eve of a snow-storm

August 1, 1851

"Proceeding homeward, we were overtaken by a cavalier on horseback, who saluted me in Spanish, to which I replied by touching my hat. But, the cavalier renewing his salutation, I regarded him more attentively, and saw that it was Herman Melville!" --Nathaniel Hawthorne

November 1851

"We left Lenox Friday morning, November 21, 1851, in a storm of snow and sleet, and took the cars at Pittsfield, and arrived at West Newton that evening."  --Nathaniel Hawthorne

 April 1852

"Amigo mio! Didn't you desert me on the eve of a snow-storm, like many another friend of so honest mouthing!"

good mornings with horses

December 1850

Do you want to know how I pass my time? — I rise at eight— thereabouts — & go to my barn — say good-morning to the horse, & give him his breakfast.  (It goes to my heart to give him a cold one, but it can’t be helped) Then, pay a visit to my cow....

-- Herman Melville, writing to Evert Duyckinck on 13 December 1850; letter transcribed in the 1993 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's Correspondence, edited by Lynn Horth, page 172.

Herman Melville, letter to Evert A. Duyckinck dated December 12, 1850
via The New York Public Library Digital Collections

 Pierre, 1852

Now, this grand old Pierre Glendinning was a great lover of horses. . .He said that no man loved his horses, unless his own hands grained them. Every Christmas he gave them brimming measures. "I keep Christmas with my horses," said grand old Pierre. This grand old Pierre always rose at sunrise; washed his face and chest in the open air; and then, returning to his closet, and being completely arrayed at last, stepped forth to make a ceremonious call at his stables, to bid his very honorable friends there a very good and joyful morning. 

Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1853

August 4th.[1845]—We marched at half-past 6 o'clock. That means that two hours earlier a trumpet had called us all from sleep to sudden labours; first, arms in hand,—there is an inspection,—then a "stable call," which the poor horses know well, although they have perhaps forgotten what a stable is, or have despaired ever to see one again; possibly they retain a vague memory of the grain, which, on a time, was served to them at that signal.  Now they whinny a morning greeting to their masters, and seem grateful for a little rubbing of their stiffened limbs, and removal to fresh grass.

dumb beasts prefer death to slavery

From the review of Melville's Pierre in the New York Herald, September 18, 1852:

This, Mr. Melville, is murder. For a murderer in cold blood—a wretch who coolly loads his arms, rams the charge home, and sallies forth with the set purpose of taking the life of his rival—we have no thrill of sympathy, no bowels of compassion. Let him hang like a dog! A harmless madman in the first chapter, he is a dangerous pest in the last. Let him hang! …

…Mere analytical description of sentiment, mere wordy anatomy of the heart is not enough for a novel to-day. Modern readers wish to exercise some little judgment of their own; deeds they will have, not characters painted in cold colors, to a hairbreadth or a shade. We are past the age when an artist superscribed his chef d’oeuvre with the judicious explanation, “this is a horse.” Mr. Melville longs for the good old times when the chorus filled the gaps between the acts with a well-timed commentary on the past, and a shrewd guess at the future.

In the March 1853 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," the narrating "Captain of U. S. Dragoons" makes a big deal of a relatively minor event on the 1845 dragoon expedition to the Rocky Mountains: the loss of a captured grizzly cub.  At key points the captain's mock "tragedy" of the bear cub answers the recent, blistering review of Melville's Pierre in the New York Herald.  Who cares about the reviewer's superficial "modern readers"?  The captain boldly addresses a different audience, the thoughtful and sympathetic "future reader."  Defiantly, the captain does precisely what the Herald critic hated, by unnecessarily labeling his subjects ("real horse"; "stage (wagon)"; "real water"), and by bringing out the Greek Chorus of classical tragedy.  As he fumes about critics, commentators, and audiences, and finally spurns "the world's applause" and "grateful posterity," the good Captain seems to have wandered a good ways off the Oregon Trail.

From Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger 19 (March 1853): 159
and reprinted in Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857), 390:

In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.

It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—that the first act embraced an unusual amount of sanguinary incident—that an innocent brother, (or sister,) being ruthlessly slain, and the baffled lady-mother left (unceremoniously) full of towering and demonstrative rage,— the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed,—or in a well-acted counterfeit of death, (and was borne off, remember, on a "real" horse). That in the next act, (and three acts shall do for the tragedy of my bear,—originally they had but one,—but that was at the sacrifice of a goat,) he came to life in a manner that might very well have been criticized as an overdone piece of stage-effect,—but that in fact, the spectators were much moved, and gave full credit to the dangerous passion of his howl.

