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.