the devil is among them.” -Melville occupied himself with his books, with collecting etchings, -with solitary walks; and for companionship he was satisfied with the -society of his grandchildren. His grand-daughter, Mrs. Eleanor Melville -Metcalf, thus records her recollections of such association: - - “I was not yet ten years old when my grandfather died. To put aside - all later impressions gathered from those who knew him longer and - coloured by their personal reactions, all impressions made by - subsequent reading of his books, results in a series of childish - recollections, vivid homely scenes wherein he formed a palpable - background for my own interested activities. - - “Setting forth on a bright spring afternoon for a trip to Central - Park, the Mecca of most of our pilgrimages, he made a brave and - striking figure as he walked erect, head thrown back, cane in hand, - inconspicuously dressed in a dark blue suit and a soft black felt - hat. For myself, I skipped gaily beside him, anticipating the long - jogging ride in the horse cars, the goats and shanty-topped granite - of the upper reaches of our journey, the broad walks of the park, - where the joy of all existence was best expressed by running down the - hills, head back, skirts flying in the wind. He would follow more - slowly and call ‘Look out, or the “cop” may catch you!’ I always - thought he used funny words: ‘cop’ was surely a jollier word than - ‘policeman.’ - - “We never came in from a trip of this kind, nor indeed from any walk, - but we stopped in the front hall under a coloured engraving of the - Bay of Naples, its still blue dotted with tiny white sails. He would - point to them with his cane and say, ‘See the little boats sailing - hither and thither.’ ‘Hither and thither’--more funny words, thought - I, at the same time a little awed by something far away in the tone - of voice. - - “I remember mornings when even sugar on the oatmeal was not enough - to tempt me to finish the last mouthful. It would be spring in the - back yard too, and a tin cup full of little stones picked out of - the garden meant a penny from my grandmother. He would say in a - warning whisper, ‘Jack Smoke will come down the chimney and take - what you leave!’ That was another matter. The oatmeal was laughingly - finished and the yard gained. Across the back parlour and main hall - upstairs ran a narrow iron-trimmed porch, furnished with Windsor - and folding canvas chairs. There he would sit with a pipe and his - most constant companion--his cane, and watch my busy activity below. - Against the wall of the porch hung a match holder, more for ornament - than utility, it seems. It was a gay red and blue china butterfly. - Invariably he looked to see if it had flown away since we were there - last. - - “Once in a long while his interest in his grandchildren led him to - cross the river and take the suburban train to East Orange, where - we lived. He must have been an impressive figure, sitting silently - on the piazza of our little house, while my sister and I pranced by - with a neighbour’s boy and his express wagon, filled with a satisfied - sense of the strength and accomplishment of our years. When he had - had enough of such exhibitions, he would suddenly rise and take the - next train back to Hoboken. - - “Chiefly do I think of him connected with different parts of the 26th - Street house. - - “His own room was a place of mystery and awe to me; there I never - ventured unless invited by him. It looked bleakly north. The great - mahogany desk, heavily bearing up four shelves of dull gilt and - leather books; the high dim book-case, topped by strange plaster - heads that peered along the ceiling level, or bent down, searching - blindly with sightless balls; the small black iron bed, covered with - dark cretonne; the narrow iron grate; the wide table in the alcove, - piled with papers I would not dream of touching--these made a room - even more to be fled than the back parlour, by whose door I always - ran to escape the following eyes of his portrait, which hung there - in a half light. Yet lo, the paper-piled table also held a little - bag of figs, and one of the pieces of sweet stickiness was for me. - ‘Tittery-Eye’ he called me, and awe melted into glee, as I skipped - away to my grandmother’s room, which adjoined. - - “That was a very different place--sunny, comfortable and familiar, - with a sewing machine and a _white_ bed like other peoples’ In the - corner stood a big arm chair, where he always sat when he left the - recesses of his own dark privacy. I used to climb on his knee, while - he told me wild tales of cannibals and tropic isles. Little did I - then know that he was reliving his own past. We came nearest intimacy - at these times, and part of the fun was to put my hands in his thick - beard and squeeze it hard. It was no soft silken beard, but tight - curled like the horse hair breaking out of old upholstered chairs, - firm and wiry to the grasp, and squarely chopped. - - “Sad it is that he felt his grandchildren would turn against him - as they grew older. He used to forebode as much. As it is, I have - nothing but a remembrance of glorious fun, mixed with a childish awe, - as of some one who knew far and strange things.” - -As the last meed of glory, Melville received this flattering letter: - - “12 Lucknow Terrace, - “HALIFAX, N. S. - Nov. 21, 1889. - - “DEAR SIR: - - “Although a stranger, I take the liberty of addressing you on the - ground of my ardent admiration for your works. For a number of years - I have read and reread _Moby-Dick_ with increasing pleasure in every - perusal: and with this study, the conviction has grown up that the - unique merits of that book have never received due recognition. I - have been a student for ten years and have dabbled in literature - more or less myself. And now I find myself in a position which - enables me to give myself to literature as a life-work. I am anxious - to set the merits of your books before the public and to that end, - I beg the honour of corresponding with you. It would be of great - assistance to me, if I could gather some particulars of your life - and _literary methods_ from you, other than given in such books as - Duyckinck’s dictionary. In the matter of style, apart from the matter - altogether I consider your books, especially the earlier ones, the - most thoroughly New World product in all American literature. - - “Hoping that I am not asking too much, I remain, - - “Yours most respectfully, - - “ARCHD. MACMEEHAN, PH.D. - - “Munro Professor of English at Dalhousie University.” - -Melville replied: - - “104 E. 26th St. - - “DEAR SIR: - - “I beg you to overlook my delay in acknowledging yours of the 12th - ult. It was unavoidable. - - “Your note gave me pleasure, as how should it not, written in such a - spirit. - - “But you do not know, perhaps, that I have entered my 8th decade. - After 20 years nearly, as an outdoor custom house officer, I have - lately come into possession of unobstructed leisure, but only just - as, in the course of nature, my vigour sensibly declines. What little - of it is left I husband for certain matters as yet incomplete, and - which indeed may never be completed. - - “I appreciate, quite as much as you would have me, your friendly good - will and shrink from any appearance to the contrary. - - “Trusting that you will take all this, & what it implies, in the same - spirit that prompts it, I am, - - “Very truly yours, - - “HERMAN MELVILLE. - - “_To_ - “_Professor MacMeehan_, - “_Dec. 5, ’89._” - -Melville was using his “unobstructed leisure” in a return to the -writing of prose. Ten prose sketches and a novel were the result. But -the result is not distinguished. The novel, _Billy Budd_, is built -around the character of Jack Chase, the “Handsome Sailor.” In the -character of Billy Budd, Melville attempts to portray the native purity -and nobility of the uncorrupted man. Melville spends elaborate pains -in analysing “the mystery of iniquity,” and in celebrating by contrast -the god-like beauty of body and spirit of his hero. Billy Budd, by -his heroic guilelessness is, like an angel of vengeance, precipitated -into manslaughter; and for his very righteousness he is hanged. _Billy -Budd_, finished within a few months before the end of Melville’s -life, would seem to teach that though the wages of sin is death, that -sinners and saints alike toil for a common hire. In _Billy Budd_ the -orphic sententiousness is gone, it is true. But gone also is the brisk -lucidity, the sparkle, the verve. Only the disillusion abided with him -to the last. - -Melville died at 104 East 26th Street, New York, on Monday, -September 28, 1891. His funeral was attended by his wife and his two -daughters--all of his immediate family that survived him--and a meagre -scattering of relatives and family friends. The man who had created -Moby-Dick died an obscure and elderly private citizen. He had in early -manhood prayed that if indeed his soul missed its haven, that his -might, at least, be an utter wreck. “All Fame is patronage,” he had -once written; “let me be infamous.” But as if in contempt even for this -preference, he had, during the last half of his life, cruised off and -away upon boundless and uncharted waters; and in the end he sank down -into death, without a ripple of renown. - -“Oh, what quenchless feud is this, that Time hath with the sons of -Men!” - - - - -BIBLIOGRAPHY - - - Herman Melville’s Sea Tales. 4 Volumes. Edited by Arthur Stedman. - _New York_, 1892, 1896; _Boston_, 1900, 1910, 1919. - - Typee (with a biographical and critical introduction by the - editor). - Omoo. - Moby-Dick. - White-Jacket. - - Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life. During a Four Months’ Residence in - a Valley of the Marquesas.... _New York_, 1846. - - A Four Months’ Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the - Marquesas Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life.... _London_, 1846, - 1847, 1855, 1861. - - Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life.... Revised edition, with a Sequel, - The Story of Toby.... _New York_, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1855, 1857, 1865, - 1871. _London_, 1892, 1893 (ed. H. S. Salt), 1898, 1899. _Boston_, - 1902 (ed. William P. Trent). _London_, 1903 (ed. William P. Trent). - _London and New York_, 1904 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1907 (ed. Ernest - Rhys). _London_ 1910; another edition 1910 (ed. W. Clark Russell). - _New York_, 1911 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1920 (ed. A. L. Sterling). - _New York and London_, 1921 (ed. Ernest Rhys). - - Translated into German by R. Garrique, _Leipzig_, 1846; into Dutch, - _Haarlem_, 1847. - -Omoo: a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas.... _New York_, -1847 (five editions the same year). _London_, 1847, 1849. _New York -and London_, 1855. _London_, 1861. _New York_, 1863, 1868. _London_, -1892, 1893 (ed. H. S. Salt). _London and New York_, 1904 (ed. W. Clark -Russell); 1908 (ed. Ernest Rhys); 1911 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1921 -(ed. Ernest Rhys). - - Translated into German by F. Gerstäcker, _Leipzig_, 1847. - -Mardi: and a Voyage Thither.... _New York_, 1849 (2 volumes). _London_, -1849 (3 volumes). _New York_, 1855, 1864. - -Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and -Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant Service.... -_New York_, 1849. _London_, 1849 (2 volumes). _New York_, 1855, 1863. - - Translated into German by L. Marezoll, _Grimma_, 1850. - -White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War.... _New York_, 1850. -_London_, 1850 (2 volumes). _New York and London_, 1855. _London_, -1892, 1893, 1901. - -Moby-Dick; or, the Whale.... _New York_, 1851. - -The Whale.... _London_, 1851, 1853 (3 volumes). - -Moby-Dick; or, the Whale.... _New York_, 1863. _London_, 1901 (ed. L. -Becke). _London and New York_, 1907 (ed. Ernest Rhys). _London_, 1912; -1920 (ed. Violet Maynell). _London and New York_, 1921 (ed. Ernest -Rhys). The editions since 1892 have borne the title Moby-Dick; (or) the -(Great) White Whale. - -Pierre: or The Ambiguities.... _New York_, 1852, 1855. - -Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile.... _New York_, 1855 (three -editions in the same year). _London_, 1855, 1861. (The book appeared -serially in _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine_, July, 1854-March, 1855. It was -pirated at _Philadelphia_, n. d. (entered 1865), as The Refugee, with -the original dedication and table of contents omitted). - -The Piazza Tales.... _New York_, 1856. _London_, 1856. (Contains: The -Piazza; Bartleby; Benito Cereno; The Lightning-Rod Man; The Encantadas; -The Bell-Tower). - -The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.... _New York_, 1857. _London_, 1857. - -Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.... _New York_, 1866. - -Clarel: a Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land.... _New York_, 1878. - -John Marr and Other Sailors.... _New York_, 1888. (Privately printed). - -Timoleon, etc. _New York_, 1891. (Privately printed). - - -CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES, ETC. - - Fragments from a Writing Desk. _The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh - Advertiser_, 4 May; 18 May; 1849. - - Hawthorne and His Mosses, By a Virginian Spending a July in Vermont. - _Literary World._ 17 Aug.; 24 Aug.; 1850. - - The Town-Ho’s Story. (Ch. 54 of Moby-Dick.) _Harper’s New Monthly - Magazine._ Oct., 1851. - - A Memorial to James Fenimore Cooper. Discourses and tributes by - Bryant, Bancroft, Irving, Melville, etc., etc. _New York_, 1852. - - Bartleby, the Scrivener. A story of Wall-Street. _Putnam’s Monthly - Magazine._ Nov.-Dec., 1853. - - Cock-a-Doodle-Doo! or, The Crowing of the Cock of Benentano. - _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ Dec., 1853. - - The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, by Salvator R. Tarnmoor. - _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ March-May, 1854. - - The Lightning-Rod Man. _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ Aug., 1854. - - Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs. _Harper’s New Monthly - Magazine._ June, 1854. - - Happy Failure. A Story of the River Hudson. _Harper’s New Monthly - Magazine._ July, 1854. - - The Fiddler. _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ Sept., 1854. - - Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids. _Harper’s New Monthly - Magazine._ April, 1855. - - The Bell-Tower. _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ Aug., 1855. - - Benito Cereno. _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ Oct.-Dec., 1855. - - Jimmy Rose. _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ Nov., 1855. - - The ’Gees. _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ March, 1856. - - I and My Chimney. _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ March, 1856. - - The Apple-Tree Table: or, Original Spiritual Manifestations. - _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ May, 1856. - - The March to the Sea (poem). _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ Feb., 1856. - - The Cumberland (poem). _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ March, 1866. - - Philip (poem). _Putnam’s Monthly Magazine._ April, 1866. - - Chattanooga (poem). _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ June, 1866. - - Gettysburg: July, 1863 (poem). _Harper’s New Monthly Magazine._ July, - 1866. - - The History of Pittsfield, Mass., Compiled and written, under the - general direction of a committee, by J. E. A. Smith, Pittsfield, - 1876. (The account of Major Thomas Melville, pp. 399-400, was written - by Melville.) - - - - -INDEX OF NAMES - - - Abbott, Willis J., 84, 135, 144. - - Abernethy, John, 40. - - _Acushnet, The_, 127, 129, 130, 133, 134, 145, 147, 151, 152, 154, - 160, 162, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 191, 193, 194, 195, - 197, 198, 199, 200, 202, 216. - - Adams, C. F., 78. - - Adler, Dr., 285, 287, 288, 289, 291, 292, 293, 294, 298. - - Ahab, Captain, 25, 26, 32, 133, 332. - - Akenside, Dr. Mark, 57, 61, 114. - - Albany, 34, 35, 36, 56, 63, 64, 65, 66, 68, 69, 70, 112, 113, 132, -205, 251, 252, 271. - - Albany Academy, 70, 71, 121. - - Alcott, Amos Bronson, 132. - - Ames, Nathaniel, 79, 87. - - Amherst, 257. - - Angew, Mary, 304. - - Annatoo, 275. - - Arnold, Matthew, 365. - - Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 44, 79. - - Arrowhead, 47, 306, 309, 310, 311, 346, 351, 352, 376. - - _Artémise, The_, 192, 193. - - - Balboa, 170, 373. - - Banks, Sir Joseph, 178, 206. - - Barbauld, Mrs., 57, 61, 126. - - Barrie, Sir James, 22, 27. - - _Battle Pieces_, 358, 365. - - “Beauty,” 217. - - Beck, Dr. T. Romeyn, 70. - - Becke, Louis, 24. - - Beecher, Henry Ward, 305. - - Behn, Aphra, 203. - - Bennett, F. D., 137. - - Bentley, Richard, 273, 292, 293, 294, 299, 300, 301, 302, 311. - - Berkshires, 23, 169, 305, 312. - - Besant, Walter, 80, 177. - - Bildad, 27, 32, 154, 155, 157. - - Bildad, Aunt Charity, 144. - - Billson, James, 360. - - _Billy Budd_, 239, 381. - - Blake, William, 74. - - Bligh, Captain, 179, 181. - - Bob, Captain, 220, 221. - - Bolton, Harry, 106, 107. - - Boomer, Captain, 27. - - Borabolla, 278. - - Borgia, Rodrigo, 171, 176. - - Borrow, George, 15, 81. - - Boston, 40, 42, 43, 47, 56, 63, 64, 68, 83, 236, 251, 255, 258, 270, - 283, 312, 353, 369. - - Boston Tea Party, 42. - - _Bounty, The_, 179. - - Bristol, R. I., 44. - - Broadhall, 45, 47, 306. - - Browne, J. Ross, 137, 158, 159, 166. - - Browne, Sir Thomas, 17, 22, 27, 94, 121, 134, 146, 299, 304, 357. - - Brownell, C. W., 313, 330, 331. - - Browning, Robert, 358, 365. - - Bryant, William Cullen, 305. - - Buchanan, Robert, 349, 350. - - _Buffalo Courier_, 164. - - Bullen, Frank T., 90. - - Bunker, Captain Uriah, 140. - - Bunyan, John, 134, 331. - - Burke, Edmund, 140, 153. - - Burney, Fanny, 66, 177. - - Burton, Robert, 116, 120, 121, 126. - - Burton, Sir Richard, 15. - - Butler, Samuel, 53. - - Byron, Lord, 66, 120, 239. - - Byron, Captain, 174, 176. - - - Cabri, Joseph, 196. - - Cape Cod, 139, 142, 155. - - Caret, 188. - - Cargill, David, 40. - - Cargill, Mrs. Mary, 40, 42. - - Carlyle, Thomas, 44, 78, 82, 343. - - Cartaret, 174, 176. - - Cavendish, 173. - - Champlain, Lake, 34, 262. - - Chapone, Mrs., 58, 59, 61, 65, 126, 259. - - Chase, Frederic Hathway, 257. - - Chase, Jack, 32, 234, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 245, 246, 251, 381. - - Chase, Owen, 136, 137. - - Chasles, Philarete, 47. - - Chateaubriand, François René, 205. - - Chatterton, Thomas, 67. - - Chesterfield, Lord, 116, 121. - - _Chicago Times_, 165. - - Churchill’s _Voyages_, 80. - - _Clarel_, 29, 105, 186, 225, 226, 227, 257, 350, 352, 353, 357, - 360, 361, 365. - - Claret, Captain, 235, 243, 244, 245. - - Clough, Arthur Hugh, 365. - - Coan, Titus Munson, 23, 128, 351. - - Coffin, Long Tom, 81. - - Coleridge, Samuel, 121, 146. - - College of New Jersey, 42. - - _Confidence Man, The_, 17, 94, 227, 348. - - Congregation of the Propaganda, 188. - - Conrad, Joseph, 25, 81, 93. - - Constantinople, 132, 335, 336, 352, 353, 354. - - Cook, Captain James, 80, 169, 172, 173, 176, 177, 178, 183, 206, 256. - - Cooke, Edmund, 174. - - Cooper, James Fenimore, 18, 20, 81, 93, 177, 203, 304. - - Covent Garden Theatre, 178. - - Cowley, Abraham, 174. - - Cowper, William, 151. - - Curtis, George William, 305, 360. - - Customs House, 16, 19, 20, 376, 377. - - - Duyckinck, George, 284, 285, 314, 326, 380. - - _Daedalus, The_, 179, 181. - - Dalrymple, Alexander, 172. - - Dampier, William, 171, 174. - - Dana, Richard Henry, 24, 25, 78, 80, 81, 82, 84, 86, 87, 129, - 131, 295, 344, 345, 366. - - Dante, 27, 37, 109, 259, 293, 338, 340, 343. - - Darling, Captain, 183. - - Darwin, Charles, 134. - - Davis, Captain, 138, 167. - - D’Wolf, Captain (see De Wolf II, Captain John). - - Defoe, Daniel, 137. - - Dekker, Thomas, 27. - - Delaney, Mrs., 58. - - Delano, R., 138. - - de Bougainville, Louis, 175, 192. - - Desgraz, C., 188, 196. - - De Wolf II, Captain John, 44. - - De Wolf, Mrs. John (see Mary Melville). - - Dibdin, 102. - - Donjalolo, 278. - - Donne, Dr. John, 22. - - Drake, Sir Francis, 173. - - Dryden, John, 134. - - _Duff, The_, 180, 182. - - Du Petit-Thouars, Admiral, 189, 190, 191, 193, 198, 219, 256. - - D’Urville, Captain Dumont, 190, 191. - - - Edwards, Jonathan, 305. - - Eliot, George, 330. - - Elizabeth, Queen of England, 50, 173. - - Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 18, 313, 377. - - _Encantadas, The_, 165, 348. - - _Essex, The_, 137, 148. - - - Fairhaven, 130. - - Fanning, 182. - - Fayaway, 32, 128, 210, 211, 213, 260, 351. - - Fedallah, 32. - - Fielding, Henry, 27, 288. - - Flaubert, Gustave, 94, 132, 243. - - Fletcher, John, 27, 304. - - Fletcher, Captain, 301. - - Fleury, Franchise Raymonde Eulogie Marie de Douleurs Lamé (see - Mrs. Thomas Melville--Melville’s aunt). - - Fluke, 243, 244. - - Forbes, Thomas T., 85. - - Foster, Newton, 81. - - France, Anatole, 74, 136. - - Franklin, Benjamin, 73, 134, 297, 298, 347. - - Franklin, Admiral S. R., 233, 234, 235. - - Freud, Sigmund, 17. - - Fuller & Co., Bradford, 130. - - Fuller, Margaret, 78, 330. - - Furneaux, Lieutenant, 175, 177. - - - Gansevoort (Saratoga County, N. Y.), 35. - - Gansevoort, Harmen Harmense Van, 34. - - Gansevoort, General Herman, 35. - - Gansevoort, Maria (see Mrs. Allan Melville). - - Gansevoort, General Peter, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 60, 89. - - Gansevoort, Hon. Peter, 35, 36, 66, 68, 70, 71, 357. - - Gardener, George, 155. - - Gauguin, Paul, 185, 223. - - George the Third, King, 175, 177, 179, 182. - - Glendinning, Marie, 54, 61. - - Glendinning, Pierre (see Pierre). - - Goethe, 132, 304, 323, 324. - - Goldsmith, Oliver, 66, 114, 209. - - Goode, G. Brown, 135, 155. - - Gordon, Eliza, 241. - - Greene, Herman Melville, 165. - - Greene, Richard Tobias (see Toby). - - Greenlander, 92, 93. - - Griswold, Captain, 284, 289, 291. - - Guam, 171. - - Guy, Captain, 217, 219, 221. - - - Hair, Richard Melville, 165. - - Hakluyt’s _Voyages_, 80. - - Hannamanoo, 195. - - Hardy, Lem, 195, 196, 197. - - Hardy, Thomas, 29. - - Harper, 19, 253, 273, 339, 344. - - Harris’ _Voyages_, 80. - - Hart, Col. Joseph C., 145. - - Harvard College, 20, 42. - - Hautia, 279, 280. - - Hawkins, Sir Richard, 173. - - Hawthorne, Julian, 311, 312, 314, 315, 325, 326, 331, 334, 336. - - Hawthorne, Mrs. Nathaniel, 22, 23, 24, 309, 310, 312, 314, 317, - 325, 329, 330, 334, 335. - - Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 30, 32, 134, 169, - 250, 305, 306, 309, 311, 312, 313, 314, 315, 316, 317, 318, - 320, 321, 323, 324, 326, 327, 328, 329, 330, 334, 335, 336, - 337, 340, 346, 347, 348, 353. - - Hawthorne, Una, 24, 334. - - Henricy, Casimir, 193. - - Henry, Joseph, 71. - - _Highlander, The_, 88, 90, 98, 100, 101, 105, 108, 109, 218. - - Hervey, Captain, 187. - - Hobard, Mary Anna Augusta (Mrs. Thomas Melville--Melville’s aunt), 45. - - Hobbes, Thomas, 134. - - Hodges, W., 177. - - Holland, Dr., 296. - - Holmes, Oliver Wendell, 40, 305, 346, 352. - - Honolulu, 156, 236. - - Hook, Captain, 22, 27. - - Howe, Julia Ward, 33. - - Hubbard, 130, 160. - - Hun, Dr. Henry, 70, 71. - - Hussey, Christopher, 139, 140. - - Huxley, Aldous, 132. - - Huxley, Thomas, 53. - - - Imeeo, 228, 231. - - _Independence, The_, 301. - - Irving, Washington, 18. - - Ishmael, 18, 27, 62, 89, 131, 160, 351. - - _Israel Potter_, 293, 302, 304, 347. - - Israel Potter, 297, 298. - - - Jackson, 32, 92, 93, 94, 96, 97, 100. - - Jackson, Andrew, 42. - - James, G. P. R., 23, 305. - - _Janet, The_, 148. - - Jarl, 32, 274, 275. - - Jermin, John, 217, 219, 221. - - Jewell, J. Grey, 88. - - _John Marr_, 357, 365. - - Johnson, Arthur, 342. - - Johnson, Dr., 78, 177, 178, 279, 353. - - Johnson, Captain Charles, 80. - - Jones, John Paul, 347. - - _Julia, The_, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220, 221. - - - Kant, Immanuel, 17, 108, 285, 288. - - Kemble, Fanny, 305. - - Kingsley, Charles, 33. - - Kippis, Dr., 172. - - Knapp, Elizabeth, 257. - - Knox, John, 50, 185. - - Kory-Kory, 32, 209, 210, 212, 213. - - Krusenstern, Admiral, 44, 182. - - - Ladrones, 171. - - La Farge, John, 24, 211, 220. - - La Maire, Captain, 173. - - Lamb, Charles, 27, 56, 295. - - Langsdorff, Captain, 44. - - Lansingburg, 69, 118, 126, 251, 252, 258, 262, 263, 265, 271. - - Laplace, Captain, 192, 193. - - Larry, 93. - - Lathers, Col. Richard, 308. - - Lathrop, G. P., 313. - - Lavendar, 93. - - Lawrence, D. H., 342. - - Lawton, William Cranston, 20. - - Lemaître, Jules, 205. - - Lemsford, 241. - - Lenox, 305, 309, 311, 319, 337, 340. - - _Leviathan, The_, 229, 231. - - Lincoln, Abraham, 231, 375, 376. - - Liverpool, 55, 73, 79, 83, 85, 91, 98, 99, 101, 102, 103, 107, 108, - 111, 113, 126, 132, 334, 335, 336. - - Lockhart, John Gibson, 296. - - Long Island, 139, 155. - - Lono, 176, 177. - - Lombroso, Cesare, 17. - - London, 290, 291, 293, 297, 299, 302, 308, 352. - - London, Jack, 24. - - London Missionary Society, 19, 174, 175, 178, 180, 182, 183, 184, 208, - 222, 225, 227. - - Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 22, 255, 305. - - Long Ghost, Doctor, 32, 217, 218, 219, 222, 227, 228, 229, 230, 231, - 232. - - Louis Philippe of France, 189, 190. - - Lowell, James Russell, 22, 33, 305, 348. - - - MacMeehan, Archibald, 380, 381. - - Macy, Obed, 136, 141, 145, 155. - - Magellan, 170, 171, 172, 173, 373. - - Mandeville, Sir John, 29. - - Mapple, Father, 27, 32. - - _Mardi_, 20, 37, 38, 105, 121, 148, 151, 240, 256, 272, 273, 274, 277, - 278, 279, 280, 283, 344, 357, 377. - - Marheyo, 209, 212, 213, 250. - - Mariner, William, 206. - - Marnoo, 32. - - Marquesas Islands, 133, 161, 168, 169, 173, 176, 178, 181, 182, 190, - 191, 193, 194, 197, 198, 199, 200, 211, 214, 233, 236, 237, 253, - 255, 256, 351. - - Marryat, Captain Frederick, 20, 81, 88, 240. - - Martin, Dr. John, 206. - - Martin, Winthrop L., 135. - - Mary, Queen of Scots, 50. - - Masefield, John, 22, 25, 29, 30, 79, 331. - - Massinger, Philip, 27. - - Mather, Jr., Frank Jewell, 27, 341, 342, 347, 352, 357, 365. - - Mather, Richard, 138. - - _Matilda, The_, 179, 181. - - Maugham, Somerset, 24. - - Max, 92, 93. - - Melvil of Hallhill, Sir James, 50, 51. - - Melvil, William, 50. - - Melville, Alexander, 6th Earl of, etc., 51, 52, 101. - - Melville, Allan (Melville’s great-grandfather), 47. - - Melville, Allan (Melville’s father), 33, 34, 44, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, - 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 74, - 102, 103, 258, 259. - - Melville, Allan (Melville’s brother), 251, 254, 265, 267, 272, 283, - 284, 299, 301, 345, 346, 367, 368, 376. - - Melville, Mrs. Allan (née Maria Gansevoort, Melville’s mother), 33, - 34, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 68, 69, 85, 88, - 251, 259, 261, 283, 359. - - Melville, Andrew (“Episcopomastrix”), 49, 50. - - Melville, Andrew (Chevalier), 50. - - Melville, Anna Marie Priscilla, 46. - - Melville, Augusta (Melville’s sister), 271, 272, 273, 283. - - Melville, Deborah (wife of John. See Scollay, Deborah). - - Melville, Elizabeth Shaw (Melville’s wife), 113, 130, 257, 258, 260, - 261, 262, 265, 268, 270, 272, 273, 279, 289, 290, 298, 299, 303, - 304, 310, 311, 340, 346, 352, 360, 368, 376, 382. - - Melville, Fanny, 283. - - Melville, Gansevoort (Melville’s brother), 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 82, - 206, 251, 252, 253, 255, 297, 301. - - Melville, Helen (Melville’s aunt), 63. - - Melville, Helen Marie (Melville’s sister), 63, 64, 271, 283. - - Melville of Carnbee, Sir John, 47, 49. - - Melville, John--Lord of Raith in Fife, 50. - - Melville, John, 43. - - Melville, Malcolm (Melville’s son), 273, 287, 289, 299, 302, 346. - - Melville, Mary (Mrs. John De Wolf), 44. - - Melville, Pierre François Henry Thomas Wilson, 46. - - Melville, Priscilla (wife of Major Thomas--See Scollay, Priscilla). - - Melville, Sir Richard de, etc., 34, 47. - - Melville, Sir Robert, 50. - - Melville, General Robert, 42. - - Melville, Thomas (Melville’s great-great-grandfather), 47, 50. - - Melville, Major Thomas (Melville’s grandfather), 40, 42, 43, 44, 45. - - Melville, Thomas (Melville’s uncle), 44, 45, 46, 47, 72. - - Melville, Thomas (Melville’s brother), 85, 251, 255, 271, 281, 283, - 353, 358, 366. - - Mencken, H. L., 93. - - Mendoca, 173. - - Meredith, George, 22, 29, 105, 358. - - Metcalf, Eleanor Melville, 377. - - Miguel, 91, 92, 93. - - Milton, John, 28, 37, 120, 134, 372. - - _Moby-Dick_, 21, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 44, 62, 116, 121, 130, 133, 134, - 135, 136, 137, 144, 149, 150, 154, 159, 162, 167, 274, 306, 311, - 318, 319, 324, 327, 328, 329, 330, 331, 332, 333, 337, 340, 341, - 344, 365, 380. - - Moby-Dick, 30, 31, 131, 133, 382. - - Moerenhaut (French consul at Tahiti), 190. - - Molucca Islands, 171. - - Monluc, Bishop of Valence, 50. - - Montaigne, Michel, 204, 205, 241, 278. - - Montégut, Emile, 317. - - Montgomery, Mrs. Helen Barrett, 187. - - Moore, Tom, 125, 126. - - More, Mrs. Hannah, 57, 114. - - Mortimer, Mrs. F. L., 183. - - Mouat, Captain, 174. - - Mow-Mow, 212, 213, 245. - - Munsell, Joel, 36. - - Murphy, Father, 221. - - Murray, John, 252, 253, 292, 294, 295, 296, 302. - - - Nantucket, 27, 42, 130, 136, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143, 144, 145, - 147, 154, 155, 160, 373. - - _Nation, The London_, 21. - - New Bedford, 129, 130, 139, 142, 143, 144, 154, 155, 156, 159, 160. - - New England, 16, 20, 22, 24, 33, 83, 126, 132, 134, 138, 139, 140, - 142, 154, 155, 156, 157, 305. - - Newfoundland, 140. - - New Guinea, 174. - - New London, 139, 142, 156. - - New York City, 33, 44, 63, 68, 73, 79, 82, 83, 91, 99, 108, 109, - 142, 265, 271, 303, 304, 308, 350, 353, 367, 369, 376, 381. - - Nietzsche, Friedrich, 16, 240, 332. - - Nord, 241. - - Nordau, Max, 17. - - Nukuheva, 193, 199, 200, 202, 211, 212, 233. - - Nye, N. H., 144. - - - Oberea, 175, 178. - - O’Brien, Frederick, 24, 206, 214. - - “Old Combustibles,” 235. - - Omai, 177, 178. - - _Omoo_, 21, 29, 115, 133, 167, 206, 208, 215, 224, 235, 236, 252, - 255, 256, 273, 283, 287, 308, 339, 344, 365, 371, 375, 376. - - Otaheite (see Tahiti). - - Oto (see Pomare II, King). - - Outooroo, 175. - - - Paine, Ralph D., 83. - - _Pandora, The_, 179. - - Paris, 297, 298. - - Parker, Daniel P., 281. - - Paton, John G., 203. - - Paulet, Sir George, 235. - - Pease, Captain, 130, 147, 161, 166, 169, 195. - - Peleg, 27, 32, 154, 157. - - _Pequod, The_, 131, 149, 162, 331, 332, 338. - - Pert, Mr., 235. - - Philippines, 171. - - _Piazza Tales_, 165, 306, 348. - - _Pierre_, 17, 19, 20, 29, 35, 48, 54, 56, 61, 62, 63, 113, 114, - 115, 122, 125, 208, 225, 260, 280, 311, 338, 339, 341, 342, - 343, 344. - - Pierre, 32, 35, 36, 37, 39, 49, 54, 61, 62, 63, 67, 114, 115, 121, - 280, 342, 343. - - Pittsfield, 45, 46, 47, 63, 72, 113, 130, 160, 169, 228, 303, 304, - 306, 308, 314, 315, 318, 327, 331, 336, 351, 352, 359, 367, - 369, 376. - - Plato, 18, 128, 371. - - Po-Po, Jeremiah, 228, 229, 231, 232. - - Poe, Edgar Allan, 152, 357. - - Polynesia, 29, 186, 187, 203, 221, 223, 224, 228, 251, 275, 373. - - Pomare I, King, 181, 186, 187. - - Pomare II, King, 187, 221. - - Pomare, Queen, 187, 189, 190, 191, 193, 219, 229, 230, 231, 234. - - Pope, Alexander, 28, 134. - - Porter, Captain, 182, 194. - - Providence, R. I., 139. - - Priestly, Joseph, 177. - - Princeton (see College of New Jersey). - - Pringle, Sir John, 177. - - Pritchard, The Rev. (British Consul at Tahiti), 190, 219. - - Putnam, G. P., 347. - - - Queequeg, 32, 147. - - - Rabelais, François, 21, 22, 27, 93, 105, 134, 277. - - Raynal, Abbé, 172. - - _Redburn_, 29, 38, 44, 54, 62, 68, 78, 79, 81, 82, 100, 106, 107, - 133, 157, 159, 272, 273, 283, 292, 294, 304, 344, 365. - - _Reine Blanche, The_, 193, 199, 219, 256. - - Repplier, Agnes, 58, 166. - - Revere, Paul, 42. - - Reybaud, Louis, 192. - - Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 177. - - Rhode Island, 42, 44. - - Ricketson, Daniel, 136. - - Riga, Captain, 110, 111. - - Rio (de Janeiro), 31, 167, 245. - - Roberts, E., 196. - - Rodney, Mate, 27. - - Rome, 132, 371, 372. - - Rouchouse, Bishop of Nilolopis, 188, 190, 191. - - Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 22, 79, 132, 151, 204, 299, 304. - - Royal Society, 176, 177, 178, 206. - - Royce, Josiah, 339. - - Ruskin, John, 33. - - Russell, W. Clark, 24, 79, 174, 365, 366. - - Rutland, Duke of, 299, 300, 301, 304. - - - Sabine, Lorenzo, 136, 138. - - Saddle-Meadows, 35, 36, 39. - - Safroni-Middleton, A., 24. - - Sag Harbor, 142. - - Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, 93, 94. - - Salem, Mass., 83. - - Samoa, 275, 276. - - Salt, H. S., 79. - - _Sandusky Mirror_, 164. - - Sandwich, Earl of, 172. - - Sandwich Islands, 46, 178, 223, 235, 345, 375. - - Savage, Hope, 257. - - Scammon, C. M., 136. - - Schopenhauer, Arthur, 338, 339, 343, 366, 377. - - Schouten, 173, 174. - - Scollay, Deborah, 43. - - Scollay, Priscilla, 43, 44. - - Scoresby, William, 136. - - Scott, Sir Walter, 81, 120, 239, 296. - - Sedgewick, Catherine, 305. - - Seward, Miss (The Swan of Lichfield), 178. - - Shakespeare, William, 21, 28, 120, 240, 348. - - Shaw, Elizabeth (see Melville--Mrs. Herman). - - Shaw, John Oakes, 257. - - Shaw, Chief Justice Lemuel, 16, 43, 257, 258, 340, 344, 345, 366, 369. - - Shaw, Lemuel (son of Chief Justice), 257, 268, 269, 270, 273. - - Shaw, Samuel Savage, 257, 267, 270, 272, 280, 281, 282, 310. - - Shenley, 243. - - Sigourney, Mrs., 305. - - Smith, Adam, 91. - - Smith, J. E. A., 45, 72, 113, 252, 313, 352, 369. - - Smollett, Tobias, 27, 81. - - Society Islands, 174, 236. - - Society of Picpus, 188. - - Socrates, 18, 344, 371. - - Solomon, 29, 30, 151, 152, 323, 333. - - Solomon Islands, 173, 174. - - _Southampton, The_, 284, 290. - - Southport (England), 30, 334, 335, 336. - - South Seas, 24, 113, 127, 131, 141, 174, 177, 178, 179, 187, 188, - 195, 196, 203, 205, 206, 216, 219, 234, 236, 251, 256, 283, - 337, 357, 371, 373, 374, 375, 377. - - Spencer, John C., 164. - - Spenser, Edmund, 134. - - Spilbergen, Joris, 173. - - Stanwix, Fort, 34, 36. - - Starbuck, Alexander, 130, 135, 136, 141, 332. - - Stearns, Frank Preston, 23. - - Stedman, Arthur, 113, 128, 129, 130, 131, 236, 349, 350, 365. - - Steelkilt, 27. - - Stevenson, Robert Louis, 20, 22, 24, 28, 56, 201, 357. - - Stoddard, Charles Warren, 24, 357, 376, 377. - - Sturges, William, 85. - - Swift, Jonathan, 21, 40, 331. - - - Tahiti, 16, 132, 174, 175, 177, 178, 179, 180, 182, 183, 184, - 185, 186, 187, 189, 191, 192, 193, 199, 219, 221, 224, - 225, 227, 228, 230, 231, 234, 235, 236, 256, 339. - - Taji, 105. - - Tashetego, 32. - - Tasman, 172, 173, 174. - - Taylor, Bayard, 304. - - Taylor, Dr., 285, 287, 288, 289, 291, 292. - - Tenae, 182. - - Tennyson, Lord Alfred, 365. - - Thackeray, William Makepeace, 28, 125. - - Thompson, Francis, 28, 129. - - Thomson, James, 22, 28. - - Thoreau, Henry David, 22, 131, 132. - - _Timoleon_, 340, 353, 357, 365. - - Toby, 32, 130, 133, 162, 164, 165, 166, 168, 200, 201, 202, - 203, 209, 211, 212. - - Tonga Islands, 206. - - Tower, Walter S., 135, 138, 142. - - _Typee_, 21, 29, 113, 114, 115, 116, 128, 130, 133, 162, 163, - 165, 166, 199, 206, 207, 208, 209, 211, 216, 223, 235, - 236, 237, 252, 253, 255, 256, 257, 258, 283, 297, 308, - 323, 339, 344, 351, 365, 371, 375, 376. - - - _United States, The_, 233, 235, 236, 237, 239, 240, 242, 243, - 245, 246, 250, 252. - - University of New York, 35. - - - Van Schaek, Henry, 45. - - Van Schaick, Catharine, 34, 43. - - Vedder, Elihu, 365, 366. - - _Venus, The_, 189. - - Verrill, Hyatt, 135, 142. - - Victoria, Queen of England, 22, 33, 101, 189, 191, 230, 231, 295, 330. - - Villon, François, 94. - - Vincendon-Dumoulin, 188, 196. - - Voltaire, François, 203. - - - Willis, Captain, 174, 175, 176. - - Walpole, Horace, 339. - - Washington, George, 35, 36, 42, 320. - - Watson, E. L. Grant, 331. - - Watson, Elkanah, 45. - - Webster, Daniel, 134. - - Webster, John, 27. - - Wendell, Barrett, 20. - - West, Professor Charles E., 72. - - West, Captain Isaiah, 155. - - _White-Jacket_, 29, 133, 167, 234, 236, 237, 240, 242, 250, 251, - 283, 294, 295, 299, 302, 304, 339, 344, 377. - - Whitman, Walt, 33, 221, 350. - - Wiley & Putnam, 253. - - Williams, 242. - - Willis, Col. George S., 352. - - Wilson, Captain, 180. - - Wordsworth, William, 56, 57, 78, 132. - - - Yillah, 277, 279, 280. - - Young, Edward, 151. - - - Zola, Emile, 22, 79. - - - - -Transcriber's Note - - -Duplicate headings have been removed. - -Illustrations have been moved next to the text which they illustrate, -and may no longer correspond to the locations given in the List of -Illustrations. - -The following apparent errors have been corrected: - -p. 17 "bolstering it" changed to "bolstering its" - -p. 22 "unitiated" changed to "uninitiated" - -p. 111 "be imbibed" changed to "he imbibed" - -p. 161 "_Smith_" changed to "“_Smith_" - -p. 212 "Desirious" changed to "Desirous" - -p. 222 "‘Mickonaree _ena_" changed to "‘Mickonaree _ena_’" - -p. 223 "are!”" changed to "are!’" - -p. 261 "Remember" changed to "“Remember" - -p. 275 "shouler" changed to "shoulder" - -p. 290 "early." changed to "early.”" - -p. 293 "took" changed to "“took" - -p. 294 "_Marriage_." changed to "_Marriage_.”" - -p. 296 "away." changed to "away.”" - -p. 303 "_Maids_.”" changed to "_Maids_." - -p. 311 "evercise" changed to "exercise" - -p. 330 "qualty" changed to "quality" - -p. 337 "from hs" changed to "from his" - -p. 350 "prophet!" changed to "prophet!”" - -p. 351 "appearing the" changed to "appearing in the" - -p. 362 "Common-place.”" changed to "Common-place." - -p. 378 "c mpanion" changed to "companion" - -p. 388 "Harper’s New Monthly’s" changed to "Harper’s New Monthly" - -p. 393 "Fedellah" changed to "Fedallah" - -p. 393 "Griswald" changed to "Griswold" - -p. 394 "Henry, Joseph, 71." moved to alphabetical order - -p. 395 "Mac Maehan" changed to "MacMeehan" - -p. 395 "Winthrope" changed to "Winthrop" - -p. 397 "Otaheiti" changed to "Otaheite" - -p. 397 "_Pequod The_" changed to "_Pequod, The_" - -p. 397 "56. 61," changed to "56, 61," - -p. 398 "Litchfield" changed to "Lichfield" - -p. 399 "Tanae" changed to "Tenae" - -p. 399 "Elkahah" changed to "Elkanah" - - -Non-standard and inconsistent punctuation, spelling and hyphenation, -have otherwise been left as printed. - -On p. 65, "GOD" was printed in black-letter type. - -On p. 123 the closing quotation mark in "address her.”" has no -corresponding opening quote. - -The index entry for "Fleury, Franchise Raymonde Eulogie Marie de -Douleurs Lamé" refers to an entry for "Mrs. Thomas Melville--Melville’s -aunt", which appears not to exist. - - - - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Herman Melville, by Raymond M. 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Weaver - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most -other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of -the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have -to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. - - - -Title: Herman Melville - Mariner and Mystic - -Author: Raymond M. Weaver - -Release Date: November 15, 2015 [EBook #50461] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HERMAN MELVILLE *** - - - - -Produced by Henry Flower and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was -produced from images generously made available by The -Internet Archive/American Libraries.) - - - - - - -</pre> - - - -<div class="p4 transnote"> -In the html version of this eBook, images with blue borders are linked to larger versions of the illustrations. -</div> - -<div class="coverhtml"> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="600" height="800" alt="cover" /> -</div> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_i" id="Page_i">[i]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<h1> -HERMAN MELVILLE<br /> - -Mariner and Mystic</h1> - -<p class="overline center">RAYMOND M. WEAVER -</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 446px;"> -<a href="images/zill_a002bah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_a002ba.jpg" width="446" height="600" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -<i>Engraved on wood, by L. F. Grant.</i><br /> -<i>From a photograph.</i> -</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<img src="images/zill_a002bb.png" width="400" height="51" alt="signature" class="noborder" /> -</div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[iii]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="break p4 center x-large"> -HERMAN MELVILLE<br /> -MARINER AND MYSTIC</p> -<p class="center p2"> -BY<br /> -RAYMOND M. WEAVER</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 250px;"> -<img src="images/zill_a003a.png" width="250" height="156" alt="leviathan attacking a ship" class="noborder" /> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<img src="images/zill_a003b.png" width="400" height="115" alt="New York George H. Doran Company" class="noborder" /> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[iv]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="break p4 center"> -COPYRIGHT, 1921,<br /> -BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY</p> - -<div class="break p4"> -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 50px;"> -<img src="images/zill_a004.png" width="50" height="42" alt="colophon" class="noborder" /> -</div> -<p class="p2 center"> -PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA -</p> -</div> - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[v]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="break p4 center">TO <br /> - -<span class="large">PROFESSOR FRANKLIN T. BAKER</span><br /> - -<span class="sig">“—<i>il maestro cortese</i>”</span> -</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[vii]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="break p4">To Professor Carl Van Doren, to Miss Cora Paget, -and to Mrs. Eleanor Melville Metcalf, I am, in the writing -of this book, very especially indebted. By Professor -Van Doren’s enthusiasm and scholarship I was instigated -to a study of Melville. It has been my privilege to enjoy -Miss Paget’s very valuable criticism and assistance -throughout the preparation of this volume. Mrs. Metcalf -gave me access to all the surviving records of her -grandfather: Melville manuscripts, letters, journals, annotated -books, photographs, and a variety of other material. -But she did far more. My indebtedness to Mrs. -Metcalf’s vivid interest, her shrewd insight, her keen -sympathy can be stated only in superlatives. To Mrs. -and Mr. Metcalf I owe one of the richest and most -pleasant associations of my life. </p> - -<p> -<span class="sig smcap">Raymond M. Weaver.</span><br /> -<br /> -<i>October 1, 1921.</i> -</p> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[viii]</a></span></p> - - - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[ix]</a></span></p> -<p>Most of the letters of Melville to Hawthorne -included in this volume are quoted from <i>Nathaniel -Hawthorne and His Wife</i>, by Julian Hawthorne. -These letters, and other citations from Mr. Hawthorne’s -memoir, are included through the courtesy -of Messrs. Houghton Mifflin Company. </p> - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<h2 class="nobreak">CONTENTS</h2> - -</div> - - -<div class="center"> -<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td><span class="small">CHAPTER</span></td><td></td><td class="right"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">I</td><td><span class="smcap">Devil’s Advocate</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_15">15</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">II</td><td><span class="smcap">Ghosts</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_33">33</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">III</td><td><span class="smcap">Parents and Early Years</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_53">53</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">IV</td><td><span class="smcap">A Substitute for Pistol and Ball</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_77">77</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">V</td><td><span class="smcap">Discoveries on Two Continents</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_98">98</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">VI</td><td><span class="smcap">Pedagogy, Pugilism and Letters</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_113">113</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">VII</td><td><span class="smcap">Blubber and Mysticism</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_128">128</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">VIII</td><td><span class="smcap">Leviathan</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_153">153</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">IX</td><td><span class="smcap">The Pacific</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_170">170</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">X</td><td><span class="smcap">Man-Eating Epicures—The Marquesas</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_194">194</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XI</td><td><span class="smcap">Mutiny and Missionaries—Tahiti</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_215">215</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XII</td><td><span class="smcap">On Board a Man-of-War</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_233">233</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XIII</td><td><span class="smcap">Into the Racing Tide</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_250">250</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XIV</td><td><span class="smcap">Across the Atlantic Again</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_283">283</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XV</td><td><span class="smcap">A Neighbour of Hawthorne’s</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_305">305</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XVI</td><td><span class="smcap">The Great Refusal</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_334">334</a></td></tr> -<tr><td class="right">XVII</td><td><span class="smcap">The Long Quietus</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_349">349</a></td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Bibliography</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_385">385</a></td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td><span class="smcap">Index of Names</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_391">391</a></td></tr> -</table></div> - - - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[xi]</a></span></p> - - - - -<h2 class="break">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> - - -<div class="center"> -<table class="toc" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span></td><td><i><a href="#Page_i">Frontispiece</a></i></td></tr> -<tr><td colspan="2" class="right"><span class="small">PAGE</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Melville’s Grandfathers</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_40">40</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">General Peter Gansevoort</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">Major Thomas Melville</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Allan Melville</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_56">56</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Maria Gansevoort Melville</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_60">64</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">In 1820</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">In 1865</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">A Page from One of Melville’s Journals</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_104">104</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Throwing the Harpoon</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sounding</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_136">136</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Sperm Whaling. The Capture</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_162">160</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">One of Six Whaling Prints</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_162">160</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">“Toby.” Richard Tobias Greene</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_164">164</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">In 1846</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap tocindent">In 1865</span></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Evangelising Polynesia</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_185">184</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Richard Tobias Greene. In 1885</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_200">200</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">First Home of the Protestant Missionaries in Tahiti</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Fleet of Tahiti</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_224">224</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Elizabeth Shaw Melville</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_272">272</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Arrowhead</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_313">312</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">The Fireplace. Arrowhead</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_313">312</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Herman Melville. In 1868</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_352">352</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Melville As Artist</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_369">368</a></td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="smcap">Melville’s Children</span></td><td class="right"><a href="#Page_376">376</a></td></tr> -</table></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[13]</a></span></p> - - - - -<p class="break p4 center"> -<span class="x-large">HERMAN MELVILLE</span><br /> -<span class="large">Mariner and Mystic</span> -</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter p4"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[15]</a></span></p> - -<p class="center x-large">HERMAN MELVILLE </p> - - - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER I<br /> - -<span class="smaller">DEVIL’S ADVOCATE</span></h2> - -</div> - -<p>“If ever, my dear Hawthorne,” wrote Melville in the summer -of 1851, “we shall sit down in Paradise in some little shady -corner by ourselves; and if we shall by any means be able to -smuggle a basket of champagne there (I won’t believe in a -Temperance Heaven); and if we shall then cross our celestial -legs in the celestial grass that is forever tropical, and strike -our glasses and our heads together till both ring musically in -concert: then, O my dear fellow mortal, how shall we pleasantly -discourse of all the things manifold which now so much -distress us.” This serene and laughing desolation—a mood -which in Melville alternated with a deepening and less tranquil -despair—is a spectacle to inspire with sardonic optimism those -who gloat over the vanity of human wishes. For though at -that time Melville was only thirty-two years old, he had -crowded into that brief space of life a scope of experience to -rival Ulysses’, and a literary achievement of a magnitude and -variety to merit all but the highest fame. Still did he luxuriate -in tribulation. Well-born, and nurtured in good manners and -a cosmopolitan tradition, he was, like George Borrow, and Sir -Richard Burton, a gentleman adventurer in the barbarous outposts -of human experience. Nor was his a kid-gloved and expensively -staged dip into studio savagery. “For my part, I -abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials, and tribulations -of every kind whatsoever,” he declared. And as proof -of this abomination he went forth penniless as a common sailor -to view the watery world. He spent his youth and early man<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[16]</a></span>hood -in the forecastles of a merchantman, several whalers, -and a man-of-war. He diversified whale-hunting by a sojourn -of four months among practising cannibals, and a mutiny off -Tahiti. He returned home to New England to marry the -daughter of Chief Justice Shaw of Massachusetts, and to win -wide distinction as a novelist on both sides of the Atlantic. -Though these crowded years had brought with them bitter -hardship and keen suffering, he had sown in tears that he might -reap in triumph. But when he wrote to Hawthorne he felt that -triumph had not been achieved. Yet he needed but one conclusive -gesture to provoke the world to cry this as a lie in his -throat: one last sure sign to convince all posterity that he -was, indeed, one whom the gods loved. But the gods fatally -withheld their sign for forty years. Melville did not die until -1891.</p> - -<p>None of Melville’s critics seem ever to have been able to -forgive him his length of days. “Some men die too soon,” -said Nietzsche, “others too late; there is an art in dying at -the right time.” Melville’s longevity has done deep harm to -his reputation as an artist in dying, and has obscured the phenomenal -brilliancy of his early literary accomplishment. The -last forty years of his history are a record of a stoical—and -sometimes frenzied—distaste for life, a perverse and sedulous -contempt for recognition, an interest in solitude, in etchings -and in metaphysics. In his writings after 1851 he employed -a world of pains to scorn the world: a compliment returned -in kind. During the closing years of his life he violated the -self-esteem of the world still more by rating it as too inconsequential -for condemnation. He earned his living between -1866 and 1886 as inspector of Customs in New York city. -His deepest interest came to be in metaphysics: which is but -misery dissolved in thought. It may be, to the all-seeing eye -of truth, that Melville’s closing years were the most glorious -of his life. But to the mere critic of literature, his strange -career is like a star that drops a line of streaming fire down -the vault of the sky—and then the dark and blasted shape that -sinks into the earth.</p> - -<p>There are few more interesting problems in biography than<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[17]</a></span> -this offered by Melville’s paradoxical career: its brilliant early -achievement, its long and dark eclipse. Yet in its popular -statement, this problem is perverted from the facts by an insufficient -knowledge of Melville’s life and works. The current -opinion was thus expressed by an uncircumspect critic at the -time of Melville’s centenary in 1919: “Owing to some odd psychological -experience, that has never been definitely explained, -his style of writing, his view of life underwent a complete -change. From being a writer of stirring, vivid fiction, he became -a dreamer, wrapping himself up in a vague kind of mysticism, -that rendered his last few books such as <i>Pierre: or The -Ambiguities</i> and <i>The Confidence Man: His Masquerade</i> quite -incomprehensible, and certainly most uninteresting for the -average reader.”</p> - -<p>Unhampered by diffidence—because innocent of the essential -facts—critics of Melville have been fluent in hypothesis to -account for this “complete change.” A German critic patriotically -lays the blame on Kant. English-speaking critics, -with insular pride, have found a sufficiency of disruptive agencies -nearer at home. Some impute Melville’s decline to Sir -Thomas Browne; others to Melville’s intimacy with Hawthorne; -others to the dispraise heaped upon <i>Pierre</i>. Though -there is a semblance of truth in each, such attempts at explanation -are, of course, too shallow and neat to merit reprobation. -But there is another group of critics, too considerable in size -and substance to be so cavalierly dismissed. This company accounts -for Melville’s swift obscuration in a summary and comprehensive -manner, by intimating that Melville went insane.</p> - -<p>Such an intimation is doubtless highly efficacious to mediocrity -in bolstering its own self-esteem. But otherwise it is without -precise intellectual content. For insanity is not a definite -entity like leprosy, measles, and the bubonic plague, but even -in its most precise use, denotes a conglomerate group of phenomena -which have but little in common. Science, it is true, -speaking through Nordau and Lombroso, has attempted to -show an intimate correlation between genius and degeneracy; -and if the creative imagination of some of the disciples of -Freud is to be trusted, the choir invisible is little more than a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[18]</a></span> -glorified bedlam. Plato would have accepted this verdict with -approval. “From insanity,” said Plato, “Greece has derived -its greatest benefits.” But the dull and decent Philistine, untouched -by Platonic heresies, justifies his sterility in a boast of -sanity. The America in which Melville was born and died was -exuberantly and unquestionably “sane.” Its “sanity” drove -Irving abroad and made a recluse of Hawthorne. Cooper -alone throve upon it. And of Melville, more ponderous in -gifts and more volcanic in energy than any other American -writer, it made an Ishmael upon the face of the earth. With -its outstanding symptoms of materialism and conformity it -drove Emerson to pray for an epidemic of madness: “O Celestial -Bacchus! drive them mad.—This multitude of vagabonds, -hungry for eloquence, hungry for poetry, starving for symbols, -perishing for want of electricity to vitalise this too much -pasture, and in the long delay indemnifying themselves with -the false wine of alcohol, of politics, of money.”</p> - -<p>From this it would appear that a taste for insanity has been -widespread among poets, prophets and saints: men venerated -more by posterity than by their neighbours. It is well for Socrates -that Xantippe did not write his memoirs: but there was -sufficient libel in hemlock. In ancient and mediæval times, of -course, madness, when not abhorred as a demoniac possession, -was revered as a holy and mysterious visitation. To-day, -witch-burning and canonisation have given place to more refined -devices. The herd must always be intolerant of all who -violate its sacred and painfully reared traditions. With an -easy conscience it has always exterminated in the flesh those -who sin in the flesh. In times less timid than the present it -dealt with sins of the spirit with similar crude vindictiveness. -We boast it as a sign of our progress that we have outgrown -the days of jubilant public crucifixions and bumpers of hemlock: -and there is ironic justice in the boast. Openly to harbour -convictions repugnant to the herd is still the unforgivable -sin against that most holy of ghosts—fashionable opinion; and -carelessly to let live may be more cruel than officiously to -cause to die.</p> - -<p>Melville sinned blackly against the orthodoxy of his time.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[19]</a></span> -In his earlier works, he confined his sins to an attack upon -Missionaries and the starchings of civilisation: sins that won -him a <i>succes de scandal</i>. The London Missionary Society -charged into the resulting festivities with its flag at half mast. -Cased in the armour of the Lord, it with flagrant injustice attacked -his morals, because it smarted under his ideas. But -when Melville began flooding the very foundations of life with -torrents of corrosive pessimism, the world at large found itself -more vulnerable in its encasement. It could not, without -absurdity obvious even to itself, accuse Melville of any of the -cruder crimes against Jehovah or the Public. Judged by the -bungling provisions of the thirty-nine articles and the penal -code, he was not a bad man: more subtle was his iniquity. As -by a divine visitation, the Harper fire of 1853 effectually reduced -<i>Pierre</i>—his most frankly poisonous book—to a safely -limited edition. And the public, taking the hint, ceased buying -his books. In reply, Melville earned his bread as Inspector of -Customs. The public, defeated in its righteous attempts at -starvation, hit upon a more exquisite revenge. It gathered in -elegiacal synods and whispered mysteriously: “He went insane.”</p> - -<p>To view Melville’s life as a venturesome romantic idyll -frozen in mid-career by the <i>deus ex machina</i> of some steadily -descending Gorgon is possible only by a wanton misreading of -patent facts. Throughout Melville’s long life his warring and -untamed desires were in violent conflict with his physical and -spiritual environment. His whole history is the record of an -attempt to escape from an inexorable and intolerable world of -reality: a quenchless and essentially tragic Odyssey away from -home, out in search of “the unpeopled world behind the sun.” -In the blood and bone of his youth he sailed away in brave -quest of such a harbour, to face inevitable defeat. For this -rebuff he sought both solace and revenge in literature. But by -literature he also sought his livelihood. In the first burst of -literary success he married. Held closer to reality by financial -worry and the hostages of wife and children, the conflict within -him was heightened. By a vicious circle, with brooding disappointment -came ill health. “Ah, muskets the gods have made<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[20]</a></span> -to carry infinite combustion,” he wrote in <i>Pierre</i>, “and yet -made them of clay.” The royalties from his books proved inadequate -for the support of his family, so for twenty years he -earned a frugal living in the customs houses in New York. -During his leisure hours he continued to write, but never for -publication. Two volumes of poetry he privately printed. -His last novel, surviving in manuscript, he finished a few -months before his death. Though it is for the second half -that his critics have felt bound to regret, it seems that in serenity -and mental equipoise, the last state of this man was better -than the first.</p> - -<p>In his early manhood he wrote in <i>Mardi</i>: “Though essaying -but a sportive sail, I was driven from my course by a blast resistless; -and ill-provided, young, and bowed by the brunt of -things before my prime, still fly before the gale.... If after -all these fearful fainting trances, the verdict be, the golden -haven was not gained;—yet in bold quest thereof, better to -sink in boundless deeps than float on vulgar shoals; and give -me, ye gods, an utter wreck, if wreck I do.” To the world at -large, it has been generally believed that the Gods ironically -fulfilled his worst hopes.</p> - -<p>One William Cranston Lawton, in an <i>Introduction to the -Study of American Literature</i>—a handy relic of the parrot -judgment passed upon Melville during the closing years of his -life—so enlightens young America: “He holds his own beside -Cooper and Marryat, and boy readers, at least, will need no -introduction to him. Nor will their enjoyment ever be alloyed -by a Puritan moral or a mystic double meaning.” And Barrett -Wendell, in <i>A Literary History of America</i>—a volume that -modestly limits American literature of much value not only to -New England, but even tucks it neatly into the confines of -Harvard College—notes with jaunty patronage: “Herman -Melville with his books about the South Seas, which Robert -Louis Stevenson is said to have declared the best ever written, -and his novels of maritime adventure, began a career of literary -promise, which never came to fruition.”</p> - -<p>These typical pronouncements, unperverted by the remotest -touch of independent judgment, transcend Melville’s worst<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[21]</a></span> -fears. “Think of it!” he once wrote to Hawthorne. “To go -down to posterity is bad enough, any way; but to go down as a -‘man who lived among the cannibals!’ When I think of posterity -in reference to myself, I mean only the babes who will -probably be born in the moment immediately ensuing upon my -giving up the ghost. I shall go down to them, in all likelihood. -<i>Typee</i> will be given to them, perhaps, with their gingerbread.” -In that mythical anomaly known as the “popular mind,” Melville -has, indeed, survived as an obscure adventurer in strange -seas and among amiable barbarians. <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> have -lived on as minor classics. Though there have been staccato -and sporadic attacks upon the ludicrous inadequacy of the -popular judgment upon Melville, not until recently, and then -chiefly in England has there been any popular and concerted -attempt to take Melville’s truer and more heroic dimensions. -An editorial in the London <i>Nation</i> for January 22, 1921, thus -bespeaks the changing temper of the times:</p> - -<p>“It is clear that the wind of the spirit, when it once begins -to blow through the English literary mind, possesses a surprising -power of penetration. A few weeks ago it was pleased to -aim a simultaneous blast in the direction of a book known to -some generations of men as <i>Moby-Dick</i>. A member of the -staff of <i>The Nation</i> was thereupon moved in the ancient Hebrew -fashion to buy and to read it. He then expressed himself -on the subject, incoherently indeed, but with signs of -emotion as intense and as pleasingly uncouth as Man Friday -betrayed at the sight of his long-lost father. While struggling -with his article, and wondering what the deuce it could mean, -I received a letter from a famous literary man, marked on -the outside ‘Urgent,’ and on the inner scroll of the manuscript -itself ‘A Rhapsody.’ It was about <i>Moby-Dick</i>. Having observed -a third article on the same subject, of an equally febrile -kind, I began to read <i>Moby-Dick</i> myself. Having done so I -hereby declare, being of sane intellect, that since letters began -there never was such a book, and that the mind of man is not -constructed so as to produce such another; that I put its author -with Rabelais, Swift, Shakespeare, and other minor and disputable -worthies; and that I advise any adventurer of the soul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[22]</a></span> -to go at once to the morose and prolonged retreat necessary -for its deglutition.”</p> - -<p>Having earlier been hailed in France as an “American Rabelais;” -prized in England by the author of <i>The City of Dreadful -Night</i>; greeted by Stevenson with slangy enthusiasm as a -“howling cheese;” rated by Mr. Masefield as unique among -writers of the sea; the professed inspirer of Captain Hook of -Sir James Barrie’s <i>Peter Pan</i>, Melville is beginning to appear -as being vastly more than merely a “man who lived among the -cannibals” and who returned home to write lively sea stories -for boys.</p> - -<p>The wholesale neglect of Melville at the hands of his -countrymen—though explained in some part as a consummation of -Melville’s best efforts—has not been merely unintelligent, but -thoroughly discreditable. For Melville, from any point of -view, is one of the most distinguished of our writers, and there -is something ludicrous in being before all the world—as, assuredly, -we sometimes are—in recognising our own merit -where it is contestable, and in neglecting it where it is not.</p> - -<p>It has been our tradition to cherish our literature for its -embodiment of Queen Victoria’s fireside qualities. The repudiation -of this tradition—as a part of our repudiation of -all tradition—has made fashionable a wholesale contempt for -our native product. “I can’t read Longfellow” is frequently -remarked; “he’s so subtle!” Our critical estimates have laboured -under the incubus of New England provincialism: a -provincialism preserved in miniature in the first pages of -Lowell’s essay on Thoreau. At present we need to have the -eminence of the section recalled to us; but during the period of -Melville’s productivity, it was at its apex, and in its bosom Melville -wrote. This man, whose closest literary affinities were -Rabelais, Zola, Sir Thomas Browne, Rousseau, Meredith, and -Dr. John Donne,—a combination to make the uninitiated blink -with incredulity—was indebted to Nathaniel Hawthorne for -the best makeshift for companionship he was ever to know: -one of the most subtly ironical associations the imps of comedy -ever brought about. Nor was the comedy lessened by Mrs. -Hawthorne’s presence upon the scene. Shrewd was her in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[23]</a></span>stinctive -resentment of her husband’s friend. Viewed by his -neighbours “as little better than a cannibal and a ‘beach -comber’”—such was the report of the late Titus Munson Coan -in a letter to his mother written immediately after a pilgrimage -to Melville in the Berkshires—Melville turned to Hawthorne -for understanding. Frank Preston Stearns, in his <i>Life -and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne</i> (1906) says that for -Hawthorne “the summer of 1851 in Lenox was by no means -brilliant.... Hawthorne’s chief entertainment seems to have -been the congratulatory letters he received from distinguished -people.... For older company he had Herman Melville and -G. P. R. James, whose society he may have found as interesting -as that of more distinguished writers.” But Mrs. Hawthorne -had studied Melville with a closer scrutiny and was not -so easily convinced of Melville’s insignificance. Melville had -visited the Hawthornes in the tiny reception room of the Red -House, where Mrs. Hawthorne “sewed at her stand and read -to the children about Christ;” in the drawing room, where -she disposed “the embroidered furniture,” and where, in the -farther corner, stood “Apollo with his head tied on;” in Hawthorne’s -study, which to Mrs. Hawthorne’s wifely adoration -was consecrated by “his presence in the morning.” Mrs. Hawthorne -looked from the “wonderful, wonderful eyes” of her -husband—each eye “like a violet with a soul in it,”—to Melville’s -eyes, and confessed to her mother her grave and jealous -suspicion of Melville: “I am not quite sure that <i>I do not think -him</i> a very great man.... A man with a true, warm heart, -and a soul and an intellect,—with life to his finger-tips; earnest, -sincere and reverent; very tender and <i>modest</i>.... He -has very keen perceptive power; but what astonishes me is, -that his eyes are not large and deep. He seems to see everything -very accurately; and how he can do so with his small -eyes, I cannot tell. They are not keen eyes, either, but quite -undistinguished in any way. His nose is straight and rather -handsome, his mouth expressive of sensibility and emotion. -He is tall, and erect, with an air free, brave and manly. When -conversing, he is full of gesture and force, and loses himself -in his subject. There is no grace nor polish. Once in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[24]</a></span> -while, his animation gives place to a singularly quiet expression, -out of these eyes to which I have objected; an indrawn, -dim look, but which at the same time makes you feel -that he is at that moment taking deepest note of what is before -him. It is a strange, lazy glance, but with a power in it quite -unique. It does not seem to penetrate through you, but to take -you into itself. I saw him look at Una so, yesterday, several -times.”</p> - -<p>Mrs. Hawthorne must ever enjoy a lofty eminence as one of -Melville’s most penetrating critics. Her husband dwelt apart, -and less because he found the atmosphere of New England -wholly uncongenial than because he shared his wife’s conviction -that he was like a star. And shrewdly his wife resented -the presence of a second luminary—treacherously veiled and -of heaven knows what magnitude!—in her serene New England -sky. Time may yet harp her worst fears aright.</p> - -<p>For despite his comparative obscurity, Melville is—as cannot -be too frequently iterated—one of the chief and most unusual -figures in our native literature. And his claim to such -high distinction must rest upon three prime counts.</p> - -<p>First—because most obvious—Melville was the literary discoverer -of the South Seas. And though his ample and rapidly -multiplying progeny includes such names as Robert Louis -Stevenson, Charles Warren Stoddard, John La Farge, Jack -London, Louis Becke, A. Safroni-Middleton, Somerset Maugham, -and Frederick O’Brien, he is still unsurpassed in the -manner he originated. On this point, all competent critics -are agreed.</p> - -<p>Melville’s second achievement is most adequately stated by -the well-known English sea-writer, W. Clark Russell, in <i>A -Claim of American Literature</i> (reprinted from <i>The North -American Review</i> in <i>The Critic</i> for March 26, 1892). “When -Richard Henry Dana, and Herman Melville wrote,” says Russell, -“the commercial sailor of Great Britain and the United -States was without representation in literature.... Dana -and Melville were Americans. They were the first to lift the -hatch and show the world what passes in a ship’s forecastle; -how men live down in that gloomy cave, how and what they<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[25]</a></span> -eat, and where they sleep; what pleasures they take, what their -sorrows and wrongs are; how they are used when they quit -their black sea-parlours in response to the boatswain’s silver -summons to work on deck by day and by night. These secrets -of the deep Dana and Melville disclosed.... Dana and Melville -created a new world, not by the discovery, but by the interpretation -of it. They gave us a full view of the life led by -tens of thousands of men whose very existence, till these -wizards arose, had been as vague to the general land intelligence -as the shadows of clouds moving under the brightness -of the stars.” And to Melville and Dana, so Russell contends, -we owe “the first, the best and most enduring revelation of -these secrets.” On this score, Conrad, Kipling, and Masefield -must own Melville as master.</p> - -<p>Melville’s third and supreme claim to distinction rests upon -a single volume, which, after the order of Melchizedek, is -without issue and without descent: “a work which is not only -unique in its kind, and a great achievement” to quote a recent -judgment from England, “but is the expression of an imagination -that rises to the highest, and so is amongst the world’s -great works of art.” This book is, of course, <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -Melville’s undoubted masterpiece. “In that wild, beautiful romance”—the -words are Mr. Masefield’s—“Melville seems to -have spoken the very secret of the sea, and to have drawn into -his tale all the magic, all the sadness, all the wild joy of many -waters. It stands quite alone; quite unlike any other book -known to me. It strikes a note which no other sea writer has -ever struck.”</p> - -<p>The organising theme of this unparalleled volume is the -hunt by the mad Captain Ahab after the great white whale -which had dismembered him of his leg; of Captain Ahab’s unwearied -pursuit by rumour of its whereabouts; of the final -destruction of himself and his ship by its savage onslaught. -On the white hump of the ancient and vindictive monster Captain -Ahab piles the sum of all the rage and hate of mankind -from the days of Eden down.</p> - -<p>Melville expresses an ironical fear lest his book be scouted -“as a monstrous fable, or still worse and more detestable, a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[26]</a></span> -hideous and intolerable allegory.” Yet fabulous allegory it is: -an allegory of the demonism at the cankered heart of nature, -teaching that “though in many of its visible aspects the world -seems formed in love, the invisible spheres were formed in -fright.” Thou shalt know the truth, and the truth shall make -you mad. To the eye of truth, so Melville would convince us, -“the palsied universe lies before us as a leper;” “all deified -Nature absolutely paints like a harlot, whose allurements cover -nothing but the charnal house within.” To embody this devastating -insight, Melville chooses as a symbol, an albino whale. -“Wonder ye then at the fiery hunt?”</p> - -<p>An artist who goes out to find sermons in stones does so at -the peril of converting his stone pile into his mausoleum. His -danger is excessive, if, having his sermons all ready, he makes -it his task to find the stones to fit them. Allegory justifies itself -only when the fiction is the fact and the moral the induction; -only when its representation is as imaginatively real as -its meaning; only when the stones are interesting boulders in a -rich and diversified landscape. So broadly and vividly is -<i>Moby-Dick</i> based on solid foundation that even the most literal-minded, -innocent of Melville’s dark intent, have found -this book of the soul’s daring and the soul’s dread a very -worthy volume. One spokesman for this congregation, while -admitting that “a certain absorption of interest lies in the nightmare -intensity and melodramatic climax of the tale,” finds his -interest captured and held far more by “the exposition of fact -with which the story is loaded to the very gunwale. No living -thing on earth or in the waters under the earth is so interesting -as the whale. How it is pursued, from the Arctic to the Antarctic; -how it is harpooned, to the peril of boat and crew; how, -when brought to the side, ‘cutting in’ is accomplished; how the -whale’s anatomy is laid bare; how his fat is redeemed—to be -told this in the form of a narrative, with all manner of dramatic -but perfectly plausible incidents interspersed, is enough -to make the book completely engrossing without the white -whale and Captain Ahab’s fatal monomania.”</p> - -<p>So diverse are the samples out of which <i>Moby-Dick</i> is compounded, -yet so masterful is each of its samples, that there is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[27]</a></span> -still far from universal agreement as to the ground colour of -this rich and towering fabric. Yet by this very disagreement -is its miraculous artistry affirmed.</p> - -<p>In <i>Moby-Dick</i>, all the powers and tastes of Melville’s complex -genius are blended. <i>Moby-Dick</i> is at once indisputably -the greatest whaling novel, and “a hideous and intolerable allegory.” -As Mr. Frank Jewett Mather, Jr. has said, “Out -of the mere episodes and minor instances of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, a -literary reputation might be made. The retired Nantucket -captains Bildad and Peleg might have stepped out of Smollett. -Father Mapple’s sermon on the book of Jonah is in itself a -masterpiece, and I know few sea tales that can hold their own -with the blood feud of Mate Rodney and sailor Steelkilt.” -Captain Hook of <i>Peter Pan</i> is but Captain Boomer of <i>Moby-Dick</i> -with another name: and this an identity founded not on -surmise, but on Sir James Barrie’s professed indebtedness to -Melville. There are, in <i>Moby-Dick</i>, long digressions, natural, -historical and philosophical, on the person, habits, manners -and ideas of whales; there are long dialogues and soliloquies -such as were never spoken by mortal man in his waking senses, -conversations that for sweetness, strength and courage remind -one of passages from Dekker, Webster, Massinger, Fletcher -and the other old dramatists loved both by Melville and by -Charles Lamb; in the discursive tradition of Fielding, Sir -Thomas Browne and the anatomist of melancholy, Melville indulges -freely in independent moralisings, half essay, half rhapsody; -withal, scenes like Ishmael’s experience at the “Spouter-Inn” -with a practising cannibal for bed-fellow, are, for -finished humour, among the most competent in the language. -When Melville sat down to write, always at his knee stood -that chosen emissary of Satan, the comic spirit: a demoniac -familiar never long absent from his pages.</p> - -<p>There are those, of course, who would hold against Dante -his moralising, and against Rabelais his broad humour. In -like manner, peculiarity of temperament has necessarily coloured -critical judgment of <i>Moby-Dick</i>. But though critics -may mouth it as they like about digressions, improbability, -moralising reflections, swollen talk, or the fetish of art now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[28]</a></span> -venerated with such articulate inveteracy, all wonderfully -agree upon the elementary force of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, its vitality, -its thrilling power. That it achieves the effect of illusion, -and to a degree peculiar to the highest feats of the creative -imagination, is incontestable. No writer has more. On this -point it is simply impossible to praise Melville too highly. -What defects <i>Moby-Dick</i> has are formal rather than substantial. -As Thackeray once impatiently said of Macaulay: “What -critic can’t point them out?” It was the contention of James -Thomson that an overweening concern for formal impeccability -is a fatal sign of weakened vitality. Intensity of imagination—and -Melville exhibited it prodigally in <i>Moby-Dick</i>—is -an infinitely rarer and more precious gift than technical sophistication. -Shakespeare has survived, despite his “monstrous -irregularities.” But since Shakespeare, as Francis Thompson -has observed, there has been a gradual decline from imperfection. -Milton, at his most typical, was far too perfect; Pope -was ruined by his quest for the quality. No thoughtful person -can contemplate without alarm the idolatry bestowed upon -this quality by the contemporary mind: an idolatry that threatens -to reduce all art to the extinction of unendurable excellence. -How insipid would be the mere adventures of a Don -Quixote recounted by a Stevenson.</p> - -<p>The astonishing variety of contradictory qualities synthesised -in <i>Moby-Dick</i> exists nowhere else in literature, perhaps, -in such paradoxical harmony. These qualities, in differences -of combination and emphasis, are discoverable, however, in all -of Melville’s writings. And he published, besides anonymous -contributions to periodicals, ten novels and five volumes of -poetry (including the two volumes privately printed at the -very close of his life). There survives, too, a bulk of manuscript -material: a novel, short stories, and a body of verse. -And branded on everything that Melville wrote is there the -mark of the extraordinary personality that created <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</p> - -<p>Though some of Melville’s writing is distinctly disquieting -in devastating insight, and much of it is very uneven in inspiration, -none of it is undistinguished. Yet only four of his -books have ever been reprinted. The rest of his work, long<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[29]</a></span> -since out of print, is excessively rare, some of it being practically -unavailable. The scarcity of a book, however, is not -invariably a sign of its insignificance. It is one of the least -accessible of Melville’s books that Mr. Masefield singles out -for especial distinction. “The book I love best of his,” says -Mr. Masefield, “is one very difficult to come by. I think it is -his first romance, and I believe it has never been reprinted -here. It is the romance of his own boyhood. I mean <i>Redburn</i>. -Any number of good pens will praise the known books, -<i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> and <i>Moby-Dick</i> and <i>White-Jacket</i>, and will -tell their qualities of beauty and romance. Perhaps <i>Redburn</i> -will have fewer praises, so here goes for <i>Redburn</i>; a boy’s book -about running away to sea.” Even more difficult of access is -<i>Pierre</i>—a book at the antipodes from <i>Redburn</i>. Far from being -a boy’s book, <i>Pierre</i> was prophetic of the pessimism of -Hardy and the subtlety of Meredith. From <i>Redburn</i> to -<i>Pierre</i>; from <i>Typee</i>, a spirited travel-book on Polynesia, to -<i>Clarel</i>, an intricate philosophical poem in two volumes: these -mark the antithetical extremes of the art that mated poetry -and blubber, whaling and metaphysics. The very complexity -and versatility of Melville’s achievement has been an obstacle -in the way of his just appreciation. Had Mandeville turned -from his <i>Travels</i>, to write <i>The City of Dreadful Night</i>, the -incompatibility would have been no less extraordinary or bewildering.</p> - -<p>Indeed, Melville’s complete works, in their final analysis, are -a long effort towards the creation of one of the most complex, -and massive, and original characters in literature: the character -known in life as Herman Melville. “I am like one of those -seeds taken out of the Egyptian Pyramids,” he wrote to Hawthorne -while he was in the middle of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, “which, -after being three thousand years a seed and nothing but a seed, -being planted in English soil, it developed itself, grew to greenness, -and then fell to mould. So I. Until I was twenty-five, I -had no development at all. From my twenty-fifth year I date -my life. But I feel that I am now come to the inmost leaf of -the bulb, and that shortly the flower must fall to the mould. -It seems to me now that Solomon was the truest man who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[30]</a></span> -ever spoke, and yet that he <i>managed</i> the truth with a view to -popular conservatism.”</p> - -<p>Blighted by disillusionment, and paralysed by doubt, Melville -came to treat as an irrelevancy, the making of books. -“He informed me that he had ‘pretty much made up his mind -to be annihilated,’” wrote Hawthorne in his <i>Note-book</i>, after -Melville visited him in Southport, England, in 1856; “but -still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation. It is strange -how he persists—as he has persisted ever since I knew him, -and probably long before—in wandering to and fro over these -deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sandhills amidst -which we were sitting. He can neither believe nor be comfortable -in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous -not to try to do one or the other.” If, in contempt for the -orthodox interpolations by which pious scribes attempted to -sweeten Solomon’s bitter message, Melville ever <i>managed</i> -truth as he saw it, it was more to violate popular conservatism -than to propitiate it. “We incline to think that God cannot -explain His own secrets,” he editorially wrote Hawthorne in -1851, “and that He would like a little information upon certain -points Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as -He us.” And as Melville grew in disillusionment, he grew in -astonishment. In his relentless pessimism he boasted himself -“in the happy condition of judicious, unencumbered travellers -in Europe; they cross the frontiers into Eternity with nothing -but a carpet bag,—that is to say, the Ego.” It was his ripest -conviction that the exclamation point and the triumphant perpendicular -pronoun were interchangeable signs. But to the -end, he bristled with minor revelations.</p> - -<p>Though he boasted that he crossed the frontier into Eternity -with nothing but a carpet bag, he had, in fact, sent more bulky -consignments on ahead. And at the final crack of doom, this -dead and disappointed mariner may yet rise to an unexpected -rejoicing. For at that time of ultimate reckoning, according -to the eschatology of Mr. Masefield, “then the great white -whale, old Moby-Dick, the king of all the whales, will rise up -from his quiet in the sea, and go bellowing to his mates. And -all the whales in the world—the sperm-whales, the razor-back,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[31]</a></span> -the black-fish, the rorque, the right, the forty-barrel Jonah, the -narwhal, the hump-back, the grampus and the thrasher—will -come to him, ‘fin-out,’ blowing their spray to the heavens. -Then Moby-Dick will call the roll of them, and from all the -parts of the sea, from the north, from the south, from Callao -to Rio, not one whale will be missing. Then Moby-Dick will -trumpet, like a man blowing a horn, and all that company of -whales will ‘sound’ (that is, dive), for it is they that have the -job of raising the wrecks from down below.</p> - -<p>“Then when they come up the sun will just be setting in the -sea, far away to the west, like a ball of red fire. And just as -the curve of it goes below the sea, it will stop sinking and lie -there like a door. And the stars and the earth and the wind -will stop. And there will be nothing but the sea, and this red -arch of the sun, and the whales with the wrecks, and a stream -of light upon the water. Each whale will have raised a wreck -from among the coral, and the sea will be thick with them—row-ships -and sail-ships, and great big seventy-fours, and big -White Star boats, and battleships, all of them green with the -ooze, but all of them manned by singing sailors. And ahead -of them will go Moby-Dick, towing the ship our Lord was in, -with all the sweet apostles aboard of her. And Moby-Dick -will give a great bellow, like a fog-horn blowing, and stretch -‘fin-out’ for the sun away in the west. And all the whales -will bellow out an answer. And all the drowned sailors will -sing their chanties, and beat the bells into a music. And the -whole fleet of them will start towing at full speed towards the -sun, at the edge of the sky and water. I tell you they will make -white water, those ships and fishes.</p> - -<p>“When they have got to where the sun is, the red ball will -swing open like a door, and Moby-Dick, and all the whales, -and all the ships will rush through it into an anchorage in -Kingdom Come. It will be a great calm piece of water, with -land close aboard, where all the ships of the world will lie at -anchor, tier upon tier, with the hands gathered forward, singing. -They’ll have no watches to stand, no ropes to coil, no -mates to knock their heads in. Nothing will be to do except -singing and beating on the bell. And all the poor sailors who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[32]</a></span> -went in patched rags, my son, they’ll be all fine in white and -gold. And ashore, among the palm-trees, there’ll be fine inns -for the seamen.” And there, among a numerous company, will -be Fayaway, and Captain Ahab, and Jack Chase, and Jarl, and -Toby, and Pierre, and Father Mapple, and Jackson, and Doctor -Long Ghost, and Kory-Kory, and Bildad, and Peleg, and -Fedallah, and Tashetego, and Marnoo, and Queequeg. But it -seems hardly likely that Melville will there find Hawthorne -to tempt by a basket of champagne into some little shady corner, -there to cross their legs in the celestial grass that is forever -tropical, and to discourse pleasantly of all the things manifold -which once so much distressed them. In my Father’s -house are many mansions.</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[33]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER II <br /> - -<span class="smaller">GHOSTS</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“We are full of ghosts and spirits; we are as grave-yards full of -buried dead, that start to life before us. And all our dead sires, verily, -are in us; <i>that</i> is their immortality. From sire to son, we go on multiplying -corpses in ourselves; for all of which, are resurrections. Every -thought’s a soul of some past poet, hero, sage. We are fuller than a -city.” —<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Mardi</i>.</p></div> - - -<p>The High Gods, in a playful and prodigal mood, gave to -Melville, to Julia Ward Howe, to Lowell, to Kingsley, to Ruskin, -to Whitman, and to Queen Victoria, the same birth year. -On August 1, 1819, Herman Melville was born at No. 6 Pearl -Street, New York City.</p> - -<p>Melville’s vagabondage as a common sailor on a merchantman, -on whaling vessels, and in the United States Navy, together -with his Bohemian associations with cannibals, mutineers, -and some of the choicest dregs of our Christian civilisation, -must have wrenched a chorus of groans from a large congregation -of shocked ancestral ghosts. For Melville was descended -from a long and prolific line of the best American -stock. Through his mother, Maria Gansevoort, he traced back -to the earliest Dutch emigrants to New York; through his -father, Allan Melville, to pre-revolutionary Scotch-Irish emigrants -to New England. Both of his grandfathers distinguished -themselves in the Revolutionary War. His ancestors, -on both sides, came to this country in the days when some -of the best blood of Europe was being transferred to -America.</p> - -<p>Though Melville was too ironic a genius ever to have been -guilty of the ill-breeding that makes an ostentation of ancestry, -still he looked back upon his descent with self-conscious pride: -a pride drawn by childhood absorption from his parents who, -by resting on the achievements of their forebears, added several -cubits to their stature. Lacking the prophetic vision to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[34]</a></span> -glory in being ancestors, they chose the more comfortable rôle -of parading as descendants. Melville’s father, Allan, was sufficiently -absorbed in his genealogy to compile, in 1818, an elaborately -branching family tree that sent its master root back to -one Sir Richard de Melvill, del Compte de Fife, a worthy of -the thirteenth century. And at the proud conclusion of his -labours he inscribed the Melville motto, <i>Denique Coelum</i>—“Heaven -at last.” Melville’s mother, Maria Gansevoort, -though too absorbed in domesticity to compete with Allan in -drawing up a parallel document, still sat opposite her spouse -with a stiff spine, conscious that she could counter his ancestry, -grandfather for grandfather. It is true, she had no thirteenth -century count to fall back upon; and though her line lost itself -in a cluster of breweries, they were very substantial breweries, -and owned by a race of stalwart and affluent and uncompromising -burghers. Her ancestor, Harmen Harmense Van Gansevoort, -was brewing in Beverwyck as early as 1660, and with -sufficient success to acquire such extended investments in land -that he bequeathed to his heirs a baronial inheritance. During -the centuries following his death his name crossed itself -with that of the Van Rensselaers, the Ten Broeks, the Douws, -the Van Schaicks,—with the proudest names that descended -from the earlier Colonial Dutch families. Melville’s mother, -Maria, is remembered as a cold, proud woman, arrogant in -the sense of her name, her blood, and the affluence of her -forebears.</p> - -<p>She was the only daughter and oldest child in a family of -six, of General Peter Gansevoort and Catharine Van Schaick. -Her father, born in Albany, New York, July 17, 1749, was -among the outstanding patriots of the American Revolution. -He was among the troops which accompanied Schuyler, in -1775, in his advance towards Canada. In December of the -same year he was with Montgomery, as Major, in the unfortunate -assault upon Quebec. In the summer of 1777, when Burgoyne’s -semi-barbarous invading army was slowly advancing -down Lake Champlain and the Hudson, he was Colonel in -command of Fort Stanwix. By his obstinate and gallant defence -of Fort Stanwix in August, 1777, he prevented the junc<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[35]</a></span>ture -of St. Leger with Burgoyne, and so changed the course -of the whole subsequent campaign. Washington keenly and -warmly recognised this, and Congress passed a vote of thanks -to Colonel Gansevoort. Peter Gansevoort did other brilliant -service in the Revolutionary War, and in 1809, when the War -of 1812 was approaching, he was made brigadier general in -the United States army. He was sheriff of Albany County -from 1790 to 1792, and regent of the University of New York -from 1808 until his death in 1812.</p> - -<p>Of his sons, Hon. Peter Gansevoort, who was born in Albany -in 1789, was long one of the most prominent and honoured -citizens of Albany. The elder son, General Herman -Gansevoort, from whom Melville received his name, lived at -Gansevoort, a village in the township of Northumberland, -Saratoga County, New York. In 1832-33, the brothers built -on the site of the birthplace of their father what is now the -Stanwix Hotel. As a boy, Melville spent most of his summers -as guest of the Gansevoorts, and in his novel <i>Pierre</i>, the childhood -recollections of his hero are transparent autobiographical -references to his own early memories. “On the meadows -which sloped away from the shaded rear of the manorial mansion, -far to the winding river, an Indian battle had been fought, -in the earlier days of the colony, and in that battle the great-grandfather -of Pierre, mortally wounded, had sat unhorsed -on his saddle in the grass, with his dying voice still cheering -his men in the fray.... Far beyond these plains, a day’s -walk for Pierre, rose the storied heights, where in the Revolutionary -War his grandfather had for several months defended -a rude but all-important stockaded fort, against the repeated -combined assaults of Indians, Tories and Regulars. -From behind that fort, the gentlemanly but murderous half-breed, -Brandt, had fled, but survived to dine with General -(Gansevoort) in the amiable times that followed that vindictive -war. All the associations of Saddle-Meadows were full -of pride to Pierre. The (Gansevoort) deeds by which their -estate had been so long held, bore the cyphers of three Indian -kings, the aboriginal and only conveyancers of those noble -woods and plains. Thus loftily, in the days of his circum<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[36]</a></span>scribed -youth, did Pierre glance along the background of his -race.... Or how think you it would be with this youthful -Pierre if every day, descending to breakfast, he caught sight -of an old tattered British banner or two, hanging over an -arched window in the hall: and those banners captured by his -grandfather, the general, in fair fight?”</p> - -<p>On February 22, 1832, so it is recorded in Joel Munsell, -<i>The Annals of Albany</i> (Vol. IX, Albany, 1859) “the military -celebrated the centennial anniversary of the birthday of Washington. -Col. Peter Gansevoort, on this occasion, presented -to the artillery a large <i>brass Drum</i>, a trophy of the revolution, -taken from the British on the 22nd August, 1777, at -Fort Stanwix, by his father, General Peter Gansevoort.” The -sound of this drum was tapping in Melville’s memory, when -he goes on to ask: “Or how think you it would be if every -time he heard the band of the military company of the village, -he should distinctly recognise the peculiar tap of a British -kettle-drum also captured by his grandfather in fair fight, and -afterwards suitably inscribed on the brass and bestowed upon -the Saddle-Meadows Artillery Corps? Or how think you it -would be, if sometimes of a mild meditative Fourth of July -morning in the country, he carried out with him into the garden -by way of ceremonial cane, a long, majestic, silver-tipped -staff, a Major-General’s baton, once wielded on the plume-nodding -and musket-flashing review by the same grandfather -several times here-in-before mentioned?”</p> - -<p>Not content to leave this a rhetorical query, Melville answers -his own catechism in unambiguous terms: “I should say -that considering Pierre was quite young and very unsophisticated -as yet, and withal rather high-blooded; and sometimes -read the History of the Revolutionary War, and possessed a -mother who very frequently made remote social allusions to -the epaulettes of the Major-General his grandfather;—I should -say that upon all these occasions, the way it must have been -with him was a very proud, elated sort of way.”</p> - -<p>Melville did not preserve throughout his long life this early -and proud elation in his descent, and in later years he thought -it necessary to apologise for the short-sighted and provincial<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[37]</a></span> -self-satisfaction that he absorbed from his parents in his early -youth. “And if this seem but too fond and foolish in Pierre,” -he pleads in a mood both of apology and of prophecy; “and if -you tell me that this sort of thing in him showed him no sterling -Democrat, and that a truly noble man should never brag -of any arm but his own; then I beg you to consider again that -this Pierre was but a youngster as yet. And believe me, you -will pronounce Pierre a thorough-going Democrat in time; -perhaps a little too Radical altogether to your fancy.”</p> - -<p>Radical he came to be, indeed: it was the necessary penalty -of being cursed with an intelligence above that of the smug -and shallow optimism of his country and his period. Democratic -he may have been, but only in the most unpopular meaning -of that once noble term. He was a democrat in the same -relentless sense that Dante or Milton were democrats. Lucifer -rebelled, let it be remembered, to make Heaven “safe for Democracy:” -the first experiment in popular government. -“Hell,” says Melville, “is a democracy of devils.” In <i>Mardi</i>, -Melville indulges lengthy reflections on a certain “chanticleer -people” who boast boisterously of themselves: “Saw ye ever -such a land as this? Is it not a great and extensive republic? -Pray, observe how tall we are; just feel of our thighs; are we -not a glorious people? We are all Kings here; royalty breathes -in the common air.” Before the spectacle of this lusty republicanism, -Melville exhibits unorthodox doubts. “There’s not -so much freedom here as these freemen think,” he makes a -strolling deity observe; “I laugh and admire.... Freedom -is more social than political. And its real felicity is not to be -shared. <i>That</i> is of a man’s own individual getting and holding. -Little longer, may it please you, can republics subsist -now, than in days gone by. Though all men approached sages -in wisdom, some would yet be more wise than others; and so, -the old degrees would be preserved. And no exemption would -an equality of knowledge furnish, from the inbred servility of -mortal to mortal; from all the organic causes, which inevitably -divide mankind into brigades and battalions, with captains at -their heads. Civilisation has not ever been the brother of -equality.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[38]</a></span></p> - -<p>As Melville grew away from boyhood, he came to distinguish -between the accidentals and the essentials that distinguish -man from man. At his mother’s breast he had absorbed -with her milk a vivid and exaggerated belief that the accidents -concomitant upon birth that range men into artificial classes, -were ingrain in the very woof of the universe. When he later -discovered that his parents tinted life with a very perishable -dye, he also found, set below their cheap calico patterns, an -unchangeable texture of sharper and deeper and more variegated -colours. And he discovered, too, that his uncritical boyhood -pride in his blood was, withal, not entirely a mere savage -delight in calico prints.</p> - -<p>He was, as he boasts in the sub-title of <i>Redburn</i>, “the son-of-a-gentleman,” -reared in an environment rich with the mellowing -influences of splendid family traditions. And these -associations left an indelible stamp upon him. In <i>Mardi</i>, in -speaking of the impossibility of belying one’s true nature while -at sea and in the fellowship of sailors, he offers himself as an -example to point. “Aboard of all ships in which I have -sailed,” he says, “I have invariably been known by a sort of -drawing-room title. Not,—let me hurry to say,—that I put -hand in tar bucket with a squeamish air, or ascended the rigging -with a Chesterfieldian mince. No, no, I was never better -than my vocation. I showed as brown a chest, and as hard a -hand, as the tarriest tar of them all. And never did shipmate -of mine upbraid me with a genteel disinclination to duty, -though it carried me to truck of main-mast, or jib-boom-end, -in the most wolfish blast that ever howled. Whence, then, -this annoying appellation? for annoying it most assuredly was. -It was because of something in me that could not be hidden; -stealing out in an occasional polysyllable; an otherwise incomprehensible -deliberation in dining; remote, unguarded allusions -to belle-lettres affairs; and other trifles superfluous to mention.”</p> - -<p>Though his grandfather, General Peter Gansevoort, had -been dead seven years when Melville was born, so vital were -the relics of him that surrounded Melville’s boyhood, so reverently -was his memory tended by his first child and only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[39]</a></span> -daughter, that the image of Peter Gansevoort was one of the -most potent influences during Melville’s most impressionable -years. The heroic presence that dominated Melville’s imagination, -“measured six feet four inches in height; during a -fire in the old manorial mansion, with one dash of the foot, he -had smitten down an oaken door, to admit the buckets of his -negro slaves; Pierre had often tried on his military vest, which -still remained an heirloom at Saddle-Meadows, and found the -pockets below his knees, and plenty additional room for a fair-sized -quarter-cask within its buttoned girth; in a night scuffle -in the wilderness before the Revolutionary War, he had annihilated -two Indian savages by making reciprocal bludgeons of -their heads. And all this was done by the mildest hearted, the -most blue-eyed gentleman in the world, who, according to the -patriarchal fashion of those days, was a gentle, white-haired -worshipper of all the household gods; the gentlest husband -and the gentlest father; the kindest master to his slaves; of -the most wonderful unruffledness of temper; a serene smoker -of his after dinner pipe; a forgiver of many injuries; a sweet-hearted, -charitable Christian; in fine, a pure, cheerful, childlike, -blue-eyed, divine old man; in whose meek, majestic soul -the lion and the lamb embraced—fit image of his God.” His -portrait was to Melville “a glorious gospel framed and hung -upon the wall, and declaring to all people, as from the Mount, -that man is a noble, god-like being, full of choicest juices; -made up of strength and beauty.” Most of the images of God -that Melville met in actual secular embodiment, suffered tragically -by comparison with this image of mortal perfection -which Melville nursed in his heart. Most men that Melville -met, in falling short of the mythical excellence of Peter Gansevoort, -whom he never knew in the flesh, seemed to Melville, -to be libels upon their Divine Original. According to Melville’s -account, he could never look upon his grandfather’s -military portrait without an infinite and mournful longing to -meet his living aspect in actual life. Yet such was the temper -of Melville’s mind, his life such a tragic career of dreaming of -elusive perfection, dreams invariably to be dashed and bruised -and shattered by an incompatible reality, that it is safe to sur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[40]</a></span>mise—with -no impiety to the memory of Peter Gansevoort—that -had Melville known his maternal grandfather, the old -General’s six feet four of blood and bone would have shrunk, -with his extravagance of all human excellence, to more truly -historical dimensions.</p> - -<h3>MELVILLE’S GRANDFATHERS</h3> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 515px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t040aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t040aa.jpg" width="515" height="600" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>GENERAL PETER GANSEVOORT</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 433px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t040ab.jpg" width="433" height="600" alt="" /> -<div class="caption"><p>MAJOR THOMAS MELVILLE</p></div> -</div> - -<p>Melville’s paternal grandfather, Major Thomas Melville, -who died in 1832, when Melville was thirteen years old, inspired -his grandson to no such glowing tributes. Born in -Boston, in 1751, an only child, he was left an orphan at the -age of ten. It appears by the probate records on the appointment -of his guardian in 1761, that he inherited a considerable -fortune from his father. He was reared by his maternal -grandmother, Mrs. Mary Cargill. Mrs. Mary Cargill’s brother -was the celebrated and eccentric dissenter and polemic writer, -John Abernethy of Dublin, who in his <i>Tracts</i> (collected in -1751) measured swords with Swift himself triumphantly; her -son, David, was both a celebrated warrior against the Indians, -and the father of twenty-three children, fifteen of whom were -sons. Whatever the immediate male relatives of Mrs. Mary -Cargill did, it would appear, they did vigorously, and on an -enterprising scale. She was herself an old lady of very independent -ideas about the universe, and her grandson, Thomas -Melville—Melville’s grandfather,—perpetuated much of her -independence. Indifferent to the caprices of fashion, Thomas -Melville persisted until his death in 1832, in wearing the old-fashioned -cocked hat and knee breeches. Oliver Holmes said -of him: “His aspect among the crowds of a later generation -reminded me of a withered leaf which has held to its stem -through the storms of autumn and winter, and finds itself still -clinging to its bough while the new growths of spring are -bursting their buds and spreading their foliage all around it.”</p> - -<p>And so the Autocrat wrote:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“I saw him once before,</div> - <div class="verse">As he passed by the door,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">And again</div> - <div class="verse">The pavement stones resound</div> - <div class="verse">As he totters o’er the ground</div> - <div class="verse indent4">With his cane.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[41]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">They say that in his prime,</div> - <div class="verse">Ere the pruning-knife of Time</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Cut him down,</div> - <div class="verse">Not a better man was found</div> - <div class="verse">By the Crier on his round</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Through the town.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">But now he walks the streets,</div> - <div class="verse">And he looks at all he meets</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Sad and wan.</div> - <div class="verse">And he shakes his feeble head</div> - <div class="verse">And it seems as if he said,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">‘They are gone.’</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">The mossy marbles rest</div> - <div class="verse">On the lips that he has pressed</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In their bloom,</div> - <div class="verse">And the names he loved to hear</div> - <div class="verse">Have been carved for many a year</div> - <div class="verse indent4">On the tomb.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">My grandmamma has said,—</div> - <div class="verse">Poor old lady, she is dead</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Long ago—</div> - <div class="verse">That he had a Roman nose,</div> - <div class="verse">And his cheek was like a rose</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In the snow:</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">But now his nose is thin,</div> - <div class="verse">And it rests upon his chin</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Like a staff,</div> - <div class="verse">And a crook is in his back,</div> - <div class="verse">And a melancholy crack</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In his laugh.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">I know it is a sin</div> - <div class="verse">For me to sit and grin</div> - <div class="verse indent4">At him here;</div> - <div class="verse">But the old three-cornered hat,</div> - <div class="verse">And the breeches, and all that,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Are so queer!</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">And if I should live to be</div> - <div class="verse">The last leaf upon the tree</div> - <div class="verse indent4">In the spring,</div> - <div class="verse">Let them smile as I do now,</div> - <div class="verse">At the old forsaken bough,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">Where I cling.”</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[42]</a></span></p> -<p>In his boyhood, Thomas Melville was sent by his grandmother -(who lived on till her grandson was thirty years old, -clinging as tenaciously to life as to every other good thing she -set hands upon) to the College of New Jersey, now Princeton. -He was graduated in 1769. From both Princeton and -Harvard he later received an M.A. Between 1771 and 1773 -he visited his relatives in Scotland. During this visit he was -presented with the freedom of the city of St. Andrews and of -Renfrew. He returned to Boston to become a merchant and -to enter with spirit into the patriotic ferment then so actively -brewing. He was a member of the Long Room Club, in sympathy -with the Sons of Liberty, and with Paul Revere, one -of the “Indians” to take part in the Boston Tea Party of December -16, 1773. There still survive a few unbrewed leaves -from this cargo of tea: the carefully preserved shakings from -Major Melville’s shoes, resurrected when he relaxed into slippers -immediately upon his return home from the excitements -of revolutionary defiance. Though Major Melville was, -throughout his life, an extreme conservative, it was his very -conservatism that fired him to revolution. He believed that -what needed to be conserved was the constitutional—British -constitutional—rights of his country, not the innovation of -Hanoverian tyranny. He commanded a detachment sent to -Nantucket, the centre of whaling, to watch the movement of -the British fleet; in the expedition into Rhode Island, in 1778, -he took the rank of Major in Croft’s regiment of Massachusetts -artillery. His resignation, dated Boston, Oct. 21, 1778, -states “that he had been almost three years in said service -and would willingly continue to serve, but owing to inadequate -pay and subsequent inability to support his family he felt compelled -to resign his commission.” In 1789 he was commissioned -by Washington as naval officer of the port of Boston: -a commission renewed by all succeeding presidents down to -Andrew Jackson’s time in 1824. Major Melville was the -nearest surviving male relative of the picturesque General -Robert Melville, who was the first and only Captain General -and Governor-in-Chief of the islands ceded to England -by France in 1763, and at the time of his death in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[43]</a></span> -1809, with one exception, the oldest General in the British -Army.</p> - -<p>In 1779, Major Melville was elected fire ward of Boston, -and when he resigned in 1825, he was offered a vote of thanks -“for the zeal, intrepidity and judgment with which he has on -all occasions discharged his duties as fire ward for forty-six -years in succession, and for twenty-six as chairman of the -board.” In those days, volunteer fire companies were fashionable -sporting clubs, and such was the distinction attached -to membership that a premium was often paid for the privilege -of belonging to such an exclusive and diverting fraternity. -Melville’s father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, Chief Justice of Massachusetts, -was Fire Warden between 1818 and 1821. Melville’s -grandfather and future father-in-law may have met at -many a fire and, for all we know to the contrary, the intimacy -between the Shaws and the Melvilles that culminated in Herman’s -marriage, may have been first kindled by a burning -house.</p> - -<p>The tradition survives of Major Melville that the excitement -of running to fire grew upon him like gambling upon -more sedentary mortals, and that his death was caused by -over-fatigue and exposure at a fire near his house he attended -at the age of eighty-one.</p> - -<p>Of Melville’s two grandmothers, Catharine Van Schaick -and Priscilla Scollay, there is no mention in any of his writings. -It is a peculiarity of Melville’s writings indeed, completely -to disregard all of his female relatives,—with the notable -exceptions of his mother, his mother-in-law, and his wife.</p> - -<p>Major Thomas Melville, by his marriage with Priscilla -Scollay, is said to have aggravated an already ample fortune, -though the terms of his resignation from the Revolutionary -army argue a dwindling of income during unsettled times. -The Scollays, one of the oldest of Boston families, were related -to Melville not only by direct blood descent, but Melville’s -great-great-uncle, John Melville (who died in London -in 1798) married Deborah Scollay, Melville’s great-aunt. Deborah -Scollay, Priscilla’s sister, was the first of thirteen children; -Priscilla the tenth. The Scollays, in brave competition<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[44]</a></span> -with the Melvilles and the Gansevoorts, seem to have devoutly -accepted the Mosaic edict to increase and multiply: they were, -as Carlyle says of Dr. Thomas Arnold, of “unhastening, unresting -diligence.” Major Thomas Melville had eleven children -by his wife Priscilla, Melville’s father Allan being the -fourth child and second son. Of the influence of Allan’s numerous -brothers and sisters upon Melville there are scant records -to show. His aunt Priscilla, however, mentioned him -in her will.</p> - -<p>Allan’s oldest sister, Mary (1778-1859) married Captain -John DeWolf II. of Bristol, Rhode Island. In <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -in offering instances of ships being charged upon by whales, -Melville quotes from the <i>Voyages</i> of Captain Langsdorff, a -member of Admiral Krusenstern’s famous Discovery Expedition -in the beginning of the last century. In the passage -quoted by Melville is mentioned a Captain D’Wolf. “Now, -the Captain D’Wolf here alluded to as commanding the ship -in question,” says Melville, “is a New Englander, who, after -a long life of unusual adventures as a sea captain, this day -resides in the village of Dorchester, near Boston. I have the -honour of being a nephew of his. I have particularly questioned -him concerning this passage in Langsdorff. He substantiates -every word.” In <i>Redburn</i>, Melville speaks of “an -uncle of mine, an old sea-captain, with white hair, who used -to sail to a place called Archangel in Russia, and who used -to tell me that he was with Captain Langsdorff, when Captain -Langsdorff crossed over by land from the sea of Okotsk in -Asia to St. Petersburg, drawn by large dogs in a sled.... -He was the very first sea captain I had ever seen, and his white -hair and fine handsome florid face made so strong an impression -upon me that I have never forgotten him, though I only -saw him during this one visit of his to New York, for he was -lost in the White Sea some years after.” Just what, if anything -besides two contradictory statements—Melville owed to -this uncle it would be worthless to surmise.