To-day, then,—for I scorn anachronism— was performed the final act. The stage (wagon) was on "real water." Enraged at his wrongs, his losses, and his galling chain, the "robustious beast" acted in a ridiculous and unbearable manner; aye, ''tore his passion to tatters, to very rags,"—splinters; the stage (wagon) could not hold him : and finally in despair, he "imitated humanity so abominably," as to throw himself headlong, and so drown—or hang himself: (the author cannot decide which—even after a post mortem examination;—and so leaves the decision of this important point to the commentators).

My tragedy is all true,—and if not quite serious, has, as is proper, its moral;—but rather, as I have alluded to the primitive tragedy, let that "future reader" here imagine the entry of Chorus, and their song to Freedom! That dumb beasts prefer death to slavery! Liberty lost, they can die without the excitement of the world's applause, or hopes of a grateful posterity! (It is not possible, I think, that the cub could have known that I would immortalize him.)

ghostwriting in the 19th century

Washington Irving

Maybe "collaborative writing" is the better term, after all, since it embraces the "as told to" class of narratives, together with numerous other modes of literary teamwork.  In Melville's youth a famous and perhaps instructive product of collaborative writing was Washington Irving's Adventures of Captain Bonneville (1837), reputedly based on the manuscript journal (lost) that Benjamin L. E, Bonneville (1796-1878) sold to Irving for $1,000.

Benjamin L. E. Bonneville

Nicholas Biddle and Paul Allen officially edited the journals of Lewis and Clark (Philadelphia, 1814). Unofficially, the 1804-1806 expedition was already famous through the published account of Patrick Gass and popular counterfeits by "Hubbard Lester" and others, all more or less ghostwritten.

Benjamin Morrell's dramatic Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Sea (1832) was ghostwritten by Samuel Woodworth. 

In the nineteenth-century (as now), would-be authors and publishers routinely employed experienced professionals to make entertaining, salable books out of rough first-hand narratives.  The use of professional writers and editors for tasks we now call "ghostwriting" was generally taken for granted.  Nonetheless, some readers might prefer an unpolished original.  One anonymous reviewer in the New York Literary World liked J. Quinn Thornton's Oregon and California in 1848 all the better for its unassuming style:

The incidents which we have glanced at in the aggregate will be found in Mr. Thornton's volumes related in a simple unaffected manner, though with little of the art of the trained writer. Yet upon the whole we would not have the book altered, though it were to pass through the hands of the most accomplished magazinist. Narratives of this kind are valuable, as they bear the authentic marks of the author's personality. We know, then, how to appreciate his facts—but let the same facts be related by a Captain Marryatt, or other adept in book-making, and we lose a proper guide to their valuation. There is sufficient personality thus infused into Mr. Thornton's story to put us in communication with the man. We learn his tastes and education; we know the books he has read, and even the sermons which he has listened to. We see the miscellaneous education, the good heart and clear head of the best specimen of the western Colonist—the Judge, Governor, or Member of Congress of the new settlement. He has not the literary tastes and condensation of the educated circles of the metropolis; on the contrary, he is somewhat diffuse, but the man is there, simple, sagacious, and in earnest—and the man, on such a spot, is more essential than the author.  (Literary World, March 3, 1849)

The reference to "Captain Marryatt" alludes to plagiarisms by English novelist Frederick Marryat--for example unattributed borrowings, in Marryat's Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet (1843), from earlier newspaper printings of portions of  G. W. Kendall's Narrative of the Texan Santa Fé Expedition (1844) and Josiah Gregg's Commerce of the Prairies (1844).

In his 1960 doctoral dissertation "Melville as a Magazinist," Norman E Hoyle conjectured that the 1849 Literary World reviewer who favored Thornton's plain "unaffected" style of writing over that of a "trained writer" was Herman Melville.

Melville himself was nominated by Nathaniel Hawthorne to ghostwrite the account of Matthew Perry's 1853 voyage to Japan.  As Christopher Benfey tells it:

When Commodore Perry returned to the United States, he expected a hero’s welcome, but Washington had other things to think about, including the threat of civil war. Commodore Perry decided he needed better PR, and asked Nathaniel Hawthorne if he would consider writing a book about the opening of Japan, with Perry as hero. Hawthorne was tempted. As he wrote in his journal on December 28, 1854, "It would be a very desirable labor for a young literary man, or for that matter, an old one; for the world can scarcely have in reserve a less hackneyed theme than Japan." But Hawthorne had other books on his mind, and suggested that Perry ask Herman Melville, who knew something about the Pacific, to write the book. Perry, stupidly, decided to write the book himself. Herman Melville’s book on the opening of Japan remains one of the great might-have-beens in American literature. ("Herman Melville and John Manjiro")

But Commodore Perry did get help.  After Hawthorne politely declined, the job of ghostwriting, or rather collaboratively writing, the official narrative of the Japan expedition went to Francis Lister Hawks.

ghostwriting in the 21st century

• Arbor Services supplies writers for busy celebrities, politicians, business leaders and military personnel

• In the UK, professional clients of Elizabeth Hall Associates include military officers.

