from enthusiasm to illusion

Speaking of things deleted in revision of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," the vanished reference to 2 Samuel 1:26 is one of the most remarkable. The deleted biblical quotation reverberates powerfully in Melville's Clarel, as hinted in two earlier posts on passing the love of women and David and Jonathan on the prairie. 

The prairie dialogue containing "passing the love of women" appeared in the August 1852 installment. As numerous changes to the original text make clear, this exceedingly rich dialogue received a good deal of scrutiny in revision for the 1857 book version. 

Another word dropped in revision of the August 1852 dialogue which appears in Melville's Pierre (published at the end of July 1852) is "enthusiasm."  Advocating an idealistic, Platonic view of soul-love, the Captain thinks it "better to cherish enthusiasm" than face for long the harshest realities of material existence.  The revised book version replaces "enthusiasm" with "illusion."

Cherish enthusiasm? That's pretty much the job description for Melville's hero, the "young enthusiast" Pierre. Enthusiasm! Nancy Craig Simmons counts 35 instances of the word ENTHUSIAST in some form or other in Pierre the book. See "Why an Enthusiast?: Melville's Pierre and the Problem of the Imagination" in ESQ 33.3 (1987): 146-67.

Though a champion for enthusiasm, Pierre nevertheless feels distracted by

"insinuated misgivings as to the ultimate utilitarian advisability of the enthusiast resolution that was his."  (Pierre)

The problem of holding to noble ideals in a cold cruel world that C. and F. talk over on the prairie also confronts Melville's "young enthusiast." Frank is a genial version of the devil of skepticism who torments Pierre:

to him the Evil One propounded the possibility of the mere moonshine of all his self-renouncing Enthusiasm. The Evil One hooted at him, and called him a fool.  (Pierre)

Why the revision from enthusiasm to illusion?  Possibly the change aims to clarify the alternatives, emphasizing the quixotic heroism of maintaining fidelity to a physically impossible ideal.  Enthusiasm might, after all, be well placed if there really are such things as eternal friendship and true love.  According to the revised version, it would be better to believe a lie, illusion, than acknowledge as truth the monstrous claim that love is just a mask for lust and selfishness.

August 1852:

C. "But who lives, who may not be wounded through another!—Then so be it! let us treat the whole world as it has done us, and—forget it! I dare say, nay, I am sure, that beyond some family ties, there is not upon the wide earth a heart in sympathy with our good or ill; whose even beat would be as much disturbed, were this wild sod to cover us forever, as at the most ephemeral of the trifling cares which make up their petty lives."

F. " At last you have struck a chord that answers as to the touch of truth! And as for love, I know none better than that of the she-bear for her cub; and that lasts, and is returned, just so long as circumstance and interest bind."

C. "O! my friend! Is there not then a pure soul-love, a deathless friendship, "passing the love of women," which all life's trials and the world's baseness cannot soil or sap? If that be truth, 'twere better never to look into her Medusa face! O! better to cherish enthusiasm, (despite the sneers and ridicule of cold, calculating woman;) better, (as it would become) a blind heroism of credulity! Ay, a heroism of policy, —like that of the great Cortez, who burnt, unread, the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than embrace damning doubt."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852); and with significant revisions in Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

1857 book version:

"But who lives, who may not be wounded through another!—Then so be it! let us treat the whole world as it has done us, and—forget it! I dare say, that beyond some family ties, there is not upon the wide earth a heart in sympathy with our good or ill; whose even beat would be as much disturbed, were this wild sod to cover us forever, as at the most ephemeral of the trifling cares which make up their petty lives."

Friend.—At last you have struck a chord that answers as to the touch of truth! And as for love, 'tis but the poet's wildest fancy,—or passion's thin disguise: it soon tires; or, lasts so long as interests bind.

"Too bad! too bad!—I say it is the divinity within us! warmed indeed by heaven-bestowed beauty, and humanity's other noblest attributes,—but clinging to immortality with earnest hope.

"There is a pure soul love,—a deathless friendship, which all life's trials and worldly baseness cannot soil or sap.

"If that were truth, better never to look into her Medusa face; better to cherish illusion: blind credulity would be heroism! ay,—and policy,—like that of the great Cortez, who burnt the proofs of a conspiracy, rather than foster damning doubt."

Even after Pierre, Melville continued to grapple with the old problem of enthusiasm and illusion. In similar language, Melville's poem "The Enthusiast" imagines a champion like the dragoon captain's crazy hero of credulity, steadfastly blind to worldly baseness, the rule of self-interest:

Shall hearts that beat no base retreat
  In youth’s magnanimous years—
Ignoble hold it, if discreet
  When interest tames to fears;
Shall spirits that worship light
  Perfidious deem its sacred glow,
  Recant, and trudge where worldlings go,
Conform and own them right?

(Poetry Archives)

The first part of Clarel offers Nehemiah as this kind of hero, a crazy "saint" who clings to illusion:

The saint in fond illusion went,
Dream mixed with legend and event;  (Clarel 1.10)

And that lady astronomer, Urania in Melville's poem "After the Pleasure Party," she came to acknowledge the value of illusion, too late:

“And yet, ah yet, scarce ill I reigned,

Through self-illusion self-sustained,

When now—enlightened, undeceived—

What gain I, barrenly bereaved!  (Poetry Foundation)