</p> - -<p>Another of Melville’s uncles, however, Thomas—Allan’s -older brother—played an important rôle in Melville’s development. -After an eventful residence of twenty-one years in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[45]</a></span> -France, Thomas returned to America with his wife Françoise -Raymonde Eulogie Marie des Douleurs Lamé Fleury, shortly -before the War of 1812. Enlisted in the army, he was sent to -Pittsfield, Massachusetts, with the rank of Major. After the -war he continued in Pittsfield, and with his family set up at -what is now Broadhall.</p> - -<p>Broadhall, built by Henry Van Schaek in 1781, bought by -Elkanah Watson in 1807, was, in 1816, acquired by Major -Thomas Melville of the cocked hat. His son, Major Thomas -Melville of the French wife, lived in Broadhall until 1837, -when he moved to Galena, Illinois, where he died on August -1—Melville’s birthday—1845. By a parallel irony of fate, -just as the Stanwix House of the Gansevoorts is now a hotel, -Broadhall of the Melvilles is now a country club.</p> - -<p>It was a strange transplanting, that of Major Thomas Melville -and his wife, Marie des Douleurs, from Paris to the rustic -crudities of the farming outskirts of civilisation. Marie -des Douleurs rapidly pined and wilted in the harsh brusque air. -A bundle of her letters survive, written in a delicate drooping -hand: letters that might have been written by a wasted and -homesick nun. In 1814, within the space of a single month, -Mrs. Thomas Melville and two of her children died of consumption. -Thomas, of more vigorous stock, survived to -marry again—this time to Mary Anna Augusta Hobard, and -to take actively to farming. He achieved a local reputation -for his successful devotion to the soil; presiding at meetings -of the Berkshire Agricultural Association, and winning a first -prize at a ploughing match at the Berkshire Fair. As a boy, -Melville was sent to alternate his visits to the Gansevoorts by -trips to his uncle at Pittsfield. The single record of his life at -Broadhall is preserved in <i>The History of Pittsfield</i> (1876) -“compiled and written, under the general direction of a committee, -by J. E. A. Smith.” Melville says:</p> - -<p>“In 1836 circumstances made me the greater portion of a -year an inmate of my uncle’s family, and an active assistant -upon the farm. He was then grey haired, but not wrinkled; -of a pleasing complexion, but little, if any, bowed in figure; -and preserving evident traces of the prepossessing good looks<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[46]</a></span> -of his youth. His manners were mild and kindly, with a faded -brocade of old French breeding, which—contrasted with his -surroundings at the time—impressed me as not a little interesting, -not wholly without a touch of pathos.</p> - -<p>“He never used the scythe, but I frequently raked with him -in the hay field. At the end of the swath he would at times -pause in the sun and, taking out his smooth worn box of satinwood, -gracefully help himself to a pinch of snuff, while leaning -on his rake; quite naturally: and yet with a look, which—as -I recall it—presents him in the shadowy aspect of a courtier -of Louis XVI, reduced as a refugee to humble employment in -a region far from gilded Versailles.</p> - -<p>“By the late October fire, in the great hearth of the capacious -kitchen of the old farm mansion, I remember to have -seen him frequently sitting just before early bed time, gazing -into the embers, while his face plainly expressed to a sympathetic -observer that his heart, thawed to the core under the influence -of the general flame—carried him far away over the -ocean to the gay boulevards.</p> - -<p>“Suddenly, under the accumulation of reminiscences, his eye -would glisten and become humid. With a start he would check -himself in his reverie, and give an ultimate sigh; as much as to -say ‘ah, well!’ and end with an aromatic pinch of snuff. It -was the French graft upon the New England stock, which produced -this autumnal apple: perhaps the mellower for the frost.”</p> - -<p>It was immediately following upon the heels of this sojourn -in Pittsfield in 1836, that Melville went down to the sea and -shipped before the mast. Of Melville’s companionship with -his Pittsfield cousins during this visit, nothing seems to be -known. Melville’s uncle, Thomas, had two children living at -the time: Anna Marie Priscilla, who died in Pittsfield in 1858, -and Pierre François Henry Thomas Wilson, thirteen years -Melville’s senior, who in 1842 died in the Sandwich Islands. -That Pierre’s adventures to the far corners of the earth may -have had some influence upon Melville’s taking to a ship is a -tempting surmise; but a surmise whose only cogency is its possibility.</p> - -<p>Whatever the influence of Pittsfield in sending Melville to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[47]</a></span> -sea, it was to Pittsfield he finally returned, when, after wide -wanderings, he faced homeward. The old Major, his uncle, -was dead, and Broadhall, descended to one of his sons, was -rented as a hotel. During the summer of 1850, Melville and -his wife boarded at Broadhall. In October of the same year, -they settled in Pittsfield, not at Broadhall, as has been repeatedly -stated, but at a neighbouring farm, christened Arrowhead -by Melville. Arrowhead was Melville’s home for the following -thirteen years.</p> - -<p>Melville’s great-grandfather, Allan—father of <i>The Last -Leaf</i>—came to America in 1748, and settled in Boston as -a merchant. This Allan was the son of Thomas Melville, a -clergyman of the Scotch Kirk. This Thomas Melville was -from 1718 to 1764 minister of Scoonie Parish, Levin, Fifeshire. -In 1769 he “ended his days in a state of most cheerful -tranquillity.”</p> - -<p>Thomas Melville of Scoonie was second in lineal descent -from Sir John Melville of Carnbee: a worthy knighted by -James VI. According to Sir Robert Douglas’ <i>The Baronage -of Scotland</i> (Edinburgh, 1798), this Sir John Melville of -Carnbee was thirteenth in direct blood descent from one Sir -Richard Melvill, a man of distinction in the reign of Alexander -III, and who in 1296 was compelled to swear allegiance -to Edward I of England when he overran Scotland.</p> - -<p>If this remote tracing of Melville’s descent were a discovery -of facts unknown to Melville, it would be an ostentatious irrelevancy -to flaunt it in his biography. But Melville was -ironically conscious of his lineage, and when his earlier novels -had won him reputation at home and in England as an entertaining -literary vagabond, in France (see the typically patronising -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Études sur la Littérature et les Mœurs des Anglo-Américains -du XIXe Siècle</i>—Paris, 1851—by M. Philarete Chasles) -as a representative product of a crude and traditionless civilisation, -he took satirical unction to his soul at the illustrious -associations that clung around his ancient name. In his own -person he felt that he contradicted the conceit of the European -world “that in demagogical America the sacred Past hath no -fixed statues erected to it, but (that) all things irreverently<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[48]</a></span> -seethe and boil in the vulgar caldron of an everlasting, uncrystallising -Present.” Founding his defence upon the knowledge -of his own ancestry, he maintained in <i>Pierre</i> that if America so -chose to glorify herself, she could make out a good general -case with England in the little matter of long pedigrees—pedigrees, -that is, without a flaw. In monarchical Europe, Melville -takes pains to contend, the proudest families are but grafted -families that successively live and die on the eternal soil of -a name. In the pride of unbroken lineal blood descent from -a thirteenth century count, he matched his blood and patronym -with the most honoured in England. “If Richmond, and St. -Albans, and Grafton, and Portland, and Buccleugh, be names -almost as old as England herself, the present Dukes of those -names stop in their own genuine pedigrees at Charles II., and -there find no very fine fountain; since what we would deem the -least glorious parentage under the sun, is precisely the parentage -of a Buccleugh, for example; whose ancestress could not -well avoid being a mother, it is true, but had incidentally -omitted the preliminary rites. Yet a King was the sire.... -All honour to the names, and all courtesy to the men; but if St. -Albans tell me he is all-honourable and all-eternal, I must -politely refer him to Nell Gwynne.” Melville bitterly resented -the fashionable foreign imputation that his was a rootless and -upstart people. Through its grilling of bars sinister, he viewed -the superior pretensions of monarchical aristocracy with his -finger at his nose. “If in America,” he boasted, “the vast mass -of families be as the blades of grass, yet some few there are -that stand as the oak; which, instead of decaying, annually puts -forth new branches; whereby Time, instead of subtracting, is -made to capitulate into a multiple virtue.”</p> - -<p>If Melville took over-elaborate pains to point to himself as -swinging at the dizzy crest of such a patriarchal tree, it was -not to derive personal glory from mere altitude. By exhibiting -the humorous incompatibility between his destiny and his descent, -he strove to show, at one and the same time, both the absurdity -of all pride in blood, and the ironic poignancy of his -own apparent defeat.</p> - -<p>Melville’s parents, however, qualified their ancestral pride<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[49]</a></span> -with no such ironic considerations. With whole-hearted gratitude -they thanked God for their descent; nor did they, in their -thanksgiving, fail to acknowledge, with becoming humility, a -Heavenly Father who, in power and glory, transcended even -terrestrial counts and brewers.</p> - -<p>Allan was always a man of devout protestations; and although -he always signed his own name with an underscoring of -tangled flourishes, he wrote the name of God—and his correspondence -is liberally scattered with Deity—with three conspicuous -capitals of his most ornate penmanship. Melville was -patently modelling the father of Pierre after his own male parent, -when he recorded Pierre’s father’s platitudinous insistence -“that all gentlemanhood was vain, all claims to it preposterous -and absurd, unless the primeval gentleness and golden -humanities of religion had been so thoroughly wrought into -the complete texture of the character, that he who pronounced -himself gentleman, could also rightly assume the meek but -knightly style of Christian.”</p> - -<p>Allan, proud in the sense of this humility, in untangling his -descent back to Sir John Melville of Carnbee, seems to have -rested serenely in the pious faith that he had established his -kinship to all the titled and illustrious Melvilles in history. So -he carried his head high—as he felt a republican should—and -with a generous and comprehensive fraternity claimed as his -more than kith—as indeed they were—an impressive congregation -of courtiers, scholars and divines.</p> - -<p>So prolific has been the Melville family, so extended its history, -that its intricate branchings from the veritable Aaron’s -rod in which it had its source, have never been completely untangled -by even the most arduous genealogical historians. -With what directness and potency the different Melville strains -were active in Melville’s blood it would be utterly absurd to -pretend to determine. But if not forces in Melville’s blood, -Allan made them vital presences in his son’s boyhood imagination.</p> - -<p>The most illustrious of this shadowy company of adopted -ancestors was the old Viking, Andrew Melville (1545-1622), -the dauntless “Episcopomastrix” or “Scourge of Bishops,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[50]</a></span> -second in fame among Scotch reformers only to John Knox. -In October, 1577, at an interview between Andrew and the -Regent Morton, the latter, irritated at the intrepidity of the -assembly, exclaimed: “There will never be quiet in this country -till half a dozen of you be hanged!” Whereupon Andrew, -in language Morton dared not resent, exclaimed: “Hark! Sir; -threaten your courtiers after that manner. It is the same to me -whether I rot in the air or in the ground. The earth is the -Lord’s. <span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Patria est ubicunque est bene.</span>” Another Andrew -(1624-1706) among these ghostly presences was a soldier of -fortune who in the preface of his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Memoires de M. de Chevalier -de Melville</i> (Amsterdam, 1704) was eulogised for his -valour and his protestantism.</p> - -<p>Conspicuous in Allan’s library was a copy of the <i>Memoirs -of His Own Life by Sir James Melvil of Hallhill</i> (London, -1683), bearing the autograph of Allan’s great-grandfather, -Thomas Melville of Scoonie. This volume had been brought -to America by Allan’s grandfather in 1746, and was cherished -by Melville’s father as a record of the part played by his exuberant -ancestors in the turbulent affairs of Elizabeth and -Mary, Queen of Scots. From this volume Allen taught his -children of Sir James’ father, John Melville, Lord of Raith in -Fife, who, “although there was not the least suspicion of anie -fault, yitt lost he his head, becaus he was known to be one that -unfainedlie favoured the truthe;” of Sir James’ brother, William, -who was able to speak perfectly “the Latin, the Dutche, -the Flemyn, and the Frenche tongue;” of another brother of -Sir James, Sir Robert Melville, who “spak brave and stout -language to the consaill of England, so that the quen herself -boisted him of his lyf.” But all of the details of Sir James’ -racy account of his own adventures were not fit entertainment -for the sons of New England Unitarians. Yet many of these -unpuritan accounts are in Melville’s own vein, as witness the -recounting of the incident that befell Sir James at the age of -fourteen, when, in company with the French Ambassador, -Monluc, Bishop of Valence, he was entertained in Ireland by -one O’Docherty who lived in “a dark tour.” It appears that -the Bishop paid such disquieting attention to O’Docherty’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[51]</a></span> -daughter that the father substituted another bait to the Prelate’s -susceptibilities: a substitution that produced an awkward -scene in etiquette. For the second lady mistook a phial “of -the maist precious balm that grew in Egypt, which Soliman the -great Turc had given in a present to the same bishop” for something -to eat; and this “because it had an odoriphant smell.” -“Therefore she licked it clean out.” During this process of -consumption, O’Docherty’s daughter, disengaged from the -Bishop, turned to Sir James for solace, with an offer to -elope. Sir James was cautious for his fourteen years, and -convinced the lady of the superfluousness of migratory impulses.</p> - -<p>Contemporary with Allan, there lived in Scotland, direct descendants -of these Elizabethan Melvilles. One year before -Herman’s birth, Allan, with admirable republican simplicity, -decided, during one of the frequent business trips that took -him across the Atlantic, to look up his titled Scotch cousins, -and pay them the compliments of his dutiful respects. The -record of this adventure is preserved in Allan’s journal, bound -in vellum of a lurid emerald green. The entries are characteristically -business-like, and stoically naked of personal reflections:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>May 22, 1818</i>—Visited Melville house, the seat of the Earl -of Leven & Melville at 2 P.M., 14 miles—the -Earl & Family being absent, left them at -4 A.M. & dined at the New Inn at the Junction -of the Perth, Cupar & Dundee Roads, -6 miles.</p> - -<p><i>May 26, 1818</i>—Reached Melville house at ½ past 3 P.M.—10 -miles—& met with a very hospitable & -friendly reception from his lordship & family.</p> - -<p><i>May 27, 1818</i>—Left Melville house at ½ past 11 in his lordship’s -gig with a lacquey to meet the coach at -the New Inn.</p></div> - -<p>It would, perhaps, be entertaining to know just exactly what -Alexander, 7th Earl of Levin and 6th Earl of Melville, who<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[52]</a></span> -was also Viscount Kirkaldie, Lord Melville of Monymaill, -Lord Bolgonie, and Lord Raith, Monyraill and Balwearie, -thought in his heart of Allan Melville of Boston, merchant, -and importer of commodities from France.</p> - - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[53]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER III <br /> - -<span class="smaller">PARENTS AND EARLY YEARS</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“In general terms we have been thus decided in asserting the great -genealogical and real-estate dignity of some families in America, because -in so doing we poetically establish the richly aristocratic condition of -Master Pierre Glendinning, for whom we have claimed some special -family distinction. And to the observant reader the sequel will not fail -to show how important is this circumstance, considered with reference -to the singularly developed character and most singular life-career of our -hero. Nor will any man dream that the last chapter was merely intended -for a foolish bravado, and not with a solid purpose in view.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Pierre</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>Samuel Butler, who with Thomas Huxley cherished certain -unorthodox convictions as to “the unfathomable injustice -of the Universe,” found the make-shift of family life not the -least of natural evils. In a more benevolent adjustment of -the human animal to its environment, so Butler declared, children -would be spared the incubus of parents. After the easeful -death of their progenitors, they would be hatched, cocoon-like, -from an ample and comfortable roll of bank-notes of high -denomination. And it is a foregone surety that, had Samuel -Butler known Herman Melville’s parents, he would not have -been moved to soften his impeachment of the way of all flesh. -For the household of Allan Melville bore striking resemblances -to that of the most self-important of the Pontifexes. Both -John Pontifex and Allan Melville, judged either by the accepted -standards of their own time or to-day, were good men: -to his God, his neighbours, his wife, his children, each did his -duty relentlessly. And each, as Melville, with obvious autobiographical -reference, says of the father of Pierre, “left behind -him in the general voice of the world, a marked reputation as a -Christian and a gentleman; in the heart of his wife, a green -memory of many healthy days of unclouded and joyful wedded -life.” But each also left behind him a son who in the end was -to cherish his memory with some misgivings. Allan was less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[54]</a></span> -fortunate than John Pontifex in that though he died rich in -virtue, he died with no corresponding abundance of corruptible -riches. Nothing in his life so ill became him as his bequest -of poverty to his widow and eight children.</p> - -<p>Herman, the second son and third child, was thirteen years -old at the time of Allan’s decease: young enough to cherish up -into early manhood the most fantastic idealisation of his -father. “Children begin by loving their parents,” a modern -cynic has said; “later the children grow to understanding, and -sometimes, they forgive.” As Melville grew in maturity of -years, he did not grow in charity toward his parents. In his -novel <i>Pierre</i> he seems to draw malicious delight in pronouncing, -under a thin disguise, an imaginary libel upon his father’s -memory. There he desecrated in fiction what he had once -fondly cherished in life. Aside from its high achievement as -a work of art, this dark wild book of incest and death is of -the greatest importance as a document in autobiography. Most -of the characters in <i>Pierre</i> are unmistakably idealisations of -clearly recognisable originals. The hero, Pierre Glendinning, -is a glorification of Melville; the widowed mother, Marie Glendinning, -owes much more to Melville’s mother, Maria Gansevoort, -than the initials of her name. And in this book, Melville -exorcises the ghost of his father, and brings him forth to -unearth from the past a skeleton that Melville seems to have -manufactured in the closet of a vindictive subconsciousness.</p> - -<p>“Blessed and glorified in his tomb beyond Prince Mausolus,” -wrote Melville at the age of thirty-three, “is that mortal sire, -who, after an honourable, pure course of life, dies, and is -buried, as in a choice fountain, in the filial breast of a tender-hearted -and intellectually appreciative child. But if fate preserve -the father to a later time, too often the filial obsequies -are less profound, the canonisation less ethereal.”</p> - -<p>As has been said, Melville was thirteen when, in 1832, his -father died. And at that time, as for years following, there -survived from Allan in Melville’s memory “the impression of -a bodily form of rare manly virtue and benignity, only rivalled -by the supposed perfect mould in which his virtuous heart had -been cast.” In <i>Redburn</i> he says of his youthful idealisation of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[55]</a></span> -Allan: “I always thought him a marvellous being, infinitely -purer and greater than I was, who could not by any possibility -do wrong or say an untruth.” And as a gesture expressive -of this piety for his father’s memory, he took but one book -with him to Liverpool when at the age of seventeen he worked -his way across the Atlantic in a merchantman. This was an -old dog-eared guide-book that had belonged to his father. On -the map in this book, Allan, with characteristic precision, had -traced with a pen a number of dotted lines radiating in all directions -from Riddough’s Hotel at the foot of Lord Street: -marks that delineated his various excursions in the town. As -Melville planned his itinerary while in Liverpool, he was in -the first place to visit Riddough’s Hotel, where his father had -stopped more than thirty years before; and then, with the map -in his hand, to follow Allan through the town, according to -the dotted lines in the diagram. “For this,” says Melville, -“would be performing a filial pilgrimage to spots which would -be hallowed to my eyes.” Because Melville had failed to take -into account the mutability of cities, he was disappointed to -find some of the shrines hallowed by his father’s visits no -longer in existence. But the very bitterness of his disappointment -was an eloquent tribute to his father’s memory.</p> - -<p>Allan himself was born in 1782, second son, and fourth -child, in a family of eleven children. Of his early life, almost -nothing is known. Though he was born into a well-to-do family -of considerable cultivation, he seems never to have been -exposed to the boasted advantages of a university education. -He was, however, a rather extensively travelled man. At the -age of eighteen, as if to set a precedent for his son, he made -his first trip abroad. But whereas Melville went as a sailor -before the mast, to land in Liverpool as a penniless itinerant, -Allan was two years in Paris as a guest, in comfortable circumstances, -of a well-to-do uncle. Before his marriage in 1814, -Allan made five other pilgrimages to Europe; and once, after -his marriage, he crossed the Atlantic again. This last trip he -would not have taken but from urgency of business: “It will -be a most painful sacrifice to part from my beloved wife and -children,” he says, in prospect of the journey; “but duty to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[56]</a></span>wards -them requires it.” Allan acclimated himself to France -as a young man, and so acquired a mastery of the French -language. He is said to have spoken French like a native: -a bilingual accomplishment that Melville never even remotely -acquired. Melville boasted a smattering of a Polynesian -dialect or two: but so imperfect was this smattering -that it moved Stevenson to complain that Melville, like Charles -Lamb, “had no ear.”</p> - -<p>In the journal which Allan kept from 1800 to 1831, there -survives a meticulously accurate account of his wanderings up -and down upon the face of Christendom. On the fly-leaf of -the journal, under the title “Recapitulations of Voyages and -Travels from 1800 to 1822 both inclusive,” he gives, in ledger-like -summary, this statement of his peregrinations:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -“by land 24425 miles.<br /> -by water 48460 miles.<br /> -days at sea, etc. 643.” -</p> - -</div> - -<p>That part of his early life that he spent outside of Europe, -he distributed between Boston and Albany. Allan was a man -to turn to account all of his resources. His knowledge of -French he converted into a business asset, by setting up as a -merchant-importer trafficking in dry-goods and notions from -France: “razors, children’s white leather gloves, leghorn hats, -and taffeta ribbons” being a typical shipment.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 550px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t056aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t056aa.jpg" width="550" height="800" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p><i>From a Painting made in Paris, 1810.</i></p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t056ab.png" width="400" height="188" class="noborder" alt="Signature—Allan Melville" /> -</div> - -<p>It was in Albany that Allan met Maria Gansevoort: a meeting -of which his journal is austerely ignorant. If there ever -were any romance in Allan’s life he must have emulated Pepys -and recorded it in cipher, and then, with a caution deeper than -Pepys’, have burned the cryptic revelation. It is true that in -<i>Pierre</i>, Melville attempts to brighten his father’s pre-marital -years by imputing to him a lively vitality in his youth: but -the evidence for this imputation hangs upon a most tenuous -thread of ambiguities. Yet now that it has transpired that -even the sober Wordsworth under similar circumstances succumbed -to the flesh, it is not impossible, on the face of it, that -Allan, in the unredeemed years before his comparatively late<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[57]</a></span> -marriage, may have been anointed in mortality. But in his -later life—as was Wordsworth—he was a paragon of propriety, -and he must be acquitted of indiscretion until more -damning facts are mustered to accuse him. All surviving evidence -presents him as a model of rigid decorum. In so far -as he has revealed himself, all but the most restrained and -well-behaved and standardised emotions fell within the forbidden -degrees. It is certain that no flower ever gave <i>him</i> -thoughts too deep for tears.</p> - -<p>His courtship seems to have been a model of discretion, and -might well have been modelled after Mrs. Hannah More’s -<i>Coelebs in Search of a Wife</i>. There survive two gifts that -he made while he was meditating on the serious verge of -matrimony. A year before his marriage he bought, fresh from -the press, a copy of <i>The Pleasures of Imagination</i> by Mark -Akenside, M.D., with a critical essay on the poem, by Mrs. -Barbauld, prefixed. Whether either Allan or Maria ever read -a line of Dr. Akenside we do not know: Maria’s copy, it must -be confessed, is suspiciously well-preserved. But Allan had -the authority of <i>Coelebs</i> that “the condensed vigour, so indispensable -to blank verse, the skilful variation of the pause, the -masterly structure of the period, and all the occult mysteries -of the art, can, perhaps, be best learned from Akenside.” -That the poet’s object was “to establish the infinite superiority -of mind over unconscious matter, even in its fairest -terms,” gave Allan opportunity to pay Maria a veiled -compliment.</p> - -<p>This same Anna Letitia Barbauld, whose introductory essay -gave the final stamp of respectability to Dr. Akenside, had, -in a chapter of advice to young girls, earlier remarked, and -with best-intentioned seriousness, that “An ass is much better -adapted than a horse to show off a lady.” It may be so. In -any event, Allan inscribed on the fly-leaf of Dr. Akenside’s -effusion:</p> - -<p class="center"> -MISS MARIA GANSEVOORT<br /> -FROM HER FRIEND<br /> -A. M. -</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[58]</a></span></p> - -<p>The emotions that smouldered beneath this chaste inscription -he vented, and with no compromise to himself, in a tropical -tangle of copy-book flourishes that he made below his -initials.</p> - -<p>The second gift is also a book—Mrs. Chapone’s <i>Letters -on the Improvement of the Mind</i>. Lydia Languish, it is true, -had, on a memorable occasion, with unblushing deceit, placed -Mrs. Chapone and the reverend Fordyce ostentatiously on a -table together. But it is certain that Allan was not consciously -furnishing Miss Gansevoort with any of the stage-properties -of hypocrisy. Mrs. Chapone’s pronouncements were then being -accepted by the adoring middle class as Protestant Bulls. -And Allan purchased Mrs. Chapone’s little volume with his -ear to the verdict of Mrs. Delany, who wrote: “They speak -to the heart as well as to the head; and I know no book (next -to the Bible) more entertaining or edifying.”</p> - -<p>It was within a few months before his marriage that Allan, -in the most orthodox manner of that “Happy Half Century” -so happily celebrated by Miss Agnes Repplier, undertook to -heighten the virtues of Miss Maria Gansevoort by exposing -her to the “pure and prevailing superiority” of Mrs. Chapone. -For Allan was a cautious man, and marriage, he knew, was a -step not lightly to be made. “I do not want a Helen, or a -Saint Cecilia, or a Madame Dacier,” said Coelebs, in sketching -an ideal wife; “yet must she be elegant or I could not love -her; sensible, or I could not respect her; prudent, or I could -not confide in her; well-informed, or she could not educate -my children; well-bred, or she could not entertain my friends; -pious, or I should not be happy with her, because the prime -comfort in a companion for life is the delightful hope that -she will be a companion for eternity.”</p> - -<p>Maria was patently elegant, well-bred and pious. The present -of Dr. Akenside and Mrs. Chapone gave her generous opportunity -of coming to be well-informed. But Allan did not -hesitate to make further and more direct contributions to her -information. Prudence he rated prime among virtues; and -he approached marriage with Miltonic preconceptions. By no -means confident that the eternal truths enunciated by Mrs.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[59]</a></span> -Chapone would penetrate Maria’s female intellect, Allan prudently -summarised the most sacred verities of the volume in -two manuscript introductions. Maria’s copy of the <i>Letters</i> -bears three inscriptions made by Allan on three separate fly-leaves. -The first is in a formal upright hand, rigid in propriety:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Prudence should be the governing principle of Woman’s -existence, domestick life her peculiar sphere; no rank can -exempt her from an observation of the laws of the former, -from an attention to the duties of the latter. To neglect both -is to violate the sacred statutes of social happiness, and to -frustrate the all-wise intention of that Providence who framed -them.”</p></div> - -<p>In the second inscription, made with acknowledgment to -Miss Owensong, Allan takes all the precautions of a Coelebs -to make certain that at his table “the eulogist of female ignorance -might dine in security against the intrusion and vanity -of erudition.” The inscription reads:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“The liberal cultivation of the female <i>mind</i> is the best security -for the virtues of the female <i>heart</i>; and genius, talents and -grace, where regulated by prudence and governed by good -sense, are never incompatible with domestic qualities or meek -and modest virtues.”</p></div> - -<p>On the third fly-leaf, this double pronouncement is presented -to “Miss Maria Gansevoort” and “from A. M.” Allan -had doubtless learned from Mrs. Chapone that “our feelings -are not given us for ornament, but to spur us on to right action.” -And Miss Maria may have taken to heart Mrs. Chapone’s -dictum that “compassion is not impressed upon the -human heart, only to adorn the fair face with tears and to -give an agreeable languor to the eyes.” There survives no -trace of a record of Allan’s indulging emotions for decorative -purposes. How far his sentiments were moved in “right action” -to melt Miss Maria to becoming compassion can never<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[60]</a></span> -be known. During the months immediately before the marriage, -however, the even tenor of Allan’s journal is jolted by -the unusual acknowledgment of the existence of his sisters, -and the bald mention of a specified number of miles covered -in a “pleasure wagon.” Miss Maria, when not his undisputed -property by rites of holy matrimony, he never mentions in his -journal.</p> - -<p>Maria kept no journal; if she presented Allan with inscribed -volumes, Allan has eradicated all such breaches of -maiden modesty. The only intimate records of Maria that -survive are three of her letters, comments upon her in Allan’s -letters, Melville’s elaborate idealisation of her in the person -of the mother of Pierre, and a vague memory handed down -orally by her descendants.</p> - - -<h3>MARIA GANSEVOORT MELVILLE</h3> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 524px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t064aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t064aa.jpg" width="524" height="800" alt="" class="hires" /></a> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -In 1820 -</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 373px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t064ab.jpg" width="373" height="500" alt="" /> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -In 1865 -</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Maria was born in 1791 and died in 1871. Of her girlhood, -little or nothing is very specifically known. After Melville’s -marriage, she spent the greater part of the remaining years of -her life as a dependant in his household, and the oral traditions -that survive of her do not halo her memory. She is remembered -in such terms as “cold,” “worldly,” “formal,” -“haughty” and “proper”; as putting the highest premium upon -appearances; as frigidly contemptuous of Melville’s domestic -economy, and of the home-made clothes of his four children. -Though she condescended eight times to motherhood, such was -her animal vigour and her ferocity of pride that she preserved -to her death a remarkable regality of appearance. She is said -to have made a completely competent wife to Allan, superior -both to any undue intellectual distractions, and to any of the -demoralisations of domesticity. She managed his household, -she bore and reared his children, and she did both with a vigorous -and unruffled efficiency, without sign of worry or regret. -There persists the story—significant even if apocryphal—that -each afternoon, enthroned upon a high four-poster, she would -nap in order to freshen herself for Allan’s evening arrival, her -children seated silently on a row of low stools ranged on the -floor at the side of her bed. In his death, as in his life, she -cherished the image of Allan—with that of her father, General -Gansevoort—as the mirror of manly perfection.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[61]</a></span></p> - -<p>In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville is said to have drawn an essentially accurate -portrait of his mother in the character and person of -Mrs. Glendinning. Mrs. Glendinning is presented as a -“haughty widow; a lady who externally furnished a singular -example of the preservative and beautifying influences of unfluctuating -rank, health, and wealth, when joined to a fine mind -of medium culture, uncankered by any inconsolable grief, and -never worn by sordid cares. In mature age, the rose still -miraculously clung to her cheek; litheness had not yet completely -uncoiled itself from her waist, nor smoothness unscrolled -itself from her brow, nor diamondness departed from -her eyes.” Proudly conscious of this preservation, never, -even in the most intimate associations of life, did she ever -appear “in any dishabille that was not eminently becoming.” -For “she was vividly aware how immense was that influence, -which, even in the closest ties of the heart, the merest appearances -make upon the mind.” And to her pride of appearance -she added “her pride of birth, her pride of affluence, her pride -of purity, and all the Semiramian pride of woman:” a pride -“which in a life of nearly fifty years had never betrayed her -into a single published impropriety, or caused her one known -pang of the heart.”... “Infinite Haughtiness had first fashioned -her; and then the haughty world had further moulded -her; nor had a haughty Ritual omitted to finish her.” Nor -must Allan’s moralisings, and Dr. Akenside, and Mrs. Barbauld, -and Mrs. Chapone, be denied their due credit in contributing -to the finished product.</p> - -<p>Between Maria and her son there existed a striking personal -resemblance. From his mother, too, Melville seems to -have inherited a constitution of very remarkable vigour, and all -the white intensity of the Gansevoort aptitude for anger. But -here the resemblance ceased. In the youthful Pierre, Mrs. -Glendinning felt “a triumphant maternal pride,” for in her -son “she saw her own graces strangely translated into the opposite -sex.” But of his mother’s love for him, Pierre entertained -precocious and Meredithian suspicions: “She loveth -me, ay;—but why? Had I been cast in a cripple’s mould, how -then? Now do I remember that in her most caressing love,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[62]</a></span> -there ever gleamed some scaly, glittering folds of pride.... -Before my glass she stands—pride’s priestess—and to her -mirrored image, not to me, she offers up her offering of -kisses.”</p> - -<p>Strangely must she have been baffled by this mirrored image -of herself,—fascinated, and at the same time contemptuously -revolted. What sympathy, what understanding could she know -for this thing of her blood that in obscurity, in poverty, a failure -in the eyes of the world, returned from barbarism to dream -wild dreams that were increasingly unsalable? As a boy, all -his passionate cravings for sympathy, for affection, were rebuffed -by her haughty reserve, and recoiled within him. -Fatherless and so mothered, he felt with Pierre, “that deep -in him lurked some divine unidentifiableness, that owed no -earthly kith or kin. Yet was this feeling entirely lonesome -and orphan-like. He felt himself driven out an infant Ishmael -into the desert, with no maternal Hagar to accompany -and comfort him.” In <i>Redburn</i>, with the mother image like -a fury in his heart, he describes himself as “a sort of Ishmael.” -“Call me Ishmael,” is the striking opening sentence -of <i>Moby-Dick</i>; and its no less striking close: “On the second -day, a sail drew near, nearer, and picked me up at last. It -was the devious cruising <i>Rachel</i>, that in retracing search after -her missing children, only found another orphan.” Of his -mother he is reported to have said in later life: “She hated -me.”</p> - -<p>It seems not altogether fantastic to contend that the Gorgon -face that Melville bore in his heart; the goading impalpable -image that made his whole life a pilgrimage of despair: that -was the cold beautiful face of his mother, Maria Gansevoort. -One shudders to think how such a charge would have violated -Maria’s proprieties. But in the treacherous ambiguities -of <i>Pierre</i>, Melville himself hovers on the verge of this insight. -Pierre is haunted by a mysterious face, which he thus invokes: -“The face!—the face!—The face steals down upon me. -Mysterious girl! who art thou? Take thy thin fingers from -me; I am affianced, and not to thee. Surely, thou lovest not me?—that -were most miserable for thee, and me. What, <i>who</i> art<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[63]</a></span> -thou? Oh! wretched vagueness—too familiar to me, yet inexplicable,—unknown, -utterly unknown!” To the mind of -Pierre it was a face “backward hinting of some irrevocable -sin; forward, pointing to some inevitable ill; hovering between -Tartarian misery and Paradisaic beauty.” In <i>Pierre</i>, this -face, “compounded so of hell and heaven,” is the instrument -by which the memory of Pierre’s father is desecrated, Pierre’s -mother is driven to insanity and death, and Pierre himself is -utterly ruined. <i>Pierre</i> is a book to send a Freudian into ravishment.</p> - -<p>Allan Melville, aged thirty-two, and Maria Gansevoort, nine -years younger, were married on the fourth of October, 1814. -In his journal, Allan has left this record of their wedding-trip.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p><i>October 4, 1814</i>—Left Albany at 11 A.M. in a hack with -Mrs. M. and Helen (his youngest sister, in -her sixteenth year). Dined at Stottard’s, -Lapan, & slept at Beths Lebanon.</p> - -<p><i>October 5, 1814</i>—Left Lebanon at 9, dined at Pittsfield & -slept at Worthington.</p> - -<p><i>October 6, 1814</i>—Left Worthington at ½ past 9, dined at -Southampton & slept at Belchertown.</p> - -<p><i>October 7, 1814</i>—Left Belchertown at 9, dined at Brookfield -& slept at Worcester.</p> - -<p><i>October 8, 1814</i>—Left Worcester at ½ past 9, dined at Farmingham -& arrived at Boston at 5 P.M.</p></div> - -<p>For five years following this initial daily shifting of bed -and board, Allan and his wife lived in Albany. The monotony -of this residence was broken by the birth of two children,—Gansevoort, -and Helen Marie,—and Allan’s trip to Europe in -the spring of 1818: the enforced business trip, already mentioned, -that took him to the home of his titled Scotch cousins. -Upon his return he resolved to leave Albany, and settle in -what he appreciatively called “the greatest universal mart in -the world.” On May 12, 1819, he records in his journal: -“Commenced Housekeeping at No. Park Street, New York.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[64]</a></span> -Mrs. M. & the children who had been to a visit to her Mother -at Albany since 6th April, having joined me on this day, to -my great joy.”</p> - -<p>Three months after Allan’s moving to “the greatest universal -mart in the world,” Maria presented him with a third -child, and second son, who was christened after Maria’s -brother, Herman. At this time, Allan seems to have accepted -the excitements of childbirth so casually that Melville’s birth -passed unrecorded in his father’s journal. The first surviving -record of Melville’s existence is unromantic enough. In -a letter dated October 7, 1820, Allan wrote: “Helen Marie -suffers most from what we term the whooping cough but which -I am sometimes suspicious is only influenza. But Gansevoort -and Herman are as yet slightly affected.”</p> - -<p>At this time, Allan seems to have prospered in business, for -on September 20, 1820, he reported to his mother: “We have -hired a cook & nurse and only want a waiter to complete our -domestic establishment.”</p> - -<p>Herman’s infancy seems to have been untroubled by any -event more startling than a growing aggregation of brothers -and sisters, occasional trips to Boston, and periodic pilgrimages -to Albany with his mother to be exhibited to his grandmother -Gansevoort. There are frequent references to his ailing -health. In April, 1824, Allan complains that “Gansevoort -has lost much of his ruddy appearance, while Herman who has -never entirely regained his health again looks pale, thin and -dejected.”</p> - - - -<p>At this time Allan signed “a 4 yrs. lease at $300 per annum -free of taxes, for a new brick 2 story house replete with conveniences, -to be handsomely furnished in the most modern -style under my own direction & a vacant lot of equal size attached -to it which will be invaluable as a play ground for the -children. It is situated in Bleecker, the first south, and parallel -to Bond St.... An open, dry & elevated location equidistant -from Broadway & the Bowery, in plain sight of both -& almost uniting the advantages of town & country, but its -distance from my store, nearly two miles, will compel me to -dine from my family most of the time, a serious objection to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[65]</a></span> -us all, but we shall be amply compensated by a residence which -will obviate the necessity of their leaving town every summer, -which deprives me altogether of their society. I shall also remove -professionally on the 1st of May to No. 102 Pearl St. upstairs -in the very focus of Business & surrounded by the auction -rooms which have become the Rialto of the modern merchants -but where I dare say even Shylock would be shy of -making his appearance.”</p> - -<p>By December 29, 1824, we hear of Herman that “he attends -school regularly but does not appear so fond of his -Book as to injure his health. He has turned into a great tease -& daily puts Gansevoort’s patience to flight who cannot bear -to be plagued by such a little fellow.”</p> - -<p>On the same date, Maria writes to her brother about pickling -oysters, 500 of which she sent to Albany as a gift to his -family. The picture of her life that she then gives is evidence -that she had cherished the counsels that “her friend A. M.” -had appended to Mrs. Chapone. She tells of a call she received -before eleven o’clock. “Although the hour was early, -all things were neat & in order & my ladyship was dressing -herself preparatory to sitting down to her sewing.” She -boasts of this fact, she says, in shamed recollection of the time -her brother and Mr. Smyth were ushered into a parlour out of -order. “It is the first time a thing of this kind has ever happened -to me & for my credit as a good housekeeper, I hope it -will be the last.” In conclusion she reports: “This afternoon -Mr. M. & myself, induced by the enlivening rays of the setting -sun, strolled down the Bowery & after an agreeable walk returned -home with renovated spirits.”</p> - -<p>In December, 1825, Allan is moved to “lament little Herman’s -melancholy situation, but we trust in humble confidence -that the <span class="blackletter">GOD</span> of the widow and the fatherless will yet restore -him.” By the following May, Allan’s humble confidence -seems to have been rewarded not only by Herman’s recovery, -but by the birth of another child. In the midst of a business -letter—the usual repository of Allan’s raptures—he with unwonted -vivacity so celebrates his paternal felicity: “The Lovely -Six!! are all well, and, while the youngest though both last &<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[66]</a></span> -least is a sweet child of promise, & bids fair to become the -fairest of the fair—so much for affection, now for business.”</p> - -<p>On August 10, 1826, Melville was sent out upon his first -trip from home unaccompanied by his parents. His destination -was his mother’s people in Albany, and his custodian during -the trip a Mr. Walker. Allan shifts his responsibility for -his son on the shoulders of his brother-in-law, Peter Gansevoort, -in these terms:</p> - -<p>“I now consign to your especial care & patronage my beloved -son Herman, an honest hearted double-rooted Knickerbocker -of the true Albany stamp, who, I trust, will do equal honour in -due time to ancestry, parentage & kindred. He is very backward -in speech & somewhat slow in comprehension, but you -will find him as far as he understands men and things both -solid & profound & of a docile & amiable disposition. If -agreeable, he will pass the vacation with his grandmother & -yourself & I hope he may prove a pleasant auxiliary to the -Family circle—I depend much on your kind attention to our -dear Boy who will be truly grateful to the least favour—let -him avoid green fruit & unseasonable exposure to the Sun & -heat, and having taken such good care of Gansevoort last Summer -I commit his Brother to the same hands with unreserved -confidence. & with love to our good mother and yourself in -which Maria, Mary & the children most cordially join I remain -very truly Your Friend & Brother, Allan Melville.”</p> - -<p>At the foot of this document, Allan appended in pencil: -“please turn over.” On the reverse of the letter is scribbled a -breathless last request: “Have the goodness to procure a pair -of shoes for Herman, time being insufficient to have a pair -made here.”</p> - -<p>When Allan here pronounces Melville “very backward in -speech & somewhat slow in comprehension,” he puts his son -in a large class of genius conspicuous for a deferred revelation -of promising intelligence. Scott, occupied in building up -romances, was dismissed as a dunce; Hume, the youthful -thinker, was described by his mother as “uncommon weak -minded.” Goldsmith was a stupid child; Fanny Burney did -not know her letters at the age of eight. Byron showed no<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[67]</a></span> -aptitude for school work. And Chatterton, up to the age of -six and a half, was, on the authority of his mother, “little -better than an absolute fool.” Allan scorned to take solace -from such facts, however. He consoled himself with the fact -that though his son was dull, he was at least “docile & amiable.”</p> - -<p>Melville spent the summer of 1826 with the Gansevoorts. -And he looked back upon it as perhaps the most fortunate -privilege of his youth, that this first visit to Albany set the -precedent for a whole series of similar summers. He is idealising -from his own experience when he says of Pierre: “It -had been his choice fate to have been born and nurtured in the -country, surrounded by scenery whose uncommon loveliness -was the perfect mould of a delicate and poetic mind; while the -popular names of its finest features appealed to the proudest -patriotic and family associations of the historic line of Glendinning.” -Nor does he hesitate to reiterate that Pierre’s was -a “choice fate”: “For to a noble American youth this indeed—more -than in any other land—this indeed is a most rare and -choice lot.” Each summer, for as long as his school vacations -would permit, Melville shared the choice lot of Pierre. But -Allan, unconverted to Melville’s Wordsworthian creed, regularly -recalled his son to the city with the opening of school.</p> - -<p>This is the recall for the year 1826, dated “12 Sept. Tuesday, -4 P.M.”: “We expect Gansevoort on Sunday, at fartherest, -when we wish Herman also to be here, that they may -recommence their studies together on Monday next, with equal -chances of preferment, & without any feelings of jealousy or -ideas of favoritism—besides they may thus acquire a practical -lesson whose influence may endure forever, for if they understand -early, that inclination must always yield to Duty, it will -become a matter of course when their vacations expire to bid a -fond adieu to friends & amusements, & return home cheerfully -to their books, & they will consequently imbibe habits of Order -& punctuality, which bear sweet blossoms in the dawn of -life, golden fruits in ‘the noon of manhood’ & a rich harvest -for the garners of old age—business is about as dull and unprofitable -as the most bitter foe to general prosperity, if such -a being exists in human shape, could desire it, & it requires<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[68]</a></span> -a keener vision than mine, to discern among the signs of the -times, any real symptoms of future improvement.”</p> - -<p>The summer of 1827 Melville spent with his grandparents -in Boston; the two following summers in Albany.</p> - -<p>On February 28, 1828, Allan reported to his brother-in-law -Peter Gansevoort: “We have taken a house on Broadway (No. -675—if I mistake not) for 5 years @ $575 without taxes—being -the 2d beyond the marble buildings & nearly opposite -Bond Street. The house is a modern 2 stories built 4 years -since for the owner & has only been occupied by his family. -The lot is 200 feet deep through to Mercer St., Maria is -charmed with the house & situation.”</p> - -<p>But Allan never lived to see this lease expire. The dull -business of which he earlier complained settled upon him, and -in 1830 the prospects in New York were so hopeless that he -moved back to Albany, to die two years later, leaving his wife -and eight children practically penniless.</p> - -<p>But before Allan moved away from New York, Herman -had time to write the earliest manuscript of his that survives. -It reads:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -11th of October, 1828.</p> -<p> -<span class="smcap">Dear grandmother</span> -</p> - -<p>This is the third letter that I ever wrote so you must not -think it very good. I now study geography, gramar, writing, -Speaking, Spelling, and read in the Scientific class book. I -enclose in this letter a drawing for my dear grandmother. -Give my love to grandmamma, Uncle Peter and Aunt Mary. -And my Sisters and also to allan,</p> - -<p class="sig">Your affectionate grandson<br /> - -<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>.</p></div> - -<p>In <i>Redburn</i>, Melville speaks “of those delightful days before -my father was a bankrupt, and died, and we moved from -the city”; or again, speaking of Allan: “he had been shaken -by many storms of adversity, and at last died a bankrupt.” -Allan’s journal, however, which he kept until within a few -months of his death, is proudly superior to anything suggestive -of the outrageousness of fortune: its hard glazed surface be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[69]</a></span>trays -to the end no crack in the veneer. Beyond a persistent -tradition, and Melville’s iterated statement, no further evidence -of Allan’s financial reverses has transpired.</p> - -<p>It is certain, however, that after Allan’s death his family -found themselves in straitened circumstances. After 1830, -the most specific evidence known to exist about the whereabouts -and condition of Melville’s family is preserved in old -Albany Directories, as follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -1830: no Melvilles mentioned.<br /> -<br /> -1831: Melville, Allan, 446 s. Market.<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">house 338 n. Market.</span><br /> -<br /> -1832: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market.<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, widow Maria, cor. of n. Market & Steuben.</span><br /> -<br /> -1833: Melville, Gansevoort, fur store, 364 s. Market.<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, widow Maria, 282 n. Market.</span><br /> -<br /> -1834: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, Herman, clerk in N. Y. State Bank, res. 3</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Clinton Square n. Pearl.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.</span><br /> -<br /> -1835: Melville, Gansevoort, fur and cap store, 364 s. Market,<br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">res. 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, Herman, clerk at 364 s. Market, res. 3 Clinton</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 4em;">Square n. Pearl.</span><br /> -<span style="margin-left: 3em;">Melville, widow Maria, 3 Clinton Square n. Pearl.</span> -</p> - -</div> - -<p>After 1835 the family scattered, Melville to begin his wanderings -on land and sea,—Gansevoort to drift about Albany -for two years, Maria and the rest of the children to move to -Lansingburg—now a part of Albany.</p> - -<p>The publication of the <i>Celebration of the Semi-Centennial -Anniversary of the Albany Academy</i> (Albany, 1862) in its -list of alumni, and the date of their entrance, offers the following -record:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -1831: Melville, Allan.<br /> -1830: Melville, Gansevoort.<br /> -1830: Melville, Herman. -</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[70]</a></span></p> - -<p>This Semi-Centennial Anniversary Celebration took place -in Tweedle Hall, which, so says the publication, “was crowded -with an appropriate audience.” “The meeting was presided -over by the Honourable <span class="smcap">Peter Gansevoort</span>, the President of -the Board of Trustees,” the publication goes on to say, “and -by his side were his associates and the guests of the festival, -among whom was warmly welcomed <span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>, -whose reputation as an author has honoured the Academy, -world-wide.” As Melville sat there, “the Rev. Doc. <span class="smcap">Ferris</span> -... made prayer to Heaven the source of that knowledge -which shall not vanish away;” Orlando Mead, LL.D., read a -Historical Discourse; and “at successive periods the exercises -were diversified by the music of <i>Home, Sweet Home</i> or <i>Rest, -Spirit, Rest</i>, and of other appropriate harmonies.” What recollections -of his school-days at the Albany Academy were then -passing through Melville’s head, we haven’t sufficient knowledge -of his schooling to guess. As part of the celebration, -Alexander W. Bradford, who was a student at the Academy -between 1825 and 1832, spoke of the “domestic discords and -fights between the Latins and the English, and the more fierce -and bitter foreign conflicts waged between the Hills and the -Creeks, the latter being a pugnacious tribe of barbarians who -inhabited the shores of Fox Creek;” of “the weekly exhibitions -in the Gymnasium grand with the beauty of Albany;” -of “the lectures and experiments in chemistry, which being -in the evening, were favoured by the presence of young -ladies as well as gentlemen.” In what capacity, if any, -Melville figured in these activities there is no way of -knowing.</p> - -<p>Dr. Henry Hun, now President of the Albany Academy, in -answer to a request for information about Melville, answers: -“Unfortunately, the records of the Albany Academy were -burned in 1888. It is impossible to say how long he remained -in the school or what results he achieved. He probably took -the Classical Course, as most of the brighter boys took it. It -was really a Collegiate Course, and the Head-master (or Principal -as he was then called) Dr. T. Romeyn Beck was an extraordinary -man, but one who did not spare the rod, but gave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[71]</a></span> -daily exhibitions in its use.” In a postscript Dr. Hun adds: -“It was a God-fearing school.”</p> - -<p>Joseph Henry, at one time teacher at the Albany Academy, -later head of the Smithsonian Institute, in an address before -the Association for the Advancement of Science, in session in -Albany in 1851, said of Melville’s Alma Mater: “The Albany -Academy was and still is one of the first, if not the very first, -institution of its kind in the United States. It early opposed -the pernicious maxim that a child should be taught nothing -but what it could perfectly understand, and that the sole object -of instruction is to teach a child to think.”</p> - -<p>Since Melville was in 1834 employed as clerk in the New -York State Bank (a post he doubtless owed to his uncle, Peter -Gansevoort, who was one of the Trustees) he must have -ceased to enjoy the advantages of the Albany Academy before -that date. During the time of Melville’s attendance, the same -texts were used by all students alike during their first three -years at the Albany Academy. This, then, would seem to be -a list of the texts (offered by the courtesy of Dr. Hun) studied -by Melville:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="year"> -1st Year:</p> -<p> -Latin Grammar<br /> -Historia Sacra<br /> -Turner’s Exercises (begun)<br /> -Latin Reader<br /> -Irving’s Universal History</p> -<p class="year"> -2d Year:</p> -<p> -Latin Reader continued<br /> -Turner’s Exercises<br /> -Cornelius Nepos<br /> -Irving’s Grecian and Roman Histories<br /> -Roman Antiquities</p> -<p class="year"> -3d Year:</p> -<p> -Cæsar, Ovid, Latin Prosody<br /> -Turner’s Exercises, Translations<br /> -Irving’s Grecian Antiquities<br /> -Mythology and Biography<br /> -Greek Grammar -</p> -</div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[72]</a></span></p> - -<p>J. E. A. Smith, in the <i>Biographical Sketch of Herman Melville</i> -that in 1891 he wrote for <i>The Evening Journal</i> of Pittsfield, -Massachusetts, says of Melville’s school-days:</p> - -<p>“In 1835, Professor Charles E. West ... was president -of the Albany Classical Institute for boys, and Herman Melville -became one of his pupils. Professor West now remembers -him as a favourite pupil, not distinguished for mathematics, -but very much so in the writing of ‘themes’ or ‘compositions’ -and fond of doing it, while the great majority of -pupils dreaded it as a task, and would shirk it if they could.”</p> - -<p>In 1835, Melville was clerk in his brother’s shop. If J. E. -A. Smith’s record is accurate, Melville was at the time alternating -business with education.</p> - -<p>The greater part of 1836 was spent by Melville, according -to his own account, already quoted, in the household of his -uncle Major Thomas Melville, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts.</p> - -<p>J. E. A. Smith in his <i>Biographical Sketch</i> so supplements -Melville’s account: “Besides his labours with his uncle in the -hay field, he was for one term teacher of the common school -in the ‘Sykes district’ under Washington mountain, of which -he had some racy memories—one of them of a rebellion in -which some of the bigger boys undertook to ‘lick’ him—with -what results, those who remember his physique and character -can well imagine.”</p> - -<p>The only other records we have of Melville’s boyhood and -early youth are the scattered recollections preserved in his published -works. Such, throughout his life, were the veering -whims of his blood, that he recalled these earlier years with no -unity of retrospect. The confessions of St. Augustine are a -classical warning of the untrustworthiness of even the most -conscientious memory. To call memory the mother of the -Muses, is too frequently but a partial and euphemistic naming -of her offspring. So when Melville writes of early years, -now in rhapsody and then in bitterness, the result, though -always valuable autobiography, is not invariably, of course, -strict history.</p> - -<p>Some of his idealisations of his life with the Gansevoorts -have already been given. Through the refracting films of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[73]</a></span> -memory he at times looked back upon “those far descended -Dutch meadows ... steeped in a Hindooish haze” and proud -of his name and his “double revolutionary descent,” he viewed -himself with Miltonic self-esteem as a “fine, proud, loving, -docile, vigorous boy.” And there is no reason to suspect him -of perverting the truth. Behind these are “certain shadowy -reminiscences of wharves, and warehouses, and shipping, -which a residence in a seaport during early childhood had -supplied me.” And with them he blended remembrances “of -winter evenings in New York, by the well-remembered sea-coal -fire, when my father used to tell my brother and me of -the monstrous waves at sea, mountain high; of the masts bending -like twigs; and all about Havre, and Liverpool, and about -going up into the ball of St. Paul’s in London. Indeed, during -my early life, most of my thoughts of the sea were connected -with the land; but with fine old lands, full of mossy -cathedrals and churches, and long, narrow crooked streets -without sidewalks, and lined with strange houses. And -especially I tried hard to think how such places must look on -rainy days and Saturday afternoons; and whether indeed they -did have rainy days and Saturdays there, just as we did here, -and whether the boys went to school there, and studied geography -and wore their shirt collars turned over, and tied with -a black ribbon; and whether their papas allowed them to wear -boots instead of shoes, which I so much disliked, for boots -looked so manly.”</p> - -<p>Melville confesses here to a precocious exercise of the poetic -imagination: a type of imagination for which the consistent -disappointments of his life were to be the invariable penalty. -In the prosaic man, in Benjamin Franklin, for example, the -imagination does not, as it did with Melville, enrich the immediate -facts of experience with amplifications so vivid that -the reality is in danger of being submerged. In the prosaic -man, the imagination works in a safely utilitarian fashion, -combining images for practical purposes under the supervision -of a matter-of-fact judgment. And though it may indeed -bring the lightning from the clouds, it makes the transfer not -to glorify the firmament, but to discipline the lightning and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[74]</a></span> -to make church steeples safe from the wrath of God. Melville’s -was the type of imagination whose extreme operation is -exemplified in William Blake. “I assert for myself,” said -Blake, “that I do not behold the outward creation, and that it -is to me hindrance and not action. ‘What,’ it will be questioned, -‘when the sun rises, do you not see a round disk of fire -something like a guinea?’ Oh! no! no! I see an innumerable -company of the heavenly host, crying, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the -Lord God Almighty!’ I question not my corporeal eye any -more than I would question a window concerning a sight. I -look through it, and not with it.” Though Allan Melville -chose as courtship gift a copy of <i>Pleasures of Imagination</i>, -the pleasures he derived from the exercise of this faculty -were of a sort that both Blake and his son would have thought -tame in the extreme. Allan saw the world with his eyes alone, -he proudly believed, the world as it really is. It was both the -blessing and the curse of his son that his was the gift of “second -sight.”</p> - -<p>“We had several pieces of furniture in the house,” says Melville, -speaking of his childhood days, “which had been brought -from Europe”: furniture that had been imported by Allan, -some of which is still in the possession of Melville’s descendants. -“These I examined again and again, wondering where -the wood grew: whether the workmen who made them still -survived, and what they could be doing with themselves now.” -Could Allan have known what was going on in the head of his -son, he would have been as alarmed as was the father of Anatole -France when the young Thibault undertook to emulate -St. Nicholas of Patras and distribute his riches to the poor.</p> - -<p>Even as a child, he was lured by the romance of distance, -and he confesses how he used to think “how fine it would be, -to be able to talk about remote barbarous countries; with what -reverence and wonder people would regard me, if I had just -returned from the coast of Africa or New Zealand: how dark -and romantic my sunburnt cheeks would look; how I would -bring home with me foreign clothes of rich fabric and princely -make, and wear them up and down the streets, and how -grocers’ boys would turn their heads to look at me, as I went<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[75]</a></span> -by. For I very well remembered staring at a man myself, who -was pointed out to me by my aunt one Sunday in church, as -the person who had been in stony Arabia and passed through -strange adventures there, all of which with my own eyes I had -read in the book which he wrote, an arid-looking book in a -pale yellow cover.</p> - -<p>“‘See what big eyes he has,’ whispered my aunt, ‘they got -so big, because when he was almost dead in the desert with -famishing, he all at once caught sight of a date tree, with the -ripe fruit hanging on it.’ Upon this, I stared at him till I -thought his eyes were really of an uncommon size, and stuck -out from his head like those of a lobster. When church was -out, I wanted my aunt to take me along and follow the traveller -home. But she said the constables would take us up, if -we did; and so I never saw the wonderful Arabian traveller -again. But he long haunted me; and several times I dreamt -of him, and thought his great eyes were grown still larger and -rounder; and once I had a vision of the date tree.”</p> - -<p>It is one of the few certainties of life that a child who has -once stood fixed before a piece of household furniture worrying -his head about whether the workman who made it still be -alive; who after seeing an Arabian traveller in church goes -home and has a vision of a date tree: such a child is not going -to die an efficiency expert. At the age of fifteen Melville -found himself faced with the premature necessity of coming -to some sort of terms with life on his own account. Helped -by his uncle, he tried working in a bank. The experiment -seems not to have been a success. His next experiment was -clerk in his brother’s store. But banking and clerking seem to -have been equally repugnant. Melville had a taste for landscape, -so his next experiment was as farmer and country -school-keeper. But farming, interspersed with pedagogy and -pugilism, fired Melville to a mood of desperation. “Talk not -of the bitterness of middle age and after-life,” he later wrote; -“a boy can feel all that, and much more, when upon his young -soul the mildew has fallen.... Before the death of my -father I never thought of working for my living, and never -knew there were hard hearts in the world.... I had learned<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[76]</a></span> -to think much, and bitterly, before my time.” So he decided -to slough off the tame respectabilities of his well-to-do uncles, -and cousins, and aunts. Goaded by hardship, and pathetically -lured by the glamorous mirage of distance, with all the impetuosity -of his eighteen summers he planned a hegira. “With -a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; -I quietly take to the ship. This is my substitute for pistol and -ball.”</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[77]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IV <br /> - -<span class="smaller">A SUBSTITUTE FOR PISTOL AND BALL</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“When I go to sea, I go as a simple sailor, right before the mast, plumb -down into the forecastle, aloft there to the royal mast-head. True, they -rather order me about some, and make me jump from spar to spar, like -a grasshopper in a May meadow. And at first, this sort of thing is -unpleasant enough. It touches one’s sense of honour, particularly if -you come of an old established family in the land, the Van Rensselaers, -or Randolphs, or Hardicanutes. And more than all, if just previous to -putting your hand into the tar-pot, you have been lording it as a country -schoolmaster, making the tallest boys stand in awe of you, 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.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>When, at the age of seventeen, Melville cut loose from his -mother, his kind cousins and aunts, and sympathising sisters, -he was stirred by motives of desperation, and by the immature -delusion that happiness lies elusive and beckoning, just over -the world’s rim. It was a drastic escape from the intolerable -monotony of prosaic certainties and aching frustrations. “Sad -disappointments in several plans which I had sketched for my -future life,” says Melville, “the necessity of doing something -for myself, united with a naturally roving disposition, conspired -within me, to send me to sea as a sailor.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-boy Confessions -and Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman</i> (1849) -Melville has left what is the only surviving record of his initial -attempt “to sail beyond the sunset.” Luridly vivid and exuberant -was his imagination, flooding the world of his childhood -and fantastically transmuting reality. At the time of his first -voyage, Melville was, it is well to remember, a boy of seventeen. -He was not old enough, not wise enough, to regard his -dreams as impalpable projections of his defeated desires: desires -inflamed by what Dr. Johnson called the “dangerous -prevalence of imagination,” and which, in “sober probability” -could find no actual satisfaction. Had Melville been a nature<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[78]</a></span> -of less impetuosity, or of less abundant physical vitality, he -might have moped tamely at home and “yearned.” But with -the desperate Quixotic enterprise of a splendid but embittered -boy, he sallied forth into the unknown to put his dreams to the -test. When it was reported to Carlyle that Margaret Fuller -made boast: “I accept the universe,” unimpressed he remarked: -“Gad! she’d better.” Melville, when only seventeen, -had not yet come to Carlyle’s dyspeptic resignation to the cosmic -order. “As years and dumps increase; as reflection lends -her solemn pause, then,” so Melville says, in substance, in a -passage on elderly whales, “in the impotent, repentant, admonitory -stage of life, do sulky old souls go about all alone among -the meridians and parallels saying their prayers.” Lacking -Dr. Johnson’s elderly wisdom, Melville believed there to be -some correlation between happiness and geography. He was -not willing to take resignation on faith. Not through “spontaneous -striving towards development,” but through necessity -and hard contact with nature and men does the recalcitrant -dreamer accept Carlyle’s dictum. With drastic experience, -most men come at last to have a little commonsense knocked -into their heads,—and a good bit of imagination knocked out, -as Wordsworth, for one, discovered.</p> - -<p>Melville’s recourse to the ocean in 1837, as that of Richard -Henry Dana’s three years before, was a heroic measure, calculated -either to take the nonsense out of both of them, or else -to drive them straight either to suicide, madness, or rum-soaked -barbarism. To both boys, it was a crucial test that -would have ruined coarser or weaker natures. Dana came -from out the ordeal purged and strengthened, toned up to the -proper level, and no longer too fine for everyday use. Though -as years went by, so says C. F. Adams, his biographer, “the -freshness of the great lesson faded away, and influences which -antedated his birth and surrounded his life asserted themselves, -not for his good.”</p> - -<p>Because of lack of contemporary evidence, the immediate -influences of Melville’s first experience in the forecastle, cannot -be so positively stated. <i>Redburn</i>, the only record of the -adventure, was not written until twelve years after Melville<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[79]</a></span> -had experienced what it records. Extraordinarily crowded -was this intervening span of twelve years. But despite the -fulness of intervening experience—or, maybe, because of it—the -universe still stuck in his maw: it was a bolus on which -he gagged. <i>Redburn</i> is written in embittered memory of Melville’s -first hegira. In the words of Mr. H. S. Salt: “It is a -record of bitter experience and temporary disillusionment—the -confessions of a poor, proud youth, who goes to sea ‘with -a devil in his heart’ and is painfully initiated into the unforeseen -hardships of a sea-faring life.” In 1849 he was still unadjusted -to unpalatable reality, and in <i>Redburn</i> he seems intent -upon revenging himself upon his early disillusion by an inverted -idealism,—by building for himself, “not castles, but -dungeons in Spain,”—as if, failing to reach the moon, he -should determine to make a Cynthia of the first green cheese. -And this inverted idealism he achieves most effectively by recording -with photographic literalness the most hideous details -of his penurious migration. His romantic realism—reminding -one of Zola and certain pages out of Rousseau—he alternates -with malicious self-satire, and its obverse gesture, obtrusive -self-pity. To those austere and classical souls who -are proudly impatient of this style of writing, it must be insisted -with what Arnold called “damnable iteration” that <i>Redburn</i> -purports to be the confessions of a seventeen-year-old -lad. Autobiographically, the book is, of course, of superlative -interest. But despite its unaccountable neglect, and Melville’s -ostentation of contempt for it, it is none the less important, -in the history of letters, as a very notable achievement. Mr. -Masefield and W. Clark Russell alone, of competent critics, -seem to have been aware of its existence. It is <i>Redburn</i> that -Mr. Masefield confesses to loving best of Melville’s writings: -this “boy’s book about running away to sea.” Mr. Masefield -thinks, however, that “one must know New York and the -haunted sailor-town of Liverpool to appreciate that gentle -story thoroughly.”</p> - -<p>When Melville wrote <i>Redburn</i> in 1849, there was no book -exactly like it in our literature, its only possible forerunners -being Nathaniel Ames’ <i>A Mariner’s Sketches</i> (1830) and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[80]</a></span> -Dana’s <i>Two Years before the Mast</i> (1840). The great captains -had written of their voyages, it is true; or when they -themselves left no record, their literary laxity was usually corrected -by the querulousness of some member of their ship’s -company. Great compilations such as Churchill’s, or Harris’, -or Hakluyt’s <i>The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques -and Discoveries of the English Nation: made by sea or overland -to the remotest and farthest different quarters of the earth at -any time within the Compass of these 1600 years</i>, or no less -luxuriously entitled works, such as the fine old eighteenth century -folio of Captain Charles Johnson’s <i>A General History -of the Lives and Adventures of the Most Famous Highwaymen, -Murderers, Street Robbers, etc., To which is added, A -Genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the Most -Notorious Pyrates, interspersed with several diverting tales, -and pleasant songs, and adorned with the Heads of the Most -Remarkable Villains, curiously Engraven</i>, are monuments to -the prodigious wealth of the early literature of sea adventure. -The light of romance colours these maritime exploits, and even -upon the maturest gaze there still lingers something of the -radiance with which the ardent imagination of boyhood gilds -the actions and persons of these fierce sea-warriors, treacherous, -cruel and profligate miscreants though the most picturesque -of them were.</p> - -<p>But these hardy adventurers were men of action; men proud -of their own exploits, but untouched by any corrupt self-consciousness -of their Gilbert-and-Sullivan, or Byronic possibilities; -men untempted to offer any superfluous encouragement -to the deep blue sea to “roll.” And though many of them—Captain -Cook, for example—ran away to sea to ship before -the mast, they in later years betray no temptings to linger with -attention over their days of early obscurity. Even <i>The Book -of Things Forgotten</i> passes over the period of Cook’s life in -the forecastle. He began as an apprentice, he ended as a mate. -That is all. As regards the life he led as a youth on board -the merchant ship there is no account: a silence that forces -Walter Besant in his <i>Captain Cook</i> to a page or two of surmise -as a transition to more notable sureties. An apprecia<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[81]</a></span>tion -of the romance of the sea, and of the humbler details of -the life of the common sailor is one of our most recent sophistications.</p> - -<p>In fiction, it is true, Smollett had his sailors, as did Scott, -and Marryat, and Cooper,—to mention only the most notable -names. Provoked to originality by a defiant boast, Cooper -wrote the earliest first-rate sea-novel: a story concerning itself -exclusively with the sea. Remarkable is the clearness and accuracy -of his description of the manœuvres of his ships. He -makes his vessels “walk the waters like a thing of life.” “I -have loved ships as I have loved men,” says Melville. And -Cooper before him, as Conrad after him, have by similar love -given personality to vessels. Among his company of able seamen, -Cooper has his Long Tom Coffin: and these are more -picturesque, and perhaps more real than his Lord Geoffrey -Cleveland, his Admiral Bluewater, his Griffith, and his other -quarterdeck people. But sea-life as Cooper knew it was sea-life -as seen from the quarterdeck, and from the quarterdeck -of the United States navy.</p> - -<p>Marryat, it is true, makes his Newton Foster a merchant -sailor. But Marryat knew nothing of the hidden life of the -merchant service. He had passed his sea-life in the ships of -the States, and he knew no more of what passed in a merchantman’s -forecastle than the general present day land intelligence -knows of what passes in a steamer’s engine room. Dana and -Melville were the first to lift the hatch and show the world -what passes in a ship’s forecastle. Dana disclosed these secrets -in a single volume; Melville in a number of remarkable narratives, -the first of which was <i>Redburn</i>.</p> - -<p>Dana’s is a trustworthy and matter-of-fact account in the -form of a journal; a vigorous, faithful, modest narrative. -With very little interest exhibited in the feeling of his own -pulse, he recounts the happenings aboard the ship from day -to day. Melville’s account is more vivid because more intimate. -As is the case with George Borrow, his eye is always -riveted upon himself. He minutely amplifies his own emotions -and sensations, and with an incalculable gain over Dana in descriptive -vividness. One would have to be colour blind to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[82]</a></span> -purple patches to fail to recognise in <i>Redburn</i> streaks of the -purest Tyrean dye. Between Melville and Dana the answer -is obvious as to “who fished the murex up?”</p> - -<p>“It was with a heavy heart and full eyes,” says Melville, -“that my mother parted from me; perhaps she thought me an -erring and a wilful boy, and perhaps I was; but if I was, it -had been a hard-hearted world, and hard times that had made -me so.”</p> - -<p>Dressed in a hunting jacket; one leg of his trousers adorned -with an ample and embarrassing patch; armed with a fowling -piece which his older brother Gansevoort had given him, in -lieu of cash, to sell in New York; without a penny in his -pocket: Melville arrived in New York on a fine rainy day in -the late spring of 1837. Dripping like a seal, and garbed like -a housebreaker, he walked across town to the home of a friend -of Gansevoort’s, where he was dried, warmed and fed.</p> - -<p>Philo of Judea has descended to posterity blushing because -he had a body. Melville survives, rosy in animality: but his -was never Philo’s scarlet of shame. Melville was a boy of superb -physical vigour: and his blackest plunges of discouragement -and philosophical despair were always wholesomely amenable -to the persuasions of food and drink. It was Carlyle’s -conviction that with stupidity and a good digestion man can -bear much: had Melville been gifted with stupidity, he would -have needed only regular meals to convert him into a miracle -of cheerful endurance. “There is a savour of life and immortality -in substantial fare,” he later wrote; “we are like balloons, -which are nothing till filled.” When Melville sat down -to the well-stocked table at his friend’s house in New York he -was a very miserable boy. But his misery was not invulnerable. -“Every mouthful pushed the devil that had been -tormenting me all day farther and farther out of me, till at -last I entirely ejected him with three successive bowls of -Bohea. That night I went to bed thinking the world pretty -tolerable after all.”</p> - -<p>Next day, accompanied by his brother’s friend, whose true -name Melville disguises under the anonymity of Jones, Melville -walked down to the water front.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[83]</a></span></p> - -<p>At that time, and indeed until as recently as thirty years -ago, the water front of a great sea-port town like New York -showed a towering forest of tall and tapering masts reaching -high up above the roofs of the water-side buildings, crossed -with slender spars hung with snowy canvas, and braced with a -maze of cordage: a brave sight that Melville passes over in -morose silence. He postpones until his arrival in Liverpool -the spicing of his account with the blended smells of pitch, and -tar, and old-ropes, and wet-wood, and resin and the sharp cool -tang of brine. Nor does Melville pause to conjure up the great -bowsprits and jib-booms that stretched across the street that -passed the foot of the slips. Though Melville has left a detailed -description of the Liverpool docks—not failing to paint -in with a dripping brush the blackest shadows of the low life -framing that picturesque scene—it was outside his purpose to -give any hint of the maritime achievement of the merchant -service in which he was such an insignificant unit.</p> - -<p>The maritime achievement of the United States was then -almost at the pinnacle of its glory. At that time, the topsails -of the United States flecked every ocean, and their captains -courageous left no lands unvisited, no sea unexplored. From -New England in particular sailed ships where no other ships -dared to go, anchoring where no one else ever dreamed of -looking for trade. And so it happened, as Ralph D. Paine in -his <i>The Old Merchant Marine</i> has pointed out, that “in the -spicy warehouses that overlooked Salem Harbour there came -to be stored hemp from Luzon, gum copal from Zanzibar, palm -oil from Africa, coffee from Arabia, tallow from Madagascar, -whale oil from the Antarctic, hides and wool from the Rio de -la Plata, nutmeg and cloves from Malaysia.” With New England -originality and audacity, Boston shipped cargoes of ice -to Calcutta. And for thirty years a regular trade in Massachusetts -ice remained active and lucrative: such perishable -freight out upon a four or five months’ voyage across the fiery -Equator, doubling Da Gama’s cape and steering through the -furnace heat of the Indian Ocean. In those days the people -of the Atlantic seacoast from Maryland northward found their -interests vitally allied with maritime adventure. There was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[84]</a></span> -a generous scattering of sea-faring folk among Melville’s forebears -of our early national era; and Melville’s father, an importing -merchant, owed his fortunes in important part, to -the chances of the sea. The United States, without railroads, -and with only the most wretched excuses for post-roads, -were linked together by coasting ships. And thousands of -miles of ocean separated Americans from the markets in which -they must sell their produce and buy their luxuries. Down -to the middle of the last century, one of the most vital interests -of the United States was in the sea: an interest that -deeply influenced the thought, the legislature and the literature -of our people. And during this period, as Willis J. Abbott, -in his <i>American Merchant Ships and Sailors</i> has noted, “the -sea was a favourite career, not only for American boys with -their way to make in the world, but for the sons of wealthy -men as well. That classic of New England seamanship <i>Two -Years Before the Mast</i> was not written until the middle of the -19th century, and its author went to sea, not in search of -wealth, but of health. But before the time of Richard Henry -Dana, many a young man of good family and education—a -Harvard graduate, like him, perhaps—bade farewell to a -home of comfort and refinement and made his berth in a -smoky, fetid forecastle to learn the sailor’s calling. There -was at that time less to engage the activities and arouse the -ambitions of youth than now, and the sea offered a most promising -career.... Ships were multiplying fast, and no really -lively and alert seaman need stay long in the forecastle.” The -brilliant maritime growth of the United States, after a steady -development for two hundred years, was, when Melville sailed -in 1837, within twenty-five years of its climax. It was to -reach its peak in 1861, when the aggregate tonnage belonging -to the United States was but a little smaller than that of Great -Britain and her dependencies, and nearly as large as the combined -tonnage of all other nations of the world, Great Britain -excepted. Vanished fleets and brave memories—a chronicle -of America which had written its closing chapters before the -Civil War!</p> - -<p>But this state of affairs,—if, indeed, he was even vaguely<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[85]</a></span> -conscious of its existence,—left Melville at the time of his first -shipping, completely cold. It is doubtless true that Maria -would have respected him more if he had attempted to justify -his sea-going by assuring her that at that time it was to no -degree remarkable for seamen to become full-fledged captains -and part owners at the age of twenty-one, or even earlier. And -Maria would have listened impressed to such cogent evidence -as the case of Thomas T. Forbes, for example, who shipped -before the mast at the age of thirteen, and was commander of -the <i>Levant</i> at twenty; or the case of William Sturges, afterwards -the head of a firm which at one time controlled half the -trade between the United States and China, who shipped at -seventeen, and was a captain and manager in the China trade -at nineteen. But such facts touched Melville not at all. “At -that early age,” he says, “I was as unambitious as a man of -sixty.” Melville’s brother, Tom, came to be a sea-captain. -Melville’s was a different destiny.</p> - -<p>So he trudged with his friend among the boats along the -water front, where, after some little searching, they hit upon -a ship for Liverpool. In the cabin they found the suave and -bearded Captain, dapperly dressed, and humming a brisk air as -he promenaded up and down: not such a completely odious -creature, despite Melville’s final contempt for him. The conversation -was concluded by Melville signing up as a “boy,” at -terms not wildly lucrative for Melville.</p> - -<p>“Pray, captain,” said Melville’s amiable bungling friend, -“how much do you generally pay a handsome fellow like this?”</p> - -<p>“Well,” said the captain, looking grave and profound, “we -are not so particular about beauty, and we never give more -than three dollars to a green lad.”</p> - -<p>Melville’s next move was to sell his gun: an experience -which gives him occasion to discourse on pawn shops and the -unenviable hardships of paupers. With the two and a half -dollars that he reaped by the sale of his gun, and in almost -criminal innocence of the outfit he would need, he bought a -red woollen shirt, a tarpaulin hat, a belt, and a jack-knife. In -his improvidence, he was ill provided, indeed, with everything -calculated to make his situation aboard ship at all comfortable,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[86]</a></span> -or even tolerable. He was without mattress or bed-clothes, -or table-tools; without pilot-cloth jackets, or trousers, or -guernsey frocks, or oil-skin suits, or sea-boots and the other -things which old seamen used to carry in their chests. As he -himself says, his sea-outfit was “something like that of the -Texan rangers, whose uniform, they say, consists of a shirt -collar and a pair of spurs.” His purchases made, he did a -highly typical thing: “I had only one penny left, so I walked -out to the end of the pier, and threw the penny into the -water.”</p> - -<p>That night, after dinner, Melville went to his room to try -on his red woollen shirt before the glass, to see what sort of a -looking sailor he would make. But before beginning this -ritual before the mirror, he “locked the door carefully, and -hung a towel over the knob, so that no one could peep through -the keyhole.” It is said that throughout his life Melville clung -to this practice of draping door-knobs. “As soon as I got -into the shirt,” Melville goes on to say, “I began to feel sort -of warm and red about the face, which I found was owing to -the reflection of the dyed wool upon my skin. After that, -I took a pair of scissors and went to cutting my hair, which -was very long. I thought every little would help in making -me a light hand to run aloft.”</p> - -<p>Next morning, before he reached the ship, it began raining -hard, so it was plain there would be no getting to sea that day. -But having once said farewell to his friends, and feeling a -repetition of the ceremony would be awkward, Melville -boarded the ship, where a large man in a large dripping pea-jacket, -who was calking down the main-hatches, directed him -in no cordial terms to the forecastle. Rather different was -Dana’s appearance on board the brig <i>Pilgrim</i> on August 14, -1834, “in full sea-rig, with my chest containing an outfit for -a two or three years’ voyage.” Nor did Dana begin in the -forecastle.</p> - -<p>In the dark damp stench of that deserted hole, Melville -selected an empty bunk. In the middle of this he deposited -the slim bundle of his belongings, and penniless and dripping -spent the day walking hungry among the wharves: a day’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[87]</a></span> -peregrination that he recounts with vivid and remorseless -realism.</p> - -<p>At night he returned to the forecastle, where he met a thick-headed -lad from Lancaster of about his own years. Glad of -any companionship, Melville and this lubber boy crawled together -in the same bunk. But between the high odour of the -forecastle, the loud snoring of his bed-fellow, wet, cold and -hungry, he went up on deck, where he walked till morning. -When the groceries on the wharf opened, he went to make a -breakfast of a glass of water. This made him qualmish. “My -head was dizzy, and I went staggering along the walk, almost -blind.”</p> - -<p>By the time Melville got back to the ship, everything was in -an uproar. The pea-jacket man was there ordering about men -in the riggings, and people were bringing off chickens, and -pigs, and beef, and vegetables from the shore. Melville’s -initial task was the cleaning out of the pig-pen; after this he -was sent up the top-mast with a bucket of a thick lobbered -gravy, which slush he dabbed over the mast. This over, and, -in the increasing bustle everything having been made ready to -sail, the word was passed to go to dinner fore and aft. -“Though the sailors surfeited with eating and drinking ashore -did not touch the salt beef and potatoes which the black cook -handed down into the forecastle: and though this left the -whole allowance to me; to my surprise, I found that I could -eat little or nothing; for now I only felt deadly faint, but not -hungry.”</p> - -<p>Only a lunatic, of course, would expect to find very commodious -or airy quarters, any drawing-room amenities, Chautauqua -uplift, or Y.M.C.A. insipidities aboard a merchantman -of the old sailing days. Nathaniel Ames, a Harvard -graduate who a little before Melville’s time shipped before -the mast, records that on his first vessel, men seeking berths -in the forecastle were ordered to bring certificates of good -character from their clergymen: an unusual requirement, -surely. In more than one memoir, there is mention of a -“religious ship”: an occasional mention that speaks volumes -for the heathenism of the majority. Dana says of one of the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[88]</a></span> -mates aboard the <i>Pilgrim</i>: “He was too easy and amiable for -the mate of a merchantman. He was not the man to call a -sailor a ‘son of a bitch’ and knock him down with a hand-spike.” -And J. Grey Jewell, sometime United States Consul -at Singapore, in his book <i>Among Our Sailors</i> makes a sober -and elaborately documented attempt to strip the life of a sailor -of its romantic glamour, to show that it is not a “round of -fun and frolic and jollity with the advantages of seeing many -distant lands and people thrown in”: an effort that would seem -to be unnecessary except to boy readers of Captain Marryat -and dime thrillers.</p> - -<p>Melville’s shipmates were, it goes without saying, rough -and illiterate men. With typical irony, he says that with a -good degree of complacency and satisfaction he compared his -own character with that of his shipmates: “for I had previously -associated with persons of a very discreet life, so that -there was little opportunity to magnify myself by comparing -myself with my neighbours.” In a more serious mood, he -says of sailors as a class: “the very fact of their being sailors -argues a certain restlessness and sensualism of character, ignorance, -and depravity. They are deemed almost the refuse of -the earth; and the romantic view of them is principally had -through romances.” And their chances of improvement are -not increased, he contends, by the fact that “after the vigorous -discipline, hardships, dangers and privations of a voyage, they -are set adrift in a foreign port, and exposed to a thousand -enticements, which, under the circumstances, would be hard -even for virtue to withstand, unless virtue went about on -crutches.” It was a tradition for centuries fostered in the -naval service that the sailor was a dog, a different human -species from the landsman, without laws and usages to protect -him. This tradition survived among merchant sailors as -an unhappy anachronism even into the twentieth century, when -an American Congress was reluctant to bestow upon seamen -the decencies of existence enjoyed by the poorest labourer -ashore. Melville’s shipmates did not promise to be men of -the calibre of which Maria Gansevoort would have approved.</p> - -<p>With his ship, the <i>Highlander</i>, streaming out through the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[89]</a></span> -Narrows, past sights rich in association to his boyish recollection; -streaming out and away from all familiar smells and -sights and sounds, Melville found himself “a sort of Ishmael -in the ship, without a single friend or companion, and I began -to feel a hatred growing up in me against the whole crew.” -In other words, Melville was a very homesick boy. But he -blended common sense with homesickness. “My heart was -like lead, and I felt bad enough, Heaven knows; but I soon -learnt that sailors breathe nothing about such things, but -strive their best to appear all alive and hearty.” And circumstances -helped him live up to this gallant insight. For, as -he says, “there was plenty of work to be done, which kept -my thoughts from becoming too much for me.”</p> - -<p>Melville was a boy of stout physical courage, game to the -marrow, and in texture of muscle and bone a worthy grandson -of General Gansevoort. What would have ruined a sallow -constitution, he seems to have thriven upon. “Being so illy -provided with clothes,” he says, “I frequently turned into my -bunk soaking wet, and turned out again piping hot and smoking -like a roasted sirloin, and yet was never the worse for it; -for then, I bore a charmed life of youth and health, and was -daggerproof to bodily ill.” With alacrity and good sportsmanship, -he went at his duties. Before he had been out many -days, he had outlived the acute and combined miseries of -homesickness and seasickness; the colour was back in his -cheeks, he is careful to observe with Miltonic vanity. Soon he -was taking especial delight in furling the top-gallant sails and -royals in a hard wind, and in hopping about in the riggings like -a Saint Jago’s monkey. “There was a wild delirium about -it,” he says, “a fine rushing of the blood about the heart; and -a glad thrilling and throbbing of the whole system, to find -yourself tossed up at every pitch into the clouds of a stormy -sky, and hovering like a judgment angel between heaven and -earth; both hands free, with one foot in the rigging, and one -somewhere behind you in the wind.”</p> - -<p>The food, of course, was neither dainty nor widely varied: -an unceasing round of salt-pork, stale beef, “duff,” “lobscouse,” -and coffee. “The thing they called <i>coffee</i>,” says<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[90]</a></span> -Melville with keen descriptive effort, “was the most curious -tasting drink I ever drank, and tasted as little like coffee as -it did like lemonade; though, to be sure, it was generally as -cold as lemonade. But what was more curious still, was the -different quality and taste of it on different mornings. Sometimes -it tasted fishy, as if it were a decoction of Dutch herring; -and then it would taste very salt, as if some <i>old horse</i> -or sea-beef had been boiled in it; and then again it would taste -a sort of cheesy, as if the captain had sent his cheese-parings -forward to make our coffee of; and yet another time it would -have such a very bad flavour that I was almost ready to think -some old stocking heel had been boiled in it. Notwithstanding -the disagreeableness of the flavour, I always used to have -a strange curiosity every morning to see what new taste it was -going to have; and I never missed making a new discovery -and adding another taste to my palate.”</p> - -<p>Withal, Melville might have fared much worse, as contemporaneous -accounts more than adequately prove. Even in later -days, Frank T. Bullen was able to write: “I have often seen -the men break up a couple of biscuits into a pot of coffee for -breakfast, and after letting it stand for a minute or two, skim -off the accumulated scum of vermin from the top—maggots, -weevils, etc., to the extent of a couple of tablespoonsful, before -they could shovel the mess into their craving stomachs.” -Melville never complains of maggots or weevils in his biscuits, -nor does he complain of being stinted food; during this -period, both common enough complaints. The cook, it is true, -did not sterilise everything he touched. “I never saw him -wash but once,” says Melville, “and that was at one of his -own soup pots one dark night when he thought no one saw -him.” But as has already been imputed to Melville for righteousness, -his was not a squeamish stomach, and despite the -usual amount of filth on board the <i>Highlander</i>, his meals seem -to have gone off easily enough. He has left this pleasant picture -of the amenities of food-taking: “the sailors sitting cross-legged -at their chests in a circle, and breaking the hard biscuit, -very sociably, over each other’s heads, which was very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[91]</a></span> -convenient, indeed, but gave me the headache, at least for the -first four or five days till I got used to it; and then I did not -care much about it, only it kept my hair full of crumbs; and -I had forgot to bring a fine comb and brush, so I used to shake -my hair out to windward over the bulwarks every evening.”</p> - -<p>Though the forecastle was, to characterise it quietly, a -cramped and fetid hole, dimly lighted and high in odour, -Melville came to be sufficiently acclimated to it to enjoy lying -on his back in his bunk during a forenoon watch below, reading -while his messmates slept. His bunk was an upper one, -and right under the head of it was a bull’s-eye, inserted into -the deck to give light. Here he read an account of <i>Shipwrecks -and Disasters at Sea</i>, and a large black volume on -<i>Delirium Tremens</i>: Melville’s share in the effects of a sailor -whose bunk he occupied, who had, in a frenzy of drunkenness, -hurled himself overboard. Here Melville also struggled -to read Smith’s <i>Wealth of Nations</i>. “But soon I gave it up for -lost work,” says Melville; “and thought that the old backgammon -board we had at home, lettered on the back <i>The History -of Rome</i>, was quite as full of matter, and a great deal more -entertaining.”</p> - -<p>The forecastle, however, was not invariably the setting for -scenes so idyllic. Drunkenness there was aplenty, especially -at the beginning of the voyage both from New York and from -Liverpool. Of the three new men shipped at Liverpool, two -were so drunk they were unable to engage in their duties until -some hours after the boat quit the pier; but the third, down -on the ship’s papers as Miguel Saveda, had to be carried in -by a crimp and slung into a bunk where he lay locked in a -trance. To heighten the discomforts of the forecastle, there -was soon added to the stench of sweated flesh, old clothes, tobacco -smoke, rum and bilge, a new odour, attributed to the -presence of a dead rat. Some days before, the forecastle had -been smoked out to extirpate the vermin over-running her: a -smoking that seemed to have been fatal to a rodent among the -hollow spaces in the side planks. “At midnight, the larboard -watch, to which I belonged, turned out; and instantly as every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[92]</a></span> -man waked, he exclaimed at the now intolerable smell, supposed -to be heightened by the shaking up of the bilge-water, -from the ship’s rolling.</p> - -<p>“‘Blast that rat!’ cried the Greenlander.</p> - -<p>“‘He’s blasted already,’ said Jackson, who in his drawers -had crossed over to the bunk of Miguel. ‘It’s a water-rat, -shipmates, that’s dead; and here he is’—and with that he -dragged forth the sailor’s arm, exclaiming ‘Dead as a timber-head!’</p> - -<p>“Upon this the men rushed toward the bunk, Max with the -light, which he held to the man’s face. ‘No, he’s not dead,’ -he cried, as the yellow flame wavered for a moment at the -seaman’s motionless mouth. But hardly had the words escaped -when, to the silent horror of all, two threads of greenish fire, -like a forked tongue, darted out between his lips; and in a moment -the cadaverous face was crawled over by a swarm of -worm-like flames.</p> - -<p>“The light dropped from the hand of Max, and went out; -while covered all over with spires and sparkles of flame, that -faintly crackled in the silence, the uncovered parts of the body -burned before us, precisely like a phosphorescent shark in a -midnight sea. The eyes were open and fixed; the mouth was -curled like a scroll, while the whole face, now wound in curls -of soft blue flame, wore an aspect of grim defiance, and eternal -death. Prometheus blasted by fire on the rock.</p> - -<p>“One arm, its red shirt-sleeve rolled up, exposed the man’s -name, tattooed in vermilion, near the hollow of the middle -joint; and as if there was something peculiar in the painted -flesh, every vibrating letter burned so white that you might -read the flaming name in the flickering ground of blue.</p> - -<p>“‘Where’s that damned Miguel?’ was now shouted down -among us by the mate.</p> - -<p>“‘He’s gone to the harbour where they never weigh anchor,’ -coughed Jackson. ‘Come down, sir, and look.’</p> - -<p>“Thinking that Jackson intended to beard him, the mate -sprang down in a rage; but recoiled at the burning body as if -he had been shot by a bullet. ‘Take hold of it,’ said Jackson -at last, to the Greenlander; ‘it must go overboard. Don’t stand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[93]</a></span> -shaking there, like a dog; take hold of it, I say!—But stop!’ -and smothering it all in the blankets, he pulled it partly out of -the bunk.</p> - -<p>“A few minutes more, and it fell with a bubble among the -phosphorescent sparkles of the sea, leaving a coruscating wake -as it sank.”</p> - -<p>After this, Melville ceased reading in the forecastle. And -indeed no other sailor but Jackson would stay in the forecastle -alone, and none would laugh or sing there: none but -Jackson. But he, while the rest would be sitting silently smoking -on their chests, or on their bunks, would look towards the -nailed-up bunk of Miguel and cough, and laugh, and invoke -the dead man with scoffs and jeers.</p> - -<p>Of Melville’s shipmates, surely this Jackson was the most -remarkable: a fit rival to Conrad’s Nigger of the Narcissus. -Max and the Greenlander were merely typical old tars. Mr. -Thompson, the grave negro cook, with his leaning towards -metaphysics and his disquisitions on original sin, together with -his old crony, Lavendar the steward, with his amorous backslidings, -his cologne water, and his brimstone pantaloons, -though mildly diverting, were usual enough. Blunt, too, with -his collection of hair-oils, and his dream-book, and his flowing -bumpers of horse-salts, though picturesque, was pale in comparison -with Jackson. Larry, the old whaler, with his sentimental -distaste for civilised society, was a forerunner of Mr. -H. L. Mencken; and as such, deserves a more prominent mention. -“And what’s the use of bein’ <i>snivelized</i>?” he asks Melville; -“snivelized chaps only learn the way to take on ’bout -life, and snivel. Blast Ameriky, I say. I tell ye, ye wouldn’t -have been to sea here, leadin’ this dog’s life, if you hadn’t -been snivelized. Snivelization has been the ruin on ye; and it’s -sp’iled me complete: I might have been a great man in Madagasky; -it’s too darned bad! Blast Ameriky, I say.”</p> - -<p>But flat, stale and unprofitable seem the whole ship’s company -in comparison with the demoniacal Jackson. Sainte-Beuve, -in reviewing an early work of Cooper’s, speaks enthusiastically -of Cooper’s “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">faculté créatrice qui enfante et met au -monde des caractères nouveaux, et en vertu de laquelle Rabelais<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[94]</a></span> -a produit ‘Panurge,’ Le Sage ‘Gil Blas,’ et Richardson ‘Clarissa.’</span>” -In <i>The Confidence Man</i> Melville spends a chapter -discussing “originality” in literature. The phrase “quite an -original” he maintains, in contempt of Sainte-Beuve, is “a -phrase, we fancy, oftener used by the young, or the unlearned, -or the untravelled, than by the old, or the well-read, or the man -who has made the grand tour.” This faculty of creating -“originals”—which is, after all, as both Melville and Flaubert -clearly saw, but a quality of observation—Melville had to an -unusual degree. In this incongruous group of striking “originals” -Jackson deserves, as Melville says, a “lofty gallows.”</p> - -<p>“Though Tiberius come in the succession of the Cæsars, -and though unmatchable Tacitus has embalmed his carrion,” -writes Melville in the luxurious cadence of Sir Thomas -Browne which some of his critics have stigmatised as both -the sign and cause of his later “madness,” “yet do I account -this Yankee Jackson full as dignified a personage as he, and -as well meriting his lofty gallows in history, even though he -was a nameless vagabond without an epitaph, and none but I -narrate what he was. For there is no dignity in wickedness, -whether in purple or rags: and hell is a democracy of devils, -where all are equals. In historically canonising on earth the -condemned below, and lifting up and lauding the illustrious -damned, we do but make ensamples of wickedness; and call -upon ambition to do some great iniquity to be sure of fame.”</p> - -<p>When Melville came to know Jackson, nothing was left of -him but the foul lees and dregs of a man; a walking skeleton -encased in a skin as yellow as gamboge, branded with the -marks of a fearful end near at hand: “like that of King -Antiochus of Syria, who died a worse death, history says, than -if he had been stung out of the world by wasps and hornets.” -In appearance he suggests Villon at the time when the gallows -spared him the death-penalty of his vices. He looked -like a man with his hair shaved off and just recovering from -the yellow fever. His hair had fallen out; his nose was -broken in the middle; he squinted in one eye. But to Melville -that squinting eye “was the most deep, subtle, infernal-looking -eye that I ever saw lodged in a human head. I be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[95]</a></span>lieve -that by good rights it must have belonged to a wolf, or -starved tiger; at any rate I would defy any oculist to turn out -a glass eye half so cold and snaky and deadly.” He was a -foul-mouthed bully, and “being the best seaman on board, and -very overbearing every way, all the men were afraid of him, -and durst not contradict him or cross his path in anything.” -And what made this more remarkable was, that he was the -weakest man, bodily, of the whole crew. “But he had such -an over-awing way with him; such a deal of brass and impudence, -such an unflinching face, and withal was such a hideous -mortal, that Satan himself would have run from him.” The -whole crew stood in mortal fear of him, and cringed and -fawned before him like so many spaniels. They would rub -his back after he was undressed and lying in his bunk, and run -up on deck to the cook-house to warm some cold coffee for -him, and fill his pipe, and give him chews of tobacco, and mend -his jackets and trousers, and watch and tend and nurse him -every way. “And all the time he would sit scowling on them, -and found fault with what they did: and I noticed that those -who did the most for him were the ones he most abused.” -These he flouted and jeered and laughed to scorn, on occasion -breaking out in such a rage that “his lips glued together at -the corners with a fine white foam.”</p> - -<p>His age it was impossible to tell: for he had no beard, and -no wrinkles except for small crow’s-feet about the eyes. He -might have been thirty, or perhaps fifty years. “But according -to his own account, he had been at sea ever since he was -eight years old, when he first went to sea as a cabin-boy in -an Indiaman, and ran away at Calcutta.” And according to -his own account, too, he had passed through every kind of -dissipation and abandonment in the worst parts of the world. -He had served in Portuguese slavers on the coast of Africa, -and with diabolical relish would tell of the middle passage -where the slaves were stowed, heel and point, like logs, and the -suffocated and dead were unmanacled and weeded out from the -living each morning before washing down the decks. Though -he was apt to be dumb at times, and would sit with “his eyes -fixed, and his teeth set, like a man in the moody madness,”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[96]</a></span> -yet when he did speak his whole talk was full of piracies, -plagues, poisonings, seasoned with filth and blasphemy. -“Though he never attended churches and knew nothing of -Christianity; no more than a Malay pirate; and though he -could not read a word, yet he was spontaneously an atheist and -an infidel; and during the long night watches, would enter into -arguments to prove that there was nothing to be believed; -nothing to be loved, and nothing worth living for; but everything -to be hated in the wide world. He was a Cain afloat; -branded on his yellow brow with some inscrutable curse; and -going about corrupting and searing every heart that beat -near him.”</p> - -<p>The last scene in his eventful history took place off Cape -Cod, when, in a stiff favourable breeze, the captain was impatient -to make his port before a shift of wind. Four sullen -weeks previous to this had Jackson spent in the forecastle without -touching a rope. Every day since leaving New York -Jackson had seemed to be growing worse and worse, both in -body and mind. “And all the time, though his face grew -thinner and thinner, his eyes seemed to kindle more and more, -as if he were going to die out at last, and leave them burning -like tapers before his corpse.” When, after these four weeks -of idleness, Jackson, to the surprise of the crew, came up on -deck, his aspect was damp and death-like; the blue hollows -of his eyes were like vaults full of snakes; and issuing so unexpectedly -from his dark tomb in the forecastle, he looked like a -man raised from the dead.</p> - -<p>“Before the sailors had made fast the reef-tackle, Jackson -was tottering up the rigging; thus getting the start of them, -and securing his place at the extreme weather-end of the topsail -yard—which in reefing is accounted the place of honour. -For it was one of the characteristics of this man that though -when on duty he would shy away from mere dull work in a -calm, yet in tempest time he always claimed the van and would -yield to none.</p> - -<p>“Soon we were all strung along the main-topsail yard; the -ship rearing and plunging under us like a runaway steed; each -man griping his reef-point, and sideways leaning, dragging the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[97]</a></span> -sail over towards Jackson, whose business it was to confine the -reef corner to the yard.</p> - -<p>“His hat and shoes were off; and he rode the yard-arm end, -leaning backward to the gale, and pulling at the earing-rope -like a bridle. At all times, this is a moment of frantic exertion -with sailors, whose spirits seem then to partake of the -commotion of the elements as they hang in the gale between -heaven and earth; and then it is, too, that they are the most -profane.</p> - -<p>“‘Haul out to windward!’ coughed Jackson, with a blasphemous -cry, and he threw himself back with a violent strain -upon the bridle in his hand. But the wild words were hardly -out of his mouth when his hands dropped to his side, and the -bellying sail was spattered with a torrent of blood from his -lungs.</p> - -<p>“As the man next him stretched out his arm to save, Jackson -fell headlong from the yard, and with a long seethe, plunged -like a diver into the sea.</p> - -<p>“It was when the ship had rolled to windward, which, with -the long projection of the yard-arm over the side, made him -strike far out upon the water. His fall was seen by the whole -upward-gazing crowd on deck, some of whom were spotted -with the blood that trickled from the sail, while they raised -a spontaneous cry, so shrill and wild that a blind man might -have known something deadly had happened.</p> - -<p>“Clutching our reef-joints, we hung over the stick, and -gazed down to the one white bubbling spot which had closed -over the head of our shipmate; but the next minute it was -brewed into the common yeast of the waves, and Jackson -never arose. We waited a few minutes, expecting an order -to descend, haul back the fore-yard, and man the boats; but -instead of that, the next sound that greeted us was, ‘Bear a -hand and reef away, men!’ from the mate.”</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[98]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER V <br /> - -<span class="smaller">DISCOVERIES ON TWO CONTINENTS</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“If you read of St. Peter’s, they say, and then go and visit it, ten to -one, you account it a dwarf compared to your high-raised ideal. And, -doubtless, Jonah himself must have been much disappointed when he -looked up to the domed midriff surmounting the whale’s belly, and surveyed -the ribbed pillars around him. A pretty large belly, to be sure, -thought he, but not so big as it might have been.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Redburn</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>The merchantman on which Melville shipped was not a -Liverpool liner, or packet-ship, plying in connection with a -sisterhood of packets. She was a <i>regular trader</i> to Liverpool; -sailing upon no fixed days, and acting very much as she pleased, -being bound by no obligation of any kind, though in all her -voyages ever having New York or Liverpool for her destination. -Melville’s craft was not a greyhound, not a very fast -sailer. The swifter of the packet ships then made the passage -in fifteen or sixteen days; the <i>Highlander</i>, travelling at a more -matronly pace, was out on the Atlantic a leisurely month.