• ghostwriting clients of Venture Capital Advisors include  "United States Military, officers, non-coms, and enlisted personnel"

• Need "someone with the skill to turn your ideas into an exciting, organized, well-written manuscript ready for publication"?  Not to worry my friend, "Tate Ghostwriting, a division of Tate Publishing, has a staff of experienced, professional writers ready to do just this."

 Jenkins Group answers FAQ's about ghostwriting, for example:

How much does it cost?
A ghostwritten manuscript for a 100- to 250-page book will cost between $10,000 and $60,000, depending upon the extent of the required research and the selected writer's credentials. All ghostwriters recommended for interviews by Jenkins Group will have extensive experience in writing non-fiction books.

Who will own the rights?
All Jenkins Group ghostwriters are contracted on a "work for hire" basis. You own all the rights to the manuscript and you are free to exploit all rights in any way you determine is in your best interest.  (Jenkins Group)

Looking for "the only ghostwriting service you'll ever need"?  That would be Houston's The Writers for Hire

A few books on the subject...
Andrew Crofts, Ghostwriting (A & C Black, 2004)
Jennie Erdal, Ghosting:  A Double Life (Anchor Books, 2004)
Bruce W. Speck, Collaborative Writing:  An Annotated Bibliography  (Greenwood Press, 1999)

Non-fiction ghostwriter Bob Olson breaks it down:

People hire me to write their books for four reasons:

1. They don’t have the TIME to write a book
2. They don’t have the TALENT to write a book
3. They don’t have the DISCIPLINE to finish a book
4. They don’t have the KNOW-HOW to properly structure a book.

People hire me to ghostwrite their books because they don't have the time, talent, discipline or know-how. I really respect my clients because it takes honesty, personal insight and courage for many people to admit that they don’t have what it takes to finish a book on their own. It also indicates to me that this person is a doer rather than a dreamer. Dreamers talk about the book they are writing or are going to write, but it never gets done. Doers who hire ghostwriters recognize that their book is not getting written so they find a way to get it done. That takes enormous strength of character.  (The Olson Interviews on Ghostwriting)

 "I'm a Celebrity, Get Me a Ghostwriter"

"The demand for more ghostwriters stems from the need for more books that are authored by celebrities whose name might help market the book-like product but who themselves are unable to write." (Jack Hitt, "The Writer is Dead," New York Times, May 25, 1997).

Nowadays, even social media pros need Twitter Ghostwriters.  Ghostwriting is ghostwriting.

brilliancy deleted, why?

March 1853

"But those rosy hours will be reflected on the gloom of all years. As, after a day of sombre clouds and wintry winds, suddenly the sun lights up the dreary horizon with lovely brilliancy,—so comes a smile out of the cloudy Past, like a gleam of heavenly light."

1857

"But those rosy hours will be reflected on the gloom of all years. As, in a day of sombre clouds and wintry winds, suddenly the sun sends athwart the earth and sky a dazzling beam,—so comes a smile out of the dreamy Past, like a ray of heavenly light."

What's wrong with "lights up the dreary horizon with lovely brilliancy"?  Too close to language and imagery in Melville's first book:

"...enormous flambeaux, lighting up with a startling brilliancy..."
(Typee, chapter 28)

a little rock music

What happened was, Sarah Morewood hid a music box at Balance Rock, astonishing her fellow picnickers--one of whom was Herman Melville. Sarah Morewood, who loved to devise magical entertainments for her friends, is the "cunning priestess" and "wood nymph" of Godfrey Greylock's account in Taghconic; the Romance and Beauty of the Hills, quoted below from the 1879 edition because I like the quote from Comus which the 1852 first edition lacks:

I have since heard the story of the merry hour when " Memnon" was inscribed by a hand which has written many a witty and clever volume. Indeed, indeed there must have been a deal of witchery in the cunning priestess who made that stern old rock breathe such mysterious and enchanting music.

"Can any mortal creature of earth's mould
Breathe such divine enchanting ravishment ?" [Milton, Comus lines 244-5]

I should think not. Was it a wood-nymph then with her music box!  Was there ever anything in that broken champagne bottle at the foot of the sphynx ?  And do wood-nymphs drink champagne ?  This grove is very questionable and full of marvels.