</p> - -<p>“It was very early in the month of June that we sailed,” -says Melville; “and I had greatly rejoiced that it was that -time of year; for it would be warm and pleasant upon the -ocean I thought; and my voyage would be like a summer excursion -to the seashore for the benefit of the salt water, and a -change of scene and society.” But the fact was not identical -with Melville’s fancy, and before many days at sea, he found -it a galling mockery to remember that his sisters had promised -to tell all enquiring friends that he had gone “<i>abroad</i>”: “just -as if I was visiting Europe on a tour with my tutor.” Though -his thirty days at sea considerably disabused him—for the -time—of the unmitigated delights of ocean travel in the forecastle; -still always in the vague and retreating distance did he -hold to the promise of some stupendous discovery still in store. -Finally, one morning when he came on deck, he was thrilled<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[99]</a></span> -to discover that he was, in sober fact, within sight of a foreign -land: a shore-line that in imagination he transformed into the -seacoast of Bohemia. “A foreign country actually visible!” -But as he gazed ashore, disillusion ran hot upon the heels of his -romantic expectations.</p> - -<p>“Was that Ireland? Why, there was nothing remarkable -about that; nothing startling. If <i>that’s</i> the way a foreign -country looks, I might as well have stayed at home. Now -what, exactly, I had fancied the shore would look like, I can -not say; but I had a vague idea that it would be something -strange and wonderful.”</p> - -<p>The next land they sighted was Wales. “It was high noon, -and a long line of purple mountains lay like a bank of clouds -against the east. But, after all, the general effect of these -mountains was mortifyingly like the general effect of the -Kaatskill Mountains on the Hudson River.”</p> - -<p>It was not until midnight of the third day that they arrived -at the mouth of the Mersey. Before the following daybreak -they took the first flood.</p> - -<p>“Presently, in the misty twilight, we passed immense buoys, -and caught sight of distant objects on shore, vague and shadowy -shapes, like Ossian’s ghosts.” And then it was that Melville -found leisure to lean over the side, “trying to summon -up some image of Liverpool, to see how the reality would -answer to my concept.”</p> - -<p>As the day advanced, the river contracted, and in the clear -morning Melville got his first sharp impression of a foreign -port.</p> - -<p>“I beheld lofty ranges of dingy ware-houses, which seemed -very deficient in the elements of the marvellous; and bore a -most unexpected resemblance to the ware-houses along South -Street in New York. There was nothing strange, nothing extraordinary -about them. There they stood; a row of calm -and collected ware-houses; very good and substantial edifices, -doubtless, and admirably adapted to the ends had in view by -the builders: but yet, these edifices, I must confess, were a sad -and bitter disappointment to me.”</p> - -<p>Melville was six weeks in Liverpool. Of this part of his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[100]</a></span> -adventure, he says in <i>Redburn</i>: “I do not mean to present a -diary of my stay there. I shall here simply record the general -tenor of the life led by our crew during that interval; and -will proceed to note down, at random, my own wanderings -about town, and impressions of things as they are recalled to -me now after the lapse of so many (twelve) years.”</p> - -<p>Not the least important detail of these six weeks is the fact -that Melville and his ship-mates were very well fed at the -sign of the Baltimore Clipper. “The roast beef of Old England -abounded; and so did the immortal plum-puddings and the -unspeakably capital gooseberry pies.” Owing to the strict but -necessary regulations of the Liverpool docks, no fire of any -kind was allowed on board the vessels within them. And -hence, though the sailors of the <i>Highlander</i> slept in the forecastle, -they were fed ashore at the expense of the ship’s owners. -This, in a large crew remaining at Liverpool more than six -weeks, as the <i>Highlander</i> did, formed no inconsiderable item -in the expenses of the voyage. The Baltimore Clipper was one -of the boarding houses near the docks which flourished on the -appetite of sailors. At the Baltimore Clipper was fed not only -the crew of the <i>Highlander</i>, but, each in a separate apartment, -a variety of other crews as well. Since each crew was known -collectively by the name of its ship, the shouts of the servant -girls running about at dinner time mustering their guests must -have been alarming to an uninitiated visitor.</p> - -<p>“Where are the <i>Empresses of China</i>?—Here’s their beef -been smoking this half-hour”—“Fly, Betty, my dear, here -come the <i>Panthers</i>”—“Run, Molly, my love; get the salt-cellars -for the <i>Splendids</i>”—“You, Peggy, where’s the <i>Siddons’</i> -pickle-pot?”—“I say, Judy, are you never coming with that -pudding for the <i>Sultans</i>?”</p> - -<p>It was to the Baltimore Clipper that Jackson immediately -led the ship’s crew when they first sprang ashore: up this street -and down that till at last he brought them to their destination -in a narrow lane filled with boarding-houses, spirit-vaults -and sailors. While Melville’s shipmates were engaged in tippling -and talking with numerous old acquaintances of theirs in -the neighbourhood who thronged about the door, he sat alone<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[101]</a></span> -in the dining-room appropriated to the <i>Highlanders</i> “meditating -upon the fact that I was now seated upon an English bench, -under an English roof, in an English tavern, forming an integral -part of the British empire.”</p> - -<p>Melville examined the place attentively. “It was a long -narrow little room, with one small arched window with red -curtains, looking out upon a smoky, untidy yard, bounded by -a dingy brick wall, the top of which was horrible with pieces -of broken old bottles stuck into mortar. A dull lamp swung -overhead, placed in a wooden ship suspended from the ceiling. -The walls were covered with a paper, representing an endless -succession of vessels of all nations continually circumnavigating -the apartment. From the street came a confused uproar of -ballad-singers, bawling women, babies, and drunken sailors.”</p> - -<p>It was during this disenchanting examination that the realisation -began to creep chillingly over Melville that his prospect -of seeing the world as a sailor was, after all, but very doubtful. -It seems never to have struck him before that sailors but -hover about the edges of terra-firma; that “they land only upon -wharves and pier-heads, and their reminiscences of travel are -only a dim recollection of a chain of tap-rooms surrounding -the globe.”</p> - -<p>Melville’s six weeks in Liverpool offered him, however, opportunity -to make slightly more extended observations. During -these weeks he was free to go where he pleased between -four o’clock in the afternoon and the following dawn. Sundays -he had entirely at his own disposal. But withal, it was an -excessively limited and distorted version of England that was -open for his examination. Except for his shipmates, his very -distant cousin, the Earl of Leven and Melville and Queen Victoria -and such like notables, he knew by name no living soul -in the British Isles. And neither his companions in the forecastle, -nor the remote and elaborately titled strangers of Melville -House, offered encouragement of an easy and glowing intimacy. -With but three dollars as his net capital—money advanced -him in Liverpool by the ship—and without a thread of -presentable clothing on his back, he could not hope promiscuously -to ingratiate himself either by his purse or the adorn<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[102]</a></span>ments -of his person. Thus lacking in the fundamentals of -friendship, his native charms stood him in little stead. So -alone he walked the streets of Liverpool and gratuitously saw -the sights.</p> - -<p>While on the high seas, Melville had improved his fallow -hours by poring over an old guide-book of Liverpool that had -descended to him from his father. This old family relic was -to Melville cherished with a passionate and reverent affection. -Around it clustered most of the fond associations that are the -cords of man. It had been handled by Allan amid the very -scenes it described; it bore some “half-effaced miscellaneous -memoranda in pencil, characteristic of a methodical mind, and -therefore indubitably my father’s”: jottings of “a strange, subdued, -old, midsummer interest” to Melville. And on the fly-leaves -were crabbed inscriptions, and “crayon sketches of wild -animals and falling air-castles.” These decorations were the -handiwork of Melville and his brothers and sisters and cousins. -Of his own contributions, Melville says: “as poets do with their -juvenile sonnets, I might write under this horse, ‘<i>Drawn at the -age of three years</i>,’ and under this autograph, ‘<i>Executed at the -age of eight</i>.’” This guide-book was to Melville a sacred volume, -and he expresses a wish that he might immortalise it. -Addressing this unpretentious looking little green-bound, -spotted and tarnished guide-book, he exclaims: “Dear book! I -will sell my Shakespeare, and even sacrifice my old quarto Hogarth, -before I will part from you. Yes, I will go to the hammer -myself, ere I send you to be knocked down in the auctioneer’s -scrambles. I will, my beloved; till you drop leaf -from leaf, and letter from letter, you shall have a snug shelf -somewhere, though I have no bench for myself.”</p> - -<p>To the earlier manuscript additions to this guide-book, Melville -added, while on the Atlantic, drawings of ships and anchors, -and snatches of Dibdin’s sea-poetry. And as he lay in -his bunk, with the aid of this antiquated volume he used to -take “pleasant afternoon rambles through the town, down St. -James street and up Great George’s, stopping at various places -of interest and attraction” so familiar seemed the features of -the map. But in this vagabondage of reverie he was but pre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[103]</a></span>paring -for himself a poignant disillusionment. Lying in the -dim, reeking forecastle, with his head full of deceitful day-dreams, -he was being tossed by the creaking ship towards a -bitter awakening. The Liverpool of the guide-book purported -to be the Liverpool of 1808. The Liverpool of which Melville -dreamed was, of course, without date and local habitation. -When Melville found himself face to face with the solid reality -of the Liverpool of 1837, he was offered an object-lesson -in mutability. As the brute facts smote in the face of his -cherished sentimentalisings, he sat his concrete self down on -a particular shop step in a certain street in Liverpool, reflected -on guide-books and luxuriated in disenchantment. “Guide-books,” -he then came to see, “are the least reliable books in all -literature: and nearly all literature, in one sense, is made up of -guide-books. Old ones tell us the ways our fathers went; but -how few of those former places can their posterity trace.” In -the end he sealed his moralising by the pious reflection that -“there is one Holy Guide-Book that will never lead you astray -if you but follow it aright.” There can be no doubt that the -ghost of Allan, retracing its mundane haunts at that moment -trailed its shadowy substance through the offspring of its discarded -flesh.</p> - -<p>If this same paternal ghost, recognising its kinship with this -obstruction of blood and bone, tracked in futile affection at -Melville’s heels through Liverpool, only a posthumous survival -of its terrestrial Calvinism could have spared it an agonised -six weeks; only the sardonic optimism of a faith in predestination -could have saved Allan’s shade from consternation and -fear at the chances of Melville’s flesh. Or it may be that Allan -was sent as a disembodied spectator to haunt Melville’s wake, -by way of penance for his pre-ghostly theological errors. -In any event, Melville, on occasion, took Allan through the -most hideous parts of Liverpool. Of evenings they strolled -through the narrow streets where the sailors’ boarding-houses -were. “Hand-organs, fiddlers, and cymbals, plied by strolling -musicians, mixed with the songs of seamen, the babble of -women and children, and groaning and whining of beggars. -From the various boarding-houses proceeded the noise of rev<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[104]</a></span>elry -and dancing: and from the open casements leaned young -girls and old women chattering and laughing with the crowds -in the middle of the street.” In the vicinity were “notorious -Corinthian haunts which in depravity are not to be matched by -anything this side of the pit that is bottomless.” Along -Rotten-row, Gibraltar-place and Boodle-alley Melville surveyed -the “sooty and begrimed bricks” of haunts of abomination -which to Melville’s boyish eyes (seen through the protecting -lens of Allan’s ghost) had a “reeking, Sodom-like and murderous -look.” Melville excuses himself in the name of propriety -from particularising the vices of the residents of this -quarter; “but kidnappers and resurrectionists,” he declares, -“are almost saints and angels to them.”</p> - -<p>Melville satirically pictures himself as pathetically innocent -to the iniquities of the flesh and the Devil when he left home -to view the world. He was, he says, a member both of a Juvenile -Total Abstinence Association and of an Anti-Smoking Society -organised by the Principal of his Sunday School. With -dire compunctions of conscience—which had been considerably -weakened by sea-sickness—Melville had his first swig of spirits—administered -medicinally to him by a paternal old tar,—before -they were many hours out upon the Atlantic. But neither -on the high seas nor in England does he seem to have been -prematurely tempted by the bottle. And this, for the adequate -reason that united to his innocence of years, his very -limited finances spared him the solicitations of toping companions -as well as the luxury of precocious solitary tippling. -Though at the beginning of the voyage he refused the friendly -offer of a cigar, he less austerely eschewed tobacco by the time -he again struck land. Melville did not, throughout his life, -hold so strictly to the puritanical prohibitions of his boyhood.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 594px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t104ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t104a.jpg" width="594" height="800" alt="" class="hires" /></a> -<div class="caption"><p>A PAGE FROM ONE OF MELVILLE’S JOURNALS</p></div> -</div> - -<p>The youthful member of the Anti-Smoking Society came -in later years to be a heroic consumer of tobacco, and the -happiest hours of his life were haloed with brooding blue haze. -“Nothing so beguiling,” he wrote in 1849, “as the fumes of -tobacco, whether inhaled through hookah, narghil, chibouque, -Dutch porcelain, pure Principe, or Regalia.” On another occasion -he expressed a desire to “sit cross-legged and smoke out<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[105]</a></span> -eternity.” And the youthful pillar of the Juvenile Total Abstinence -Association, growing in wisdom as he took on years, -lived to do regal penance for his unholy childhood pledge. -His avowed refusal to believe in a Temperance Heaven would -seem to imply a conviction that it is only the damned who -never drink. In his amazing novel <i>Mardi</i>—which won him acclaim -in France as “<i>un Rabelais Americain</i>”—wine flows in -ruddy and golden rivers. And the most brilliantly fantastic -philosophising, the keenest wit of the demi-gods that lounge -through this wild novel, are concomitant upon the heroic draining -of beaded bumpers. In <i>Mardi</i>, Melville celebrates the -civilising influences of wine with the same devout and urbane -affection to be found in Horace and Meredith. On occasion, -however, he seems to share Baudelaire’s conviction that “one -should be drunk always”—and drunk on wine in the manner -of the best period. He quotes with approval the epitaph of -Cyrus the Great: “I could drink a great deal of wine, and it -did me a great deal of good.” In <i>Clarel</i> he asks: “At Cana, -who renewed the wine?” In the riotous chapter wherein -“Taji sits down to Dinner with five-and-twenty Kings, and a -royal Time they have,” there is an exuberant tilting of calabashes -that would have won the esteem even of Socrates and -Pantagruel. One wonders if Rabelais, in his youth, did not -belong to some Juvenile Total Abstinence Society, or if Socrates, -who both lived and died over a cup, had not as a boy -committed an equally heinous sacrilege to Dionysus.</p> - -<p>On board the <i>Highlander</i> Melville was too young yet to have -come to a sense of the iniquity of the deadly virtues. He was -not thereby, however, tempted to the optimism of despair that -preaches that because God is isolated in His Heaven, all is -right with the world. Even at seventeen Melville had keenly -felt that much in the world needs mending. And at seventeen—more -than at any other period—he felt moved to exert -himself to set the world aright. Ashipboard, the field of his -operations being very limited, he cast a missionary eye upon -the rum-soaked profanity and lechery of his ship-mates. “I -called to mind a sermon I had once heard in a church in behalf -of sailors,” says Melville, “when the preacher called them<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[106]</a></span> -strayed lambs from the fold, and compared them to poor lost -children, babes in the wood, or orphans without fathers or -mothers.” Overflowing with the milk of human kindness at -the sad condition of these amiable outcasts, Melville, during -his first watch, made bold to ask one of them if he was in the -habit of going to church. The sailor answered that “he had -been in a church once, some ten or twelve years before, in -London, and on a week-day had helped to move the Floating -Chapel round the Battery from North River.” This first and -last effort of Melville’s to evangelise a shipmate ended in winning -Melville hearty ridicule. “If I had not felt so terribly -angry,” he says, “I should certainly have felt very much like -a fool. But my being so angry prevented me from feeling -foolish, which is very lucky for people in a passion.” Though -Melville made no further effort to save the souls of his shipmates, -his own seems not to have been jeopardised by any -hankering after the instruments of damnation.</p> - -<p>As has been said, he was without friends, both ashipboard -and later ashore; a complete absence of companionship that on -occasion inspired him with a parched desire for some friend to -whom to say “how sweet is solitude.” He craved in his isolation, -he says, “to give his whole soul to another; in its loneliness -it was yearning to throw itself into the unbounded bosom -of some immaculate friend.” In <i>Redburn</i>, Melville spends a -generous number of pages in celebrating his encounter with a -good-for-nothing but courtly youth whom he calls Harry Bolton. -“He was one of those small, but perfectly formed beings -with curling hair, and silken muscles, who seem to have been -born in cocoons. His complexion was a mantling brunette, -feminine as a girl’s; his feet were small; his hands were white; -and his eyes were large, black and womanly: and, poetry aside, -his voice was as the sound of a harp.” How much of Harry -Bolton is fact, how much fiction, is impossible to tell. The -most significant thing about him is Melville’s evident affection -for him, no matter who made him. In <i>Redburn</i>, this engaging -dandy kidnaps Melville, and takes him for a mysterious -night up to London: a night spent, to Melville’s consternation, -in a gambling palace of the sort that exists only in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[107]</a></span> -febrile and envious imagination of vitriolic puritans. In his -description of this escapade, Melville owes more, perhaps, to -his early spiritual guides than to any first-hand observation. -This flight to London in <i>Redburn</i>, its abrupt reversal, and the -escape to America of Harry Bolton, may, of course, all be -founded on sober fact. But there is a lack of verisimilitude -in the recounting that prompts to the suspicion that in this -part of the narrative, Melville is making brave and unconvincing -concessions to romance. Not, of course, that Melville -in his youth was incapable of the wild impetuosity of suddenly -leaving his ship and running up to London with an engagingly -romantic stranger: he did more impulsive and far more surprising -things than that before he died. But his account of -this adventure in <i>Redburn</i> reads hollow and false. Harry -Bolton must be discounted as myth until he is more cogently -substantiated as history.</p> - -<p>In Liverpool Melville seems to have spent his leisure in company -with his thoughts, wandering along the docks and about -the city. Each Sunday morning he went regularly to church; -Sunday afternoons he spent walking in the neighbouring -country. His most vivid impressions of Liverpool were of -the terrible poverty he saw, and it is doubtful if there is a -more ruthless piece of realism in the language than his account -in <i>Redburn</i> of the slow death through starvation of the mother -and children that Melville found lying in a cellar, and whose -lives he tried in vain to save. The green cold bodies in the -morgue, the ragpickers, the variety of criminals that haunt the -shadows of the docks: these too came in for characterisation.</p> - -<p>The noblest sight that Melville found in England, it would -seem, was the truck-horses he saw round the docks. “So -grave, dignified, gentlemanly and courteous did these fine truck -horses look—so full of calm intelligence and sagacity, that -often I endeavoured to get into conversation with them as -they stood in contemplative attitudes while their loads were -preparing.” And Melville admired the truckmen also. “Their -spending so much of their valuable lives in the high-bred company -of their horses seems to have mended their manners and -improved their taste; but it has also given to them a sort of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[108]</a></span> -refined and unconscious aversion to human society.” Though -Melville grew to a most uncomplimentary rating of the human -biped, he always cherished a very deep reverence for some of -his four-footed brothers. “There are unknown worlds of -knowledge in brutes,” he wrote; “and whenever you mark a -horse, or a dog, with a peculiarly mild, calm, deep-seated eye, -be sure he is an Aristotle or a Kant, tranquilly speculating -upon the mysteries in man.”</p> - -<p>The trip back across the Atlantic, after six weeks in Liverpool, -though longer than the out-bound passage, was for Melville -less of an ordeal. He was no longer a bewildered stranger -in the forecastle or in the riggings, so he turned his eye to other -parts of the ship. It was the steerage of the <i>Highlander</i> -packed with its four or five hundred emigrants, that gave him -most bitter occasion to reflect on the criminal nature of the -universe. Because of insufficient provisions in food for an -unexpectedly prolonged voyage, the dirty weather, and the absence -of the most indispensable conveniences, these emigrants -suffered almost incredible hardships. Before they had been -at sea a week, to hold one’s head down the fore hatchway, -Melville says, was like holding it down a suddenly opened -cesspool. The noisome confinement in this close unventilated -and crowded den, and the deprivation of sufficient food, helped -by personal uncleanliness, brought on a malignant fever among -the emigrants. The result was the death of some dozens of -them, a panic throughout the ship, and a novel indulgence -in spasmodic devotions. “Horrible as the sights of the steerage -were, the cabin, perhaps, presented a scene equally despairing. -Trunks were opened for Bibles; and at last, even -prayer-meetings were held over the very tables across which -the loud jest had been so often heard.”</p> - -<p>But with the coming of fair winds and fine weather the -pestilence subsided, and the ship steered merrily towards New -York. The steerage was cleaned thoroughly with sand and -water. The place was then fumigated, and dried with pieces -of coal from the gallery: so that when the <i>Highlander</i> -streamed into New York harbour no stranger would have imagined, -from her appearance, that the <i>Highlander</i> had made other<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[109]</a></span> -than a tidy and prosperous voyage. “Thus, some sea-captains -take good heed that benevolent citizens shall not get a -glimpse of the true condition of the steerage while at sea.”</p> - -<p>As they came into the Narrows, “no more did we think of -the gale and the plague; nor turn our eyes upward to the stains -of blood still visible on the topsail, whence Jackson had fallen. -Oh, he who has never been afar, let him once go from home, -to know what home is. Hurra! Hurra! and ten thousand -times hurra! down goes our anchor, fathoms down into the -free and independent Yankee mud, one handful of which was -now worth a broad manor in England.”</p> - -<p>Melville spent the greater part of the night “walking the -deck and gazing at the thousand lights of the city.” At sunrise, -the <i>Highlander</i> warped into a berth at the foot of Wall -street, and the old ship was knotted, stem and stern, to the -pier. This knotting of the ship was the unknotting of the -bonds of the sailors; for, the ship once fast to the wharf, Melville -and his shipmates were free. So with a rush and a shout -they bounded ashore—all but Melville. He went down into -the forecastle and sat on a chest. The ship he had loathed, -while he was imprisoned in it, grew lovely in his eyes when -he was free to bid it forever farewell. In the tarry old den -he sat, the only inhabitant of the deserted ship but for the -mate and the rats. He sat there and let his eyes linger over -every familiar old plank. “For the scene of suffering is a -scene of joy when the suffering is past,” he says, inverting -the reflection of Dante; “and the silent reminiscence of hardship -departed, is sweeter than the presence of delight.” According -to this philosophy, the more accumulated and overwhelming -the hardships we survive, the richer and sweeter -will be the ensuing hours of thoughtful recollection. For -whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth. And pleasure’s crown -of pleasure is remembering sorrier things. So indoctrinated, -Melville should have viewed the concluding scene with the -captain of the <i>Highlander</i>, on the day the sailors drew their -wages, with eternal thanksgiving.</p> - -<p>“Seated in a sumptuous arm-chair, behind a lustrous inlaid -desk, sat Captain Riga, arrayed in his City Hotel suit, look<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[110]</a></span>ing -magisterial as the Lord High Admiral of England. Hat -in hand, the sailors stood deferentially in a semi-circle before -him, while the captain held the ship-papers in his hand, and -one by one called their names; and in mellow bank notes—beautiful -sight!—paid them their wages.... The sailors, -after counting their cash very carefully, and seeing all was -right, and not a bank-note was dog-eared, in which case they -would have demanded another, salaamed and withdrew, leaving -me face to face with the Paymaster-general of the Forces.”</p> - -<p>Melville stood awhile, looking as polite as possible, he says, -and expecting every moment to hear his name called. But -no such name did he hear. “The captain, throwing aside his -accounts, lighted a very fragrant cigar, took up the morning -paper—I think it was the <i>Herald</i>—threw his leg over one arm -of the chair, and plunged into the latest intelligence from all -parts of the world.”</p> - -<p>Melville hemmed, and scraped his foot to increase the disturbance. -The Paymaster-general looked up. Melville demanded -his wages. The captain laughed, and taking a long -inspiration of smoke, removed his cigar, and sat sideways -looking at Melville, letting the vapour slowly wriggle and -spiralise out of his mouth.</p> - -<p>“Captain Riga,” said Melville, “do you not remember that -about four months ago, my friend Mr. Jones and myself had -an interview with you in this very cabin; when it was agreed -that I was to go out in your ship, and receive three dollars per -month for my services? Well, Captain Riga, I have gone out -with you, and returned; and now, sir, I’ll thank you for my -pay.”</p> - -<p>“Ah, yes, I remember,” said the captain. “<i>Mr. Jones!</i> -Ha! Ha! I remember Mr. Jones: a very gentlemanly gentleman; -and stop—<i>you</i>, too, are the son of a wealthy French -importer; and—let me think—was not your great-uncle a -barber?”</p> - -<p>“No!” thundered Melville, his Gansevoort temper up.</p> - -<p>Captain Riga suavely turned over his accounts. “Hum, -hum!—yes, here it is: Wellingborough Redburn, at three dollars -a month. Say four months, that’s twelve dollars: less<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[111]</a></span> -three dollars advanced in Liverpool—that makes it nine dollars; -less three hammers and two scrapers lost overboard—that -brings it to four dollars and a quarter. I owe you four -dollars and a quarter, I believe, young gentleman?”</p> - -<p>“So it seems,” said Melville with staring eyes.</p> - -<p>“And now let me see what you owe me, and then we’ll be -able to square the yards, Monsieur Redburn.”</p> - -<p>“Owe him!” Melville confesses to thinking; “what do I -owe him but a grudge.” But Melville concealed his resentment. -Presently Captain Riga said: “By running away from -the ship in Liverpool, you forfeited your wages, which amount -to twelve dollars; and there has been advanced to you, in -money, hammers and scrapers, seven dollars and seventy-five -cents; you are therefore indebted to me for precisely that sum. -I’ll thank you for the money.” He extended his open palm -across the desk.</p> - -<p>The precise nature of Melville’s eloquence at this juncture -of his career has not been recorded. Penniless, he left the -ship, to trail after his shipmates as they withdrew along the -wharf to stop at a sailors’ retreat, poetically denominated -“The Flashes.” Here they all came to anchor before the bar.</p> - -<p>“Well, maties,” said one of them, at last—“I s’pose we -shan’t see each other again:—come, let’s splice the mainbrace -all round, and drink to the <i>last voyage</i>.”</p> - -<p>And so they did. Then they shook hands all round, three -times three, and disappeared in couples through the several -doorways.</p> - -<p>Melville stood on the corner in front of “The Flashes” till -the last of his shipmates was out of sight. Then he walked -down to the Battery, and within a stone’s throw of the place -of his birth, sat on one of the benches, under the summer -shade of the trees. It was a quiet, beautiful scene, he says; -full of promenading ladies and gentlemen; and through the -fresh and bright foliage he looked out over the bay, varied -with glancing ships. “It would be a pretty fine world,” he -thought, “if I only had a little money to enjoy it.” He leaves -it ambiguous whether or not he imbibed his optimism at “The -Flashes.” Equally veiled does he leave the mystery by which<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[112]</a></span> -he came by the money to pay his passage on the steamboat up -to Albany: a trip he took that afternoon. “I pass over the -reception I met with at home; how I plunged into embraces, -long and loving,” he says:—“I pass over this.”</p> - -<p>For the home we return to, is never the home that we leave, -and the more desperate the leave-taking, the more bathetic -the return.</p> - - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[113]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VI <br /> - -<span class="smaller">PEDAGOGY, PUGILISM AND LETTERS</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“It is often to be observed, that as in digging for precious metals in the -mines, much earthly rubbish has first to be troublesomely handled and -thrown out; so, in digging in one’s soul for the fine gold of genius, much -dulness and common-place is first brought to light. Happy would it be, -if the man possessed in himself some receptacle for his own rubbish of -this sort: but he is like the occupant of a dwelling, whose refuse cannot -be clapped into his own cellar, but must be deposited in the street before -his own door, for the public functionaries to take care of.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Pierre</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>The record of the next three and a half years of Melville’s -life is extremely scant. What he was doing and thinking and -feeling must be left almost completely to surmise. In the -brief record of his life preserved in the Commonplace Book -of his wife, this period between Liverpool and the South Seas -is dismissed in a single sentence: “Taught school at intervals -in Pittsfield and in Greenbush (now East Albany) N. Y.” -Arthur Stedman (who got his facts largely from Mrs. Melville), -in his “Biographical and Critical Introduction” to -<i>Typee</i>, slightly enlarges upon this statement. “A good part -of the succeeding three years, from 1837 to 1840,” says Stedman, -“was occupied with school teaching. While so engaged -at Greenbush, now East Albany, N. Y., he received the munificent -salary of ‘six dollars a quarter and board.’ He taught -for one term at Pittsfield, Mass., ‘boarding around’ with the -families of his pupils, in true American fashion, and early -suppressing, on one memorable occasion, the efforts of his -larger scholars to inaugurate a rebellion by physical force.” -J. E. A. Smith, in his <i>Biographical Sketch</i> already cited, dates -this “memorable” mating of pedagogy and pugilism somewhat -earlier.</p> - -<p>Besides teaching during these years, Melville was engaged -in another activity, which all of his biographers—if they knew -of it at all—pass over in decent silence: an activity to which -Melville devotes a whole book of <i>Pierre</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[114]</a></span></p> - -<p>“It still remains to be said,” says Melville, “that Pierre himself -had written many a fugitive thing, which had brought him -not only vast credit and compliments from his more immediate -acquaintances, but the less partial applauses of the always intelligent -and extremely discriminating public. In short, Pierre -had frequently done that which many other boys have done—published. -Not in the imposing form of a book, but in the more -modest and becoming way of occasional contributions to magazines -and other polite periodicals. Not only the public had applauded -his gemmed little sketches of thought and fancy; but -the high and mighty Campbell clan of editors of all sorts had -bestowed upon them those generous commendations which, with -one instantaneous glance, they had immediately perceived was -his due.... One, after endorsingly quoting that sapient, suppressed -maxim of Dr. Goldsmith’s, which asserts that whatever -is new is false, went on to apply it to the excellent productions -before him; concluding with this: ‘He has translated -the unruffled gentleman from the drawing-room into the general -levee of letters; he never permits himself to astonish; is -never betrayed into anything coarse or new; as assured that -whatever astonishes is vulgar, and whatever is new must be -crude. Yes, it is the glory of this admirable young author, -that vulgarity and vigour—two inseparable adjuncts—are -equally removed from him.’”</p> - -<p>In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville spends more than twenty-five closely -printed pages—half satirical, half of the utmost seriousness—discussing -his own literary growth: a passage of the highest -critical and biographical interest. In its satirical parts the -passage is consistently double-edged; therein, Melville ironically -praises his early writing for possessing those very defects -which his maturer work was damned for not exhibiting. It -is doubtless true that his juvenile works were “equally removed -from vulgarity and vigour.” They were “characterised -throughout by Perfect Taste,” as he makes one critic observe -“in an ungovernable burst of admiring fury.” But the -Perfect Taste was the Perfect Taste of Hannah More, and -Dr. Akenside, and <i>Lalla Rookh</i>. With the publication of -<i>Typee</i>, Melville was charged not only with the crimes of vul<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[115]</a></span>garity -and vigour, but with the milder accompanying vices of -indecency and irreverence. His earliest writings were untouched -by any of these taints. In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville speaks of -“a renowned clerical and philological conductor of a weekly -religious periodical, whose surprising proficiency in the Greek, -Hebrew and Chaldaic, to which he had devoted by far the -greater part of his life, peculiarly fitting him to pronounce -unerring judgment upon works of taste in the English.” Melville -makes this critic thus deliver himself on Pierre’s early -efforts in letters: “He is blameless in morals, and harmless -throughout.” Another “unhesitatingly recommended his effusions -to the family circle.” A third had no reserve in saying -that “the predominant end and aim of this writer was -evangelical piety.” Melville is here patently satirising the -vitriolic abuse which <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> provoked.</p> - -<p>Only two of Melville’s earliest effusions, written before the -world had “fairly Timonised him” are known to survive. -These appeared in <i>The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh -Advertiser</i> for May 4, and May 18, 1839. The first is signed -“L. A. V.”; the second, known to exist only in a single mutilated -clipping, in lacking the closing paragraphs, can give no -evidence as to concluding signature. Copies of these two articles -are preserved among Melville’s papers, each autographed -by him in faded brown ink. The interest of the earlier paper -is heightened by this inscription, in Melville’s hand, boldly -scrawled across the inner margin: “When I woke up this -morning, what the Devil should I see but your cane along in -bed with me. I shall keep it for you when you come up here -again.” It is more easy to imagine Melville’s astonishment -in waking to find such a stately novelty as a walking-stick for -a bed-fellow, than to fancy how the walking-stick found itself -in such an unusual environment. It is about as futile to -inquire into the history and meaning of this incident as soberly -to debate “what songs the sirens sang and what name Achilles -bore among the daughters of the King of Scyros.” It is certain, -however, that the Sirens had little hand in Melville’s -juvenile effusions. And of this fact Melville grew to be keenly -aware. “In sober earnest,” he says in <i>Pierre</i>, “those papers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[116]</a></span> -contained nothing uncommon; indeed, those fugitive things -were the veriest commonplace.” Yet as the initial literary efforts -of a man who wrote <i>Typee</i> and <i>Moby-Dick</i> they are -intensely interesting: interesting, like the longer prayers of -St. Augustine, less because of their content than because of -the personality from which they were derived.</p> - -<p>What would seem to be Melville’s first published venture in -letters is here given, nearly complete.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<h3>For the Democratic Press<br /> - -<span class="smcap lowercase">FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING DESK</span><br /> - -No. 1</h3> - -<p><span class="smcap">My Dear M——</span>, I can imagine you seated on that dear, -delightful, old-fashioned sofa; your head supported by its luxurious -padding, and with feet perched aloft on the aspiring -back of that straight limbed, stiff-necked, quaint old chair, -which, as our facetious W—— assured me, was the identical -seat in which old Burton composed his Anatomy of Melancholy. -I see you reluctantly raise your optics from the huge-clasped -quarto which encumbers your lap, to receive the package -which the servant hands you, and can almost imagine that -I see those beloved features illumined for a moment with an -expression of joy, as you read the superscription of your -gentle protégé. Lay down I beseech you that odious black-lettered -volume and let not its musty and withered leaves sully -the virgin purity and whiteness of the sheet which is the vehicle -of so much good sense, sterling thought, and chaste and elegant -sentiment.</p> - -<p>You remember how you used to rate me for my hang-dog -modesty, my <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mauvaise honte</i>, as my Lord Chesterfield would -style it. Well! I have determined that hereafter you shall -not have occasion to inflict upon me those flattering appellations -of “Fool!” “Dolt!” “Sheep!” which in your indignation -you used to shower upon me, with a vigour and a facility -which excited my wonder, while it provoked my resentment.</p> - -<p>And how do you imagine that I rid myself of this annoying -hindrance? Why, truly, by coming to the conclusion that in -this pretty corpus of mine was lodged every manly grace;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[117]</a></span> -that my limbs were modelled in the symmetry of the Phidian -Jupiter; my countenance radiant with the beams of wit and -intelligence, the envy of the beaux, the idol of the women and -the admiration of the tailor. And then my mind! why, sir, I -have discovered it to be endowed with the most rare and extraordinary -powers, stored with universal knowledge, and embellished -with every polite accomplishment.</p> - -<p>Pollux! what a comfortable thing is a good opinion of one’s -self when I walk the Broadway of our village with a certain -air, that puts me down at once in the estimation of any intelligent -stranger who may chance to meet me, as a <i>distingué</i> of -the purest water, a blade of the true temper, a blood of the -first quality! Lord! how I despise the little sneaking vermin -who dodge along the street as though they were so many footmen -or errand boys; who have never learned to carry the head -erect in conscious importance, but hang that noblest of the -human members as though it had been boxed by some virago -of an Amazon; who shuffle along the walk with a quick uneasy -step, a hasty clownish motion, which by the magnitude of the -contrast, set off to advantage my own slow and magisterial -gait, which I can at pleasure vary to an easy, abandoned sort -of carriage, or to the more engaging alert and lively walk, to -suit the varieties of time, occasion, and company.</p> - -<p>And in society, too—how often have I commiserated the -poor wretches who stood aloof, in a corner, like a flock of -scared sheep; while myself, beautiful as Apollo, dressed in a -style which would extort admiration from a Brummel, and -belted round with self-esteem as with a girdle, sallied up to the -ladies—complimenting one, exchanging a repartee with another; -tapping this one under the chin, and clasping this one -round the waist; and finally, winding up the operation by kissing -round the whole circle to the great edification of the fair, -and to the unbounded horror, amazement and ill-suppressed -chagrin of the aforesaid sheepish multitude; who with eyes -wide open and mouths distended, afforded good subjects on -whom to exercise my polished wit, which like the glittering -edge of a Damascus sabre “dazzled all it shone upon.”</p> - -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[118]</a></span> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>By my halidome, sir, this same village of Lansingburgh -contains within its pretty limits as fair a set of blushing damsels -as one would wish to look upon on a dreamy summer day!—When -I traverse the broad pavements of my own metropolis, -my eyes are arrested by beautiful forms flitting hither and -thither; and I pause to admire the elegance of their attire, the -taste displayed in their embellishments; the rich mass of the -material; and sometimes, it may be, at the loveliness of the -features, which no art can heighten and no negligence conceal.</p> - -<p>But here, sir, here—where woman seems to have erected -her throne, and established her empire; here, where all feel -and acknowledge her sway, she blooms in unborrowed charms; -and the eye undazzled by the profusion of extraneous ornament, -settles at once upon the loveliest faces which our clayey -natures can assume.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Nor, my dear M., does there reign in all this bright display, -that same monotony of feature, form, complexion, which elsewhere -is beheld; no, here are all varieties, all the orders of -Beauty’s architecture; the Doric, the Ionic, the Corinthian, all -are here.</p> - -<p>I have in “my mind’s eye, Horatio,” three (the number of -the Graces, you remember) who may stand, each at the head -of their respective orders.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>When I venture to describe the second of this beautiful -trinity, I feel my powers of delineation inadequate to the task; -but nevertheless I will try my hand at the matter, although -like an unskilful limner, I am fearful I shall but scandalise -the charms I endeavour to copy.</p> - -<p>Come to my aid, ye guardian spirits of the Fair! Guide my -awkward hand, and preserve from mutilation the features ye -hover over and protect! Pour down whole floods of sparkling -champagne, my dear M——, until your brain grows giddy -with emotion; con over the latter portion of the first Canto of -Childe Harold, and ransack your intellectual repository for -the loveliest visions of the Fairy Land, and you will be in a -measure prepared to relish the epicurean banquet I shall spread.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[119]</a></span></p> - -<p>The stature of this beautiful mortal (if she be indeed of -earth) is of that perfect height which, while it is freed from -the charge of being low, cannot with propriety be denominated -tall. Her figure is slender almost to fragility but strikingly -modelled in spiritual elegance, and is the only form I ever saw -which could bear the trial of a rigid criticism.</p> - -<p>Every man who is gifted with the least particle of imagination, -must in some of his reveries have conjured up from the -realms of fancy, a being bright and beautiful beyond everything -he had ever before apprehended, whose main and distinguishing -attribute invariably proves to be a form the indescribable -loveliness of which seems to</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“—Sail in liquid light,</div> - <div class="verse">And float on seas of bliss.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The realisation of these seraphic visions is seldom permitted -us; but I can truly say that when my eyes for the first time -fell upon this lovely creature, I thought myself transported -to the land of Dreams, where lay embodied, the most brilliant -conceptions of the wildest fancy. Indeed, could the Promethean -spark throw life and animation into the Venus de Medici, -it would but present the counterpart of ——.</p> - -<p>Her complexion has the delicate tinge of the Brunett, with -a little of the roseate hue of the Circassian; and one would -swear that none but the sunny skies of Spain had shone upon -the infancy of the being, who looks so like her own “dark-glancing -daughters.”</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And then her eyes! they open their dark, rich orbs upon you -like the full moon of heaven, and blaze into your very soul -the fires of day! Like the offerings laid upon the sacrificial -altars of the Hebrew, when in an instant the divine spark -falling from the propitiated God kindled them in flames; so, -a single glance from that Oriental eye as quickly fires your -soul, and leaves your bosom in a perfect conflagration! Odds -Cupids and Darts! with one broad sweep of vision in a crowded -ball-room, that splendid creature would lay around her like<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[120]</a></span> -the two-handed sword of Minotti, hearts on hearts, piled -round in semi-circles! But it is well for the more rugged sex -that this glorious being can vary her proud dominion, and give -to the expression of her eye a melting tenderness which dissolves -the most frigid heart and heals the wounds she gave -before.</p> - -<p>If the devout and exemplary Mussulman who dying fast in -the faith of his Prophet anticipates reclining on beds of roses, -gloriously drunk through all the ages of eternity, is to be waited -on by Houris such as these: waft me ye gentle gales beyond -this lower world and</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Lap me in soft Lydian airs!”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But I am falling into I know not what extravagances, so I -will briefly give you a portrait of the last of these three divinities, -and will then terminate my tiresome lucubrations.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>Here, my dear M——, closes this catalogue of the Graces, -this chapter of Beauties, and I should implore your pardon -for trespassing so long on your attention. If you, yourself, in -whose breast may possibly be extinguished the amatory flame, -should not feel an interest in these three “counterfeit presentments,” -do not fail to show them to —— and solicit her -opinion as to their respective merits.</p> - -<p>Tender my best acknowledgments to the Major for his -prompt attention to my request, and, for yourself, accept the -assurance of my undiminished regard; and hoping that the -smiles of heaven may continue to illuminate your way,</p> - -<p class="sig">I remain, ever yours,<br /> -L. A. V.</p></div> - -<p>These “chaste and elegant sentiments” are, surely, “embellished -with every polite accomplishment.” Melville called -down the Nine Gods, and a host of minor deities; he ransacked -Athens, Rhodes, Cyprus, Circassia, Lydia, Lilliputia, -Damascus, this world and the next, for geographical adornments; -he called up Burton, Shakespeare, Scott, Byron, Mil<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[121]</a></span>ton, -Coleridge and Chesterfield, as well as Prometheus and -Cinderella, Mahomet and Cleopatra, Madonnas and Houris, -Medici and Mussulman, to strew carelessly across his pages. -“Not in vain,” says Melville of the idealisation of himself in -the character of Pierre, “had he spent long summer afternoons -in the deep recesses of his father’s fastidiously picked -and decorous library.” Not in vain, either, had he been submitted -to three years of elementary drill in the classics at the -Albany Academy. “Not that as yet his young and immature -soul had been accosted by the wonderful Mutes, and through -the vast halls of Silent Truth, had been ushered into the full, -secret, eternally inviolable Sanhedrim, where the Poetic Magi -discuss, in glorious gibberish, the Alpha and Omega of the -Universe,” says Melville; “but among the beautiful imaginings -of the second and third degree of poets he freely and comprehendingly -ranged.” Melville was always a wide if desultory -reader, more and more interested after the manner of Sir -Thomas Browne, and the Burton with reference to whom he -began his career in letters, in “remote and curious illusions, -wrecks of forgotten fables, antediluvian computations, obsolete -and unfamiliar problems, riddles that no living Œdipus would -care to solve.” And this preoccupation—first made manifest -in <i>Mardi</i> (1849)—must always stand in the way of his most -typical writings ever becoming widely popular. His earliest -known piece of juvenile composition is interesting as revealing -the crude beginnings of one of the manners superbly mastered -in parts of <i>Moby-Dick</i>. This early effusion, by revealing -so crudely the defects of his qualities, reads as a dull parody -of one of his most typical later manners.</p> - -<p>With a Miltonic confidence in his own gifts, Melville came -to view these earlier pieces as the first “earthly rubbish” of -his “immense quarries of fine marble.” Melville goes on to -say that “no commonplace is ever effectually got rid of, except -by essentially emptying one’s self of it into a book; for once -trapped into a book, then the book can be put into the fire and -all will be well.” “But they are not always put into the fire,” -he said with regret. And because of his own laxity in cremation, -his crude first fruits stalk abroad to accuse him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[122]</a></span></p> - -<p>At this early period, Melville had nothing very significant -to say; but he seems to have been urged to say it with remorseless -pertinacity. In <i>Pierre</i>, he satirises his youthful and reckless -prolixity where he speaks of his manuscripts as being of -such flying multitudes that “they were to be found lying all -round the house; gave a great deal of trouble to the housemaids -in sweeping; went for kindlings to the fires; and forever -flitting out of the windows, and under the doorsills, into -the faces of people passing the manorial mansion.”</p> - -<p>Having nothing very particular to write about, he followed -an ancient tradition, and wrote of love. In <i>Pierre</i>, which is -Melville’s spiritual autobiography, and in <i>Pierre</i> alone, does -Melville elaborately busy himself with romantic affection. -And in <i>Pierre</i>, his is no sugared and conventional preoccupation. -He traces his own development through the love-friendship -of boyhood, the miscellaneous susceptibility of adolescence, -to a crucifixion in manhood between the images of his wife -and his mother. His first <i>Fragment from a Writing Desk</i> -seems to have been conceived at a time before his “innumerable -wandering glances settled upon some one specific object.”</p> - -<p>His second <i>Fragment from a Writing Desk</i> concerns itself -with an allegorical quest of elusive feminine loveliness: a kind -of <i>Coelebs in Search of a Wife</i>, allegorised and crossed with -<i>Lalla Rookh</i>. It survives, as has been said, only as a fragment -of a Fragment. Its conclusion must remain a mystery -until some old newspaper file disgorges its secrets. It begins -as follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<h3>For the Democratic Press<br /> - -FRAGMENTS FROM A WRITING DESK<br /> - -No. 2</h3> - -<p>“Confusion seize the Greek!” exclaimed I, as wrathfully rising -from my chair, I flung my ancient Lexicon across the room -and seizing my hat and cane, and throwing on my cloak, I -sallied out into the clearer air of heaven. The bracing coolness -of an April evening calmed my aching temples, and I -slowly wended my way to the river side. I had promenaded<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[123]</a></span> -the bank for about half an hour, when flinging myself upon -the grassy turf, I was soon lost in revery, and up to the lips -in sentiment.</p> - -<p>I had not lain more than five minutes, when a figure effectually -concealed in the ample folds of a cloak, glided past me, -and hastily dropping something at my feet, disappeared behind -the angle of an adjoining house, ere I could recover from my -astonishment at so singular an occurrence.</p> - -<p>“Cerbes!” cried I, springing up, “here is a spice of the marvellous!” -and stooping down, I picked up an elegant little, rose-coloured, -lavender-scented billet-doux, and hurriedly breaking -the seal (a heart, transfixed with an arrow) I read by the -light of the moon, the following:—</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Gentle Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>If my fancy has painted you in genuine colours, you will on -the receipt of this, incontinently follow the bearer where she -will lead you.</p> - -<p><span class="sig"><span class="smcap">Inamorita.</span>”</span></p></div> - -<p>“The deuce I will!” exclaimed I,—“But soft!”—And I re-perused -this singular document, turned over the billet in my -fingers, and examined the hand-writing, which was femininely -delicate, and I could have sworn was a woman’s. Is it possible, -thought I, that the days of romance are revived?—No, -“The days of chivalry are over!” says Burke.</p> - -<p>As I made this reflection, I looked up, and beheld the same -figure which had handed me this questionable missive, beckoning -me forward. I started towards her; but, as I approached, -she receded from me, and fled swiftly along the -margin of the river at a pace which, encumbered as I was with -my heavy cloak and boots, I was unable to follow; and which -filled me with sundry misgivings, as to the nature of the being, -who could travel with such amazing celerity. At last, -perfectly breathless, I fell into a walk; which, my mysterious -fugitive perceiving, she likewise lessened her pace, so as to -keep herself still in sight, although at too great a distance to -permit me to address her.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[124]</a></span></p> - -<p>The hero hastens after his guide but always she eludes -him. Piqued by her repeated escapes, he stops in a rage, and -relieves his feelings in “two or three expressions that savoured -somewhat of the jolly days of the jolly cavaliers.” And under -the circumstances, he felt fully justified in his profanity. -“What! to be thwarted by a woman! Peradventure; baffled -by a girl? Confusion! It was too bad! To be outwitted, -generated, routed, defeated, by a mere rib of the earth? It -could not be borne!” Recovering his temper, he followed his -capricious guide out of the town, into a shadowy grove to “an -edifice, which seated on a gentle eminence, and embowered -amidst surrounding trees, bore the appearance of a country -villa.”</p> - -<p>“The appearance of this spacious habitation was anything -but inviting; it seemed to have been built with a jealous eye -to concealment; and its few, but well-defended windows were -sufficiently high from the ground, as effectually to baffle the -prying curiosity of the inquisitive stranger. Not a single light -shone from the narrow casement; but all was harsh, gloomy -and forbidding. As my imagination, ever alert on such an occasion, -was busily occupied in assigning some fearful motive -for such unusual precautions, my leader suddenly halted beneath -a lofty window, and making a low call, I perceived slowly -descending therefrom, a thick silken cord, attached to an -ample basket, which was silently deposited at our feet. -Amazed at this apparition, I was about soliciting an explanation: -when laying her fingers impressively upon her lips, and -placing herself in the basket, my guide motioned me to seat -myself beside her. I obeyed; but not without considerable -trepidation: and in obedience to the same low call which had -procured its descent, our curious vehicle, with sundry creakings, -rose in air.”</p></div> - -<p>This airy jaunt terminated, of course, in an Arabian Nights -exterior, which Melville particularises after the “voluptuous” -traditions of <i>Vathek</i> and <i>Lalla Rookh</i>. “The grandeur of the -room,” of course, “served only to show to advantage the -matchless beauty of its inmate.” This matchless beauty was, -after established tradition, “reclining on an ottoman; in one<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[125]</a></span> -hand holding a lute.” Her fingers, too, “were decorated with -a variety of rings, which as she waved her hand to me as I -entered, darted forth a thousand coruscations, and gleamed -their brilliant splendours to the sight.”</p> - -<p>“As I entered the apartment, her eyes were downcast, and -the expression of her face was mournfully interesting; she had -apparently been lost in some melancholy revery. Upon my entrance, -however, her countenance brightened, as with a queenly -wave of the hand, she motioned my conductress from the room, -and left me standing, mute, admiring and bewildered in her -presence.”</p> - -<p>“For a moment my brain spun round, and I had not at -command a single of my faculties. Recovering my self-possession, -however, and with that, my good-breeding, I advanced -en cavalier and, gracefully sinking on one knee, I bowed my -head and exclaimed ‘Here do I prostrate myself, thou sweet -Divinity, and kneel at the shrine of thy—’”</p> - -<p>But here, just at the climax of the quest, the clipping is abruptly -torn, and the reader is left cruelly suspended.</p> - -<p>From the publication of <i>Lalla Rookh</i>, in 1817, to the publication -of Thackeray’s <i>Our Street</i> in 1847, there settled upon -letters and life in England an epidemic of hankering for the -exotic. At the instigation of <i>Lalla Rookh</i>, England made a -prim effort to be “purely and intensely Asiatic,” and this while -delicately avoiding “the childishness, cruelty, and profligacy of -Asia.” In the fashionable literature of the period, the harem -and the slave-market unburdened its gazelles and its interior -decorations, and by a resort to divans and coruscating rubies, -and ottar of roses, and lutes, and warm panting maidens, the -“principled goodness” of Anglo-Saxon self-righteousness was -thrilled to a discreet voluptuousness.</p> - -<p>In his second <i>Fragment</i>, Melville has caught at some of the -drift-wood of this great tidal wave that was washed across the -Atlantic. And in acknowledgment of this early indebtedness, -he in <i>Pierre</i> speaks of Tom Moore with an especial burst -of enthusiasm, mating him with Hafiz, Anacreon, Catullus -and Ovid.</p> - -<p>Reared in a New England environment that had been so<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[126]</a></span>berly -tempered by Mrs. Chapone and Mrs. Barbauld, Melville -had, under the goadings of poverty, the frustrations of -his environment, and the teasing lure of some stupendous discovery -awaiting him at the rainbow’s end, plunged into the -hideousness of life in the forecastle of a merchantman. At -both extremes of his journey he reaped only disillusion. As -a practically penniless sailor in Liverpool he enjoyed the -freedom of the streets: and the architecture of the city impressed -him less than did the sights of the poverty and viciousness -to which he was especially exposed. Back he came to -Lansingburg, to the old pump in the yard, the stiff-corseted -decorum, and the threadbare and pretentious proprieties of -his mother, to decline into the enforced drudgery of teaching -school. The sights of Liverpool and the forecastle had -given no permanent added beauty to home. He did not -comfortably fit into any recognised socket of New England -respectability. He sought escape in books, in amateur authorship. -And Burton, and Anacreon, and Tom Moore are -not guaranteed to reconcile a boy in ferment to a tame and -repugnant environment. He was like a strong wine that clears -with explosive violence. He had been to sea once, and there -acquired some skill as a sailor. The excitement and hardship -and downrightness of ocean life, when viewed through the -drab of the ensuing years, treacherously suffered a sea-change. -After three and a half years of mounting desperation, he was -ripe for a transit clean beyond the pale of civilisation.</p> - -<p>“I am tormented with an everlasting itch for things remote,” -he later wrote in an effort to explain his second hegira; “I love -to sail forbidden seas, and land on barbarous coasts.” The -trip to Liverpool had slammed the sash on one magic casement; -but the greater part of the watery world was still to be -viewed. “Why,” he asks himself perplexed at his own mystery, -“is almost every healthy boy with a robust healthy soul, -at some time or other crazy to go to sea? Why did the old -Persians hold the sea holy? Why did the Greeks give it a -separate deity, and own brother to Jove? Surely all this is -not without meaning. And still deeper the story of Narcissus, -who because he could not grasp the tormenting, mild image he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[127]</a></span> -saw in the fountain, plunged into it and was drowned. But -that same image, we ourselves see in all rivers and oceans. It -is the image of the ungraspable phantom of life; and this is -the key to all.” The key he here offers to the heart of his -mystery is itself locked in mystery; though when he compared -himself to Narcissus tormented by the irony of being two, -Melville may have been hotter on the trail of the truth than -he was aware. His deepest insight, perhaps, came to him one -midnight, out on the Pacific, where in the glare and the wild -Hindoo odour of the tryworks of a whaler in full operation, -he fell asleep at the helm. “Starting from a brief standing -sleep,” he says, “I was horribly conscious of something fatally -wrong. I thought my eyes were open; I was half conscious -of putting my fingers to the lids and mechanically stretching -them still further apart. But, spite of all this, I could see -no compass before me to steer by. Nothing seemed before me -but a jet of gloom, now and then made ghastly by flashes of -redness. Uppermost was the impression, that whatever swift, -rushing thing I stood on was not so much bound to any haven -ahead as rushing from all havens astern.”</p> - -<p>In a headlong retreat from all havens astern, on January 3, -1841, Melville shipped on board the <i>Acushnet</i>, a whaler bound -for the South Seas.</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[128]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VII <br /> - -<span class="smaller">BLUBBER AND MYSTICISM</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“And, as for me, if, by any possibility, there be any as yet undiscovered -prime thing in me; if I shall ever deserve any real repute in that small -but high hushed world which I might not be unreasonably ambitious of; -if hereafter I shall do anything that, upon the whole, a man might rather -have done than to have left undone; if, at my death, my executors, or -more properly my creditors, find any precious MSS. in my desk, then -here I prospectively ascribe all the honour and the glory to whaling; for -a whale-ship was my Yale College and my Harvard.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>In 1892, the year after Melville’s death, Arthur Stedman -wrote a “Biographical and Critical Introduction” to <i>Typee</i>. -During the final years of Melville’s sedulous isolation, Arthur -Stedman was—with the minor exception of the late Dr. Titus -Munson Coan, whose Missionary parentage Melville seems -never to have quite forgiven him—the single man who clung -to Melville with any semblance of personal loyalty. Stedman -was unwavering in his belief that in his earlier South Sea -novels, Melville had attained to his highest achievement: an -achievement that entitled Melville to more golden opinions, -Stedman believed, than Melville ever reaped from a graceless -generation. To Stedman—as to Dr. Coan—Melville’s later development -into mysticism and metaphysics was a melancholy -perversity to be viewed with a charitable forbearance, and forgiven -in the fair name of Fayaway. Dr. Coan repeatedly -used to recount, with a sigh at his frustration, how he made -persistent attempts to inveigle Melville into Polynesian reminiscences, -always to be rebuffed by Melville’s invariable rejoinder: -“That reminds me of the eighth book of Plato’s <i>Republic</i>.” -This was a signal for silence and leave-taking. What -was the staple of Stedman’s conversation is not known. But -despite the fact that Melville was to him a crabbed and darkly -shadowed hieroglyph, he clung to Melville with a personal -loyalty at once humorous and pathetic. Melville to him was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[129]</a></span> -the “man who lived with the cannibals,” and merited canonisation -because of this intimacy with unholy flesh. Stedman -published in the New York <i>World</i> for October 11, 1891, a tribute -to his dead friend, significantly headed: <i>“Marquesan” Melville. -A South Sea Prospero who Lived and Died in New -York. The Island Nymphs of Nukuheva’s Happy Valley.</i> -While Stedman was not necessarily responsible for this caption, -it is, nevertheless, a just summary of the fullest insight -he ever got into Melville’s life and works. The friendship between -Petrarch and Boccaccio is hardly less humorous than -the relationship between Melville and Stedman; and surely -Melville has suffered more, in death, if not in life, from the -perils of friendship than did Petrarch: more even than did -Baudelaire from the damaging admiration of Gautier. When -one’s enemy writes a book, one’s reputation is less likely to be -jeopardised by literary animosity than it is by the best superlatives -of self-appointed custodians of one’s good name. But -as Francis Thompson has observed, it is a principle universally -conceded that, since the work of a great author is said to be a -monument, the true critic does best evince his taste and sense -by cutting his own name on it. Critical biographers have contrived -a method to hand themselves down to posterity through -the gods of literature, as did the Roman emperors through the -gods of Olympus—by taking the heads off their statues, and -clapping on their own instead. Criticism is a perennial -decapitation.</p> - -<p>“I have a fancy,” says Stedman, in his <i>Biographical and -Critical Introduction</i>, “that it was the reading of Richard -Henry Dana’s <i>Two Years Before the Mast</i> which revived the -spirit of adventure in Melville’s breast. That book was published -in 1840, and was at once talked of everywhere. Melville -must have read it at the time, mindful of his own experience -as a sailor. At any rate, he once more signed a ship’s -articles, and on January 1, 1841, sailed from New Bedford -harbour in the whaler <i>Acushnet</i>, bound for the Pacific Ocean -and the sperm fishery.”</p> - -<p>In the second part of this statement, Stedman attempts to -stick to the letter: but there is a flaw in his text. That Mel<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[130]</a></span>ville -sailed in the <i>Acushnet</i> is corroborated by a statement in -the journal of Melville’s wife; in the record surviving in Melville’s -handwriting, headed “what became of the ship’s company -on the whaleship <i>Acushnet</i>, according to Hubbard, who -came back in her (more than a four years’ voyage) and visited -me in Pittsfield in 1850;” as well as by surviving letters -written by Richard Tobias Greene, the Toby of <i>Typee</i>.</p> - -<p>The roster of Melville’s ship is preserved in Alexander -Starbuck’s bulky <i>History of the American Whale Fishery from -its Earliest Inception to the Year 1876</i> (published by the -author, Waltham, Mass., 1878). Starbuck rates the <i>Acushnet</i> -as a ship of 359 tons, built in 1840. Her managing owners -are reported as having been Bradford Fuller & Co. Under -command of Captain Pease she sailed from Fairhaven, bound -for the whaling grounds of the Pacific, on January 3, 1841, -and returned to Fairhaven on May 13, 1845, laden with 850 -barrels of sperm oil, 1350 barrels of whale oil, and 13500 -pounds of whale-bone. On July 18, 1845, she started upon -her second voyage, under command of Captain Rogers, to -return June 7, 1848, stocked with 500 barrels of sperm oil, -800 barrels of whale oil, and 6000 pounds of whale-bone. On -December 4, 1847, she had a boat stove by a whale, with the -loss of the third mate and four of the crew. Her third voyage, -begun August 31, 1848, under command of Captain Bradley, -was her last. As by some malicious fatality, the <i>Acushnet</i> -was lost on St. Lawrence Island on August 31, 1851, within -a month of the time when Melville brought <i>Moby-Dick</i> to its -tragic close.</p> - -<p>Between Stedman’s and Starbuck’s accounts of the time and -place of Melville’s sailing there is a discrepancy of half a mile -and two days. This discrepancy, however, does not necessarily -impugn Stedman’s accuracy. Fairhaven is just across -the Acushnet river from New Bedford, and “sailing from -New Bedford” may be like “sailing from New York”—which -is often in reality “sailing from Hoboken.”</p> - -<p>Stedman dates Melville’s sailing January 1; Starbuck, January -3. Melville launches the hero of <i>Moby-Dick</i> neither -from New Bedford nor from Fairhaven, but from Nantucket.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[131]</a></span> -Ishmael begins his fatal voyage aboard the <i>Pequod</i> on December -25; and there is a fitting irony in the fact that on the -day that celebrates the birth of the Saviour of mankind, the -<i>Pequod</i> should sail forth to slay Moby-Dick, the monstrous -symbol and embodiment of unconquerable evil.</p> - -<p>That Dana’s book should have fired Melville to an impetuous -and romantic jaunt to the South Seas, though an ill-favoured -statement, is Stedman’s very own. When a boy concludes the -Christmas holidays by a mid-winter plunge into the filthy and -shabby business of whaling; when a young man inaugurates -the year not among the familiar associations of the gods of -his hearth, but among semi-barbarous strangers of the forecastle -of a whaler: to make such a shifting of whereabouts a -sign of jolly romantic exuberance, is engagingly naïve in its -perversity.</p> - -<p>Just what specific circumstances were the occasion of Melville’s -escape into whaling will probably never be known: what -burst of demoniac impulse, either of anger, or envy, or spite; -what gnawing discontent; what passionate disappointment; -what crucifixion of affection; what blind impetuosity; what -sinister design. But in the light of his writings and the -known facts of his life it seems likely that his desperate transit -was made in the mid-winter of his discontent. That the reading -of Dana’s book should have filled his head with a mere -adolescent longing for brine-drenched locomotion and sent him -gallantly off to sea is a surmise more remarkable for simplicity -than insight.</p> - -<p>Melville never wearies of iterating his “itch for things remote.” -Like Thoreau, he had a “naturally roving disposition,” -and of the two men it is difficult to determine which -achieved a wider peregrination. It was Thoreau’s proud boast: -“I have travelled extensively in Concord.” He believed that -Concord, with its sylvan environment, was a microcosm “by -the study of which the whole world could be comprehended,” -and so, this wildest of civilised men seldom strayed beyond its -familiar precincts. His was a heroic provincialism, that cost -him little loss either in worldliness or in wisdom. Though his -head went swimming in the Milky Way, his feet were well-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[132]</a></span>rooted -in New England sod. “One world at a time” was the -programme he set himself for digesting the universe: and he -looked into the eyes of this world with cold stoical serenity.</p> - -<p>Melville made no such capitulation with reality. Between -the obdurate world of facts and his ardent and unclarified desires -there was always, to the end of his life, a blatant incompatibility. -Alongside the hard and cramping world of reality, -and in more or less sharp opposition to it, he set up a fictitious -world, a world of heart’s desire; and unlike Thoreau, he -hugged his dream in jealous defiance of reality. It is, of -course, an ineradicable longing of man to repudiate the inexorable -restrictions of reality, and return to the happy delusion -of omnipotence of early childhood, an escape into some land -of heart’s desire. Goethe compared the illusions that man -nourishes in his breast to the population of statues in ancient -Rome which were almost as numerous as the population of -living men. Most men keep the boundaries between these two -populations distinct: a separation facilitated by the usual -dwindling of the ghostly population. Flaubert once observed -that every tenth-rate provincial notary had in him the debris -of a poet. As Wordsworth complains, as we grow away from -childhood, the vision fades into the light of common day. -Thoreau clung to his visions; but they were, after all, cold-blooded -and well-behaved visions. And by restricting himself -to “one world at a time,” by mastering his dream, he -mastered reality. Alcott declared that Thoreau thought he -dwelt in the centre of the universe, and seriously contemplated -annexing the rest of the planet to Concord. The delicacy of -the compliment to the rest of the planet has never been adequately -appreciated. Melville’s more violent and restive impulses -never permitted him to feel any such flattering attachment -to his whereabouts, whether it was Albany, Liverpool, -Lima, Tahiti or Constantinople. Like Rousseau, who confessed -himself “burning with desire without any definite object,” -Melville always felt himself an exile from the seacoast -of Bohemia. But his nostalgia, his indefinite longing for the -unknown, was not, in any literal sense, “homesickness” at all. -As Aldous Huxley has observed:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[133]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Those find, who most delight to roam</div> - <div class="verse">’Mid castles of remotest Spain</div> - <div class="verse">That there’s, thank Heaven, no place like home</div> - <div class="verse">So they put out upon their travels again.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>That Melville came to no very pleasant haven of refuge in -the forecastle of the <i>Acushnet</i> is borne out by his drastic preference -to be eaten by cannibals rather than abide among the -sureties of the ship and her company. That he “left the ship, -being oppressed with hard fare and hard usage, in the summer -of 1842 with a companion, Richard T. Greene (Toby) at -the bay of Nukuheva in the Marquesas Islands” is the statement -in the journal of his wife vividly elaborated in <i>Typee</i>.</p> - -<p>Of Melville’s history aboard the <i>Acushnet</i> there is no -straightforward account. <i>Redburn</i>, <i>Typee</i>, <i>Omoo</i> and <i>White-Jacket</i> -are transparent chapters in autobiography. From his -experiences on board the <i>Acushnet</i> Melville draws generously -in <i>Moby-Dick</i>: but these experiences do not for one moment -pretend to be the whole of the literal truth. Only an insanity -as lurid as Captain Ahab’s would mistake <i>Moby-Dick</i> for a -similarly reliable report of personal experiences. <i>Moby-Dick</i> -is, indeed, an autobiography of adventure; but adventure upon -the highest plane of spiritual daring. Incidentally, it also offers -the fullest, and truest, and most readable history of an -actual whaling cruise ever written. But it is not a “scientific” -history. The “scientific” historian, proudly unreadable, thanks -God that he has no style to tempt him out of the strict weariness -of counting-house inventories; and in despair of presenting -the truth, he boasts a make-shift veracity. The truest -historians are, of course, the poets—and their histories are -“feigned.” Melville, writing in the capacity of poet, was licensed -in the best interests of truth to expurgate reality. And -though Captain Ahab’s hunt of the abhorred Moby-Dick belongs -as essentially to the realm of poetry as does the quest of -the Holy Grail, it is, withal, in its lower reaches, so broadly -based on a foundation of solid reality that it is possible, by considering -<i>Moby-Dick</i> in double conjunction with the few facts -explicitly known of Melville during the period of his whaling -cruise, and the wealth of facts known of whaling in general,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[134]</a></span> -to block in, with a considerable degree of certainty, the contours -of his experiences aboard the <i>Acushnet</i>.</p> - -<p>By all odds, the chief chapter in the history of whaling is -the story of its rise and practical extinction in the Southern -New England States. In this limited geographical area, trade -in “oil and bone” was pursued with an alacrity, an enterprise -and a prosperity unparalleled in the world’s history. When, -in 1841, Melville boarded the <i>Acushnet</i>, American whaling, -after a development through nearly two centuries, was within -a decade of its highest development, within two decades of its -precipitous decay. The doom of whale-oil lamps and sperm -candles was ultimately decided in 1859 with the opening of -the first oil well in Pennsylvania, and sealed by the Civil War. -Melville knew American whaling at the prime of its golden age, -and taking it at its crest, he raised it in fiction to a dignity -and significance incomparably higher than it ever reached in -literal fact.</p> - -<p>At the beginning of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, Melville culls from the -most incongruous volumes an anthology of comments upon -Leviathan, beginning with the Mosaic comment “And God -created great whales,” and ending, after eclectic quotations -from Pliny, Lucian, Rabelais, Sir Thomas Browne, Spenser, -Hobbes, Bunyan, Milton, Dryden, Pope, Paley, Blackstone, -Hawthorne, Daniel Webster, Darwin, and dozens of others -(including an excerpt “From ‘Something’ Unpublished”) ends -on the old whale song:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Oh, the rare old whale, mid storm and gale</div> - <div class="verse">In his ocean home will be</div> - <div class="verse">A giant in might, where might is right,</div> - <div class="verse">And King of the boundless sea.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Rather than conventionally distribute his quotations throughout -the book as chapter headings, Melville offers them all in a -block at the beginning of the volume, somewhat after the -manner of Franklin’s grace said over the pork barrel. And -extraordinarily effective is this device of Melville’s in stirring -the reader’s interest to a sense of the wonder and mystery of -this largest of all created live things, of the wild and distant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[135]</a></span> -seas wherein he rolls his island bulk; of the undeliverable, -nameless perils of the whale with all the attending marvels of -a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds. Even before the -reader comes to the superb opening paragraph of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -the great flood-gates of the wonder-world are swung open, -and into his inmost soul, as into Melville’s, “two by two there -float endless processions of the whale, and midmost of them -all, one grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air.”</p> - -<p>The literature of whaling slopes down from <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -both before and after, into a wilderness of several hundred -volumes.</p> - -<p>There is but one attempt at a comprehensive history of whaling: -Walter S. Tower’s <i>A History of the American Whale -Fishery</i> (Philadelphia, 1907). This slender volume first -makes a rapid survey of the sources and proceeds from these -to a cautious selection of the outstanding documented facts -which by “economic interpretation” it presents as a consecutive -story. Devoid of literary pretension, it is admirable in accuracy, -compactness and clarity. The most comprehensive popular -treatment of American whaling is to be found in Hyatt -Verrill’s <i>The Real Story of the Whaler</i> (1916): a more -exuberant but less workmanly book than Tower’s. Representative -shorter surveys are to be found both in Winthrop -L. Martin’s very able <i>The American Merchant Marine</i> (1902) -and Willis J. Abbot’s <i>American Merchant Ships and Sailors</i> -(1902).</p> - -<p>Although the literature of whaling extends by repeated dilutions -from “economic interpretations” to infant books, the -classical sources for this extended literature tally less than a -score. The great work on the <i>Fisheries and Fishing Industries -of the United States</i>, prepared under the direction of G. -Brown Goode in 1884, contains two articles on whaling of -the first magnitude of importance: <i>Whalemen, Vessels, Apparatus -and Methods of the Whale Fishery</i> and a <i>History of the -Present Condition of the Whale Fishery</i>. The facts presented -in these last two encyclopædic treatments are drawn principally -from Alexander Starbuck’s <i>History of the American -Whale Fishery from Its Earliest Inception to the Year 1874</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[136]</a></span> -published in 1876, and C. M. Scammon’s <i>Marine Mammals of -the North Western Coast of North America, with an Account -of the American Whale Fishery</i>, published in 1874. Lorenzo -Sabine’s <i>Report on the Principal Fisheries of the American -Seas</i>, published in 1870, while prior to the monumental works -of Starbuck and Scammon in date of publication, enjoys no -other priority. The most complete and detailed treatment of -the origin and early development of whaling is to be found -in William Scoresby’s <i>An Account of the Arctic Regions</i>, -dated 1820. Scoresby—“the justly renowned,” according to -Melville; “the excellent voyager”—was an English naval -officer, and in his discussion of the whale fishery he deals -solely with the European and principally with the British -industry. But Scoresby’s book is principally a classic as regards -the earlier history of whaling. Scoresby seems to have -convinced all later historians in this field of the folly of -further research. Melville knew Scoresby’s book—“I honour -him for a veteran,” Melville confesses—and drew from its -erudition in <i>Moby-Dick</i>. Obed Macy’s <i>History of Nantucket</i>, -published in 1836, is one of the few important original sources -for the history of whaling, and the most readable. Melville -expresses repeated indebtedness to Macy. Macy’s record has -the tang of first-hand experience, and the flavour of local -records. Because of the fact that many of the records from -which this fine old antiquary of whales drew have since been -destroyed by fire, his book enjoys the heightened authority -of being a unique source. According to Anatole France, the -perplexities of historians begin where events are related by -two or by several witnesses, “for their evidence is always contradictory -and always irreconcilable.” The fire at Nantucket -blazed a royal road to truth. Daniel Ricketson, in his <i>History -of New Bedford</i> (1850) attempted to emulate Macy. And -though Ricketson’s sources, as Macy’s, have been largely -destroyed by fire, his authority, though irrefutable in so far -as it goes, is less detailed and comprehensive.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t136aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t136aa.jpg" width="600" height="481" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>THROWING THE HARPOON</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t136ab.jpg" width="600" height="351" alt="" /> -<div class="caption"><p>SOUNDING</p></div> -</div> - -<p>Of published personal narrative of whale-hunting, Owen -Chase’s <i>Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing -Ship Wreck of the Whale Ship Essex of Nantucket</i>, published<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[137]</a></span> -in 1821, as well as F. D. Bennett’s two-volume <i>Narrative of a -Voyage Round the World</i>, published 1833-36, were drawn -from by Melville in <i>Moby-Dick</i>. The account of the sinking -of the <i>Essex</i> is important as being the source from which Melville -borrowed, with superb transformation, the catastrophe -with which he closes <i>Moby-Dick</i>. The sinking of the <i>Essex</i>—recounted -in <i>Moby-Dick</i>—is the first and best known instance -of a ship being actually sent to the bottom by the ramming -of an infuriated whale, and in its sequel it is one of the -most dreadful chapters of human suffering in all the hideous -annals of shipwreck. “I have seen Owen Chase,” Melville -says in <i>Moby-Dick</i>, “who was chief mate of the <i>Essex</i> at the -time of the tragedy: I have read his plain and faithful narrative: -I have conversed with his son; and all within a few -miles of the scene of the tragedy.” Melville may here be -using a technique learned from Defoe.</p> - -<p>Though in <i>Moby-Dick</i> Melville makes several references to -J. Ross Browne’s <i>Etchings of a Whaling Cruise, with Notes -on a Sojourn on the Island of Zanzibar</i>, mildly praising some -of his drawings while reprobating their reproduction, he owes -no debt to J. Ross Browne. Melville and Browne wrote of -whaling with purposes diametrically opposed. Melville gloried -in the romance of whales, and horsed on Leviathan, through -a briny sunset dove down through the nether-twilight into the -blackest haunted caverns of the soul. Browne provokes no -such rhetorical extravagance of characterisation. He sat soberly -and firmly down on a four-legged chair before a four-legged -desk and wrote up his travels. “My design,” he says, -“is simply to present to the public a faithful delineation of the -life of a whaleman. In doing this, I deem it necessary that I -should aim rather at the truth itself than at mere polish of -style.” So Browne made a virtue of necessity, and convinced -that “history scarcely furnishes a parallel for the deeds of -cruelty” then “prevalent in the whale fishery,” he sent his book -forth “to show in what manner the degraded condition of a -portion of our fellow-creatures can be ameliorated.” In a -study of Melville’s life, Browne is important as presenting an -ungarnished account of typical conditions aboard a whaler at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[138]</a></span> -the time Melville was cruising in the <i>Acushnet</i>. Useful in -the same way are R. Delano’s <i>Wanderings and Adventures; -Being a Narrative of Twelve Years’ Life in a Whaleship</i> -(1846) and Captain Davis’ spirited overhauling of his journal -kept during a whaling trip, published in 1872 under the -title <i>Nimrod of the Sea</i>.</p> - -<p>Though whales and Pilgrim Fathers would, at first blush, -seem to belong to two mutually repugnant orders of nature, yet -were they, by force of circumstance, early thrown into a -warring intimacy. And strangely enough, in this armed -alliance, it was the whale who made the first advances. Richard -Mather, who came to Massachusetts Bay colony in 1635, -records in his journal, according to Sabine, the presence off the -New England coast of “mighty whales spewing up water in -the air like the smoke of a chimney ... of such incredible -bigness that I will never wonder that the body of Jonah could -be in the belly of a whale.” From this and other evidence it -seems undoubted that in early colonial days whales were undaunted -by the strict observances of the Pilgrims, and browsed -in great numbers, even on Sabbath, within the sight of land. -Yet, despite this open violation of Scripture, the resourceful -Puritan pressed them into the service of true religion. Believing -that</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Whales in the sea</div> - <div class="verse">God’s voice obey,</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>they tolerated leviathan as an emissary more worthy than -Elijah’s raven. And whenever an obedient whale, harkening -to the voice of God in the wilderness, was cast ashore, a part -of his bulk was fittingly appropriated for the support of the -ministry.</p> - -<p>Tower establishes the fact that among the first colonists -there were men at least acquainted with, if not actually experienced -in whaling. And it is quite generally accepted that the -settlement of Massachusetts was prompted not only by a protestant -determination to worship God after the dictates of a -rebellious conscience, but by a no less firm determination to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[139]</a></span> -vary Sunday observances with the enjoyment on secular days -of unrestricted fishing. As a result of this double Puritan -interest in worship and whaling, the history of the American -whaling fishery begins almost with the settlement of the -New England colonies.</p> - -<p>By the end of the seventeenth century, whaling was established -as a regular business, if still on a comparatively small -scale, in the different Massachusetts colonies, especially from -Cape Cod; from the towns at the eastern end of Long Island, -and from Nantucket. With the very notable exceptions of -New London, Connecticut, and New Bedford and the neighbouring -ports in Buzzard’s Bay, every locality subsequently to -become important in its whaling interests was well launched -in this enterprise before 1700. New London did not begin -whaling until the middle of the eighteenth century. New Bedford, -though almost the last place to appear as a whaling port—and -this immediately before the Revolution—was destined -to stand, within a century after its beginnings in whaling, the -greatest whaling port the world has ever known, the city which, -in the full glory of whaling prosperity, would send out more -vessels than all other American ports combined.</p> - -<p>The earliest colonial adventurers in whaling were men who -by special appointment were engaged to be on the lookout for -whales cast ashore. Emboldened by commerce with drift-whales, -these Puritan whalemen soon took to boats to chase -and kill whales which came close in, but which were not actually -stranded.</p> - -<p>In 1712, through the instrumentality of Christopher Hussey, -Providence utilised a hardship to His creature to work -a revolution in whaling. Hussey, while cruising along the -coast, was caught up by a strong northerly wind, and despite -his prayers and his seamanship was blown out to sea. When -the sky cleared, Hussey’s craft was nowhere to be seen by the -anxious watchers on shore. After awaiting his return for a -decent number of days, his wife and neighbours at home gave -him up as lost. But in the middle of their tribulations, a -familiar sail dipped over the horizon, and Hussey slowly -headed landward, dragging a dead sperm whale in tow: the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[140]</a></span> -first sperm whale known to have been taken by an American -whaler.</p> - -<p>Hussey’s exploit marked a radical change in whaling methods. -All Nantucket lusted after sperm whales. The indomitable -islanders began immediately to fit vessels, usually sloops -of about thirty tons, to whale out in the “deep.” These little -vessels were fitted out for cruises of about six weeks. On their -narrow decks there was no room for the apparatus necessary -to “try out” the oil. So the blubber stripped from the whale -was cast into the hold, the oil awaiting extraction until the -vessel returned. Then the reeking whale fat, its stench smiting -the face of heaven, was transferred to the huge kettles of -the “try houses.” There is an old saying that a nose that is -a nose at all can smell a whaler twenty miles to windward. -The New England indifference to the stenches of whaling suggests -that the Puritan contempt for the flesh was not a virtue -but a deformity.</p> - -<p>Other whaling communities ventured out after the sperm -whale in the wake of Nantucket. Year after year the colonial -whalemen pushed further and further out into the “deep” -as their gigantic quarry retreated before them. In 1774, Captain -Uriah Bunker, in the brig <i>Amazon</i> of Nantucket, made the -first whaling voyage across the equinoctial line to the Brazil -Banks and, according to local tradition, returned to port with -a “full ship” on April 19, 1775, just as the redcoats were in -full retreat from Concord Bridge.</p> - -<p>The Revolutionary War dealt a terrific blow to American -whaling. Massachusetts was regarded as the hotbed of the -Revolutionary spirit, and that colony was also the centre of -the fishing industries. Hence, in 1775, “to starve New England,” -Parliament passed the famous act restricting colonial -trade to British ports, and placing an embargo on fishing on -the Banks of Newfoundland or on any other part of the North -American coast. It was this same measure which inspired -Burke in his Speech on <i>Conciliation</i> to his superbly eloquent -tribute to the exploits of the American whalemen. When -the war began there were in the whole American fleet between -three and four hundred vessels—of an aggregate of about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[141]</a></span> -thirty-three thousand tons. The annual product of this fleet -was, according to Starbuck’s estimate, “probably at least 45,000 -barrels of spermaceti oil, and 8,500 barrels of right whale -oil, and of bone nearly or quite 75,000 pounds.” Of all whaling -communities, the island of Nantucket held out most stoutly,—aided -by Melville’s grandfather, who was sent to Nantucket -in command of a detachment to watch the movements of the -British fleet. Yet when the war ended in 1783, Macy says -that of the one hundred and fifty Nantucket vessels, only two -or three old hulks remained. In Nantucket, the money loss -exceeded one million dollars. So many of the young and active -men perished in the war that in the eight hundred Nantucket -families there were two hundred and two widows and -three hundred and forty-two orphan children.</p> - -<p>But even in the face of such prodigal disaster, the fiery -spirit of Nantucket was unquenchable. When the news came -of the peace of 1783, the <i>Bedford</i>, just returned to Nantucket -from a voyage, was hastily laden with oil and cleared for London. -This was, as a contemporary London newspaper remarks, -“the first vessel which displayed the thirteen rebellious -stripes of America in any British port.”</p> - -<p>Through the four decades following the Revolutionary War, -the American whale fishery lived a precarious existence of constant -ups and downs. The whaling voyages were greatly -lengthened during this period, however. In 1789 Nantucket -whalemen first went hunting the sperm whale off Madagascar, -and in 1791 six whaleships fitted out at Nantucket for the -Pacific Ocean.</p> - -<p>The years between 1820 and 1835 were marked mainly by -stable conditions and by a steady but gradual growth. In -1820 the Pacific whaling was extended to the coast of Japan, -and within the next few years the whalers were going to all -parts of the South Sea and Indian Ocean. And these years -marked, too, the falling of Nantucket from her hundred years -of pre-eminence in whaling, and the emergence of New Bedford -as incomparably the greatest whaling port in the history -of the world. It was a Nantucket whaler, however, who in -1835 captured the first right whale on the northwest coast of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[142]</a></span> -America, thereby opening one of the most important grounds -ever visited by the whaling fleet.</p> - -<p>The Golden Age of whaling falls between 1835 and 1860. -In 1846 the whaling fleet assumed the greatest proportions -it was ever to know. In that year, the fleet numbered six -hundred and eighty ships and barks, thirty-four brigs, and -twenty-two schooners, with an aggregate of somewhat over -two hundred and thirty thousand tons. The value of the -fleet alone at that time exceeded twenty-one million dollars, -while all the investments connected with the business are -estimated, according to Tower, at seventy million dollars, furnishing -the chief support of seventy thousand persons. This -great industry, so widespread in its operation, emanated, at -the time of its most extensive development, from a cluster of -thirty-eight whaling ports distributed along the southern New -England coast from Cape Cod to New York, and on the islands -to the south. The greatest of all the whaling ports, from 1820 -onward, was New Bedford.</p> - -<p>During the really great days of the whale fishery, the -Pacific was by all odds the chief fishing ground. During the -early eighteen-thirties, the Nantucket fleet began cruising -mainly in the Pacific, and after 1840, the Nantucket whalers -hunted there almost exclusively. The Nantucket fleet was -soon followed by the majority of the New Bedford fleet, -and a large proportion of the New London and Sag Harbor -vessels.</p> - -<p>These vessels, manned by a mixed company of Quakers, -farm boys, and a supplementary compound of the dredgings -of the terrestrial globe, would usually be gone for three years, -not infrequently for four or five. As long as the craft held, -and the food lasted, and an empty barrel lay in the hold, -the captain kept to the broad ocean, eschewing both the allurements -of home and the seductions of tattooed Didoes. When -at last they sailed into the harbour of their home ports, weed-grown, -storm-beaten, patched and forlorn, they usually looked, -as Verrill says, more like the ghosts of ancient wrecks than -seaworthy carriers of precious cargo manned by crews of -flesh and blood. After a few months of repair and overhauling<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[143]</a></span> -in port, these vessels were refitted for another cruise, -and off they sailed again for another space of years. It thus -happened that the veteran whalers of Nantucket and New -Bedford and the sister ports could look back upon whole decades -of their lives spent cruising upon the high seas: a fact -that Melville amplifies with a cadence he learned from the -Psalms. Of the Nantucketer he says: “For the sea is his; -he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having -but a right of way through it. He alone resides and riots on -the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; -to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. <i>There</i> -is his home; <i>there</i> lies his business, which a Noah’s flood would -not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. -He lives on the sea, as prairie cocks on the prairie; he hides -among the waves, he climbs them as chamois hunters climb -the Alps. For years he knows not the land; so that when he -comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely -than the moon would to an earthsman. With the landless -gull, that at sunset folds her wings and is rocked to sleep -between billows; so at nightfall, the Nantucketer, out of sight -of land, furls his sails, and lays him to his rest, while under -his very pillow rush herds of walruses and whales.”</p> - -<p>The number of supplies, and the variety of articles required -in fitting out a whaling ship for a cruise, was, of course, prodigious. -For aside from the articles required in whaling, it was -necessary that a whaling vessel should sail prepared for any -emergency, and equipped to be absolutely independent of the -rest of the world for years at a time, housekeeping upon the -wide ocean, far from all grocers, costermongers, doctors, bakers -and bankers. Aside from the necessary whaling equipment, -there were needed supplies for the men, ship’s stores and -a dizzy number of incidentals: “spare boats, spare spars, and -spare lines and harpoons, and spare everythings, almost, but a -spare Captain and a duplicate ship.... While other hulls -are loaded down with alien stuff, to be transferred to foreign -wharves, the world-wandering whale-ship carries no cargo -but herself and crew, their weapons and their wants. She has -a whole lake’s contents bottled in her ample hold. She is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[144]</a></span> -ballasted with utilities. Hence it is, that, while other ships may -have gone to China from New York, and back again, touching -at a score of ports, the whale-ship, in all that interval, may -not have sighted one grain of soil; her crew having seen no -man but floating seamen like themselves. So that did you -carry them the news that another flood had come; they would -answer—‘Well, boys, here’s the ark!’” N. H. Nye, a New -Bedford outfitter, published in 1858 an inventory of <i>Articles -for a Whaling Voyage</i>: a shopping list totalling some 650 entries, -useful once to whalers with fallible memories, useful now -to landsmen with lame imaginations.</p> - -<p>When, from such a port as Nantucket or New Bedford, a -whaling vessel was preparing to sail, there would be no house, -perhaps, without some interest in the cruise. Each took a -personal pride in the success of the whalers: a pride clinched -by the economic dependence of nearly every soul in the community -upon the whalemen’s luck. During the time of continual -fetching and carrying preparatory to the sailing in <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -no one was more active, it will be remembered, than Aunt -Charity Bildad, that lean though kind-hearted old Quakeress -of indefatigable spirit. “At one time she would come on -board with a jar of pickles for the steward’s pantry; another -time with a bunch of quills for the chief mate’s desk, where -he kept his log; a third time with a roll of flannel for the -small of some one’s rheumatic back.” Hither and thither she -bustled about, “ready to turn her hand and her heart to anything -that promised to yield safety, comfort and consolation -to all on board a ship in which her beloved brother Bildad was -concerned, and in which she herself owned a score or two of -well-saved dollars.” Nor did she forsake the ship even after -it had been hauled out from the wharf. She came off in the -whaleboat with a nightcap for the second mate, her brother-in-law, -and a spare Bible for the steward. Such were the -conditions in whaling-towns like Nantucket or New Bedford -that there was nothing remarkable in Aunt Charity’s behaviour. -In such communities, “whale was King.” The talk of the -street was, as Abbot observes, of big catches and the price of -oil and bone. The conversation in the shaded parlours, where<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[145]</a></span> -sea-shell, coral, and the trophies of Pacific cruises were the -chief ornaments, was, in an odd mixture of Quaker idiom, of -prospective cruises or of past adventures, of distant husbands -and sons, the perils they braved, and when they might be expected -home. Col. Joseph C. Hart, in his <i>Miriam Coffin, or -the Whale Fishermen: a Tale</i> (1834) offers perhaps the truest -and most vivid picture of life in Nantucket when whaling was -at its prime. Speaking of himself in the third person in the -dedication, Hart describes his book as being “founded on facts, -and illustrating some of the scenes with which he was conversant -in his earlier days, together with occurrences with -which he is familiar from tradition and association.” Though -reprinted in California in 1872, <i>Miriam Coffin</i> is now very -difficult to come by. It should be better known.</p> - -<p>The extended voyages of the American whaleman were -made in heavy, bluff-bowed and “tubby” crafts that were -designed with fine contempt for speed, comfort or appearance. -In writing of Nantucket whaling during the period -about 1750, Macy says: “They began now to employ vessels -of larger size, some of 100 ton burden, and a few were square-rigged.” -For over a century thereafter the changes in whaling -vessels were almost solely in size. With the opening of the -Pacific, the longer voyages and the desire for larger cargoes -led, as a necessary result, to the employment of larger vessels. -The first Nantucket ship sailing to the Pacific in 1791 was of -240-ton burden. By 1826, Nantucket had seventy-two ships -carrying over 280 tons each, and before 1850 whalers of 400 -to 500 tons burden were not unusual. The <i>Acushnet</i>, it will -be remembered, was rated as a ship of 359 tons.</p> - -<p>The vessels used in whaling, built, as has been said, less -with a view to speed than to carrying capacity, had a characteristic -architecture. The bow was scarce distinguishable from -the stern by its lines, and the masts stuck up straight, without -that rake which adds so much to the trim appearance of a clipper. -Three peculiarities chiefly distinguished the whalers from -other ships of the same general character. (1) At each mast -head was fixed the “crow’s-nest”—in some vessels a heavy -barrel lashed to the mast, in others merely a small platform laid<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[146]</a></span> -on the cross-trees, with two hoops fixed to the mast above, -within which the look-out could stand in safety. Throughout -Melville’s experiences at sea, in the merchant marines, in -whalers, and in the navy, it appears that his happiest moments -were spent on mast-heads. (2) On the deck, amidships, stood -the “try-works,” brick furnaces holding two or three great -kettles, in which the blubber was reduced to odourless oil. -(3) Along each rail were heavy, clumsy wooden cranes, or -davits, from which hung the whale boats—never less than five, -sometimes more—while still others were lashed to the deck. -For these boats were the whales’ sport and playthings, and -seldom was a big “fish” made fast without there being work -made for the ship’s carpenter.</p> - -<p>As for the crow’s-nest, and the business of standing mast-heads, -Melville has more than a word to say. As Sir Thomas -Browne wrote in the <i>Garden of Cyrus</i> of “the Quincuncial -Lozenge, or Net-Work Plantations of the Ancients, Artificially, -Naturally, Mystically Considered,” to find, as Coleridge -remarks, “quincunxes in heaven above, quincunxes in earth -below, quincunxes in the mind of man, quincunxes in tones, -in optic nerves, in roots of trees, in leaves, in everything,” so -Melville finds the visible and invisible universe a symbolic -prefiguring of all the detailed peculiarities of whaling. In the -town of Babel he finds a great stone mast-head that went by -the board in the dread gale of God’s wrath; and in St. Simon -Stylites, he discovers “a remarkable instance of a dauntless -stander-of-mast-heads, who was not to be driven from his -place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing -everything out to the last, literally died at his post.” And in -Napoleon upon the top of the column of Vendome, in Washington -atop his pillar in Baltimore, as in many another man -of stone or iron or bronze, he sees standers of mast-heads.</p> - -<p>In most American whalemen, the mast-heads were manned -almost simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; and -this even though she often had fifteen thousand miles, and -more, to sail before reaching her proper cruising ground. -And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage, she found -herself drawing near home with empty casks, then her mast-heads<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[147]</a></span> -were frequently kept manned, even until her skysail-poles -sailed in among the spires of her home port.</p> - -<p>The three mast-heads were kept manned from sunrise to -sunset, the seamen taking regular turns (as at the helm) and -relieving each other every two hours, watching to catch the -faint blur of vapour whose spouting marks the presence of -a whale. “There she blows! B-l-o-o-ws! Blo-o-ows!” was -then sung out from the mast-head: the signal for the chase.</p> - -<p>As for Melville, he tries to convince us he kept very sorry -watch, as in the serene weather of the tropics, he perched “a -hundred feet above the silent decks, striding along the deep, -as if the masts were gigantic stilts, while beneath you and -between your legs, as it were, swim the huge monsters of -the deep, even as ships once sailed between the boots of the -famous Colossus of old Rhodes.” There, through his watches, -he used to swing, he says, “lost in the infinite series of the sea, -with nothing ruffled but the waves. The tranced ship indolently -rolls; the drowsy trade winds blow; everything resolves -you into languor.” “I used to lounge up the rigging very -leisurely, resting in the top to have a chat with Queequeg, or -any one else off duty whom I might find there; then ascending -a little way further, and throwing a lazy leg over the topsail -yard, take a preliminary view of the watery pastures, and so -at last mount to my ultimate destination.” According to Melville’s -own representation, the <i>Acushnet</i> was not a pint of oil -richer for all his watching in the thought-engendering altitude -of the crow’s-nest. He admonishes all ship-owners of Nantucket -to eschew the bad business of shipping “romantic, melancholy, -absent-minded young men, disgusted with the cankering -cares of earth”: young men seeking sentiment—as did he—in -tar and blubber. “Childe Harold not infrequently perches himself -upon the mast-head of some luckless disappointed whaleship,” -he warns prosaic ship-owners, “young men hopelessly -lost to all honourable ambition,” and indifferent to the selling -qualities of “oil and bone.” It is well both for Melville and -Captain Pease, the testy old skipper of the ship <i>Acushnet</i>, that -he could not see into the head of Melville as he hung silently -perched in his dizzy lookout. “Lulled into such an opium-<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[148]</a></span>like -listlessness of vacant, unconscious reverie is this absent-minded -youth by the blending cadence of waves with thoughts, -that at last he loses his identity; takes the mystic ocean at his -feet for the visible image of that deep, blue, bottomless soul, -pervading mankind and nature; and every strange, half-seen, -gliding, beautiful thing that eludes him; every dimly-discovered, -uprising fin of some undiscernible form, seems to him the -embodiment of those elusive thoughts that only people the soul -by continually flitting through it. In this enchanted mood, thy -spirit ebbs away to whence it came; becomes diffused through -time and space; like Cranmer’s sprinkled Pantheistic ashes, -forming at last a part of every shore the round globe over.”</p> - -<p>When, from the mast-head, eyes less abstracted than Melville’s -sighted a whale, the daring and excitement of the -ensuing pursuit in the whale-boats left Melville less occasion, -during such energetic intervals, to luxuriate in high mysteries. -And it seems likely that Melville was of more value to the -ship’s owners when in a whale-boat than riding the mast-head.</p> - -<p>Through long years of whaling these boats had been developed -until practical perfection had been reached. Never -has boat been built which for speed, staunchness, seaworthiness -and hardiness excels the whaleboat of the Massachusetts whalemen. -These mere cockleshells, sharp at both ends and clean-sided -as a mackerel, were about twenty-seven feet long by -six feet beam, with a depth of twenty-two inches amidships -and thirty-seven inches at the bow and stern. These tiny -clinker-built craft can ride the heaviest sea, withstand the highest -wind, resist the heaviest gale. Incredible voyages have been -made in these whaling boats, not the least remarkable being -the three months’ voyage of two boats that survived the wreck -of the <i>Essex</i> in 1819, or the even more remarkable six months’ -voyage of the whaling boat separated from the <i>Janet</i> in 1849. -In <i>Mardi</i> Melville describes a prolonged voyage in a whale-boat. -In this account Melville takes one down to the very -plane of the sea. He is speaking from experience when he -says: “Unless the waves, in their gambols, toss you and your -chip upon one of their lordly crests, your sphere of vision is -little larger than it would be at the bottom of a well. At best,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[149]</a></span> -your most extended view in any one direction, at least, is in a -high slow-rolling sea; when you descend into the dark misty -spaces, between long and uniform swells. Then, for the moment, -it is like looking up and down in a twilight glade, interminable; -where two dawns, one on each hand, seem struggling -through the semi-transparent tops of the fluid mountains.”</p> - -<p>Of his first lowering in pursuit of a whale, he says in <i>Moby-Dick</i>: -“It was a sight full of quick wonder and awe! The -vast swells of the omnipotent sea; the surging, hollow roar they -made, as they rolled along the eight gunwales, like gigantic -bowls in a boundless bowling-green; the brief suspended agony -of the boat, as it would tip for an instant on the knife-like edge -of the sharper waves, that seemed almost threatening to cut it -in two; the sudden profound dip into the watery glens and -hollows; the keen spurrings and goadings to gain the top of -the opposite hill; the headlong, sled-like slide down its other -side:—all these, with the cries of the headsmen and harpooners, -and the shuddering gasps of the oarsmen, and wondrous sight -of the ivory <i>Pequod</i> bearing down upon her boats with outstretched -sails, like a wild hen after her screaming brood;—all -this was thrilling. Not the raw recruit, marching from the -bosom of his wife into the fever heat of his first battle; not -the dead man’s ghost encountering the first unknown phantom -in the other world,—neither of these can feel stranger and -stronger emotions than that man does, who for the first time -finds himself pulling into the charmed, churned circle of the -hunted sperm whale.”</p> - -<p>After this first lowering, Melville returned to the ship -to indulge in the popular nautical diversion of making his will. -This ceremony concluded, he says he looked round him “tranquilly -and contentedly, like a quiet ghost with a clean conscience -sitting inside the bars of a snug family vault. Now -then, thought I, unconsciously rolling up the sleeves of my -frock, here goes for a cool, collected dive at death and destruction, -and the devil fetch the hindmost.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Moby-Dick</i>, whales are sighted, chased, and captured; nor -does Melville fail to give detailed accounts of these activities -or of the ensuing “cutting in” and the “trying” of the oil.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[150]</a></span> -One of the most vivid scenes in <i>Moby-Dick</i> is the description -of the “try-works” in operation.</p> - -<p>“By midnight,” says Melville, “the works were in full operation. -We were clean from the carcass; sail had been made; -the wind was freshening; the wild ocean darkness was intense. -But that darkness was licked up by the fierce flames, which at -intervals forked forth from the sooty flues, and illuminated -every rope in the rigging, as with the famed Greek fire.... -The hatch, removed from the top of the works, now afforded -a wide hearth in front of them. Standing on this were the -Tartarean shapes of the pagan harpooners, always the whaleship’s -stokers. With huge pronged poles they pitched hissing -masses of blubber into the scalding pots, or stirred up the fires -beneath, till the snaky flames darted, curling, out of the doors -to catch them by the feet. The smoke rolled away in sullen -heaps. To every pitch of the ship there was a pitch of the -boiling oil, which seemed all eagerness to leap into their faces. -Opposite the mouth of the works, on the further side of the -wide wooden hearth, was the windlass. This served for a sea-sofa. -Here lounged the watch, when not otherwise employed, -looking into the red heat of the fire, their tawny features, now -all begrimed with smoke and sweat, their matted beards, and -the contrasting barbaric brilliancy of their teeth, all these -strangely revealed in the capricious emblazonings of the works. -As they narrated to each other their unholy adventures, their -tales of terror told in words of mirth; their uncivilised laughter -forked upwards out of them, like the flames from the furnace: -to and fro, in their front, the harpooners wildly gesticulated -with their huge pronged forks and dippers; the wind howled -on, and the sea leaped, and the ship groaned and dived, yet -steadfastly shot her red hell further and further into the blackness -of the sea and the night; and scornfully champed, and -viciously spat round her on all sides.” During this scene Melville -stood at the helm, “and for long silent hours guarded -the way of this fire-ship on the sea. Wrapped, for that interval, -in darkness myself, I but the better saw the redness, the -madness, the ghastliness of others. The continual sight of the -fiend shapes before me, capering half in smoke and half in fire<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[151]</a></span> -these at last begat kindred visions in my soul, so soon as I -began to yield to that unaccountable drowsiness which ever -would come over me at a midnight helm.”</p> - -<p>In a chapter on dreams, in <i>Mardi</i>, one of the wildest chapters -Melville ever wrote, and the one in which he profoundly -searched into the heart of his mystery, he compares his dreams -to a vast herd of buffaloes, “browsing on to the horizon, and -browsing on round the world; and among them, I dash with -my lance, to spear one, ere they all flee.” In this world of -dreams, “passing and repassing, like Oriental empires in history,” -Melville discerned, “far in the background, hazy and -blue, their steeps let down from the sky, Andes on Andes, -rooted on Alps; and all round me, long rolling oceans, roll -Amazons and Orinocos; waver, mounted Parthians; and to -and fro, toss the wide woodlands: all the world an elk, and -the forest its antlers. Beneath me, at the equator, the earth -pulses and beats like a warrior’s heart, till I know not whether -it be not myself. And my soul sinks down to the depths, and -soars to the skies; and comet-like reels on through such boundless -expanses, that methinks all the worlds are my kin, and I -invoke them to stay in their course. Yet, like a mighty three -decker, towing argosies by scores, I tremble, gasp, and strain -in my flight, and fain would cast off the cables that hamper.”</p> - -<p>On that night that Melville drowsed at the helm of the -<i>Acushnet</i> while she was “freighted with savages, and laden -with fire, and burning a corpse, and plunging into that blackness -of blackness” his soul sank deep into itself, and he seems -to have awakened to recognise in the ship that he drowsily -steered, the material counterpart of the darkest mysteries of -his own soul. It was then that he awoke to be “horribly conscious” -that “whatever swift rushing thing I stood on was not -so much bound to any haven ahead as rushing from all havens -astern.” And in reflecting upon that insight Melville plunges -into the lowest abyss of disenchantment. “The truest of men -was the Man of Sorrows,” he says, “and the truest of all books -is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is the fine hammered steel of -woe. All is vanity. All.... He who ... calls Cowper, -Young, Pascal, Rousseau, poor devils all of sick men; and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[152]</a></span> -throughout a care-free lifetime swears by Rabelais as passing -wise, and therefore jolly; not that man is fitted to sit down -on tombstones, and break the green damp mould with unfathomably -wondrous Solomon.”</p> - -<p>The greatest of all dreamers conquer their dreams; others, -who are great, but not of the greatest, are mastered by them, -and Melville was one of these. There is a passage in the works -of Edgar Allan Poe that Melville may well have pondered -when he awoke at the helm of the <i>Acushnet</i> after looking too -long into the glare of the fire: “There are moments when, even -to the sober eye of reason, the world of our sad humanity may -assume the semblance of a hell; but the imagination of man is -no Carathes to explore with impunity its every cavern. All the -grim legion of sepulchral terrors cannot be regarded as altogether -fanciful; but, like the demons in whose company -Afrasiab made his voyage down the Oxus, they must sleep or -they will devour us—they must be suffered to slumber or we -perish.”</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[153]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER VIII <br /> - -<span class="smaller">LEVIATHAN</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“At the battle of Breviex in Flanders, my glorious old gossiping ancestor -Froissart informs me, ten good knights, being suddenly unhorsed, -fell stiff and powerless to the plain, fatally encumbered by their armour. -Whereupon the rascally burglarious peasants, their foes, fell to picking -their visors; as burglars, locks; as oystermen oysters; to get at their -lives. But all to no purpose. And at last they were fain to ask aid of -a blacksmith; and not till then were the inmates of the armour despatched. -Days of chivalry these, when gallant chevaliers died chivalric deaths! -Yes, they were glorious times. But no sensible man, given to quiet -domestic delights, would exchange his warm fireside and muffins, for a -heroic bivouac, in a wild beechen wood, of a raw gusty morning in -Normandy; every knight blowing his steel-gloved fingers, and vainly -striving to cool his cold coffee in his helmet.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig"><span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Mardi</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>It was the same Edmund Burke who movingly mourned the -departure of the epic virtues of chivalry, who in swift generalities -celebrated the heroic enterprise of the hunters of leviathan. -But Burke viewed both whaling and knight-errantry -from a safe remove of time or place, and the crude everyday -realities of each he smothered beneath billows of gorgeous -generalisation. Burke offers a notable instance wherein romance -and rhetoric conspired to glorify two human activities -that are glorious only in expurgation. Piracy is picturesque -in its extinction, and to the snugly domesticated imagination -there is both virtue and charm in cut-throats and highwaymen. -Even the perennial newspaper accounts of massacre and rape -doubtless serve to keep sweet the blood of many a benevolent -pew-holder. The incorrigible tendency of the imagination to -extract sweet from the bitter, honey from the carcass of the -lion, makes an intimate consideration of the filthy soil from -which some of its choicest illusions spring, downright repugnant -to wholesomemindedness. Intimately considered, both -whaling and knight-errantry were shabby forms of the butchering -business. Their virtues were but the nobler vices of -barbarism: vices that take on a semblance of nobility only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[154]</a></span> -when measured against the deadly virtues of emasculated righteousness. -In flight from the deadly virtues, Melville was precipitated -into the reeking barbarism of the forecastle of a -whaling ship. Whaling he applied as a counter-irritant to -New England decorum, and he seems to have smarted much -during the application. He was blessed with a high degree of -the resilience of youthful animal vigour, it is true; and there -is solace for all suffering, the godly tell us—omitting the ungodly -solaces of madness and suicide. It will be seen that -whaling prompted Melville to extreme measures. The full -hideousness of his life on board the <i>Acushnet</i> has not yet -transpired.</p> - -<p>The chief whaling communities—those of Nantucket and -Buzzard’s Bay—were originally settled by Quakers. The -inhabitants of these districts in general retained in an uncommon -measure throughout the golden age of whaling, the peculiarities -of the Quaker. Never perhaps in the history of the -world has there been mated two aspects of life more humorously -incompatible than whale-hunting and Quakerism. This -mating produced, however, a race of the most sanguinary of -all sailors; a race of fighting Quakers: in Melville’s phrase, -“Quakers with a vengeance.” Though refusing from conscientious -scruples to bear arms against land invaders, yet these -same Quakers inimitably invaded the Atlantic and the Pacific; -and though sworn foes to human bloodshed, yet did they, in -their straight-bodied coats, spill tons and tons of leviathan -gore. And so, as Melville goes on to point out, “there are -instances among them of men who, named with Scripture -names, 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.”</p> - -<p>The two old Quaker captains of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, Bildad and -Peleg, are typical of the race that made Nantucket and New -Bedford the greatest whaling ports in all history. Peleg significantly -divides all good men into two inclusive categories:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[155]</a></span> -“pious good men, like Bildad,” and “swearing good men—something -like me.” The “swearing good men,” Melville -would seem to imply, in sacrificing piety to humanity, while -standing lower in the eyes of God, stood higher in the hearts -of their crew. Though Bildad never swore at his men, so -Melville remarks, “he somehow got an inordinate quantity -of cruel, unmitigated hard work out of them.”</p> - -<p>Typical of the cast of mind of the whaling Quaker is Captain -Bildad’s farewell to ship’s company on board the ship in -which he was chief owner: “God bless ye, and have ye in His -holy keeping. Be careful in the hunt, ye mates. Don’t stave -the boats needlessly, ye harpooners; good white cedar plank -is raised full three per cent, within the year. Don’t forget -your prayers, either. Don’t whale it too much a’ Lord’s day, -men; but don’t miss a fair chance either; that’s rejecting -Heaven’s good gifts. Have an eye to the molasses tierce, -Mr. Stubb; it was a little leaky, I thought. If ye touch -at the islands, Mr. Flask, beware of fornication. Good-bye, -good-bye!”</p> - -<p>The old log-books most frequently begin: “A journal of -an intended voyage from Nantucket by God’s permission.” -And typical is the closing sentence of the entry in George -Gardener’s journal for Saturday, January 21, 1757: “So no -more at Present all being in health by the Blessing of God but -no whale yet.”</p> - -<p>At first, the New England vessels were manned almost entirely -by American-born seamen, including a certain proportion -of Indians and coast-bred negroes. But as the fishery -grew, and the number of vessels increased, the supply of hands -became inadequate. Macy says that as early as about 1750 -the Nantucket fishery had attained such proportions that it -was necessary to secure men from Cape Cod and Long Island -to man the vessels. Goode says: “Captain Isaiah West, now -eighty years of age (in 1880), tells me that he remembers -when he picked his crew within a radius of sixty miles of New -Bedford; oftentimes he was acquainted, either personally or -through report, with the social standing or business qualifications -of every man on his vessel; and also that he remembers<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[156]</a></span> -the first foreigner—an Irishman—that shipped with him, the -circumstance being commented on at that time as a remarkable -one.” Time was, however, when it was easy to gather -at New Bedford or New London a prime crew of tall and -stalwart lads from the fishing coast and from the farms of the -interior of New England. Maine furnished a great many -whalemen, and for a long time the romance of whaling held -out a powerful fascination for adventurous farmer boys of -New Hampshire, Vermont, and Upper New York. During -Melville’s time the farms of New England still supplied a contingent -of whalers. In writing of New Bedford he says: -“There weekly arrive in this town scores of green Vermonters -and New Hampshire men, all athirst for gain and glory in -the fishery. They are mostly young, of stalwart frames; -fellows who have felled forests, and now seek to drop the -axe and snatch the whale-lance. Many are as green as the -Green Mountains whence they came. In some things you -would think them but a few hours old. Look there! that chap -strutting round the corner. He wears a beaver hat and swallow-tailed -coat, girdled with a sailor-belt and a sheath-knife. -Here comes another with a sou’-wester and a bombazine cloak.” -Of course, these farm-boys were of the verdant innocence Melville -paints them when they signed the ship’s papers, not knowing -a harpoon from a handspike. It is a curious paradox in -the history of whaling,—a paradox best elaborated by Verrill,—that -the ship’s crew were almost never sailors. The -captain, of course, the officers and the harpooners were usually -skilled and efficient hands. But so filthy was the work -aboard the whaler, and so perilous; so brutal the treatment -of the crew, and so hazardous the actual earnings, that competent -deep-water sailors stuck to the navy or the merchant -marine. When Melville shipped from Honolulu as an “ordinary -seaman in the United States Navy,” he soon found occasion -“to offer up thanksgiving that in no evil hour had I -divulged the fact of having served in a whaler; for having -previously marked the prevailing prejudice of men-of-war’s-men -to that much maligned class of mariners, I had wisely -held my peace concerning stove boats on the coast of Japan.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[157]</a></span> -And in <i>Redburn</i> he says “that merchant seamen generally -affect a certain superiority to ‘blubber-boilers,’ as they contemptuously -style those who hunt the leviathan.”</p> - -<p>When the farmer lads came down to the sea no more in adequate -numbers, the whaleships were forced to fill their crews -far from home, and to take what material they could get. -Shipping offices, with headquarters at the whaling ports, employed -agents scattered here and there in the principal cities, -especially in the Middle West and the interior of New England. -These agents received ten dollars for each man they -secured for the ship’s crew. Besides this, each agent was -paid for the incidental expenses of transportation, board, and -outfit of every man shipped. By means of lurid advertisements -and circulars, these agents with emancipated conscience, -made glowing promises to the desperate and the ignorant. -Each prospective whaleman was promised a “lay” of the ship’s -catch. For in the whaling business, no set wages were paid. -All hands, including the captain, received certain shares of -the profits called “lays.” The size of the lay was proportioned -to the degree of importance pertaining to the respective -duties of the ship’s company. The captain usually received a -lay of from one-twelfth to one-eighteenth; green hands about -the one-hundred-and-fiftieth. What lay Melville received is -not known. Bildad is inclined to think that the seven hundred -and seventy-seventh lay was not too much for Ishmael; -but Bildad was a “pious good man.” Peleg, the “swearing -good man,” after a volcanic eruption with Bildad, puts Ishmael -down for the three hundredth lay. Though this may exemplify -the relation that, in Melville’s mind, existed between profanity -and kindness, it tells us, unfortunately, nothing of the -prospective earnings of Melville’s whaling. Of one thing, -however, we can be fairly certain: Melville did not drive a -shrewd and highly profitable bargain. The details of his -life bear out his boast: “I am one of those that never take on -about princely fortunes, and am quite content if the world -is ready to board and lodge me, while I put up at the grim sign -of the Thunder Cloud.”</p> - -<p>Each prospective whaler, besides being assured a stated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[158]</a></span> -fraction of the ship’s earnings, was by the agents promised -an advance of seventy-five dollars, an outfit of clothes, as well -as board and lodging until aboard ship. From this imaginary -seventy-five dollars were deducted all the expenses which the -agent defrayed, as well as the ten dollars head payment. By -a shameless perversion of exaggerated charges, a really competent -outfitter managed to ship his embryo whalemen without -a cent of the promised advance. The agent who shipped -J. Ross Browne and his unfortunate friend, was a suave -gentleman of easy promises. “Whaling, gentlemen, is tolerably -hard at first,” Browne makes him say, “but it’s the finest -business in the world for enterprising young men. Vigilance -and activity will insure you rapid promotion. I haven’t the -least doubt but you’ll come home boat steerers. I sent off six -college students a few days ago, and a poor fellow who had -been flogged away from home by a vicious wife. A whaler, -gentlemen, is a place of refuge for the distressed and persecuted, -a school for the dissipated, an asylum for the needy! -There’s nothing like it. You can see the world; you can see -something of life.”</p> - -<p>The first half of one of the truest and most popular of whaling -chanteys, a lyric which must have been sung with heartfelt -conviction by thousands of whalemen, runs:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">’Twas advertised in Boston,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">New York and Buffalo,</div> - <div class="verse">Five hundred brave Americans</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A-whaling for to go.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">They send you to New Bedford,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">The famous whaling port;</div> - <div class="verse">They send you to a shark’s store</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And board and fit you out.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">They send you to a boarding-house</div> - <div class="verse indent2">For a time to dwell.</div> - <div class="verse">The thieves there, they are thicker</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Than the other side of Hell.</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[159]</a></span> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">They tell you of the whaling ships</div> - <div class="verse indent2">A-going in and out.</div> - <div class="verse">They swear you’ll make your fortune</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Before you’re five months out.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The second half of this ballad celebrates the hardships of -life aboard ship: the poor food and the brutality of the officers. -With this side of whaling we know that Melville was familiar. -But of the usual preliminaries of whaling recounted by Browne -and summarised in the chantey, Melville says not a word, -either in <i>Moby-Dick</i> or elsewhere. Nor does tradition or history -supplement this autobiographical silence. On this point, -we know nothing. Surely it would be intensely interesting -to know how far egotism conspired with art in guiding Melville -in the writing of the masterful beginning of <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</p> - -<p>No matter by what process Melville found his way to the -<i>Acushnet</i>, the whaling fleet was, indeed, at the time of his -addition to it, “a place of refuge for the distressed and persecuted, -a school for the dissipated, an asylum for the needy.” -J. Ross Browne was warned before his sailing that New Bedford -“was the sink-hole of iniquity; that the fitters were all -blood-suckers, the owners cheats, and the captains tyrants.”</p> - -<p>Though the arraignment was incautiously comprehensive, -Browne confesses to have looked back upon it as a sound -warning. The boasted advantages of whaling were not selfishly -withheld from any man, no matter what the race, or the -complexion of his hide or his morals. The Spanish, Portuguese, -Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, English, Scotch, Irish, -in fact, men of almost every country of Europe, and this with -no jealous discrimination against Asia, Africa, or the Islands -of the Pacific, were drawn upon by the whale fleet during the -days of its greatest prosperity. “And had I not been, from my -birth, as it were, a cosmopolite,” Melville remarks parenthetically -in <i>Redburn</i>. It would have been difficult for him to find -a more promising field for the exercise of this inherited characteristic, -than was whaling in 1841: and this, indeed, without -the nuisance of leaving New Bedford. “In thoroughfares -nigh the docks,” he says, “any considerable seaport will fre<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[160]</a></span>quently -offer to view the queerest nondescripts from foreign -ports. Even in Broadway and Chestnut streets, Mediterranean -mariners will sometimes jostle the affrighted ladies. Regent -street is not unknown to Lascars and Malays; and in Bombay, -in the Apollo Green, live Yankees have often scared the -natives. But New Bedford beats all Water street and Wapping. -In these last-mentioned haunts you see only sailors; -but in New Bedford, actual cannibals stand chatting at street -corners; savages outright; many of whom yet carry on their -bones unholy flesh. It makes a stranger stare.” It will be -remembered that Ishmael spends his first night in New Bedford -in bed with one of these very cannibals; and on the following -morning, in a spirit of amiable and transcendent charity, -goes down on his knees with his tattooed bed-fellow before -a portable wooden deity: an experience fantastic and -highly diverting, nor at all outside the bounds of possibility. -It is a fact to chasten the optimism of apostles of the promiscuous -brotherhood of man, that as the whaling crews grew -in cosmopolitanism, they made no corresponding advances -towards the Millennium. Had Nantucket and New Bedford -but grown to the height of their whaling activities in the -fourth century, they might have sent enterprising agents to -the African desert to tempt ambitious cenobites with offers of -undreamed-of luxuries of mortification. These holy men -might have worked miracles in whaling, and transformed the -watery wilderness of the Pacific into a floating City of God. -But in the nineteenth century of grace, the kennel-like forecastle -of the whaler was the refuge not of the athletic saint, -but of the offscourings of all races, the discards of humanity, -and of this fact there is no lack of evidence. Nor did Melville’s -ship-mates, on the whole, seem to have varied this monotony. -There survives this record in his own hand:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>What became of the ship’s company on the whale-ship -‘Acushnet,’ according to Hubbard who came back home in her -(more than a four years’ voyage) and visited me in Pittsfield -in 1850.</i></p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[161]</a></span></p> - -<p>“<i>Captain Pease</i>—returned & lives in asylum at the Vineyard.</p> - -<p>“<i>Raymond</i>, 1st Mate—had a fight with the Captain & went -ashore at Payta.</p> - -<p>“<i>Hall</i>, 2nd Mate—came home & went to California.</p> - -<p>“<i>3rd Mate</i>, Portuguese, went ashore at Payta.</p> - -<p>“<i>Boatswain</i>, either ran away or killed at Ropo one of the -Marquesas.</p> - -<p>“<i>Smith</i>, went ashore at Santa, coast of Peru, afterwards -committed suicide at Mobile.</p> - -<p>“<i>Barney</i>, boatswain, came home.</p> - -<p>“<i>Carpenter</i>, went ashore at Mowee half dead with disreputable -disease.</p> - -<p>“<i>The Czar.</i></p> - -<p>“<i>Tom Johnson</i>, black, went ashore at Mowee, half dead -(ditto) & died at the hospital.</p> - -<p>“<i>Reed</i>, mulatto—came home.</p> - -<p>“<i>Blacksmith</i>, ran away at San Francisco.</p> - -<p>“<i>Blackus</i>, little black, ditto.</p> - -<p>“<i>Bill Green</i>, after several attempts to run away, came home -in the end.</p> - -<p>“<i>The Irishman</i>, ran away, coast of Colombia.</p> - -<p>“<i>Wright</i>, went ashore half dead at the Marquesas.</p> - -<p>“<i>Jack Adams</i> and <i>Jo Portuguese</i> came home.</p> - -<p>“<i>The Old Cook</i>, came home.</p> - -<p>“<i>Haynes</i>, ran away aboard of a Sidney ship.</p> - -<p>“<i>Little Jack</i>, came home.</p> - -<p>“<i>Grant</i>, young fellow, went ashore half dead, spitting blood, -at Oahu.</p> - -<p>“<i>Murray</i>, went ashore, shunning fight at Rio Janeiro.</p> - -<p>“<i>The Cooper</i>, came home.”</p></div> - -<p>Of the twenty-seven men who went out with the ship, only -the Captain, the Second Mate, a Boatswain, the Cook, the -Cooper and six of the mongrel crew (one of which made several -futile attempts to escape) came back home with her. The -First Mate had a fight with the Captain and left the ship; the -Carpenter and four of the crew went ashore to die, two at<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[162]</a></span> -least with venereal diseases, another went ashore spitting blood, -another to commit suicide.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t160aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t160aa.jpg" width="600" height="380" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>SPERM WHALING. THE CAPTURE.</p> - -<p>Drawing by A. Van Beest, R. Swain Gifford and Benj. Russell, 1850.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t160abh.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t160ab.jpg" width="600" height="355" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>ONE OF SIX WHALING PRINTS. LONDON, 1750.</p></div> -</div> - -<p>With this company Melville was intimately imprisoned on -board the <i>Acushnet</i> for fifteen months. Of the everyday life -of Melville in this community we know little enough. In -<i>Moby-Dick</i> Melville has left voluminous accounts of the typical -occupations of whaling but beyond this nothing certainly -to be identified as derived from life on the <i>Acushnet</i>. The -ship’s company on board the <i>Pequod</i>, in so far as is known, -belong as purely to romance as characters of fiction can. It -doubtless abbreviates the responsibilities of the custodians of -public morals, that the staple of conversation on board the -<i>Acushnet</i>, the scenes enacted in the forecastle and elsewhere -in the ship, shall probably never be known. In <i>Typee</i> Melville -says of the crew of the <i>Acushnet</i>, however: “With a very few -exceptions, our crew was composed of a parcel of dastardly -and mean-spirited wretches, divided among themselves, and -only united in enduring without resistance the unmitigated -tyranny of the captain.”</p> - -<p>Of the “very few exceptions” that Melville spares the tribute -of contemptuous damnation, one alone does he single out for -portraiture. “He was a young fellow about my own age,” -says Melville in <i>Typee</i>, of a seventeen-year-old shipmate, “for -whom I had all along entertained a great regard; and Toby, -such was the name by which he went among us, for his real -name he would never tell us, was every way worthy of it. He -was active, ready, and obliging, of dauntless courage, and singularly -open and fearless in the expression of his feelings. I -had on more than one occasion got him out of scrapes into -which this had led him; and I know not whether it was from -this cause, or a certain congeniality of sentiment between us, -that he had always shown a partiality for my society. We -had battled out many a long watch together, beguiling the -weary hours with chat, song, and story, mingled with a good -many imprecations upon the hard destiny it seemed our common -fortune to encounter.”</p> - -<p>Toby, like Melville, had evidently not been reared from -the cradle to the life of the forecastle; a fact that, despite his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[163]</a></span> -anxious effort, Toby could not entirely conceal. “He was one -of that class of rovers you sometimes meet at sea,” says Melville, -“who never reveal their origin, never allude to home, -and go rambling over the world as if pursued by some mysterious -fate they cannot possibly elude.”</p> - -<p>By the spell of the senses, too, Melville was attracted to -Toby. “For while the greater part of the crew were as coarse -in person as in mind,” says Melville, “Toby was endowed with -a remarkably prepossessing exterior. Arrayed in his blue frock -and duck trousers, he was as smart a looking sailor as ever -stepped upon a deck; he was singularly small and slightly made, -with great flexibility of limb. His naturally dark complexion -had been deepened by exposure to the tropical sun, and a mass -of jetty locks clustered about his temples, and threw a darker -shade into his large black eyes.”</p> - -<p>There is preserved among Melville’s papers a lock of hair, -unusually fine and soft in texture, but not so much “jetty” -as of a rich red-black chestnut colour, and marked “a lock of -Toby’s hair,” and dated 1846 the year of the publication of -<i>Typee</i>. When Melville and Toby parted in the Marquesas, -each came to think that the other had most likely been eaten -by the cannibals. Upon the publication of <i>Typee</i>, Toby was -startled into delight to learn of Melville’s survival and to rub -his eyes at the flattering portrayal of himself. In a letter of -his to Melville, dated June 16, 1856, he says: “I am still proud -of the immortality with which you have invested me.” The -extent of the first extremity of his pride is not recorded. But -in his first flush of immortality he seems to have sent Melville -a lock of his hair, an amiable vanity, perhaps, at Melville’s -celebration of his personal charms.</p> - -<p>There survives with the lock of hair a daguerreotype of -Toby, also of 1846. There are also two other photographs: -the three strewn over a period of thirty years. These three -photographs make especially vivid the regret at the lack of -any early picture of Melville. Melville’s likeness is preserved -only in bearded middle-age: and such portraiture gives no -more idea of his youthful appearance than does Toby’s washed-out -maturity suggest his Byronic earlier manner. There is<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[164]</a></span> -every indication that Melville was a young man of a very conspicuous -personal charm. From his books one forms a vivid -image of him in the freshness and agility and full-bloodedness -of his youth. To bring this face to face with the photographs -of his middle age is a challenge to the loyalty of the imagination. -All known pictures of Melville postdate his creative -period. They are pictures of Melville the disenchanted philosopher. -As pictures of Melville the adventurer and artist, -they survive as misleading posthumous images.</p> - -<p>Of Toby’s character, Melville says: “He was a strange wayward -being, moody, fitful, and melancholy—at times almost -morose. He had a quick and fiery temper too, which, when -thoroughly roused, transported him into a state bordering on -delirium. No one ever saw Toby laugh. I mean in the hearty -abandonment of broad-mouthed mirth. He did sometimes -smile, it is true; and there was a good deal of dry, sarcastic -humour about him, which told the more from the imperturbable -gravity of his tone and manner.”</p> - -<p>After escaping from the <i>Acushnet</i> with Melville into the -valley of Typee, Toby in course of time found himself back -to civilisation, where the history of his life that he kept so -secret aboard the <i>Acushnet</i> came more fully to be known.</p> - - -<h3>“TOBY”<br /> - -RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE</h3> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t164aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t164aa.jpg" width="600" height="729" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -In 1846 -</p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 339px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t164ab.jpg" width="339" height="400" alt="" /> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -In 1865 -</p></div> -</div> - -<p>Toby, or Richard Tobias Greene, was, according to notices -in Chicago papers at the time of his death on August 24, 1892, -born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1825. He was as a child brought -to America by his father, who settled in Rochester, New -York, where Toby “took public school and academic courses.” -Before he was seventeen he shipped aboard the <i>Acushnet</i>, there -to fall in with Melville and to accompany him into the uncorrupted -heart of cannibalism. Toby returned to civilisation to -study law with John C. Spencer, “the noted attorney whose -son was executed for mutiny at Canandaigua, New York,” and -was, in time, admitted to the bar. He relinquished jurisprudence -for journalism, and was for some indefinite period editor -of the <i>Buffalo Courier</i>. He restlessly varied his activities by -assisting in constructing the first telegraph line west of New -York State, and opened the first telegraph office in Ohio, at -Sandusky. For some years he published the <i>Sandusky Mirror</i>.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[165]</a></span> -In 1857 he moved to Chicago and took a place on the <i>Times</i>. -With the Civil War he enlisted in the 6th Infantry of Missouri -and for three years was “trusted clerk at General Grant’s -headquarters.” He was discharged June, 1864, to enlist again -October 19, 1864, in the 1st Illinois Light Artillery. With -the end of the war he returned to Chicago, ruined in health. -Yet he continued to exert himself as a public-minded citizen, -and at his funeral were “many fellow Masons, comrades from -the G.A.R. and others who came to pay their respects to the -late traveller, editor and soldier.”</p> - -<p>After the publication of <i>Typee</i> there were delighted exchanges -of recognition and gratitude between him and Melville. -And though these two men grew further and further -apart with years, there continued between them an irregular -correspondence and a pathetic loyalty to youthful associations: -felicitations that grew to be as conscientious and hollow as the -ghastly amiabilities of a college reunion. Toby’s son, born in -1854, he named Herman Melville Greene (a compliment to -Melville adopted by some of his later shipmates in the navy); -and Melville presented his namesake with a spoon—the gift he -always made to namesakes. Toby’s nephew was named Richard -Melville Hair, and another spoon was shipped west. In -1856 Toby wrote Melville he had read Melville’s most recent -book, <i>Piazza Tales</i>. Toby’s critical efforts exhausted themselves -in the comment: “<i>The Encantadas</i> called up reminiscences -of the <i>Acushnet</i>, and days gone by.” In 1858, when -Melville was lecturing about the country, Toby addressed a -dutiful letter to his “Dear Old Shipmate,” asking that Melville -visit him while in Cleveland. If the visit was ever made, -it has not transpired. In 1860 Toby wrote to Melville: -“Hope you enjoy good health and can yet stow away five -shares of duff! I would be delighted to see you and ‘freshen -the nip’ while you would be spinning a yarn as long as the -main-top bowline.” In acknowledgment Melville during the -year following sent Toby the gift of a spoon. In reply Toby -observes: “My mind often reverts to the many pleasant moonlight -watches we passed together on the deck of the <i>Acushnet</i> -as we whiled away the hours with yarn and song till eight<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[166]</a></span> -bells.” Even to the third generation Toby’s descendants were -“proud of the immortality” with which Melville had invested -Toby. Miss Agnes Repplier has written on <i>The Perils of -Immortality</i>. There are perils, too, in immortalisation.</p> - -<p>But in the days of Toby’s unredeemed immortality on board -the <i>Acushnet</i> before he joined the Masons and the Grand Army -of the Republic, Toby was to Melville a singularly grateful -variation to the filth and hideousness and brutality of the human -refuse with which he cruised the high seas in search of -oil and bone.</p> - -<p>Melville was fifteen months on board the <i>Acushnet</i>; and -for the last six months of this period he was out of sight of -land; cruising “some twenty degrees to the westward of the -Gallipagos”—“cruising after the sperm-whale under the -scorching sun of the Line, and tossed on the billows of the -wide-rolling Pacific—the sky above, the sea around, and nothing -else.”</p> - -<p>The ship itself was, at the expiration of this period, deplorable -in appearance. The paint on her sides, burnt up by -the scorching sun, was puffed up and cracked. She trailed -weeds after her; about her stern-piece an unsightly bunch of -barnacles had formed; and every time she rose on a sea, she -showed her copper torn away, or hanging in jagged strips. -The only green thing in sight aboard her was the green paint -on the inside of the bulwarks, and that, to Melville, was of “a -vile and sickly hue.” The nearest suggestion of the grateful -fragrance of the loamy earth, was the bark which clung to the -wood used for fuel—bark gnawed off and devoured by the -Captain’s pig—and the mouldy corn and the brackish water in -the little trough before which the solitary tenant of the chicken-coop -stood “moping all day long on that everlasting one leg -of his.”</p> - -<p>The usage on board in Melville’s ship, as in that of J. Ross -Browne and many another, had been tyrannical in the extreme. -In <i>Typee</i> he says: “We had left both law and equity on the -other side of the Cape.” And Captain Pease, arbitrary and -violent, promptly replied to all complaints and remonstrances<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[167]</a></span> -with the butt-end of a hand-spike, “so convincingly administered -as effectually to silence the aggrieved party.”</p> - -<p>“The sick had been inhumanly neglected; the provisions had -been doled out in scanty allowance.” The provisions on board -the <i>Acushnet</i> had consisted chiefly of “delicate morsels of beef -and pork, cut on scientific principles from every part of the -animal and of all conceivable shapes and sizes, carefully packed -in salt and stored away in barrels; affording a never-ending -variety in their different degrees of toughness, and in the peculiarities -of their saline properties. Choice old water, too, two -pints of which were allowed every day to every soul on board; -together with ample store of sea-bread, previously reduced to -a state of petrification, with a view to preserve it either from -decay or consumption in the ordinary mode, were likewise provided -for the nourishment and gastronomic enjoyment of the -crew.” Captain Davis, in his <i>Nimrod of the Sea</i>, suggests -that petrification is not the worst state of ship’s-biscuits; he -recounts how with mellower fare “epicures on board hesitate -to bite the ship-bread in the dark, and the custom is to tap -each piece as you break it off, to dislodge the large worms -that breed there.”</p> - -<p>The itinerary of this fifteen months’ cruise is not known. -In <i>Moby-Dick</i> Melville says: “I stuffed a shirt or two into my -carpet-bag, tucked it under my arm, and started for Cape -Horn and the Pacific.” In <i>Omoo</i>, Melville speaks of “an old -man-of-war’s-man whose acquaintance I had made at Rio de -Janeiro, at which place the ship touched in which I sailed from -home.” In <i>White-Jacket</i> and <i>Omoo</i> he speaks of whaling off -the coast of Japan. And in <i>Moby-Dick</i>, in a passage that reads -like an excerpt from the Book of Revelations, he indicates a -more frigid whereabouts: “I remember the first albatross I -ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale, in waters hard -upon the Antarctic seas. From my forenoon watch below, I -ascended to the overclouded deck; and there, dashed upon the -main hatches, I saw a regal, feathery thing of unspotted whiteness, -and with a hooked, Roman bill sublime. At intervals, it -arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[168]</a></span> -holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. -Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king’s ghost -in supernatural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange -eyes, methought I peeped to secrets which took hold of God. -As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself; the white -thing was so white, its wings so wide, and in those for ever -exiled waters, I had lost the miserable warping memories of -traditions and of towns. Long I gazed at that prodigy of -plumage. I cannot tell, can only hint, the things that darted -through me then. But at last I awoke; when the white fowl -flew to join the wing-folding, the invoking, and adoring cherubim!”</p> - -<p>But what waters the <i>Acushnet</i> sailed, and what shores she -touched before she dropped anchor in the Marquesas, little -positively is known.</p> - -<p>The last eighteen or twenty days, however, during which -time the light trade winds silently swept the <i>Acushnet</i> towards -the Marquesas, were to Melville, when viewed in retrospect, -“delightful, lazy, languid.” Land was ahead! And with the -refreshing glimpse of one blade of grass in prospect, Melville -and the whole ship’s company resigned themselves to a disinclination -to do anything, “and spreading an awning over the -forecastle, slept, ate, and lounged under it the livelong day.” -The promise of the ship’s at last breaking through the inexorable -circle of the changeless horizon into the fragrance of firm -and loamy earth, gave Melville an eye for the sea-scape he had -formerly abhorred. “The sky presented a clear expanse of -the most delicate blue, except along the skirts of the horizon, -where you might see a thin drapery of pale clouds which never -varied their form or colour. The long, measured, dirge-like -swell of the Pacific came rolling along, with its surface broken -by little tiny waves, sparkling in the sunshine. Every now -and then a shoal of flying fish, scared from the water under -the bows, would leap into the air, and fall the next moment like -a shower of silver into the sea.”</p> - -<p>In later years, memory treacherously transformed this watery -environment upon which Melville and Toby had vented -their youthful and impotent imprecations. From his farm in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[169]</a></span> -the Berkshire Hills, he looked back regretfully upon his rovings -over the Pacific, and by a pathetic fallacy, convinced -himself that in them “the long supplication of my youth was -answered.” The spell of the Pacific descended upon him not -while he was cruising the Pacific, however, but while he was -busy upon his farm in Pittsfield, “building and patching and -tinkering away in all directions,” as he described his activities -to Hawthorne.</p> - -<p>Strangely jumbled anticipations haunted Melville, he says, -as drowsing on the silent deck of the <i>Acushnet</i> he was being -borne towards land: towards the Marquesas, one of the least -known islands in the Pacific.</p> - -<p>“The Marquesas! What strange visions of outlandish -things does the very name spirit up!” exclaims Melville in excited -prospect. “Naked houris—cannibal banquets—groves of -cocoa-nut—coral reefs—tattooed chiefs—and bamboo temples; -sunny valleys planted with bread-fruit-trees—carved canoes -dancing on the flashing blue waters—savage woodlands -guarded by horrible idols—<i>heathenish rites and human sacrifices</i>.”</p> - -<p>After fifteen months aboard the <i>Acushnet</i>, Melville was -ripe to discover alluring Edenic beauties in tropical heathendom. -And in the end, so intolerable was the prospect of -dragging out added relentless days under the guardianship of -Captain Pease, that as a last extremity, Melville preferred to -risk the fate of Captain Cook, and find a strolling cenotaph in -the bellies of a tribe of practising cannibals.</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[170]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER IX <br /> - -<span class="smaller">THE PACIFIC</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“There is, one knows not what sweet mystery about this sea, whose -gentle awful stirrings seem to speak of some hidden soul beneath; like -those fabled undulations of the Ephesian sod over the buried Evangelist -St. John. And meet it is, that over these sea-pastures, wide-rolling -watery prairies and Potters’ Fields of all four continents, the waves -should rise and fall, and ebb, and flow unceasingly; for here, millions of -mixed shades and shadows, drowned dreams, somnambulisms, reveries; -all that we call lives and souls, lie dreaming, dreaming, still; tossing -like slumberers in their beds; the ever-rolling waves but made so by -their restlessness.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig"><span class="smcap">—Herman Melville</span>: <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>First sighted by Balboa in the year 1513, and for more -than two centuries regarded by the Spaniards as their own -possession, these midmost waters of the world lay locked behind -one difficult and dangerous portal. During these centuries -the Indian Ocean and the Atlantic—but arms of the -Pacific—were gloomy with mysteries. The Spanish sailors -used to chant a litany when they saw St. Elmo’s Fire glittering -on the mast-head, and exorcised the demon of the waterspout -by elevating their swords in the form of crosses. Mermaids -still lived in the tranquil blue waters. The darkness of -the storm was thronged with gigantic shadowy figures. The -pages of Purchas and Hackluyt offer no lack of supernatural -visitations. Thus superstition joined with substantial danger -to guard the entrance to the Pacific. Balboa himself was beheaded. -Everybody who had to do with Magellan’s first -passage into the Pacific came to a bad end. The captain was -murdered in a brawl by the natives of the Philippines; the -sailor De Lepe, who first sighted the straits from the mast-head, -was taken prisoner by the Algerians, embraced the faith -of the False Prophet, and so lost his everlasting soul; Ruy -Falero died raving mad. There was a fatality upon the whole -ship’s company.</p> - -<p>Two years before Magellan’s memorable voyage, the west<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[171]</a></span>ern -boundary of the Pacific had been approached by the Portuguese, -Francisco Serrano having discovered the Molucca -Islands immediately after the conquest of Malacca by the -celebrated Albuquerque. To stimulate exertion, and to preclude -contention in the rivalry of dominion between Portugal -and Spain, Rodrigo Borgia, Pope Alexander the Sixth, drew -a line down the map through the western limits of the Portuguese -province of Brazil, and allotted to Portugal all heathen -lands she should discover on the eastern half of this line; to -Spain, all heathen lands to the west. So shadowy was the -knowledge of geography at the time that this apportionment of -His Holiness left it doubtful to which hemisphere the Moluccas -belonged; and the precious spices peculiar to those islands rendered -the decision important. To ascertain this was the purpose -of Magellan’s voyage across the Pacific. In this waste of -waters Magellan made two discoveries: a range of small islands—including -Guam among its number—which he named Ladrones, -on account of the thievish disposition of the natives; -and, at the cost of his life, one of the islands which has since -been called the Philippines.</p> - -<p>The voyage of Magellan proved that by the allotment of -Alexander the Sixth, the Pacific belonged to Spain. And -though for eight generations the Spaniards were hereditary -lords of the Pacific, they soon grew greedy and jealous and -lazy in their splendid and undisturbed monopoly. Once or -twice, it is true, the English devils took the great galleon: but -only once or twice in all these years. Lesser spoils occasionally -fell into the hands of pirates; for did not Dampier take off Juan -Fernandez a vessel laden with “a quantity of marmalade, a -stately and handsome mule, and an immense wooden image of -the Virgin Mary”? Towns, too, were occasionally sacked. -But the Spaniards feared little danger, and ran few risks. -They grew richer and lazier, and troubled themselves little in -exploring the great expanse of the Pacific. They coasted the -Americas as far north as California, which they half-suspected -to be an island. The Galapagos, Juan Fernandez, and Masafuera -they knew; a part of China, a part of Japan, the Philippines, -Celebes, Timor, and the Ladrones. Voyages across the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[172]</a></span> -Pacific between Manilla and Acapulco were not infrequent: -but these voyages were sterile in discovery. The traditional -route, once through the Straits of Magellan, was to touch at -Juan Fernandez, coast South America, stand in at Panama, -turn out to sea again, appear off Acapulco, and then sail in the -parallel of 13° N. to the Ladrones. The Abbé Raynal states -that the strictest orders were given by the Spanish Government -prohibiting captains on any account to deviate from the -track laid down on their charts during the voyage between these -places.</p> - -<p>In the darkness of this uncharted ocean there was believed -to stretch a great southern continent of fabulous wealth and -beauty: the Terra Australis Incognita that survived pertinaciously -in the popular imagination until the time of Captain -Cook. Members of the Royal Society had proved, beyond -doubt, that the right balance of the earth required a southern -continent; geographers pointed out how Quiros, Juan Fernandez -and Tasman had touched at various points of this continent. -Politicians and poets agreed that treasures of all kinds -would be found there,—though they varied in their appropriation -of these Utopian resources. The controversy over the -existence of this continent was vehemently revived in 1770 by -the appearance of Alexander Dalrymple’s <i>An Historical Collection -of the Several Voyages and Discoveries in the South -Pacific Ocean</i>. Dalrymple was an ardent advocate of the reality -of the Terra Australis Incognita, and to encourage an -experimental confirmation of his faith, he dedicated his handsome -quarto: “To the man who, emulous of Magellan and the -heroes of former times, undeterred by difficulties and unseduced -by pleasure, shall persist through every obstacle, and not -by chance but by virtue and good conduct succeed in establishing -an intercourse with a Southern Continent.” Dr. Kippis, -Captain Cook’s biographer, writing in 1788, says he remembers -how Cook’s “imagination was captivated in the early -part of his life with the hypothesis of a southern continent. -He has often dwelt upon it with rapture.” The year following -Dalrymple’s dedication, Captain Cook, back from his first -voyage in the Pacific, was commissioned by the Earl of Sand<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[173]</a></span>wich, -First Lord of the Admiralty, to go out and settle once -and for all the mystery of the Southern Continent. So long -as this mystery remained unsettled, the Pacific stretched a -great limbo pregnant with the wildest fancies. Between the -times of Magellan and Captain Cook there was no certainty -as to what revelations it held to disgorge.</p> - -<p>It was in 1575 that Drake climbed the hill and the tree -upon its summit from which could be seen both the Atlantic -and the Pacific oceans. “Almighty God,” this devout pirate -exclaimed, “of thy holiness give me life and leave to sail in -an English ship upon that sea!” God heard his prayer, and -blessed him with rich pirate spoils in the Pacific, and honoured -him at home by a “stately visit” from the Queen. Yet he died -at sea, and in a leaden coffin his body was dropped into the -ocean slime. Cavendish continued the British tradition of -lucrative piracy, and in 1586 captured the great plate galleon. -This stimulated competition in high-sea robbery, until in 1594, -the capture of Sir Richard Hawkins daunted even English -courage.</p> - -<p>In 1595, Alvaro Mendana de Neyra, departing from the -beaten track across the Pacific on his way to occupy the Solomon -Islands which he had discovered twenty-eight years earlier, -chanced upon a new group of islands which he named Las -Marquesas de Mendoca, in honour of his patron Mendoca, -Marquis of Cenete, and viceroy of Peru. He had mass said on -shore, refitted his vessels, planted a few crosses in devout memorial, -to die before he accomplished the object of his voyage, -and to leave the Marquesas unmolested by visitors until visited -by Captain Cook in 1774. It was in the Marquesas, of -course, that Melville lived with the cannibals.</p> - -<p>The seventeenth century saw the Dutch upon the Pacific. -During the greater part of the century, England was busy -with troublesome affairs at home; the Spanish were too indolent -to bestir themselves. Unmolested by competition, the -great Dutch navigators, Joris Spilbergen, La Maire, Schouten, -and, most famous of all, Tasman, drifted among the islands -of the extreme southwest. It was not until 1664 that the -French sailed upon the Pacific. To the end of the century<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[174]</a></span> -belong the buccaneers—Morgan, Sawkin, Edward Cooke, -Woodes, Rogers, Cowley, Clipperton, Shelvocke and Dampier. -William Dampier, the greatest of these voyagers, crossed the -Pacific, missing all islands but New Zealand. He added but -little to the stock of knowledge that had been already collected -from the narratives of Tasman, or Schouten. W. Clark -Russell, in his life of Dampier, suggests it as probable “that -his failure, coupled with the despondent tone that characterises -his narrative, went far to retard further explorations of the -South Seas. It was no longer disputed that a vast body of -land stood in those waters. All that Dampier said in its -favour was theoretical; all that he had to report as an eye-witness, -all that he could speak to as facts, was extremely -discouraging.” The myth of the entrancing beauties and -voluptuous charms of the South Seas owes nothing to Dampier -except, perhaps, a delayed inception. Of the inhabitants -of the South Seas he reports that they had the most unpleasant -looks and the worst features of any people he ever saw; and, -says he: “I have seen a great variety of Savages.” He speaks -of them as “blinking Creatures,” with “black skins and Hair -frizzled, tall, thin, etc.”</p> - -<p>Russell considered the depressing influence of Dampier’s -recorded adventures manifested in the direction given to later -navigators. Byron in 1764, Wallis, Mouat, and Cartaret in -1766, were despatched on voyages round the world to search -the South Seas for new lands; but only one of them, Cartaret, -deviated from Dampier’s track, confining his explorations -in this way to a glance at New Guinea and New Britain, -to the discovery of New Ireland, lying adjacent to the island -Dampier sailed around, and to giving names to the Solomon -and other groups. Both Byron and Wallis, it is true, did enter -the archipelago of the Society Islands, Wallis discovering -island after island, until he reached Tahiti. Wallis’s account -of Otaheite—on the authority of the London Missionary Society -“to be pronounced so as to rhyme with the adjective -<i>mighty</i>”—and its people, occupies a great part of his narrative. -Though his reception was not without a show of arms -and bloodshed, the native women exerted themselves tirelessly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[175]</a></span> -to do unselfish penance for the hostile behaviour of the native -males. Oammo, the ruling chief, retired from the scene, leaving -the felicitation of the strangers in the hands of his consort, -Oberea, “whose whole character,” according to the observations -of the London Missionary Society, “for sensuality exceeded -even the usual standard of Otaheite.” In the establishment -of friendship that ensued, Wallis sent Lieutenant -Furneaux ashore to erect a British pennant, and in defiance of -the Pope, to take formal possession of the island in the name -of King George the Third. Hopelessly unimpressed by the -whole transaction, the natives took down the flag during the -night, and for a long time afterwards the ruling chieftains -wore it about their persons as a badge of royalty. Oberea’s -hospitality was requited by a parting gift of some turkeys, -a gander, a goose, and a cat. Oberea’s live stock figures repeatedly -in the later annals of Tahiti.</p> - -<p>Early in April, 1768, Tahiti was again visited by Europeans. -Louis de Bougainville was in Tahiti only eight days. -But, if Bougainville’s account be not the bravado of patriotism, -during that period his ship’s company seem to have outdone -their English predecessors in sensuality and open indecency. -Several murders were committed more privately. And the -natives, with an eye for the detection of such matters, exposed -among the ship’s crew a woman who had sailed from France -disguised in man’s apparel. Bougainville attached to himself -a native youth, Outooroo, brother of a chieftain; Outooroo -accompanied Bougainville to France. Within a few weeks -after sailing from Tahiti, Bougainville discovered that Outooroo, -as well as others aboard, were infected with venereal -disease. Wallis very specifically asserts that his ship’s company -were untouched by disreputable symptoms six months -before, and still longer after their visit at Tahiti. In any -event, before the first year had elapsed after the discovery of -Tahiti, its inhabitants were exhibiting unmistakable signs of -their contact with civilisation. In 1799, the London Missionary -Society gave warning to the world: “The present existence, -and the general prevalence of the evil, is but too obvious; and -it concurs with other dreadful effects of sensuality, to threaten<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[176]</a></span> -the entire population of this beautiful island, if it is not seasonably -averted by the happy influence of the gospel.” The -steady extinction of the Polynesian races would seem to indicate -that this happy influence has, to date, not been efficacious. -When Pope Alexander the Sixth gave to the indolent Spanish -the heathen for inheritance, His Holiness was being used by -a mysterious Providence as the guardian of heathendom. It -was not until he had been for over two centuries and a half -in his tomb, that the heretical and more enterprising English -came to dispel the Egyptian darkness that hung protectingly -over most of the islands of the Pacific, and to expose a competent -barbarism to the devastating aggressions of civilisation.</p> - -<p>Everybody knows how in 1769 the Royal Society, discovering -that there would happen a transit of Venus, and that this -interesting astronomical event would be best observed from -some place in the Pacific, hit upon James Cook—Byron, Wallis -and Cartaret all being in the Pacific at the time—master in -the Royal Navy, to command the expedition. The Marquesas -were chosen as the place for the observation; but while the -expedition was being fitted out, Captain Wallis returned to -England, bringing news of the discovery of Tahiti. So well -known is the story of Captain Cook that few can boast the -distinction of total ignorance of his three voyages to the -Pacific,—the first in command of an astronomical expedition, -the second in search of a Southern Continent, the third in -quest of a Northwest Passage; of his discoveries and adventures -in every conceivable part of the Pacific; of his repeated -returns to Tahiti; of his finally being killed on the island called -by him Owhyhee, murdered despite the fact that he had shown -a power of conciliation granted to no other navigator in these -seas. For, a long time ago, there lived, on the island of -Hawaii, Lono the swine-god. He was jealous of his wife, -and killed her. Driven to frenzy by the act, he went about -boxing and wrestling with every man he met, crying, “I am -frantic with my great love.” Then he sailed away for a foreign -land, prophesying at his departure: “I shall return in -after times on an island bearing cocoa-nut trees, swine, and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[177]</a></span> -dogs.” When, after a year’s absence, Cook returned to Hawaii, -he arrived the day after a great battle, and the victorious -natives were absolutely certain that Cook was the great swine-god, -Lono, who long ages ago had departed mad with love, -now, to add lustre to their triumph, returned on an island -bearing cocoa-nut trees, swine, and dogs. This attribution of -deity was hardly complimentary to Cook’s crew. And in time -the islanders tired of their enthusiasm and the expense of -entertaining strolling deities. After sixteen days of prodigal -hospitality, the natives began stroking the sides and patting -the bellies of the sailors, telling them, partly by signs, partly -by words, it was time to go. They went. But a week afterwards -the ship returned. There was a quarrel. Among -some people a quarrel leads to a fight. In a fight somebody -naturally gets killed. Or, it may have been,—Walter Besant -suggests,—that perhaps it may have occurred to some native -humourist to wonder how a god would look and behave with -a spear stuck right through him. Cook fell into the water, -and spoke no more.</p> - -<p>In his life, as in his death, Cook enjoyed all the successes. -Boswell dined with him at Sir John Pringle’s on April 2, -1776, and reported the glowing event to Dr. Johnson. A -snuff-box was carved out of the planks of one of his vessels, -and presented to James Fenimore Cooper. Fanny Burney -records with pride her father’s meeting the famous navigator, -whom she herself met in society and in her own home. Joseph -Priestly contemplated accompanying Cook to the South Seas. -An artist—W. Hodges—was officially appointed to accompany -him to perpetuate his exploits in oil. He read learned papers -before the Royal Society, for one of which the counsel adjudged -him the Copley Gold Medal. Six times was his portrait -painted, and once was it seriously proposed that Dr. -Johnson be appointed his official biographer. Not even by -Omai, a native of Tahiti that Captain Furneaux brought to -England, was Captain Cook’s glory eclipsed. And Omai was -received by the King, was painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, -and was laden with gifts when he was taken back to Tahiti -by Captain Cook on his third voyage. Omai, too, attended<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[178]</a></span> -meetings of the Royal Society, and it is to his credit that he -behaved himself fairly well. It was regretted by the Directors -of the London Missionary Society that though “great attention -was paid to him by some of the nobility, it was chiefly -directed to his amusement, and tended rather to augment than -to diminish his habitual profligacy.” In 1785-6, there was -repeatedly performed at Covent Garden Theatre a pantomime -named after him. The characters, besides Omai, were Towha, -the Guardian Genius of Omai’s Ancestors; Otoo, Father of -Omai; Harlequin, Servant to Omai. To give a blend of edification -to romance, the performance included, so a surviving -play-bill announces, “a Procession exactly representing the -dresses, weapons and manners of the Inhabitants of Otaheite, -New Zealand, Tanna, Marquesas, Friendly, Sandwich and -Easter Islands, and other countries visited by Captain Cook.” -In 1789, so vividly was the tragic end of Captain Cook still -mourned, that at the Theatre-Royal, Covent Garden, was presented -a spectacular tribute posted as <i>The Death of Captain</i>. -It was “a Grand Serious Pantomimic Ballet, in Three Parts, -as now exhibiting in Paris with uncommon applause, with the -Original French Music, New Scenery, Machinery, and other -Decorations.” This performance may have been inspired by -an <i>Ode on the Death of Captain Cook</i> penned by Miss Seward, -the Swan of Lichfield: an ode praised by her fellow-townsman, -Dr. Johnson. In 1774 there appeared in London “An Epistle -from Oberea, Queen of Otaheite, to Joseph Banks, Esq., translated -by T. Q. Z., Esq., Professor of the Otaheite Language -in Dublin, and of all the Languages of the Undiscovered -Islands in the South Seas, enriched with Historical and Explanatory -Notes,” and so novel and popular was the South -Sea manner, that its author was mistaken for a wit, and his -efforts at humour repeatedly and laboriously imitated. As a -corrective to such levity, there appeared in 1779 an effusion in -verse, adorned with vignette depicting Tahitian women dancing, -entitled <i>The Injured Islanders; or, The Influence of Art -upon the Happiness of Nature</i>. There is no lack of evidence -to prove that the exploits of Captain Cook brought the South -Seas, and especially Tahiti, into exuberant and irresponsible<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[179]</a></span> -popularity. Nor did business enterprise nap during the festivities. -Information which had been received of the great utility -of the bread-fruit, induced the merchants and planters of the -British West Indies to request that means might be used to -transplant it thither. For this purpose a ship was benevolently -commissioned by George the Third: the <i>Bounty</i>, commanded -by Lieutenant Bligh. The voyage of the <i>Bounty</i> ended in a -horrible tragedy and an intensely interesting romance. The -story of the mutiny of the <i>Bounty</i>, and its astonishing sequels, -joined further to vitalise the interest in the South Seas. A -frigate, significantly called the <i>Pandora</i>, was sent out from -England to Tahiti to seize the <i>Bounty</i> mutineers. Though -the <i>Pandora</i> was despatched as a messenger of justice, the -usual course of festivity, amusement and debaucheries was -uninterrupted during the continuance of the ship at Tahiti. -And the year following, with British doggedness, Captain -Bligh returned to accomplish the purpose of his former voyage -which had been frustrated by mutiny. In 1793, the <i>Daedalus</i>, -Vancouver’s storeship, stopped at Tahiti, leaving behind a -Swedish sailor with a taste for savagery. The same year an -American whaler, the <i>Matilda</i>, was wrecked off Tahiti, and -the crew, delighted at their good fortune, betrayed no inclination -for an immediate departure.</p> - -<p>But while the frivolous, the sentimental, and the ungodly -were busy converting Tahitian savagery into a Georgian idyll, -the well-starched Wesleyan conscience crackled in horror at -the black unredemption of the South Sea heathen. “The discoveries -made in the great southern seas by the voyages undertaken -at the command of his present majesty, George the -Third,” says a spokesman for the community, “excited wonderful -attention, and brought, as it were, into light a world -till then almost unknown. The perusal of the accounts of -these repeated voyages could not but awaken, in such countries -as our own, various speculations, according as men were -differently affected. But when these islands were found to -produce little that would excite the cupidity of ambition, or -answer the speculations of the interested”—well, then it was -that the protestant conscience bestirred itself, and on Septem<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[180]</a></span>ber -25, 1795, founded the London Missionary Society. It -celebrated its first birthday by determining to begin work with -the islands of the southern ocean, “as these, for a long time -past, had excited peculiar attention. Their situation of mental -ignorance and moral depravity strongly impressed on our -minds the obligation we lay under to endeavour to call them -from darkness into marvellous light. The miseries and diseases -which their intercourse with Europeans had occasioned -seemed to upbraid our neglect of repairing, if possible, these -injuries; but above all, we longed to send to them the everlasting -gospel, the first and most distinguished of blessings -which Jehovah has bestowed upon the children of men.”</p> - -<p>A select committee of ministers, approved for evangelical -principles and ability, was appointed to examine the candidates -for the mission—who applied in great numbers—as to -their views, capacity, and “knowledge in the mystery of godliness.” -Thirty missionaries were chosen: four ministers, six -carpenters, two shoemakers, two bricklayers, two tailors (one -of whom, “late of the royal artillery”), two smiths, two weavers, -a surgeon, a hatter, a cotton manufacturer, a cabinet -maker, a harness maker, a tinsmith, a cooper, and a butcher. -There were three women and three children also in the party. -On August 10, 1796, on the ship <i>Duff</i>, commanded by Captain -Wilson, who had been wonderfully converted to God, this -band, in chorus with a hundred voices, sang “Jesus, at thy -command—we launch into the deep” as they sailed out of Spithead. -The singing, it is said, produced “a pleasing and solemn -sensation.” On Sunday, March 5, 1797, after an uneventful -voyage, the <i>Duff</i> dropped anchor at Tahiti. Seventy-four -canoes came out to welcome the strangers and broke the Sabbath -by crowding about the decks, “dancing and capering like -frantic persons.” Nor was the first impression made upon -the Missionaries entirely favourable; “their wild disorderly behaviour, -strong smell of cocoa-nut oil, together with the tricks -of the arreoies, lessened the favourable impression we had -formed of them; neither could we see aught of that elegance -and beauty in their women for which they had been so greatly -celebrated.” Conversation with the natives was facilitated<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[181]</a></span> -by the presence of two tattooed Swedes—one formerly of the -crew of the <i>Matilda</i>, the other left by the <i>Daedalus</i>. During -sermon and prayer the natives were quiet and thoughtful, -“but when the singing struck up, they seemed charmed and -filled with amazement; sometimes they would talk and laugh, -but a nod of the head brought them to order.” Next day,—for -they arrived on the Sabbath,—some of the missionaries landed -and were presented with the house King Pomare had built for -Captain Bligh. This important matter settled, the chief -thought it time to enquire after entertainment; “first sky-rockets, -next the violin and dancing, and lastly the bagpipe.” -Lacking such diversions, the missionaries offered a few solos -on the German flute,—and “it plainly appeared that more lively -music would have pleased them better.”</p> - -<p>Domestic arrangements established, to the great diversion of -the natives, the missionaries tried to get some clothes on some -of them. The queen had to rip open the garments, it is true, -to get into them; but one Tanno Manoo, who was given a -warm week-day dress, and a showy morning gown and petticoat -for the Sundays, “when dressed, made a very decent appearance; -taking more pains to cover her breasts, and even to -keep her feet from being seen, than most of the ladies of -England have of late done.” The natives were deeply perplexed -by the proprieties of the Missionaries, and especially by -what to them seemed the unnatural chastity of the men.</p> - -<p>Since the Missionaries had resolved to distribute their blessings, -they sent a party of brethren to make investigations on -the Marquesas. The first visitors the ship received from the -shore were “seven beautiful young women, swimming quite -naked, except for a few green leaves tied round their middle; -nor did our mischievous goats even suffer them to keep their -green leaves, but as they turned to avoid them they were -attacked on each side alternately, and completely stripped -naked.” Such, too, was their “symmetry of features, that as -models for the statuary and painter their equals can seldom be -found.” As they danced about the deck, frequently bursting -out into mad fits of laughter, or talking as fast as their tongues -could go, surely they must have convinced more than one of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[182]</a></span> -the meditative brethren of the total depravity of man. Nor -did these shameless savages confine their excursions to the -decks. “It was not a little affecting to see our own seamen -repairing the rigging, attended by a group of the most beautiful -females, who were employed to pass the ball, or carry -the tar-bucket, etc.; and this they did with the greatest assiduity, -often besmearing themselves with the tar in the execution -of their office. No ship’s company, without great -restraints from God’s grace, could ever have resisted such -temptations.”</p> - -<p>Harris and Crook, two of the brethren, daring temptation, -decided to stay at the Marquesas, and were moved ashore. -But before the <i>Duff</i> sailed back to Tahiti, Harris was found -on the shore about four o’clock one morning “in a most pitiable -plight, and like one out of his senses.” It appears that -the Marquesan chief Tenae, taking Crook upon an inland jaunt, -had departed, conferring upon Harris all the privileges of -domesticity. Tenae’s wife, sharing her husband’s ideas of -hospitality, was troubled at Harris’ reserve. So, “finding -herself treated with total neglect, became doubtful of his sex,” -says the London Missionary Society in a report dedicated to -George the Third, “and acquainted some of the other females -with her suspicion, who accordingly came in the night, when -he slept, and satisfied themselves concerning that point, but -not in such a peaceable way but that they awoke him. Discovering -so many strangers, he was greatly terrified; and, perceiving -what they had been doing, was determined to leave a -place where the people were so abandoned and given up to -wickedness; a cause which should have excited a contrary -resolution.” Harris was forty years old at the time, and by -trade a cooper.</p> - -<p>Crook, however, remained in the Marquesas for eighteen -months, where, alone, he tried to enlighten and improve the -natives. The Marquesas had a bad reputation among whalemen, -and though they had been occasionally visited by enterprising -voyagers—by Fanning, Krusenstern, Porter, and Finch—they -for long remained especially virulent in their native -depravity. It is true that Crook returned after many years<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[183]</a></span> -to place among the Marquesans four converted natives from -the Society Islands. In 1834, two missionaries from England, -accompanied by Darling from Tahiti and several converted -natives, recommenced the arduous work of evangelising this -ferocious people. During four years the faithful Stallworthy -patiently toiled at his station, when in 1838 a French frigate -landed two Catholic priests in the very and the only spot then -cultivated by an English protestant labourer. These fellow-workers -in Christ competed for the souls of heathens. Though, -in 1839, to even the odds, Stallworthy received a reinforcement -of one of his English brethren, after two years the -English missionaries found it impossible “to maintain usefully -their ground against the united influence of heathen barbarism, -popish craft, French power, and French profligacy.” Thus -“ravished from the Protestant charity that had so long watched -for its salvation,” the Marquesans, when discovered by Melville, -were in large part virgin in their barbarism.</p> - -<p>At Tahiti, the brethren of the London Missionary Society -continued to work unrestingly, and against incredible discouragement. -The natives were, as Captain Cook discovered, “prodigious -expert” as thieves. One snatcher-up of unconsidered -trifles, when by way of punishment chained to a pillar with a -padlock, not only contrived to get away, but to steal the padlock. -Yet, by the representation of the London Missionary -Society, “their honesty to one another seems unimpeachable,” -and they cultivated a Utopian sense of property: “They -have no writing or records, but memory or landmarks. -Every man knows his own; and he would be thought of -all characters the basest, who should attempt to infringe on -his neighbour, or claim a foot of land that did not belong -to him, or his adopted friend.” Indeed, despite the reprobation -dealt out to them in tracts compiled for Sunday-school -edification (Mrs. F. L. Mortimer’s <i>The Night of -Toil</i> being a typically diverting libel), the London Missionary -Society, in its official reports, was—paradoxically enough—their -most convincing apologist. The natural beauties of -their country were again expatiated upon to the glory of -the First Artist. So prodigal was the natural abundance<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[184]</a></span> -of Tahiti that the brethren glorified it by converting it into -a temptation. One of the brethren wrote in his journal: -“O Lord, how greatly hast thou honoured me, that thousands -of thy dear children should be praying for <i>me</i>, a worm! -Lord, thou hast set me in a heathen land, but a land, if I may -so speak, with milk and honey. O put more grace and gratitude -into my poor cold heart, and grant that I may never with -Jeshurun grow fat and kick.” The natives themselves were -untroubled by any such compunctions. “Their life is without -toil,” the brethren reported, “and every man is at liberty to do, -go and act as he pleases, without the distress of care or apprehension -of want: and as their leisure is great, their sports -and amusements are various.” Their personal beauty, their -almost ostentatious cleanliness, their boundless generosity, -were by the London Missionary Society insisted upon. The -best of them, however, lived “in a fearfully promiscuous intercourse,” -and emulated the classical Greeks in infanticide and -other reprehensible practices. Yet do the brethren allow that -“in their dances alone is immodesty permitted; it may be -affirmed, they have in many instances more refined ideas of -decency than ourselves. They say that Englishmen are -ashamed of nothing, and that we have led them to public acts -of indecency never before practised among them.” But then, -as the London Missionary Society says in another place: -“Their ideas, no doubt, of shame and delicacy are very different -from ours; they are not yet advanced to any such state -of civilisation and refinement.” At their departure from native -custom, however, they were untroubled by contrition. When -asked “what is the true atonement for sin?” they answered, -“Hogs and pearls.” When the pleasant novelty of being -exhorted and preached to wore off, they did not behave impeccably -during the devotions of the brethren. They often cried -out “lies” and “nonsense” during the sermon. At other times -they tried to make each other laugh by repeating sentences -after the brethren, or by playing antics, and making faces. -Many of the natives used to lie down and sleep as soon as the -sermon began, while “others were so trifling as to make remarks -upon the missionaries’ clothes, or upon their appearance.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[185]</a></span> -Thus Satan filled their hearts with folly, lest they should believe -and be saved.” All the best inducements the brethren -could hold out to tempt them into “the divine life” moved -them not. “You talk to us of salvation, and we are dying,” -they said; “we want no other salvation than to be cured of our -diseases and to live here always, and to eat and talk.” So unappreciative -were they of the efforts of the brethren that they -explained the presence of the missionaries in Tahiti as growing -out of a sensible desire to escape from the ugliness and worry -and brutality of European civilisation. As for the lacerated -solicitude and strange unselfishness of the brethren to confer -upon each of them a soul with all of its pestering responsibilities: -that, they found totally incomprehensible.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t184ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t184a.jpg" width="600" height="352" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="captionleft"><p>“We are going to church, you see; and Kanoa, -my Hawaiian associate, is blowing a shell to -call the people to meeting, as we have no bell. -Kanoa’s wife, with one of her children is just -behind us. Be sure to look at the king, son -of the one who was killed, in his long shirt, and -under his umbrella. The queen will come too, -for both are very regular in their attendance; -and, what is better still, we hope they are -Christians.</p> - -<p>“You may say, perhaps, that some things in -this picture look more like breaking the Sabbath -than keeping it; and you are quite right.</p> - -<p>“The woman whom you see is a heathen, carrying -her husband’s skull as she goes on a visit -to some other village. A party of the natives -are pressing scraped cocoanuts in an oil-press, -to get the oil to buy tobacco with. The dog is -one of the many, as heathenish as their masters.”</p> - -<p> -From <i>Story of the Morning Star</i>,<br /> -<span class="sig">By Rev. Hiram Bingham.</span> -</p> - - -<p class="center">EVANGELIZING POLYNESIA</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p>Excluding all considerations of intellect—in which both the -Missionaries and the Polynesians seem to have been about -equally endowed—the abyss between the brethren and the -heathen was the abyss that separated John Knox from Aristophanes -and the Greek Anthology: the abyss between the animal -integrity of classical antiquity and the Hebraic heritage of -the agonised conscience. Reason may pass back and forth -over this chasm: but no man once touched by the traditions of -Christianity can ever again sling his heart back across the -abyss. If he attempt the feat—as witness the <i>Intimate Journals</i> -of Paul Gauguin—he but adds corruption to crucifixion, -and there is no doubt as to the last state of that man.</p> - -<p>If the fall from innocence was begun in Eden, it was sealed -beyond redemption in Bethlehem. For at the time of the inception -of Christianity, the pagan world was going to its doom, -and its death agonies were frightful in the extreme. Something -had to be done to save humanity,—and something drastic. -And humanity—which was at the same time the priest -and the victim—found in the cross the justest symbol of its -triumph in utter human defeat. More effectively to slander -this world, Heaven was set up in libellous contrast; in order -to heap debasement upon the flesh, the spirit was opposed to -it as an infinitely precious eternal entity, tainted by contact -with its mortal habitation. Blessedness lay not in harmony, -but in division, and utter confusion was mistaken for total de<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[186]</a></span>pravity. -“For the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit -against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: -so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” But these -things classical antiquity did—being given over to a reprobate -mind, so St. Paul tells us. The Wesleyan brethren found in -Polynesia the same untroubled indulgence in “unrighteousness, -fornication and wickedness,” that had so troubled St. Paul. -But in Tahiti there were no signs of the intellect that classical -antiquity exhibited in the days of its reprobation. And though -the Polynesians seemed to have thriven on unrighteousness, -the brethren itched to infect them with misgivings, and this in -a Holy Name. Melville was profoundly stirred to loathing at -these efforts: a loathing heightened by the later contentions introduced -into Tahiti by the rival proselyting of French Catholic -missionaries. Lost in doubt and shame at such spectacles, -in <i>Clarel</i> he thus invokes Christ:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent6">“By what art</div> - <div class="verse">Of conjuration might the heart</div> - <div class="verse">Of heavenly love, so sweet, so good,</div> - <div class="verse">Corrupt into the creeds malign</div> - <div class="verse">Begetting strife’s pernicious brood,</div> - <div class="verse">Which claimed for patron thee divine?</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Anew, anew,</div> - <div class="verse">For this thou bleedest, Anguished Face;</div> - <div class="verse">Yea, thou through ages to accrue,</div> - <div class="verse">Shall the Medusa shield replace:</div> - <div class="verse">In beauty and in terror too</div> - <div class="verse">Shall paralyse the nobler race—</div> - <div class="verse">Smite or suspend, perplex, deter—</div> - <div class="verse">Tortured, shall prove the torturer.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The brethren in Tahiti were without any of Melville’s misgivings. -Their faith was extraordinary. No less extraordinary -was the native imperviousness to salvation. After the -brethren had ceased to be an amusing novelty with gifts to -bestow, the natives submitted them to neglect and mockery. -Revolts against King Pomare and constant war kept the brethren -in peril of their lives without releasing them to celestial -jubilation. The Napoleonic wars cut them off from com<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[187]</a></span>munication -with England. During the first twelve years they -heard from home only three times. These days of fruitless -trial sifted the party. Many of the brethren seized any -opportunity that offered to sail away on chance trading vessels. -Of the seven who remained, two died. In 1801 eight new -brethren came out to reinforce the number, then reduced to -four. In 1804 old King Pomare died, and his son Oto became -King under the title Pomare II. In the wars that followed, -the mission seemed broken up: their house was burned, the -printing press destroyed, and six of the brethren removed from -Tahiti to Huahine. Two remained, however, to carry on the -forlorn hope. But after all these years Pomare’s heart began -to soften. His gods seemed to be standing him in little stead. -Defeated in battle, he escaped to Eimeo, and invited the missionaries -to follow him. Here he ate a sacred turtle, and when -no harm came to him he dared still further. Meanwhile it was -proposed in England that proselyting in Polynesia be discontinued, -since after sixteen years not one conversion had been -effected. But those of undaunted faith protested. The ship -bearing fresh supplies and news of the revived determination -of those at home to prosecute the work was met in mid-ocean -with the cargo of the rejected idols of the Tahitians. In a -church seven hundred and twelve feet long, with twenty-nine -doors and three pulpits, all paid for by himself,—the church -in which Melville witnessed Sunday devotion—King Pomare -had himself moistened on the forehead with the water of life.</p> - -<p>Backed by their royal patron, the Missionaries undertook to -convert Tahiti into a Polynesian Chautauqua. As Mrs. Helen -Barrett Montgomery says, in her <i>Christus Redemptor</i>: “We -cannot follow the glowing story of how the King had a code -of laws made and read it to seven thousand of his people, -who, by solemn vote, made these the law of the land.” In -1839, Captain Hervey, in command of a whale-ship, reported -of Tahiti: “It is the most civilised place I have been at in the -South Seas. They have a good code of laws and no liquors are -allowed to be landed on the island. It is one of the most gratifying -sights the eye can witness to see, on Sunday, in their -church, which holds about four thousand, the Queen near the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[188]</a></span> -pulpit with all her subjects about her, decently apparelled and -seemingly in pure devotion.” Three years later, Melville attended -one of these services, and was less favourably impressed.</p> - -<p>In 1823, the French establishment of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Œuvre de la propagation -de la Foi</i> formed at Lyons, and soon cast a beneficent -eye upon North and South America and the islands of Oceania. -In 1814, soon after the restoration of the Bourbons, the Abbé -Coudrin had founded the Society of Picpus “to promote the -revival of the Roman Catholic religion in France, and to propagate -it by missions among unbelievers or pagans.” This establishment -received Papal sanction in 1817, and was placed -under “the special protection of the Hearts of Jesus and -Mary.” In 1833, the Congregation of the Propaganda, with -the confirmation of the Sovereign Pontiff, confided to the -Society of Picpus the conversion of all the islands of the -Pacific ocean. Two apostolic prefectures were established. -M. E. Rouchouse was made bishop of Nilolopis, in partibus, -and apostolic vicar of Eastern Oceania; M. C. Liansu was appointed -as his prefect; two priests, Caret and Laval, and a -catechist, Columban, or Murphy, were placed under his direction. -In May, 1834, the Catholic missionaries arrived at Valparaiso, -bound for the South Seas.</p> - -<p>The benefits of the True Faith were not to advance into the -Pacific unassisted by the secular arm. Two officers of the -French Navy, Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz, in their <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Considerations -générales sur la Colonisation Française dans -l’Oceanie</i> thus speak for the less purely religious interests of -France: “It is impossible for a traveller who may visit the -islands of the Pacific, not to speculate on the destiny of the -happy groups scattered over its bosom. The first thing that -strikes him is the sight of men, consecrated to a religious work, -meddling with the temporal affairs of these free people, whom -they have brought under their domination, under pretence of -directing their consciences.... When the rapid multiplication -of the population of all European countries is considered, -it is evident that before long a European colony will be formed -in each of the innumerable islands of the Pacific, and mission<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[189]</a></span>ary -efforts merit therefore all the attention of the government.... -On the signal from the first cannon that shall be fired -in Europe, a protecting flag will be seen to rise on each of -these islands now so peaceful. God grant that the tri-coloured -flag of our nation may show itself with honour!”</p> - -<p>At this time, it was a law of Tahiti that before a foreigner -could have leave to reside on the island, permission must be -granted by Queen Pomare and the chiefs. The Catholic missionaries, -aware of this regulation, succeeded, however, in effecting -a landing disguised as carpenters, and to this island, -partly idolatrous, partly heretic, they gave the salutation of -peace. Pomare, however, was unappreciative of their salute, -and refused to the disguised priests permission to remain. -This exclusion, in its sequel, raised the most delicate questions -of international diplomacy, and bestirred Pomare to scatter -anxious letters broadcast over the face of the earth. Her correspondence -included a cosmopolitan company of Commodores -and Admirals, Queen Victoria, the President of the United -States, and Louis Philippe of France. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars, -in command of the <i>Venus</i>, was despatched to Tahiti -under special orders, “to make the Queen and the inhabitants -feel that France is a great and powerful nation.” The <i>Venus</i> -arrived at Tahiti, August 27, 1838, and proceeded to summary -justice. Under the pressure of a broadside, Pomare was -obliged to beg pardon of the most Christian King. “I am -only,” she wrote to Louis Philippe, “the sovereign of a little -insignificant island; may glory and power be with your majesty; -let your anger cease; and pardon me the mistake that -I have made.”</p> - -<p>It was further demanded of Pomare that she pay “a great -and powerful nation” the sum of two thousand dollars as a -more solid reparation for her bad behaviour. Pomare was -appalled at the magnitude of this sum: there was no such amplitude -of wealth in her treasury. The missionaries were -moved in compassion to finance her political indiscretion. But -in the next humiliation dealt out to her, the brethren were unable -to offer much assistance. The French Admiral bore instructions -to require that the French flag be hoisted the day<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[190]</a></span> -following the receipt of the two thousand dollars, and that it -be honoured by Pomare with a salute of twenty-one guns. The -situation was awkward. Pomare was very short of powder. -She assured the Admiral she had not enough for more than -five shots. The Admiral paced the deck, and passed his fingers -through his hair in considerable agitation. “What will they -say in France,” said the patriotic commander, “when they -know that I furnished the powder to salute my own flag?” -The difficulty was great. An expedient was necessary, and the -Admiral hit upon one: “Mr. Consul,” said he to the Rev. -Pritchard, and British Consul, “I can give you some powder, -and you can do with it as you please.” According to the -French report, Pritchard “himself loaded the bad cannon on -the little island and directed the firing;” and soon after, the -French observed Pritchard to look “thin and bilious, with an -appearance of pride, and the cold dignity so natural to the English.”</p> - -<p>But the visiting Admiral had not yet completed his duty to -“the justly irritated King of the French.” He condescended -to visit the Queen on purpose to introduce Moerenhaut as -French consul. Moerenhaut had been American consul at -Tahiti, but had been relieved of the responsibilities of that office -at a request of Pomare to the President of the United -States. Moerenhaut’s life, in all of its varied and unsavoury -details, has yet to be written: it would make an entertaining -supplement to the <i>Police Gazette</i>. Moerenhaut himself adventured -in letters, and in his <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voyages aux îles du Grand Ocean</i> -he exposes many of the corrupt practices that he himself was -instrumental in bringing about. The Admiral and Moerenhaut, -in the name of Louis Philippe, drew up a convention -with Pomare “to establish the right of French subjects to stay -in the territory of the Tahitian sovereign.”</p> - -<p>During these proceedings, Captain Dumont D’Urville, cruising -the Pacific, arrived at the Marquesas with two corvettes, -the <i>Astrolabe</i> and the <i>Zélé</i>, hot from the Gambier islands, the -seat of Bishop Rouchouse. At Gambier, when “all were gay -and cheerful,” D’Urville had been enlightened as to the true -character of the heretical missionaries: “oppressors of the poor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[191]</a></span> -Tahitians; in short, vampires, whose cruelties and inquisitorial -tortures were as atrocious as their hypocrisy was disgusting.” -Before he left the jovial board, his indignation was so high -that “he felt the honour of his flag” required that he sail to -Tahiti and dispense “exemplary chastisement.” Upon his arrival -at the Marquesas he was surprised to find Du Petit-Thouars, -who had been there, already departed. There was -value to his visit, however, in giving to the pious efforts of -Bishop Rouchouse the support of a few broadsides. But there -were other scenes at the Marquesas of which Bishop Rouchouse, -in good conscience, could not have approved. Melville asserts -that while the <i>Acushnet</i> was at the Marquesas, “our ship was -wholly given up to every species of riot and debauchery.” In -the official account of the voyages of Captain Dumont D’Urville -is a more detailed account of a similar surrender. Melville -says of the dances of the women of the Marquesas: -“There is an abandoned voluptuousness in their character that -I dare not attempt to describe.” The French, in their official -reports, exhibit a greater courage.</p> - -<p>Captain Dumont D’Urville arrived in Tahiti nine days after -the submission of Pomare, and the day following his arrival -he accompanied Admiral Du Petit-Thouars on a visit to the -Queen. He had not yet cooled in his patriotic indignation, so -he addressed Pomare severely, and with gratifying results: “I -perceived that Pomare was deeply affected, and that tears began -to fall from her eyes, as she threw them on me with an evident -expression of anger. At the same moment I also perceived -that Captain Du Petit-Thouars endeavoured to diminish -the effect of my words by some little liberties that he was -taking with the Queen; such as pulling gently her hair, and -patting her cheeks; he even added that she was foolish to be -so much affected.”</p> - -<p>When her French visitors sailed away, Pomare on November -8, 1838, despatched a letter to her sister sovereign, Victoria, -to implore “the shelter of her wing, the defence of her -lion, and the protection of her flag.” The Tahitians expressed -their sense of the favours being forced upon them by the -French by passing a law prohibiting “the propagation of any<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[192]</a></span> -religious doctrines, or the celebration of any religious worship, -opposed to that true gospel of old propagated in Tahiti by the -missionaries from Britain; that is, these forty years past.”</p> - -<p>This breach of international courtesy brought Captain Laplace -on the <i>Artémise</i> out to Tahiti “to obtain satisfaction from -the Lutheran evangelists who had forced themselves on a -simple and docile people.” As the <i>Artémise</i> was off the coast, -on April 22, 1839, she struck on a coral reef: an accident that -resulted in the officers and crew being lodged on shore for -two months. These two months must have given the brethren -bitter fruit for reflection upon the ease with which their years -of unselfish striving could be obliterated. According to the -account of Louis Reybaud of the <i>Artémise</i>: “From the first, -the most perfect harmony prevailed between the ship’s company -and the natives. Each of the latter chose his <i>tayo</i>,—that -is, another self—among the sailors. Between <i>tayos</i> -everything is common. At night, the <i>tayos</i>, French and Tahitian, -went together to the common hut. Every sailor has -thus a house, a wife, a complete domestic establishment. As -jealousy is a passion unknown to these islanders, it may be -imagined what resources and pleasures such an arrangement -afforded our crew. The natives were delighted with the character -of our people; they had never met with such gaiety, expansiveness, -and kindness in any other foreigners. The beach -presented the aspect of a continual holiday, to the great scandal -of the missionaries. We have seen how the men managed, -and what friends they found. The officers were not less fortunate. -The island that Bougainville called the <i>New Cytherea</i> -does not belie its name. When the evening set in, every tree -along the coast shaded an impassioned pair; and the waters of -the river afforded an asylum to a swarm of copper-coloured -nymphs, who came to enjoy themselves with the young midshipmen. -Wherever you walked you might hear the <i>oui! oui! -oui!</i> the word that all the women have learnt with marvellous -facility. It would have been far more difficult to teach them -to say <i>non!</i>”</p> - -<p>Among these relaxations, Captain Laplace found time publicly -to declare to the islanders “how shameful and even dan<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[193]</a></span>gerous -it was to violate the faith of treaties, and how unjust -and barbarous was intolerance.” Before his sailing, Captain -Laplace commanded Pomare to come aboard the <i>Artémise</i> to -sign a treaty guaranteeing no discrimination against the -French. Pomare’s despondency at the beginning of the proceedings -was solaced by champagne and brandy. Casimir -Henricy, who accompanied the <i>Artémise</i> throughout her circumnavigatory -voyage, says: “When the spirits of the party -were sufficiently elevated to find everything good, and while -the hands were yet sufficiently steady not to let the pen drop, -the treaty was produced as the crowning act of the festivity. -M. Laplace thought he had gained a great victory over Polynesian -diplomacy; and, certainly, never was a political horizon -more bright in flowers and bottles.”</p> - -<p>While Tahiti was the theatre of these religious and political -cabals, more important and decisive measures occupied the -mighty minds of Europe. The captains who had punished and -conventionalised Pomare and her people had made their reports -in person to their sovereign in Paris, and to the ministers of -state, who had indicated their instructions. Honours and titles -were awarded to the successful officers, and on their showing -it was resolved that the Marquesas should first be taken possession -of, and then Tahiti. Rear-Admiral Du Petit-Thouars -was commissioned to execute the seizure. On board the <i>Reine -Blanche</i>, accompanied by three frigates and three corvettes, he -touched Fatu-Heva, the southernmost of the Marquesas, on -April 26, 1842, and culminated his triumphant progress -through the group in the bay of Tyohee at Nukuheva on -May 31.</p> - -<p>The <i>Acushnet</i> arrived at Nukuheva at a memorable time. -“It was in the summer of 1842 that we arrived at the islands,” -says Melville; “the French had then held possession of them -for several weeks.”</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[194]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER X <br /> - -<span class="smaller">MAN-EATING EPICURES—THE MARQUESAS</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“‘Why, they are cannibals!’ said Toby on one occasion when I eulogised -the tribe. ‘Granted,’ I replied, ‘but a more humane, gentlemanly and -amiable set of epicures do not probably exist in the Pacific.’”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Typee</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>It was sunset when the <i>Acushnet</i> came within sight of the -loom of the mountains of the Marquesas. Innumerable sea-fowls, -screaming and whirling in spiral tracts had, for some -days previous, been following the vessel as harbingers from -land. As the ship drew nearer to green earth, several of man-of-war’s-hawks, -with their blood-red bills and raven plumage, -had circled round the ship in diminishing circles until Melville -was able distinctly to mark the strange flashing of their -eyes; and then, as if satisfied by their observations, they would -sail up into the air as if to carry sinister warning on ahead. -Then,—driftwood on the oily swells; and finally had come the -glad announcement from aloft—given with that peculiar prolongation -of sound that a sailor loves—“Land ho!”</p> - -<p>After running all night with a light breeze straight for the -island, the <i>Acushnet</i> was in easy distance of the shore by -morning. But as the <i>Acushnet</i> had approached the island from -the side opposite to Tyohee—christened by Captain Porter, -Melville remembered, Massachusetts Bay,—they were obliged -to sail some distance along the shore. Melville was surprised -not to find “enamelled and softly swelling plains, shaded over -by delicious groves, and watered by purling brooks.” Instead -he found himself cruising along a bold rock-bound coast, -dashed high against by the beating surf, and broken here and -there into deep inlets that offered sudden glimpses of blooming -valleys, deep glens, waterfalls and waving groves. As the -ship sailed by the projecting and rocky headlands with their -short inland vistas of new and startling beauty, one of the -sailors exclaimed to Melville, pointing with his hand in the di<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[195]</a></span>rection -of the treacherous valley: “There—there’s Typee. -Oh, the bloody cannibals, what a meal they’d make of us if we -were to take it into our heads to land! but they say they don’t -like sailors’ flesh, it’s too salt. I say, matey, how should you -like to be shoved ashore there, eh?” Melville shuddered at -the question, he says, little thinking that within the space of a -few weeks he would actually be a captive in that self-same -valley.</p> - -<p>Towards noon they swung abreast of their harbour. No description -can do justice to its beauty, Melville tells us. But -its beauty was to him not an immediate discovery. All that -he saw was the tri-coloured flag of France trailing over the -stern of six vessels, whose black hulls and bristling broadsides -floated incongruously in that tranquil bay.</p> - -<p>The first emissary from the shore to welcome the <i>Acushnet</i> -was a visitor in that interesting state of intoxication when a -man is amiable and helpless: a south-sea vagabond, once a -lieutenant in the English navy, recently appointed pilot to the -harbour by the invincible French. He was aided by some -benevolent person out of his whale-boat into the <i>Acushnet</i>, and -though utterly unable to stand erect or navigate his own body, -he magnanimously proffered to steer the ship to a good anchorage: -a feat Captain Pease did for himself, despite the -amazing volubility of the visitor in contrary commands.</p> - -<p>This renegade from Christendom and humanity was of a -type not infrequently met with in accounts of the South Seas. -At Hannamanoo, Melville came across another such—a white -man in the South Sea girdle, and tattooed on the face, living -among a tribe of savages and apparently settled for life, so -perfectly satisfied seemed he with his circumstances. This man -was an Englishman,—Lem Hardy he called himself,—who -had deserted from a trading brig touching at Hannamanoo for -wood and water some ten years previous. Aboard the <i>Acushnet</i> -he told his history. “Thrown upon the world a foundling, -his paternal origin was as much a mystery to him as the genealogy -of Odin; and scorned by everybody, he fled the parish -workhouse when a boy, and launched upon the sea. He had -followed it for several years, a dog before the mast, and now<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[196]</a></span> -he had thrown it up forever.” He had gone ashore as a -sovereign power, armed with a musket and a bag of ammunition, -and soon became, what he was when Melville found him, -military leader of the tribe, war-god of the entire island, living -under the sacred protection of an express edict of the taboo, -his person inviolable forever. In <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Iles Marquises, ou Nouka-Hiva, -Histoire, Géographie, Mœurs et Considérations Générales</i> -(Paris, 1843) by Vincendon-Dumoulin and Desgraz is -to be found (pages 356-359) a history of two more of these -vagabonds: one Joseph Cabri, a Frenchman, and one E. Roberts, -an Englishman. Cabri returned to Europe, for a time, -to find the novelty of his tattooing both an embarrassment and -a source of livelihood. He was examined by grave learned -societies, was presented before several crowned heads, and submitted -his person to intimate examination to any one who -would pay his fee. In 1818 he died in obscurity and poverty -in Valenciennes, his birth place. His historians regret that -his precious person was not preserved in alcohol to delight the -inquiring mind of later generations. The Pacific, it would -appear, was early a place of refuge for men with an insurmountable -homesickness for the mud. Melville soon came to -believe that the gifts of civilisation to the South Seas were -without exception very doubtful blessings; he came to be a -special pleader for the barbaric virtues; when these virtues -were practised by legitimate barbarians; but the spectacle of -such men as Hardy fell beyond the pale of his unusually broad -sympathies. Though he was despairingly alert to the vices of -Christendom, never was he betrayed into a corrupt hankering -to recapitulate into savagery. Though he excused the cannibalism -of the Marquesans as an amiable weakness, he gazed -upon Hardy “with a feeling akin to horror.” Hardy’s tattooing -was to Melville the outward and visible sign of the -lowest degradation to which a mortal, nurtured in a civilisation -that had for thousands of years a pathetically imperfect -struggle striven to some significance above the beast, could -possibly descend. “What an impress!” Melville exclaimed in -superlative loathing. “Far worse than Cain’s—<i>his</i> was perhaps -a wrinkle, or a freckle, which some of our modern cos<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[197]</a></span>metics -might have effaced.” But Hardy’s tattooing was to -Melville a mark indelible of the blackest of all betrayals.</p> - -<p>More worthy emissaries than the pilot to the port of Tyohee -were to welcome Melville to the Marquesas. The entrance of -the <i>Acushnet</i> brought from the shore a flotilla of native canoes. -“Such strange outcries and passionate gesticulations I never -certainly heard or saw before,” Melville says. “You would -have thought the islanders were on the point of flying at one -another’s throats, whereas they were only amiably engaged in -disentangling their boats.” Melville was surprised at the -strange absence of a single woman in the invading party, not -then knowing that canoes were “taboo” to women, and that -consequently, “whenever a Marquesan lady voyages by water, -she puts in requisition the paddles of her own fair body.”</p> - -<p>As the <i>Acushnet</i> approached within a mile and a half of the -foot of the bay, Melville noticed a singular commotion in the -water ahead of the vessel: the women, swimming out from -shore, eager to embrace the advantages of civilisation. “As -they drew nearer,” Melville says, “and as I watched the rising -and sinking of their forms, and beheld the uplifted right arm -bearing above the water the girdle of tappa, and their long -dark hair trailing beside them as they swam, I almost fancied -they could be nothing else but so many mermaids. Under -slow headway we sailed right into the midst of these swimming -nymphs, and they boarded us at every quarter; many -seizing hold of the chain-plates and springing into the chains; -others, at the peril of being run over by the vessel in her -course, catching at the bob-stays, and wreathing their slender -forms about the ropes, hung suspended in the air. All of them -at length succeeded in getting up the ship’s side, where they -clung dripping with the brine and glowing with the bath, their -jet-black tresses streaming over their shoulders, and half enveloping -their otherwise naked forms. There they hung, -sparkling with savage vivacity, laughing gaily at one another, -and chattering away with infinite glee. Nor were they idle the -while, for each performed the simple offices of the toilet for -the other. Their luxuriant locks, wound up and twisted into -the smallest possible compass, were freed from the briny ele<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[198]</a></span>ment; -the whole person carefully dried, and from a small -little round shell that passed from hand to hand, anointed with -a fragrant oil: their adornments were completed by passing a -few loose folds of white tappa, in a modest cincture, around -the waist. Thus arrayed, they no longer hesitated, but flung -themselves lightly over the bulwarks, and were quickly frolicking -about the decks. Many of them went forward, perching -upon the headrails or running out upon the bowsprit, while -others seated themselves upon the taffrail, or reclined at full -length upon the boats.”</p> - -<p>The ship was fairly captured, and it yielded itself willing -prisoner. In the evening, after anchor had been struck, the -deck was hung with lanterns, and the women, decked in flowers, -danced with “an abandoned voluptuousness” that was a prelude -“to every species of riot and debauchery.” According to -Melville’s account, on board the <i>Acushnet</i> “the grossest licentiousness -and the most shameful inebriety prevailed, with occasional -and but short-lived interruptions, through the whole -period of her stay.”</p> - -<p>Nor were the French at the Marquesas neglectful of their -duties to the islanders. Admiral Du Petit-Thouars had stationed -about one hundred soldiers ashore, according to Melville’s -account. Every other day the troops marched out in -full regalia, and for hours went through all sorts of military -evolutions to impress a congregation of naked cannibals with -the superior sophistications of Christendom. “A regiment of -the Old Guard, reviewed on a summer’s day in the Champs -Elysées,” Melville vouches, “could not have made a more -critically correct appearance.” The French had also with -them, to enrich their harvest of savage plaudits, a <i>puarkee nuee</i>, -or “big hog”—in more cultivated language, a horse. One of -the officers was commissioned to prance up and down the beach -at full speed on this animal, with results that redounded to the -glory of France. This horse “was unanimously pronounced -by the islanders to be the most extraordinary specimen of -zoology that had ever come under their observation.”</p> - -<p>It would be an ungracious presumption to contend that the -French, while at the Marquesas, exhibited to the natives only<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[199]</a></span> -the sterner side of civilisation. The behaviour of the French -at Tahiti leaves room for the hope that they were no less gallant -at the Marquesas. An officer of the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Reine Blanche</i>, writing -at sea on October 10, 1842, of the exploits of his countrymen -at Tahiti, says, in part: “In the evening, more than a -hundred women came on board. At dinner time, the officers -and midshipmen invited them gallantly to their tables; and -the repasts, which were very gay, were prolonged sufficiently -late at night, so that fear might keep on board those of the -women who were afraid to sail home by the doubtful light -of the stars.” The last three lines of this letter were suppressed -by the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Journal de Debats</i>, it is true, but given in the -<i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">National</i> and other journals. Three days later the letter was -officially pronounced “inexact” by the <i lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Moniteur</i>, which courageously -asserted that “it is utterly false that a frigate has -been the theatre of corruption, in any country whatever; and -French mothers may continue to congratulate themselves that -their sons serve in the navy of their country.”</p> - -<p>While the Frenchmen at the Marquesas—no less than the -Americans, one hopes with pardonable patriotic jealousy—were -giving their mothers at home cause for congratulation, -Melville came to the determination to leave the ship; “to use -the concise, point-blank phrase of the sailors, I had made up -my mind to ‘run away.’” And that his reasons for resolving -to take this step were numerous and weighty, he says, may be -inferred from the fact that he chose rather to risk his fortune -among cannibals than to endure another voyage on board the -<i>Acushnet</i>. In <i>Typee</i> he gives a general account of the captain’s -bad treatment of the crew, and his non-fulfilment of -agreements. Life aboard the <i>Acushnet</i> has already been sufficiently -expatiated upon.</p> - -<p>Melville knew that immediately adjacent to Nukuheva, and -only separated from it by the mountains seen from the harbour, -lay the lovely valley of Happar, whose inmates cherished -the most friendly relations with the inhabitants of Nukuheva. -On the other side of Happar, and closely adjoining it, -lay the magnificent valley of the dreaded Typee, the unappeasable -enemies of both these tribes. These Typees enjoyed a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[200]</a></span> -prodigious notoriety all over the islands. The natives of Nukuheva, -Melville says, used to try to frighten the crew of the -<i>Acushnet</i> “by pointing to one of their own number and calling -him a Typee, manifesting no little surprise when we did not -take to our heels at so terrible an announcement.” But having -ascertained the fact that the tribes of the Marquesas dwell -isolated in the depths of the valleys, and avoided wandering -about the more elevated portions of the islands, Melville concluded -that unperceived he might effect a passage to the mountains, -where he might easily and safely remain, supporting -himself on such fruits as came in his way, until the sailing of -the ship. The idea pleased him greatly. He imagined himself -seated beneath a cocoanut tree on the brow of the mountain, -with a cluster of plantains within easy reach, criticising -the ship’s nautical evolutions as she worked her way out of -the harbour, and contrasting the verdant scenery about him -with the recollections of narrow greasy decks and the vile -gloom of the forecastle.</p> - -<p>Melville at first prided himself that he was the only person -on board the <i>Acushnet</i> sufficiently reckless to attempt an idyllic -sojourn on an island of irreclaimable cannibals. But Toby’s -perennially hanging over the side of the ship, gazing wistfully -at the shore in moody isolation, coupled with Melville’s knowledge -of Toby’s hearty detestation of the ship, of his dauntless -courage, and his other engaging traits as companion in high adventure, -led Melville to share with Toby his schemes. A few -words won Toby’s most impetuous co-operation. Plans were -rapidly made and ratified by an affectionate wedding of palms, -when, to elude suspicion, each repaired to his hammock to -spend a last night aboard the <i>Acushnet</i>.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t200ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t200a.jpg" width="600" height="783" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>In 1855</p> - - -<p>RICHARD TOBIAS GREENE</p> - -<p>Editor of the <i>Sandusky Mirror</i></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p>On the morrow, with as much tobacco, ship’s biscuit and -calico as they could stow in the front of their frocks, Melville -and Toby made off for the interior of Nukuheva,—but not -before Melville “lingered behind in the forecastle a moment -to take a parting glance at its familiar features.” Their five -days of marvellous adventures that landed them finally in the -valley of Typee has abidingly tried the credulity of Melville’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[201]</a></span> -readers—though never for an instant their patience. After -reading these adventures, Stevenson expressed his slangy approval -by hailing Melville as “a howling cheese.” It has been -questioned in passing whether or not the number of days that -two strong male humans, going through incredible exertion, -can support themselves upon a hunk of bread soaked in sweat -and ingrained with shreds of tobacco, must not be fewer than -Melville makes out. And did they, in sober verity, critics have -asked, lower themselves down the cliff by swinging from -creeper to creeper with horrid gaps between them—was it as -steep as Melville says, and the creepers as far apart? And did -they, on another occasion, as Melville asserts, break a second -gigantic fall by pitching on the topmost branches of a very -high palm tree? During these thrilling and terrible five days, -hardship runs hard on the heels of hardship, and each obstacle -as it presents itself, seems, if possible, more unsurmountable -than the last. There is no way out of this, one says for the -tenth time: but the sagacity and fearless confidence of Toby—to -whom let glory be given—and the manful endurance of Melville -through parching fever and agonising lameness, disappoint -the lugubrious reader. On the third day after their escape, -their ardour is cooled to a resolve to forego futile ramblings -for a space. They crawled under a clump of thick -bushes, and pulling up the long grass that grew around, covered -themselves completely with it to endure another downpour. -While the exhausted Toby slept through the violent -rain, Melville tossed about in a raging fever, without the heart -to wake Toby when the rain ceased. Chancing to push aside -a branch, Melville was as transfixed with surprised delight as -if he had opened a sudden vista into Paradise. He “looked -straight down into the bosom of a valley, which swept away in -long wavy undulations to the blue waters in the distance. Midway -towards the sea, and peering here and there amidst the -foliage, might be seen the palmetto-thatched houses of its inhabitants -glistening in the sun that had bleached them to a -dazzling whiteness. The vale was more than three leagues in -length, and about a mile across its greatest width. Every<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[202]</a></span>where -below me, from the base of the precipice upon whose -very verge I had been unconsciously reposing, the surface of -the vale presented a mass of foliage, spread with such rich profusion -that it was impossible to determine of what description -of trees it consisted. But perhaps there was nothing about the -scenery I beheld more impressive than those silent cascades, -whose slender threads of water, after leaping down the steep -cliffs, were lost amidst the rich foliage of the valley. Over -all the landscape there reigned the most hushed repose, which -I almost feared to break, lest, like the enchanted gardens of -the fairy tale, a single syllable might dissolve the spell.” Toby -was awakened and called into consultation. With his usual -impetuosity, Toby wanted promptly to descend into the valley -before them; but Melville restrained him, dwelling upon the -perilous possibility of its inhabitants being Typees. Toby was -with difficulty reined to circumspection, and off Melville and -his companion started on a wild goose chase for a valley on -the other side of the ridge. So fruitless and disheartening did -this attempt prove, that Melville was reduced to the wan solace -that it was, after all, better to die of starvation in Nukuheva -than to be fed on salt beef, stale water and flinty bread in the -forecastle of the <i>Acushnet</i>. Yet Toby was dauntless. Despite -the defeats of the preceding day, Toby awoke on the -following morning as blithe and joyous as a young bird. Melville’s -fever and his swollen leg, however, had left him not so -exultant.</p> - -<p>“What’s to be done now?” Melville inquired, after their -morning repast of a crumb of sweat-mixed biscuit and tobacco,—and -rather doleful was his inquiry, he confesses.</p> - -<p>“Descend into that same valley we descried yesterday,” -rejoined Toby, with a rapidity and loudness of utterance that -led Melville to suspect almost that Toby had been slyly devouring -the broadside of an ox in some of the adjoining thickets. -“Come on, come on; shove ahead. There’s a lively lad,” -shouted Toby as he led the way down a ravine that jagged -steeply along boulders and tangled roots down into the valley; -“never mind the rocks; kick them out of the way, as I do; and -to-morrow, old fellow, take my word for it, we shall be in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[203]</a></span> -clover. Come on;” and so saying he dashed along the ravine -like a madman.</p> - -<p>Thus was piloted down into the heart of barbarism the man -who was to emerge as the first Missionary Polynesia ever sent -to Christendom. And on the chances of Toby’s contagious -impetuosity hung the annexation of a new realm to the kingdom -of the imagination and the discovery of a new manner in -the history of letters. For on that day, when Melville and -Toby struggled down that ravine like Belzoni worming himself -through the subterranean passages of the Egyptian catacombs, -the Polynesians were without a competent apologist, and the -literary possibilities of the South Seas were unsuspected.</p> - -<p>Literature was, of course, already elaborated with fantastic -patterns drawn from barbarism, and the Indians of Aphra -Behn and Voltaire had given place to the redmen of Cooper. -Earlier than this, however, the great discoverers, in their -wealth of records, had given many an account of their contacts -with savage peoples. But one searches in vain among -these records for any very vivid sense that the savage and -the Christian belong to the same order of nature. At best, -one gathers the impression that in savagery God’s image had -been multiplied in an excess of contemptible counterfeits. Melville -reports that as late as his day “wanton acts of cruelty are -not unusual on the part of sea captains landing at islands comparatively -unknown. Indeed, it is almost incredible, the light -in which many sailors regard these naked heathens. They -hardly consider them human. But it is a curious fact, that -the more ignorant and degraded men are, the more contemptuously -they look upon those whom they deem their inferiors.” -John G. Paton records in his <i>Autobiography</i> how, in 1860, -three traders gleefully told him that to humble the natives of -Tanna, and to diminish their numbers, they had let out on -shore at different ports, four men ill with the measles—an exceedingly -virulent disease among savage peoples. “Our watchwords -are,” these jolly traders said, “‘sweep the creatures -into the sea, and let white men occupy the soil.’” This sentiment -belongs more to a fixed human type, than to a period, of -course: and that type has frequently taken to sailing strange<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[204]</a></span> -seas. In treachery, cruelty, and profligacy, the exploits of -European discoverers contain some of the rosiest pages in the -history of villainy.</p> - -<p>These sickening pages of civilised barbarism soon won to -the savage ardent apologists, however, who applied an old technique -of libel by imputing to the unbreeched heathen a touching -array of the superior virtues. Montaigne was among the -first to come forward in this capacity. “We may call them -barbarous in regard to reasons rules,” he said, “but not in respect -to us that exceed them in all kinde of barbarisme. Their -warres are noble and generous, and have as much excuse and -beautie, as this humane infirmitie may admit: they ayme at -nought so much, and have no other foundation amongst them, -but the meere jelousie of vertue.” Once in full current of -idealisation Montaigne goes on to write as if he soberly believed -that savage peoples were descended from a stock that -Eve had conceived by an angel before the fall. In his dithyramb -on the nobilities of savagery, Montaigne was unhampered -by any first-hand dealings with savages, and he was far too -wise ever to betray the remotest inclination to improve his -state by migrating into the bosom of their uncorrupted nobility.</p> - -<p>The myth of the “noble savage” was a taking conceit, however, -and when Rousseau taught the world the art of reverie, -he taught it also an easy vagabondage into the virgin forest and -into the pure heart of the “natural man.” In describing Rousseau’s -influence on the drawing rooms, Taine says that “The -fops dreamed between two madrigals of the happiness of sleeping -naked in the virgin forest.” Rousseau’s savage, “attached -to no place, having no prescribed task, obeying no one, having -no other law than his own will,” was, of course, a wilful backward -glance to the vanished paradise of childhood, not a finding -of ethnology. Yet ethnology may prate as it will, the -“noble savage” is a myth especially diverting to the over-sophisticated, -and like dreams of the virgin forest, thrives irrepressibly -among the upholsterings of civilisation. The soft -and ardent dreamer, no less than the sleek and parched imagination -of Main Street, find compensation for the defeats of<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[205]</a></span> -civilisation in dreams of a primitive Arcadia. While the -kettle is boiling they relax into slippers and make the grand -tour. Chateaubriand—whose life, according to Lemaître, was -a “magnificent series of attitudes”—showed incredible hardihood -of attitudinising in crossing the Atlantic in actual quest -of the primitive. In the forest west of Albany he did pretend -to find some satisfaction in wild landscape. He showed -his “intoxication” at the beauties of wild nature by taking pains -to do “various wilful things that made my guide furious.” -But Chateaubriand was less fortunate in his contact with savagery -than he was with nature. His first savages he found -under a shed taking dancing lessons from a little Frenchman, -who, “bepowdered and befrizzled” was scraping on a pocket -fiddle to the prancings of “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ces messieurs sauvages et ces dames -sauvagesses</span>.” Chateaubriand concludes with a reflection: -“Was it not a crushing circumstance for a disciple of Rousseau?” -And it is an indubitable fact that if the present-day -disciples of the South Sea myth would show Chateaubriand’s -hardihood and migrate to Polynesia, they would find themselves -in circumstances no less “crushing.”</p> - -<p>Melville was the first competent literary artist to write with -authority about the South Seas. In his day, a voyage to those -distant parts was a jaunt not lightly to be undertaken. In the -Pacific there were islands to be discovered, islands to be annexed, -and whales to be lanced. As for the incidental savage -life encountered in such enterprise, that, in Montaigne’s phrase, -was there to be bastardised, by applying it to the pleasures of -our corrupted taste. These attractions of whaling and patriotism—with -incidental rites to Priapus—had tempted more -than one man away from the comfort of his muffins, and more -than one returned to give an inventory of the fruits of the -temptation. The knowledge that these men had of Polynesia -was ridiculously slight: the regular procedure was to shoot a -few cannibals, to make several marriages after the manner of -Loti. The result is a monotonous series of reports of the -glorious accomplishments of Christians: varied on occasions -with lengthy and learned dissertations on heathendom. But -they are invariably writers with insular imagination, telling us<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[206]</a></span> -much of the writer, but never violating the heart of Polynesia.</p> - -<p>The Missionaries, discreetly scandalised at the exploitation -of unholy flesh, went valiantly forth to fight the battle of -righteousness in the midst of the enemy. The missionaries -came to be qualified by long first-hand contact to write intimately -of the heathen: but their records are redolent with sanctity, -not sympathy. The South Sea vagabonds were the best -hope of letters: but they all seem to have died without dictating -their memoirs. William Mariner, it is true, thanks to a -mutiny at the Tongo Islands in 1805, was “several years resident -in those islands:” and upon Mariner’s return, Dr. John -Martin spent infinite patience in recording every detail of savage -life he could draw from Mariner. Dr. Martin’s book is -still a classic in its way: detailed, sober, and naked of literary -pretensions. This book is the nearest approach to <i>Typee</i> that -came out of the South Seas before Melville’s time. So numerous -have been the imitators of Melville, so popular has -been the manner that he originated, that it is difficult at the -present day to appreciate the novelty of <i>Typee</i> at the time of -its appearance. When we read Mr. Frederick O’Brien we do -not always remember that Mr. O’Brien is playing “sedulous -ape”—there is here intended no discourtesy to Mr. O’Brien—to -Melville, but that in <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> Melville was playing -“sedulous ape” to nobody. Only when <i>Typee</i> is seen -against the background of <i>A Missionary Voyage to the -Southern Pacific Ocean performed in the years 1796, 1797, -1798 in the Ship Duff</i> (1799) and Mariner’s <i>Tonga</i> (1816) -(fittingly dedicated to Sir Joseph Banks, President of the -Royal Society, and companion of Captain Cook in the South -Seas) can Melville’s originality begin to transpire.</p> - -<p>This originality lies partly, of course, in the novelty of Melville’s -experience, partly in the temperament through which -this experience was refracted. Melville himself believed his -only originality was his loyalty to fact. He bows himself out -of the Preface “trusting that his anxious desire to speak the -ungarnished truth will gain him the confidence of his readers.”</p> - -<p>When Melville’s brother Gansevoort offered <i>Typee</i> for pub<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[207]</a></span>lication -in England, it was accepted not as fiction but as ethnology, -and was published as <i>Melville’s Marquesas</i> only after -Melville had vouched for its entire veracity.</p> - -<p>Though Melville published <i>Typee</i> upright in the conviction -that he had in its composition been loyal both to veracity and -truth, his critics were not prone to take him at his word. And -he was to learn, too, that veracity and truth are not interchangeable -terms. Men do, in fact, believe pretty much what -they find it most advantageous to believe. We live by prejudices, -not by syllogisms. In <i>Typee</i>, Melville undertook to show -from first-hand observation the obvious fact that there are two -sides both to civilisation and to savagery. He was among the -earliest of literary travellers to see in barbarians anything but -queer folk. He intuitively understood them, caught their -point of view, respected and often admired it. He measured -the life of the Marquesans against that of civilisation, and -wrote: “The term ‘savage’ is, I conceive, often misapplied, -and indeed when I consider the vices, cruelties, and enormities -of every kind that spring up in the tainted atmosphere of a -feverish civilisation, I am inclined to think that so far as the -relative wickedness of the parties is concerned, four or five -Marquesan Islanders sent to the United States as missionaries, -might be quite as useful as an equal number of Americans dispatched -to the Islands in a similar capacity.” Civilisation is -so inured to anathema,—so reassured by it,—indeed, that -Melville could write a vague and sentimental attack upon its -obvious imperfections with the cool assurance that each of his -readers, applying the charges to some neighbour, would approve -in self-righteousness. But one ventures the “ungarnished -truth” about any of the vested interests of civilisation -at the peril of his peace in this world and the next. It was -when Melville focussed his charge and wrote “a few passages -which may be thought to bear rather hard upon a reverend -order of men” with incidental reflections upon “that glorious -cause which has not always been served by the proceedings of -some of its advocates,” that all the musketry of the soldiers of -the Prince of Peace was aimed at his head. Melville himself -was a man whose tolerance provoked those who sat in jealous<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[208]</a></span> -monopoly upon warring sureties to accuse him of license. He -specifies his delight in finding in the valley of Typee that “an -unbounded liberty of conscience seemed to prevail. Those who -were pleased to do so were allowed to repose implicit faith in -an ill-favoured god with a large bottle-nose and fat shapeless -arms crossed upon his breast; whilst others worshipped -an image which, having no likeness either in heaven or on earth, -could hardly be called an idol. As the islanders always maintained -a discrete reserve with regard to my own peculiar views -on religion, I thought it would be excessively ill-bred in me to -pry into theirs.” This boast of delicacy did not pass unnoticed -by “a reverend order of men.” The vitriolic rejoinder -of the London Missionary Society would seem to indicate that -there may be two versions of “the ungarnished truth.” It -should be stated, however, that the English editions of <i>Typee</i> -contain strictures against the Missionaries that were omitted -in the American editions. But even Melville’s unsanctified -critics showed an anxiety to repudiate him. Both <i>Typee</i> and -<i>Omoo</i> were scouted as impertinent inventions, defying belief -in their “cool sneering wit and perfect want of heart.” Melville’s -name was suspiciously examined as being a <i>nom de -plume</i> used to cover a cowardly and supercilious libel. A gentleman -signing himself G. W. P. and writing in the <i>American -Review</i> (1847, Vol. IV, pp. 36-46) was scandalised by Melville’s -habit of presenting “voluptuous pictures, and with cool -deliberate art breaking off always at the right point, so as -without offending decency, he may excite unchaste desire.” -After discovering in Melville’s writing a boastful lechery, this -gentleman undertakes to discountenance Melville on three -scores: (1) only the impotent make amorous boasts; (2) Melville -had none of Sir Epicure Mammon’s wished-for elixir; -(3) the beauty of Polynesian women is all myth.</p> - -<p>Unshaken in the conviction of his loyalty to fact, Melville -discovered that the essence of originality lies in reporting “the -ungarnished truth.”</p> - -<p>On the subject of “originality” in literature, Melville says -in <i>Pierre</i>: “In the inferior instances of an immediate literary -success, in very young writers, it would be almost invariably<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[209]</a></span> -observable, that for that instant success they were chiefly indebted -to some rich and peculiar experience in life, embodied -in a book, which because, for that cause, containing original -matter, the author himself, forsooth, is to be considered -original; in this way, many very original books being the -product of very unoriginal minds.” It is none the less true, -however, that though Melville and Toby both lived among the -cannibals, it was Melville, not Toby, who wrote <i>Typee</i>.</p> - -<p>For four months Melville was held in friendly captivity by -the Typees. His swollen leg was healed by native doctors—but -not without prolonged pain and anxiety—he was fed, he -was amused, he was lionised by the valley. His hosts were -savages; they were idolaters, they were inhuman beasts who -licked their lips over the roasted thighs of their enemies; and -at the same time they were crowned with flowers, sometimes -exquisite in beauty, courteous in manners, and engaged all -day long in doing not only what they enjoyed doing, but what, -so far as Melville could judge, they had every right to enjoy -doing. With Toby, Melville was consigned to the household -of Kory-Kory. Kory-Kory, though a tried servitor and -faithful valet, was, Melville admits, in his shavings and tattoos, -a hideous object to look upon—covered all over with -fish, fowl, and monster, like an illustrated copy of Goldsmith’s -<i>Animated Nature</i>. Kory-Kory’s father, Marheyo, a retired -gentleman of gigantic frame, was an eccentric old fellow, who -seems to have been governed by no fixed principles whatever. -He employed the greater part of his time in throwing up a -little shed just outside the house, tinkering away at it endlessly, -without ever appearing to make any perceptible advance. -He would eat, sleep, potter about, with fine contempt -for the proprieties of time or place. “Frequently he might -have been seen taking a nap in the sun at noonday, or a bath -in the stream at midnight. Once I beheld him eighty feet -from the ground, in the tuft of a cocoanut tree, smoking, and -often I saw him standing up to the waist in water, engaged -in plucking out the stray hairs of his beard, using a piece of -mussel-shell for tweezers. I remember in particular his having -a choice pair of ear-ornaments, fabricated from the teeth<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[210]</a></span> -of some sea-monster. These he would alternately wear and -take off at least fifty times in the course of a day, going and -coming from his little hut on each occasion with all the tranquillity -imaginable. Sometimes slipping them through the -slits in his ears, he would seize his spear and go stalking beneath -the shadows of the neighbouring groves, as if about to -give a hostile meeting to some cannibal knight. But he would -soon return again, and hiding his weapon under the projecting -eaves of the house, and rolling his clumsy trinkets carefully -in a piece of tappa, would resume his more pacific operations -as quietly as if he had never interrupted them.”</p> - -<p>Kory-Kory’s mother was, so Melville reports, the only industrious -person in all the valley of Typee: “bustling about -the house like a country landlady at an unexpected arrival: -forever giving the young girls tasks to perform, which the -little huzzies as often neglected; poking into every corner, and -rummaging over bundles of old tappa, or making a prodigious -clatter among the calabashes. She could not have employed -herself more actively had she been left an exceedingly muscular -and destitute widow, with an inordinate supply of young -children, in the bleakest part of the civilised world.” Yet was -hers withal the kindliest heart imaginable. “Warm indeed,” -Melville says, “are my remembrances of the dear, good, -affectionate old Tinor!”</p> - -<p>There also belonged to the household, three young men, -“dissipated, good-for-nothing, roystering blades of savages,” -and several girls. Of these, Melville has immortalised Fayaway, -his most constant companion. He has anatomised her -charms in the manner of his first <i>Fragment from a Writing-Desk</i>. -But it is Fayaway in action, not Fayaway in still life, -that survives in the imagination. At Melville’s intercession, -the taboo against women entering a boat was lifted. Many -hours they spent together swimming, or floating in the canoe: -diversions heightened in their heinousness by the fact that -Fayaway for the most part clung to the primitive and summer -garb of Eden—and the costume became her. Nor did -Melville’s depravity cease with his unblushing approval of -nakedness. “Strange as it may seem,” Melville writes in the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[211]</a></span> -’40’s, “there is nothing in which a young and beautiful female -appears to more advantage than in the act of smoking.” -Fayaway not only smoked,—but she smoked a pipe, as they -drifted in the canoe. One day, as they were gliding along, -Fayaway “seemed all at once to be struck with a happy idea. -With a wild exclamation of delight, she disengaged from her -person the ample robe of tappa which was knotted over her -shoulder (for the purpose of shielding her from the sun), and -spreading it out like a sail, stood erect with upraised arms in -the head of the canoe. We American sailors pride ourselves -upon our straight clean spars, but a prettier mast than Fayaway -made was never shipped aboard of any craft.” John -La Farge has painted Fayaway in this attitude.</p> - -<p>And the occupation of Toby during all this? Soon after -their arrival, Toby had been despatched to Nukuheva under -pretence of procuring relief for Melville’s swollen leg, actually -to facilitate his and Melville’s escape. Toby never again returned -to Typee. He had been treacherously beguiled on -board a whaler, unable to escape until he left his vessel at -New Zealand. “After some further adventures,” says Melville -in <i>The Story of Toby</i>, written in July, 1846, ten days -after the two men discovered each other’s existence through -the instrumentality of <i>Typee</i>, and published as a “sequel” to -that novel, “Toby arrived home in less than two years after -leaving the Marquesas.”</p> - -<p>While Melville had the companionship of Toby in Typee, -he was even then eager to get back to civilisation. That -savagery was good for savages he never wearied of contending. -But despite the idyllic delights of Typee—an idyll with -a sombre background, however—Melville was never tempted -to resign himself to its vacant animal felicity. Melville, unlike -Baudelaire and Whitman, was not stirred by the advantages -of “living with the animals.” While among them, he evinced -a desire neither to adopt their ways, nor to change them. He -made them pop-guns, he astonished them by exhibiting the -miracle of sewing. He tried to teach them to box. “As not -one of the natives had soul enough in him to stand up like a -man, and allow me to hammer away at him, for my own per<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[212]</a></span>sonal -satisfaction and that of the king, I was necessitated to -fight with an imaginary enemy, whom I invariably made to -knock under to my superior prowess.”</p> - -<p>Among the bachelors of the Ti, the men’s club of the valley, -he chatted, he smoked, he drowsed: he witnessed the -Feast of the Calabashes when, for the livelong day “the drums -sounded, the priests chanted, and the multitude roared and -feasted”—a scene reminiscent of a University whole-heartedly -given over to “campus activity.” A mock battle was staged -for his diversion. He entered the funeral fastnesses where -the effigies of former heroes eternally paddled canoes adorned -by the skulls of their enemies. He mused by pools, splashing -with laughing bronze nymphs. Yet withal, Melville was a -captive in the valley. His lameness, too, returned. His hosts -began to make friendly but insistent suggestions that he be -tattooed—a suggestion superlatively repugnant to him. He -heard, moreover, the clamour of a cannibal feast, and lifted -the cover of a tub under which lay a fresh human skeleton. -Under these circumstances he taught old Marheyo two English -words: <i>Home</i> and <i>Mother</i>. But he did not complete the -trinity. <i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Forsan et haec olim meminisse juvabit.</i> It was time -for him to depart.</p> - -<p>One profoundly silent noon, as Melville lay lame and -miserable under Kory-Kory’s roof, Mow-Mow, the one-eyed -chief, appeared at the door, and leaning forward towards Melville, -whispered: <i>Toby pemi ena</i>—“Toby has arrived.” That -evening Mow-Mow’s dead body floated on the Pacific, a boat-hook -having been mortally hurled at his throat. And it was -Melville who hurled the boat-hook.</p> - -<p>An Australian whaler, touching at the harbour of Nukuheva, -had been informed of Melville’s detention in Typee. -Desirous of adding to his crew, the Captain had sailed round -thither, and “hove to” off the mouth of the bay. Chary of -the man-eating propensities of the Typees, the Captain sent in -a boat-load of taboo natives from the other harbour, with an -interpreter at their head, to procure Melville’s release. Accompanied -by a throng of armed natives, Melville was carried -down to the shore—being too lame to walk the distance. A<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[213]</a></span> -gun and an extravagant bounty of powder and calico were -offered for Melville’s release: but this bounty was clamorously -and indignantly rejected. Karakoee, the head of the -ransoming party, was menaced by furious gestures, and forced -out into the sea, up to his waist in the surf. Blows were -struck, wounds were given, and blood flowed. In the excitement -of the fray, Melville was left to the guardianship of -Marheyo, Kory-Kory, and Fayaway. Throwing to these three -the articles that had been brought for his ransom, Melville -bounded into the boat which was in immediate readiness to -pull off towards the ship. It was not until the boat was about -fifty yards from the shore that the savages recovered from -their astonishment at Melville’s alacrity in escape. Then -Mow-Mow and six or seven warriors rushed into the sea and -hurled their javelins at the retreating boat—and some of the -weapons passed as close as was desirable. The wind was -freshening every minute, and was right in the teeth of the -retreating party. Karakoee, who was steering the boat, gave -many a look towards a jutting point of the bay they had to -pass. When they came within a hundred yards of the point, -the savages on the shore dashed into the water, swimming -out towards the boat: and by the time Melville’s party reached -the headland, the savages were spread right across the boat’s -course. The rowers got out their knives and held them ready -between their teeth. Melville seized the boat-hook. Mow-Mow, -with his tomahawk between his teeth, was nearest to the boat, -ready the next instant to seize one of the oars. “Even at the -moment I felt horror at the act I was to commit; but it was -no time for pity or compunction, and with a true aim, and -exerting all my strength, I dashed the boat-hook at him. I -struck him below the throat, and forced him downward.” -Mow-Mow’s body arose in the wake of the boat, but not to -attack again. Another savage seized the gunwale, but the -knives of the rowers so mauled his wrists, that before many -moments the boat was past all the Typees, and in safety. In -the closing tableau, Melville fell fainting into the arms of -Karakoee.</p> - -<p>Though later, when Melville was a sailor in the United<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[214]</a></span> -States Navy, he touched at the Marquesas, he never again set -foot within the valley of Typee. Melville had known the -Typees in their uncorrupted glory—strong, wicked, laughter-loving -and clean. Mr. O’Brien visited Typee not many years -ago, to find it pathetically fallen from its high estate. “I -found myself,” he says, “in a loneliness indescribable and terrible. -No sound but that of a waterfall at a distance parted -the sombre silence.... Humanity was not so much absent as -gone, and a feeling of doom and death was in the motionless -air, which lay like a weight, upon leaf and flower. The thin, -sharp buzzing of the <i>nonos</i> was incessant.” Mr. O’Brien discovered -in the heart of the valley fewer than a dozen people -who sat within the houses by cocoanut-husk fires, the acrid -smoke of which daunted the <i>nonos</i>. “They have clung to -their lonely <i>paepaes</i> despite their poverty of numbers and the -ferocity of the <i>nonos</i>. They had clearings with cocoanuts -and breadfruits, but they cared no longer to cultivate them, -preferring rather to sit sadly in the curling fumes and dream -of the past. One old man read aloud the <i>Gospel of St. John</i> -in Marquesan, and the others listlessly listened, seeming to -drink in little comfort from the verses, which he recited in -the chanting monotone of their <i>uta</i>.... Nine miles in length -is Typee, from a glorious cataract that leaps over the dark buttress -wall where the mountain bounds the valley, to the blazing -beach. And in all this extent of marvellously rich land, -there are now this wretched dozen natives, too old or listless -to gather their own food.”</p> - -<p>Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[215]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XI <br /> - -<span class="smaller">MUTINY AND MISSIONARIES—TAHITI</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Ah, truant humour. But to me</div> - <div class="verse">That vine-wreathed urn of Ver, in sea</div> - <div class="verse">Of halcyons, where no tides do flow</div> - <div class="verse">Or ebb, but waves bide peacefully</div> - <div class="verse">At brim, by beach where palm trees grow</div> - <div class="verse">That sheltered Omai’s olive race—</div> - <div class="verse">Tahiti should have been the place</div> - <div class="verse">For Christ in advent.”</div> -</div> -<div class="stanza"> - -<span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Clarel</i>.</span> -</div> -</div></div> - -<p>It was in the middle of a bright tropical afternoon that -Melville made good his escape from the valley of Typee. The -Australian whaler—called by Melville the <i>Julia</i>—which had -broken his four months’ captivity, lay with her main-topsail -aback, about a league from the land. “She turned out to be -a small, slatternly looking craft, her hull and spars a dingy -black, rigging all slack and bleached nearly white, and everything -denoting an ill state of affairs aboard. Leaning carelessly -over the bulwarks were the sailors, wild, haggard-looking -fellows in Scotch caps and faded blue frocks; some of -them with cheeks of mottled bronze, to which sickness soon -changes the rich berry-brown of a seaman’s complexion in the -tropics.” So extraordinary was Melville’s appearance—“a -robe of the native cloth was thrown over my shoulders, my -hair and beard were uncut, and I betrayed other evidences of -my recent adventure”—that as the boat came alongside, a low -cry ran fore and aft the deck. Immediately on gaining the -deck, Melville was beset on all sides by questions.</p> - -<p>Indeed, never afterwards, it appears, could Melville escape -a like curiosity. Henceforth he was to be “the man who lived -among the cannibals.” Nor does he always seem to have been -so uncommunicative as he grew in later years. In the Preface -to <i>Omoo</i>, after recording the fact that he kept no journal dur<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[216]</a></span>ing -his wanderings in the South Seas, he says: “The frequency, -however, with which these incidents have been verbally -related, has tended to stamp them upon the memory.” -There is novelty in his logic: all twice-told tales are not always -just-so stories. He says, too, in the Preface to <i>Typee</i>: -“The incidents recorded in the following pages have often -served, when ‘spun as a yarn,’ not only to relieve the weariness -of many a night-watch at sea, but to excite the warmest sympathies -of the author’s shipmates.”</p> - -<p>Upon being taken aboard the <i>Julia</i>, Melville was almost -immediately seen by the captain, a young, pale, slender, sickly -looking creature, who signed Melville up for one cruise, engaging -to discharge him at the next port.</p> - -<p>Life on board the <i>Julia</i> was, if anything, worse than life -on board the <i>Acushnet</i>. In the first place, Melville was ill. -Not until three months after his escape from Typee did he -regain his normal strength. And, as always, Melville looked -back with regret upon leaving the life he had so wanted to -escape from while he was in the midst of it. “As the land -faded from my sight,” he says, “I was all alive to the change -in my condition. But how far short of our expectations is -oftentimes the fulfilment of the most ardent hopes. Safe -aboard of a ship—so long my earnest prayer—with home and -friends once more in prospect, I nevertheless felt weighed -down with a melancholy that could not be shaken off.” Melville -felt he was leaving cannibalism forever—and the departure -shot a pang into his heart.</p> - -<p>The ship’s company were a sorry lot: reduced by desertion -from thirty-two to twenty souls, and more than half of the -remaining were more or less unwell from a long sojourn in -a dissipated port. Some were wholly unfit for duty; one or -two were dangerously ill. The rest managed to stand their -watch, though they could do little. The crew was, for the -most part, a typical whaling crew: “villains of all nations and -dyes; picked up in the lawless Spanish Main, and among the -savages of the islands.” The provisions, too, on board the -<i>Julia</i> were notoriously bad, even for a whaler. Melville’s regret -at leaving Typee was not mere wanton sentimentality.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[217]</a></span></p> - -<p>The captain was despised by all aboard. He was commonly -called “The Cabin Boy,” “Paper Jack,” “Miss Guy” and -other descriptive titles. Though sheepish looking, he was a -man of still, timid cunning that did not endear him to -Melville.</p> - -<p>The mate, John Jermin, was of the efficient race of short -thick-set men: bullet headed, with a fierce little squint out of -one eye, and a nose with a rakish tilt to one side. His was -the art of knocking a man down with irresistible good -humour, so the very men he flogged loved him like a brother. -He had but one failing: he abhorred weak infusions, and -cleaved manfully to strong drink. He was never completely -sober: and when he was nearly drunk he was uncommonly -obstreperous.</p> - -<p>Jermin was master of every man aboard except the ship’s -carpenter,—a man so excessively ugly he went by the name of -“Beauty.” As ill-favoured as Beauty was in person, he was -no less ugly in temper: his face had soured his heart. Melville -witnessed an encounter between Jermin and Beauty: an -encounter that showed up clearly the state of affairs on board. -While Beauty was thrashing Jermin in the forecastle, the captain -called down the scuttle: “Why, why, what’s all this -about? Mr. Jermin, Mr. Jermin—carpenter, carpenter: what -are you doing down there? Come on deck; come on deck.” -In reply to this, Doctor Long Ghost cried out in a squeak, -“Ah! Miss Guy, is that you? Now, my dear, go right home, -or you’ll get hurt.” The captain dipped his head down the -scuttle to make answer, to receive, full in the face, the contents -of a tin of soaked biscuit and tea-leaves. Things were -not well aboard the <i>Julia</i>.</p> - -<p>But it was Doctor Long Ghost—he who so mocked the captain—who -figures most largely in Melville’s history: a man -remarkable both in appearance and in personality. He was -over six feet—a tower of bones, with a bloodless complexion, -fair hair and a pale unscrupulous grey eye that twinkled occasionally -with the very devil of mischief. At the beginning of -the cruise of the <i>Julia</i>, as ship’s doctor, he had lived in the -cabin with the captain. But once on a time they had got into<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[218]</a></span> -a dispute about politics, and the doctor, getting into a rage, -had driven his argument home with his fist, and left the captain -on the floor, literally silenced. The captain replied by -shutting him up in his state-room for ten days on a diet of -bread and water. Upon his release he went forward with his -chests among the sailors where he was welcomed as a good -fellow and an injured man.</p> - -<p>The early history of Doctor Long Ghost he kept to himself; -but it was Melville’s conviction that he had certainly at -some time or other spent money, drunk Burgundy, and associated -with gentlemen. “He quoted Virgil, and talked of -Hobbes of Malmsbury, besides repeating poetry by the canto, -especially Hudibras.” In the most casual manner, too, he -could refer to an amour he had in Palermo, his lion hunting -before breakfast among the Kaffirs, and the quality of coffee -he had drunk in Muscat.</p> - -<p>Melville was in no condition, physically, to engage in the -ship’s duties, so he and Doctor Long Ghost fraternised in the -forecastle, where they were treated by the crew as distinguished -guests. There they talked, played chess—with an outfit -of their own manufacture—and there Melville read the -books of the Long Doctor, over and over again, not omitting -a long treatise on the scarlet fever.</p> - -<p>At its best, the forecastle is never an ideal abode: but the -forecastle of the <i>Julia</i>—its bunks half wrecked, its filthy -sailors’ pantry, and its plague of rats and cockroaches—must -have made the <i>Highlander</i> seem as paradise in retrospect. -The forecastle of the <i>Julia</i>, Melville says, “looked like the hollow -of an old tree going to decay. In every direction the -wood was damp and discoloured, and here and there soft and -porous. Moreover, it was hacked and hewed without mercy, -the cook frequently helping himself to splinters for kindling -wood.” The viciousness of the crew of the <i>Julia</i>, did not, of -course, perceptibly enhance the charms of the forecastle. Nor -was Melville’s estate made more enviable when the man in the -bunk next to his went wildly delirious. One night Melville -was awakened from a vague dream of horrors by something -clammy resting on him: his neighbour, with a stark stiff arm<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[219]</a></span> -reached out into Melville’s bunk, had during the night died. -The crew rejoiced at his death.</p> - -<p>For weeks the <i>Julia</i> tacked about among the islands of the -South Seas. The captain was ill, and Jermin steered the <i>Julia</i>, -to Tahiti, to arrive off the island the moment that Admiral -Du Petit-Thouars was firing, from the <i>Reine Blanche</i>, a salute -in honour of the treaty he had just forced Pomare to sign.</p> - -<p>But to the astonishment of the crew, Jermin kept the ship -at sea, fearing the desertion of all his men if he struck anchor. -His purpose was to set the sick captain ashore, and to resume -the voyage of the <i>Julia</i> at once, to return to Tahiti after a -certain period agreed upon, to take the captain off. The crew -were in no mood to view this manœuvre with indifference. -Melville and Long Ghost cautioned them against the folly of -immediate mutiny, and on the fly-leaf of an old musty copy -of <i>A History of the Most Atrocious and Bloody Piracies</i>, a -round-robin was indited, giving a statement of the crew’s -grievances, and concluding with the earnest hope that the -consul would at once come off and see how matters stood. -Pritchard, the missionary consul, was at that time in England; -his place was temporarily filled by one Wilson, son of -the well-known missionary of that name, and no honour to -his ancestor. It did not promise well for the crew that Wilson -was an old friend of Captain Guy’s.</p> - -<p>The round-robin was the prelude to iniquitous bullying and -stupidity on the part of Wilson, Jermin, and Captain Guy. -To the crew, it seemed that justice was poisoned at the fountain -head. They gazed on the bitter waters, did a stout menagerie -prance, and raged into mutiny. Then it was, after one -of the men had all but succeeded in maliciously running the -<i>Julia</i> straight upon a reef, that the good ship was piloted into -the harbour of Papeetee, and the crew—including Melville -and the Long Doctor, who were misjudged because of the -company they kept—were for five days and nights held in -chains on board the <i>Reine Blanche</i>. At the end of that time -they were tried, one by one, before a tribunal composed of -Wilson and two elderly European residents. Melville was -examined last. One of the elderly gentlemen condescended to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[220]</a></span> -take a paternal interest in Melville. “Come here, my young -friend,” he said; “I’m extremely sorry to see you associated -with these bad men; do you know what it will end in?” Melville -was in no mood for smug and salvationly solicitations. -He had already declared that his resolution with respect to -the ship was unalterable: he stuck to this resolution. Wilson -thereupon pronounced the whole crew clean gone in perversity, -and steeped in abomination beyond the reach of clemency. -He then summoned a fat old native, Captain Bob—and a -hearty old Bob he proved—giving him directions to marshal -the crew to a place of safe keeping.</p> - -<p>Along the Broom Road they were led: and to Melville, -escaped from the forecastle of the <i>Julia</i> and the confined -decks of the frigate, the air breathed spices. “The tropical -day was fast drawing to a close,” he says; “and from where -we were, the sun looked like a vast red fire burning in the -woodlands—its rays falling aslant through the endless ranks -of trees, and every leaf fringed with flame.”</p> - -<p>About a mile from the village they came to the <i>Calabooza -Beretanee</i>—the English jail.</p> - -<p>The jail was extremely romantic in appearance: a large -oval native house, with a dazzling white thatch, situated near -a mountain stream that, flowing from a verdant slope, spread -itself upon a beach of small sparkling shells, and then trickled -into the sea. But the jail was ill adapted for domestic comforts, -the only piece of furniture being two stout pieces of -timber, about twenty feet in length, gouged to serve as stocks. -John La Farge, in his <i>Reminiscences of the South Seas</i>, says: -“We try to find, by the little river that ends our walk, on this -side of the old French fort, the calaboose where Melville was -shut up. There is no one to help us in our search; no one remembers -anything. Buildings occupy the spaces of woodland -that Melville saw about him. Nothing remains but the same -charm of light and air which he, like all others, has tried to -describe and to bring back home in words. But the beach is -still as beautiful as if composed by Claude Lorraine.”</p> - -<p>In this now-departed calaboose, Melville and the rest were -kept in very lenient captivity by Captain Bob. Captain Bob’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[221]</a></span> -notion of discipline was delightfully vague. He insensibly -remitted his watchfulness, and the prisoners were free to -stroll further and further from the Calabooza. After about -two weeks—for days melted deceptively into each other at -Tahiti—the crew was again summoned before Wilson, again -to declare themselves unshaken in their obstinate refusal to -sail again with Captain Guy. So back to the Calabooza they -were sent.</p> - -<p>The English Missionaries left their cards at the Calabooza -in the shape of a package of tracts; three of the French -priests—whom the natives viewed, so Melville says, as “no -better than diabolical sorcerers”—called in person. One of -the priests—called by Melville, Father Murphy—discovered a -compatriot among the crew, and celebrated the discovery by -sending a present of a basket of bread. Such was the persuasion -of the gift that, on Melville’s count, “we all turned -Catholics, and went to mass every morning, much to Captain -Bob’s consternation. He threatened to keep us in the stocks, -if we did not desist.”</p> - -<p>After three weeks Wilson seems to have begun to suspect -that it was not remotely impossible that he was making a -laughing stock of himself in his futile attempt to break the -mutineers into contrition. So off the <i>Julia</i> sailed, manned by -a new crew. But before sailing, Jermin served his old crew -the good turn of having their chests sent ashore. And when -each was in possession of his sea-chest, the Calabooza was -thronged with Polynesians, each eager to take a <i>tayo</i>, or -bosom friend.</p> - -<p>Though technically still prisoners, Melville and his former -shipmates were allowed a long rope in their wanderings. Melville -improved his leisure by attending, each Sunday, the services -held in the great church which Pomare had built to be -baptised in. In <i>Omoo</i>, Melville gives a detailed account of a -typical Sabbath, and then launches into chapters of discussion -upon the fruits of Christianity in Polynesia.</p> - -<p>At church Melville had observed, among other puzzlingly incongruous -performances, a young Polynesian blade standing -up in the congregation in all the bravery of a striped calico<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[222]</a></span> -shirt, with the skirts rakishly adjusted over a pair of white -sailor trousers, and hair well anointed with cocoanut oil, -ogling the girls with an air of supreme satisfaction. And of -those who ate of the bread-fruit of the Eucharist in the morning, -he knew several who were guilty of sad derelictions the -same night. Desiring, if possible, to find out what ideas of -religion were compatible with this behaviour, he and the -Long Doctor called upon three sister communicants one evening. -While the doctor engaged the two younger girls, Melville -lounged on a mat with Ideea, the eldest, dallying with -her grass fan, and improving his knowledge of Tahitian.</p> - -<p>“The occasion was well adapted to my purpose, and I began.</p> - -<p>“‘Ah, Ideea, mickonaree oee?’ the same as drawling out—‘By -the by, Miss Ideea, do you belong to the church?’</p> - -<p>“‘Yes, me mickonaree,’ was the reply.</p> - -<p>“But the assertion was at once qualified by certain reservations; -so curious that I cannot forbear their relation.</p> - -<p>“‘Mickonaree <i>ena</i>’ (church member <i>here</i>), exclaimed she, -laying her hand upon her mouth, and a strong emphasis on the -adverb. In the same way, and with similar exclamations, she -touched her eyes and hands. This done, her whole air changed -in an instant; and she gave me to understand, by unmistakable -gestures, that in certain other respects she was not exactly a -‘mickonaree.’ In short, Ideea was</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“‘A sad good Christian at the heart—</div> - <div class="verse">A very heathen in the carnal part.’”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“The explanation terminated in a burst of laughter, in which -all three sisters joined; and for fear of looking silly, the doctor -and myself. As soon as good-breeding would permit, we -took leave.”</p> - -<p>It is Melville’s contention that the very traits in the Tahitians -which induced the London Missionary Society to regard -them as the most promising subjects for conversion, were, in -fact, the most serious obstruction to their ever being Christians. -“An air of softness in their manners, great apparent ingenuousness -and docility, at first misled; but these were the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[223]</a></span> -mere accompaniments of an indolence, bodily and mental; a -constitutional voluptuousness; and an aversion to the least restraint; -which, however fitted for the luxurious state of nature, -in the tropics, are the greatest possible hindrances to the strict -moralities of Christianity.” Of the Marquesans, Melville says -in <i>Typee</i>: “Better it will be for them to remain the happy and -innocent heathens and barbarians that they now are, than, -like the wretched inhabitants of the Sandwich islands, to enjoy -the mere name of Christians without experiencing any of -the vital operations of true religion, whilst, at the same time, -they are made the victims of the worst vices and evils of civilised -life.”</p> - -<p>Paul Gauguin, in his <i>Intimate Journals</i>, seems to share Melville’s -conviction that the Polynesians are disqualified by nature -to experience “any of the vital operations of the spirit.” -In speaking of the attempts of the missionaries to introduce -marriage into Polynesia he remarks cynically: “As they are -going out of the church, the groom says to the maid of honour, -‘How pretty you are!’ And the bride says to the best man -‘How handsome you are!’ Very soon one couple moves off -to the right and another to the left, deep into the underbrush -where, in the shelter of the banana trees and before the Almighty, -two marriages take place instead of one. Monseigneur -is satisfied, and says, ‘We are beginning to civilise them.’”</p> - -<p>The good intentions of the Missionaries Melville does not -question. But high faith and low intelligence is a dangerous -if not uncommon mating of qualities. “It matters not,” he -says, “that the earlier labourers in the work, although strictly -conscientious, were, as a class, ignorant, and in many cases, -deplorably bigoted: such traits have, in some degree, characterised -the pioneers of all faith. And although in zeal and -disinterestedness, the missionaries now on the island are, perhaps, -inferior to their predecessors, they have, nevertheless, -in their own way, at least, laboured hard to make a Christian -people of their charge.”</p> - -<p>As a result of this labour idolatry was done away with; the -entire Bible was translated into Tahitian; the morality of the -islanders was, on the whole, improved. These accomplish<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[224]</a></span>ments -Melville freely admits. But in temporal felicity, “the -Tahitians are far worse off now than formerly; and although -their circumstances, upon the whole, are bettered by the missionaries, -the benefits conferred by the latter become utterly -insignificant, when confronted with the vast preponderance of -evil brought by other means.” Melville found that there was -still at Tahiti freedom and indolence; torches brandished in -the woods at night; dances under the moon, and women decked -with flowers. But he also found the Missionaries intent upon -the abolition of the native amusements and customs—in their -crowning efforts, decking the women out in hats “said to have -been first contrived and recommended by the missionaries’ -wives; a report which, I really trust, is nothing but a scandal.” -To Melville’s eyes, Tahiti was neither Pagan nor Christian, but -a bedraggled bastard cross between the vices of two incompatible -traditions. And in this blend he saw the promise of -the certain extinction of the Polynesians. The Polynesians -themselves were not blind to the doom upon them. Melville -had heard the aged Tahitians singing in a low sad tone a song -which ran: “The palm trees shall grow, the coral shall spread, -but man shall cease.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t224aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t224aa.jpg" width="600" height="446" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>FIRST HOME OF THE PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES IN TAHITI</p> - -<p>From a report of The London Missionary Society, published in 1799.</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t224abh.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t224ab.jpg" width="600" height="306" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>THE FLEET OF TAHITI</p> - -<p>From an engraving after Hodges, the artist who accompanied -Captain Cook to the South Seas.</p></div> -</div> - -<p>Melville’s plea was that Christendom treat Polynesia with -reasonableness, and Christian charity: perhaps the two rarest -qualities in the world. His plea was not without results; he -unloosed upon himself exhibitions of venom of the whole-hearted -sort that enamour a misanthrope to life. <i>The Living -Age</i> (Vol. XXVII) reprinted from the <i>Eclectic Review</i> a -tribute which began: “Falsehood is a thing of almost invincible -courage; overthrow it to-day, and with freshened vigour -it will return to the lists to-morrow. <i>Omoo</i> illustrates this fact. -We were under the illusion that the abettors of infidelity and -the partisans of popery had been put to shame by the repeated -refutation and exposure of their slanders against the Protestant -Missions in Polynesia; but Mr. Melville’s production -proves that shame is a virtue with which these gentry are -totally unacquainted, and that they are resharpening their -missiles for another onset.” This review then made it its object -“to show that his statements respecting the Protestant<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[225]</a></span> -Mission in Tahiti are perversions of the truth—that he is -guilty of deliberate and elaborate misrepresentation, and ... -that he is a prejudiced, incompetent, and truthless witness.” -It was taken for granted that Melville was guilty of the -heinous crime of being a Catholic. From this presumption it -was easy to understand that Melville’s plea for sweetness and -light was but the vicious ravings of a man “foiled and disappointed -by the rejection of Mariolatry and the worship of -wafers and of images, and of dead men by the Bible-reading -Tahitians.” By a convincing—if not cogent—technique of -controversy, Melville’s evidence was impugned by a discounting -of the morals of the witness: a Catholic, and a disseminator -of the “worst of European vices and the most dreadful of -European diseases.”</p> - -<p>Melville was twenty-eight years old when he Quixotically -championed the heathen in the name of a transcendental charity -which he believed to be Christian. Amiable Protestant -brethren undertook to disabuse him of his naïve belief that -the guardians of the faith of Christendom invariably regulate -their conduct in the spirit of Christ. As Melville grew -in wisdom he grew in disillusion: and his early tilt at the London -Missionary Society contributed to his rapid growth. At -the age of thirty-three he wrote in <i>Pierre</i>—a book planned to -show the impracticability of virtue—that “God’s truth is one -thing, and man’s truth another.” He then maintained that -the history of Christendom for the last 1800 years showed -that “in spite of all the maxims of Christ, that history is as -full of blood, violence, wrong, and iniquity of every kind, as -any previous portion of the world’s story.” He says in <i>Clarel</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“The world is portioned out, believe:</div> - <div class="verse">The good have but a patch at best,</div> - <div class="verse">The wise their corner; for the rest—</div> - <div class="verse">Malice divides with ignorance.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Melville points out that Christ’s teachings seemed folly to the -Jews because Christ carried Heaven’s time in Jerusalem, while -the Jews carried Jerusalem time there. “Did He not expressly<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[226]</a></span> -say ‘My wisdom is not of this world?’ Whatever is really -peculiar in the wisdom of Christ seems precisely the same -folly to-day as it did 1850 years ago.” In <i>Clarel</i>, he goes -further, and calls the world</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">“a den</div> - <div class="verse">Worse for Christ’s coming, since His love</div> - <div class="verse">(Perverted) did but venom prove.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Though such a heretical idea was, to the Protestant brethren, -of course, clean gone on the farthest side of damnation, yet -were Melville and these same brethren working upon an identical -major premise: each was righteously convinced that he -was about his Father’s business—each was attempting to rout -the other in the name of Christ. The brethren rode forth in -the surety of triumph; Melville retired within himself convinced -that defeat was not refutation, and that his way had -been, withal, the way of Heavenly Truth. And since his way -bore but bitter fruit, he shook the dust of the earth from his -feet, convinced that such soil was designed to nourish only iniquity. -“Where is the earnest and righteous philosopher,” -he asks, framing his question to include himself in that glorious -minority, “who looking right and left, and up and down -through all the ages of the world, the present included; where -is there such an one who has not a thousand times been struck -with a sort of infidel idea, that whatever other worlds God may -be Lord of, He is not Lord of this: for else this world would -seem to give Him the lie; so utterly repugnant seem its ways -to the instinctively known ways of Heaven.” In this world, -he grew to feel, a wise man resigns himself to the world’s -ways. “When we go to heaven,” he taught, “it will be quite another -thing. There, we can freely turn the left cheek, because -the right cheek will never be smitten. There they can freely -give all to the poor, for <i>there</i> there will be no poor to give to.” -And this, he contended, was a salutary doctrine: “I hold up a -practical virtue to the vicious; and interfere not with the eternal -truth, that, sooner or later, downright vice is downright -woe.” His milk of human kindness was not sweetened by the -thunder of the Protestant brethren.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[227]</a></span></p> - -<p>Resigned to the insight that while on earth no wise man -aims at heaven except by a virtuous expediency, he accepted -the London Missionary Society as one of the evils inherent -in the universe, and leaving it to its own fate, looked prophetically -forward to the Inter-Church World Movement. In <i>The -Confidence Man</i> he makes one of the characters say: “Missions -I would quicken with the Wall Street spirit. For if, -confessedly, certain spiritual ends are to be gained but through -the auxiliary agency of worldly means, then, to the surer gaining -of such spiritual ends, the example of worldly policy in -worldly projects should not by spiritual projectors be slighted. -In brief, the conversion of the heathen, so far, at least, as -depending on human effort, would, by the world’s charity, be -let out on contract. So much by bid for converting India, so -much for Borneo, so much for Africa. You see, this doing -good in the world by driblets is just nothing. I am for doing -good in the world with a will. I am for doing good to the -world once for all, and having done with it. Do but think of -the eddies and maelstroms of pagans in China. People here -have no conception of it. Of a frosty morning in Hong Kong, -pauper pagans are found dead in the streets like so many -nipped peas in a bin of peas. To be an immortal being in -China is no more distinction than to be a snow-flake in a snow-squall. -What are a score or two of missionaries to such a -people? I am for sending ten thousand missionaries in a body -and converting the Chinese <i>en masse</i> within six months of the -debarkation. The thing is then done, and turn to something -else.” And in <i>Clarel</i>:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent14">“But preach and work:</div> - <div class="verse">You’ll civilise the barbarous Turk—</div> - <div class="verse">Nay, all the East may reconcile:</div> - <div class="verse">That done, let Mammon take the wings of even,</div> - <div class="verse">And mount and civilise the saints in heaven.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>But when Melville was in Tahiti he harboured less emancipated -notions than he later achieved. He was then to all outward -seeming little better than a beach-comber, disciplined -for his participation in a mutiny he and the Long Doctor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[228]</a></span> -had ineffectively tried to prevent, and in the end abandoned -by his ecclesiastical guardians to drift among the natives of -Tahiti, and to find his way back home any way he could.</p> - -<p>The authorities at Tahiti left the party at the Calabooza -to its own disintegration: a sore on the island cured not by -surgery but by neglect. Gradually the mutineers melted out of -sight.</p> - -<p>With the Long Doctor, Melville sailed across to the neighbouring -island of Imeeo, there to hire themselves out as field-labourers -to two South Sea planters: one a tall, robust Yankee, -born in the backwoods of Maine, sallow, and with a long -face; the other, a short florid little Cockney. This strange -pair had cleared about thirty acres in the isolation of the wild -valley of Martair, where they worked with invincible energy, -and struggling against all odds to farm in Polynesia, and -with Heaven knows what ideas of making a fortune on their -crude plantation.</p> - -<p>Melville had tried farming in Pittsfield, and he liked the -labour even less in Polynesia than he did in Christendom. The -Long Doctor throve not at all hoeing potatoes under a tropical -sun, all the while saying masses as he watered the furrows -with his sweat. Both Melville and the Long Doctor enjoyed -the hunt they took in the wilds of the mountains: but back -to the mosquitoes, the sweet-potatoes, and the hardships of -agriculture, they decided to launch forth again upon the luck -of the open road. What clothes they had were useless rags. -So barefooted, and garbed like comic opera brigands or mendicant -grandees, they started out on a tour of discovery around -the island of Imeeo. After about ten days of pleasant adventure -and hospitality from the natives they arrived at Partoowye -to be accepted into the household of an aristocratic-looking -islander named Jeremiah Po-Po, and his wife Arfretee. -This was a household of converts: “Po-Po was, in truth, a -Christian,” Melville says: “the only one, Arfretee excepted, -whom I personally knew to be such, among all the natives of -Polynesia.”</p> - -<p>Arfretee fitted out Melville and the Doctor each with a -new sailor frock and a pair of trousers: and after a bath,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[229]</a></span> -a pleasant dinner, and a nap, they came forth like a couple -of bridegrooms.</p> - -<p>Melville was in Partoowye, as guest of Po-Po, for about -five weeks. At that time it was believed that Queen Pomare—who -was then in poor health and spirits, and living in retirement -in Partoowye—entertained some idea of making a stand -against the French. In this event, she would, of course, be -glad to enlist all the foreigners she could. Melville and the -Long Doctor played with the idea of being used by Pomare as -officers, should she take to warlike measures. But in this -scheme they won little encouragement. For though Pomare -had, previous to her misfortunes, admitted to her levees the -humblest sailor who cared to attend upon Majesty, she was, -in her eclipse, averse to receiving calls.</p> - -<p>Shut off from an immediate prospect of interviewing Pomare, -Melville improved his time by studying the native life, -and by visiting a whaler in the harbour—the <i>Leviathan</i>—taking -the precaution to secure himself a bunk in the forecastle -should he fail of a four-poster at Court. His heart warmed -to the <i>Leviathan</i> after his first visit of inspection on board. -“Like all large, comfortable old whalers, she had a sort of -motherly look:—broad in the beam, flush decks, and four -chubby boats hanging at her breast.” The food, too, was promising. -“My sheath-knife never cut into better sea-beef. The -bread, too, was hard, and dry, and brittle as glass; and there -was plenty of both.” The mate had a likeable voice: “hearing -it was as good as a look at his face.” But Melville still clung -to the hope of winning the ear of Pomare. Although there -was, Melville says, “a good deal of waggish comrades’ nonsense” -about his and Long Ghost’s expectation of court preferment, -“we nevertheless really thought that something to our -advantage might turn up in that quarter.”</p> - -<p>Pomare was then upward of thirty years of age; twice -stormily married; and a good sad Christian again,—after -lapses into excommunication; she eked out her royal exchequer -by going into the laundry business, publicly soliciting, by her -agents, the washing of the linen belonging to the officers of -ships touching in her harbours. Her English sister, Queen<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[230]</a></span> -Victoria, had sent her a very showy but uneasy headdress—a -crown. Having no idea of reserving so pretty a bauble for -coronation days, which came so seldom, her majesty sported it -whenever she appeared in public. To show her familiarity -with European customs, she touched it to all foreigners of -distinction—whaling captains and the like—whom she happened -to meet in her evening walk on the Broom Road.</p> - -<p>Melville discovered among Pomare’s retinue a Marquesan -warrior, Marbonna,—a wild heathen who scorned the vices -and follies of the Christian court of Tahiti and the degeneracy -of the people among whom fortune had thrown him. -Through the instrumentality of Marbonna, who officiated as -nurse of Pomare’s children, Melville and the Doctor at last -found themselves admitted into the palace of Pomare.</p> - -<p>“The whole scene was a strange one,” Melville says; “but -what most excited our surprise was the incongruous assemblage -of the most costly objects from all quarters of the globe. -Superb writing-desks of rosewood, inlaid with silver and -mother-of-pearl; decanters and goblets of cut glass; embossed -volumes of plates; gilded candelabras; sets of globes and -mathematical instruments; laced hats and sumptuous garments -of all sorts were strewn about among greasy calabashes half-filled -with <i>poce</i>, rolls of old tappa and matting, paddles and -fish-spears. A folio volume of Hogarth lay open, with a -cocoanut shell of some musty preparation capsized among -the miscellaneous furniture of the Rake’s apartment.”</p> - -<p>While Melville and the Doctor were amusing themselves in -this museum of curiosities, Pomare entered, unconscious of -the presence of intruders.</p> - -<p>“She wore a loose gown of blue silk, with two rich shawls, -one red, the other yellow, tied about her neck. Her royal -majesty was barefooted. She was about the ordinary size, -rather matronly; her features not very handsome; her mouth -voluptuous; but there was a care-worn expression in her -face, probably attributable to her late misfortunes. From -her appearance, one would judge her about forty; but she is -not so old. As the Queen approached one of the recesses, her -attendants hurried up, escorted her in, and smoothed the mats<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[231]</a></span> -on which she at last reclined. Two girls soon appeared, carrying -their mistress’ repast; and then, surrounded by cut glass -and porcelain, and jars of sweetmeats and confections, Pomare -Vahinee I., the titular Queen of Tahiti, ate fish and <i>poee</i> out -of her native calabashes, disdaining either knife or spoon.”</p> - -<p>The interview between the Queen and her visitors was -brief. Long Ghost strode up bravely to introduce himself. -The natives surrounding the Queen screamed. Pomare looked -up, surprised and offended, and waved the Long Doctor and -Melville out of the house. Though Melville was later to view -a South American King, was to win the smile of Victoria and -meet Lincoln, Pomare was the first and only Polynesian Queen -he ever saw.</p> - -<p>Disappointed at going to court, feeling that they could no -longer trespass on Po-Po’s hospitality, “and then, weary somewhat -of life in Imeeo, like all sailors ashore, I at last pined -for the billows.”</p> - -<p>The Captain of the <i>Leviathan</i>—a native of Martha’s Vineyard—was -unwilling without persuasion to accept Melville, -however. What with Melville’s associations with Long Ghost, -and the British sailor’s frock Arfretee had given him, the Captain -suspected Melville of being from Sydney: a suspicion not -intended as flattery. Unaccompanied by Long Ghost, Melville -finally interviewed the Captain, to find that worthy mellowed -at the close of a spirituous dinner. “After looking me -in the eye for some time, and by so doing, revealing an obvious -unsteadiness in his own visual organs, he begged me to reach -forth my arm. I did so; wondering what on earth that useful -member had to do with the matter in hand. He placed his -fingers on my wrist; and holding them there for a moment, -sprang to his feet; and, with much enthusiasm, pronounced -me a Yankee, every beat of my pulse.” Another bottle was -called, which the captain summarily beheaded with the stroke -of a knife, commanding Melville to drain it to the bottom. -“He then told me that if I would come on board his vessel the -following morning, I would find the ship’s articles on the -cabin transom.... So, hurrah for the coast of Japan! -Thither the ship was bound.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[232]</a></span></p> - -<p>The Long Doctor, on second thought, decided to eschew -the sea for a space. A last afternoon was spent with Po-Po -and his family. “About nightfall, we broke away from the -generous-hearted household and hurried down to the water. -It was a mad, merry night among the sailors. An hour or -two after midnight, everything was noiseless; but when the -first streak of dawn showed itself over the mountains, a sharp -voice hailed the forecastle, and ordered the ship unmoored. -The anchors came up cheerily; the sails were soon set; and -with the early breath of the tropical morning, fresh and fragrant -from the hillsides, we slowly glided down the bay, and -we swept through the opening in the reef.”</p> - -<p>Melville never saw or heard from Long Ghost after their -parting on that morning.</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[233]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XII <br /> - -<span class="smaller">ON BOARD A MAN-OF-WAR</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“Oh, give me the rover’s life—the joy, the thrill, the whirl! Let me -feel thee again, old sea! let me leap into the saddle once more. I am -sick of these terra firma toils and cares; sick of the dust and reek of -towns. Let me hear the clatter of hailstones on icebergs. Let me snuff -thee up, sea-breeze! and whinny in thy spray. Forbid it, sea-gods! intercede -for me with Neptune, O sweet Amphitrite, that no dull clod may -fall on my coffin! Be mine the tomb that swallowed up Pharaoh and all -his hosts; let me lie down with Drake, where he sleeps in the sea.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>White-Jacket</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>In 1898, there appeared the <i>Memories of a Rear-Admiral -Who Has Served for More Than Half a Century in the Navy -of the United States</i>. S. R. Franklin, the author of this volume, -had lived a long and useful life, with no design during -his years of activity, it would seem, of bowing himself out of -the world as a man-of-letters. But in the leisure of elderly -retirement, he was persuaded by his friends to get rid of his -reminiscences once for all by putting them into a book. Rear-Admiral -Franklin took an inventory of his rich life, and accepted -the challenge. Had he not roamed about the globe -since he was sixteen years of age? And he had known a -dozen famous Admirals, three Presidents, three Emperors, two -Popes, five Christian Kings and a properly corresponding number -of Queens, not to mention a whole army of lesser notables.</p> - -<p>In 1842, as midshipman aboard the <i>United States</i> frigate, -Franklin cruised the Pacific. The <i>United States</i> stopped at -Honolulu, touched at the Marquesas. Franklin reports that -the Bay of Nukuheva “makes one of the most beautiful harbours -I have ever seen.” But upon the natives he bestowed -the contempt of a civilised man: “for the Marquesans were -cannibals of the worst kind, and no one who desired to escape -roasting ever ventured away from the coast.” The <i>United -States</i> did not remain long in these waters, “where there was -nothing to do but look at a lot of half-naked savages.” So<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[234]</a></span> -off sailed the frigate to Tahiti, where a queen came aboard. -But Franklin cannot remember whether it was Pomare or -some other queen: “Ladies of that rank were not uncommon -in those days in the South Seas.”</p> - -<p>Franklin had then been cruising among the islands of the -Pacific for some months, and he was “not sorry when the time -came to get under way for the coast.” Men of Franklin’s -type are a credit to civilisation: men proud of their heritage, -but unobtrusive in their pride. Franklin was unmoved by any -sanctimonious hankering to improve the heathen, or by any -romantic anxiety to ease into the mud of barbarism. “Savage -and half-civilised life becomes very irksome,” he says, “when -the novelty is worn off.”</p> - -<p>“At Tahiti,” he goes on to state, “we picked up some seamen -who were on the Consul’s hands. They were entered on -the books of the ship, and became a portion of the crew. One -of the number was Herman Melville, who became famous afterwards -as a writer and an admiralty lawyer. He had gone -to sea for his health, and found himself stranded in the South -Pacific. I do not remember what the trouble was, but he and -his comrades had left the ship of which they were a portion -of the crew. Melville wrote a book, well known in its day, -called <i>White-Jacket</i>, which had more influence in abolishing -corporal punishment in the Navy than anything else. This -book was placed on the desk of every member of Congress, -and was a most eloquent appeal to the humane sentiment of -the country. As an evidence of the good it did, a law was -passed soon after the book appeared abolishing flogging in the -Navy absolutely, without substituting any other mode of punishment -in its stead; and this was exactly in accord with Melville’s -appeal.”</p> - -<p>“I do not think that I remember Melville at all,” Franklin -goes on to say; “occasionally will flash across my memory a -maintop-man flitting across about the starboard gangway with -a white jacket on, but there is not much reality in the picture -which it presents to my mind. In his book he speaks of a -certain seaman, Jack Chase, who was Captain of the maintop, -of whom I have a very distinct recollection. He was about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[235]</a></span> -as fine a specimen of seaman as I have ever seen in all my -cruising. He was not only that, but he was a man of intelligence, -and a born leader. His top-mates adored him, although -he kept them up to the mark, and made every man do -his share of work. Melville has given him considerable space -in his book, and seems to have had intense admiration for -him. He mentions also a number of officers whom it is not -difficult to recognise. The Commanding Officer, who had a -very red face, he called Captain Claret; a small but very energetic -Midshipman, who made himself felt and heard about -the decks, he called Mr. Pert; the Gunner was ‘Old Combustibles.’ -He gives no names, but to any one who served in -the Frigate <i>United States</i> it was easy to recognise the men by -their sobriquets. Melville certainly did a grand work in bringing -his ability as a writer and his experience as a seaman to -bear upon the important matter—I mean corporal punishment—which -had been the subject of so much discussion in and -out of Congress.”</p> - -<p>The essential accuracy of Melville’s account of life on board -the Frigate <i>United States</i> is thus, in the above as in other passages, -vouched for by a Rear-Admiral. Franklin, himself, -however, is not exhaustively familiar with the life and works -of Melville, making him an “admiralty lawyer” who went to -sea for his health. And according to Franklin’s account, Melville -shipped on board the <i>United States</i> from Tahiti. According -to Melville’s own account, he left Eimeo—from the -harbour of Tamai—not on board a man-of-war, but on board -an American whaler bound for the fishing grounds off Japan.</p> - -<p>The itinerary of Melville’s rovings in the Pacific after he -left Tahiti cannot be stated with any detailed precision. In -an Appendix to the American edition of <i>Typee</i>, Melville says: -“During a residence of four months at Honolulu, the author -was in the confidence of an Englishman who was much employed -by his lordship”—Sir George Paulet. In both <i>Typee</i> -and <i>Omoo</i> he speaks of conditions in the Sandwich Islands -with the familiarity of first-hand observation. The Frigate -<i>United States</i> sailed from Hampton Roads early in January, -1842. It doubled the Horn late in February, and joined the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[236]</a></span> -Pacific squadron at Valparaiso. After spending the winter of -1842-3 off Monterey, the <i>United States</i> returned to Callao in -the spring, and sailed for Honolulu, arriving in the early summer -of 1843. According to his own account, Melville left -Tahiti in the autumn of 1842. The <i>United States</i> left Tahiti -in the summer of 1843. Melville speaks of revisiting the Marquesas -and Tahiti after the experiences recorded in <i>Typee</i> and -<i>Omoo</i>. In <i>Typee</i> he says: “Between two and three years after -the adventures recorded in this volume, I chanced, while aboard -a man-of-war, to touch at these islands”—the Marquesas. -Though in this statement Melville is patently careless in his -chronology, there is no reason to doubt his geography. According -to the hypothesis that offers fewest difficulties—and -none of these at all serious—it would appear that Melville left -the Society Islands in the autumn of 1842, on board a whaler -bound for the coast of Japan, to arrive in Honolulu some time -in the early part of 1843, where, according to Arthur Stedman, -he was “employed as a clerk.” In the Introductory Note -to <i>White-Jacket</i> he says: “In the year 1843 I shipped as ‘ordinary -seaman’ on board a United States frigate, then lying in -a harbour of the Pacific Ocean. After remaining in the -frigate for more than a year, I was discharged from the -service upon the vessel’s arrival home.” Melville was discharged -in Boston, in October, 1844. It would appear that -Melville shipped on board the <i>United States</i>, from Honolulu, -in the summer of 1843, touching again at the Marquesas and -at Tahiti, and returning home by way of the Peruvian ports.</p> - -<p>Of Melville’s experiences between the time of his leaving -the Society Islands and that of his homeward cruise as a sailor -in the United States Navy, nothing is known beyond the -meagre details already stated.</p> - -<p>In <i>White-Jacket; or, the World in a Man-of-War</i> (1850) -Melville has left a fuller account, however, of his experiences -on board the <i>United States</i>. The opening of <i>White-Jacket</i> -finds Melville at Callao, on the coast of Peru—the last harbour -he touched in the Pacific. In <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> he had -already recounted his adventures in the South Seas, with all -the crispness and lucidity of fresh discovery. While on board<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[237]</a></span> -the <i>United States</i> he returned to old harbours, and sailed past -familiar islands. But <i>White-Jacket</i> is not a <i>Yarrow Revisited</i>.</p> - -<p>On the showing of <i>White-Jacket</i>, Melville’s life in the navy -was, perhaps, the happiest period in his life. It is true that -in <i>Typee</i> he wrote: “I will frankly confess that after passing -a few weeks in the valley of the Marquesas, I formed a higher -estimate of human nature than I had ever before entertained. -But, alas, since then I have been one of the crew of a man-of-war, -and the pent-up wickedness of five hundred men has -nearly overturned all my previous theories.” And in <i>White-Jacket</i> -he has many a very dark word to say for the navy. -Sailors, as a class, do, of course, entertain liberal notions concerning -the Decalogue; but in this they resemble landsmen, -both Christian and cannibal. And in Melville’s day—as before -and after—from a frigate’s crew might be culled out men -of all callings and vocations, from a backslidden parson to a -broken-down comedian. It is an old saying that “the sea -and the gallows refuse nothing.” But withal, more than one -good man has been hanged. “The Navy,” Melville says, “is -the asylum for the perverse, the home of the unfortunate. -Here the sons of adversity meet the children of calamity, and -here the children of calamity meet the offspring of sin.” According -to this version, a typical man-of-war was a sort of -State Prison afloat. “Wrecked on a desert shore,” Melville -says, “a man-of-war’s crew could quickly found an Alexandria -by themselves, and fill it with all the things which go to make -up a capital.” The <i>United States</i>, surely, lacked in none of the -contradictions that go to make up a metropolis: “though boasting -some fine fellows here and there, yet, on the whole, charged -to the combings of hatchways with the spirit of Belial and -unrighteousness.” Or it was like a Parisian lodging house, -turned upside down: the first floor, or deck, being rented by a -lord; the second by a select club of gentlemen; the third, by -crowds of artisans; and the fourth—on a man-of-war a basement -of indefinite depth, with ugly-looking fellows gazing out -at the windows—by a whole rabble of common people.</p> - -<p>The good or bad temper, the vices and virtues of men-of-war’s -men were in a great degree attributable, Melville states,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[238]</a></span> -to their particular stations and duties aboard ship. Melville -congratulated himself upon enjoying one of the most enviable -posts aboard the frigate. It was Melville’s office to loose the -main-royal when all hands were called to make sail: besides -his special offices in tacking ship, coming to anchor, and -such like, he permanently belonged to the starboard watch, -one of the two primary grand divisions of the ship’s company. -And in this watch he was a main-top-man; that is, he was stationed -in the main-top, with a number of other seamen, always -in readiness to execute any orders pertaining to the main-mast, -from above the main-yard. In Melville’s time, the tops of a -frigate were spacious and cosy. They were railed in behind -so as to form a kind of balcony, that looked airily down upon -the blue, boundless, dimpled, laughing, sunny sea, and upon -the landlopers below on the deck, sneaking about among the -guns. It was a place, too, to test one’s manhood in rough -weather. From twenty to thirty loungers could agreeably recline -there, cushioning themselves on old sails and jackets. In -being a main-top-man, Melville prided himself that he belonged -to a fraternity of the most liberal-hearted, lofty-minded, gay, -elastic, and adventurous men on board ship. “The reason for -their liberal-heartedness was, that they were daily called upon -to expatiate themselves all over the rigging. The reason for -their lofty-mindedness was, that they were high lifted above -the petty tumults, carping cares, and paltrinesses of the decks -below.” And Melville attributed it to his having been a main-top-man, -and that in the loftiest yard of the frigate, the main-royal-yard, -“that I am now enabled to give such a free, broad, -off-hand, bird’s-eye, and more than all, impartial account of -our man-of-war world; withholding nothing; inventing nothing; -nor flattering, nor scandalising any; but meting out to -all—commodore and messenger boy alike—their precise descriptions -and deserts.”</p> - -<p>Melville says that the main-top-men, with amiable vanity, -accounted themselves the best seamen in the ship; brothers -one and all, held together by a strong feeling of <i>esprit de corps</i>. -Their loyalty was especially centred in their captain, Jack -Chase—a prime favourite and an oracle among the men.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[239]</a></span> -Upon Jack Chase’s instigation they all wore their hats at a -peculiar angle; he instructed them in the tie of their neck -handkerchiefs; he protested against their wearing vulgar -<i>dungaree</i> trousers; he gave them lessons in seamanship. And -he solemnly conjured them, with unmitigated detestation, to -eschew the company of any sailor suspected of having served -in a whaler. On board the <i>United States</i>, Melville wisely held -his peace “concerning stove boats on the coast of Japan.”</p> - -<p>Melville’s admiration for Jack Chase was perhaps the happiest -wholehearted surrender he ever gave to any human being. -Jack Chase was “a Briton and a true-blue; tall and well-knit, -with a clear open eye, a fine broad brow, and an abounding -nut-brown beard. No man ever had a better heart or a bolder. -He was loved by the seamen and admired by the officers; and -even when the captain spoke to him, it was with a slight air -of respect. No man told such stories, sang such songs, or -with greater alacrity sprang to his duty. The main-top, over -which he presided, was a sort of oracle of Delphi; to which -many pilgrims ascended, to have their perplexities or difficulties -settled.” Jack was a gentleman. His manners were free and -easy, but never boisterous; “he had a polite, courteous way of -saluting you, if it were only to borrow a knife. He had read -all the verses of Byron, all the romances of Scott; he talked of -Macbeth and Ulysses; but above all things was he an ardent -admirer of Camoen’s <i>Lusiad</i>, part of which he could recite in -the original.” He spoke a variety of tongues, and was master -of an incredible richness of Byronic adventure. “There was -such an abounding air of good sense and good feeling about -the man that he who could not love him, would thereby pronounce -himself a knave. I thanked my sweet stars that kind -fortune had placed me near him, though under him, in the -frigate; and from the outset, Jack and I were fast friends. -Wherever you may be now rolling over the blue billows, dear -Jack, take my best love along with you,” Melville wrote; “and -God bless you, wherever you go.” And this sentiment Melville -cherished throughout his life. Almost the last thing -Melville ever wrote was the dedication of his last novel, <i>Billy -Budd</i>—existing only in manuscript, and completed three<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[240]</a></span> -months before his death to “Jack Chase, Englishman, wherever -that great heart may now be, Here on earth or harboured -in Paradise, Captain in the war-ship in the year 1843, In the -U. S. Frigate <i>United States</i>.”</p> - -<p>In <i>White-Jacket</i>, Melville glows with the same superlative -admiration for Jack Chase that Ouida, or the Duchess, exhibit -in portraying their most irresistible cavaliers; an enthusiasm -similar to that of Nietzsche’s for his Übermensch. So contagious -is Melville’s love for his ship-mate that strange infections -seem to have been caught therefrom. Though it is certainly -not true that “all the world loves a lover,” Melville’s -affection for Jack Chase won him at least one rather startling -proof that Shakespeare’s dictum is not absolutely false. -The proof came in the following form:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><span class="dateline">“No 2, Guthuee Port, Arbrooth 13 May 1857</span></p> - -<p>“<i>Herman Melville Esquire</i></p> - -<p>“Author of the white Jacket Mardi and others, Honour’d -Sir Let it not displease you to be addressed by a stranger -to your person not so to your merits, I have read the white -jacket with much pleasure and delight ‘I found it rich in wisdom -and brilliant with beauty, ships and the sea and those -who plow it with their belongings on shore—those subjects -are idintified with Herman Melvil’s name for he has most -unquestioneably made them his own,, No writer not even -Marryat himself has observed them more closely or pictured -them more impressively, a delightful book it is. I long exceedingly -to read Mardi, but how or where to obtain it is the -task? I have just now received an invitation to cross the -Atlantic from a Mr and Mrs Weed Malta between Bolston -springs and saratoga Countie, ,, as also from Mr Alexer Muler -my own Cousin, Rose bank Louistown</p> - -<p>“I have for this many a day been wishing to see you ‘to -hear you speak to breath the same air in which you dwell’ -Are you the picture of him you so powerfully represent as the -Master piece of all Gods works Jack Chase?—</p> - -<p>“write me dear sir and say where Omidi ’sto be gote, I do -much admire the American Authors Washington Irver Mrs<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[241]</a></span> -Stowe Allan Edgar Po the Late James Abbott and last though -not least your good self—Did you ever read the history of -Jeffery Rudel he was a young Noble man of Provence and -reconed one of the handsomest and polite persons of his age. -he lived in the time of Richard the first sir named cour de Lion -who invited Jeffery to his court and it was there he first heard -of the beauty wit, learning and virtue of the Countess of -Tripoly by which he became so enamoured that he resolved -upon seeing her purchased a vesel and in opesition to the King -and the luxury of a Court set sail for Tripoly the obgect of his -affections realised his most sanguine expectations.</p> - -<p>“were you to cross the atlantic you should receive a cordeial -reception from Mr George Gordon my-beloved & only brother -& I’d bid you welcome to old s’’t Thomas a Becket famed for -kindness to strangers.—</p> - -<p>“permite me Dear Sir to subskribe myself your friend although -unseen and at a Distance</p> - -<p><span class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Eliza Gordon</span></span></p> - -<div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Heaven first sent letters,</div> - <div class="verse">For some wretches aid,</div> - <div class="verse">Some banished Lover</div> - <div class="verse">Or some Captive maid</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">“<span class="smcap">Pope</span>.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Besides the “Master piece of all Gods works Jack Chase” -and his comrades of the main-top, Melville was fortunate in -finding a few other ship-mates to admire. There was Lemsford, -“a gentlemanly young member of the after-guard,” a -poet, to whose effusions Melville was happy to listen. “At the -most unseasonable hours you would behold him, seated apart, -in some corner among the guns—a shot-box before him, pen -in hand, and eyes ‘in a fine frenzy rolling.’ Some deemed him -a conjurer; others a lunatic. The knowing ones said that he -must be a crazy Methodist.” Another of Melville’s friends -was Nord. Before Melville knew him, he “saw in his eye that -the man had been a reader of good books; I would have staked -my life on it, that he had seized the right meaning of Montaigne.” -With Nord, Melville “scoured all the prairies of -reading; dived into the bosoms of authors, and tore out their<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[242]</a></span> -hearts.” Melville’s friend Williams “was a thorough-going -Yankee from Maine, who had been both a pedlar and a pedagogue -in his day. He was honest, acute, witty, full of mirth -and good humour—a laughing philosopher.” Beyond these, -Melville was chary of his friendship, despite the personal intimacies -imposed by the crowded conditions on shipboard. For -living on board a man-of-war is like living in a market, where -you dress on the doorsteps and sleep in the cellar.</p> - -<p>Yet even on board the <i>United States</i> Melville did find it -possible to get some solitude. “I am of a meditative humour,” -he says, “and at sea used often to mount aloft at night, and, -seating myself on one of the upper yards, tuck my jacket about -me and give loose to reflection. In some ships in which I -have done this, the sailors used to fancy that I must be studying -astronomy—which, indeed, to some extent, was the case. -For to study the stars upon the wide, boundless ocean, is divine -as it was to the Chaldean Magi, who observed their revolutions -from the plain.”</p> - -<p>Melville was not only fortunate in his friends on the top, -and above, but also in the mess to which he belonged: “a glorious -set of fellows—Mess No. 1!—numbering, among the rest, -my noble Captain Jack Chase. Out of a pardonable self-conceit -they called themselves the <i>Forty-two-pounder Club</i>; -meaning that they were, one and all, fellows of large intellectual -and corporeal calibre.”</p> - -<p>In <i>White-Jacket</i>, Melville’s purpose was to present the variegated -life aboard a man-of-war; to give a vivid sense of the -complexity of the typical daily existence aboard a floating -armed city inhabited by five hundred male human beings. And -no one else has ever done this so successfully as has Melville. -“I let nothing slip, however small,” he says; “and feel myself -actuated by the same motive which has prompted many worthy -old chroniclers to set down the merest trifles concerning things -that are destined to pass entirely from the earth, and which, if -not preserved in the nick of time, must infallibly perish from -the memories of man. Who knows that this humble narrative -may not hereafter prove the history of an obsolete barbarism?” -For <i>White-Jacket</i> is, certainly, written with no intent to glorify<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[243]</a></span> -war. It is a book that a militaristic country would do well -to suppress. “Courage,” Melville teaches therein, “is the most -common and vulgar of the virtues.” Of a celebrated and -dauntless fighter he says: “a hero in this world;—but what -would they have called him in the next?” “As the whole matter -of war is a thing that smites common sense and Christianity -in the face,” he contends, “so everything connected with -it is utterly foolish, unchristian, barbarous, brutal, and savouring -of the Feejee Islands, cannibalism, saltpetre, and the -devil.”</p> - -<p>But Melville’s anti-militaristic convictions in no sense perverted -his astonishingly vital presentation of life on board -the <i>United States</i>. Though in contemplation he despised war, -and was open-eyed to the abuses and iniquity on all sides of -him on board the frigate; in actual fact he seems to have been -unusually happy as a sailor in the navy, among his comrades -of the top. The predominant mood of the book is the rollicking -good-humour of high animal spirits.</p> - -<p>There were black moments in his pleasant routine, however: -the terrible nipping cold, and blasting gales, and hurricanes of -sleet and hail in which he furled the main-sail in rounding Cape -Horn; the flogging he witnessed; his watches at the cot of his -mess-mate Shenley in the subterranean sick-bay, and Shenley’s -death and burial at sea; the barbarous amputation he -witnessed, and the death of the sick man at the hands of the -ship’s surgeon—a scene that Flaubert might well have been -proud to have written. And there were ugly experiences during -the cruise that were among the most lurid in his life.</p> - -<p>Throughout the cruise, it seems, for upward of a year he -had been an efficient sailor, alert in duties, circumspect in his -pleasures, liked and respected by his comrades. The ship -homeward bound, and he within a few weeks of being a freeman, -he heard the boatswain’s mate bawling his name at all -the hatchways and along the furtherest recesses of the ship: -the Captain wanted him at the mast. Melville’s heart jumped -to his throat at the summons, as he hurriedly asked Fluke, the -boatswain’s mate at the fore-hatchway, what was wanted -of him.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[244]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Captain wants you at the mast,” Fluke replied. “Going -to flog ye, I guess.”</p> - -<p>“For what?”</p> - -<p>“My eyes! you’ve been chalking your face, hain’t ye?”</p> - -<p>Swallowing down his heart, he saw, as he passed through -the gangway to the dread tribunal of the frigate, the quartermaster -rigging the gratings; the boatswain with his green bag -of scourges; the master-at-arms ready to help off some one’s -shirt. On the charge of a Lieutenant, Melville was accused by -the Captain of failure in his duty at his station in the starboard -main-lift: a post to which Melville had never known -he was assigned. His solemn disclaimer was thrown in his -teeth, and for a thing utterly unforeseen, and for a crime of -which he was utterly innocent, he was about to be flogged.</p> - -<p>“There are times when wild thoughts enter a man’s breast, -when he seems almost irresponsible for his act and his deed,” -writes the grandson of General Peter Gansevoort. “The Captain -stood on the weather-side of the deck. Sideways, on an -unobstructed line with him, was the opening of the lee-gangway, -where the side-ladders are suspended in port. Nothing -but a slight bit of sinnate-stuff served to rail in this -opening, which was cut right to the level of the Captain’s feet, -showing the far sea beyond. I stood a little to windward of -him, and, though he was a large, powerful man, it was certain -that a sudden rush against him, along the slanting deck, would -infallibly pitch him headforemost into the ocean, though he -who so rushed must needs go over with him. My blood -seemed clotting in my veins; I felt icy cold at the tips of my -fingers, and a dimness was before my eyes. But through that -dimness the boatswain’s mate, scourge in hand, loomed like a -giant, and Captain Claret, and the blue sea seen through the -opening at the gangway, showed with an awful vividness. I -cannot analyse my heart, though it then stood still within me. -But the thing that swayed me to my purpose was not altogether -the thought that Captain Claret was about to degrade -me, and that I had taken an oath with my soul that he should -not. No, I felt my man’s manhood so bottomless within me, -that no word, no blow, no scourge of Captain Claret could<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[245]</a></span> -cut me deep enough for that. I but swung to an instinct -within me—the instinct diffused through all animated nature, -the same that prompts even a worm to turn under the heel. -The privilege, inborn and inalienable, that every man has of -dying himself, and inflicting death upon another, was not -given to us without a purpose.”</p> - -<p>Captain Claret ordered Melville to the grating. The ghost -of Peter Gansevoort, awakening in Melville, measured the distance -between Captain Claret and the sea.</p> - -<p>“Captain Claret,” said a voice advancing from the crowd. -Melville turned to see who this might be that audaciously -interrupted at a juncture like this. It was a corporal of -marines, who speaking in a mild, firm, but extremely deferential -manner, said: “I know that man, and I know that he would -not be found absent from his station if he knew where it was.” -This almost unprecedented speech inspired Jack Chase also -to intercede in Melville’s behalf. But for these timely intercessions, -it is very likely that Melville would have ended that -day as a suicide and a murderer. There is no lack of evidence, -both in his writings and in the personal recollections of him -that survive, that the headlong violence of his passion, when -deeply stirred, balked at no extremity. And that day as the -scourge hung over him for an offence he had not committed, -he seems to have been as murderously roused as at any other -known moment in his life. Though hating war, he boasted -“the inalienable right to kill”: and the ghost of Mow-Mow, -at the day of final reckoning, can attest that this boast was not -lightly given. Like the whaling Quakers that he so much -admired, he was “a pacifist with a vengeance.”</p> - -<p>This scene happened during the run of the <i>United States</i> -from Rio to the Line. At Rio, Melville had gone ashore with -Jack Chase and a few other discreet and gentlemanly top-men. -But of the dashing adventures—if any—that they had on land, -Melville is silent: “my man-of-war alone must supply me with -the staple of my matter,” he says; “I have taken an oath to -keep afloat to the last letter of my narrative.”</p> - -<p>In so far as fine weather and the ship’s sailing were concerned, -the whole run from Rio to the Line was one delightful<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[246]</a></span> -yachting. Especially pleasant to Melville during this run were -his quarter watches in the main-top. Removed from the immediate -presence of the officers, he and his companions could -there enjoy themselves more than in any other part of the -ship. By day, many of them were industrious making hats -or mending clothes. But by night they became more romantically -inclined. Seen from this lofty perch, of moonlight -nights, the frigate must have been a glorious sight. “She was -going large before the wind, her stun’-sails set on both sides, -so that the canvases on the main-mast and fore-mast presented -the appearance of two majestic, tapering pyramids, more than -a hundred feet broad at the base, and terminating in the clouds -with the light cope-stone of the royals. That immense area -of snow-white canvas sliding along the sea was indeed a magnificent -spectacle. The three shrouded masts looked like the -apparition of three gigantic Turkish Emirs striding over the -ocean.” From there, too, the band, playing on the poop, would -tempt them to dance; Jack Chase would well up into song during -silent intervals: songs varied by sundry yarns and twisters -of the top-men.</p> - -<p>One pleasant midnight, after the <i>United States</i> had crossed -the Line and was running on bravely somewhere off the coast -of Virginia, the breeze gradually died, and an order was given -to set the main-top-gallant-stun’-sail. The halyards not being -rove, Jack Chase assigned to Melville that eminently difficult -task. That this was a business demanding unusual sharp-sightedness, -skill, and celerity is evident when it is remembered -that the end of a line, some two hundred feet long, was to be -carried aloft in one’s teeth and dragged far out on the giddiest -of yards, and after being wormed and twisted about through -all sorts of intricacies, was to be dropped, clear of all obstructions, -in a straight plumb-line right down to the deck.</p> - -<p>“Having reeved the line through all the inferior blocks,” -Melville says, “I went out to the end of the weather-top-gallant-yard-arm, -and was in the act of leaning over and passing it -through the suspended jewel-block there, when the ship gave a -plunge in the sudden swells of the calm sea, and pitching me -still further over the yard, threw the heavy skirts of my jacket<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[247]</a></span> -right over my head, completely muffling me. Somehow I -thought it was the sail that had flapped, and under that impulse -threw up my hands to drag it from my head, relying upon the -sail itself to support me meanwhile. Just then the ship gave -another jerk, and head foremost I pitched over the yard. I -knew where I was, from the rush of air by my ears, but all -else was a nightmare. A bloody film was before my eyes, -through which, ghost-like, passed and repassed my father, -mother, and sisters. An unutterable nausea oppressed me; I -was conscious of groping; there seemed no breath in my body. -It was over one hundred feet that I fell—down, down, with -lungs collapsed as in death. Ten thousand pounds of shot -seemed tied to my head, as the irresistible law of gravitation -dragged me, head foremost and straight as a die, towards the -infallible centre of the terrequeous globe. All I had seen, and -read, and heard, and all that I had thought and felt in my -life—seemed intensified in one fixed idea in my soul. But -dense as this idea was, it was made up of atoms. Having -fallen from the projecting yard-arm end, I was conscious of a -collected satisfaction in feeling, that I should not be dashed on -the deck, but would sink into the speechless profound of the -sea.</p> - -<p>“With the bloody, blind film before my eyes, there was a -still stranger hum in my head, as if a hornet were there; and -I thought to myself, Great God! this is Death! Yet these -thoughts were unmixed with alarm. Like frost-work that -flashes and shifts its scared hues in the sun, all my braided, -blended emotions were in themselves icy cold and calm.</p> - -<p>“So protracted did my fall seem, that I can even now recall -the feeling of wondering how much longer it would be, ere -all was over and I struck. Time seemed to stand still, and all -the worlds seemed poised on their poles, as I fell, soul-becalmed, -through the eddying whirl and swirl of the Maelstrom -air.</p> - -<p>“At first, as I have said, I must have been precipitated head -foremost; but I was conscious, at length, of a swift, flinging -motion of my limbs, which involuntarily threw themselves out, -so that at last I must have fallen in a heap. This is more<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[248]</a></span> -likely, from the circumstance that when I struck the sea, I -felt as if some one had smote me slantingly across the shoulder -and along part of my right side.</p> - -<p>“As I gushed into the sea, a thunder-boom sounded in my -ear; my soul seemed flying from my mouth. The feeling of -death flooded over me with the billows. The blow from the -sea must have turned me, so that I sank almost feet foremost -through a soft, seething, foamy lull. Some current seemed -hurrying me away; in a trance I yielded, and sank deeper -and deeper into the glide. Purple and pathless was the deep -calm now around me, flecked by summer lightnings in an azure -afar. The horrible nausea was gone; the bloody, blind film -turned a pale green; I wondered whether I was yet dead, or -still dying. But of a sudden some fashionless form brushed -my side—some inert, coiled fish of the sea; the thrill of being -alive again tingled in my nerves, and the strong shunning of -death shocked me through.</p> - -<p>“For one instant an agonising revulsion came over me as -I found myself utterly sinking. Next moment the force of my -fall was expended; and there I hung, vibrating in the mid-deep. -What wild sounds then rang in my ear! One was a -soft moaning, as of low waves on the beach; the other wild -and heartlessly jubilant, as of the sea in the height of a -tempest. Oh soul! thou then heardest life and death: as he -who stands upon the Corinthian shore hears both the Ionian -and the Ægean waves. The life-and-death poise soon passed; -and then I found myself slowly ascending, and caught a dim -glimmering of light. Quicker and quicker I mounted; till at -last I bounded up like a buoy, and my whole head was bathed -in the blessed air.”</p> - -<p>With his knife, Melville ripped off his jacket, struck out -boldly towards the elevated pole of one of the life-buoys -which had been cut away, and was soon after picked up by -one of the cutters from the frigate.</p> - -<p>“Ten minutes after, I was safe on board, and, springing -aloft, was ordered to reeve anew the stun’-sail-halyards, which, -slipping through the blocks when I had let go the end, had -unrove and fallen to the deck.” Amphitrite had, indeed, in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[249]</a></span>terceded -with Neptune, and the sea-gods strove to answer -Melville’s prayer. But Melville always, even in the lowest -abyss of despair, clung passionately to life. And the night -he was hurled from the mast he was hurled from among -friends, and into waters that washed the neighbouring shores -of his birth.</p> - -<p>Melville’s long wanderings were nearly at an end. With -the home port believed to be broad on their bow, under the -stars and a meagre moon in her last quarter, the main-top-men -gathered aloft in the top, and round the mast they circled, -“hand in hand, all spliced together. We had reefed the last -top-sail; trained the last gun; blown the last match; bowed -to the last blast; been tranced in the last calm. We had mustered -our last round the capstan; been rolled to grog the last -time; for the last time swung in our hammocks; for the last -time turned out at the sea-gull call of the watch. We had seen -our last man scourged at the gangway; our last man gasp out -the ghost in the stifling sick-bay; our last man tossed to the -sharks.”</p> - -<p>And there Melville has left this brother band—with the -anchor still hanging from the bow—with the land still out -of sight. “I love an indefinite infinite background,” he says,—“a -vast, heaving, rolling, mysterious rear!”</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[250]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIII <br /> - -<span class="smaller">INTO THE RACING TIDE</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“As the vine flourishes, and the grape empurples close up to the very -walls and muzzles of cannoned Ehrenbreitstein; so do the sweetest joys -of life grow in the very jaws of its peril.”—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Pierre</i>.</p></div> - - -<p>“Until I was twenty-five,” Melville once wrote to Hawthorne, -“I had no development at all.” When the cable and -anchor of the <i>United States</i> were all clear, and when he -bounded ashore on his native soil, Melville was in his twenty-fifth -year. “From my twenty-fifth year,” he wrote Hawthorne, -“I date my life.”</p> - -<p>His three years of wandering, crowded as they were with -alienating experiences, had, of course, worked deep changes in -him: changes more radical than in the dizzy whirl of strangely -peopled adventures it was possible for him to gauge. In memory, -the fitful fever of the past, deceitfully seems to strive not. -But we delude ourselves when we fancy that it sleeps well. -During his far driftings, Melville had clung reverently to -thoughts of home, his imagination treacherously caressing -those very scenes whose intimate contact had filled him with -revulsion. “Do men ever hate the thing they love?” he asks -in <i>White-Jacket</i>, perplexed at the paradox of this perpetual -recoil. He was eternally looking both before and after, but -never with the smug and genial after-dinner optimism of Rabbi -Ben Ezra. The insufficient present was always poisoned, to -him, by bitter margins of pining and regret. In headlong -escape from his household gods he had been landed among -South Sea islands that in retrospect he viewed as “authentic -Edens.” Yet even in Paradise did he feel himself an exile, -teaching old Marheyo to say “Home” and “Mother,” converting -into sacred words the countersigns of a former Hell. -He tells in <i>White-Jacket</i>, how, with the smell of tar in his -nostrils, out of sight of land, with a stout ship under his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[251]</a></span> -feet, and snuffing the ocean air, in the silence and solitude of -the deep, during the long night watches used to come thronging -about his heart “holy home associations.” And he closes -<i>White-Jacket</i> with the reflection that “Life’s a voyage that’s -homeward-bound!” But he sailed with sealed orders.</p> - -<p>Of Melville’s impressions upon his return he has left no -record. During his three years of whaling and captivity -among cannibals, and mutiny, and South Sea driftings, and -adventures in the Navy, life at home had gone along in its -regular necessary way; and the scenes of his youth, despite -their transformation in his memory, lived on in solid fact unchanged. -The identical trees in the Boston Common blotted -out the same patterns against the New England stars; none -of the streets had swerved from off their prim and angular -respectability. His mother he found living in Lansingburg, -just out from Albany, N. Y. There was the same starched -calico smell to his sister’s dresses, the same clang-tint to his -mother’s voice. Such was the calibre of his imagination, that -he must have found life at Lansingburg unbelievably like he -knew it must be, yet very different from what he was prepared -to find.</p> - -<p>His brothers must have first appeared intimate strangers -to him. His elder brother, Gansevoort, had given up his hat -and fur shop, was well established in law and had won a -creditable name for himself in politics. His younger brother, -Allan, was beginning a successful legal career, with his name -emblazoned on a door at 10 Wall Street. Maria was, after -all, a Gansevoort; she was not too proud to keep her brothers -reminded that she had borne sons. Melville’s youngest -brother, Tom, had sprung from boyhood into the self-conscious -maturity of youth.</p> - -<p>From vagabondage in Polynesia to the stern yoke of self-supporting -citizenship was a dizzy transition. But Melville -did not clear it at a bound. The very violence of the impact -between the two antipodal types of experience for a time must -have stunned Melville to their incompatibility. Tanned with -sea-faring, exuberant in health, rosy with the after-glow of -his proud companionship with Jack Chase, and the respect<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[252]</a></span> -and affection he had won from his associates on board the -<i>United States</i>, he was effulgent with amazing tales—the enviable -hero of endless incredible adventures. His home-coming -may well have been not only a staggering, but a joyous adventure. -For he entered Lansingburg trailing clouds of glory. -He was panoplied in romance; and though bodily he was in -a suburb of Albany, his companion image was the distant adventurer -he saw mirrored in the admiring and jealous imagination -of his friends. With what melancholy—if any—he -viewed this reflected image, and to what degree he was, -Narcissus-wise, conscious of its irony, we do not know. But -if <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> be any index of his mood, he returned -home happier and wholesomer than at any other period of his -life. Before many years, unsolved problems of his youth -were to reassert themselves, heightened in difficulty and in -pertinacity. Yet for a time, at least, so it would appear, he -reaped very substantial benefits from his escape beyond civilisation.</p> - -<p>According to J. E. A. Smith, Melville was soon beset by his -enthralled and wide-eyed friends to put his experiences into -a book. Even if such a challenge had never been made, it is -difficult to see how Melville could have escaped plunging into -literature. For the hankering for letters had earlier stirred -in Melville’s blood,—a hankering that he had before succumbed -to, swathing a vacuity of experience in the grave-wrappings -of rhetoric and prolixity. Now he was rich in matter; because -of the very straitened circumstances of his family, he -was faced again by the necessity of earning some money if he -stayed at home; and in so far as we know, he was untempted -to venture forth either as vagabond or efficiency expert.</p> - -<p>Soon after his arrival home he must have settled down to -composition. For the manuscript of <i>Typee</i> was bought in -London by John Murray, by an agreement dated December, -1845.</p> - -<p>At the time of the completion of <i>Typee</i>, Melville’s brother, -Gansevoort, was starting for London as Secretary to the -American Legation under Minister McLane. Gansevoort -threw <i>Typee</i> in among his luggage, to try its luck among Brit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[253]</a></span>ish -publishers. Whether <i>Typee</i> had previously been refused -in the United States has not yet transpired. In any event, -John Murray bought the English rights to print a thousand -copies of <i>Typee</i>—a purchase that cost him £100. Murray did -not close the sale, however, until he was assured that <i>Typee</i> -was a sober account of actual experiences. <i>Typee</i> appeared -in two parts in Murray’s “Colonial and Home Library.” Part -I appeared on February 26, 1846; Part II on April 1 of the -same year.</p> - -<p>Encouraged by the temerity of John Murray, Wiley and -Putnam of New York bought the American rights for <i>Typee</i>. -And by an agreement made in England, <i>Typee</i> appeared simultaneously -in New York and London: in America under the -title, <i>Typee, a Peep at Polynesian Life During Four Months’ -Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas</i>. In 1849, Harper -Brothers took over <i>Typee</i>, and issued it shorn of some of the -passages the Missionaries had found most objectionable. Up -to January 1, 1849, Wiley and Putnam had sold 6,392 copies of -<i>Typee</i>: a sale upon which Melville gained $655.91. Up to -April 29, 1851, 7,437 copies of <i>Typee</i> had been sold in England, -netting Melville, if accounts surviving in Allan’s hand -be correct, $708.40.</p> - -<p>Under the date of April 3, 1846—two days after the appearance -in England of Part II of <i>Typee</i>, Gansevoort wrote Melville -the following letter—the last letter, it appears, he ever -wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Herman</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Herewith you have copy of the arrangement with Wiley & -Putnam for the publication in the U. S. of your work on the -Marquesas. The letter of W. & P. under date of Jan. 13th is -the result of a previous understanding between Mr. Putnam -and myself. As the correspondence speaks for itself, it is -quite unnecessary to add any comment. By the steamer of -to-morrow I send to your address several newspaper comments -and critiques of your book. The one in the <i>Sun</i> was written -by a gentleman who is very friendly to myself, and who may -possibly for that reason have made it unusually eulogistic.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[254]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Yours of Feb. 28 was rec’d a few days ago by the daily -packet from Joshua Bates. I am happy to learn by it that -the previous intelligence transmitted by me was ‘gratifying -enough.’ I am glad that you continue busy, and on my next or -the after that will venture to make some suggestions about -your next book. In a former letter you informed me that -Allan had sent you $100 home, the fruit of my collection. (I -refer to the money sent at your request). It appears that this -was not so, for Allan informs me that the $100 was part of the -£90 s 10—making £100 which I sent out by the Jan. 2 -Steamer. Allan seems to find it entirely too much trouble to -send me the monthly accounts of receipts and disbursements. -I have received no accounts from him later than up to Nov. -30th and consequently am in a state of almost entire ignorance -as to what is transpiring at No. 10, Wall Street. This is very -unthinking in him, for my thoughts are so much at home that -much of my time is spent in disquieting apprehensions as to -matters & things there. I continue to live within my income, -but to do so am forced to live a life of daily self-denial. I do -not find my health improved by the sedentary life I have to -lead here. The climate is too damp & moist for me. I sometimes -fear I am gradually breaking up. If it be so—let it be—God’s -will be done. I have already seen about as much of -London society as I care to see. It is becoming a toil to me -to make the exertion necessary to dress to go out, and I am -now leading a life really as quiet as your own in Lansingburg.—I -think I am growing phlegmatic and cold. Man stirs me -not, nor women either. My circulation is languid. My brain -is dull. I neither seek to win pleasure or avoid pain. A degree -of insensibility has been long stealing over me, & now -seems completely established, which, to my understanding, is -more akin to death than life. Selfishly speaking, I never valued -life very much—it were impossible to value it less than I -do now. The only personal desire I now have is to be out of -debt. That desire waxes stronger within me as others fade. -In consideration of the little egotism which my previous letters -to you have contained, I hope that mother, brothers & sister -will pardon this babbling about myself.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[255]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Tom’s matter has not been forgotten. You say there is -a subject, etc., etc., ‘on which I intended to write but will -defer it.’ What do you allude to? I am careful to procure -all the critical notices of <i>Typee</i> which appear & transmit them -to you. The steamer which left Boston on the 1st inst. will -bring me tidings from the U. S. as to the success of <i>Typee</i> -there. I am, with love and kisses to all,</p> - -<p class="sig">“Affectionately, Your brother,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Gansevoort Melville</span>.”</p></div> - -<p>With this letter, Gansevoort enclosed fourteen lines from -Act III, Scene I of <i>Measure for Measure</i>, beginning “Ah, but -to die.” On May 12, he was dead. His countrymen celebrated -his decease. <i>The Wisconsin,</i> a newspaper published in Milwaukee, -for example, published, on July 1, a florid tribute to -his memory, declaring him “dear to the people of the West.” -“And though he died young in years,” the <i>Wisconsin</i> goes on -to say, “for genius, thrilling eloquence and enlarged patriotism, -he was known to the people from Maine to Louisiana.”</p> - -<p>But already had Melville achieved a wider, if less beatified, -reputation. The notice that <i>Typee</i> attracted extended considerably -beyond either Maine or Louisiana. And its success -was none the less brilliant because it was in part a <i>succes de -scandal</i>. Christendom has progressed since 1846, and <i>Typee</i> -has, for present-day readers, lost its charm of indelicacy. Yet, -despite the violation of the proprieties of which Melville was -accused, Longfellow records in his journal for July 29, 1846: -“In the evening we finished the first volume of <i>Typee</i>, a curious -and interesting book with glowing descriptions of life in -the Marquesas.” There is no indication that even Longfellow -found it discreet to omit any passages as he read <i>Typee</i> to his -family before the fire. It is to be remembered, however, that -in 1851 the <i>Scarlet Letter</i> was attacked as being nothing but -a deliberate attempt to attract readers by pandering to the -basest taste: “Is the French era actually begun in our literature?” -a shocked reviewer asked.</p> - -<p>The appearance of <i>Omoo</i> on January 30, 1847, augmented -Melville’s notoriety, and contributed to his fame. Both <i>Typee</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[256]</a></span> -and <i>Omoo</i> stirred up a whole regiment of critics, at home, in -England and in France. France was patronising, of course, -after the manner of the period; but France flattered Melville -by the prolixity of her patronage. The interest of France in -Melville was not a merely literary absorption, however. Melville -had arrived at the Marquesas in the wake of Admiral -Du Petit-Thouars; and at Tahiti Melville had been a prisoner -on board the <i>Reine Blanche</i>. In England, Melville was flattered -not only by vitriolic evangelistical damnation, and the -uncritical flatter of Gansevoort’s friends, but even <i>Blackwood’s</i>, -the most anti-American of British journals, said of -<i>Omoo</i>: “Musing the other day over our matutinal hyson, the -volume itself was laid before us, and we found ourselves in -the society of Marquesan Melville, the Phœnix of modern voyages—springing, -it would seem, from the mingled ashes of -Captain Cook and Robinson Crusoe.” Writing of <i>Typee</i>, the -insular <i>John Bull</i> said: “Since the joyous moment when we -first read <i>Robinson Crusoe</i> and believed it, we have not met so -bewitching a book as this narrative of Herman Melville’s.” -The <i>London Times</i> descended to amiability and said: “That -Mr. Melville will favour us with his further adventures in the -South Seas, we have no doubt whatever. We shall expect -them with impatience, and receive them with pleasure. He is -a companion after our own hearts. His voice is pleasant, and -we are sure that if we could see his face it would be a pleasant -one.” While such pronouncements were no earnest of -fame, they may have contributed somewhat to augment Melville’s -royalties. And in <i>Mardi</i>—written before Melville’s -secular critics began to assail him—Melville took a violent -fling at his reviewers. “True critics,” he said, “are more rare -than true poets. A great critic is a sultan among satraps; -but pretenders are thick as ants striving to scale a palm after -its aerial sweetness. Oh! that an eagle should be stabbed by -a goose-quill!” Withal, when Melville wrote <i>Mardi</i> he had -spent some reflection on the nature of Fame, and mocked at -those who console themselves for the neglect of their contemporaries -by bethinking themselves of the glorious harvest of -bravos their ghosts will reap. And time, he saw, was an un<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[257]</a></span>dertaker, -not a resurrectionist: “He who on all hands passes -for a cipher to-day, if at all remembered, will be sure to pass -to-morrow for the same. For there is more likelihood of being -overrated while living than of being underrated when dead.”</p> - -<p>Noticed by reviewers, and encouraged by payments from -his publishers, Melville began to look more hopefully at the -world. In <i>Clarel</i> he later wrote: “The dagger-icicle draws -blood; but give it sun.” He seemed at last to have stepped -decoratively and profitably into his assigned niche in the cosmic -order. It was delightful to rehearse outlived pleasures and -hardships; and it was a lucrative delight: by writing, too, some -men had achieved fame. And so, undeterred by the wail of -the Preacher of Jerusalem, Melville settled to the multiplication -of books. He would perpetuate his reveries—and he -doubted not that sparkling wines would crown his cup. Then -it was that the beckoning image of an ultimate earthly felicity -swam over the beaded brim.</p> - -<p>Melville had dedicated <i>Typee</i> to Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw -of Massachusetts. The Shaws and the Melvilles were friends -of years’ standing. When a student at Amherst, Lemuel Shaw -had been engaged to Melville’s aunt, Nancy. “To his death,” -says Frederic Hathway Chase in his <i>Lemuel Shaw</i>, “Shaw -carefully preserved two tender notes written in the delicate -hand of his first betrothed, timidly referring to their immature -plans for the future and her admiration and love for him. -The untimely death of the young lady, unhappily cut short -their youthful dreams, and not until he was thirty-seven years -of age were Shaw’s affections again engaged. The intimacy -between Shaw and the Melville family, however, continued -after the young lady’s death.” Yet were the demands of -Shaw’s affections not satisfied by his intimacy with the Melvilles -or by the two love-letters among his precious belongings. -He married twice; the first time in 1818 to Elizabeth Knapp; -the second time in 1827 to Hope Savage. By each wife he -had two children. By Elizabeth, John Oakes, who died in -1902; and Elizabeth, who married Melville. By Hope, was -born to him Lemuel, who lived till 1884, and Samuel Savage, -born in 1833 in the Shaw home at 49 Mount Vernon Street,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[258]</a></span> -Boston, where he lived till his death in 1915. Melville heartily -detested his brothers-in-law.</p> - -<p>On March 19, 1846, Melville wrote from Lansingburg to -Chief Justice Shaw:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Herewith you have one of the first bound copies of <i>Typee</i> -I have been able to procure—the dedication is very simple, for -the world would hardly have sympathised to the full extent -of those feelings with which I regard my father’s friend and -the constant friend of all his family.</p> - -<p>“I hope that the perusal of this little narrative of mine will -afford you some entertainment, even if it should not possess -much other merit. Your knowing the author so well, will impart -some interest to it.—I intended to have sent at the same -time with this copies of <i>Typee</i> for each of my aunts, but have -been disappointed in not receiving as many as I expected.—I -mention, however, in the accompanying letter to my Aunt Priscilla -that they shall soon be forthcoming.</p> - -<p>“Remember me most warmly to Mrs. Shaw & Miss Elizabeth, -and to all your family, & tell them I shall not soon forget -that agreeable visit to Boston.</p> - -<p>“With sincere respect, Judge Shaw, I remain gratefully & -truly yours,</p> - -<p class="sig"> -“<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Chief Justice Shaw</span>,<br /> -”Boston.” -</p></div> - -<p>The Aunt Priscilla mentioned in this letter was a sister of -Melville’s father—fifth child of Major Thomas Melville. She -was born in 1784, and upon her death in 1862, she showed -that her appreciation of Melville’s earlier solicitude had been -substantial, by bequeathing him nine hundred dollars. The -Miss Elizabeth of the letter, the only daughter of Chief Justice -Shaw, and Melville were married on August 4, 1847.</p> - -<p>On the evidence of surviving records, Melville’s father had -resigned himself to the institution of marriage as to one of -the established conveniences of Christendom. Allan was a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[259]</a></span> -practical man, and he soberly saw that he gained more than -he lost by generously sharing his bed and the fireside zone -with a competent accessory to his domestic comforts. If he -was ever a romantic lover, it was in the folly of his youth. -Though romantic love be a tingling holiday extravagance, he -mistrusted—and Allan never doubted his wisdom—its everyday -useability for a cautious and peace-loving man. And since -Dante had married Gemma Donati, since Petrarch had had -children by an unknown concubine, Maria had reason to congratulate -herself that Allan evinced for her no adoration of -the kind lavished upon the sainted Beatrice or upon the unattainable -Laura.</p> - -<p>In his approach to marriage, Melville showed none of the -prosaic circumspection of his father. From his idealisation -of the proud cold purity of Maria, Melville built up a haloed -image of the wonder and mystery of sanctified womanhood: -without blemish, unclouded, snow-white, terrible, yet serene. -And before this image Melville poured out the fulness of his -most reverential thoughts and beliefs. The very profundity -of his frustrated love for Maria, and the accusing incompatibility -between the image and the fact, made his early life a -futile and desperate attempt to escape from himself. The -peace, and at the same time the stupendous discovery that he -craved: that he found neither at home nor over the rim of -the world. When with Maria, he had craved to put oceans -between them; when so estranged, he was parched to return.</p> - -<p>In his wanderings, he had seen sights, and lived through -experiences to disabuse him of his fantastic idealisation of -woman. In fact, however, such experiences may but tend to -heighten idealisation. In the Middle Age, the Blessed Mother -was celebrated in a duality of perplexing incompatibility: she -was at once the Virgin Mother of the Son of God, and the -patron of thieves, harlots and cutthroats. She was at once an -object of worship and a subject of farce. She was woman. -Protestantism, restoring woman to her original Hebraic dignity -of a discarded rib, evinced in marriage an essentially biological -interest, and regulated romantic love into uxoriousness. -Allan was a good Protestant. But neither Mrs. Chapone nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[260]</a></span> -Fayaway were able to precipitate Melville into that form of -heresy. Fayaway was Fayaway: and her father was a cannibal. -Civilisation had given her no veils; Christianity had given -her no compunctons. She was neither a mystery nor a sin. -Untouched did she leave the sacred image in his heart.</p> - -<p>To Elizabeth Shaw, Melville transferred his idealisation of -his mother. In <i>Pierre</i> he says: “this softened spell which -wheeled the mother and son in one orbit of joy seemed a -glimpse of the glorious possibility, of the divinest of those -emotions which are incident to the sweetest season of love.” -In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville declared that the ideal possibilities of the -love between mother and son, seemed “almost to realise here below -the sweet dreams of those religious enthusiasts, who paint -to us a Paradise to come, when etherealised from all dross and -stains, the holiest passion of man shall unite all kindreds and -climes in one circle of pure and unimpaired delight.” And in -this “courteous lover-like adoration” of son for mother, Melville -saw the “highest and airiest thing in the whole compass of -the experience of our mortal life.” And “this heavenly evanescence,” -Melville declares, “this nameless and infinitely delicate -aroma of inexpressible tenderness and attentiveness,” is, “in -every refined and honourable attachment, contemporary with -courtship.” In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville spends a chapter of dithyramb -in celebration of this sentiment which, inspired by one’s mother, -one transfers to all other women honourably loved. “Love -may end in age, and pain and need, and all other modes of -human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love’s first sigh -is never breathed, till after love hath laughed. Love has not -hands, but cymbals; Love’s mouth is chambered like a bugle, -and the instinctive breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes -of joy.” And during his courtship of Elizabeth Shaw, it seems -that in Melville were “the audacious immortalities of divinest -love.”</p> - -<p>None of Melville’s letters of courtship survive. There are -more direct evidences of the fruits of his love, than of its -early bloom. There are, however, two letters of his wife’s, -written during the month of the marriage. The first was written -during the wedding trip.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[261]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><span class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Center Harbor</span>, Aug. 6th, 1847.</span><br /> -<br /> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>: -</p> - -<p>“You know I promised to write you whenever we came to -a stopping place, and remained long enough. We are now at -Center Harbor, a most lonely and romantic spot at the extremity -of Winnipiscogee Lake, having arrived last evening -from Concord—and we intend to remain until to-morrow. -One object in stopping so long and indeed principal one was -to visit ‘Red Hill’—a mountain (commanding a most beautiful -view of the lake) about four miles distant. But to-day -it is so cloudy and dull, I am afraid we shall not be able to -accomplish it—so you see I have a little spare time, and improve -it by writing to relieve any anxiety you may feel. -Though this is but the third day since our departure, it seems -as if a long time had passed, we have seen so many places of -novelty and interest. The stage ride yesterday from Franklin -here, though rather fatiguing, was one of great attraction -from the beautiful scenery. To-morrow we again intend to -take the stage to Conway, and from there to the White Mountains. -I will write again from there, and tell you more of -what I have seen, but now I send this missive more to let you -know of our safety and well-being than anything else.</p> - -<p>“I hope by this time you have quite recovered from your -indisposition, and that I shall soon hear from you to be assured -of it—I hardly dare to trust myself to speak of what I felt -in leaving home, but under the influence of such commingling -thoughts, it entirely escaped me to tell you of any place to -which you might address a letter to me so that I should be sure -to get it. Now I am <i>very</i> anxious and impatient to hear from -you, and I hope you will lose no time in writing if it be only a -very few lines. Herman desires to add a postscript to my letter, -and he will tell you when and where to write so that I -may get it.</p> - -<p>“Remember me with affection to father and ask him to let -me have a letter from him soon, to all members of the family -and to Mrs. Melville and the girls—my mother and sisters—how -strangely it sounds. Accept a great deal of love for<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[262]</a></span> -yourself, my dear mother, and believe me as ever, your affectionate -daughter, Elizabeth—even though I add to it—Melville—for -the first time.</p></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -<span class="dateline">“Friday morning.</span></p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“At my desire Lizzie has left a small space for a word or -two.—We arrived here last evening after a pleasant ride from -Franklin, the present terminus of the Northern Rail Road. -The scenery was in many places very fine, & we caught some -glimpses of the mountain region to which we are going. Center -Harbor where we now are is a very attractive place for -a tourist, having the lake for boating and trouting, and plenty -of rides in the vicinity, besides Red-Hill, the view from which -is said to be equal to anything of the kind in New England. -A rainy day, however, has thus far prevented us from taking -our excursion, to enjoy the country.—To-morrow, I think -we shall leave for Conway and thence to Mt. Washington & -so to Canada. I trust in the course of some two weeks to -bring Lizzie to Lansingburgh, quite refreshed and invigourated -from her rambles.—Remember me to Mrs. Shaw & the family, -and tell my mother that I will write to her in a day or two.</p> - -<p class="sig">“Sincerely yours,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>.</p> - -<p>“Letters directed within four or five days from now, will -probably reach us at Montreal.”</p></div> - -<p>The second letter explains itself:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -<span class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Lansingburgh</span>, Aug. 28th, 1847.</span></p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>: -</p> - -<p>“We arrived here safe and well yesterday morning, and I -intended to have written a few lines to you then, but I was -so tired, and had so much to do to unpack and put away my -things, I deferred it until to-day.</p> - -<p>“We left Montreal on Tuesday evening and the next day in -the afternoon hailed Whitehall, at the foot of Lake Champlain, -after a very pleasant sail on that beautiful piece of -water. The next question was whether we should proceed to<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[263]</a></span> -Lansingburgh by stage or take the canal boat. We thought -stage riding would be rather tame after the beautiful scenery -of Vermont, and as I had never been in a canal boat in my -life, Herman thought we had better try it for the novelty. -This would expedite our journeying, too, and having once set -our faces homeward, we were not disposed to delay. Being -fully forewarned of the inconvenience we might expect in -passing a night on board a canal boat—a crowded canal boat, -too, and fully determined to meet them bravely, we stepped on -board—not without some misgivings, however, as we saw the -crowds of men, women and children come pouring in, with -trunks and handbags to match. Where so many people were -to store themselves at night was a mystery to be yet unravelled, -and what they all <i>did</i> do with themselves is something I have -not yet found out. Well, night drew on—and after sitting -on deck on trunks or anything we could find (and having to -bob our heads down every few minutes when the helmsman -sang out ‘Bridge!’ or ‘Low Bridge!’) it became so damp and -chilly that I was finally driven below.</p> - -<p>“Here was a scene entirely passing description. The Ladies’ -‘Saloon!’ they politely termed it so, so we were informed -by a red and gilt sign over it. A space about as large as my -room at home, was separated from the gentlemen’s ‘Saloon’ -by a curtain only. About 20 or 25 women were huddled into -this. Each one having two children apiece of all ages, sexes, -and sizes, said children, as is usual on such occasions, lifting -up their respective voices, very loud indeed, in one united -chorus of lamentations.</p> - -<p>“A narrow row of shelves was hooked up high on each side -and on these some & more fortunate mothers had closely -packed their sleeping babies while they sat by to prevent their -rolling out. I looked round in vain for a place to stretch my -limbs, but it was not to be thought of—but after a while by a -fortunate chance I got a <i>leaning</i> privilege, and fixing my -carpet-bag for a pillow, I made up my mind to pass the night -in this manner. One by one the wailing children dropped off -to sleep and I had actually lost myself in a sort of doze, when -a new feature in the case became apparent. Stepping carefully<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[264]</a></span> -over the outstretched forms on the floor came two men, each -bearing a pile of boards or little shelves like those already suspended. -These they hooked up against the sides in the smallest -conceivable spaces, using every available inch of room—and -were intended to sleep (!) upon. I immediately pounced upon -one of them which I thought might be accessible, and was just -consulting with myself as to the best means of getting onto it, -when I was politely requested by one of the sufferers to take -the shelf above from which she wished to remove her children -to the one I thought to occupy—of course I complied, and after -failing in several awkward attempts, I managed to climb and -crawl into this narrow aperture like a bug forcing its way -through the boards of a fence. Sweltering and smothering -I watched the weary night hours pass away, for to sleep in such -an atmosphere was impossible. I rose at 3 o’clock, thinking -it was five, spent a couple of hours curled up on the floor, -and was right glad when Herman came for me, with the joyful -intelligence that we were actually approaching Whitehall—the -place of our destination. He also passed a weary night, though -his sufferings were of the opposite order—for while I was suffocating -with the heat and bad atmosphere, he was on deck, -chilled and half-frozen with the fog and penetrating dampness, -for the gentlemen’s apartment was even more crowded -than the ladies’—so much so that they did not attempt to hang -any shelves for them to lie upon. All they could do was to sit -bolt upright firmly wedged in and if one of them presumed to -<i>lean</i> at all or even to <i>nod</i> out of the perpendicular it was -thought a great infringement of rights, and he was immediately -called to order. So Herman preferred to remain on -deck all night to being in this crowd. We left the boat and -took the cars about an hour’s ride from Lansingburgh, and -surprised the family at 6 o’clock in the morning before they -were up. We were very warmly welcomed and cared for and -soon forgot our tribulations of the canal boat. I was much -disappointed to miss the boys—they had only left the day -before—it was too bad—I am looking forward with such impatience -to see you and father, and sincerely hope nothing -will happen to prevent your coming.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[265]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I suppose we shall not be long here. Allan is looking out -for a house in N. Y. and will be married next month.</p> - -<p>“You know a proposition was made before I came here that -I should furnish my own room, which for good reasons were -then set aside—but if it is not too late now, I should like -very much to do it if we go to N. Y.—but we can talk about -that when I see you. I must bring my scribbling to a close, -after I have begged you or somebody to write me. I have not -received a single line since I left home. How did the dinner -party go off? I want to hear about everything and everybody -at home. Please give my warmest love to all and believe -me your affectionate daughter,</p> - -<p><span class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Elizabeth S. M.</span></span></p> - -<p>“Herman desires his kindest remembrances to all.”</p></div> - -<p>Soon after the marriage, Melville and his wife moved from -Lansingburg to New York, where they lived with Melville’s -brother, Allan, and his household of sisters. The letters of -Mrs. Melville’s are the only surviving records of the intimate -details of this domestic arrangement. They are interesting, -too, as revelation of the character of Mrs. Melville. The three -following are typical:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p><span class="dateline">“<span class="smcap">New York</span>, Dec. 23rd, 1847.</span></p> - -<p>“Thank you, dear Mother, for your nice long letter. I -was beginning to be afraid you had forgotten your part of the -contract for that week, but Saturday brought me evidence to -the contrary and made us even. And I should have written -you earlier, but the days are so short, and I have so much to -do, that they fly by without giving me half the time I want. -Perhaps you will wonder what on earth I have to occupy me. -Well in fact I hardly know exactly myself, but true it is little -things constantly present themselves and dinner time comes -before I am aware. We breakfast at 8 o’clock, then Herman -goes to walk and I fly up to put his room to rights, so that -he can sit down to his desk immediately on his return. Then -I bid him good-bye, with many charges to be an industrious -boy and not upset the inkstand and then flourish the duster,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[266]</a></span> -make the bed, etc., in my own room. Then I go downstairs -and read the papers a little while, and after that I am -ready to sit down to my work whatever it may be—darning -stockings—making or mending for myself or Herman—at all -events, I haven’t seen a day yet, without <i>some</i> sewing or other -to do. If I have letters to write, as is the case to-day, I usually -do that first—but whatever I am about I do not much -more than get thoroughly engaged in it, than ding-dong goes -the bell for luncheon. This is half-past 12 o’clock—by this -time we must expect callers, and so must be dressed immediately -after lunch. Then Herman insists upon taking a walk -of an hour’s length at least. So unless I can have rain or -snow for an excuse, I usually sally out and make a pedestrian -tour a mile or two down Broadway. By the time I come -home it is two o’clock and after, and then I must make myself -look as bewitchingly as possible to meet Herman at dinner. -This being accomplished, I have only about an hour of available -time left. At four we dine, and after dinner is over, -Herman and I come up to our room and enjoy a cosy chat -for an hour or so—or he reads me some of the chapters he -has been writing in the day. Then he goes down town for -a walk, looks at the papers in the reading room, etc., and -returns about half-past seven or eight. Then my work or -my book is laid aside, and as he does not use his eyes but very -little by candle light, I either read to him, or take a hand at -whist for his amusement, or he listens to our reading or conversation, -as best pleases him. For we all collect in the parlour -in the evening, and generally one of us reads aloud for the -benefit of the whole. Then we retire very early—at 10 o’clock -we all disperse. Indeed we think that quite a late hour to be -up. This is the general course of daily events so you see -how my time is occupied; but sometime—dear me! we have to -go and make calls! and then good-bye to everything else for -<i>that</i> day! for upon my word, it takes the whole day, from 1 -o’clock till four! and then perhaps we don’t accomplish more -than two or three, if unluckily they chance to be in—for everybody -lives so far from everybody else, and all Herman’s and -Allan’s friends are <i>so</i> polite, to say nothing of Mrs. M.’s old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[267]</a></span> -acquaintances, that I am fairly sick and tired of returning calls. -And no sooner do we do up a few, than they all come again, -and so it has to be gone over again.</p> - -<p>“You know ceremonious calls were always my abomination, -and where they are all utter strangers and we have to send in -our cards to show who we are, it is so much the worse. Excepting -calls, I have scarcely visited at all. Herman is not -fond of parties, and I don’t care anything about them here. -To-morrow night, for a great treat, we are going to the opera—Herman -& Fanny and I—and this is the first place of public -amusement I have attended since I have been here but somehow -or other I don’t care much about them now.</p> - -<p>“I am glad to hear that father and all are so well—except -Sam—how is his cough now? don’t forget to tell us when you -write.</p> - -<p>“If Susan Haywood and Fanny Clarke are at our house -please give my love to them and ask Susan to answer my letter. -How is Mrs. Marcus Morton and Mrs. Hawes? I hope you -will be able to write me this week though I know <i>your</i> time -is very much occupied—but then you know any letter—even the -shortest and most hurried is acceptable and better than none—though -I must confess my prejudice sins in favour of <i>long</i> -ones—but I am glad to hear <i>anything</i> from home. You addressed -my last letter just right and it came very straight—but -Allan’s name is spelt with an ‘a’ instead of an ‘e’—as Allan—not -Allen—different names, you see—I am hoping that sometime -or other father will find time to write to me—though I -know he is so much occupied with other matters.</p> - -<p>“Thank you for your kindness about the picture box—as I -do not need any article at present, I will keep the dollar till -I do—it will be the same thing, you know, and I have already -got such a New Year’s present in the big box upstairs—by -the way, in about a week more, it will be time to open it. Oh, -what do you think about my calling on Mrs. Joe Henshaw -and Josephine—they are living here and came here after I did, -so perhaps I ought to call first if it is best for me to visit them—being -connected with the Haywoods perhaps it would be -better to renew the acquaintance. What do you think about<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[268]</a></span> -it? Please tell me when you write, and get their address from -Aunt Haywood, if you think I had better call. I am afraid -you are tired of this long letter; but I have done now. Good-bye, -and love to all.</p> - -<p class="sig">“Affectionately yours,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Elizabeth S. Melville</span>.</p> - -<p>“P. S. I have a letter from Mrs. Warpwell a few days -since—I didn’t know she had lost one of her twins before. -Why didn’t you tell me? My love to Mrs. Sullivan. I hope -she is quite well again. Tell Lem we expect him next month -in his mention to make us a visit.”</p></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">New York</span>, Feb. 4th, 1848.<br /> - -“103 Fourth Avenue.</p> - -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Every day for the last week I have been trying to write -to you, but have been prevented. I received your letter by -Lemuel with much pleasure and the next time you write I -want you to tell me more about Carrie—how she and the small -baby are getting along—and whether she took ether when she -was sick and if so, with what effect. What they have decided -to name the baby and all about it. Your presents were very -acceptable—Herman was much gratified with your remembrance -to him—and intends to make his acknowledgment for -himself. You forgot Kate in the multitude of Melvilles—so I -just gave her my share of the bill you enclosed without saying -anything about it—knowing you would not intentionally leave -her out—or rather I gave the bill to Helen for herself, Fanny -and Kate, as she could get what they most wanted better than -I—so it’s all right now, and I will take the will for the deed -and thank you all the same.</p> - -<p>“The key of the basket that you wanted me to send—you -know—I have <i>no bills</i> there whatever—you have them all. I -only have an account of the expenditure and a memorandum -of the bills that were paid—not the item of the bills. If you -have an opportunity where it will come safe I should like to -have you send me that basket very much.</p> - -<p>“You speak of a Mr. Crocker whom you wish me to receive.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[269]</a></span> -If he will call I shall be very happy to see him. You know -we are recently renumbered and our address now is ‘No. 103 -Fourth Avenue’, ‘between 11th & 12th Streets’—it is safer to -add for a time.</p> - -<p>“Lem seems to be enjoying himself highly with the amusements -out of doors, and the society within. Last night he -went to a masked ball, under the auspices of Mrs. Elwell, -through Aunt Marat’s kindness, and a very fine appearance -he presented, I can assure you, in an old French court dress—with -a long curled horse-hair wig, chapeau bras—knee breeches, -long stockings, buckles, snuff box and all—it was a very becoming -dress to him, and exactly suited to his carriage and -manners—I wish you could have seen him. We went to a -party ourselves last evening, but we had a deal of fun helping -him to dress—he went masked of course, but being introduced -by Mrs. Elwell was very kindly received—taking Mrs. Dickinson -(the hostess) down to supper, and doing the polite thing -to the nine Misses Dickinson. He enjoyed it much, as you -may suppose, and did not get home till four o’clock in the -morning, and even then the ball had not broken up. At this -present moment—11 o’clock—I believe he is dozing on the -parlour sofa—to gain strength to go to the opera this evening.</p> - -<p>“We have been very dissipated this week for us, for usually -we are very quiet. Wednesday evening we passed at Mrs. -Thurston’s and were out quite late—last night at a party—a -very pleasant one too, where by the way—I passed off for Miss -Melville and as such was quite a belle!! And to-night in honour -of our guest, we go to the Opera. We have resolved to -stop after this though and not go out at all for while Herman -is writing the effect of keeping late hours is very injurious -to him—if he does not get a full night’s rest or indulges in a -late supper, he does not feel right for writing the next day. -And the days are too precious to be thrown away. And -to tell the truth I don’t think he cares <i>very</i> much about parties -either, and when he goes it is more on my account than his -own. And it’s no sacrifice to me, for I am quite as contented, -and more—to stay at home so long as he will stay with me. -He has had communications from London publishers with very<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[270]</a></span> -liberal offers for the book in hand—and one from Berlin to -translate from the first sheets into German—but as yet he has -closed with none of them, and will not in a hurry.</p> - -<p>“I believe I forgot in my last to acknowledge the receipt of -a paper from father—I was very glad of it—please present -my thanks—I have intended to write to father for a good -while—but I like to have answers to my letters—so if father -has not time to write in reply, you must write for him. Give -my love to him and to all the family—and when you see Susan -Morton ask her to write to me.</p> - -<p>“Tell Aunt Lucretia I was delighted to get her note, and -I will write to her.</p> - -<p>“Now I have written you a famous long letter and I hope -you will write me as long a one very soon, for I have not heard -from home for more than a week now—not since Lem came.</p> - -<p>“Give my love to Mrs. Sullivan, and believe me as ever truly -yours,</p> - -<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">E. S. Melville</span>.”</p></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">New York</span>, May 5th, 1848.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>: -</p> - -<p>“I am very much occupied to-day but I snatch a few moments -to reply to your letter which though rather tardy in -forthcoming was very acceptable. But you did not tell me -what I most wanted to know—about Sam. And your indefinite -allusion to it, when we were all waiting to hear, was rather -tantalising. Does ‘this season’ means <i>now</i> in his present vacation, -or sometime in the course of the year? I suppose his -vacation has already commenced if he is out at Milton, then -why not let him come immediately and make his visit, because -if he waits till warm weather it will not be nearly so pleasant -or so beneficial for him. Maria Percival writes me that she is -coming on soon and he might come with her. Please write me -something <i>definite</i> about it, as soon as you can, and do let -him come. We want him to very much, and the sooner the -better.</p> - -<p>“You ask about our coming to Boston but I guess the house -will be ready to <i>clean again</i> by that time—for it will not be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[271]</a></span> -before July, perhaps August. Herman of course will stick to -his work till ‘the book’ is published and his services are required -till the last moment—correcting proof, etc. The book -is done now, in fact (you need not mention it) and the copy -for the press is in progress, but when it is published on both -sides of the water a great deal of delay is unavoidable and -though Herman will have some spare time after sending the -proof sheets to London which will be next month sometime -probably he will not want to leave New York till the book is -actually on the book-sellers’ shelves. And then I don’t care -about leaving home till my cold is over because I could not -enjoy my visit so much. So though I am very impatient for -the time to come I must e’en wait as best I may and enjoy the -anticipation.</p> - -<p>“We are looking out for Tom to return every day, his ship -has been reported in the papers several times lately as homeward -bound and Herman wrote to the owner at Westport -and received answer that he looked for the ship the first of -May. That has already past and we are daily expecting a -letter to announce her actual arrival. Then Herman will have -to go over to Westport for Tom and see that he is regularly -discharged and paid, and bring him home. As yet he, Tom, -is in entire ignorance of the changes that have taken place in -his family and of their removal to New York. So he will be -much surprised I think. As you may suppose, Mother is -watching and counting the days with great anxiety for he is the -baby of the family and his mother’s pet.</p> - -<p>“Augusta is going to Albany in a few days to visit the -Van Renssalaers. They have been at her all winter to go up -the river but she would not, and now Mr. Van Renssalaer is -in town and will not go back without her. And in a few -weeks Helen is going to Lansingburgh to visit Mrs. Jones.</p> - -<p>“I should write you a longer letter but I am very busy to-day -copying and cannot spare the time so you must excuse it and -all mistakes. I tore my sheet in two by mistake thinking it -was my copying (for we only write on one side of the page) -and if there is no punctuation marks you must make them -yourself for when I copy I do not punctuate at all but leave<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[272]</a></span> -it for a final revision for Herman. I have got so used to write -without (.) I cannot always think of it.</p> - -<p>“Please write me <i>very soon</i> this week—if only a few lines -and tell me about Sam’s coming.</p> - -<p>“My love to all, to father when you write and to Sue Morton -if she is at our house, Mrs. Hawes etc. and believe me as -ever your affectionate</p> - -<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">E. S. Melville</span>.</p> - -<p>“Miss Savage & Miss Lincoln called to see me a day or two -ago.</p> - -<p>“Please spell Allan’s name with an A, not E. <i>Allan</i>, not -<i>Allen</i>.”</p></div> - -<p>During this period, the household at 103 Fourth Avenue -was busy getting <i>Redburn</i> and <i>Mardi</i> ready for the press. -Melville’s sister Augusta seems to have been exhaustless in -copying manuscript. Melville’s mother-in-law reports “Miss -Augusta is all energy, united with much kindness.” Augusta -also evinced a strong religious bent, and during song services—which -she loved to attend—she used to grip her hymnal -athletically, and beat time with an aggressive rhythm. Her -Hymn Book survives, pasted up with dozens of clippings of -hymns and prayers, a “selection” entitled <i>The Sinner’s Friend</i>, -and the vivacious couplet:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Jesus, mine’s a pressing case.</div> - <div class="verse">Oh, more grace, <i>more grace, MORE GRACE</i>!”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 586px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t272ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t272a.jpg" width="586" height="800" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>ELIZABETH SHAW MELVILLE</p></div> -</div> - -<p>But song-services, and copying manuscript, were not enough -to fill Augusta’s busy days. In January, 1848, she was commissioned -to find a name satisfactory for Melville’s first child. -Mrs. Herman Melville was in Boston to be with her mother -and family at the time of the childbirth. On January 27, 1849, -Augusta wrote from New York to “My dear Lizzie, My sweet -Sister,” reporting that she had been “searching the Genealogical -Tree” with designs upon an ancestor with a choice name: -and she spends two very diverting and animated pages recounting -her adventures among the branches. Her search was<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[273]</a></span> -rewarded to her satisfaction: “<i>Malcolm Melville!</i> how easily -it runs from my pen; how sweetly it sounds to my ear; how -musically it falls upon my heart. Malcolm Melville! Methinks -I see him in his plaided kilts, with his soft blue eyes, & -his long flaxen curls. How I long to press him to my heart. -There! I can write no more. The last proof sheets are -through. <i>Mardi’s</i> a book.” Augusta concludes with a quotation -from <i>Mardi</i>: “‘Oh my own Kagtanza, child of my prayers. -Oro’s blessing on thee!’”</p> - -<p>In her search of the Genealogical Tree, Augusta had contemptuously -brushed by all female branches: she had determined -that Melville’s first child should be a son—and a son -with blue eyes and blond hair—and in her choice of a name -for the unborn infant, she contemptuously ignored the possibility -of the child turning out to be a girl. On February 16, -1849, was born in Boston, to Melville and his wife, their -first child. There was potency in Augusta’s prayers. It was -a boy.</p> - -<p>On April 14, 1849, <i>Mardi</i> appeared, published, as was <i>Omoo</i>, -by Harper and Brothers in America, by Richard Bentley in -London. <i>Redburn</i> appeared on August 18 of the same year. By -February 22, 1850 (the date of Melville’s fifth royalty account -from Harper and Brothers), 2,154 copies of <i>Mardi</i>, and 4,011 -copies of <i>Redburn</i> had been sold. On February 1, 1848, Melville -had overdrawn his account with Harper’s to the extent -of $256.03. On December 5, 1848, Harper’s advanced Melville -$500; on April 28, 1848, $300; on July 2, 1849, $300; -on September 14, 1849, $500. Though <i>Mardi</i> and <i>Redburn</i> -had had a fairly generous sale, the deduction of his royalties -on February 22, 1850, left him in debt to Harper’s $733.69. -The outlook was not bright for the responsibilities of fatherhood.</p> - -<p>On April 23, Melville sent to his father-in-law a note “conveying -the intelligence of Lizzie’s improving strength, and -Malcolm’s precocious growth. Both are well.” Melville went -on to say that Samuel, the brother-in-law for whom he felt -not the most enthusiastic affection, was expected by all “to -honour us with his presence during the approaching vacation:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[274]</a></span> -and I have no doubt he will not find it difficult to spend his -time pleasantly with so many companions.” Does Melville -here imply that for himself, as a sensible man, he would prefer -more solitude? In conclusion, Melville says: “I see that -<i>Mardi</i> has been cut into by the <i>London Atheneum</i>, and also -burnt by the common hangman by the <i>Boston Post</i>. However, -the <i>London Examiner</i> & <i>Literary Gazette</i> & other papers -this side of the water have done differently. These -attacks are matters of course, and are essential to the building -up of any permanent reputation—if such should ever prove to -be mine—‘There’s nothing in it!’ cried the dunce when he -threw down the 47th problem of the 1st Book of Euclid—‘There’s -nothing in it!’—Thus with the posed critic. But -Time, which is the solver of all riddles, will solve <i>Mardi</i>.”</p> - -<p>The riddle of <i>Mardi</i> goes near to the heart of the riddle of -Melville’s life. “Not long ago,” Melville says in the preface -to <i>Mardi</i>, “having published two narratives of voyages in the -Pacific, which, in many quarters, were received with incredulity, -the thought occurred to me, of indeed writing a romance -of Polynesian adventure, and publishing it as such; to see -whether the fiction might not, possibly, be received for a verity: -in some degree the reverse of my previous experience. -This thought was the germ of others, which have resulted in -<i>Mardi</i>.”</p> - -<p><i>Mardi</i>, as <i>Moby-Dick</i>, starts off firmly footed in reality. The -hero, discontented on board a whaler, hits upon the wild scheme -of surreptitiously cutting loose one of the whale boats, -and trusting to the chances of the open Pacific. It is sometimes -the case that an old mariner will conceive a very strong -attachment for some young sailor, his shipmate—a Fidus-Achates-ship, -a league of offence and defence, a copartnership -of chests and toilets, a bond of love and good-feeling. Such -a relationship existed between the hero of <i>Mardi</i> and his Viking -shipmate Jarl. Jarl was an old Norseman to behold: his -hands as brawny as the paws of a bear; his voice as hoarse as -a storm roaring round the peak of Mull; his long yellow hair -waving about his head like a sunset. In the crow’s-nest of the -ship the project of escape was confided to Jarl. Jarl advised<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[275]</a></span> -with elderly prudence, but seeing his chummy’s resolution immovable, -he changed his wrestling to a sympathetic hug, and -bluntly swore he would follow through thick and thin. The -escape was successfully made, and for days the two men drifted -at sea: and it was an eventful if solitary drifting. After sixteen -days in their open boat, “as the expanded sun touched the -horizon’s rim, a ship’s uppermost spars were observed, traced -like a spider’s web against its crimson disk. It looked like a -far-off craft on fire.” Bent upon shunning a meeting—though -Jarl “kept looking wistfully over his shoulder; doubtlessly praying -Heaven that we might not escape”—they lowered sail. As -the ship bore down towards them, they saw her to be no whaler—as -they had feared—but a small, two-masted craft in unaccountable -disarray. They lay on their oars, and watched her -in the starlight. They hailed her loudly. No return. Again. -But all was silent. So, armed with a harpoon, they eventually -boarded the strange craft. The ship was in a complete -litter; the deserted tiller they found lashed. Though it was a -nervous sort of business, they explored her interior. Many -were the puzzling sights they saw; but except for a supernatural -sneeze from the riggings, there was no evidence of life -aboard. At dawn, however, they discovered, in the maintop, -a pair of South Sea Islanders: Samoa, and Annatoo. “To be -short, Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc; and Samoa—Heaven -help him—her husband.” Upon this pair, Melville -has lavished chapter after chapter of the most finished and -competent comedy. Annatoo is as perfect, in her way, as is -Zuleika Dobson. And Samoa—well, Samoa, on occasion, -thinks it discreet to amputate his wounded arm.</p> - -<p>“Among savages, severe personal injuries are, for the most -part, accounted but trifles. When a European would be taking -to his couch in despair, the savage would disdain to recline.</p> - -<p>“More yet. In Polynesia, every man is his own barber and -surgeon, cutting off his beard or arm, as occasion demands. -No unusual thing, for the warriors of Varvoo to saw off their -own limbs, desperately wounded in battle. But owing to the -clumsiness of the instrument employed—a flinty, serrated shell—the -operation has been known to last several days. Nor<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[276]</a></span> -will they suffer any friend to help them; maintaining, that a -matter so nearly concerning a warrior is far better attended -to by himself. Hence it may be said, that they amputate themselves -at their leisure, and hang up their tools when tired. -But, though thus beholden to no one for aught connected with -the practice of surgery, they never cut off their own heads, -that ever I heard; a species of amputation to which, metaphorically -speaking, many would-be independent sort of people in -civilised lands are addicted.</p> - -<p>“Samoa’s operation was very summary. A fire was kindled -in the little caboose, or cook-house, and so made as to produce -much smoke. He then placed his arm upon one of the windlass -bitts (a short upright timber, breast-high), and seizing the -blunt cook’s axe would have struck the blow; but for some -reason distrusting the precision of his aim, Annatoo was assigned -to the task. Three strokes, and the limb, from just -above the elbow, was no longer Samoa’s; and he saw his own -bones; which many a centenarian can not say. The very clumsiness -of the operation was safety to the subject. The weight -and bluntness of the instrument both deadened the pain and -lessened the hemorrhage. The wound was then scorched, and -held over the smoke of the fire, till all signs of blood vanished. -From that day forward it healed, and troubled Samoa but little.</p> - -<p>“But shall the sequel be told? How that, superstitiously -averse to burying in the sea the dead limb of a body yet living; -since in that case Samoa held, that he must very soon drown -and follow it; and how, that equally dreading to keep the -thing near him, he at last hung it aloft from the topmast-stay; -where yet it was suspended, bandaged over and over in cerements. -The hand that must have locked many others in -friendly clasp, or smote a foe, was no food, thought Samoa, -for fowls of the air nor fishes of the sea.</p> - -<p>“Now, which was Samoa? The dead arm swinging high as -Haman? Or the living trunk below? Was the arm severed -from the body, or the body from the arm? The residual part -of Samoa was alive, and therefore we say it was he. But -which of the writhing sections of a ten times severed worm, -is the worm proper?”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[277]</a></span></p> - -<p>There are more cosy pleasures aboard the old ship, however, -than amputation: “Every one knows what a fascination -there is in wandering up and down in a deserted old tenement -in some warm, dreamy country; where the vacant halls seem -echoing of silence, and the doors creak open like the footsteps -of strangers; and into every window the old garden trees -thrust their dark boughs, like the arms of night-burglars; and -ever and anon the nails start from the wainscot; while behind -it the mice rattle like dice. Up and down in such old spectre -houses one loves to wander; and so much the more, if the place -be haunted by some marvellous story.</p> - -<p>“And during the drowsy stillness of the tropical sea-day, -very much such a fancy had I, for prying about our little -brigantine, whose tragic hull was haunted by the memory of -the massacre, of which it still bore innumerable traces.”</p> - -<p>After delightful and exciting, and irresponsible days spent -sailing without chart, they find the vessel unseaworthy, leaking -in every pore; so again they take to their whale boat -soon to fall in with strangers. With this meeting, <i>Mardi</i> -swings into allegory,—and then it is that Melville first tries -his hand at the orphic style.</p> - -<p>This second part of <i>Mardi</i> in its manner defies simple characterisation, -though its purpose is simple enough. It is a quest -after Yillah, a maiden from Oroolia, the Island of Delight. -A voyage is made through the civilised world for her: and -though they find occasion for much discourse on international -politics, and an array of other topics, Yillah is not found. And -in an astonishing variety of fantastic and symbolic scenes—many -conceived in the manner of the last three books of Rabelais—they -go on in futile search for her. They search among -the Islands of “those Scamps the Plujii,” where all evil which -the inhabitants could impute neither to the gods nor to themselves -were blamed upon the Plujii. There they meet an “old -woman almost doubled together, both hands upon her abdomen; -in that manner running about distracted.” When -asked of the occasion of her distraction she screamed “The -Plujii! The Plujii!” affectionately caressing the field of their -operations.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[278]</a></span></p> - -<p>“And why do they torment you?” she was soothingly asked.</p> - -<p>“How should I know? and what good would it do me if I -did?”</p> - -<p>And on she ran.</p> - -<p>“Hearing that an hour or two previous she had been partaking -of some twenty unripe bananas, I rather fancied that -that circumstance might have had something to do with her -suffering. But whatever it was, all the herb-leeches on the -island would not have been able to alter her own opinions on -the subject.”</p> - -<p>They visit jolly old Borabolla, and discuss the hereafter of -fish. “As for the possible hereafter of the whale,” says Melville, -“a creature eighty feet long without stockings, and thirty -feet round the waist after dinner is not inconsiderably to be -consigned to annihilation.” They are entertained by the gentry -of Pimminee, and their host, being told they were strolling -divinities, demigods from the sun “manifested not the slightest -surprise, observing incidentally, however, that the eclipses there -must be a sad bore to endure.” They are entertained by the -pallid and beautiful youth Donjalolo, with wives thirty in -number, corresponding in name to the nights of the moon: -wives “blithe as larks, more playful than kittens,” though “but -supplied with the thirtieth part of all that Aspasia could desire.” -Over flowing calabashes they discourse of super-men, -and vitalism, and toad-stools, and fame, and thieves, and -teeth, and democracy, and an interminable variety of other -irrelevant and diverting matters. Incredible is the rich variety -of <i>Mardi</i>.</p> - -<p>There is infinite laughter in the book—but the laughter is -at bottom the laughter of despair. “It is more pleasing to -laugh, than to weep,” Montaigne has said. But Montaigne preferred -laughter not for that reason, but because “it is more -distainfull, and doth more condemne us than the other. And -me thinkes we can never bee sufficiently despised according to -our merit.” Melville’s laughter, however, grew out of a desolation -less emancipated than Montaigne’s. “Let us laugh: let -us roar: let us yell.” Melville makes the philosopher in <i>Mardi</i> -say: “Weeds are torn off at a fair; no heart bursts but in<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[279]</a></span> -secret; it is good to laugh though the laugh be hollow. Women -sob, and are rid of their grief; men laugh and retain it. Ha! -ha! how demoniacs shout; how all skeletons grin; we all -die with a rattle. Humour, thy laugh is divine; hence mirth-making -idiots have been revered; and so may I.” And one of -the ultimate discoveries of the book is: “Beatitude there is -none. And your only Mardian happiness is but exemption -from great woes—no more. Great Love is sad; and heaven is -Love. Sadness makes the silence throughout the realms of -space; sadness is universal and eternal.”</p> - -<p>For <i>Mardi</i>, in its intention to show the vanity of human -wishes, is a kind of <i>Rasselas</i>; but because of its “dangerous -predominance of imagination,” it is a <i>Rasselas</i> Dr. Johnson -would have despised. And the happiness sought in <i>Mardi</i> is -of a brand of felicity unlike anything the Prince of Abyssinia -ever had any itching to enjoy. <i>Mardi</i> is a quest after some -total and undivined possession of that holy and mysterious -joy that touched Melville during the period of his courtship: -a joy he had felt in the crucifixion of his love for his mother; -a joy that had dazzled him in his love for Elizabeth Shaw. -When he wrote <i>Mardi</i> he was married, and his wife was with -child. And <i>Mardi</i> is a pilgrimage for a lost glamour.</p> - -<p>In these wanderings in search of Yillah, the symbol of this -faded ecstasy, the hero of <i>Mardi</i> is pursued by three shadowy -messengers from the temptress Hautia; she who was descended -from the queen who had first incited Mardi to wage war -against beings with wings. Despairing of ever achieving Yillah, -Melville in the end turned towards the island of Hautia, -called Flozella-a-Nina, or “The Last-Verse-of-the-Song.” -“Yillah was all beauty, and innocence; my crown of felicity; -my heaven below:—and Hautia, my whole heart abhorred. -Yillah I sought; Hautia sought me. Yet now I was wildly -dreaming to find them together. In some mysterious way -seemed Hautia and Yillah connected.”</p> - -<p>They land on the shore of Hautia’s bower of bliss, when -“all the sea, like a harvest plain, was stacked with glittering -sheaves of spray. And far down, fathoms on fathoms, flitted -rainbow hues:—as seines-full of mermaids; half-screening<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[280]</a></span> -the bower of the drowned.” Hautia lavished him with flowers, -and with wine, that like a blood-freshet ran through his veins, -she the vortex that draws all in. “But as my hand touched -Hautia’s, down dropped a dead bird from the clouds.” And -at the end of the madness into which Hautia had betrayed him, -he and she stood together—“snake and victim: life ebbing -from out me, to her.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville sadly reflects upon “the inevitable evanescence -of all earthly loveliness: which makes the sweetest -things of life only food for ever-devouring and omnivorous -melancholy.” And the nuptial embrace, he says, breaks love’s -airy zone. The etherealisations of the filial breast, he wrote, -while contemporary with courtship, <i>preceding</i> the final banns -and the rites, “like the bouquet of the costliest German wines, -too often evaporate upon pouring love out to drink in the disenchanting -glasses of the matrimonial days and nights.” “I -am Pluto stealing Proserpine,” says Pierre; “and every accepted -lover is. I am of heavy earth, and she of airy light. -By heaven, but marriage is an impious thing!”</p> - -<p>Yillah was to Melville lost for ever; and in Hautia was a -final disillusionment. And on the shore, awaiting to destroy, -“stood the three pale sons of him I had slain to gain the lost -maiden, sworn to hunt me round eternity.”</p> - -<p>“‘Hail! realm of shades!’”—so <i>Mardi</i> concludes—“and -turning my prow into the racing tide, which seized me like a -hand omnipotent, I darted through. Churned in foam, that -outer ocean lashed the clouds; and straight in my white wake, -headlong dashed a shallop, three fixed spectres leaning o’er its -prow: three arrows poising. And thus, pursuers and pursued -fled on, over an endless sea.”</p> - -<p>Within a week of the completion of <i>Mardi</i>, Melville’s wife -wrote to her mother:</p> - -<p>“I suppose by this time that you have received Sam’s letter -and are relieved of anxiety concerning his safe arrival. I was -very glad to see him at last & hope he will enjoy his vacation. -You need not fear his getting too much excited—he will not -take too much exercise, for he can always get in an omnibus<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[281]</a></span> -when he feels tired of walking. Yesterday he went down -town with Tom—to the Battery—and to a gallery of paintings—and -in the afternoon took a short walk with the girls. We -should have gone to Brooklyn, but it was very cloudy and -looked like rain—but we are going to-day as soon as I get -done my copying (by the way we are nearly through—shall -finish this week). Sam is very well and finds much amusement, -especially in the ‘ad-i-s-h-e-e-e-s!’ (radishes) screamed -continually under our window in every variety of cracked -voices.</p> - -<p>“I was very much pleased with my presents especially the -‘boots’ which fit me admirably—but I meant that to be a business -transaction—else I should not have sent. ‘Tapes’ are -<i>always</i> useful, especially if one has a husband who is continually -breaking strings off of drawers as mine is—the cuffs -were very pretty also—Herman was very much pleased with -his pocket-book & says ‘he has long needed such an article, -for his bank bills accumulate to such an extent he can find -no place to put them.’</p> - -<p>“Mother feels very uneasy because Tom wants to go to sea -again—he has been trying for a place in some store ever since -he came home but not succeeding, is discouraged and says he -must go to sea immediately. Herman has written Mr. Parker -(Daniel P.) to see if he can send him out in one of his ships. -I hope he will, if Tom must go, for Mr. Parker would be likely -to take an interest in him and promote him.</p> - -<p>“And now for something which I hardly know whether to -write you or not I feel so undecided about it. My cold is very -bad indeed, perhaps worse than it has ever been so early, and -I attribute it entirely to the warm dry atmosphere so different -from the salt air I have been accustomed to. And Herman -thinks I had better go back to Boston with Sam to see if the -change of air will not benefit me. And he will come on for -me in two or three weeks, if he can—and then in August when -he takes his vacation he will take me there again. But I don’t -know as I can make up my mind to go and leave him here—and -besides I’m afraid to trust him to finish up the book without<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[282]</a></span> -me! That is, taking all things into consideration I’m afraid -I should not feel at ease enough to enjoy my visit without him -with me. But there is time enough to consider about it before -Sam goes—and if my cold continues so bad I think I shall go. -But I must go to my writing else I shall not get done in time -to go to Brooklyn.”</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[283]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XIV <br /> - -<span class="smaller">ACROSS THE ATLANTIC AGAIN</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“You said you were married, I think? Well, I suppose it is wise, after -all. It settles, centralises, and confirms a man, I have heard. Yes, it -makes the world definite to him; it removes his morbid subjectiveness, -and makes all things objective; nine small children, for instance, may be -considered objective. Marriage, hey!—A fine thing, no doubt, no doubt:—domestic—pretty—nice, -all round.—So you are married?”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Pierre</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>In October, 1849, at the age of thirty, five years after his -return from the South Seas, and two years after his marriage, -Melville again left home. His departure was not prompted -by any lack of diversion at home: there had been plenty of it -at 103 Fourth Avenue. Melville’s brothers Allan and Tom, -his sisters Augusta, Fanny and Helen, his mother, his wife, -and the visits from Boston of the Shaws, had been a sufficiently -varied company to divert any lover of humanity, and -to enamour a misanthrope to the family hearth. Withal, -Melville was not only a husband, but a father: and duties towards -the support of the company with whom he lived were -blatantly clear. For this support he depended solely upon the -earnings from his books. In three years he had published five -volumes: <i>Typee</i>, <i>Omoo</i>, <i>Mardi</i> (in two volumes) and <i>Redburn</i>. -Though he had attracted wide attention as a writer, he was, -nevertheless, in debt to his publishers. Despite sisters, and -brothers, and wives, and babies, and mothers, and callers, he -had stuck relentlessly to his desk, and another book—<i>White-Jacket</i>—he -had finished in manuscript. His, as well as his sister -Augusta’s, was “a pressing case.” So he decided to go to -England, to make personal intercession with publishers, hoping -thereby to improve his income from the other side of the -Atlantic.</p> - -<p>On October 11, 1849, after a detention of three or four days, -owing to wind and weather, he went on board the tug <i>Goliath</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[284]</a></span> -a little after noon. A violent storm was blowing from the -west, and with some confusion the passengers were transferred -to the <i>Southampton</i>, a regular London liner that lay in -the North River. By half-past five, with yards square, and -sailing in half a gale, Melville was again out of sight of land.</p> - -<p>“As the ship dashed on,” says Melville in his journal of the -trip, “under double-reefed topsails, I walked the deck, thinking -of what they might be doing at home, and of the last -familiar faces I saw on the wharf—Allan was there, and -George Duyckinck, and a Mr. McCurdy, a rich merchant of -New York, who had seemed somewhat interested in the prospect -of his son (a sickly youth of twenty, bound for the grand -tour) being very romantic. But to my great delight, the promise -that the Captain had given me at an early day, he now -made good; and I find myself in the individual occupancy of a -large state-room. It is as big almost as my own room at home; -it has a spacious berth, a large wash-stand, a sofa, glass, etc., -etc. I am the only person on board who is thus honoured with -a room to himself. I have plenty of light, and a little thick -glass window in the side, which in fine weather I may open to -the air. I have looked out upon the sea from it, often, tho -not yet 24 hours on board.”</p> - -<p>The George Duyckinck who was among the party that had -waved him off was, of course, one of two Duyckinck brothers -who published in 1855 the two volume <i>Cyclopædia of American -Literature</i>: a work vituperated in its day for shocking omissions -and inaccuracies. Both the work and its critics have now -fallen into a decent oblivion. Withal, in this same antiquated -<i>Cyclopædia</i> is to be found one of the best informed summaries -of the first half of Melville’s life ever printed.</p> - -<p>On October 12, Melville records in his journal his impressions -upon finding himself again on the ocean. “Walked the -deck last night till about eight o’clock,” he says, “then made -up a whist party and played till one of the number had to visit -his room from sickness. Retired early and had a sound sleep. -Was up betimes and aloft, to recall the old emotions of being -at the mast-head. Found that the ocean looked the same as -ever. Have tried to read but find it hard work. However,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[285]</a></span> -there are some very pleasant passengers on board, with whom -to converse. Chief among these is a Mr. Adler, a German -scholar, to whom Duyckinck introduced me. He is author of -a formidable lexicon (German or English); in compiling -which he almost ruined his health. He was almost crazy, he -tells me, for a time. He is full of the German metaphysics -and discourses of Kant, Swedenborg, etc. He has been my -principal companion thus far. There is also a Mr. Taylor -among the passengers, cousin of James Bayard Taylor, the -pedestrian traveller. There is a Scotch artist on board, a -painter, with a most unpoetical looking child, a young-one all -cheeks and forehead, the former preponderating. Young McCurdy -I find to be a lisping youth of genteel capacity, but -quite disposed to be sociable. We have several Frenchmen -and Englishmen. One of the latter has been hunting, and -carries over with him two glorious pairs of antlers (moose) -as trophies of his prowess in the Woods of Maine. We have -also a middle-aged English woman, who sturdily walks the -decks and prides herself upon her sea-legs, and being an old -tar.” There was also aboard “a Miss Wilbur (I think) of -New York.” Melville reports of Miss Wilbur that she “is of -a marriageable age, keeps a diary, and talks about ‘winning -souls to Christ.’” In the evening, Melville “walked the deck -with the German, Mr. Adler, till a late hour, talking of ‘Fixed -Fate, Free-will, free-knowledge absolute’ etc. His philosophy -is <i>Coleridgean</i>; he accepts the Scriptures as divine, and yet -leaves himself free to inquire into Nature. He does not take -it, that the Bible is absolutely infallible, and that anything opposed -to it in Science must be wrong. He believes that there -are things not of God and independent of Him,—things that -would have existed were there no God; such as that two and -two make four; for it is not that God so decrees mathematically, -but that in the very nature of things, the fact is thus.”</p> - -<p>On the following morning, Melville was up early. “Opened -my bull’s eye window, and looked out to the East. The sun -was just rising—the horizon was red;—a familiar sight to me, -reminding me of old times. Before breakfast, went up to the -mast-head by way of gymnastics. About ten o’clock the wind<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[286]</a></span> -rose, the sun fell, and the deck looked dismally empty. By -dinner time, it blew half a gale, and the passengers mostly -retired to their rooms, sea-sick. After dinner, the rain ceased, -but it still blew stiffly, and we were slowly forging along under -close-reefed top-sails—mainsail furled. I was walking the -deck, when I perceived one of the steerage passengers looking -over the side; I looked too, and saw a man in the water, his -head completely lifted above the waves,—about twelve feet -from the ship, right amast the gangway. For an instant, I -thought I was dreaming; for no one else seemed to see what -I did. Next moment, I shouted ‘Man Overboard!’ and turned -to go aft. I dropped overboard the tackle-fall of the quarter-boat, -and swung it toward the man, who was now drifting -close to the ship. He did not get hold of it, and I got over -the side, within a foot or two of the sea, and again swung -the rope toward him. He now got hold of it. By this time, a -crowd of people—sailors and others—were clustering about -the bulwarks; but none seemed very anxious to save him. -They warned <i>me</i>, however, not to fall overboard. After holding -on to the rope, about a quarter of a minute, the man let -go of it and dropped astern under the mizzen chains. Four or -five of the seamen jumped over into the chains and swung him -more ropes. But his conduct was unaccountable; he could have -saved himself, had he been so minded. I was struck by the -expression of his face in the water. It was merry. At last he -dropped off under the ship’s counter, and all hands cried ‘He’s -gone!’ Running to the taffrail we saw him again, floating off—saw -a few bubbles, and never saw him again. No boat was -lowered, no sail was shaken, hardly any noise was made. The -man drowned like a bullock. It afterward turned out, that he -was crazy, and had jumped overboard. He had declared he -would do so, several times; and just before he did jump, he -had tried to get possession of his child, in order to jump into -the sea, with the child in his arms. His wife was miserably -sick in her berth.”</p> - -<p>In the steerage another crazy man was reported. But his -lunacy turned out to be delirium tremens, consequent upon -“keeping drunk for the last two months.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[287]</a></span></p> - -<p>Sunday the fourteenth was “a regular blue devil day; a -gale of wind, and everybody sick. Saloons deserted, and all -sorts of nausea heard from the state-rooms. Managed to -get thro’ the day somehow, by reading and walking the deck, -tho’ the last was almost as much as my neck was worth. Saw -a lady with a copy of <i>Omoo</i> in her hand two days ago. Now -and then she would look up at me, as if comparing notes. -She turns out to be the wife of a young Scotchman, an artist, -going out to Scotland to sketch scenes for his patrons in Albany, -including Dr. Armsby. He introduced himself to me by -mentioning the name of Mr. Twitchell who painted my portrait -gratis. He is a very unpretending young man, and looks -more like a tailor than an artist. But appearances are etc.—” -The portrait painted by Mr. Twitchell is now not known to -exist.</p> - -<p>Monday broke fair. “By noon the passengers were pretty -nearly all on deck, convalescent. They seem to regard me as -a hero, proof against wind and weather. My occasional feats -in the rigging are regarded as a species of tight-rope dancing. -Poor Adler, however, is hardly himself again. He is an exceedingly -amiable man, and a fine scholar whose society is improving -in a high degree. This afternoon Dr. Taylor and I -sketched a plan for going down the Danube from Vienna to -Constantinople; thence to Athens on the steamer; to Beyrout -and Jerusalem—Alexandria and the Pyramids. From what -I learn, I have no doubt this can be done at a comparatively -trifling expense. Taylor has had a good deal of experience in -cheap European travel, and from his knowledge of German is -well fitted for a travelling companion thro Austria and Turkey. -I am full (just now) of this glorious Eastern jaunt. Think -of it:—Jerusalem and the Pyramids—Constantinople, the -Egean and also Athens!—The wind is not fair yet, and there -is much growling consequently. Drank a small bottle of -London stout to-day for dinner, and think it did me good. I -wonder how much they charge for it? I must find out.”</p> - -<p>On the sixteenth his journal looks back towards home. -“What’s little Barney about?” he asks of his son Malcolm. -And of his wife: “Where’s Orianna?” Four days later, hav<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[288]</a></span>ing -been “annoyed towards morning by a crying baby adjoining” -he repeats this simple catechism.</p> - -<p>The entire morning of the eighteenth—the day delightful -and the ship getting on famously—Melville spent “in the maintop -with Adler and Dr. Taylor, discussing our plans for the -grand circuit of Europe and the East. Taylor, however, has -communicated to me a circumstance that may prevent him from -accompanying us—something of a pecuniary nature. He -reckons our expenses at $400.” Though Melville played with -this idea of the trip into the East for some days, he in the end -was forced by lack of funds to give it up. Not until 1856 did -he see Greece, and Constantinople, and the Holy Land, and -then under tragic circumstances.</p> - -<p>The rest of the week went by eventlessly. Melville read, -lounged, played cards, went into the Ladies’ Saloon for the -first time, there to “hear Mrs. Gould, the opera lady, sing.” -When he comes to Sunday, October 21, he is unusually laconic: -on ship board at least, Melville was in a mood to sympathise -with Fielding’s liberties with the calendar in <i>Tom Jones</i> in -counting six secular days as a full week. “Cannot remember -what happened to-day,” he writes; “it came to an end somehow.” -But on the morrow, his memory cleared. “I forgot to -mention that <i>last night</i> about 9:30 P. M., Adler and Taylor -came into my room, and it was proposed to have whiskey -punches, which we <i>did</i> have accordingly. Adler drank about -three tablespoons full—Taylor four or five tumblers, etc. We -had an extraordinary time and did not break up till after two in -the morning. We talked metaphysics continually, and Hegel, -Schlegel, Kant, etc., were discussed under the influence of the -whiskey. I shall not forget Adler’s look when he quoted La -Place the French astronomer—‘It is not necessary, gentlemen, -to account for these worlds by the hypothesis’, etc. After Adler -retired, Taylor and I went out on the bowsprit—splendid -spectacle.” Three days later there was further inducement to -metaphysical discussion. “By evening blew a very stiff breeze -and we dashed on in magnificent style. Fine moonlight night, -and we rushed on thro’ snow-banks of foam. McCurdy invited -Adler, the Doctor and I into his room and ordered cham<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[289]</a></span>pagne. -Went on deck again and remained till near midnight. -The scene was indescribable—I never saw such sailing before.”</p> - -<p>On Saturday, October 27: “Steered our course in a wind. I -played shuffle-board for the first time. Ran about aloft a -good deal. McCurdy invited Adler, Taylor and I to partake -of some <i>mulled wine</i> with him, which we did, in my room. -Got—all of us—riding on the German horse again. Taylor -has not been in Germany in vain. We sat down to whist, and -separated at about three in the morning.”</p> - -<p>On the morrow, “Decks very wet, and hard work to take -exercise. (‘Where dat old man?’) Read a little, dozed a little -and to bed early.” So passed another vacant Sabbath. In -the margin opposite “Where dat old man?” Melville’s wife has -added in pencil: “Macky’s baby words.” Melville thrice quotes -this question of Malcolm’s—and each time Mrs. Melville explains -it in the margin, and initials her explanation each time. -The third time she writes: “First words of baby Malcolm’s. -E.S.M.”</p> - -<p>Monday was wet and foggy. Some of the passengers were -sick. “In the afternoon tried to create some amusement by -arraigning Adler before the Captain in a criminal charge. In -the evening put the Captain in the chains, and argued the question -‘which was best, a monarchy or a republic?’ Had some -good sport during the debate—the Englishman wouldn’t take -part in it tho’.—After claret and stout with Monsieur Moran -and Taylor, went on deck and found it a moonlight midnight. -Wind astern. Retired at 1 A. M.”</p> - -<p>On November 1, Melville wrote: “Just three weeks from -home, and made the land—Start Point—about 3 P. M.—well -up channel—passed the Lizzard. Very fine day—great number -of ships in sight. Thro’ these waters Blake’s and Nelson’s -ships once sailed. Taylor suggested that he and I should return -McCurdy’s civilities. We did, and Captain Griswold -joined and ordered a pitcher of his own. The Captain is a very -intelligent and gentlemanly man—converses well and understands -himself. I never was more deceived in a person than -I was in him. Retired about midnight. Taylor played a rare<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[290]</a></span> -joke upon McCurdy this evening, passing himself off as Miss -Wilbur, having borrowed her cloak, etc. They walked together. -Shall see Portsmouth to-morrow morning.”</p> - -<p>Saturday, Nov. 3rd: “Woke about six o’clock with an insane -idea that we were going before the wind, and would be in -Portsmouth in an hour’s time. Soon found out my mistake. -About eight o’clock took a pilot, who brought some papers -two weeks old. Made the Isle of Wight about 10 A. M. -High land—the Needles—Wind ahead and tacking. Get in -to-night or to-morrow—or next week or year. Devilish dull, -and too bad altogether. Continued tacking all day with a light -wind from West. Isle of Wight in sight all day and numerous -ships. In the evening all hands in high spirits. Played chess -in the ladies’ saloon—another party at cards; good deal of -singing in the gentlemen’s cabin and drinking—very hilarious -and noisy. Last night every one thought. Determined to go -ashore at Portsmouth. Therefore prepared for it, arranged -my trunk to be left behind—put up a shirt or two in Adler’s -carpet bag and retired pretty early.”</p> - -<p>Sunday, Nov. 4th: “Looked out of my window first thing -upon rising and saw the Isle of Wight again—very near—ploughed -fields, etc. Light head wind—expected to be in a -little after breakfast time. About 10 A. M. rounded the -Eastern end of the Isle, when it fell flat calm. The town in -sight by telescope. Were becalmed about three or four hours. -Foggy, drizzly; long faces at dinner—no porter bottles. Wind -came from the West at last. Squared the yards and struck -away from Dover—distant 60 miles. Close reefed the topsails -so as not to run too fast. Expect now to go ashore to-morrow -morning early at Dover—and get to London via -Canterbury Cathedral. Mysterious hint dropped me about my -green coat. It is now eight o’clock in the evening. I am -alone in my state-room—lamp in tumbler. Spite of past disappointments, -I <i>feel</i> that this is my last night aboard the <i>Southampton</i>. -This time to-morrow I shall be on land, and press -English earth after the lapse of ten years—<i>then a sailor</i>, now -H. M. author of <i>Peedee</i>, <i>Hullabaloo</i> and <i>Pog-Dog</i>. For the -last time I lay aside my ‘log’ to add a line or two to Lizzie’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[291]</a></span> -letter the last I shall write aboard. (‘Where dat old man?—Where -looks?’)”</p> - -<p>The account of his experiences in England is preserved in a -separate note-book, formally beginning: “Commenced this -journal at 25 Craven Street at 6½ P. M. on Wednesday, Nov. -7, 1849—being just arrived from dinner at a chop house, and -feeling like it.”</p> - -<p>“<i>Mon. Nov. 5th, 1849</i>: Having at the invitation of McCurdy -cracked some champagne with him, I returned about -midnight to my state-room, and at four in the morning was -wakened by the Captain in person, saying we were off Dover. -Dressed in a hurry, ran on deck, and saw the lights ashore. -A cutter was alongside, and after some confusion in the dark, -we got off in her for the shore. A comical scene ensued, the -boatman saying we could not land at Dover, but only at Deal. -So to Deal we went, and were beached there just at break of -day. Some centuries ago a person called Julius Cæsar jumped -ashore about in this place, and took possession. It was Guy -Fawkes day also. Having left our baggage (that is, Taylor, -Adler and myself) to go round by ship to London, we were -wholly non-encumbered, and I proposed walking to Canterbury—distant -18 miles, for an appetite to breakfast. So we -strode thru this quaint old town of Deal, one of the Cinque -Ports, I believe, and soon were in the open country. A fine -Autumnal morning and the change from ship to shore was -delightful. Reached Sandwich (6 miles) and breakfasted at -a tumble down old inn. Finished with ale and pipes, visited -‘Richbors’ Castle’—so called—a Roman fortification near the -sea shore. An imposing ruin, the interior was planted with -cabbages. The walls some ten feet thick grown over with -ivy. Walked to where they were digging—and saw, defined -by a trench, the exterior wall of a circus. Met the proprietor—an -antiquary—who regaled me with the history of the place. -Strolled about the town, on our return, and found it full of interest -as a fine specimen of the old Elizabethan architecture. -Kent abounds in such towns. At one o’clock took the 2nd -class (no 3rd) cars for Canterbury. The cathedral is on many -accounts the most remarkable in England. Henry II, his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[292]</a></span> -wife, and the Black Prince are here—and Becket. Fine cloisters. -There is a fine thought expressed in one of the inscriptions -on a tomb in the nave. Dined at the Falstaff Inn -near the Westgate. Went to the theatre in the evening, & was -greatly amused at the performance: More people on the stage -than in the boxes. Ineffably funny, the whole affair. All -three of us slept in one room at the inn—odd hole.</p> - -<p>“<i>Tuesday, Nov. 6th</i>: Swallowed a glass of ale and away -for the R. R. Station & off for London, distant some 80 miles. -Took the third class car—exposed to the air, devilish cold -riding against the wind. Fine day—people sociable. Passed -thro Penshurst (P. S.’s place & Tunbridge—fine old ruin -that). Arrived at London Bridge at noon. Crossed at once -over into the city and down at a chop-house in the Poulberry—having -eaten nothing since the previous afternoon dinner. -Went and passed St. Paul’s to the Strand to find our house. -They referred us elsewhere. Very full. Secured room at -last (one for each) at a guinea and a half a week. Very -cheap. Went down to the Queen’s Hotel to inquire after our -ship friends—(on the way green coat attracted attention)—not -in. Went to Drury Lane at Julien’s Promenade Concerts -(admittance 1 s.) A great crowd and fine music. In the -reading room to see ‘Bentley’s Miscellany’ with something -about <i>Redburn</i>. (By the way, stopped at a store in the Row -& inquired for the book, to see whether it had been published. -They offered it to me at a guinea). At Julien’s also saw -Blackwoods’ long story about a short book. It’s very comical. -Seemed so, at least, as I had to hurry on it. But the wonder -is that the old Tory should waste so many papers upon a -thing which I, the author, know to be trash, and wrote it to buy -some tobacco with. A good wash & turned in early.</p> - -<p>“<i>Thursday, Nov. 8th</i>: Dressed, after breakfast at a coffee-house, -and went to Mr. Bentley’s. He was out of town at -Brighton. The notices of <i>Redburn</i> were shown me.—Laughable. -Staid awhile, and then to Mr. Murray’s, out of town. -Strolled about and went into the National Gallery. Dined -with the Doctor & Adler, and after dark a ramble thro’<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[293]</a></span> -Chancery Lane and Lincoln’s Inn Fields, we turned into Holborn -& so to the Princess’s Theatre in Oxford Street. Went -into the pit at the hall price—one shilling. The part of a -Frenchman was very well played. So also, skater on the ice.</p> - -<p>“<i>Friday, Nov. 9th</i>: Breakfasted late and went into Cheapside -to see the ‘Lord Mayor’s show’ it being the day of the -great civic feast & festivities. A most bloated pomp, to be -sure. Went down to the bridge to see the people crowding -there. Crossed by Westminster, thro’ the Parks to the Edgeware -Road, & found the walk delightful, the sun coming out -a little, and the air not cold. While on one of the bridges, -the thought struck me again that a fine story might be written -about a Blue Monday in November London—a City of Dis -(Dante’s) Cloud of Smoke—the damned, etc., coal boxes, oily -waters, etc.—its marks are left upon you, etc., etc., etc.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Israel Potter</i> (1855) Melville devoted one chapter to a -description of London Bridge: a chapter entitled: “In the City -of Dis.” The description begins: “It was late on a Monday -morning in November—a Blue Monday—a Fifth of November—Guy -Fawkes’ Day!—very blue, foggy, doleful and gunpowdery, -indeed.” Melville had been husbanding for six years -the impressions gathered on November 9, 1849.</p> - -<p>On November 10, Melville received a reply to the note he -had sent to Bentley announcing his presence in London. -Bentley expressed a willingness to come up from Brighton to -see Melville at any time convenient to Melville. Melville appointed -“Monday noon, in New Burlington Street,” and went -forth again to explore the city. He visited the Temple Courts. -By way of Cock Lane—reflecting on Dr. Johnson’s Ghost—he -walked on to the Charter House, “where I had a sociable -chat with an old pensioner who guided me through some fine -old cloisters, kitchens, chapels.” Saturday night, with Adler, -he strolled over to Holborn “vagabonding thro’ the courts -and lanes and looking in at windows. Stopped at a penny -theatre—very comical. Adler afraid. To bed early.” On -Sunday Melville went “down to Temple Church to hear the -music,” looked in at St. Paul’s, and then, with Adler, “took a -bus for Hampton Court.” They enjoyed the ride down, the<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[294]</a></span> -pictures at Hampton Court, and then dinner at the Adelphi in -the evening.</p> - -<p>On Monday, Melville saw Bentley. “Very polite,” says -Melville. “Gave me his note for £100 at ten days for <i>Redburn</i>. -Couldn’t do better, he said. He expressed much anxiety -and vexation at the state of the copyright question. Proposed -my new book <i>White-Jacket</i> to him and showed him the -table of contents. He was much pleased with it, and notwithstanding -the vexatious and uncertain state of the copyright -matter, he made me the following offer: To pay me £200 -for the first thousand copies of the book (the privilege of publishing -that number) and as we might afterwards arrange concerning -subsequent editions. A liberal offer. But he could -make no advance—left him and called upon Mr. Murray. -Not in. Out of town.... Walked to St. Paul’s and sat -over an hour in a dozy state listening to the chanting of the -choir. Felt homesick and sentimentally unhappy.”</p> - -<p>To sweeten his blood, he sallied forth, with Adler, early -on the morrow, “to see the last end of the Mannings. An -innumerable crowd in all the streets. Police by hundreds. -Men and women fainting. The man and wife were hung side -by side—still unreconciled to each other—what a change from -the time they stood up to be married together! The mob was -brutish. All in all, a most wonderful, horrible, and unspeakable -scene.—Breakfasted about 11 A. M. and went to the -Zoological Gardens, Regent’s Park. Very pretty. Fine -giraffes. Dreary and rainy day.”</p> - -<p>On the morrow “Rigged up again, and in my <i>green</i> jacket -called upon Mr. Murray in Albemarle Street. He was very -civil, much vexed about copyright matters. I proposed <i>White-Jacket</i> -to him—he seemed decidedly pleased and has since sent -for the proof sheets, according to agreement. That evening we -went to the New Strand Theatre, to see Coleman’s <i>The Clandestine -Marriage</i>.” Melville’s comment upon Leigh Murray, -who played Melvil, would do credit to the lost diary of Mrs. -Pepys: “the finest leg I ever saw on a man—a devilishly well -turned-out man, upon my soul.”</p> - -<p>The day following—November 15—was by the Queen ap<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[295]</a></span>pointed -as a day of special thanksgiving. Melville again sallied -forth sight-seeing. On the morrow he made two attempts -to see Murray; the second found him in. “Very polite—but -would not be in his line to publish my book.” On November -17, Colbour declined Melville’s offer of £200 for a thousand -copies of <i>White-Jacket</i>, “and principally because of the cussed -state of the copyright. Bad news enough—I shall not see -Rome—I’m floored—appetite unimpaired, however.” On the -19th, he saw Longman, to be told “they bided by the original -terms.” On the twentieth, he saw Moxen, the publisher. -“Found him in—sitting alone in a back room. He was at -first very stiff, cold, clammy and clumsy. Managed to bring -him to, tho, by clever speeches. Talked of Charles Lamb—he -warmed up and ended by saying he would send me a copy of -his works. He said he had often put Lamb to bed—drunk. -He spoke of Dana—he published D’s book here.” Moxen -sent Melville copies of Lamb’s works: but Moxen did not accept -Melville’s invitation to publish <i>White-Jacket</i>.</p> - -<p>On November 22—after a jovial evening spent over porter, -gin, brandy, whiskey, and cigars—Melville rose late, and with -a headache. So he rode out to Windsor, to inspect the state -apartments,—which he found “cheerlessly damned fine”—and -to view the Royal Stables. “On the way down from the town, -met the Queen coming from visiting the sick Queen Dowager. -Carriage and four going past with outriders. The Prince -with her. My English friend bowed, so did I—salute returned -by the Queen but not by the Prince. I would commend to the -Queen, Rowland’s Kalydon for clarifying the complexion. -She is an amiable domestic woman though, I doubt not, and -God bless her, say I, and long live the ‘Prince of Whales’—The -stables were splendid.”</p> - -<p>On Friday, November 23, at quarter to eleven, Melville -“had just returned from Mr. Murray’s where I dined agreeable -to invitation. It was a most amusing affair. Mr. Murray -was there in a short vest and dress coat, looking quizzical -enough; his footman was there also, habited in small clothes -and breeches, revealing a despicable pair of sheepshanks. The -impudence of the fellow in showing his legs, and such a pair<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[296]</a></span> -of legs too! in public, I thought extraordinary. The ladies -should have blushed, one would have thought, but they did -not. Lockhart was there also, in a prodigious white cravat -(made from Walter Scott’s shroud, I suppose). He stalked -about like a half galvanised ghost,—gave me the tips of two -skinny fingers, when introduced to me, or rather, I to him. -Then there was a round faced chap by the name of Cook—who -seemed to be Murray’s factotum. His duty consisted in -pointing out the portraits on the wall and saying that this or -that one was esteemed a good likeness of the high and mighty -ghost Lockhart. There were four or five others present, -nameless, fifth-rate looking varlets and four lean women. -One of them proved agreeable in the end. She had visited -some time in China. I talked with her some time. Besides -these there was a footman or boy in a light jacket with bell-buttons.”</p> - -<p>The lines following, Melville has heavily crossed out. They -are, in most part, decipherable, however, and they are not excessively -complimentary either to his host or the guest of -honour. “I managed to get through, though, somehow,” Melville -continues after this blotted abuse, “by conversing with -Dr. Holland, a very eminent physician, it seems,—and a very -affable, intelligent man who has travelled immensely. After -the ladies withdrew, the three decanters, port, sherry and -claret, were kept going the rounds with great regularity. I -sat next to Lockhart and seeing that he was a customer who -was full of himself and expected great homage, and knowing -him to be a thoroughgoing Tory and fish-blooded Churchman -and conservative, and withal editor of the <i>Quarterly</i>—I refrained -from playing the snob to him like the rest—and the -consequence was he grinned at me his ghastly smiles. After -returning to the drawing-room coffee and tea were served. I -soon after came away.” After two more blotted lines, Melville -concludes: “Oh, Conventionalism, what a ninny thou art, -to be sure. And now I must turn in.”</p> - -<p>Melville continued to interview publishers, and publishers -continued to chasten him with reflections on the state of the -copyright laws. Between times he amused himself as best he<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[297]</a></span> -could; but there was little novelty, brilliancy or excitement in -the amusement. He was once entertained very formally at -dinner, however: a Baroness Somebody on his left, an anonymous -Baron opposite him, and near him at table “a most lovely -young girl, a daughter of Captain Chamier, the sea novelist.” -And in these brilliant surroundings, he saw a copy of <i>Typee</i> -on a table in the drawing room. He ran upon an old friend -of Gansevoort’s, too, and as a result was betrayed into sober -and sentimental reflections. “No doubt, two years ago, or -three, Gansevoort was writing here in London, about the same -hour as this—alone in his chamber, in profound silence, as I -am now. This silence, is a strange thing. No wonder the -Greeks deemed it the vestibule to the higher mysteries.”</p> - -<p>He paid for his sentimentality, however, by passing “a -most extraordinary night—one continuous nightmare—till -daybreak. Hereafter, if I should be condemned to purgatory, -I shall plead the night of November 25, 1849, in extenuation -of the sentence.”</p> - -<p>On November 27, he abruptly left England, to find himself, -two days following, “right snugly roomed in the fifth story of -a lodging house No. 12 & 14 Rue de Bussy, Paris. It is the -first night I have taken possession,” he says, “and the chambermaid -has lighted a fire of wood, lit the candle and left me -alone, at 11 o’clock P. M. On first gazing round, I was -struck by the apparition of a bottle containing a dark fluid, a -glass, a decanter of water, and a paper package of sugar (loaf) -with a glass basin next to it. I protest all this was not in the -bond. But tho if I use these things they will doubtless be -charged to me, yet let us be charitable, so I ascribe all this to -the benevolence of Madame Capelle, my most polite, pleasant -and Frenchified landlady below. I shall try the brandy before -writing more—and now to resume my Journal.” The account -of Israel Potter’s first night in Paris, after Benjamin Franklin -shows him into lodgings in the Latin Quarter, is certainly -built upon Melville’s experience on this occasion. Israel finds -in his room a heavy plate glass mirror; and among the articles -genially reflected therein, he notes: “seventh, one paper of loaf -sugar, nicely broken into sugar-bowl size; eighth, one silver<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[298]</a></span> -teaspoon; ninth, one glass tumbler; tenth, one glass decanter -of cool pure water; eleventh, one sealed bottle containing a -richly hued liquid, and marked ‘Otard.’” Melville makes a -chapter out of Israel’s adventures with this bottle of Otard,—a -chapter in which Benjamin Franklin unburdens himself of -much almanac moralising upon the almanac virtues.</p> - -<p>Despite the Otard, and the snug quarters, and the diversions -of Paris—diversions somewhat restricted by Melville’s complete -inability to speak French—Melville was not happy every -moment he was in France. “Fire made, and tried to be comfortable. -But this is not home and—but no repinings.” Adler -was in Paris at the time, however, and this somewhat cheered -his solitude. Yet on December 2, when Melville left Adler -after an evening of eau de vie and cigars, he “strolled out into -a dark rainy night and made my melancholy way across the -Pont (rather a biscuit’s toss of the Morgue) to my sixth story -apartment.” And once safely in his room, he complained: “I -don’t like that mystic door tapestry leading out of the closet.” -On the following day he “looked in at the Morgue,” and -“bought two pair of gloves and one pair of shoes for Lizzie.” -That night, he dined with Adler, and “talked high German -metaphysics till ten o’clock.”</p> - -<p>He visited the Hotel de Cluny, and found “the house just -the house I’d like to live in.” He made a half-hearted effort -to see Rachel at the Theatre Française, but failed. He saw -the obvious sights and on December 6 hurried away from -Paris. He closes the record of his departure with a “Selah!” -Even in Paris, he speaks of taking his “usual bath” upon getting -up in the morning.</p> - -<p>He touched at Brussels: and despite its architecture, “a -more dull, humdrum place I never saw:” he hurried through -Cologne, where he found “much to interest a pondering man -like me.” From Cologne he was headed for Coblenz: but he -looked forward to the voyage with little eagerness: “I feel -homesick to be sure—being all alone with not a soul to talk -to—but the Rhine is before me, and I must on.” Of Coblenz -he wrote: “Most curious that the finest wine of all the Rhine -is grown right under the guns of Ehrenbreitstein.” “Opposite<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[299]</a></span> -is this frowning fortress—and some 4000 miles away is America -and Lizzie. To-morrow I am <i>homeward</i>-bound! Hurrah -and three cheers!” “In the horrible long dreary cold ride to -Ostend on the coach, in a fit of the nightmare was going to -stop at a way-place, taking it for the place of my destination.”</p> - -<p>By December 13, he was back to his old chamber overlooking -the Thames. Upon his arrival he was vaguely told “a -gentleman from St. James called in his coach,” and “was -handed, with a meaning flourish, a note sealed with a coronet.” -The note was from the Duke of Rutland,—perversely called -at times by Melville, <i>Mr.</i> Rutland—inviting Melville to visit -Belvoir Castle “at any time after a certain day in January.” -“Cannot go,” Melville writes—“I am homeward bound, and -Malcolm is growing all the time.” He called at Bentley’s for -letters. “Found one from Lizzie and Allan. Most welcome -but gave me the blues most horribly. Felt like chartering a -small boat and starting down the Thames embarked for New -York.” So he drank some punch to cheer him, and walked -down the Strand to buy a new coat, “so as to look decent—for -I found my green coat plays the devil with my respectability -here.” He haunted the bookshops, and “at last succeeded in -getting the much desired copy of Rousseau’s <i>Confessions</i>,” -as well as an 1686 folio of Sir Thomas Browne.</p> - -<p>On December 15, Melville “rigged for Bentley, whom I -expect to meet at 1 P. M. about <i>White-Jacket</i>. Called but had -not arrived from Brighton. Walked about a little and bought -a cigar case for Allan in Burlington Arcade. Saw some pretty -things for presents—but could not afford to buy.” So back to -his room he came, and filled up the time before four o’clock, -when he was to call again at Bentley’s, by writing up his journal. -“He does not know that I am in town,” Melville writes—“I -earnestly hope that I shall be able to see him and I shall be -able to do something about that ‘pesky’ book.”</p> - -<p>At six o’clock, Melville was back again in his room. “Hurrah -and three cheers! I have just returned from Mr. Bentley’s -and have concluded an arrangement with him that gives -me to-morrow his note for two hundred pounds (sterling). -It is to be at 6 months and I am almost certain I shall be able<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[300]</a></span> -to get it cashed at once. This takes a load off my heart. The -two hundred pounds is in anticipiation, for the book is not to be -published till the last of March next. Hence the long time -of the note. The above mentioned sum is for the first 1000 -copies, subsequent editions (if any) to be jointly divided between -us. At eight to-night I am going to Mrs. Daniels’. -What sort of an evening is it going to be? Mr. Bentley invited -me to dinner for Wednesday at 6 P. M. This will do for a -memorandum of the enjoyment. I have just read over the -Duke of Rutland’s note, which I had not fully perused before. -It seems very cordial. I wish the invitation was for next -week, instead of being so long ahead, but this I believe is the -mode here for these sort of invitations into the country. -(Memo. At 1 P. M. on Monday am to call at Mr. Bentley’s.)”</p> - -<p>Under Sunday, December 16, Melville wrote: “Last night -went in a cab to Lincoln’s Inn Fields and found Mrs. Daniel -and daughters. Very cordial. The elder ‘daught’ remarkably -sprightly and the mother as nice an old body as any one could -desire. Presently there came in several ‘young gents’ of various -complexions. We had some coffee, music, dancing, and -after an agreeable evening I came away at 11 o’clock, and -walking to the Cock near Temple Bar, drank a glass of stout -and home to bed after reading a few chapters in <i>Tristram -Shandy</i>, which I have never yet read. This morning breakfasted -at 10 at the Hotel De Sabloneue (very nice cheap little -snuggery being closed on Sundays). Had a sweet omelette -which was delicious. Thence walked to St. Thomas’s Church, -Charter House, to hear my famed namesake (almost) ‘The -Reverend H. Melvill.’ I had seen him placarded as to deliver -a charity sermon. The church was crowded—the sermon -admirable (granting the Rev. gentleman’s premises). -Indeed he deserves his reputation. I do not think that I hardly -ever heard so good a discourse before—that is for an ‘orthodox’ -divine. It is now 3 P. M. I have had a fire made and -am smoking a cigar. Would that one I knew were here. -Would that the Little One too were here,—I am in a very -painful state of uncertainty. I am all eagerness to get home—I -ought to be home. My absence occasions uneasiness in a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[301]</a></span> -quarter where I most beseech heaven to grant repose. Yet -here I have before me an open prospect to get some curious -ideas of a style of life which in all probability I shall never -have again. I should much like to know what the highest -English aristocracy really and practically is. And the Duke -of Rutland’s cordial invitation to visit him at the castle furnishes -me with just the thing I want. If I do not go, I am -confident that hereafter I shall reprimand myself for neglecting -such an opportunity of procuring ‘material.’ And Allan -and others will account me a ninny.—I would not debate the -matter a moment were it not that at least three whole weeks -must elapse ere I start for Belvoir Castle—three weeks! If -I could but get over them! And if the two images would only -down for that space of time. I must light a second cigar and -resolve it over again. (½ past 6 P. M.) My mind is made, -rather is irrevocably resolved upon my first determination. A -visit into Leicester would be very agreeable—at least very valuable, -and in one respect, to me—but the three weeks are intolerable. -To-morrow I shall go down to London Dock and -book myself a state-room on board the good ship <i>Independence</i>. -I have just returned from a lonely dinner at the Adelphi, where -I read the Sunday papers. An article upon the ‘Sunday School -Union’ particularly struck me. Would that I could go home -in a steamer—but it would take an extra $100 out of my -pocket. Well, it’s only thirty days—one month—and I can -weather it somehow.”</p> - -<p>On Monday, Melville concluded his arrangements with -Bentley, who gave him a note for two hundred pounds sterling -at six months. Melville also walked down to the London -Docks to inspect the <i>Independence</i>. “She looks small and -smells ancient,” Melville writes. “Only two or three passengers -engaged. I liked Captain Fletcher, however. He enquired -whether I was a relative of Gansevoort Melville and of Herman -Melville. I told him I was. I engaged my passage and -paid ten pounds down.... Thence home; and out again, and -took a letter for a Duke to the post office and a pair of pants -to be altered to a tailor.”</p> - -<p>On Tuesday, Melville made another of his many pilgrimages<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[302]</a></span> -to the old book stores about Great Green Street and Lincoln’s -Inn. “Looked over a lot of ancient books of London. Bought -one (A. D. 1766) for 3 and 2 pence. I want to use it in case -I serve up the Revolutionary narrative of the beggar.” What -was the title of this “ancient book of London” is not known, -and hence it is impossible to know what use he put it to, when -in <i>Israel Potter</i> he did finally “serve up the Revolutionary narrative -of the beggar.” The same day he “stopped at a silversmith’s -(corner of Craven St. & Strand) and bought a solid -spoon for the boy Malcolm—a fork, I mean. When he arrives -to years of mastication I shall invest him with this fork—as -in yore they did a young knight, with his good sword. -Spent an hour or so looking over <i>White-Jacket</i> preparatory to -sending it finally to Bentley—who, tho he has paid his money -has not received his wares. At 6 I dine with him.”</p> - -<p>The dinner with Bentley went off well. Melville “had a -very pleasant evening indeed” and “began to like” his publisher -“very much.” Melville reported that “He seems a very fine, -frank, off-handed old gentleman. We sat down in a fine old -room hung round with paintings (dark walls). A party of -fourteen or so. There was a Mr. Bell there—connected with -literature in some way or other. At all events an entertaining -man and a scholar—but looks as if he loved old Pat. Also -Alfred Henry Forester (‘Alfred Crowquill’)—the comic -man. He proved a good fellow—free and easy and no damned -nonsense, as there is about so many of these English. Mr. -Bentley has one daughter, a fine woman of 25 and married, and -four sons—young men. They were all at table. Some time -after 11, went home with Crowquill, who invites me to go with -him Thursday and see the Pantomime rehearsal at the Surrey -Theatre.”</p> - -<p>The following evening Melville dined with Mr. Cook—whom -he had despised, at first meeting, as Murray’s factotum—in -Elm Court, Temple, “and had a glorious time till noon of -night. It recalled poor Lamb’s ‘Old Benchers.’ Cunningham -the author of <i>Murray’s London Guide</i> was there and was very -friendly. Mr. Rainbow also, and a grandson Woodfall, the -printer of Junius, and a brother-in-law of Leslie the printer.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[303]</a></span> -Leslie was prevented from coming. Up in the 5th story we -dined.” With a typical departure from the conventional orthography, -Melville pronounced the evening, “The Paradise -of Batchelors.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine</i> for April, 1854, Melville -published a sketch entitled <i>Paradise of Bachelors and -Tartarus of Maids</i>. In 1854 he was living in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, -in a household of women and young children—three -of his sisters, his mother, his wife, and three of his own -children. So surrounded, he had relinquished none of the -pleasant memories of that December evening, in 1849, in -those high chambers near Temple-Bar. “It was the very perfection -of quiet absorption of good living, good drinking, -good feeling, and good talk,” Melville wrote in 1854. “We -were a band of brothers. Comfort—fraternal, household comfort, -was the grand trait of the affair. Also, you could plainly -see that these easy-hearted men had no wives or children to -give an anxious thought. Almost all of them were travellers, -too; for bachelors alone can travel freely, and without any -twinges of their conscience touching desertion of the fireside.” -The antithesis of this, Melville pictures in the second part of -his account—<i>The Tartarus of Maids</i>.</p> - -<p>Yet just on the eve of his going to these high festivities in -the Temple, a letter was left him—“from home!” The letter -reported: “All well and Barney (“Baby boy,” Mrs. Melville -has written in annotation on the margin of the journal) more -bouncing than ever, thank heaven.” On the following day, -Melville began and finished the <i>Opium Eater</i>, and pronounced -it “a most wonderful book.”</p> - -<p>On December 24, Melville was in Portsmouth. On Christmas -morning he jumped into a small boat with the Captain -and a meagre company of passengers, and “pulled off for the -ship about a mile and a half distant. Upon boarding her we -at once set sail with a fair wind, and in less than 24 hours -passed the Land’s End and the Scilly Isle—and standing boldly -out on the ocean stretched away for New York. I shall keep -no further diary. I here close it, with my departure from -England, and my pointing for home.”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[304]</a></span></p> - -<p>On a blank page at end of his journal, he jotted some brief -“Memoranda of things on the voyage.” He noted Sir Thomas -Browne’s reference to cannibals in <i>Vulgar Errors</i>, and the -fact that Rousseau, as a school master “could have killed his -scholars sometimes.” He observed that “a Dandy is a good -fellow to scout and room with;” and copied out from Ben -Jonson “Talk as much folly as you please—so long as you do -it without blushing, you may do it with impunity.” He itemised -in his journal, too, the books obtained while abroad: a -1692 folio of Ben Jonson; a 1673 folio of Davenant; a folio -of Beaumont and Fletcher; a 1686 folio of Sir Thomas -Browne, and a folio of Marlowe’s plays. He brought with -him, also, a <i>Hudibras</i>, a <i>Castle of Otranto</i>, a <i>Vathek</i>, a -<i>Corinne</i>, besides the confessions of Rousseau and of DeQuincey, -and the autobiography of Goethe. The other books were -guides, old maps, and other material for <i>Israel Potter</i>.</p> - -<p>Melville arrived at 103 Fourth Avenue, on February 2, -1850. Mrs. Melville, in her journal, thus summarises her -husband’s trip. “Summer of 1849 we remained in New York. -He wrote <i>Redburn</i> and <i>White-Jacket</i>. Same fall went to England -and published the above. Stayed eleven weeks. Took -little satisfaction in it from mere homesickness, and hurried -home, leaving attractive invitations to visit distinguished people—one -from the Duke of Rutland to pass a week at Belvoir -Castle—see his journal.”</p> - -<p>Of his life after his return home, she says: “We went to -Pittsfield and boarded in the summer of 1850. Moved to -Arrowhead in fall—October, 1850.”</p> - -<p>On September 27, 1850, Bayard Taylor dispatched from the -Tribune Office, New York, a note to Mary Angew. “Scarcely -a day passes,” Taylor wrote, “but some pleasant recognition is -given me. I was invited last Friday to dine with Bancroft -and Cooper; on Saturday with Sir Edward Belcher and Herman -Melville. These things seem like mockeries, sent to increase -the bitterness of my heart.” It is not unlikely that Melville -and Taylor fed and drank and smoked together on that -Saturday evening, and that they parted, each envying the other -as a happy and successful man.</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[305]</a></span></p> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XV <br /> - -<span class="smaller">A NEIGHBOUR OF HAWTHORNE’S</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“And here again, not unreasonably, might invocation go up to those -three Weird Ones, that tend Life’s loom. Again we might ask them, -what threads are these, oh, ye Weird Ones, that ye wove in the years -foregone?”</p> - -<p><span class="sig">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Pierre</i>.</span></p></div> - - -<p>At the time when Melville moved into the Berkshire Hills, -the region around Lenox boasted the descriptive title: “a jungle -of literary lions”—a title amiably ferocious in its provincial -vanity. In this region, it is true, Jonathan Edwards had written -his treatises on predestination, and with sardonic optimism -had gloated over the beauties of hell; here Catherine -Sedgewick wrote her amiable insipidities; here Elihu Burritt, -“the learned Blacksmith” wrote out his <i>Sparks</i>; here Bryant -composed; here Henry Ward Beecher indited many <i>Star-Papers</i>; -here Headley and Holmes, Lowell and Longfellow, -Curtis and G. P. R. James, Audubon and Whipple, Mrs. -Sigourney and Martineau, Fanny Kemble and Frederick -Bremer and the Goodale sisters either visited or lived. Impressed -by this array of names—an array deceptively impressive -to the New England imagination,—local pride has not -blushed to explain: “By the river Arno, in the ‘lake region’ of -Cumberland and Westmoreland, or on the placid river which -flows through the Concord meadows, what congestion of literary -associations! Like the instinct of the bee which, separated -by great distances from the hive, possesses the infallible -sense of direction for its return, so, too, the lovely ‘nooks -and corners’ on the earth’s surface are irresistibly and unerringly -attracting choice spirits, which some way are sure to -find them out and pre-empt them in the interests of their craft -or clan. Berkshire is no exception to this.”</p> - -<p>When, in 1850, both Melville and Hawthorne moved into -the Berkshires, these literary wilds were tamely domesticated,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[306]</a></span> -and sadly thinned of prowling genius. The coming of Melville -and Hawthorne, however, marked the most important advent -ever made into these regions. For there Melville wrote -<i>Moby-Dick</i>; and there Melville and Hawthorne were to be -thrown into an ironical intimacy.</p> - -<p>In the autumn of 1850, Melville bought a spacious gambrel-roofed -farmhouse at Pittsfield, situated along Holmes Road -and not far from Broadhall, formerly the home of his uncle, -and familiar to Melville’s youth. Melville named the place -Arrowhead. To Arrowhead he brought his retinue of female -relatives, and set about to alternate farming with literature.</p> - -<p>In the first of the <i>Piazza Tales</i> (1856), in <i>I and My Chimney</i> -(<i>Putnam’s Magazine</i>, March, 1856), and in <i>The Rose-wood -Table</i> (<i>Putnam’s Magazine</i>, May, 1856), Melville has left -descriptions of Arrowhead, its inmates, and the surrounding -country.</p> - -<p>“When I removed into the country,” Melville says in the -<i>Piazza Tales</i>, “it was to occupy an old-fashioned farmhouse -which had no piazza—a deficiency the more regretted because -not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the cosiness -of indoors with the freedom of outdoors, and it is so -pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, but the country -round about was such a picture, that in berry time no boy -climbs hill or crosses vale without coming upon easels planted -in every nook, and sunburned painters painting there. A very -paradise of painters. The circle of the stars cut by the circle -of the mountains. At least, so it looks from the house; though -once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see. Had -the site been chosen five rods off, this charmed circle would -not have been.</p> - -<p>“The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of -the Hearth Stone Hill, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy -Stone, to which, each Thanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to -come. So long ago that in digging for the foundation, the -workmen used both spade and axe fighting the Troglodytes -of those subterranean parts—sturdy roots of a sturdy wood, -encamped upon what is now a long landslide of sleeping -meadow, sloping away off from my poppy bed. Of that knit<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[307]</a></span> -wood but one survivor stands—an elm, lonely through steadfastness.</p> - -<p>“Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; -or else Orion in the zenith flashed down his Damocles’ sword -to him some starry night, and said: ‘Build there.’ For how, -otherwise, could it have entered the builder’s mind that, upon -the clearing being made, such a purple prospect would be his? -Nothing less than Greylock, with all his hills about him, like -Charlemagne among his peers.</p> - -<p>“A piazza must be had.</p> - -<p>“The house was wide—my fortune narrow ... upon but -one of the four sides would prudence grant me what I wanted. -Now which side? Charlemagne, he carried it.</p> - -<p>“No sooner was ground broken than all the neighbourhood, -neighbour Dives in particular, broke too—into a laugh. Piazza -to the north! Winter piazza! Wants, of winter midnights, -to watch the Aurora Borealis, I suppose; hope he’s laid in a -good store of polar muffs and mittens.</p> - -<p>“That was in the lion month of March. Not forgotten are -some of the blue noses of the carpenters and how they scouted -at the greenness of the cit, who would build his sole piazza to -the north. But March don’t last forever; patience, and -August comes. And then, in the cool elysium of my northern -bower, I, Lazarus in Abraham’s bosom, cast down the hill a -pitying glance on poor old Dives, tormented in the purgatory -of his piazza to the south.</p> - -<p>“But, even in December, this northern piazza does not repel—nipping -cold and gusty though it be, and the north wind, -like any miller, bolting by the snow in finest flour—for then, -once more, with frosted beard, I pace the sleety deck, weathering -Cape Horn.</p> - -<p>“In summer, too, Canute-like, sitting here, one is often reminded -of the sea. For not only do long ground-swells roll -the slanting grain, and little wavelets of the grass ripple over -upon the low piazza, as their beach, and the blown down of -dandelions is wafted like the spray, and the purple of the -mountains is just the purple of the billows, and a still August -noon broods over the deep meadows, as a calm upon the Line;<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[308]</a></span> -but the vastness and the lonesomeness are so oceanic, and the -silence and the sameness, too, that the first peep of a strange -house, rising beyond the trees, is for all the world like spying, -on the Barbary coast, an unknown sail.”</p> - -<p>In <i>I and My Chimney</i> Melville makes the old chimney at -Arrowhead the chief character in a sketch of his domestic -life at Pittsfield: himself and his wife, both freely idealised, -are the other actors. This chimney, twelve feet square at the -base, was built by Capt. David Bush who erected the house in -1780. It has three fireplaces on the first floor and the one -formerly used for the kitchen fireplace is large enough for a -log four feet long. This fireplace is panelled in pine, and -above it hangs an Indian tomahawk, found and hung there -by Melville. Around it are many nooks and cupboards. In -<i>I and My Chimney</i> Melville wrote: “And here I keep mysterious -cordials of a choice, mysterious flavour, made so by -the constant naturing and subtle ripening of the chimney’s -gentle heat, distilled through that warm mass of masonry. -Better for wines it is than voyages to the Indies; my chimney -itself is a tropic. A chair by my chimney in a November day -is as good for an invalid as a long season spent in Cuba. -Often I think how grapes might ripen against my chimney. -How my wife’s geraniums bud there! But in December. Her -eggs too—can’t keep them near the chimney on account of -hatching. Ah, a warm heart has my chimney.”</p> - -<p>Col. Richard Lathers, in his reminiscences of his Pittsfield -residence, writes: “One of my nearest neighbours at Pittsfield -was Herman Melville, author of the interesting and very original -sea tales, <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> (which were among the first -books to be published simultaneously in London and New -York), and of various other volumes of prose and verse. I -visited him often in his well-stocked library, where I listened -with intense pleasure to his highly individual views of society -and politics. He always provided a bountiful supply of good -cider—the product of his own orchard—and of tobacco, in -the virtues of which he was a firm believer. Indeed, he prided -himself on the inscription painted over his capacious fireplace: -‘I and my chimney smoke together,’ an inscription I have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[309]</a></span> -seen strikingly verified more than once when the atmosphere -was heavy and the wind was east.”</p> - -<p>When Melville set up his family at Arrowhead, Hawthorne -had already been settled at Lenox, some miles away, for a -number of months. “I have taken a house in Lenox”—so he -announced his removal—“I long to get into the country, for -my health is not what it has been. An hour or two in a -garden and a daily ramble in country air would keep me all -right.”</p> - -<p>Though Melville and Hawthorne were at this time neither -in very affluent circumstances, Hawthorne was, to all outward -appearances, the more straitened of the two. He described -his new home as “the very ugliest little bit of an old -red farmhouse you ever saw,” “the most inconvenient and -wretched house I ever put my head in.” His wife, however, -was not so precipitous in her damnation, and writing to her -mother on June 23, 1850, said: “We are so beautifully arranged -(excepting the guest-chamber), and we seem to have -such a large house <i>inside</i>, though outside the little reddest -thing looks like the smallest of ten-feet houses. Enter our -old black tumble-down gate,—no matter for that,—and you -behold a nice yard, with an oval grass-plot and a gravel -walk all round the borders, a flower-bed, some rose-bushes, -a raspberry-bush, and I believe a syringa, and also a few tiger-lilies; -quite a fine bunch of peonies, a stately double rose-columbine, -and one beautiful Balsam Fir tree, of perfect -pyramidal form, and full of a thousand melodies. The front -door is wide open. Enter and welcome.” Mrs. Hawthorne -then elaborates upon the wealth of beauty she finds in her -tactful disposition of the pictures, the furniture, and flowers, -in the cramped interior. In this tabernacle she enshrined -her two small children; and in the “immortal endowments” -of her husband, she was inarticulate in felicity. “I cannot possibly -conceive of my happiness,” she wrote, “but, in a blissful -kind of confusion, live on. If I can only be so great, so high, -so noble, so sweet, as he in any phase of my being, I shall be -glad. I am not deluded nor mistaken, as the angels know now, -and as all my friends well know, in open vision!”</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[310]</a></span></p> - -<p>Of the actual daily events at Arrowhead and the Red House -there is a great inequality in the wealth of records. Of the -Red House we know much; of Arrowhead we know only too -little. Though Mrs. Hawthorne was always childlike in her -modesty and simplicity, “her learning and her accomplishments -were rare and varied.” She not only read Latin, Greek -and Hebrew, but she kept an invaluable journal of the momentous -trifles of her husband’s life; and she wrote letters -home that her Mother very properly preserved for posterity. -Mrs. Melville positively knew no Hebrew; and what accounts -of her husband she wrote have all disappeared. Only one letter -of hers of this period survives:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Arrowhead</span>, Aug. 3, 1851.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mother</span>: -</p> - -<p>“I have been trying to write to you ever since Sam came, -but could not well find a chance. As it proved, I was not -mistaken in supposing the little parcel he brought was a present -from you, though I had no letter. The contents were -beautiful and very acceptable. Do accept my best thanks for -them. We were delighted to see Sam Savage on Tuesday, -but as he did not notify us of the day we were not in waiting -for him at the depot. However, he found his way out to us. -To-day he and Sam have gone over to Lebanon to see the -Shakers. The girls were much pleased with the collars, and -Mother M. with her remembrance. The scarf you sent me -was very handsome, but I am almost sorry you did not keep -it for yourself, for it does not seem to me as if I should ever -wear it—and certainly not this summer as I go nowhere not -even to church. It will look very handsome with my new -shawl, if ever I do wear it, though.</p> - -<p>“You need not be afraid of the boys staying too long—I -am only sorry that they cannot stay longer, but they think -or rather Sam Savage thinks he must go to Red Hook this -week. You know we do not make any difference for them -and let them do just as they please and take care of themselves. -Yesterday they went with Herman and explored a -neighbouring mountain.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[311]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Oh, you will be glad to hear, and I meant to have written -it to father the other day, that in consideration of the recent -decisions with regard to the copyright question, Mr. Bentley -is to give Herman £150 and half profits after, for his new -book—a much smaller sum than before, to be sure, but certainly -worth waiting for—and quite generous on Mr. Bentley’s -part considering the unsettled state of things.</p> - -<p>“I cannot write any more—it makes me terribly nervous—I -don’t know as you can read this I have scribbled it so.”</p></div> - -<p>At the time of Melville’s moving to Arrowhead he was -writing <i>Moby-Dick</i>. In the brief life of Melville in her journal, -Mrs. Melville says: “Wrote <i>White-Whale</i> or <i>Moby-Dick</i> -under unfavourable circumstances—would sit at his desk all -day not writing anything till four or five o’clock—then ride -to the village after dark—would be up early and out walking -before breakfast—sometimes splitting wood for exercise. -Published <i>White-Whale</i> in 1851—wrote <i>Pierre</i>, published -1852. We all felt anxious about the strain on his health in -the spring of 1853.”</p> - -<p>When Hawthorne moved to Lenox he was forty-six years -old—Melville’s senior by fifteen years. “Bidding good-bye -for ever to literary obscurity and to Salem,” Mr. Julian Hawthorne -says in his <i>Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife</i>, “Hawthorne -now turned his face towards the mountains. The preceding -nine months had told upon his health and spirits: and, -had <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> not achieved so fair a success, he might -have been long in recovering his normal frame of mind. But -the broad murmur of popular applause, coming to his unaccustomed -ears from all parts of his native country, and rolling -in across the sea from academic England, gave him the -spiritual refreshment born of the assurance that our fellow-creatures -think well of the work we have striven to make -good. Such assurance is essential, sooner or later, to soundness -and serenity of mind. No man can attain secure repose -and happiness who has never found that what moves and interests -him has power over others likewise. Sooner or later he -will begin to doubt either his own sanity or that of all the rest<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[312]</a></span> -of the world.” Melville was never to know any such repose -and happiness.</p> - -<p>Within the sanctities of the Red House, and among the solitudes -of the surrounding country, Hawthorne enjoyed all the -companionship he desired. In 1842, Mrs. Hawthorne had -written to her mother: “Mr. Hawthorne’s abomination of visiting -still holds strong, be it to see no matter what angel;” and -in 1850, Hawthorne was no more eager for alliances even -with celestials. Not, indeed, that he was indifferent to his -fellowmen: that, his literary vocation would not permit. In -<i>Sights from a Steeple</i> he states: “The most desirable mode of -existence might be that of a spiritualised Paul Pry, hovering -invisible round men and women, witnessing their deeds, searching -into their hearts, borrowing brightness from their felicity, -and shade from their sorrow, and retaining no emotion peculiar -to himself.” Hawthorne’s son writes: “Now Hawthorne, -both by nature and by training, was of a disposition to throw -himself imaginatively into the shoes (as the phrase is) of -whatever person happened to his companion. For the time -being, he would seem to take their point of view and to -speak their language; it was the result partly of a subtle sympathy -and partly of a cold intellectual insight, which led him -half consciously to reflect what he so clearly perceived. Thus, -if he chatted with a group of rude sea-captains in the smoking-room -of Mrs. Blodgett’s boarding-house, or joined a knot of -boon companions in a Boston bar-room, or talked metaphysics -with Herman Melville on the hills of Berkshire, he would aim -to appear in each instance a man like as they were; he would -have the air of being interested in their interests and viewing -life by their standards. Of course, this was only apparent; -the real man stood aloof and observant.” “Seeing his congenial -aspect towards their little round of habits and beliefs, -they would leap to the conclusion that he was no more and -no less than one of themselves; whereas they formed but a -tiny arc in the great circle of his comprehension.” Yet even -when not in the rôle of unimpassioned spectator, Hawthorne -was not the man to sit in pharisaical judgment upon his fellows. -In <i>Fancy’s Show-Box</i> he wrote: “Man must not dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[313]</a></span>claim -his brotherhood, even with the guiltiest, since, though his -hand be clean, his heart has surely been polluted by the flitting -phantoms of iniquity.” Emerson once said that there -was no crime he could not commit: an amiable vanity he -shared with many a more prosaic fellow. Hawthorne studied -his own pure heart and learned that “men often over-estimate -their capacity for evil.” “I used to think,” he wrote, “that I -could imagine all feelings, all passions, and states of the heart -and mind.” Again: “Living in solitude till the fulness of time -was come, I still kept the dew of my youth and the freshness of -my heart. Had I sooner made my escape into the world, -I should have grown hard and rough, and been covered with -earthly dust, and my heart might have become callous by rude -encounters with the multitude.” G. P. Lathrop, in his <i>Study -of Hawthorne</i>, says: “The visible pageant is only of value to -him as it suggests the viewless host of heavenly shapes that -hang above it like an idealising mirage.” Yet never for a -second did he lose himself among these heavenly visitations. -He was eminently a man of sound sense: as W. C. Brownell -has pointed out, he was “distinctly the most hard-headed of -our men of genius.” His son said of him: “He was the slave -of no theory and no emotion; he always knew, so to speak, -where he was and what he was about.” His nature clearly -was self-sustaining. He never felt the need of the support -that in the realm of the affections is the reward of self-surrender. -“He had no doubt an ideal family life,” W. C. -Brownell points out—“that is to say, ideal in a peculiar way, -for he had it on rather peculiar terms, one suspects. These -were, in brief, his own terms. He was worshipped, idolised, -canonised, and on his side it probably required small effort -worthily to fill the rôle a more ardent nature would have -either merited less or found more irksome. He responded -at any rate with absolute devotion. His domestic periphery -bounded his vital interests.”</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t312aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t312aa.jpg" width="600" height="460" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>ARROWHEAD</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t312ab.jpg" width="600" height="410" alt="" /> -<div class="caption"><p>THE FIREPLACE</p> - -<p>ARROWHEAD</p></div> -</div> - -<p>J. E. A. Smith, however, who knew Hawthorne in the flesh, -undertakes to portray Hawthorne in less austere outline. In -his book <i>Taghconic: The Romance and Beauty of the Hills</i> -(Boston, 1879) J. E. A. Smith, writing under the pseu<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[314]</a></span>donym -“Godfrey Greylock,” says: “But that Mr. Hawthorne’s -heart was warm and tender, I am well assured by -more than one circumstance, which I do not know that I am -at liberty to recall here. But there can be no wrong in mentioning -the origin, as I have heard it, of the brotherly friendship -between him and Herman Melville. As the story was told -me, Mr. Hawthorne was aware that Melville was the author of -a very appreciative review of the <i>Scarlet Letter</i> which appeared -in the <i>Literary World</i>, edited by their common friends, -the Duyckincks; but this very knowledge, perhaps, kept two -very sensitive men shy of each other, although thrown into -company. But one day it chanced that when they were out -on a picnic excursion, the two were compelled by a thunder-shower -to take shelter in a narrow recess of the rocks of Monument -Mountain. Two hours of enforced intercourse settled -the matter. They learned so much of each other’s character, -and found that they held so much of thought, feeling and -opinion in common, that the most intimate friendship for the -future was inevitable.”</p> - -<p>Mr. Julian Hawthorne reports that Herman Melville—or -Omoo, as they called him,—soon became familiar and welcome -at the Red House. In a letter dated September 4, 1850, Mrs. -Hawthorne reported to her mother: “To-day, Mr. Hawthorne -and Mr. Melville have gone to dine at Pittsfield.” It is in this -letter that Mrs. Hawthorne wrote the characterisation of Melville -quoted in Chapter I.</p> - -<p>Hawthorne finished <i>The House of the Seven Gables</i> on -January 27, 1851. The four months following Hawthorne -gave over to a vacation. “He had recovered his health,” his -son says, “he had done his work, he was famous, and the -region in which he dwelt was beautiful and inspiriting. At -all events, he made those spring days memorable to his children. -He made them boats to sail on the lake, and kites to -fly in the air; he took them fishing and flower-gathering, and -tried (unsuccessfully for the present) to teach them swimming. -Mr. Melville used to ride or drive up, in the evenings, -with his great dog, and the children used to ride on the dog’s<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[315]</a></span> -back.”... “It was with Herman Melville that Hawthorne -held the most familiar intercourse at this time, both personally -and by letter.” Hawthorne’s son quotes “characteristic -disquisitions” by Melville; “but Hawthorne’s answers, if he -wrote any,” Mr. Julian Hawthorne goes on to say, entertaining -a philosophical doubt in the face of Melville’s specific mention -of letters from Hawthorne, “were unfortunately destroyed -by fire.”</p> - -<p>What would appear to be the earliest of the surviving letters -of Melville to Hawthorne follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Pittsfield</span>, Wednesday morning.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Hawthorne</span>,— -</p> - -<p>“Concerning the young gentleman’s shoes, I desire to say -that a pair to fit him, of the desired pattern, cannot be had -in all Pittsfield,—a fact which sadly impairs that metropolitan -pride I formerly took in the capital of Berkshire. Henceforth -Pittsfield must hide its head. However, if a pair of -<i>bootees</i> will at all answer, Pittsfield will be very happy to -provide them. Pray mention all this to Mrs. Hawthorne, and -command me.</p> - -<p>“‘<i>The House of the Seven Gables</i>: A Romance. By Nathaniel -Hawthorne. One vol. 16mo, pp. 344.’ The contents -of this book do not belie its rich, clustering, romantic -title. With great enjoyment we spent almost an hour in each -separate gable. This book is like a fine old chamber, abundantly, -but still judiciously, furnished with precisely that sort -of furniture best fitted to furnish it. There are rich hangings, -wherein are braided scenes from tragedies! There is -old china with rare devices, set out on the carved buffet; there -are long and indolent lounges to throw yourself upon; there -is an admirable sideboard, plentifully stored with good viands; -there is a smell as of old wine in the pantry; and finally, in one -corner, there is a dark little black-letter volume in golden -clasps, entitled <i>Hawthorne: A Problem</i>. It has delighted us; -it has piqued a re-perusal; it has robbed us of a day, and made -us a present of a whole year of thoughtfulness; it has bred -great exhilaration and exultation with the remembrance that<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[316]</a></span> -the architect of the Gables resides only six miles off, and not -three thousand miles away, in England, say. We think the -book, for pleasantness of running interest, surpasses the other -works of the author. The curtains are more drawn; the sun -comes in more; genialities peep out more. Were we to particularise -what most struck us in the deeper passages, we -would point out the scene where Clifford, for a moment, would -fain throw himself forth from the window to join the procession; -or the scene where the judge is left seated in his ancestral -chair. Clifford is full of an awful truth throughout. -He is conceived in the finest, truest spirit. He is no caricature. -He is Clifford. And here we would say that, did circumstances -permit, we should like nothing better than to devote -an elaborate and careful paper to the full consideration and -analysis of the purport and significance of what so strongly -characterises all of this author’s writings. There is a certain -tragic phase of humanity which, in our opinion, was never -more powerfully embodied than by Hawthorne. We mean the -tragedies of human thought in its own unbiassed, native, and -profounder workings. We think that into no recorded mind -has the intense feeling of the usable truth ever entered more -deeply than into this man’s. By usable truth, we mean the -apprehension of the absolute condition of present things as they -strike the eye of the man who fears them not, though they -do their worst to him,—the man who, like Russia or the British -Empire, declares himself a sovereign nature (in himself) -amid the powers of heaven, hell, and earth. He may perish; -but so long as he exists he insists upon treating with all Powers -upon an equal basis. If any of those other Powers choose -to withhold certain secrets, let them; that does not impair my -sovereignty in myself; that does not make me tributary. And -perhaps, after all, there is <i>no</i> secret. We incline to think -that the Problem of the Universe is like the Freemason’s -mighty secret, so terrible to all children. It turns out, at last, -to consist in a triangle, a mallet, and an apron,—nothing more! -We incline to think that God cannot explain His own secrets, -and that He would like a little information upon certain points -Himself. We mortals astonish Him as much as He us. But<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[317]</a></span> -it is this <i>Being</i> of the matter; there lies the knot with which -we choke ourselves. As soon as you say <i>Me</i>, a <i>God</i>, a <i>Nature</i>, -so soon you jump off from your stool and hang from the beam. -Yes, that word is the hangman. Take God out of the dictionary, -and you would have Him in the street.</p> - -<p>“There is the grand truth about Nathaniel Hawthorne. He -says NO! in thunder; but the Devil himself cannot make him -say <i>yes</i>. For all men who say yes, lie; and all men who say -no,—why, they are in the happy condition of judicious, unincumbered -travellers in Europe; they cross the frontiers into -Eternity with nothing but a carpet-bag,—that is to say, the -Ego. Whereas those <i>yes</i>-gentry, they travel with heaps of -baggage, and, damn them! they will never get through the -Custom House. What’s the reason, Mr. Hawthorne, that in -the last stages of metaphysics a fellow always falls to <i>swearing</i> -so? I could rip an hour. You see, I began with a little criticism -extracted for your benefit from the <i>Pittsfield Secret Review</i>, -and here I have landed in Africa.</p> - -<p>“Walk down one of these mornings and see me. No nonsense; -come. Remember me to Mrs. Hawthorne and the -children.</p> - -<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">H. Melville.</span></p> - -<p>“P. S. The marriage of Phœbe with the daguerreotypist is -a fine stroke, because of his turning out to be a <i>Maule</i>. If -you pass Hepzibah’s cent-shop, buy me a Jim Crow (fresh) -and send it to me by Ned Higgins.”</p></div> - -<p>When, at the end of this letter, Melville found himself in -Africa, he mistook gravely if he imagined he occupied the -same continent with Hawthorne. Emile Montégut, it is true, -has described Hawthorne as a “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">romancier pessimiste</span>.” Pessimist -Hawthorne doubtless was,—a pessimist being precisely a -nature without illusions. Hawthorne of course had, as -Brownell has sufficiently taken pains to show, “the good sense, -the lack of enthusiasm, the disillusioned pessimism of the man -of the world.” Hawthorne did say “No!” to life: but never, -as Melville deceived himself into believing, “in thunder.” Such -an emphatic denial would have been an expression of ardour:<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[318]</a></span> -and Hawthorne was as without ardour as he was without illusion. -Both Melville and Hawthorne were, in a sense, pessimists. -Both were repelled by reality; both were quite out of -sympathy with their time and its tendencies. But they had -arrived at this centre of meeting from opposite points of the -compass. Hawthorne was a pessimist from lack of illusions; -the ardour of illusion, because of its exuberance in Melville, -was at the basis of Melville’s despair. Hawthorne took the -same severely fatalistic view of himself and the life about -him, as he did of life in his books. He accepted the universe -as being unalterable, and towards his own destiny he felt -satisfaction without elation. Like the Mohammedans who -believe that they are preordained—but preordained to conquer,—so -Hawthorne in his Calvinism, despite his depressed -moods, had no serious doubts as to his election. Melville’s -endless questioning of “Providence and futurity, and of everything -else that lies beyond human ken” were to Hawthorne -merely a weariness of the flesh: he was satisfied in his fatalism, -and without interest in speculation.</p> - -<p>The next two letters announce that <i>Moby-Dick</i> is going -through the press,—but they contain other incidental matter -that must have been interesting—as a “human document” at -least—even to Hawthorne. It is true that at this time, so his -own son says, “Hawthorne became a sort of Mecca of pilgrims -with Christian’s burden upon their backs. Secret criminals -of all kinds came to him for counsel and relief.” He was -weary, perhaps, of human documents: and Melville came to -him, not for counsel, but in the intimate fraternity of the -disenchanted.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Pittsfield</span>, June 29, 1851.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Hawthorne</span>,— -</p> - -<p>“The clear air and open window invite me to write to you. -For some time past I have been so busy with a thousand -things that I have almost forgotten when I wrote you last, -and whether I received an answer. This most persuasive season -has now for weeks recalled me from certain crotchety and -over-doleful chimeras, the like of which men like you and me,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[319]</a></span> -and some others, forming a chain of God’s posts round the -world, must be content to encounter now and then, and fight -them the best way we can. But come they will,—for in the -boundless, trackless, but still glorious wild wilderness through -which these outposts run, the Indians do sorely abound, as -well as the insignificant but still stinging mosquitoes. Since -you have been here, I have been building some shanties of -houses (connected with the old one) and likewise some shanties -of chapters and essays. I have been ploughing and sowing -and raising and printing and praying, and now begin to -come out upon a less bristling time, and to enjoy the calm -prospect of things from a fair piazza at the north of the old -farmhouse here.</p> - -<p>“Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to be -urgent with. The <i>Whale</i> is only half through the press; for, -wearied with the long delays of the printers, and disgusted with -the heat and dust of the Babylonish brick-kiln of New York, -I came back to the country to feel the grass, and end the book -reclining on it, if I may. I am sure you will pardon this speaking -all about myself; for if I <i>say</i> so much on that head, be -sure all the rest of the world are thinking about themselves -ten times as much. Let us speak, though we show all our -faults and weaknesses,—for it is a sign of strength to be weak, -to know it, and out with it; not in set way and ostentatiously, -though, but incidentally and without premeditation. But I am -falling into my old foible,—preaching. I am busy, but shall -not be very long. Come and spend a day here, if you can -and want to; if not, stay in Lenox, and God give you long life. -When I am quite free of my present engagements, I am going -to treat myself to a ride and a visit to you. Have ready a -bottle of brandy, because I always feel like drinking that heroic -drink when we talk ontological heroics together. This is rather -a crazy letter in some respects, I apprehend. If so, ascribe it -to the intoxicating effects of the latter end of June operating -upon a very susceptible and peradventure feeble temperament. -Shall I send you a fin of the <i>Whale</i> by way of a specimen -mouthful? The tail is not yet cooked, though the hell-fire -in which the whole book is broiled might not unreasonably have<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[320]</a></span> -cooked it ere this. This is the book’s motto (the secret one), -<i lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ego non baptiso te in nomine</i>—but make out the rest yourself.</p> - -<p class="sig">“H. M.”</p></div> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Hawthorne</span>,— -</p> - -<p>“I should have been rumbling down to you in my pine-board -chariot a long time ago, were it not that for some weeks -past I have been more busy than you can well imagine,—out -of doors,—building and patching and tinkering away in all -directions. Besides, I had my crops to get in,—corn and potatoes -(I hope to show you some famous ones by and by),—and -many other things to attend to, all accumulating upon this -one particular season. I work myself; and at night my bodily -sensations are akin to those I have so often felt before, when a -hired man, doing my day’s work from sun to sun. But I -mean to continue visiting you until you tell me that my visits -are both supererogatory and superfluous. With no son of -man do I stand upon any etiquette or ceremony, except the -Christian ones of charity and honesty. I am told, my fellow-man, -that there is an aristocracy of the brain. Some men -have boldly advocated and asserted it. Schiller seems to have -done so, though I don’t know much about him. At any rate, -it is true that there have been those who, while earnest in -behalf of political equality, still accept the intellectual estates. -And I can well perceive, I think, how a man of superior mind -can, by its intense cultivation, bring himself, as it were, into -a certain spontaneous aristocracy of feeling,—exceedingly nice -and fastidious,—similar to that which, in an English Howard, -conveys a torpedo-fish thrill at the slightest contact with a -social plebeian. So, when you see or hear of my ruthless democracy -on all sides, you may possibly feel a touch of a shrink, -or something of that sort. It is but nature to be shy of a -mortal who boldly declares that a thief in jail is as honourable -a personage as Gen. George Washington. This is ludicrous. -But Truth is the silliest thing under the sun. Try to get a living -by Truth—and go to the Soup Societies. Heavens! Let -any clergyman try to preach the Truth from its very stronghold, -the pulpit, and they would ride him out of his church<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[321]</a></span> -on his own pulpit bannister. It can hardly be doubted that all -Reformers are bottomed upon the truth, more or less; and to -the world at large are not reformers almost universally laughing-stocks? -Why so? Truth is ridiculous to men. Thus -easily in my room here do I, conceited and garrulous, revere -the test of my Lord Shaftesbury.</p> - -<p>“It seems an inconsistency to assert unconditional democracy -in all things, and yet confess a dislike to all mankind—in -the mass. But not so.—But it’s an endless sermon,—no more -of it. I began by saying that the reason I have not been to -Lenox is this,—in the evening I feel completely done up, as -the phrase is, and incapable of the long jolting to get to your -house and back. In a week or so, I go to New York, to bury -myself in a third-story room, and work and slave on my -<i>Whale</i> while it is driving through the press. <i>That</i> is the only -way I can finish it now,—I am so pulled hither and thither by -circumstances. The calm, the coolness, the silent grass-growing -mood in which a man <i>ought</i> always to compose,—that, I fear, -can seldom be mine. Dollars damn me; and the malicious -Devil is for ever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. -My dear Sir, a presentiment is on me,—I shall at last be worn -out and perish, like an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces by -the constant attrition of the wood, that is, the nutmeg. What -I feel most moved to write, that is banned,—it will not pay. -Yet, altogether, write the <i>other</i> way I cannot. So the product -is a final hash, and all my books are botches. I’m rather sore, -perhaps, in this letter; but see my hand!—four blisters on this -palm, made by hoes and hammers within the last few days. -It is a rainy morning; so I am indoors, and all work suspended. -I feel cheerfully disposed, and therefore I write a little bluely. -Would the Gin were here! If ever, my dear Hawthorne, in -the eternal times that are to come, you and I shall sit down -in Paradise, in some little shady corner by ourselves; and -if we shall by any means be able to smuggle a basket of champagne -there (I won’t believe in a Temperance Heaven), and -if we shall then cross our celestial legs in the celestial grass -that is forever tropical, and strike our glasses and our heads -together, till both musically ring in concert,—then, O my dear<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[322]</a></span> -fellow-mortal, how shall we pleasantly discourse of all the -things manifold which now so distress us,—when all the earth -shall be but a reminiscence, yea, its final dissolution an -antiquity. Then shall songs be composed as when wars are -over; humorous, comic songs,—‘Oh, when I lived in that queer -little hole called the world,’ or, ‘Oh, when I toiled and sweated -below,’ or, ‘Oh, when I knocked and was knocked in the -fight’—yes, let us look forward to such things. Let us swear -that, though now we sweat, yet it is because of the dry heat -which is indispensable to the nourishment of the vine which -is to bear the grapes that are to give us the champagne hereafter.</p> - -<p>“But I was talking about the <i>Whale</i>. As the fishermen say, -‘he’s in his flurry’ when I left him some three weeks ago. I’m -going to take him by his jaw, however, before long, and finish -him up in some fashion or other. What’s the use of elaborating -what, in its very essence, is so short-lived as a modern -book? Though I wrote the Gospels in this century, I should -die in the gutter.—I talk all about myself, and this is selfishness -and egotism. Granted. But how help it? I am writing -to you; I know little about you, but something about myself. -So I write about myself,—at least, to you. Don’t trouble -yourself, though, about writing; and don’t trouble yourself -about visiting; and when you <i>do</i> visit, don’t trouble yourself -about talking. I will do all the writing and visiting and talking -myself.—By the way, in the last <i>Dollar Magazine</i> I read -‘The Unpardonable Sin.’ He was a sad fellow, that Ethan -Brand. I have no doubt you are by this time responsible for -many a shake and tremour of the tribe of ‘general readers.’ -It is a frightful poetical creed that the cultivation of the brain -eats out the heart. But it’s my <i>prose</i> opinion that in most -cases, in those men who have fine brains and work them well, -the heart extends down to hams. And though you smoke -them with the fire of tribulation, yet, like veritable hams, the -head only gives the richer and the better flavour. I stand -for the heart. To the dogs with the head! I had rather be -a fool with a heart, than Jupiter Olympus with his head. -The reason the mass of men fear God, and <i>at bottom dislike</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[323]</a></span> -Him, is because they rather distrust His heart, and fancy Him -all brain like a watch. (You perceive I employ a capital -initial in the pronoun referring to the Deity; don’t you think -there is a slight dash of flunkeyism in that usage?) Another -thing. I was in New York for four-and-twenty hours the -other day, and saw a portrait of N. H. And I have seen and -heard many flattering (in a publisher’s point of view) allusions -to the <i>Seven Gables</i>. And I have seen <i>Tales</i> and <i>A New -Volume</i> announced, by N. H. So upon the whole, I say to -myself, this N. H. is in the ascendant. My dear Sir, they -begin to patronise. All Fame is patronage. Let me be infamous: -there is no patronage in <i>that</i>. What ‘reputation’ -H. M. has is horrible. Think of it! To go down to posterity -is bad enough, any way; but to go down as a ‘man who -lived among the cannibals’! When I speak of posterity, in -reference to myself, I only mean the babies who will probably -be born in the moment immediately ensuing upon my giving -up the ghost. I shall go down to some of them, in all likelihood. -<i>Typee</i> will be given to them, perhaps, with their gingerbread. -I have come to regard this matter of Fame as the -most transparent of all vanities. I read Solomon more and -more, and every time see deeper and deeper and unspeakable -meanings in him. I did not think of Fame, a year ago, as -I do now. My development has been all within a few years -past. I am like one of those seeds taken out of the Egyptian -Pyramids, which, after being three thousand years a seed and -nothing but a seed, being planted in English soil, it developed -itself, grew to greenness, and then fell to mould. So I. Until -I was twenty-five, I had no development at all. From my -twenty-fifth year I date my life. Three weeks have scarcely -passed, at any time between then and now, that I have not -unfolded within myself. But I feel that I am now come to -the inmost leaf of the bulb, and that shortly the flower must -fall to the mould. It seems to me now that Solomon was -the truest man who ever spoke, and yet that he a little <i>managed</i> -the truth with a view to popular conservatism; or else -there have been many corruptions and interpolations of the -text—In reading some of Goethe’s sayings, so worshipped by<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[324]</a></span> -his votaries, I came across this, ‘<i>Live in the all</i>.’ That is to -say, your separate identity is but a wretched one,—good; but -get out of yourself, spread and expand yourself, and bring -to yourself the tinglings of life that are felt in the flowers -and the woods, that are felt in the planets Saturn and Venus, -and the Fixed Stars. What nonsense! Here is a fellow -with a raging toothache. ‘My dear boy,’ Goethe says to him, -‘you are sorely afflicted with that tooth; but you must <i>live in -the all</i>, and then you will be happy!’ As with all great genius, -there is an immense deal of flummery in Goethe, and in proportion -to my own contact with him, a monstrous deal of it -in me.</p> - -<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">H. Melville.</span></p> - -<p>“P. S. ‘Amen!’ saith Hawthorne.</p> - -<p>“N. B. This ‘all’ feeling, though, there is some truth in. -You must often have felt it, lying on the grass on a warm -summer’s day. Your legs seem to send out shoots into the -earth. Your hair feels like leaves upon your head. This is -the <i>all</i> feeling. But what plays the mischief with the truth is -that men will insist upon the universal application of a temporary -feeling or opinion.</p> - -<p>“P. S. You must not fail to admire my discretion in paying -the postage on this letter.”</p></div> - -<p>When Melville speaks of “the calm, the coolness, the silent -grass-growing mood in which a man <i>ought</i> to compose,” he -has caught a demoralisation from Hawthorne. <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -he says, was “broiled in hell-fire”; and the complete “possession” -that mastered Hawthorne during the composition of -<i>The Scarlet Letter</i> has been amply attested. Each man once, -and once only, wrestled with the angel of his inspiration gloriously -to conquer. But Hawthorne had little relish for such -athletics: he preferred the relaxation of painstaking placidity. -He said of <i>The Scarlet Letter</i> that “he did not think it a book -natural for him to write.” The pity of it is that he was not -more frequently so unnatural. As an old man, Melville looked -back upon his achievement, and recanted the corruption he -had learned from Hawthorne:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[325]</a></span></p> - - - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"> -<h3>ART</h3> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">In placid hours well-pleased we dream</div> - <div class="verse">Of many a brave unbodied scheme.</div> - <div class="verse">But form to lend, pulsed life create,</div> - <div class="verse">What unlike things must meet and mate;</div> - <div class="verse">A flame to melt—a wind to freeze;</div> - <div class="verse">Sad patience—joyous energies;</div> - <div class="verse">Humility—yet pride and scorn;</div> - <div class="verse">Instinct and study;—love and hate:</div> - <div class="verse">Audacity—reverence. These must mate,</div> - <div class="verse">And fuse with Jacob’s mystic heart,</div> - <div class="verse">To wrestle with the angel—art.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Apropos of the two letters last quoted, Mr. Julian Hawthorne -says: “Mr. Melville was probably quite as entertaining -and somewhat less abstruse, when his communications were -by word of mouth. Mrs. Hawthorne used to tell of one -evening when he came in, and presently began to relate the -story of a fight which he had seen on an island in the Pacific, -between some savages, and of the prodigies of valour one of -them performed with a heavy club. The narrative was extremely -graphic; and when Melville had gone, and Mr. and -Mrs. Hawthorne were talking over his visit, the latter said, -‘Where is that club with which Mr. Melville was laying about -him so?’ Mr. Hawthorne thought he must have taken it with -him; Mrs. Hawthorne thought he had put it in the corner; but -it was not to be found. The next time Melville came, they -asked him about it; whereupon it appeared that the club was -still in the Pacific island, if it were anywhere.”</p> - -<p>In the entry in his journal for July 30, 1851, Hawthorne -wrote: “Proceeding homeward, we were overtaken by a cavalier -on horseback, who saluted me in Spanish, to which I -replied by touching my hat. But, the cavalier renewing his -salutation, I regarded him more attentively, and saw that it -was Herman Melville! So we all went homeward together, -talking as we went. Soon Mr. Melville alighted, and put Julian -in the saddle; and the little man was highly pleased, and sat -on the horse with the freedom and fearlessness of an old<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[326]</a></span> -equestrian, and had a ride of at least a mile homeward. I -asked Mrs. Peters to make some tea for Herman Melville, -and so she did; and after supper I put Julian to bed, and -Melville and I had a talk about time and eternity, things of -this world and of the next, and books, and publishers, and all -possible and impossible matters, that lasted pretty deep into -the night. At last he rose, and saddled his horse and rode -off to his own domicile, and I went to bed....”</p> - -<p>On August 8, 1851, Hawthorne reports in his journal: -“To-day Herman Melville and the two Duyckincks came in a -barouche, and we all went to visit the Shaker establishment -at Hancock.” Of the Shakers, Hawthorne wrote: “They are -certainly the most singular and bedevilled set of people that -ever existed in a civilised land.” One wonders what would -have been Hawthorne’s report of the valley of Typee.</p> - -<p>The next letter acknowledges a lost communication from -Hawthorne. It is dated, in Hawthorne’s writing: “received -July 24, 1851.”</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<span class="smcap">My Dear Hawthorne</span>: This is not a letter, or even a -note, but merely a passing word to you said over your garden -gate. I thank you for your easy flowing long letter (received -yesterday), which flowed through me, and refreshed all my -meadows, as the Housatonic—opposite me—does in reality. -I am now busy with various things, not incessantly though; -but enough to require my frequent tinkering; and this is the -height of the haying season, and my nag is dragging home -his winter’s dinners all the time. And so, one way and another, -I am not a disengaged man, but shall be very soon. -Meanwhile, the earliest good chance I get, I shall roll down -to you, my good fellow, seeing we—that is, you and I—must -hit upon some little bit of vagabondage before autumn comes. -Greylock—we must go and vagabondise there. But ere we -start, we must dig a deep hole, and bury all Blue Devils, there -to abide till the last Day.... Good-bye.”</p> - -<p><span class="sig"><span class="smcap">His X Mark.</span></span></p></div> - -<p>And the last letter is a dithyramb of gratitude to Haw<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_327" id="Page_327">[327]</a></span>thorne -for a letter of Hawthorne’s (would that it survived!) -in appreciation of <i>Moby-Dick</i>.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Pittsfield</span>, Monday Afternoon.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Hawthorne</span>: -</p> - -<p>“People think that if a man has undergone any hardship -he should have a reward; but for my part, I have done the -hardest possible day’s work, and then come to sit down in a -corner and eat my supper comfortably—why, then I don’t -think I deserve any reward for my hard day’s work—for am -I not at peace? Is not my supper good? My peace and my -supper are my rewards, my dear Hawthorne. So your joy-giving -and exultation-breeding letter is not my reward for my -ditcher’s work with that book, but is the good goddess’s bonus -over and above what was stipulated for—for not one man in -five cycles, who is wise, will expect appreciative recognition -from his fellows, or any one of them. Appreciation! Recognition! -Is love appreciated? Why, ever since Adam, who -has got to the meaning of this great allegory—the world? -Then we pigmies must be content to have our paper allegories -but ill comprehended. I say your appreciation is my glorious -gratuity. In my proud, humble way,—a shepherd-king,—I -was lord of a little vale in the solitary Crimea; but you have -now given me the crown of India. But on trying it on -my head, I found it fell down on my ears, notwithstanding -their asinine length—for it’s only such ears that sustain such -crowns.</p> - -<p>“Your letter was handed to me last night on the road going -to Mr. Morewood’s, and I read it there. Had I been at home, -I would have sat down at once and answered it. In me divine -magnanimities are spontaneous and instantaneous—catch them -while you can. The world goes round, and the other side -comes up. So now I can’t write what I felt. But I felt -pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in -yours, and both in God’s. A sense of unspeakable security is -in me this moment, on account of your having understood the -book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as -the lamb. Ineffable socialities are in me. I would sit down<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_328" id="Page_328">[328]</a></span> -and dine with you and all the Gods in old Rome’s Pantheon. -It is a strange feeling—no hopelessness is in it, no despair. -Content—that is it; and irresponsibility; but without licentious -inclination. I speak now of my profoundest sense of being, -not of an incidental feeling.</p> - -<p>“Whence came you, Hawthorne? By what right do you -drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my -lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the God-head -is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we -are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling. Now, -sympathising with the paper, my angel turns over another -leaf. You did not care a penny for the book. But, now -and then as you read, you understood the pervading thought -that impelled the book—and that you praised. Was it not so? -You were archangel enough to praise the imperfect body, and -embrace the soul. Once you hugged the ugly Socrates because -you saw the flame in the mouth, and heard the rushing -of the demon,—the familiar,—and recognised the sound; for -you have heard it in your own solitudes.</p> - -<p>“My dear Hawthorne, the atmospheric scepticisms steal over -me now, and make me doubtful of my sanity in writing you -thus. But, believe me, I am not mad, most noble Festus! But -truth is ever incoherent, and when the big hearts strike together, -the concussion is a little stunning. Farewell. Don’t -write me a word about the book. That would be robbing me -of my miserable delight. I am heartily sorry I ever wrote -anything about you—it was paltry. Lord, when shall we be -done growing? As long as we have anything more to do, -we have done nothing. So, now, let us add <i>Moby-Dick</i> to our -blessing, and step from that. Leviathan is not the biggest -fish;—I have heard of Krakens.</p> - -<p>“This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer -it. Possibly if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman -Melville, you will missend it—for the very fingers that now -guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and -put it to the paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? -Ah! it is a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, -and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_329" id="Page_329">[329]</a></span>tent -and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with -more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing -you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.</p> - -<p>“What a pity that, for your plain, bluff letter, you should -get such gibberish! Mention me to Mrs. Hawthorne and to -the children, and so, good-bye to you, with my blessing.</p> - -<p class="sig">“<span class="smcap">Herman.</span></p> - -<p>“P. S. I can’t stop yet. If the world was entirely made up -of Magians, I’ll tell you what I should do. I should have -a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have -an extra riband for foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and -upon that endless riband I should write a thousand—a million—a -billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you. -The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which -is the bigger? A foolish question—they are <i>one</i>.</p> - -<p class="sig"> -“H. -</p> - -<p>“P. P. S. Don’t think that by writing me a letter, you shall -always be bored with an immediate reply to it—and so keep -both of us delving over a writing-desk eternally. No such -thing! I sha’n’t always answer your letters and you may -do just as you please.”</p></div> - -<p>Hawthorne had written Melville a “plain, bluff letter,” and -in reply was to be told, with “infinite fraternity,” that “the -god-head is broken up like the bread at the Supper” and that -he was one of the pieces. Melville had dedicated <i>Moby-Dick</i> -to Hawthorne, and Hawthorne made some sort of acknowledgment -of the tribute. Melville, shrewdly suspected him, -however, of caring “not a penny” for the book, but in archangelical -charity praising less the “imperfect body” than the -“pervading thought” which “now and then” he understood.</p> - -<p><i>Moby-Dick</i> was an allegory, of course—but withal an allegory -of a solidity and substance that must have appeared to -Hawthorne little short of grossly shocking. Hawthorne had -been praised from his “airy and charming insubstantiality.” -And of himself he wrote, with engaging candour: “Whether -from lack of power, or an unconquerable reserve, the Author’s -touches have often an effect of tameness.” Hawthorne’s “re<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_330" id="Page_330">[330]</a></span>serve” -is, of course, all myth. Both Hawthorne and Melville, -though each a recluse in life, overflow to the reader. -And as Brownell says of Hawthorne: “He does not tell very -much, but apparently he tells everything.” But to Hawthorne, -Melville’s overflowing, like a spring freshet, or a tidal wave, -must have been little less than appalling. Hawthorne’s was -eminently a neat, fastidious style, as free from any eccentricity -or excess as from any particular pungency or colour. -Melville’s was extravagant, capricious, vigorous, and “unliterary”: -the energy of his undisciplined genius is its most -significant quality. After all, was it possible for Hawthorne -to feel any deep sympathy for Melville’s passionate enthusiasms, -for Melville’s catholic toleration, for Melville’s quenchless -curiosity, for Melville’s varied laughter, for Melville’s -spiritual daring? It is true that Hawthorne found Story’s -“Cleopatra”—inspired, it might appear, by a fancy of the -young Victoria in discreet negligée—“a terrible, dangerous -woman, quite enough for the moment, but very like to spring -upon you like a tigress.” He never visited George Eliot because -there was another Mrs. Lewes. He was much troubled -by the nude in art. He pronounced Margaret Fuller’s “in -many respects,” a “defective and evil nature,” and “Providence -was kind in putting her and her clownish husband -and their child on board that fated ship.” It is true that he -wrote a graceful if not very genial introductory essay—once -mistaken for a marvel quite eclipsing “Elia”—to relieve the -dark tone of <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>. And it is also true that he -accepted the adoration of his wife with the utmost gravity -and appreciation. Mrs. Hawthorne, in one of her letters to -her mother, by a transition in praise of Hawthorne’s eyes—“They -give, but receive not”—comments at some length, on -her husband’s “mighty heart,” that “opens the bosom of men.” -“So Mr. Melville,” she says, “generally silent and incommunicative, -pours out the rich floods of his mind and experience -to him, so sure of appreciation, so sure of a large and generous -interpretation.”</p> - -<p>What interpretation Hawthorne gave to <i>Moby-Dick</i> has not -transpired. Hawthorne mentions <i>Moby-Dick</i> once in his pub<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_331" id="Page_331">[331]</a></span>lished -works. In the <i>Wonder Book</i> he says: “On the hither -side of Pittsfield sits Herman Melville, shaping out the gigantic -conception of his white whale, while the gigantic shape of -Greylock looms upon him from his study window.” Only one -available Hawthorne-Melville document is still unprinted: the -“Agatha” letter, mentioned by Mr. Julian Hawthorne. But -the “Agatha” letter says nothing of <i>Moby-Dick</i>; and though -of impressive bulk, its biographical interest is too slight to -merit its publication.</p> - -<p>Born in hell-fire, and baptised in an unspeakable name, -<i>Moby-Dick</i> is, with <i>The Scarlet Letter</i>, among the few very -notable literary achievements of American literature. There -has been published no criticism of Melville more beautiful -or more profound than the essay of E. L. Grant Watson on -<i>Moby-Dick</i> (<i>London Mercury</i>, December, 1920). It is Mr. -Watson’s contention in this essay, that the <i>Pequod</i>, with her -monomaniac captain and all her crew, is representative of -Melville’s own genius, and in the particular sense that each -character is deliberately symbolic of a complete and separate -element. Because of the prodigal richness of material in -<i>Moby-Dick</i>, the breadth and vitality and solid substance of -the setting of the allegory, the high quality of <i>Moby-Dick</i> as -a psychological synthesis has very generally been lost sight of. -Like Bunyan, or Swift, Melville has enforced his moral by -giving an independent and ideal verisimilitude to its innocent -and unconscious exponents. The self-sustaining vitality of -Melville’s symbols has been magnificently vouched for by Mr. -Masefield in his vision of the final resurrection. And the -superb irony—whether unconscious or intended—of <i>Moby-Dick’s</i> -“towing the ship our Lord was in, with all the sweet -apostles aboard of her,” would surely have delighted Melville. -<i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> is undoubtedly a tract; but, as Brownell -observes, if it had been only a tract, it would never have -achieved universal canonisation. Both <i>Pilgrim’s Progress</i> and -<i>Moby-Dick</i> are works of art in themselves, each leaning lightly—though -of course to all the more purpose—on its moral. -Most persons probably read <i>Gulliver</i> for the story, and miss -the satire. In the same way, a casual reader of <i>Moby-Dick</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_332" id="Page_332">[332]</a></span> -may skip the more transcendental passages and classify it -as a book of adventure. It is indeed a book of adventure, -but upon the highest plane of spiritual daring. Ahab is, of -course, the atheistical captain of the tormented soul; and his -crew, so Melville says, is “chiefly made of mongrel renegades, -and cast-aways and cannibals.” And Ahab is “morally enfeebled, -also, by the incompetence of mere unaided virtue or -rightmindedness in Starbuck, the invulnerable jollitry of indifference -or recklessness of Stubb, and the pervading mediocrity -of Flash!” But Ahab is Captain; and his madness is -of such a quality that the white whale and all that is there -symbolised, needs must render its consummation, or its extinction. -On the waste of the Pacific, ship after ship passes -the <i>Pequod</i>, some well laden, others bearing awful tidings: yet -all are sane. The <i>Pequod</i> alone, against contrary winds, sails -on into that amazing calm, that extraordinary mildness, in -which she is destroyed by <i>Moby-Dick</i>. “There is a wisdom -that is woe, and there is a woe that is madness.” And in -<i>Moby-Dick</i>, the woe and the wisdom are mingled in the history -of a soul’s adventure.</p> - -<p>Though <i>Moby-Dick</i> is not only an allegory, but an allegory -designed to teach woeful wisdom, nowhere in literature, perhaps, -can one find such uncompromising despair so genially -and painlessly administered. Indeed, the despair of <i>Moby-Dick</i> -is as popularly missed as is the vitriolic bitterness of -<i>Gulliver</i>. There is an abundance of humour in <i>Moby-Dick</i>, -of course: and there is mirth in much of the laughter. In -<i>Moby-Dick</i>, it would appear, Melville has made pessimism a -gay science. “Learn to laugh, my young friends,” Nietzsche -counsels, “if you are at all determined to remain pessimists.” -If there are tears, he smiles gallantly as he brushes them aside. -“There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange -mixed affair we call life,” Melville says, “when a man takes -this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit -thereof he but dimly discovers, and more than suspects that -the joke is at nobody’s expense but his own. There is nothing -like the perils of whaling to breed this free and easy sort -of genial, desperado philosophy; and with it I regard this<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_333" id="Page_333">[333]</a></span> -whole voyage of the <i>Pequod</i>, and the great white whale its -object.” And for the most part, he does. But he declares, -withal, that “the truest of all men was the Man of Sorrows, -and the truest of all books is Solomon’s, and Ecclesiastes is -the fine hammered steel of woe. All is vanity. <span class="smcap">All.</span>” <i>Moby-Dick</i> -was built upon a foundation of this wisdom, and this -woe; and so keenly did Melville feel the poignancy of this woe, -so isolated was he in his surrender to this wisdom, that this -wisdom and this woe, which he had learned from Solomon and -from Christ, he felt to be of that quality which in our cowardice -we call madness.</p> - - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_334" id="Page_334">[334]</a></span></p> - -<h2 class="nobreak">CHAPTER XVI <br /> - -<span class="smaller">THE GREAT REFUSAL</span></h2> -</div> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“My towers at last! These rovings end,</div> - <div class="verse">Their thirst is slacked in larger dearth:</div> - <div class="verse">The yearning infinite recoils,</div> - <div class="verse indent4">For terrible is earth.”</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent4">—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>L’Envoi</i>.</div> -</div> -</div> -</div> - - -<p>On a bleak and snowy November day in 1851, the Hawthorne -family, with their trunks, got into a large farm -wagon and drove away from the little red house. And with -the departure of Hawthorne, Melville had dreamed the last of -his avenging dreams. There may have been some association -between the two men while Hawthorne was in West -Newton, and later in Concord, but no records survive. In -1856, on his way to the Holy Land, Melville visited Hawthorne -at Southport two days after arriving in Liverpool. -Melville’s account of the meeting is thus recorded in his -journal:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>Sunday, Nov. 9</i>: Stayed home till dinner. After dinner -took steamboat for Rock Ferry to find Mr. Hawthorne. On -getting to R. F. learned he had removed thence 18 months -previous and was now residing out of town.</p> - -<p>“<i>Monday, Nov. 10</i>: Went among the docks to see the Mediterranean -steamers. Saw Mr. Hawthorne at Consulate. Invited -me to stay with him during my sojourn at Liverpool. -Dined at Anderson’s, a very nice place, and charges moderate.</p> - -<p>“<i>Tuesday, Nov. 11</i>: Hawthorne for Southport, 20 miles -distant on the seashore, a watering place. Found Mrs. Hawthorne -& the rest awaiting tea for us.</p> - -<p>“<i>Wednesday, Nov. 12</i>: At Southport, an agreeable day. -Took a long walk by the sea. Sand & grass. Wild & desolate. -A strong wind. Good talk. In the evening stout & fox -& geese. Julian grown into a fine lad. Una taller than her<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_335" id="Page_335">[335]</a></span> -brother. Mrs. Hawthorne not in good health. Mr. Hawthorne -stayed home with me.</p> - -<p>“<i>Thursday, Nov. 13</i>: At Southport till noon. Mr. H. & I -took train then for Liverpool. Spent rest of day putting enquiries -among steamers.</p> - -<p>“<i>Friday, Nov. 14</i>: Took bus for London Road. Called at -Mr. Hawthorne’s. Met a Mr. Bright. Took me to his club -and luncheoned me there.</p> - -<p>“<i>Sunday, Nov. 16</i>: Rode in the omnibus. Went out to Foxhill -Park, &c. Grand organ at St. George’s Hall.”</p></div> - -<p>Three days later, Melville was off for Constantinople. -In his <i>English Note-boo</i>k, under November 30th, 1856, -Hawthorne wrote:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“<i>November 30</i>: A week ago last Monday, Herman Melville -came to see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to -do, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... -We soon found ourselves on pretty much our former -terms of sociability and confidence.... He is thus far on -his way to Constantinople. I do not wonder that he found -it necessary to take an airing through the world, after so many -years of toilsome pen-labour, following upon so wild and -adventurous a youth as his was. I invited him to come and -stay with us at Southport, as long as he might remain in -this vicinity, and accordingly he did come the next day.... -On Wednesday we took a pretty long walk together, and sat -down in a hollow among the sand-hills, sheltering ourselves -from the high cool wind. Melville, as he always does, began -to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything else -that lies beyond human ken.... He has a very high and -noble nature, and is better worth immortality than the most -of us.... On Saturday we went to Chester together. I -love to take every opportunity of going to Chester; it being -the one only place, within easy reach of Liverpool, which -possesses any old English interest. We went to the Cathedral.”—And -then architecture gives place to personal comment.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_336" id="Page_336">[336]</a></span></p></div> - -<p>Mr. Julian Hawthorne reports of this meeting: “At Southport -the chief event of interest during the winter was a visit -from Herman Melville, who turned up at Liverpool on his -way to Constantinople, and whom Hawthorne brought out to -spend a night or two with us. ‘He looked much the same -as he used to do; a little paler, perhaps, and a little sadder, -and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner. I -felt rather awkward at first, for this is the first time I have -met him since my ineffectual attempt to get him a consular -appointment from General Pierce. However, I failed only -from real lack of power to serve him; so there was no reason -to be ashamed, and we soon found ourselves on pretty much -the former terms of sociability and confidence. Melville has -not been well, of late; he has been affected with neuralgic -complaints, and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary -occupation, pursued without much success latterly; and -his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid -state of mind. So he left his place in Pittsfield, and has come -to the Old World. He informed me that he had “pretty much -made up his mind to be annihilated”; but still he does not -seem to rest in that anticipation, and I think will never rest -until he gets hold of some definite belief. It is strange how -he persists—and has persisted ever since I knew him, and -probably long before—in wandering to and fro over these -deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sandhills amidst -which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable -in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous -not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, -he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he -has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality -than most of us.’</p> - -<p>“Melville made the rounds of Liverpool under the guidance -of Henry Bright; and afterwards Hawthorne took him to -Chester; and they parted the same evening, ‘at a street corner, -in the rainy evening. I saw him again on Monday, however. -He said that he already felt much better than in America; -but observed that he did not anticipate much pleasure in his -rambles, for that the spirit of adventure is gone out of him.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_337" id="Page_337">[337]</a></span> -He certainly is much overshadowed since I saw him last; but -I hope he will brighten as he goes onward. He sailed on -Tuesday, leaving a trunk behind him, and taking only a carpet-bag -to hold all his travelling-gear. This is the next best thing -to going naked; and as he wears his beard and moustache, and -so needs no dressing-case,—nothing but a toothbrush,—I do -not know a more independent personage. He learned his -travelling habits by drifting about, all over the South Seas, -with no other clothes or equipage than a red flannel shirt and -a pair of duck trousers. Yet we seldom see men of less criticisable -manners than he.’”</p> - -<p>There is no record of these two men ever meeting again.</p> - -<p>From the beginning, there had been, between Melville and -Hawthorne, a profound incompatibility. When they met, Melville -was within one last step of absolute disenchantment. -One illusion, only, was to him still unblasted: The belief -in the possibility of a Utopian friendship that might solace all -of his earlier defeats. Ravished in solitude by his alienation -from his fellows, Melville discovered that the author of <i>The -Scarlet Letter</i> was his neighbour. He came to know Hawthorne: -and his eager soul rushed to embrace Hawthorne’s as -that of a brother in despair. Exultant was his worship of -Hawthorne, absolute his desire for surrender. He craved of -Hawthorne an understanding and sympathy that neither Hawthorne, -nor any other human being, perhaps, could ever have -given. His admiration for Hawthorne was, of course, as he -inevitably discovered, built upon a mistaken identity. Yet, on -the evidence of his letters, he for a time drew from this admiration -moments both of tensest excitement and of miraculous -and impregnating peace. It would be interesting, indeed, to -know what <i>Moby-Dick</i> owed to this inspiration. It is patent -fact, however, that with the publication of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, and -Hawthorne’s departure from Lenox, Melville’s creative period -was at its close. At the age of thirty-two, so brilliant, so intense, -so crowded had been the range of experience that burned -through him, that at the period of his life when most men are -just beginning to strike their gait, Melville found himself looking -forward into utter night. Nearly forty years before his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_338" id="Page_338">[338]</a></span> -death, he had come to be the most completely disenchanted of -all considerable American writers.</p> - -<p>From his youth, Melville had felt the flagrant and stubborn -discord between aspiration and fact. He was born with -an imagination of very extraordinary vigour, and with a constitution -of corresponding vitality. In sheer capacity to feel, -most American writers look pale beside him. Fired by his -rebellious imagination, and abetted by his animal courage, he -sallied forth in quest of happiness. Few men have ever compassed -such a span of experience as he crowded within the -thirty-two years of his quest; few men have lived with such -daring, with such intensity. And one by one, as he put his -illusions to the test, the bolts of his imagination, discharged -against reality, but blazed out charred avenues to despair. It -was Dante, he says in <i>Pierre</i>, who first “opened to his shuddering -eyes the infinite cliffs and gulfs of human mystery and -misery;—though still more in the way of experimental vision, -than of sensational presentiment or experience.” By the age -of thirty-two, he had, by first-hand knowledge of life, learned -to feel the justice of Schopenhauer’s statement: “Where did -Dante find the material for his <i>Inferno</i> if not from the world; -and yet is not his picture exhaustively satisfactory? But look -at his Paradise; when he attempted to describe it he had -nothing to guide him, this pleasant world could not offer a -single suggestion.” This passage is marked in Melville’s copy -of Schopenhauer. And in <i>Pierre</i> he wrote: “By vast pains we -mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the -central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift -the lid—and nobody is there!—appallingly vacant, as vast as -the soul of a man.”</p> - -<p>Melville’s disillusionment began at home. The romantic -idealisation of his mother gave place to a recoil into a realisation -of the cold, “scaly, glittering folds of pride” that rebuffed -his tormented love; and he studied the portrait of his -father, and found it a defaming image. In <i>Pierre</i> this portrait -thus addresses him: “To their young children, fathers are -not wont to unfold themselves.... Consider this strange, -ambiguous, smile; more narrowly regard this mouth. Behold,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_339" id="Page_339">[339]</a></span> -what is this too ardent and, as it were, unchastened light in -these eyes. Consider. Is there no mystery here?” In <i>Pierre</i>, -he thought that there was.</p> - -<p>In his boyhood, poverty added its goad to launch him forth -to find happiness in distance. He discovered hideousness; and -later, escaped into virgin savagery, he saw by contrast the -blatant defaults of civilisation; and he learned that it was the -dubious honour of the white civilised man of being “the most -ferocious animal on the face of the earth.” In Tahiti he was -brought face to face with the bigotry and stupid self-righteousness -of the proselyting Protestant mind; and there he learned -that Christianity—or what passes for it—may under some circumstances -be not a blessing but a blight. In <i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> -he innocently turned his hand to right matters to a happier -adjustment, soon to reap the reward of such temerity. In the -navy he was made hideously aware of the versatility of the -human animal in evil. There he found not only a rich panorama -of human unloveliness, but “evils which, like the suppressed -domestic drama of Horace Walpole, will neither bear -representing, nor reading, and will hardly bear thinking of.” -There, he was also struck by the criminal stupidity of war. In -<i>White-Jacket</i> he asked, “are there no Moravians in the Moon, -that not a missionary has yet visited this poor pagan planet -of ours, to civilise civilisation and Christianise Christendom?” -He was, as he calls himself, a “pondering man”: and in his -evaluation of individual human life he soon came to share the -judgment of Josiah Royce, another “pondering man”: “Call -it human life. You can not find a comparison more thoroughly -condemning it.” And he marked Schopenhauer’s tribute -to his fellows: “They are just what they seem to be, and -that is the worst that can be said of them.”</p> - -<p>As “the man who lived among the cannibals” he was famous -by the age of twenty-eight. But when he attempted to put his -earnest convictions on paper, he was to discover that the value -of the paper deteriorated thereby. When he made this discovery -he was married, and a father: and debtors had to be -held at bay by the point of the pen. On April 30, 1851, Harper -and Brothers denied him any further advance on his royal<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_340" id="Page_340">[340]</a></span>ties: -they were making “extensive and expensive improvements”—and -besides, he had already overdrawn nearly seven -hundred dollars.</p> - -<p>He had, too, sought personal happiness in the illusion of -romantic love. The romantic lover is in especial peril of -finding in marriage the sobered discovery that all his sublime -and heroic effort has resulted simply in a vulgar satisfaction, -and that, taking all things into consideration, he is no better -off than he was before. In his poem <i>After the Pleasure Party</i> -(in <i>Timoleon</i>, 1891) Melville tells such a “sad rosary of belittling -pain.” As a rule, Theseus once consoled, Ariadne is -forsaken; and had Petrarch’s passion been requited, his song -would have ceased. Francesca and Paolo, romantic lovers who -had experienced the limits of their desire, were by Dante put -in Hell: and their sufficient punishment was their eternal companionship. -By the very ardour of his idealisation, Melville -was foredoomed to disappointment in marriage. Though both -he and his wife were noble natures—indeed for that very reason—their -marriage was for each a crucifixion. For between -them there was deep personal loyalty without understanding. -Bacon once said, “he that hath wife and children hath given -hostages to fortune, for they are impediments to great enterprises, -either of virtue or of mischief.” Melville gave such -hostages to fortune: but, such was his temperament, it is difficult -to believe that unencumbered he would have magnified his -achievement. Mrs. Melville is remembered as a gentle, gracious, -loyal woman who bore with him for over forty years, -in his disillusion, his loss of health, his poverty, his obscurity. -And his father-in-law, Chief Justice Shaw, befriended him -with forbearance and with more substantial gifts.</p> - -<p>With the departure of Hawthorne from Lenox, Melville -was left without companionship and without illusions. And -he was aware of the approach of his Nemesis even before -it overtook him. He confessed to Hawthorne while finishing -<i>Moby-Dick</i> his feeling that he was approaching the limit of -his power. And these intimations were prophetic. With -<i>Moby-Dick</i> his creative period closed.</p> - -<p>Of the end of this period his wife says: “Wrote <i>White<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_341" id="Page_341">[341]</a></span> -Whale</i> or <i>Moby-Dick</i> under unfavourable circumstances—would -sit at his desk all day not writing anything till four or -five o’clock—then ride to the village after dark—would be up -early and out walking before breakfast—sometimes splitting -wood for exercise. Published <i>White Whale</i> in 1851.—Wrote -<i>Pierre</i>: published 1852. We all felt anxious about the strain -on his health in Spring of 1853.”</p> - -<p>In <i>Pierre</i>, Melville coiled down into the night of his soul, -to write an anatomy of despair. The purpose of the book was -to show the impracticability of virtue: to give specific evidence, -freely plagiarised from his own psychology, that “the heavenly -wisdom of God is an earthly folly to man,” “that although our -blessed Saviour was full of the wisdom of Heaven, yet his -gospel seems lacking in the practical wisdom of the earth; -that his nature was not merely human—was not that of a -mere man of the world”; that to try to live in this world -according to the strict letter of Christianity would result in -“the story of the Ephesian matron, allegorised.” The -subtlety of the analysis is extraordinary; and in its probings -into unsuspected determinants from unconsciousness it is -prophetic of some of the most recent findings in psychology. -“Deep, deep, and still deep and deeper must we go,” Melville -says, “if we would find out the heart of a man; descending -into which is as descending a spiral stair in a shaft, without -any end, and where that endlessness is only concealed by the -spiralness of the stair, and the blackness of the shaft.” In -the winding ambiguities of <i>Pierre</i> Melville attempts to reveal -man’s fatal facility at self-deception; to show that the human -mind is like a floating iceberg, hiding below the surface of -the sea most of its bulk; that from a great depth of thought -and feeling below the level of awareness, long silent hands are -ever reaching out, urging us to whims of the blood and tensions -of the nerves, whose origins we never suspect. “In -reserves men build imposing characters,” Melville says; “not -in revelations.” <i>Pierre</i> is not conspicuous for its reserves.</p> - -<p><i>Pierre</i> aroused the reviewers to such a storm of abuse that -legend has assigned Melville’s swift obscuration to this dispraise. -The explanation is too simple, as Mr. Mather con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_342" id="Page_342">[342]</a></span>tends. -But there is, doubtless, more than a half truth in this -explanation. The abuse that <i>Pierre</i> reaped, coming when it -did in Melville’s career, and inspired by a book in which Melville -with tragic earnestness attempted an apologia of worldly -defeat, must have seemed to him in its heartlessness and total -blindness to his purpose, a definitive substantiation of the -thesis of his book.</p> - -<p><i>Pierre</i> has been very unsympathetically handled, even by -Melville’s most penetrating and sympathetic critics. Mr. -Frank Jewett Mather, Jr., for example, in the second of his -two essays on <i>Herman Melville</i> (<i>The Review</i>, August 9 and -16, 1919), says of <i>Pierre</i> that “it is perhaps the only positively -ill-done book” of Melville’s. Mr. Mather grants power -to the book, but he finds it “repellent and overwrought.” He -recommends it only as a literary curiosity. And as a literary -curiosity Mr. Arthur Johnson studied its stylistic convolutions -in <i>The New Republic</i> of August 27, 1919. It is certainly true, -as Mr. Johnson has said, that “the plot or theme, were it not -so ‘done’ as to be hardly decipherable, would be to-day considered -rather ‘advanced.’” Mr. Johnson contends that for -morbid unhealthy pathology, it has not been exceeded even by -D. H. Lawrence. All this may be very excellent ethics, but it -is not very enlightening criticism.</p> - -<p>Melville wrote <i>Pierre</i> with no intent to reform the ways of -the world. But he did write <i>Pierre</i> to put on record the reminder -that the world’s way is a hypocritic way in so far as -it pretends to be any other than the Devil’s way also. In -<i>Pierre</i>, Melville undertook to dramatise this conviction. When -he sat down to write, what seemed to him the holiest part of -himself—his ardent aspirations—had wrecked itself against -reality. So he undertook to present, in the character of -Pierre, his own character purged of dross; and in the character -of Pierre’s parents, the essential outlines of his own -parents. Then he started his hero forth upon a career of -lofty and unselfish impulse, intent to show that the more -transcendent a man’s ideal, the more certain and devastating -his worldly defeat; that the most innocent in heart are those -most in peril of being eventually involved in “strange, <i>unique</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_343" id="Page_343">[343]</a></span> -follies and sins, unimagined before.” Incidentally, Melville -undertakes to show, in the tortuous ambiguities of <i>Pierre</i>, that -even the purest impulses of Pierre were, in reality, tainted -of clay. <i>Pierre</i> is an apologia of Melville’s own defeat, in -the sense that in <i>Pierre</i> Melville attempts to show that in so -far as his own defeat—essentially paralleling Pierre’s—was -unblackened by incest, murder, and suicide, he had escaped -these disasters through accident and inherent defect, rather -than because of superior virtue. Pierre had followed the -heavenly way that leads to damnation.</p> - -<p>Such a thesis can be met by the worldly wisdom that Melville -slanders in <i>Pierre</i>, only with uncompromising repugnance. -There can be no forgiveness in this world for a man -who calls the wisdom of this world a cowardly lie, and probes -clinically into the damning imperfections of the best. His -Kingdom is surely not of this world. And if this world -evinces for his gospel neither understanding nor sympathy, -he cannot reasonably complain if he reaps the natural fruits -of his profession. Melville agreed with the Psalmist: “Verily -there is a reward for the righteous.” But he blasphemed -when he dared teach that the reward of virtue and truth in -this world must be wailing and gnashing of teeth. Like -Dante, Melville set himself up against the world as a party -of one. A majority judgment, though it has the power, -has not necessarily the truth. It is theoretically possible that -Melville, not the world, is right. But one can assent to Melville’s -creed only on penalty of destruction; and the race does -not welcome annihilation. Hence this world must rejoice in -its vengeance upon his blasphemy: and the self-righteous have -washed their feet in the blood of the wicked.</p> - -<p>After <i>Pierre</i>, any further writing from Melville was both -an impertinence and an irrelevancy. No man who really believes -that all is vanity can consistently go on taking elaborate -pains to popularise his indifference. Schopenhauer did that -thing, it is true; but Schopenhauer was an artist, not a moralist; -and he was enchanted with disenchantment. Carlyle, too, -through interminable volumes shrieked out the necessity of -silence. But after <i>Pierre</i>, Melville was without internal urg<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_344" id="Page_344">[344]</a></span>ings -to write. “All profound things, and emotions of things,” -he wrote in <i>Pierre</i>, “are preceded and attended by silence.” -“When a man is really in a profound mood, then all merely -verbal or written profundities are unspeakably repulsive, and -seem downright childish to him.” Infinitely greater souls than -Melville’s seem to have shared this conviction. Neither Buddha -nor Socrates left a single written word; Christ wrote -once only, and then in the sand.</p> - -<p>As if the gods themselves were abetting Melville in his -recoil from letters and his contempt for his hard-earned fame, -the Harper’s fire of 1853 destroyed the plates of all his novels, -and practically all of the copies of his books then in stock. -One hundred and eighty-five copies of <i>Typee</i> were burned; -276 copies of <i>Omoo</i>; 491 copies of <i>Mardi</i>; 296 copies of <i>Redburn</i>; -292 copies of <i>White-Jacket</i>; 297 copies of <i>Moby-Dick</i>; -494 copies of <i>Pierre</i>. There survived only 10 copies of -<i>Mardi</i>, 60 copies of <i>Moby-Dick</i> and 110 copies of <i>Pierre</i>. All -of these books except <i>Pierre</i> were reissued, but with no rich -profit either to Harper’s or to Melville. A typical royalty -account is that covering the period between October 6, 1863, -and August 1, 1864. During this period, 54 copies of <i>Typee</i> -were sold; 56 of <i>Omoo</i>; 42 of <i>Redburn</i>; 49 of <i>Mardi</i>; 29 of -<i>White-Jacket</i>; 48 of <i>Moby-Dick</i>; and 27 of <i>Pierre</i>. It was a -fortunate year, indeed, for Melville that brought him in $100 -royalties. During most of his life, Melville’s account with -Harper’s was overdrawn: a fact that speaks more for the -generosity of his publisher than for the appreciation of his -public. Melville surely never achieved opulence by his pen. -Convinced of the futility of writing and effort, Melville wanted -only tranquillity for thought. But his health was breaking, -and his family had to be fed. So he looked about him for -some unliterary employment.</p> - -<p>The following letter from Richard Henry Dana explains -itself:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, May 10, 1853.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“I am informed by the Chief Justice that my friend, Mr. -Herman Melville, has been named to the Government as a<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_345" id="Page_345">[345]</a></span> -suitable person for the American Consulship at the Sandwich -Islands.</p> - -<p>“I acknowledge no little personal interest in Mr. Melville, -but apart from that, I know, from my early experience, and -from a practice of many years in Admiralty & Maritime causes, -the great importance of having a consul at the Sandwich -Islands who knows the wants of our vast Pacific Marine, -and shall stand clear of those inducements of trade consignments -which lead so many consuls to neglect seamen and lend -their influence indiscriminately in favour of owners and -masters.</p> - -<p>“Mr. Melville has been all over the Pacific Ocean, in all -sorts of maritime service & has the requisite acquaintance & -interest to an unusual degree. Beyond this, his reputation, -general intelligence & agreeable manners will be sure to make -him a popular and useful officer among all our citizens who -visit the Islands. I cannot conceive of a more appropriate -appointment, & I sincerely hope it will be given him.</p> - -<p>“If I knew the President or the Secretary of State, personally, -I would take the liberty to write them. As I do not, -I beg you will use whatever influence I may have in any quarter -in his favour.</p> - -<p class="sig"> -“Very truly yours,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Richard H. Dana, Jr.</span></p> - -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Allan Melville, Esq.</span>” -</p></div> - -<p>Melville was not appointed to a consular post in the Pacific: -so his brother Allan busied himself in looking for an appointment -elsewhere, as the following letter, addressed to Hon. -Lemuel Shaw, shows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">New York</span>, June 11, 1853.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Yours of the 8th reached me yesterday advising me of the -recent information you have received through a confidential -source from Washington respecting a consulate for Herman.</p> - -<p>“There can be no consulship in Italy, not even Rome, where -the fees would amount to sufficient to make it an object for -Herman to accept a position there.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_346" id="Page_346">[346]</a></span></p> - -<p>“I have positive information of the value of the Antwerp -consulate and understand it to be worth from $2,500 to $3,000. -Should this be tendered, Herman ought to accept it.</p> - -<p>“I don’t know that I can say anything more on this subject.</p> - -<p>“Herman is in town and will see you on your arrival.</p> - -<p class="sig"> -“Very truly yours,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Allan Melville</span>. -</p> - -<p>“I may add that Herman has been specially urged for the -Antwerp position & that Mr. Hawthorne spoke to Mr. Cushing -of that place.</p> - -<p class="sig"> -“A. M.” -</p></div> - -<p>Of the domestic happenings at Arrowhead at this time, very -little is known. One letter of Mrs. Melville’s survives:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Arrowhead</span>, Aug. 10th, 1853.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Father</span>: -</p> - -<p>“I did not mean that so long a time should elapse, of your -absence from home, without my writing you, especially when -I have two letters of yours to answer. It is not because I -have not thought of you much and often, but really because -I can not find the time to seat myself quietly down to write -a letter—that is more than for a hasty scrawl to mother occasionally—and -inasmuch as my occupations are of the useful -and not the frivolous kind I know you will appreciate the -apology and accept it. Three little ones to look after and -‘do for’ takes up no little portion of the day, and my baby -is as restless a little mortal as ever crowed. She is very well -and healthy in every respect, but not very fat, as she sleeps -very little comparatively and is very active. A few weeks -since Malcolm made his début as a scholar at the white school -house of Dr. Holmes’. I was afraid he would lose the little -he already knew ‘of letters’ and as I could not find the time -to give him regular instruction, I sent him to school rather -earlier than I should have done otherwise. The neighbours’ -children call for him every morning, and he goes off with his -pail of dinner in one hand and his primer in the other, to our -no small amusement. The grand feature of the day to him<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_347" id="Page_347">[347]</a></span> -seems to be the ‘eating his dinner under the trees’—as he -always gives that as his occupation when asked what he does -at school—and as his pail is invariably empty when he returns, -he does full justice to the noon-tide meal. Stannie -begins to talk a great deal, and seems to be uncommonly forward -for his age. He has a severe cough, which I think will -prove the whooping-cough as there is a great deal of it about -at present.”</p></div> - -<p>Failing of a consular appointment, Melville was forced to -continue writing. He busied himself with the story of the -“revolutionary beggar.” Melville based his story upon “a -little narrative, forlornly published on sleazy grey paper,” that -he had “rescued by the merest chance from the rag-pickers.” -Copies of this narrative are not excessively rare. The title -page reads: “<i>Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. -Potter</i> (a native of Cranston, Rhode Island) who was a soldier -in the American Revolution, and took a distinguished -part in the Battle of Bunker Hill (in which he received three -wounds) after which he was taken Prisoner by the British, -conveyed to England, where for thirty years he obtained a -livelihood for himself and family, by crying ‘<i>Old Chairs to -Mend</i>’ through the Streets of London.—In May last, by the -assistance of the American Consul, he succeeded (in the 79th -year of his age) in obtaining a passage to his native country, -after an absence of 48 years. Providence: Printed by Henry -Trumbull—1824 (Price 28 cents).” The result was <i>Israel Potter</i>, -published in book form by G. P. Putnam in 1855, after -having appeared serially in <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine</i>. <i>Israel -Potter</i> is, in most part, a spirited narrative containing, so Mr. -Mather states, “the best account of a sea fight in American -fiction.” It was praised, too, by Hawthorne for its delineations -of Franklin and John Paul Jones, and doubtless deserves -a wider recognition than has ever been given it. Interestingly -enough, the book is dedicated to Bunker Hill Monument.</p> - -<p>Between 1853 and 1856, Melville published twelve articles, -inclusive of <i>Israel Potter</i>, in <i>Putnam’s Magazine</i> and in <i>Harper’s -Monthly</i>. Melville made from a selection from these his<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_348" id="Page_348">[348]</a></span> -<i>Piazza Tales</i> (1856), published in New York by Dix and -Edwards, in London by Sampson Low. Of these, <i>The Bell -Tower</i>, <i>Don Benito Cereno</i> and <i>The Encantadas</i> show the last -glow of Melville’s literary glamour, the final momentary brightening -of the embers before they sank into blackness and ash. -There exists a letter from <i>Putnam’s Monthly</i>, dated May 12, -1854, and signed by Charles T. Briggs—refusing a still unpublished -story of Melville’s out of fear of “offending the -religious sensibilities of the public and the Congregation of -Grace Church.” This letter is less important because of its -exquisite sensitiveness, than because of its mention of a letter -from Lowell; a letter in which Lowell is reported to have -read <i>The Encantadas</i>. According to Briggs’ communication, -Lowell was so moved that “the figure of the cross on the -ass’ neck brought tears into his eyes, and he thought it the -finest touch of genius he had seen in prose.” Swinburne -speaks of “the generous pleasure of praising”: this pleasure -Lowell indulged frequently, and in his wholesome and whole-hearted -way. Of Hawthorne, Lowell said: “The rarest creative -imagination of the century, the rarest in some ideal -respects since Shakespeare.” <i>The Confidence Man</i> was published -in 1857: but it was a posthumous work. Thereafter, -Melville was to try his hand at poetry, and with results little -meriting the total oblivion into which his poetry has fallen; and -in his old age he was again to turn to prose: but before Melville -was half through his mortal life his signal literary achievement -was done. The rest, if not silence, was whisper.</p> - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_349" id="Page_349">[349]</a></span></p> - - -<h2>CHAPTER XVII<br /> - -<span class="smaller">THE LONG QUIETUS</span></h2> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“The round face of the grub-man peered upon me now. ‘His dinner is -ready. Won’t he dine to-day, either? Or does he live without dining?’</p> - -<p>“‘Lives without dining,’ said I, and closed the eyes.</p> - -<p>“‘Eh! He’s asleep, ain’t he?’</p> - -<p>“‘With kings and counsellors,’ murmured I.”</p> - -<p class="sig"> -—<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>: <i>Bartleby the Scrivener</i>. -</p></div> - -</div> - -<p>“The death of Herman Melville,” wrote Arthur Stedman, -“came as a surprise to the public at large, chiefly because it -revealed the fact that such a man had lived so long.” The -New York <i>Times</i> missed the news of Melville’s death (on -September 28, 1891) and published a few days later an editorial -beginning:</p> - -<p>“There has died and been buried in this city, during the -current week, at an advanced age, a man who is so little known, -even by name, to the generation now in the vigour of life, -that only one newspaper contained an obituary account of him, -and this was of but three or four lines.”</p> - -<p>In 1885, Robert Buchanan published in the London <i>Academy</i> -a pasquinade containing the following lines:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“... Melville, sea-compelling man,</div> - <div class="verse">Before whose wand Leviathan</div> - <div class="verse">Rose hoary white upon the Deep,</div> - <div class="verse">With awful sounds that stirred its sleep;</div> - <div class="verse">Melville, whose magic drew Typee,</div> - <div class="verse">Radiant as Venus, from the sea,</div> - <div class="verse">Sits all forgotten or ignored,</div> - <div class="verse">While haberdashers are adored!</div> - <div class="verse">He, ignorant of the draper’s trade,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Indifferent to the art of dress,</div> - <div class="verse">Pictured the glorious South Sea maid</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Almost in mother nakedness—</div> - <div class="verse">Without a hat, or boot, or stocking,</div> - <div class="verse">A want of dress to most so shocking,</div> - <div class="verse">With just one chemisette to dress her</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_350" id="Page_350">[350]</a></span> - <div class="verse">She <i>lives</i>—and still shall live, God bless her,</div> - <div class="verse">Long as the sea rolls deep and blue,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">While Heaven repeats the thunder of it,</div> - <div class="verse">Long as the White Whale ploughs it through,</div> - <div class="verse">The shape my sea-magician drew</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Shall still endure, or I’m no prophet!”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>In a footnote, Buchanan added:</p> - -<p>“I sought everywhere for this Triton, who is still living -somewhere in New York. No one seemed to know anything -of the one great writer fit to stand shoulder to shoulder with -Whitman on that continent.”</p> - -<p>If this man, who had in mid-career been hailed at home and -abroad as one of the glories of our literature, died “forgotten -and ignored,” it was, after all, in accordance with his own desires. -Adventurous life and action was the stuff out of which -his reputation had been made. But in the middle of his life, -he turned his back upon the world, and in his recoil from life -absorbed himself in metaphysics. He avoided all unnecessary -associations and absorbed in his own thoughts he lived in sedulous -isolation. He resisted all efforts to draw him out of retirement—though -such efforts were very few indeed. Arthur -Stedman tells us: “It is generally admitted that had Melville -been willing to join freely in the literary movements of New -York, his name would have remained before the public and a -larger sale of his works would have been insured. But more -and more, as he grew older, he avoided every action on his -part and on the part of his family that might look in this direction, -even declining to assist in founding the Authors Club in -1882.” With an aggressive indifference he looked back in -<i>Clarel</i> to</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Adventures, such as duly shown</div> - <div class="verse">Printed in books, seem passing strange</div> - <div class="verse">To clerks which read them by the fire,</div> - <div class="verse">Yet be the wonted common-place</div> - <div class="verse">Of some who in the Orient range,</div> - <div class="verse">Free-lances, spendthrifts of their hire,</div> - <div class="verse">And who in end, when they retrace</div> - <div class="verse">Their lives, see little to admire</div> - <div class="verse">Or wonder at, so dull they be.”</div> -</div></div></div> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_351" id="Page_351">[351]</a></span></p> -<p>When Titus Munson Coan was a student at Williams College, -prompted by a youthful curiosity to hunt out celebrities, -he called upon Melville at Arrowhead. In an undated letter -to his mother he thus recounted the experience: “I have made -my first literary pilgrimage—a call upon Herman Melville, -the renowned author of <i>Typee</i>, &c. He lives in a spacious -farm-house about two miles from Pittsfield, a weary walk -through the dust. But it was well repaid. I introduced myself -as a Hawaiian-American and soon found myself in full -tide of talk—or rather of monologue. But he would not repeat -the experiences of which I had been reading with rapture -in his books. In vain I sought to hear of Typee and those -Paradise islands, but he preferred to pour forth his philosophy -and his theories of life. The shade of Aristotle arose like a -cold mist between myself and Fayaway. We have quite enough -of Greek philosophy at Williams College, and I confess I was -disappointed in this trend of the talk. But what a talk it was! -Melville is transformed from a Marquesan to a gypsy student, -the gypsy element still remaining strong in him. And this -contradiction gives him the air of one who has suffered from -opposition, both literary and social. With his liberal views -he is apparently considered by the good people of Pittsfield -as little better than a cannibal or a ‘beach-comber.’ His attitude -seemed to me something like that of an Ishmael; but perhaps -I judged hastily. I managed to draw him out very freely -on everything but the Marquesas Islands, and when I left him -he was in full tide of discourse on all things sacred and profane. -But he seems to put away the objective side of life -and to shut himself up in this cold North as a cloistered -thinker.”</p> - -<p>An article appearing in the New York <i>Times</i>, under the initials -O. G. H., a week after Melville’s death, said of him:</p> - -<p>“He had shot his arrow and made his mark, and was satisfied. -With considerable knowledge of the world, he had preferred -to see it from a distance.... I asked the loan of some -of his books which in early life had given me pleasure and was -surprised when he said that he didn’t own a single copy of -them.... I had before noticed that though eloquent in dis<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_352" id="Page_352">[352]</a></span>cussing -general literature he was dumb when the subject of -his own writings was broached.”</p> - -<p>In her sketch of her husband’s life, Mrs. Melville says: “In -February, 1855, he had his first attack of severe rheumatism—and -in the following June an attack of sciatica. Our neighbour -in Pittsfield, Dr. O. W. Holmes, attended and prescribed -for him. A severe attack of what he called crick in the back -laid him up at his mother’s in Gansevoort in March, 1858—and -he never regained his former vigour and strength.” In -1863, so runs the account of J. E. A. Smith, while Melville -was in process of moving from Arrowhead, “he had occasion -for some household articles he left behind, and, with a friend, -started in a rude wagon to procure them. He was driving at -a moderate pace over a perfectly smooth and level road, -when a sudden start of the horse threw both occupants from -the wagon; probably on account of an imperfectly secured seat. -Mr. Melville fell with his back in a hollow of the frozen road, -and was very severely injured. Being conveyed to his home by -Col. George S. Willis, near whose farm on Williams Street -the accident happened, he suffered painfully for many weeks. -This prolonged agony and the confinement and interruption of -work which it entailed, affected him strangely. He had been -before on mountain excursions a driver daring almost to the -point of recklessness.... After this accident he not only -abandoned the rides of which he had been so fond, but for a -time shrank from entering a carriage. It was long before the -shock which his system had received was overcome; and it is -doubtful whether it ever was completely.” Ill health certainly -contributed more to Melville’s retirement from letters than any -of his critics—Mr. Mather excepted—have ever even remotely -suggested.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t352ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t352a.jpg" width="600" height="706" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>HERMAN MELVILLE IN 1868</p></div> -</div> - -<p>During the last half of his life, Melville twice journeyed far -from home. In her journal Mrs. Melville says: “In October, -1856, his health being impaired by too close application, he -again sailed for London. He went up the Mediterranean to -Constantinople and the Holy Land. For much of his observation -and reflection in that interesting quarter see his poem -of <i>Clarel</i>. Sailed for home on the steamer <i>City of Manchester</i><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_353" id="Page_353">[353]</a></span> -May 6, 1857. In May, 1860, he made a voyage to San -Francisco, sailing from Boston on the 30th of May with his -brother Thomas Melville who commanded the <i>Meteor</i>, a fast -sailing clipper in the China trade—and returning in November, -he being the only passenger. He reached San Francisco -Oct. 12th—returned in the <i>Carter</i> Oct. 20 to Panama—crossed -the Isthmus & sailed for New York on the <i>North Star</i>. -This voyage to San Francisco has been incorrectly given in -many of the papers of the day.”</p> - -<p>Of this trip to the Holy Land there survive, beside <i>Clarel</i> -and Hawthorne’s accounts of the meeting <i>en route</i>, a long and -closely written journal that Melville kept during the trip, and -twenty-one shorter poems printed in <i>Timoleon</i> under the caption -“Fruit of Travel Long Ago.” Typical of these shorter -poems is</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<div class="poetry-container"> -<h3>THE APPARITION</h3> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p class="center">(The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view -on the approach to Athens)</p></div> -<div class="poetry"> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Abrupt the supernatural Cross,</div> - <div class="verse">Vivid in startled air,</div> - <div class="verse">Smote the Emperor Constantine</div> - <div class="verse">And turned his soul’s allegiance there</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">With other power appealing down,</div> - <div class="verse">Trophy of Adam’s best!</div> - <div class="verse">If cynic minds you scarce convert</div> - <div class="verse">You try them, shake them, or molest.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Diogenes, that honest heart,</div> - <div class="verse">Lived ere your date began:</div> - <div class="verse">Thee had he seen, he might have swerved</div> - <div class="verse">In mood nor barked so much at man.</div> -</div></div></div></div> - -<p>The journal was surely never written with a view to publication. -It is a staccato jotting down of impressions, chiefly interesting -(as is Dr. Johnson’s French journal) as another evidence -of Melville’s scope of curiosity and keenness of observation. -A typical entry is that for Saturday, December 13,—Melville’s -first day in Constantinople:</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_354" id="Page_354">[354]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Up early; went out; saw cemeteries where they dumped -garbage. Sawing wood over a tomb. Forest of cemeteries. -Intricacies of the streets. Started alone for Constantinople -and after a terrible long walk found myself back where I -started. Just like getting lost in a wood. No plan to streets. -Pocket compass. Perfect labyrinth. Narrow. Close, shut in. -If one could but get <i>up</i> aloft, it would be easy to see one’s way -out. If you could get up into a tree. Soar out of the maze. -But no. No names to the streets no more than to natural -alleys among the groves. No numbers, no anything. Breakfasted -at 10 A. M. Took guide ($1.25 per day) and started -for tour. Took Cargua for Seraglio. Holy ground. Crossed -some extensive grounds and gardens. Fine buildings of the -Saracenic style. Saw the Mosque of St. Sophia. Went in. -Rascally priests demanding ‘baksheesh.’ Fleeced me out of ½ -dollar; following me round, selling the fallen mosaics. Ascended -a kind of hose way leading up, round and round. -Came into a gallery fifty feet above the floor. Superb interior. -Precious marbles. Prophyry & Verd antique. Immense -magnitude of the building. Names of the prophets in -great letters. Roman Catholic air to the whole. To the hippodrome, -near which stands the six towered mosque of Sultan -Achmed; soaring up with its snowy white spires into the pure -blue sky. Like light-houses. Nothing finer. In the hippodrome -saw the obelisk with Roman inscription on the base. -Also a broken monument of bronze, representing three twisted -serpents erect upon their tails. Heads broken off. Also a -square monument of masoned blocks. Leaning over and frittered -away,—like an old chimney stack. A Greek inscription -shows it to be of the time of Theodoric. Sculpture about the -base of the obelisk, representing Constantine & wife and sons, -&c. Then saw the ‘Burnt Column.’ Black and grimy enough -& hooped about with iron. Stands soaring up from among a -bundle of old wooden stakes. A more striking fire mount than -that of London. Then to the cistern of 1001 columns. You -see a rounded knoll covered with close herbage. Then a kind -of broken cellar-way you go down, and find yourself on a -wooden, rickety platform, looking down into a grove of marble<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_355" id="Page_355">[355]</a></span> -pillars, fading away into the darkness. A palatial sort of Tartarus. -Two tiers of pillars, one standing on the other; lower -tier half buried. Here and there a little light percolates -through from breaks in the keys of the arches; where bits of -green struggle down. Used to be a reservoir. Now full of -boys twisting silk. Great hubbub. Flit about like imps. -Whirr of the spinning Jenns. In going down, (as into a -ship’s hold) and wandering about, have to beware the innumerable -skeins of silk. Terrible place to be robbed or murdered -in. At whatever place you look, you see lines of pillars, -like trees in an orchard arranged in the quincunx style.—Came -out. Overhead looks like a mere shabby common, or worn out -sheep pasture.—To the bazaar. A wilderness of traffic. Furniture, -arms, silks, confectionery, shoes, saddles,—everything. -(Cario) Covered overhead with stone arches, with wide openings. -Immense crowds. Georgians, Armenians, Greeks, Jews -& Turks are the merchants. Magnificent embroidered silk & -gilt sabres & caparisons for horses. You lose yourself & are -bewildered and confounded with the labyrinth, the din, the -barbaric confusion of the whole.—Went to Watch Tower -within a kind of arsenal (Immense arsenal) the tower of vast -girth & height in the Saracenic style—a column. From the -top, my God, what a view! Surpassing everything. The -Propontis, the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, the domes, the -minarets, the bridges, the men-of-war, the cypresses.—Indescribable. -Went to the Pigeon Mosque. In its court, the -pigeons covered the pavement as thick as in the West they fly -in hosts. A man feeding them. Some perched upon the roof -of the colonnades & upon the fountain in the middle & on the -cypresses. Took off my shoes and went in. Pigeons inside, -flying round in the dome, in & out the lofty windows. Went -to Mosque of Sultan Suleiman. The third one in point of -size and splendour. The Mosque is a sort of marble mosque -of which the minarets (four or six) are the stakes. In fact -when inside it struck me that the idea of this kind of edifice -was borrowed from the tent. Though it would make a noble -ball room. Off shoes and went in. This custom more sensible -than taking off hat. Muddy shoes; but never muddy head.<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_356" id="Page_356">[356]</a></span> -Floor covered with mats & on them beautiful rugs of great -size & square. Fine light coming through the side slits below -the dome. Blind dome. Many Turks at prayer; lowering head -to the floor towards a kind of altar. Charity going on. In a -gallery saw lot of portmanteaux, chests & bags; as in a R. R. -baggage car. Put there for safe-keeping by men who leave -home, or afraid of robbers and taxation. ‘Lay not up your -treasures where moth and rust do corrupt’ &c. Fountains (a -row of them) outside along the side of the mosque for bathing -the feet and hands of worshippers before going in. Natural -rock.—Instead of going in in stockings (as I did) the -Turks wear overshoes and doff them outside the mosque. The -tent-like form of the Mosque broken up & dumbfounded with -infinite number of arches, trellises, small domes, colonnades, -&c, &c, &c. Went down to the Golden Horn. Crossed bridge -of pontoons. Stood in the middle and not a cloud in the -sky. Deep blue and clear. Delightful elastic atmosphere, although -December. A kind of English June cooled and tempered -sherbet-like with an American October; the serenity & -beauty of summer without the heat.—Came home through the -vast suburbs of Galatea, &c. Great crowds of all nations—money -changers coins of all nations circulate—placards in four -or five languages: (Turkish, French, Greek, Armenian) Lottery -advertisements of boats the same. Sultan’s ship in colours—no -atmosphere like this for flags. You feel you are among -the nations. Great curse that of Babel; not being able to talk -to a fellow being, &c.—Have to tend to your pockets. My -guide went with his hands to his.—The horrible grimy tragic -air of the Streets. (Ruffians of Galatea) The rotten & -wicked looking houses. So gloomy & grimy seem as if a suicide -hung from every rafter within.—No open spaces—no -squares or parks. You suffocate for room.—You pass close -together. The cafés of the Turks. Dingy holes, faded splendour, -moth eaten. On both sides rude seats and divans where -the old musty Turks sit smoking like conjurers. Saw in certain -kiosks (pavilions) the crowns of the late Sultan. You -look through gilt gratings & between heavy curtains of lace, -at the sparkling things. Near the Mosque of Sultan Suleiman<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_357" id="Page_357">[357]</a></span> -saw the cemetery of his family—big as that of a small village, -all his wives and children and servants. All gilt and carved. -The women’s tombs carved with heads (women no souls). -The Sultan Suleiman’s tomb & that of his three brothers in a -kiosk. Gilded like mantel ornaments.”</p> - -<p><i>Clarel</i> was, in 1876, printed at Melville’s expense. More -accurately, its printing was made possible by his uncle, Hon. -Peter Gansevoort, who, as Melville says in the dedication, “in -a personal interview provided for the publication of this poem, -known to him by report, as existing in manuscript.”</p> - -<p>Not the least impressive thing about <i>Clarel</i> is its length: it -extends to 571 pages. Mr. Mather states: “Of those who -have actually perused the four books (of verse) and <i>Clarel</i>, -I am presumably the only survivor.” Mr. Mather is mistaken: -there are two. But since, because of the excessive -length of <i>Clarel</i> and the excessive scarcity of <i>John Marr</i> and -<i>Timoleon</i> (both privately printed in an edition of only twenty-five -copies) it would be over-optimistic to presume that there -will soon be a third, some account must be given of Melville’s -poetry.</p> - -<p>Stevenson once said: “There are but two writers who have -touched the South Seas with any genius, both Americans: -Melville and Charles Warren Stoddard; and at the christening -of the first and greatest, some influential fairy must have been -neglected; ‘He shall be able to see’; ‘He shall be able to tell’; -‘He shall be able to charm,’ said the friendly godmothers; ‘But -he shall not be able to hear!’ exclaimed the last.” When Stevenson -wrote his passage, the artist in him seems for the moment -to have slept; taking no account of Melville’s frequent -mastery of the magic of words, he berates Melville’s genius -for misspelling Polynesian names as a defect of genius. That -Melville had an ear sensitive to the cadences of prose is shown -by the facility with which he on occasion caught the rhythm -both of the Psalms and of Sir Thomas Browne. Yet the same -man who at his best is equalled only by Poe in the subtle melody -of his prose, at times fell into ranting passages of obvious -and intolerable parody of blank verse. The following from -<i>Mardi</i> is an example: “From dawn till eve, the bright, bright<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_358" id="Page_358">[358]</a></span> -days sped on, chased by the gloomy nights; and, in glory dying, -lent their lustre to the starry skies. So, long the radiant dolphins -fly before the sable sharks; but seized, and torn in flames—die, -burning:—their last splendour left, in sparkling scales -that float along the sea.” In his poetry, as in his prose, is the -same incongruous mating of astonishing facility and flagrant -defect. It is the same paradox that one finds in Browning and -in Meredith,—whose poetry Melville’s more than superficially -resembles. Melville shared with these men a greater interest -in ideas than in verbal prettiness, and like the best of them, -when mastered by a refractory idea, he was not over-exquisite -in his regard for prosody and syntax in getting it said. When -he had a mind to, however, he could pound with a lustiness -that should endear him to those who delight in declamation -contests: a contemptible distinction, perhaps—but even that -has been denied him. The poem to the Swamp Angel, for -example, the great gun that reduced Charleston, is fine in its -irony and vigour. The poem begins:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">There is a coal-black Angel</div> - <div class="verse indent2">With a thick Afric lip</div> - <div class="verse">And he dwells (like the hunted and harried)</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In a swamp where the green frogs dip</div> - <div class="verse">But his face is against a City</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Which is over a bay by the sea,</div> - <div class="verse">And he breathes with a breath that is blastment</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And dooms by a far degree.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>Though there are memorable lines and stanzas in <i>Battle-Pieces</i>, -only one of the poems in the volume has ever been at -all noticed: <i>Sheridan at Cedar Creek</i>, beginning:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Shoe the steed with silver</div> - <div class="verse indent2">That bore him to the fray,</div> - <div class="verse">When he heard the guns at dawning</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Miles away;</div> - <div class="verse">When he heard them calling, calling—</div> - <div class="verse indent2">Mount! nor stay.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>The following letter to his brother Tom bears upon Melville’s -<i>Battle-Pieces</i>.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_359" id="Page_359">[359]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Pittsfield</span>, May 25th, 1862.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Boy</span>: (or, if that appears disrespectful)<br /> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Captain</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Yesterday I received from Gansevoort your long and very -entertaining letter to Mamma from Pernambuco. Yes, it was -very entertaining. Particularly the account of that interesting -young gentleman whom you so uncivilly stigmatise for a jackass, -simply because he improves his opportunities in the way -of sleeping, eating & other commendable customs. That’s -the sort of fellow, seems to me, to get along with. For my -part I love sleepy fellows, and the more ignorant the better. -Damn your wide-awake and knowing chaps. As for sleepiness, -it is one of the noblest qualities of humanity. There is -something sociable about it, too. Think of those sensible & -sociable millions of good fellows all taking a good long -friendly snooze together, under the sod—no quarrels, no imaginary -grievances, no envies, heartburnings, & thinking how -much better that other chap is off—none of this: but all equally -free-&-easy, they sleep away & reel off their nine knots -an hour, in perfect amity. If you see your sleepy ignorant -jackass-friend again, give him my compliments, and say that -however others may think of him, I honour and esteem him.—As -for your treatment of the young man, there I entirely -commend you. You remember what the Bible says:—</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">“Oh ye who teach the children of the nations,</div> - <div class="verse">Holland, France, England, Germany or Spain,</div> - <div class="verse">I pray ye <i>strap</i> them upon all occasions,</div> - <div class="verse">It mends their morals—never mind the pain.”</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>“In another place the Bible says, you know, something about -sparing the strap & spoiling the child.—Since I have quoted -poetry above, it puts me in mind of my own doggerel. You -will be pleased to learn that I have disposed of a lot of it at a -great bargain. In fact, a trunk-maker took the whole lot off -my hands at ten cents the pound. So, when you buy a new -trunk again, just peep at the lining & perhaps you may be<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_360" id="Page_360">[360]</a></span> -rewarded by some glorious stanza staring you in the face & -claiming admiration. If you were not such a devil of a ways -off, I would send you a trunk, by way of presentation-copy. -I can’t help thinking what a luckless chap you were that voyage -you had a poetaster with you. You remember the romantic -moonlight night, when the conceited donkey repeated to you -about three cables’ length of his verses. But you bore it like -a hero. I can’t in fact recall so much as a single <i>wince</i>. To -be sure, you went to bed immediately upon the conclusion of -the entertainment; but this much I am sure of, whatever were -your sufferings, you never gave them utterance. Tom, my -boy, I admire you. I say again, you are a hero.—By the way, -I hope in God’s name, that rumour which reached your owners -(C. & P.) a few weeks since—that dreadful rumour is not true. -They heard that you had begun to take to—drink?—Oh no, -but worse—to sonnet-writing. That off Cape Horn instead -of being on deck about your business, you devoted your time -to writing a sonnet on your mistress’ eyebrow, & another upon -her thumbnail.—‘I’ll be damned,’ says Curtis (he was very -profane) ‘if I’ll have a sonneteer among my Captains.’—‘Well, -if he has taken to poetising,’ says Peabody—‘God help the ship!’</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>And now, my boy, if you knew how much laziness I overcame -in writing you this letter, you would think me, what I am</p> - -<p class="sig">“Always your affectionate brother,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Herman</span>.”</p></div> - -<p>Melville’s family seem all to have been more sceptical of -his verse than they were of his prose. In 1859 Mrs. Melville -wrote to her mother “Herman has taken to writing poetry. -You need not tell any one, for you know how such things get -around.” Mrs. Melville was too optimistic: her husband’s -indiscreet practice is still pretty much a secret to the world at -large. And <i>Clarel</i>, his longest and most important poem, is -practically impossible to come by.</p> - -<p>In 1884, Melville said of <i>Clarel</i> in a letter to Mr. James -Billson: “a metrical affair, a pilgrimage or what not, of several -thousand lines, eminently adapted for unpopularity.”<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_361" id="Page_361">[361]</a></span> -Though this is completely true, Melville used in <i>Clarel</i> more -irony, vividness, and intellect than the whole congregation of -practising poets of the present day (a few notable names excepted) -could muster in aggregate. Yet with all this wealth of -the stuff of poetry, the poem never quite fulfils itself. -In <i>Clarel</i> Melville brings together in the Holy Land a group of -pilgrims; pilgrims nearly all drawn from the life, as a study -of his Journal of 1856-7 shows. In this group there are men -devout and men sceptical, some suave in orthodoxy, and some -militant in doubt. There are dreamers and men of action; unprincipled -saints, and rakes without vice. In the bleak and -legend-haunted Holy Land Melville places these men, and -dramatises his own reactions to life in this setting. The problem -of faith is the pivot of endless discussion: and upon this -pivot is made to turn all of the problems of destiny that engage -a “pondering man.” These discussions take place against -a panorama of desert and monastery and shrine. In some of -the interpolated songs of <i>Clarel</i>, Melville almost achieved the -lyric mood.</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">My shroud is saintly linen,</div> - <div class="verse indent2">In lavender ’tis laid;</div> - <div class="verse">I have chosen a bed by the marigold</div> - <div class="verse indent2">And supplied me a silver spade.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p>And there are, too, incidental legends and saints’ tales:</p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Those legends which, be it confessed</div> - <div class="verse">Did nearer bring to them the sky—</div> - <div class="verse">Did nearer woo it in their hope</div> - <div class="verse">Of all that seers and saints avow—</div> - <div class="verse">Than Galileo’s telescope</div> - <div class="verse">Can bid it unto prosing science now.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><i>Clarel</i> is by all odds the most important record we have of -what was the temper of Melville’s deeper thoughts during his -long metaphysical period. Typical quotations have already -been made.</p> - -<p>The most recurrent note of the poem is a parched desire for -companionship; a craving for</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_362" id="Page_362">[362]</a></span></p> - -<div class="poetry-container"><div class="poetry"><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">A brother that he well might own</div> - <div class="verse">In tie of friendship.</div> - -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent10">Could <i>I</i> but meet</div> - <div class="verse">Some stranger of a lore replete,</div> - <div class="verse">Who, marking how my looks betray</div> - <div class="verse">The dumb thoughts clogging here my feet</div> - <div class="verse">Would question me, expound and prove,</div> - <div class="verse">And make my heart to burn with love.</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent14">Doubt’s heavy hand</div> - <div class="verse">Is set against us; and his brand</div> - <div class="verse">Still warreth for his natural lord</div> - <div class="verse">King Common-place.</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Art thou the first soul tried by doubt?</div> - <div class="verse">Shall prove the last? Go, live it out.</div> - <div class="verse">But for thy fonder dream of love</div> - <div class="verse">In man towards man—the soul’s caress—</div> - <div class="verse">The negatives of flesh should prove</div> - <div class="verse">Analogies of non-cordialness</div> - <div class="verse">In spirit.</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent14">Why then</div> - <div class="verse">Remaineth to me what? the pen?</div> - <div class="verse">Dead feather of ethereal life!</div> - <div class="verse">Nor efficacious much, save when</div> - <div class="verse">It makes some fallacy more rife.</div> - <div class="verse">My kin—I blame them not at heart—</div> - <div class="verse">Would have me act some routine part.</div> - <div class="verse">Subserving family, and dreams</div> - <div class="verse">Alien to me—illusive schemes.</div> - <div class="verse indent2">This world clean fails me: still I yearn.</div> - <div class="verse">Me then it surely does concern</div> - <div class="verse">Some other world to find. But where?</div> - <div class="verse">In creed? I do not find it there.</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">This side the dark and hollow bound</div> - <div class="verse">Lies there no unexplored rich ground?</div> - <div class="verse"><i>Some other world</i>: well, there’s the New—</div> - <div class="verse">Ah, joyless and ironic too!</div><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_363" id="Page_363">[363]</a></span> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">Ay, Democracy</div> - <div class="verse">Lops, lops; but where’s her planted bed?</div> - <div class="verse">The future, what is that to her</div> - <div class="verse">Who vaunts she’s no inheritor?</div> - <div class="verse">’Tis in her mouth, not in her heart.</div> - <div class="verse">The past she spurns, though ’tis the past</div> - <div class="verse">From which she gets her saving part—</div> - <div class="verse">That Good which lets her evil last.</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Behold her whom the panders crown,</div> - <div class="verse">Harlot on horseback, riding down</div> - <div class="verse">The very Ephesians who acclaim</div> - <div class="verse">This great Diana of ill fame!</div> - <div class="verse">Arch strumpet of an impious age,</div> - <div class="verse">Upstart from ranker villainage:</div> - <div class="verse">Asia shall stop her at the least</div> - <div class="verse">That old inertness of the East.</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">But in the New World things make haste:</div> - <div class="verse">Not only men, the <i>state</i> lives fast—</div> - <div class="verse">Fast breed the pregnant eggs and shells,</div> - <div class="verse">The slumberous combustibles</div> - <div class="verse">Sure to explode. ’Twill come, ’twill come!</div> - <div class="verse">One demagogue can trouble much:</div> - <div class="verse">How of a hundred thousand such?</div> -</div> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Indeed, those germs one now may view:</div> - <div class="verse">Myriads playing pygmy parts—</div> - <div class="verse">Debased into equality:</div> - <div class="verse">Dead level of rank commonplace:</div> - <div class="verse">An Anglo-Saxon China, see,</div> - <div class="verse">May on your vast plains shame the race</div> - <div class="verse">In the Dark Ages of Democracy.</div> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Your arts advance in faith’s decay:</div> - <div class="verse">You are but drilling the new Hun</div> - <div class="verse">Whose growl even now can some dismay;</div> - <div class="verse">Vindictive is his heart of hearts.</div> - <div class="verse">He schools him in your mines and marts</div> - <div class="verse">A skilled destroyer.</div> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_364" id="Page_364">[364]</a></span> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse indent16">Old ballads sing</div> - <div class="verse">Fair Christian children crucified</div> - <div class="verse">By impious Jews: you’ve heard the thing:</div> - <div class="verse">Yes, fable; but there’s truth hard by:</div> - <div class="verse">How many Hughs of Lincoln, say,</div> - <div class="verse">Does Mammon, in his mills, to-day,</div> - <div class="verse">Crook, if he does not crucify?</div> -</div><div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">The impieties of “Progress” speak;</div> - <div class="verse">What say <i>these</i>, in effect to God?</div> - <div class="verse">“How profits it? And who art Thou</div> - <div class="verse">That we should serve Thee? Of Thy ways</div> - <div class="verse">No knowledge we desire; <i>new</i> ways</div> - <div class="verse">We have found out, and better. Go—</div> - <div class="verse">Depart from us!”—And if He do?</div> - <div class="verse">Is aught betwixt us and the hells?</div> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Against all this stands Rome’s array:</div> - <div class="verse">Rome is the Protestant to-day.</div> - <div class="verse">The Red Republic slinging flame</div> - <div class="verse">In Europe—she’s your Scarlet Dame.</div> - <div class="verse">Rome stands: but who may tell the end?</div> - <div class="verse">Relapse barbaric may impend,</div> - <div class="verse">Dismission into ages blind—</div> - <div class="verse">Moral dispersion of mankind.</div> - <div class="verse">If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year,</div> - <div class="verse">Shall that exclude the hope—foreclose the fear?</div> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate,</div> - <div class="verse">The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell;</div> - <div class="verse">Science the feud can only aggravate—</div> - <div class="verse">No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell,</div> - <div class="verse">The running battle of the star and clod</div> - <div class="verse">Shall run forever—if there is no God.</div> -</div> - - -<hr class="tb" /> -<div class="stanza"> - <div class="verse">Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill resigned—</div> - <div class="verse">Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind;</div> - <div class="verse">That like the crocus budding through the snow—</div> - <div class="verse">That like a swimmer rising from the deep</div> - <div class="verse">That like a burning secret which doth go</div> - <div class="verse">Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep;</div> - <div class="verse">Emerge thou mayst from the last wheeling sea</div> - <div class="verse">And prove that death but routs life into victory.</div> -</div></div></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_365" id="Page_365">[365]</a></span></p> -<p>Though <i>Clarel</i> is unconscionably long, and though there are -arid wastes strewn throughout its length, a patient reading is -rewarded by passages of beauty, and more frequently by passages -of astonishing vigour and daring. And it speaks more -for the orthodoxy of America than for her intellect, that <i>Clarel</i>—which -reposes in the outer limbo of oblivion—is about all -she has to show, as Mr. Mather has observed, for the poetical -stirrings of the deeper theological waters which marked the age -of Matthew Arnold, Clough, Tennyson, and Browning. We -should blush for our neglect of a not unworthy representative.</p> - -<p>Besides <i>Battle-Pieces</i> and <i>Clarel</i>, Melville printed for private -circulation two slender volumes: <i>John Marr and Other -Sailors</i> (1888) and <i>Timoleon</i> (1891): selections from a larger -body of poetry, the remainder of which is still preserved in -manuscript. In these, the inspiration flags throughout. Two -of the better poems have already been quoted. <i>John Marr</i> was -dedicated to W. Clark Russell, <i>Timoleon</i> to Elihu Vedder.</p> - -<p>In 1886, according to Arthur Stedman, Melville “felt impelled -to write Mr. Russell in regard to one of his newly published -novels.” This was the beginning of a correspondence -between Russell and Melville. Melville’s letters are not available. -Russell’s reply to Melville’s first letter follows:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“July 21, 1886.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My Dear Mr. Herman Melville</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Your letter has given me a very great and singular pleasure. -Your delightful books carry the imagination into a maritime -period so remote that, often as you have been in my mind, I -could never satisfy myself that you were still amongst the -living. I am glad, indeed, to learn from Mr. Toft that you -are still hale and hearty, and I do most heartily wish you many -years yet of health and vigour.</p> - -<p>“Your books I have in the American edition. I have <i>Typee</i>, -<i>Omoo</i>, <i>Redburn</i>, and that noble piece, <i>Moby-Dick</i>. These are -all I have been able to obtain. There have been many editions -of your works in this country, particularly the lovely South -Sea sketches; but the editions are not equal to those of the -American publishers. Your reputation here is very great. It<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_366" id="Page_366">[366]</a></span> -is hard to meet a man whose opinion as a reader is worth -having who does not speak of your works in such terms as he -might hesitate to employ, with all his patriotism, towards many -renowned English writers.</p> - -<p>“Dana is, indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more -remarkable than the impression produced by Dana’s portraiture -of the homely inner life of a little brig’s forecastle.</p> - -<p>“I beg that you will accept my thanks for the kindly spirit in -which you have read my books. I wish it were in my power -to cross the Atlantic, for you assuredly would be the first whom -it would be my happiness to visit.... The condition of my -right hand obliges me to dictate this to my son; but painful -as it is to me to hold a pen I cannot suffer this letter to reach -the hands of a man of so admirable genius as Herman Melville -without begging him to believe me to be, with my own -hand, his most respectful and hearty admirer,</p> - -<p><span class="sig">“<span class="smcap">W. Clark Russell</span>.”</span></p></div> - -<p>Elihu Vedder and Melville never met or corresponded. -The acknowledgment of the dedication came only after Melville’s -death. “I may not have been very successful in a -worldly way,” he said, “but the knowledge that my art has -gained me so many friends—even if unknown to me—makes -ample amends.”</p> - -<p>Schopenhauer was enabled to preserve his disillusions because -he also preserved his income. If a man is blessed with -a comfortable fortune, then it is easy for him to lead a tranquil -and unpretentious existence, sheltered from all intruders. -But for an unsuccessful writer with a wife, four children, and -no income, to throw down the pen and retire from the world -(except for a season in California and another in the Holy -Land); the secret of such a feat should be popularised. The -secret transpires in the following letter to Melville from his -father-in-law, Justice Shaw.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“<span class="smcap">Boston</span>, 15 May, 1860.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">My dear Herman</span>, -</p> - -<p>“I am very glad to learn from your letter that you intend to -accept Thomas’ invitation to go on his next voyage. I think<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_367" id="Page_367">[367]</a></span> -it affords a fair prospect of being a permanent benefit to your -health, and it will afford me the greatest pleasure to do anything -in my power to aid your preparation, and make the voyage -most agreeable and beneficial to you.</p> - -<p>“The prospect of your early departure renders it proper and -necessary to bring to a definite conclusion the subject we have -had a considerable time under consideration, a settlement of -the matter of the Pittsfield estate, with a view to which you -handed me your deeds, when I was in Pittsfield last autumn.</p> - -<p>“You will recollect that when you proposed to purchase a -house in N. York I advanced to you $2000. and afterwards, -when you purchased the Brewster place, I again advanced you -$3000. For these sums, as well as for another loan of $500. -afterwards, I took your notes. This I did, not because I had -then any fixed determination to treat the advances as debts, to -be certainly repaid, but I was in doubt at the time in reference -to other claims upon me, and how my affairs would be ultimately -arranged, what I should be able to do by way of provision -for my daughter, and I put these advances upon the -footing of loans until some future adjustment.</p> - -<p>“I always supposed that you considered the two first of the -above-named advances as having substantially gone into the -purchase of the Brewster farm, and that I had some equitable -claim upon it as security. I presume it was upon that ground -that you once sent me a mortgage of the estate prepared by -your brother Allan. I never put that mortgage on record nor -made any use of it; and if the conveyances are made, which -I now propose, that mortgage will become superseded and utterly -nugatory.</p> - -<p>“What I now propose is to give up to you the above mentioned -notes in full consideration of your conveyance to me of -your present homestead, being all the Brewster purchase except -what you sold to Mr. Willis. This being done and the -estate vested in me, I propose to execute a deed conveying the -same in fee to Elizabeth. This will vest the fee as an estate -of inheritance in her, subject of course to your rights as her -husband during your life. If you wish to know more particularly -what will be the legal effect and operation of these con<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_368" id="Page_368">[368]</a></span>veyances -Mr. Colt will explain it to you fully. I have written -to him and enclosed him a draft of a deed for you to execute -to me and my deed executed to be delivered to you and your -notes to be surrendered. I have explained the whole matter -to Mr. Colt and I have full confidence in his prudence and -fidelity. I do not see any advantage in giving the business any -more notoriety than will arise from putting the deeds on -record.</p> - -<p>“Elizabeth now writes me that you wish the note for $600., -given by the town and coming from the sale of the Brewster -place, that part of it not sold to Mr. Willis, so placed that it -may be applied as you have heretofore, in your own mind, appropriated -it, for building a new barn.</p> - -<p>“I propose to treat this as I did the estate itself: first purchase -it of you for a full consideration and then apply it to -Elizabeth’s use. In looking for a consideration for this purchase -there is the interest of the above notes not computed in -the consideration for the deed and now amounting to several -thousand dollars.</p> - -<p>“But there is another consideration, respecting which I have -never had any direct communication, I believe, but I can see -no reason why it should not be now clearly understood. When -you went to Europe in the fall of 1856 I advanced the money -necessary for your outfit and the expenses of your tour. This -was done through your brother Allan and amounted to about -fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars. In my own mind, though -I took no note or obligation for it, I treated it like the other -advances, to be regarded as advance by way of loan or a gift -according to some future arrangement. I propose now to consider -that sum as a set off against the note of $600. and, as to -all beyond that, to consider it cancelled and discharged. This -will make the note mine. At the same time I propose to appropriate -it to its original use, to build a barn, in which case -it will go to increase the value of the estate already Elizabeth’s, -or should anything occur to prevent such use of the money I -shall appropriate it in some other way to her use. The effect -of this arrangement will be to cancel and discharge all debt -and pecuniary obligation of every description from you to my<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_369" id="Page_369">[369]</a></span>self. -You will then leave home with the conscious satisfaction -of knowing that you are free from debt: that if by a Providential -dispensation you should be prevented from ever returning -to your beloved family, provision will have been made -at least for a home, for your wife and children.</p> - -<p class="sig">“Affectionately and ever faithfully<br /> - -“Your sincere friend<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Lemuel Shaw</span>.”</p></div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t368aah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t368aa.jpg" width="600" height="432" alt="" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"><p>MELVILLE AS ARTIST</p></div> -</div> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 600px;"> -<img src="images/zill_t368ab.jpg" width="600" height="489" alt="manuscript" /> -</div> - -<p>After his return from the Holy Land, Melville tried to eke -out the small income from his books and his farm by lecturing. -J. E. A. Smith says: “Between 1857 and 1861, a rage for -lyceum lectures prevailed all over the northern and western -states. In Pittsfield the Burbank hall, now Mead’s carriage -repository, was filled at least once every week to its full capacity -of over a thousand seats, with eager and intelligent -listeners to the most brilliant orators in the country. Some of -the most noted authors, as well as orators, were induced to -mount the platform partly by the liberal pay which they received -directly—and also for the increased sale which it gave -their books. Among these was Herman Melville, who lectured -in Burbank hall, and in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, -Montreal, St. Louis, San Francisco as well as intermediate -cities and towns. He did not take very kindly to the lecture -platform, but had large and well pleased audiences.”</p> - -<p>If his audiences were composed of people of the jaunty and -shallow provincialism of J. E. A. Smith—and J. E. A. Smith -is a very fair product of his country and his time—Melville’s -distaste for their prim, bland receptivity does not pass understanding. -The place and date of Melville’s lectures, together -with the “liberal pay directly received” follows.</p> - - - -<div class="center"> -<table class="tdl" border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary=""> -<tr><th colspan="3" class="center">1857-1858</th></tr> -<tr><td>November 24</td><td>Concord, Mass.</td><td class="right">$30.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>December 2</td><td>Boston, Mass.</td><td class="right">40.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 10</td><td>Montreal</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_370" id="Page_370">[370]</a></span> „ 30</td><td>New Haven, Conn.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>January 5</td><td>Auburn, N. Y.</td><td class="right">40.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 7</td><td>Ithaca, N. Y.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 10</td><td>Cleveland, Ohio</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 22</td><td>Clarksville</td><td class="right">75.00</td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td>Chillicothe, Ohio</td><td class="right">40.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>n. d.</td><td>Cincinnati, Ohio</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>Feb. 10</td><td>Charleston, Mass.</td><td class="right">20.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 23</td><td>Rochester, N. Y.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>n. d.</td><td>New Bedford, Mass.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> - -<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="total right">645.00</td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td>Travelling expenses</td><td class="right">221.30</td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="total right">423.70</td></tr> -<tr><th class="center" colspan="3">1858-9</th></tr> -<tr><td>Dec. 6, 1858</td><td>Yonkers, N. Y.</td><td class="right">$30.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 14, „</td><td>Pittsfield, Mass.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>Jan. 31, 1859</td><td>Boston, Mass.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>Feb. 7, „</td><td>New York, N. Y.</td><td class="right">55.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 8, „</td><td>Baltimore, Md.</td><td class="right">100.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 24, „</td><td>Chicago, Ill.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 25, „</td><td>Milwaukee, Wisc.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 28, „</td><td>Rockford, Ill.</td><td class="right">50.00</td></tr> -<tr><td>Mar. 2, „</td><td>Quincy, Ill.</td><td class="right">23.50</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 16, „</td><td>Lynn, Mass. (2 lec)</td><td class="right">60.00</td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="total right">518.50</td></tr> -<tr><th class="center" colspan="3">1859-60</th></tr> -<tr><td>November 7,</td><td>Flushing, L. I.</td><td class="right">$30.</td></tr> -<tr><td>February 14,</td><td>Danvers, Mass.</td><td class="right">25.</td></tr> -<tr><td> „ 21,</td><td>Cambridgeport, Mass.</td><td class="right">55.</td></tr> -<tr><td></td><td></td><td class="total right">110.</td></tr> -</table></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_371" id="Page_371">[371]</a></span></p> - -<p>For these lyceum gatherings, Melville prepared two lectures: -one on the <i>South Seas</i>, one on <i>Statuary in Rome</i>.</p> - -<p>On December 2, 1857, in competition with another Melville, -a bareback rider, who at the circus at Bingo “nightly performed -before the élite and respectability of the city,” Melville -lectured on <i>Statuary in Rome</i>. On December 3, 1857, the -Boston <i>Journal</i> thus reported Melville’s lecture:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“A large audience assembled last evening to listen to the -author of <i>Omoo</i> and <i>Typee</i>. He began by asserting that in the -realm of art there was no exclusiveness. Dilettanti might accumulate -their technical terms, but that did not interfere with -the substantial enjoyment of those who did not understand -them. As the beauties of nature could be appreciated without -a knowledge of botany, so art could be enjoyed without the -artist’s skill. With this principle in view, he, claiming to be -neither critic nor artist, would make some plain remarks on the -statuary of Rome.</p> - -<p>“As you approach the city from Naples, you are first struck -by the statues of the Church St. John Lateran. Here you have -the sculptured biographies of ancient celebrities. The speaker -then vividly described the statues of Demosthenes, Titus Vespasian, -Socrates, looking like an Irish comedian. Julius Cæsar, -so sensible and business-like of aspect that it might be taken -for the bust of a railroad president; Seneca, with the visage -of a pawn broker; Nero, the fast young man; Plato, with the -locks and air of an exquisite, as if meditating on the destinies -of the world under the hand of a hair-dresser. Thus these -statues confessed, and, as it were, prattled to us of much that -does not appear in history and the written works of those they -represent. They seem familiar and natural to us—and yet -there is about them all a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. -It is to be hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, -although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity -may have swallowed it up in humility.</p> - -<p>“The lecturer next turned to the celebrated Apollo Belvedere. -This stands alone by itself, and the impression made upon all -beholders is such as to subdue the feelings with wonder and<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_372" id="Page_372">[372]</a></span> -awe. The speaker gave a very eloquent description of the attitude -and the spirit of Apollo. The elevating effect of such -statues was exhibited in the influence they exerted upon the -mind of Milton during his visit to Italy.</p> - -<p>“Among the most wonderful works of statuary is that of -Lucifer and his associates cast down from heaven. This is in -Padua, and contains three-score figures cut out of solid rock. -The variety and power of the group cannot be surpassed. The -Venus de Medici, as compared with the Apollo, was lovely -and not divine. Mr. Melville said he once surprised a native -maiden in the precise attitude of the Venus. He then passed -to a rapid review of the Laocoon and other celebrated sculptures, -to show the human feeling and genius of the ancient artists. -None but a gentle heart could have conceived the idea of -the Dying Gladiator. The sculptured monuments of the early -Christians, in the vaults of the Vatican, show the joyous triumph -of the new religion—quite unlike the sombre momentoes -of modern times.</p> - -<p>“The lecturer then eloquently sketched the exterior of the -Vatican. But nearly the whole of Rome was a Vatican—everywhere -were fallen columns and sculptured fragments. Most -of these, it is true, were works of Greek artists. And yet the -grand spirit of Roman life inspired them. Passing from these -ancient sculptures, tribute was paid to the colossal works of -Benvenuto Cellini and Michael Angelo. He regretted that -the time would not allow him to speak of the scenery and -surroundings of the Roman sculptures—the old Coliseum, the -gardens, the Forum, and the villas in the environs. He sketched -some of the most memorable of the latter, and the best works -they contain.</p> - -<p>“He concluded by summing up the obvious teachings of -these deathless marbles. The lecture was quite interesting to -those of artistic tastes, but we fancy the larger part of the -audience would have preferred something more modern and -personal.”</p></div> - -<p>The report of Melville’s other lecture is quoted from the -Boston <i>Journal</i>, January 31, 1859.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_373" id="Page_373">[373]</a></span></p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“At the Tremont Temple last evening, Herman Melville, -Esq., the celebrated author and adventurer, delivered the -ninth lecture of the course under the auspices of the Mechanic -Apprentices’ Association. Subject—‘The South Seas.’ The -audience was not large, but about equal to the usual attendance -at this and the Mercantile course.</p> - -<p>“On being introduced to the audience, Mr. Melville said -that the field of his subject was large, and he should not be -expected to go over it all: nor should he be expected to read -again what had long been in print, touching his own incidental -adventures in Polynesia. But he proposed to view the subject -in a general manner, in a random way, with here and there -an incident by way of illustration.</p> - -<p>“He first referred to the title of the lecture, and the origin -and date of the name ‘South Seas’ which was older than the -name ‘Pacific,’ to which preference is usually given now. The -voyages of early navigators into the South Seas, and especially -the Balboa, commander of the petty port of Darien, from -whence he had taken formal possession of all the South Seas, -and all lands and kingdoms therein, in behalf of his masters, -the King of Castile and Leon, were noticed by the lecturer.</p> - -<p>“Magellan was the man who, after the first hazardous and -tortuous passage through the straits which now bear his name, -gave the peaceful ocean to which he came out the name of -‘Pacific.’ It was California, said the lecturer, which first -made the Pacific shores the home of the Anglo-Saxons. Even -now, there were many places in this wide waste of waters -which were not found upon the charts. But what was known, -and well known, afforded an abundant theme for a lecture. -The fish found in that water would furnish an abundant subject, -of which he named the sword fish, a different fish from -that of the same name found in our northern latitudes—and -the devil fish, over which a mystery hangs, like that over the -sea-serpent in northern waters. The birds, also, in those latitudes, -might occupy a full hour. The lecturer said he wondered -that the renowned Agassiz did not pack his carpet bag -and betake himself to Nantucket, and from thence to the South -Seas, than which he could find no richer field.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_374" id="Page_374">[374]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Full of interest also were the fisheries of the South Seas -and the life of the whaling crews on the broad waters, or visiting -lands. Seldom, if ever, touched by any but themselves, -was covered over with a charm of novelty. Again the islands -were an interesting study. Why, asked the lecturer, do northern -Englishmen, who own large yachts, with which they sail -up the Mediterranean, why don’t they go yachting in the South -Seas? The white race have a very bad reputation among the -Polynesians. With few exceptions they were considered the -most bloodthirsty, atrocious and diabolical race in the world. -But there were no dangers to voyagers if they treated the natives -with common kindness.</p> - -<p>“In the Pacific there were yet unknown and unvisited isles. -There were many places where a man might make himself a -sylvan retreat and for years, at least, live as much removed -from Christendom as if in another world.</p> - -<p>“The lecturer described an interview he had with a poetical -young man who called upon him to get his opinion upon what -would be the prospects of a number, say four score, of disciples -of Fourier to settle in the valley of Typee. He had not -encouraged the scheme, having too much regard for his old -friends, the Polynesians. The Mormons had also such a -scheme in view—to discover a large island in the Pacific, upon -which they could increase and multiply. The Polynesians -themselves have ideas of the same nature. Every one has -heard of the voyage of Ponce de Leon to find the fountain of -perpetual youth. Equally poetical, and more unfamiliar, was -the adventure of Cama Pecar, who set sail alone from Hawaii -to find the fount of eternal joy, which was supposed to spring -up in some distant island where the people lived in perpetual -joy and youth. Like all who go to Paradise, he was never -heard from again. A tranquil scene from the South Seas -was remembered by the lecturer. In a ship from a port of the -Pacific coast he had sailed five months, and came upon an -island where the natives lived in a state of total laziness. Here -they found a white man who was a permanent inhabitant, and -comfortably settled with three wives, who, however, failed to -keep his wardrobe in good order.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_375" id="Page_375">[375]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Wonderful tales were told of the adventures in the South -Seas, and the lecturer said that he believed that the books -<i>Typee</i> and <i>Omoo</i> gave scarcely a full idea of them, except that -part which tells of the long captivity in the valley of Typee. -He had seen many of these story tellers of adventures in the -South Seas with good vouchers of their tales in the shape of -tattooing. A full and interesting description of the process of -tattooing with its various styles was given. Tattooing was -sometimes, like dress, an index of character, and worn as an -ornament which would never wear off and could not be pawned, -lost or stolen. The lecturer had successfully combated all -attempts to naturalise him by marks as from a gridiron, on -his face, for which he thanked God.</p> - -<p>“A brief notice was made of the islands of the Pacific, where -the Anglo-Saxons had settled, and civilised the people, and the -lecturer had been disgusted, and threw down a paper published -in the Sandwich Islands, which suggested the propriety of not -having the native language taught in the common schools.</p> - -<p>“In conclusion, the lecturer spoke of the desire of the natives -of Georges Island to be annexed to the United States. -He was sorry to see it, and, as a friend of humanity, and especially -as a friend of the South Sea Islanders, he should pray, -and call upon all Christians to pray with him, that the Polynesians -might be delivered from all foreign and contaminating -influences.</p> - -<hr class="tb" /> - -<p>“The lecture gave the most ample satisfaction, and was frequently -applauded.”</p></div> - -<p>Melville cut short his third year of lecturing to make the -trip to California with his brother. Upon his return, he -again made an unsuccessful attempt to be appointed to a consularship. -Such a mission took him to Washington in 1861. -This trip was chiefly notable because of the meeting of Melville -and Lincoln. Melville recounted the experience in a letter -to his wife: “The night previous to this I was at the second -levee at the White House. There was a great crowd and a -brilliant scene—ladies in full dress by the hundreds—a steady<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_376" id="Page_376">[376]</a></span> -stream of two-and-two’s wound through the apartments shaking -hands with Old Abe and immediately passing on. This -continued without cessation for an hour and a half. Of course -I was one of the shakers. Old Abe is much better looking -than I expected and younger looking. He shook hands like -a good fellow—working hard at it like a man sawing wood at -so much per cord.”</p> - -<p>Melville struggled on for two more years at Pittsfield, and in -October, 1863, moved with his family to 104 East 26th Street, -New York, where he spent the remaining years of his life. -His house in New York he bought from his brother Allan, -giving $7,750 (covered by mortgages and in time paid for by -legacies of his wife) and the Arrowhead place, valued at -$3,000.</p> - -<p>The last years in Pittsfield and the early years in New York -were, in financial hardship, perhaps the darkest in Melville’s -life. He was in ill health, and except for the pittance from -his books he was without income. His lectures were a desperate -if not lucrative measure. But for the generosity of -his wife’s father, he would have been in destitution.</p> - -<p>On December 5, 1866, he was appointed Inspector of Customs -in New York—a post he held until January 1, 1886. -He was sixty-seven years old when he resigned. His wife -had come into an inheritance that allowed him an ultimate -serenity in his closing years.</p> - -<div class="figcenter" style="width: 594px;"> -<a href="images/zill_t376ah.jpg"> -<img src="images/zill_t376a.jpg" width="594" height="800" alt="" class="hires" /> -</a> -<div class="caption"> - -<p> -MELVILLE’S CHILDREN<br /> -Malcolm, Frances, Elizabeth, Stanwix<br /> -(From left to right) - -</p></div> -</div> - -<p>R. H. Stoddard, in his <i>Recollections</i>, thus speaks of Melville:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“My good friend Benedict sent me, one gloomy November -forenoon, this curt announcement of a new appointment in -Herman Melville: ‘He seems a good fellow, Dick, and says -he knows you, though perhaps he doesn’t, but anyhow be kind -to him if this infernal weather will let you be so to anybody.’ -I bowed to the gentleman who handed the note to me, in whom -I recognised a famous writer whom I had met some twenty-five -years before; no American writer was more widely known -in the late forties and early fifties in his own country and in -England than Melville, who in his earlier books, <i>Typee</i>, <i>Omoo</i>,<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_377" id="Page_377">[377]</a></span> -<i>Mardi</i>, and <i>White Jacket</i>, had made himself the prose poet of -the strange islands and peoples of the South Seas.</p> - -<p>“Whether any of Melville’s readers understood the real drift -of his mind, or whether he understood it himself, has often -puzzled me. Next to Emerson he was the American mystic. -He was more than that, however, he was one of our great unrecognised -poets, as he manifested in his version of ‘Sheridan’s -Ride,’ which begins as all students of our serious war poetry -ought to know: ‘Shoe the steed with silver that bore him to -the fray.’ Melville’s official duty during the last years of -my Custom-House life confined him to the foot of Gansevoort -Street, North River, and on a report that he might be changed -to some district on the East River, he asked me to prevent the -change, and Benedict said to me, ‘He shan’t be moved,’ and -he was not; and years later, on a second report of the same -nature reaching him, I saw Benedict again, who declared with -a profane expletive, ‘He shall stay there.’ And if he had not -died about a dozen years ago he would probably be there to-day, -at the foot of Gansevoort Street.”</p></div> - -<p>It is interesting that a man of the intellect of R. H. Stoddard -should have found Melville’s mind such a shadowed -hieroglyph. With Stoddard so perplexed, it is less difficult to -understand Melville’s preference for solitude.</p> - -<p>In his copy of Schopenhauer, Melville underlined the phrase—“this -hellish society of men;” and he vigorously underscored -the aphorism: “When two or three are gathered together, the -devil is among them.” Melville occupied himself with his -books, with collecting etchings, with solitary walks; and for -companionship he was satisfied with the society of his grandchildren. -His grand-daughter, Mrs. Eleanor Melville Metcalf, -thus records her recollections of such association:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>“I was not yet ten years old when my grandfather died. To -put aside all later impressions gathered from those who knew -him longer and coloured by their personal reactions, all impressions -made by subsequent reading of his books, results in -a series of childish recollections, vivid homely scenes wherein<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_378" id="Page_378">[378]</a></span> -he formed a palpable background for my own interested activities.</p> - -<p>“Setting forth on a bright spring afternoon for a trip to -Central Park, the Mecca of most of our pilgrimages, he made -a brave and striking figure as he walked erect, head thrown -back, cane in hand, inconspicuously dressed in a dark blue -suit and a soft black felt hat. For myself, I skipped gaily beside -him, anticipating the long jogging ride in the horse cars, -the goats and shanty-topped granite of the upper reaches of our -journey, the broad walks of the park, where the joy of all -existence was best expressed by running down the hills, head -back, skirts flying in the wind. He would follow more slowly -and call ‘Look out, or the “cop” may catch you!’ I always -thought he used funny words: ‘cop’ was surely a jollier word -than ‘policeman.’</p> - -<p>“We never came in from a trip of this kind, nor indeed -from any walk, but we stopped in the front hall under a coloured -engraving of the Bay of Naples, its still blue dotted -with tiny white sails. He would point to them with his cane -and say, ‘See the little boats sailing hither and thither.’ -‘Hither and thither’—more funny words, thought I, at the -same time a little awed by something far away in the tone of -voice.</p> - -<p>“I remember mornings when even sugar on the oatmeal was -not enough to tempt me to finish the last mouthful. It would -be spring in the back yard too, and a tin cup full of little -stones picked out of the garden meant a penny from my grandmother. -He would say in a warning whisper, ‘Jack Smoke -will come down the chimney and take what you leave!’ That -was another matter. The oatmeal was laughingly finished and -the yard gained. Across the back parlour and main hall upstairs -ran a narrow iron-trimmed porch, furnished with Windsor -and folding canvas chairs. There he would sit with a pipe -and his most constant companion—his cane, and watch my -busy activity below. Against the wall of the porch hung a -match holder, more for ornament than utility, it seems. It -was a gay red and blue china butterfly. Invariably he looked -to see if it had flown away since we were there last.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_379" id="Page_379">[379]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Once in a long while his interest in his grandchildren led -him to cross the river and take the suburban train to East -Orange, where we lived. He must have been an impressive -figure, sitting silently on the piazza of our little house, while -my sister and I pranced by with a neighbour’s boy and his -express wagon, filled with a satisfied sense of the strength -and accomplishment of our years. When he had had enough -of such exhibitions, he would suddenly rise and take the next -train back to Hoboken.</p> - -<p>“Chiefly do I think of him connected with different parts of -the 26th Street house.</p> - -<p>“His own room was a place of mystery and awe to me; -there I never ventured unless invited by him. It looked bleakly -north. The great mahogany desk, heavily bearing up four -shelves of dull gilt and leather books; the high dim book-case, -topped by strange plaster heads that peered along the ceiling -level, or bent down, searching blindly with sightless balls; the -small black iron bed, covered with dark cretonne; the narrow -iron grate; the wide table in the alcove, piled with papers I -would not dream of touching—these made a room even more -to be fled than the back parlour, by whose door I always ran -to escape the following eyes of his portrait, which hung there -in a half light. Yet lo, the paper-piled table also held a little -bag of figs, and one of the pieces of sweet stickiness was for -me. ‘Tittery-Eye’ he called me, and awe melted into glee, -as I skipped away to my grandmother’s room, which adjoined.</p> - -<p>“That was a very different place—sunny, comfortable and -familiar, with a sewing machine and a <i>white</i> bed like other -peoples’ In the corner stood a big arm chair, where he always -sat when he left the recesses of his own dark privacy. I used -to climb on his knee, while he told me wild tales of cannibals -and tropic isles. Little did I then know that he was reliving his -own past. We came nearest intimacy at these times, and part -of the fun was to put my hands in his thick beard and squeeze -it hard. It was no soft silken beard, but tight curled like the -horse hair breaking out of old upholstered chairs, firm and -wiry to the grasp, and squarely chopped.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_380" id="Page_380">[380]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Sad it is that he felt his grandchildren would turn against -him as they grew older. He used to forebode as much. As -it is, I have nothing but a remembrance of glorious fun, mixed -with a childish awe, as of some one who knew far and strange -things.”</p></div> - -<p>As the last meed of glory, Melville received this flattering -letter:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“12 Lucknow Terrace,<br /> -“<span class="smcap">Halifax, N. S.</span><br /> -Nov. 21, 1889.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“Although a stranger, I take the liberty of addressing you -on the ground of my ardent admiration for your works. For -a number of years I have read and reread <i>Moby-Dick</i> with -increasing pleasure in every perusal: and with this study, the -conviction has grown up that the unique merits of that book -have never received due recognition. I have been a student -for ten years and have dabbled in literature more or less myself. -And now I find myself in a position which enables me -to give myself to literature as a life-work. I am anxious to -set the merits of your books before the public and to that end, -I beg the honour of corresponding with you. It would be of -great assistance to me, if I could gather some particulars of -your life and <i>literary methods</i> from you, other than given in -such books as Duyckinck’s dictionary. In the matter of style, -apart from the matter altogether I consider your books, especially -the earlier ones, the most thoroughly New World product -in all American literature.</p> - -<p>“Hoping that I am not asking too much, I remain,</p> - -<p class="sig">“Yours most respectfully,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Archd. MacMeehan, Ph.D.</span></p> -<p> -“Munro Professor of English at Dalhousie University.”</p></div> - -<p>Melville replied:</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> -<p class="dateline"> -“104 E. 26th St.</p> -<p> -“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>: -</p> - -<p>“I beg you to overlook my delay in acknowledging yours of -the 12th ult. It was unavoidable.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_381" id="Page_381">[381]</a></span></p> - -<p>“Your note gave me pleasure, as how should it not, written -in such a spirit.</p> - -<p>“But you do not know, perhaps, that I have entered my 8th -decade. After 20 years nearly, as an outdoor custom house -officer, I have lately come into possession of unobstructed -leisure, but only just as, in the course of nature, my vigour -sensibly declines. What little of it is left I husband for certain -matters as yet incomplete, and which indeed may never be -completed.</p> - -<p>“I appreciate, quite as much as you would have me, your -friendly good will and shrink from any appearance to the contrary.</p> - -<p>“Trusting that you will take all this, & what it implies, in -the same spirit that prompts it, I am,</p> - -<p class="sig">“Very truly yours,<br /> - -“<span class="smcap">Herman Melville</span>.</p> - -<p> -“<i>To</i><br /> -“<i>Professor MacMeehan</i>,<br /> -“<i>Dec. 5, ’89.</i>” -</p></div> - -<p>Melville was using his “unobstructed leisure” in a return -to the writing of prose. Ten prose sketches and a novel were -the result. But the result is not distinguished. The novel, -<i>Billy Budd</i>, is built around the character of Jack Chase, the -“Handsome Sailor.” In the character of Billy Budd, Melville -attempts to portray the native purity and nobility of the -uncorrupted man. Melville spends elaborate pains in analysing -“the mystery of iniquity,” and in celebrating by contrast -the god-like beauty of body and spirit of his hero. Billy Budd, -by his heroic guilelessness is, like an angel of vengeance, precipitated -into manslaughter; and for his very righteousness he -is hanged. <i>Billy Budd</i>, finished within a few months before -the end of Melville’s life, would seem to teach that though the -wages of sin is death, that sinners and saints alike toil for a -common hire. In <i>Billy Budd</i> the orphic sententiousness is -gone, it is true. But gone also is the brisk lucidity, the sparkle, -the verve. Only the disillusion abided with him to the last.</p> - -<p>Melville died at 104 East 26th Street, New York, on Mon<span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_382" id="Page_382">[382]</a></span>day, -September 28, 1891. His funeral was attended by his -wife and his two daughters—all of his immediate family that -survived him—and a meagre scattering of relatives and family -friends. The man who had created Moby-Dick died an obscure -and elderly private citizen. He had in early manhood prayed -that if indeed his soul missed its haven, that his might, at least, -be an utter wreck. “All Fame is patronage,” he had once -written; “let me be infamous.” But as if in contempt even -for this preference, he had, during the last half of his life, -cruised off and away upon boundless and uncharted waters; -and in the end he sank down into death, without a ripple of -renown.</p> - -<p>“Oh, what quenchless feud is this, that Time hath with the -sons of Men!”</p> - - - - - -<div class="chapter"> -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_385" id="Page_385">[385]</a></span></p> -<h2 class="nobreak">BIBLIOGRAPHY</h2> - -</div> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Herman Melville’s Sea Tales. 4 Volumes. Edited by Arthur Stedman. -<i>New York</i>, 1892, 1896; <i>Boston</i>, 1900, 1910, 1919.</p> - -<div class="blockquot left"> -Typee (with a biographical and critical introduction by the editor).<br /> -Omoo.<br /> -Moby-Dick.<br /> -White-Jacket. -</div> - -<p>Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life. During a Four Months’ Residence -in a Valley of the Marquesas.... <i>New York</i>, 1846.</p> - -<p>A Four Months’ Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the -Marquesas Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life.... <i>London</i>, -1846, 1847, 1855, 1861.</p> - -<p>Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life.... Revised edition, with a -Sequel, The Story of Toby.... <i>New York</i>, 1846, 1847, 1849, -1855, 1857, 1865, 1871. <i>London</i>, 1892, 1893 (ed. H. S. Salt), -1898, 1899. <i>Boston</i>, 1902 (ed. William P. Trent). <i>London</i>, -1903 (ed. William P. Trent). <i>London and New York</i>, 1904 -(ed. W. Clark Russell); 1907 (ed. Ernest Rhys). <i>London</i> -1910; another edition 1910 (ed. W. Clark Russell). <i>New York</i>, -1911 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1920 (ed. A. L. Sterling). <i>New -York and London</i>, 1921 (ed. Ernest Rhys).</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Translated into German by R. Garrique, <i>Leipzig</i>, 1846; into -Dutch, <i>Haarlem</i>, 1847.</p></div> - -<p>Omoo: a Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas.... <i>New York</i>, -1847 (five editions the same year). <i>London</i>, 1847, 1849. <i>New -York and London</i>, 1855. <i>London</i>, 1861. <i>New York</i>, 1863, 1868. -<i>London</i>, 1892, 1893 (ed. H. S. Salt). <i>London and New York</i>, -1904 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1908 (ed. Ernest Rhys); 1911 -(ed. W. Clark Russell); 1921 (ed. Ernest Rhys).</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Translated into German by F. Gerstäcker, <i>Leipzig</i>, 1847.</p></div> - -<p>Mardi: and a Voyage Thither.... <i>New York</i>, 1849 (2 volumes). -<i>London</i>, 1849 (3 volumes). <i>New York</i>, 1855, 1864.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_386" id="Page_386">[386]</a></span></p> - -<p>Redburn: His First Voyage. Being the Sailor-Boy Confessions and -Reminiscences of the Son-of-a-Gentleman, in the Merchant -Service.... <i>New York</i>, 1849. <i>London</i>, 1849 (2 volumes). -<i>New York</i>, 1855, 1863.</p> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Translated into German by L. Marezoll, <i>Grimma</i>, 1850.</p></div> - -<p>White-Jacket: or, The World in a Man-of-War.... <i>New York</i>, -1850. <i>London</i>, 1850 (2 volumes). <i>New York and London</i>, -1855. <i>London</i>, 1892, 1893, 1901.</p> - -<p>Moby-Dick; or, the Whale.... <i>New York</i>, 1851.</p> - -<p>The Whale.... <i>London</i>, 1851, 1853 (3 volumes).</p> - -<p>Moby-Dick; or, the Whale.... <i>New York</i>, 1863. <i>London</i>, 1901 -(ed. L. Becke). <i>London and New York</i>, 1907 (ed. Ernest -Rhys). <i>London</i>, 1912; 1920 (ed. Violet Maynell). <i>London -and New York</i>, 1921 (ed. Ernest Rhys). The editions since -1892 have borne the title Moby-Dick; (or) the (Great) White -Whale.</p> - -<p>Pierre: or The Ambiguities.... <i>New York</i>, 1852, 1855.</p> - -<p>Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile.... <i>New York</i>, 1855 (three -editions in the same year). <i>London</i>, 1855, 1861. (The book -appeared serially in <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine</i>, July, 1854-March, -1855. It was pirated at <i>Philadelphia</i>, n. d. (entered -1865), as The Refugee, with the original dedication and table -of contents omitted).</p> - -<p>The Piazza Tales.... <i>New York</i>, 1856. <i>London</i>, 1856. (Contains: -The Piazza; Bartleby; Benito Cereno; The Lightning-Rod -Man; The Encantadas; The Bell-Tower).</p> - -<p>The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade.... <i>New York</i>, 1857. <i>London</i>, -1857.</p> - -<p>Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War.... <i>New York</i>, 1866.</p> - -<p>Clarel: a Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land.... <i>New York</i>, -1878.</p> - -<p>John Marr and Other Sailors.... <i>New York</i>, 1888. (Privately -printed).</p> - -<p>Timoleon, etc. <i>New York</i>, 1891. (Privately printed).</p></div> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_387" id="Page_387">[387]</a></span></p> - - -<h3>CONTRIBUTIONS TO MAGAZINES, ETC.</h3> - -<div class="blockquot"> - -<p>Fragments from a Writing Desk. <i>The Democratic Press and Lansingburgh -Advertiser</i>, 4 May; 18 May; 1849.</p> - -<p>Hawthorne and His Mosses, By a Virginian Spending a July in Vermont. -<i>Literary World.</i> 17 Aug.; 24 Aug.; 1850.</p> - -<p>The Town-Ho’s Story. (Ch. 54 of Moby-Dick.) <i>Harper’s New -Monthly Magazine.</i> Oct., 1851.</p> - -<p>A Memorial to James Fenimore Cooper. Discourses and tributes by -Bryant, Bancroft, Irving, Melville, etc., etc. <i>New York</i>, 1852.</p> - -<p>Bartleby, the Scrivener. A story of Wall-Street. <i>Putnam’s Monthly -Magazine.</i> Nov.-Dec., 1853.</p> - -<p>Cock-a-Doodle-Doo! or, The Crowing of the Cock of Benentano. -<i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> Dec., 1853.</p> - -<p>The Encantadas, or Enchanted Isles, by Salvator R. Tarnmoor. -<i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> March-May, 1854.</p> - -<p>The Lightning-Rod Man. <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> Aug., 1854.</p> - -<p>Poor Man’s Pudding and Rich Man’s Crumbs. <i>Harper’s New Monthly -Magazine.</i> June, 1854.</p> - -<p>Happy Failure. A Story of the River Hudson. <i>Harper’s New -Monthly Magazine.</i> July, 1854.</p> - -<p>The Fiddler. <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> Sept., 1854.</p> - -<p>Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids. <i>Harper’s New Monthly -Magazine.</i> April, 1855.</p> - -<p>The Bell-Tower. <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> Aug., 1855.</p> - -<p>Benito Cereno. <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> Oct.-Dec., 1855.</p> - -<p>Jimmy Rose. <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> Nov., 1855.</p> - -<p>The ’Gees. <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> March, 1856.</p> - -<p>I and My Chimney. <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> March, 1856.</p> - -<p>The Apple-Tree Table: or, Original Spiritual Manifestations. <i>Putnam’s -Monthly Magazine.</i> May, 1856.</p> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_388" id="Page_388">[388]</a></span></p> - -<p>The March to the Sea (poem). <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> Feb., -1856.</p> - -<p>The Cumberland (poem). <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> March, -1866.</p> - -<p>Philip (poem). <i>Putnam’s Monthly Magazine.</i> April, 1866.</p> - -<p>Chattanooga (poem). <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> June, 1866.</p> - -<p>Gettysburg: July, 1863 (poem). <i>Harper’s New Monthly Magazine.</i> -July, 1866.</p> - -<p>The History of Pittsfield, Mass., Compiled and written, under the -general direction of a committee, by J. E. A. Smith, Pittsfield, -1876. (The account of Major Thomas Melville, pp. 399-400, -was written by Melville.)</p></div> - - - -<div class="chapter"> - -<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_391" id="Page_391">[391]</a></span></p><h2 class="nobreak">INDEX OF NAMES</h2> - -</div> - -<ul class="index"><li class="ifrst">Abbott, Willis J., <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Abernethy, John, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Acushnet, The</i>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Adams, C. F., <a href="#Page_78">78</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Adler, Dr., <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ahab, Captain, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Akenside, Dr. Mark, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Albany, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_112">112</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Albany Academy, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Alcott, Amos Bronson, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ames, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Amherst, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Angew, Mary, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Annatoo, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Arnold, Matthew, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Arnold, Dr. Thomas, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Arrowhead, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Artémise, The</i>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Balboa, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Banks, Sir Joseph, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barbauld, Mrs., <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Barrie, Sir James, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Battle Pieces</i>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">“Beauty,” <a href="#Page_217">217</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Beck, Dr. T. Romeyn, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Becke, Louis, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Beecher, Henry Ward, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Behn, Aphra, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bennett, F. D., <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bentley, Richard, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Berkshires, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Besant, Walter, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bildad, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bildad, Aunt Charity, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Billson, James, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Billy Budd</i>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Blake, William, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bligh, Captain, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bob, Captain, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bolton, Harry, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boomer, Captain, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Borabolla, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Borgia, Rodrigo, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Borrow, George, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boston, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Boston Tea Party, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Bounty, The</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bristol, R. I., <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Broadhall, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Browne, J. Ross, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_158">158</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Browne, Sir Thomas, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Brownell, C. W., <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Browning, Robert, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bryant, William Cullen, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Buchanan, Robert, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Buffalo Courier</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bullen, Frank T., <a href="#Page_90">90</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bunker, Captain Uriah, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Bunyan, John, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burke, Edmund, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_153">153</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burney, Fanny, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_392" id="Page_392">[392]</a></span>Burton, Robert, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Burton, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Butler, Samuel, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Byron, Lord, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Byron, Captain, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Cabri, Joseph, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cape Cod, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Caret, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cargill, David, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cargill, Mrs. Mary, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Carlyle, Thomas, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cartaret, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cavendish, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Champlain, Lake, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chapone, Mrs., <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chase, Frederic Hathway, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chase, Jack, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_238">238</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chase, Owen, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chasles, Philarete, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chateaubriand, François René, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chatterton, Thomas, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Chesterfield, Lord, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Chicago Times</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Churchill’s <i>Voyages</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Clarel</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_226">226</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_361">361</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Claret, Captain, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Clough, Arthur Hugh, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coan, Titus Munson, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coffin, Long Tom, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Coleridge, Samuel, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_146">146</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="College_of_New_Jersey"></a>College of New Jersey, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Confidence Man, The</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Congregation of the Propaganda, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Conrad, Joseph, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Constantinople, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_354">354</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cook, Captain James, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cooke, Edmund, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cooper, James Fenimore, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Covent Garden Theatre, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cowley, Abraham, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Cowper, William, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Curtis, George William, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Customs House, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Duyckinck, George, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Daedalus, The</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dalrymple, Alexander, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dampier, William, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dana, Richard Henry, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_84">84</a>, <a href="#Page_86">86</a>, <a href="#Page_87">87</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dante, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Darling, Captain, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Darwin, Charles, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Davis, Captain, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">D’Wolf, Captain (see <a href="#De_Wolf_II_Captain_John">De Wolf II, Captain John</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Defoe, Daniel, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dekker, Thomas, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Delaney, Mrs., <a href="#Page_58">58</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Delano, R., <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">de Bougainville, Louis, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Desgraz, C., <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="De_Wolf_II_Captain_John"></a>De Wolf II, Captain John, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">De Wolf, Mrs. John (see <a href="#Melville_Mary">Mary Melville</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Dibdin, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Donjalolo, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Donne, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Drake, Sir Francis, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Dryden, John, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_393" id="Page_393">[393]</a></span><i>Duff, The</i>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Du Petit-Thouars, Admiral, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">D’Urville, Captain Dumont, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Edwards, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Eliot, George, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Elizabeth, Queen of England, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Emerson, Ralph Waldo, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Encantadas, The</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Essex, The</i>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Fairhaven, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fanning, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fayaway, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fedallah, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fielding, Henry, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Flaubert, Gustave, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fletcher, John, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fletcher, Captain, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fleury, Franchise Raymonde Eulogie Marie de Douleurs Lamé (see Mrs. Thomas Melville—Melville’s aunt).</li> - -<li class="indx">Fluke, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_244">244</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Forbes, Thomas T., <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Foster, Newton, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">France, Anatole, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Franklin, Benjamin, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Franklin, Admiral S. R., <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Freud, Sigmund, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fuller & Co., Bradford, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Fuller, Margaret, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Furneaux, Lieutenant, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Gansevoort (Saratoga County, N. Y.), <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gansevoort, Harmen Harmense Van, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gansevoort, General Herman, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gansevoort, Maria (see <a href="#Melville_Mrs_Allan">Mrs. Allan Melville</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Gansevoort, General Peter, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gansevoort, Hon. Peter, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gardener, George, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gauguin, Paul, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">George the Third, King, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Glendinning, Marie, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Glendinning, Pierre (see <a href="#Pierre">Pierre</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Goethe, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Goldsmith, Oliver, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Goode, G. Brown, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Gordon, Eliza, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Greene, Herman Melville, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Greene, Richard Tobias (see <a href="#Toby">Toby</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Greenlander, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Griswold, Captain, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Guam, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Guy, Captain, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Hair, Richard Melville, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hakluyt’s <i>Voyages</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hannamanoo, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hardy, Lem, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hardy, Thomas, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harper, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harris’ <i>Voyages</i>, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hart, Col. Joseph C., <a href="#Page_145">145</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Harvard College, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hautia, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hawkins, Sir Richard, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hawthorne, Julian, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hawthorne, Mrs. Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_325">325</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_394" id="Page_394">[394]</a></span>Hawthorne, Nathaniel, <a href="#Page_15">15</a>, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_312">312</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_316">316</a>, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>, <a href="#Page_321">321</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_326">326</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hawthorne, Una, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Henricy, Casimir, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Henry, Joseph, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Highlander, The</i>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_90">90</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hervey, Captain, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hobard, Mary Anna Augusta (Mrs. Thomas Melville—Melville’s aunt), <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hobbes, Thomas, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hodges, W., <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Holland, Dr., <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Holmes, Oliver Wendell, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Honolulu, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hook, Captain, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Howe, Julia Ward, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hubbard, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hun, Dr. Henry, <a href="#Page_70">70</a>, <a href="#Page_71">71</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Hussey, Christopher, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huxley, Aldous, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Huxley, Thomas, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Imeeo, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Independence, The</i>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Irving, Washington, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ishmael, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_89">89</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Israel Potter</i>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Israel Potter, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Jackson, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>, <a href="#Page_96">96</a>, <a href="#Page_97">97</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jackson, Andrew, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">James, G. P. R., <a href="#Page_23">23</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Janet, The</i>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jarl, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jermin, John, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jewell, J. Grey, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>John Marr</i>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Arthur, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Dr., <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Johnson, Captain Charles, <a href="#Page_80">80</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Jones, John Paul, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Julia, The</i>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Kant, Immanuel, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kemble, Fanny, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kingsley, Charles, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kippis, Dr., <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Knapp, Elizabeth, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Knox, John, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Kory-Kory, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_210">210</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Krusenstern, Admiral, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Ladrones, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">La Farge, John, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_220">220</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">La Maire, Captain, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lamb, Charles, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Langsdorff, Captain, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lansingburg, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_118">118</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_263">263</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Laplace, Captain, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Larry, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lathers, Col. Richard, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lathrop, G. P., <a href="#Page_313">313</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lavendar, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lawrence, D. H., <a href="#Page_342">342</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lawton, William Cranston, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lemaître, Jules, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lemsford, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lenox, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_309">309</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Leviathan, The</i>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lincoln, Abraham, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Liverpool, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_98">98</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lockhart, John Gibson, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Long Island, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lono, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_395" id="Page_395">[395]</a></span>Lombroso, Cesare, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">London, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_293">293</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">London, Jack, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">London Missionary Society, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Long Ghost, Doctor, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_217">217</a>, <a href="#Page_218">218</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_222">222</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Louis Philippe of France, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Lowell, James Russell, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">MacMeehan, Archibald, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Macy, Obed, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Magellan, <a href="#Page_170">170</a>, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mandeville, Sir John, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mapple, Father, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Mardi</i>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_148">148</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marheyo, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mariner, William, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marnoo, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marquesas Islands, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>, <a href="#Page_197">197</a>, <a href="#Page_198">198</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Marryat, Captain Frederick, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Dr. John, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Martin, Winthrop L., <a href="#Page_135">135</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mary, Queen of Scots, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Masefield, John, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Massinger, Philip, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mather, Jr., Frank Jewell, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_347">347</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mather, Richard, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Matilda, The</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Maugham, Somerset, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Max, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melvil of Hallhill, Sir James, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melvil, William, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Alexander, 6th Earl of, etc., <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Allan (Melville’s great-grandfather), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Allan (Melville’s father), <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>, <a href="#Page_51">51</a>, <a href="#Page_52">52</a>, <a href="#Page_53">53</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_55">55</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_74">74</a>, <a href="#Page_102">102</a>, <a href="#Page_103">103</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Allan (Melville’s brother), <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_254">254</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Melville_Mrs_Allan"></a>Melville, Mrs. Allan (née Maria Gansevoort, Melville’s mother), <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_59">59</a>, <a href="#Page_60">60</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_88">88</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_259">259</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Andrew (“Episcopomastrix”), <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Andrew (Chevalier), <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Anna Marie Priscilla, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Augusta (Melville’s sister), <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Deborah (wife of John. See <a href="#Scollay_Deborah">Scollay, Deborah</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Melville_Elizabeth_Shaw"></a>Melville, Elizabeth Shaw (Melville’s wife), <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_261">261</a>, <a href="#Page_262">262</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_360">360</a>, <a href="#Page_368">368</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Fanny, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_396" id="Page_396">[396]</a></span>Melville, Gansevoort (Melville’s brother), <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_65">65</a>, <a href="#Page_66">66</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_69">69</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Helen (Melville’s aunt), <a href="#Page_63">63</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Helen Marie (Melville’s sister), <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_64">64</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville of Carnbee, Sir John, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, John—Lord of Raith in Fife, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, John, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Malcolm (Melville’s son), <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_346">346</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Melville_Mary"></a>Melville, Mary (Mrs. John De Wolf), <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Pierre François Henry Thomas Wilson, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Priscilla (wife of Major Thomas—See <a href="#Scollay_Priscilla">Scollay, Priscilla</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Sir Richard de, etc., <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Sir Robert, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, General Robert, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Thomas (Melville’s great-great-grandfather), <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Major Thomas (Melville’s grandfather), <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Thomas (Melville’s uncle), <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Melville, Thomas (Melville’s brother), <a href="#Page_85">85</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mencken, H. L., <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mendoca, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Meredith, George, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_358">358</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Metcalf, Eleanor Melville, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Miguel, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_92">92</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Milton, John, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Moby-Dick</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_25">25</a>, <a href="#Page_26">26</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_137">137</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_150">150</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_274">274</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_319">319</a>, <a href="#Page_324">324</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_328">328</a>, <a href="#Page_329">329</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_380">380</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moby-Dick, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_382">382</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moerenhaut (French consul at Tahiti), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Molucca Islands, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Monluc, Bishop of Valence, <a href="#Page_50">50</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montaigne, Michel, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>, <a href="#Page_278">278</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montégut, Emile, <a href="#Page_317">317</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Montgomery, Mrs. Helen Barrett, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Moore, Tom, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">More, Mrs. Hannah, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mortimer, Mrs. F. L., <a href="#Page_183">183</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mouat, Captain, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Mow-Mow, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_213">213</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Munsell, Joel, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Murphy, Father, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Murray, John, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Nantucket, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_145">145</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Nation, The London</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New Bedford, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_143">143</a>, <a href="#Page_144">144</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New England, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_126">126</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Newfoundland, <a href="#Page_140">140</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New Guinea, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New London, <a href="#Page_139">139</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_156">156</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">New York City, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_73">73</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_83">83</a>, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>, <a href="#Page_99">99</a>, <a href="#Page_108">108</a>, <a href="#Page_109">109</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>, <a href="#Page_265">265</a>, <a href="#Page_271">271</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_381">381</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nietzsche, Friedrich, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nord, <a href="#Page_241">241</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_397" id="Page_397">[397]</a></span>Nordau, Max, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nukuheva, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Nye, N. H., <a href="#Page_144">144</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Oberea, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">O’Brien, Frederick, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_214">214</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">“Old Combustibles,” <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Omai, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Omoo</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_215">215</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Otaheite (see <a href="#Tahiti">Tahiti</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Oto (see <a href="#Pomare_II">Pomare II, King</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Outooroo, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Paine, Ralph D., <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Pandora, The</i>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Paris, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_298">298</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Parker, Daniel P., <a href="#Page_281">281</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Paton, John G., <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Paulet, Sir George, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pease, Captain, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>, <a href="#Page_161">161</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Peleg, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_154">154</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Pequod, The</i>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_149">149</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pert, Mr., <a href="#Page_235">235</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Philippines, <a href="#Page_171">171</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Piazza Tales</i>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Pierre</i>, <a href="#Page_17">17</a>, <a href="#Page_19">19</a>, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_48">48</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_122">122</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_260">260</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_311">311</a>, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_341">341</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Pierre"></a>Pierre, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_37">37</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>, <a href="#Page_49">49</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_61">61</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_67">67</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_121">121</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_342">342</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pittsfield, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_47">47</a>, <a href="#Page_63">63</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_160">160</a>, <a href="#Page_169">169</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_303">303</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_306">306</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_314">314</a>, <a href="#Page_315">315</a>, <a href="#Page_318">318</a>, <a href="#Page_327">327</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_359">359</a>, <a href="#Page_367">367</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Plato, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Po-Po, Jeremiah, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_232">232</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Poe, Edgar Allan, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Polynesia, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Pomare_I"></a>Pomare I, King, <a href="#Page_181">181</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Pomare_II"></a>Pomare II, King, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pomare, Queen, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_229">229</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pope, Alexander, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Porter, Captain, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_194">194</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Providence, R. I., <a href="#Page_139">139</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Priestly, Joseph, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Princeton (see <a href="#College_of_New_Jersey">College of New Jersey</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Pringle, Sir John, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Pritchard, The Rev. (British Consul at Tahiti), <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Putnam, G. P., <a href="#Page_347">347</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Queequeg, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_147">147</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Rabelais, François, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Raynal, Abbé, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Redburn</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_38">38</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>, <a href="#Page_54">54</a>, <a href="#Page_62">62</a>, <a href="#Page_68">68</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_82">82</a>, <a href="#Page_100">100</a>, <a href="#Page_106">106</a>, <a href="#Page_107">107</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_157">157</a>, <a href="#Page_159">159</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Reine Blanche, The</i>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Repplier, Agnes, <a href="#Page_58">58</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Revere, Paul, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reybaud, Louis, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Reynolds, Sir Joshua, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rhode Island, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ricketson, Daniel, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Riga, Captain, <a href="#Page_110">110</a>, <a href="#Page_111">111</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rio (de Janeiro), <a href="#Page_31">31</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Roberts, E., <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rodney, Mate, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rome, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_372">372</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rouchouse, Bishop of Nilolopis, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_190">190</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rousseau, Jean Jacques, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_204">204</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Royal Society, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_398" id="Page_398">[398]</a></span>Royce, Josiah, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Ruskin, John, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Russell, W. Clark, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Rutland, Duke of, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_300">300</a>, <a href="#Page_301">301</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Sabine, Lorenzo, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Saddle-Meadows, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_39">39</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Safroni-Middleton, A., <a href="#Page_24">24</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sag Harbor, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sainte-Beuve, Charles Augustin, <a href="#Page_93">93</a>, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Salem, Mass., <a href="#Page_83">83</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Samoa, <a href="#Page_275">275</a>, <a href="#Page_276">276</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Salt, H. S., <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Sandusky Mirror</i>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sandwich, Earl of, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sandwich Islands, <a href="#Page_46">46</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Savage, Hope, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scammon, C. M., <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Schopenhauer, Arthur, <a href="#Page_338">338</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_343">343</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Schouten, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Scollay_Deborah"></a>Scollay, Deborah, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Scollay_Priscilla"></a>Scollay, Priscilla, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_44">44</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scoresby, William, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Scott, Sir Walter, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_296">296</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sedgewick, Catherine, <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Seward, Miss (The Swan of Lichfield), <a href="#Page_178">178</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shakespeare, William, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_120">120</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_348">348</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, Elizabeth (see <a href="#Melville_Elizabeth_Shaw">Melville—Mrs. Herman</a>).</li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, John Oakes, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, Chief Justice Lemuel, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_345">345</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, Lemuel (son of Chief Justice), <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_268">268</a>, <a href="#Page_269">269</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_273">273</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shaw, Samuel Savage, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_267">267</a>, <a href="#Page_270">270</a>, <a href="#Page_272">272</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>, <a href="#Page_281">281</a>, <a href="#Page_282">282</a>, <a href="#Page_310">310</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Shenley, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sigourney, Mrs., <a href="#Page_305">305</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, Adam, <a href="#Page_91">91</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smith, J. E. A., <a href="#Page_45">45</a>, <a href="#Page_72">72</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_313">313</a>, <a href="#Page_352">352</a>, <a href="#Page_369">369</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Smollett, Tobias, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>, <a href="#Page_81">81</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Society Islands, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Society of Picpus, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Socrates, <a href="#Page_18">18</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Solomon, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>, <a href="#Page_152">152</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_333">333</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Solomon Islands, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Southampton, The</i>, <a href="#Page_284">284</a>, <a href="#Page_290">290</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Southport (England), <a href="#Page_30">30</a>, <a href="#Page_334">334</a>, <a href="#Page_335">335</a>, <a href="#Page_336">336</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">South Seas, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_127">127</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_195">195</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_205">205</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_337">337</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_373">373</a>, <a href="#Page_374">374</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spencer, John C., <a href="#Page_164">164</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spenser, Edmund, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Spilbergen, Joris, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stanwix, Fort, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Starbuck, Alexander, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_136">136</a>, <a href="#Page_141">141</a>, <a href="#Page_332">332</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stearns, Frank Preston, <a href="#Page_23">23</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stedman, Arthur, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_349">349</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Steelkilt, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stevenson, Robert Louis, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Stoddard, Charles Warren, <a href="#Page_24">24</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Sturges, William, <a href="#Page_85">85</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Swift, Jonathan, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_40">40</a>, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst"><a id="Tahiti"></a>Tahiti, <a href="#Page_16">16</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_177">177</a>, <a href="#Page_178">178</a>, <a href="#Page_179">179</a>, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>, <a href="#Page_183">183</a>, <a href="#Page_184">184</a>, <a href="#Page_185">185</a>, <a href="#Page_186">186</a>, <a href="#Page_187">187</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_192">192</a>, <a href="#Page_193">193</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_219">219</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_224">224</a>, <a href="#Page_225">225</a>, <a href="#Page_227">227</a>, <a href="#Page_228">228</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><span class="pagenum"><a name="Page_399" id="Page_399">[399]</a></span>Taji, <a href="#Page_105">105</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tashetego, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tasman, <a href="#Page_172">172</a>, <a href="#Page_173">173</a>, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Bayard, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Taylor, Dr., <a href="#Page_285">285</a>, <a href="#Page_287">287</a>, <a href="#Page_288">288</a>, <a href="#Page_289">289</a>, <a href="#Page_291">291</a>, <a href="#Page_292">292</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tenae, <a href="#Page_182">182</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tennyson, Lord Alfred, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thackeray, William Makepeace, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_125">125</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thompson, Francis, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>, <a href="#Page_129">129</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thomson, James, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_28">28</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Thoreau, Henry David, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_131">131</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Timoleon</i>, <a href="#Page_340">340</a>, <a href="#Page_353">353</a>, <a href="#Page_357">357</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><a id="Toby"></a>Toby, <a href="#Page_32">32</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_164">164</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_168">168</a>, <a href="#Page_200">200</a>, <a href="#Page_201">201</a>, <a href="#Page_202">202</a>, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_212">212</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tonga Islands, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Tower, Walter S., <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_138">138</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Typee</i>, <a href="#Page_21">21</a>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_113">113</a>, <a href="#Page_114">114</a>, <a href="#Page_115">115</a>, <a href="#Page_116">116</a>, <a href="#Page_128">128</a>, <a href="#Page_130">130</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_162">162</a>, <a href="#Page_163">163</a>, <a href="#Page_165">165</a>, <a href="#Page_166">166</a>, <a href="#Page_199">199</a>, <a href="#Page_206">206</a>, <a href="#Page_207">207</a>, <a href="#Page_208">208</a>, <a href="#Page_209">209</a>, <a href="#Page_211">211</a>, <a href="#Page_216">216</a>, <a href="#Page_223">223</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>, <a href="#Page_255">255</a>, <a href="#Page_256">256</a>, <a href="#Page_257">257</a>, <a href="#Page_258">258</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_297">297</a>, <a href="#Page_308">308</a>, <a href="#Page_323">323</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_351">351</a>, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_371">371</a>, <a href="#Page_375">375</a>, <a href="#Page_376">376</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst"><i>United States, The</i>, <a href="#Page_233">233</a>, <a href="#Page_235">235</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_239">239</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_243">243</a>, <a href="#Page_245">245</a>, <a href="#Page_246">246</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_252">252</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">University of New York, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Van Schaek, Henry, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Van Schaick, Catharine, <a href="#Page_34">34</a>, <a href="#Page_43">43</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vedder, Elihu, <a href="#Page_365">365</a>, <a href="#Page_366">366</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>Venus, The</i>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Verrill, Hyatt, <a href="#Page_135">135</a>, <a href="#Page_142">142</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Victoria, Queen of England, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_101">101</a>, <a href="#Page_189">189</a>, <a href="#Page_191">191</a>, <a href="#Page_230">230</a>, <a href="#Page_231">231</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_330">330</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Villon, François, <a href="#Page_94">94</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Vincendon-Dumoulin, <a href="#Page_188">188</a>, <a href="#Page_196">196</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Voltaire, François, <a href="#Page_203">203</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Willis, Captain, <a href="#Page_174">174</a>, <a href="#Page_175">175</a>, <a href="#Page_176">176</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Walpole, Horace, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Washington, George, <a href="#Page_35">35</a>, <a href="#Page_36">36</a>, <a href="#Page_42">42</a>, <a href="#Page_320">320</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Watson, E. L. Grant, <a href="#Page_331">331</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Watson, Elkanah, <a href="#Page_45">45</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Webster, Daniel, <a href="#Page_134">134</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Webster, John, <a href="#Page_27">27</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wendell, Barrett, <a href="#Page_20">20</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">West, Professor Charles E., <a href="#Page_72">72</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">West, Captain Isaiah, <a href="#Page_155">155</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx"><i>White-Jacket</i>, <a href="#Page_29">29</a>, <a href="#Page_133">133</a>, <a href="#Page_167">167</a>, <a href="#Page_234">234</a>, <a href="#Page_236">236</a>, <a href="#Page_237">237</a>, <a href="#Page_240">240</a>, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>, <a href="#Page_250">250</a>, <a href="#Page_251">251</a>, <a href="#Page_283">283</a>, <a href="#Page_294">294</a>, <a href="#Page_295">295</a>, <a href="#Page_299">299</a>, <a href="#Page_302">302</a>, <a href="#Page_304">304</a>, <a href="#Page_339">339</a>, <a href="#Page_344">344</a>, <a href="#Page_377">377</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Whitman, Walt, <a href="#Page_33">33</a>, <a href="#Page_221">221</a>, <a href="#Page_350">350</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wiley & Putnam, <a href="#Page_253">253</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Williams, <a href="#Page_242">242</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Willis, Col. George S., <a href="#Page_352">352</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wilson, Captain, <a href="#Page_180">180</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Wordsworth, William, <a href="#Page_56">56</a>, <a href="#Page_57">57</a>, <a href="#Page_78">78</a>, <a href="#Page_132">132</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Yillah, <a href="#Page_277">277</a>, <a href="#Page_279">279</a>, <a href="#Page_280">280</a>.</li> - -<li class="indx">Young, Edward, <a href="#Page_151">151</a>.</li> - - -<li class="ifrst">Zola, Emile, <a href="#Page_22">22</a>, <a href="#Page_79">79</a>.</li></ul> - - -<hr class="full nobreak" /> - -<div class="transnote"> - - -<h2 class="nobreak">Transcriber's Note</h2> - - -<p>Duplicate headings have been removed.</p> - -<p>Illustrations have been moved next to the text which they illustrate, and may no longer correspond to the locations given in the List of Illustrations.</p> - -<p>The following apparent errors have been corrected:</p> - -<ul><li>p. 17 "bolstering it" changed to "bolstering its"</li> - -<li>p. 22 "unitiated" changed to "uninitiated"</li> - -<li>p. 111 "be imbibed" changed to "he imbibed"</li> - -<li>p. 161 "<i>Smith</i>" changed to "“<i>Smith</i>"</li> - -<li>p. 212 "Desirious" changed to "Desirous"</li> - -<li>p. 222 "‘Mickonaree <i>ena</i>" changed to "‘Mickonaree <i>ena</i>’"</li> - -<li>p. 223 "are!”" changed to "are!’"</li> - -<li>p. 261 "Remember" changed to "“Remember"</li> - -<li>p. 275 "shouler" changed to "shoulder"</li> - -<li>p. 290 "early." changed to "early.”"</li> - -<li>p. 293 "took" changed to "“took"</li> - -<li>p. 294 "<i>Marriage</i>." changed to "<i>Marriage</i>.”"</li> - -<li>p. 296 "away." changed to "away.”"</li> - -<li>p. 303 "<i>Maids</i>.”" changed to "<i>Maids</i>."</li> - -<li>p. 311 "evercise" changed to "exercise"</li> - -<li>p. 330 "qualty" changed to "quality"</li> - -<li>p. 337 "from hs" changed to "from his"</li> - -<li>p. 350 "prophet!" changed to "prophet!”"</li> - -<li>p. 351 "appearing the" changed to "appearing in the"</li> - -<li>p. 362 "Common-place.”" changed to "Common-place."</li> - -<li>p. 378 "c mpanion" changed to "companion"</li> - -<li>p. 388 "Harper’s New Monthly’s" changed to "Harper’s New Monthly"</li> - -<li>p. 393 "Fedellah" changed to "Fedallah"</li> - -<li>p. 393 "Griswald" changed to "Griswold"</li> - -<li>p. 394 "Henry, Joseph, 71." moved to alphabetical order</li> - -<li>p. 395 "Mac Maehan" changed to "MacMeehan"</li> - -<li>p. 395 "Winthrope" changed to "Winthrop"</li> - -<li>p. 397 "Otaheiti" changed to "Otaheite"</li> - -<li>p. 397 "<i>Pequod The</i>" changed to "<i>Pequod, The</i>"</li> - -<li>p. 397 "56. 61," changed to "56, 61,"</li> - -<li>p. 398 "Litchfield" changed to "Lichfield"</li> - -<li>p. 399 "Tanae" changed to "Tenae"</li> - -<li>p. 399 "Elkahah" changed to "Elkanah"</li> - -</ul> - - - - -<p>Non-standard and inconsistent punctuation, spelling and hyphenation, have otherwise been left as printed.</p> - -<p>On p. 65, "GOD" was printed in black-letter type.</p> - -<p>On p. 123 the closing quotation mark in "address her.”" has no corresponding opening quote.</p> - -<p>The index entry for "Fleury, Franchise Raymonde Eulogie Marie de Douleurs Lamé" refers to an -entry for "Mrs. Thomas Melville—Melville’s aunt", which appears not to exist.</p> - - -</div> - - - - - - - -<pre> - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Herman Melville, by Raymond M. 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