When we had clambered with a world of pains on to the top of the rock, we, too, had music — merry and sad — "music at the twilight hour."  Then, as the evening shades deepened in the wood came low spoken words of memory and of longing for those far away.

In Reading Melville's Pierre (LSU Press, 2007) Brian Higgins and Hershel Parker date the episode to the fall of 1851, probably September 26, 1851.

Well OK then.  See what happens to the Captain of U. S. Dragoons, reclining on a rock (with a lake in the background!), in the next-to-last installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger 17 (May 1853), 313:

July 25th.—Last night I was moody and sleepless, and so witnessed several sublime and beautiful changes of weather and sky; such as, indeed, many scarcely notice, and few in houses observe,—as in cities and towns they rarely can; and they were accompanied by an incident, as startling as delightful, in my ignorance that there existed in the camp any means to produce it.

The labours of the day, the duties of the evening, all over, sleep had followed, as the labourer's luxury:  lights had gone out; the little fires sunk and paled; sounds gradually died away; the tents gleamed strangely in the moonlit solitude. I would have taken refuge from my thoughts in sleep; but sleep often flies us when most invoked.

At last I wandered forth alone, and ascended the mount.

The moon, not yet full, was high in heaven; the deep shadow of the pines slept on the grassy mountain top; the little lake below brightly mirrored the glittering sky; now and then came deep breaths of air,—like sighs from the gentle heart of Night. Long I reclined motionless upon a rock: I was alone—there was no sight or sound of past or present life—but had no sense of loneliness; for the soul felt not a motive, and the heart seemed dead. Vain were the silent appeals of beauty; —vain even the solemn dirge-notes of the pine forests.

At last I gave a deep, involuntary sigh. Just then, O strange, upon the mountain top! —as if in answer, came, gently stealing on the air, a strain of soft music. This Heaven-bestowed key to all hearts, and to all moods, aroused in me some of that life which silence and solitude so profound had absorbed. It was like an exquisite dream closely following the last weary and oblivious sense.

But soon, the music changed; and, stranger then and there, to a sweet waltz!

Then swiftly awoke Memory, to make it an echo of the Past; and vigilant, prisoned  Hope stole forth trembling, like the moonbeam on the little lake.

Something made the music.  The Captain hints as much in the original magazine version, when he explains his surprise as mainly resulting from his lack of information:

"in my ignorance that there existed in the camp any means to produce it."

Meaning his ignorance that somebody brought a music box?  This important confession of ignorance does not appear in the corresponding passage in the later book version, Scenes and Adventures in the Army (Philadelphia, 1857).  Wow!  Comparing versions I just realized the significance of another alteration to the text as originally printed in the May 1853 Southern Literary Messenger.  In the original magazine version, the music is "a sweet waltz."  Or rather, the music starts one way then changes "to a sweet waltz."

But why transform the waltz into the vaguer "joyous air" for the book version?  Same reason you cut the reference to some real, tangible "means to produce" the music.  Taken together, both references, to practical "means" of making music, and to the specific type of music produced, "a sweet waltz," evoke the likeliest mechanism for producing waltzes in the wilderness...

Strong Coffee

Herman Melville, 1849 journal entry:

I impute the nightmare to a cup of prodigiously strong coffee...

 Herman Melville, Letter to Catherine Gansevoort Lansing (12 August 1878):

After two prodigious bumpers of coffee at the depot (from the effect of which I have hardly yet recovered)...

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger 19 (March 1853): 157 

F.—"...The day should commence with the morning, and the brighter the better; not with the nightmare of a sleeper, who should have watched." 

C.—"Perhaps a nervous fit—from your strong coffee?"

References to nerves and strong coffee were deleted in revision of this passage for the 1857 book,
Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

Ah, Byron

White-Jacket

And was not Byron a sailor? an amateur forecastle-man, White-Jacket, so he was; else how bid the ocean heave and fall in that grand, majestic way?

 Letter to Thomas Melville, 25 May 1862

You remember what the Bible [Byron's Don Juan] says...

Annotation by Herman Melville in Don Juan:

This is excellent—the poetical abandonment of good-humored devil-may-care.  Byron is a better man in Don Juan than in his serious poems.

[As quoted in Edward Fiess, "Melville as a Reader and Student of Byron," American Literature 24.2 (May 1952): 186-194 at 193.]

 "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger 17 (September 1851): 569 / Scenes and Adventures in the Army, 569.

Strange, indeed, that of ten young officers, not one brought a Don Juan into the wilderness. Is it possible that already the torrent of steam literature has cast Byron into the drift?  How many verses of the sublime, of the beautiful,— of love, of hate, of joy and grief, of pathos and most comic bathos, does that name bring crowding on my memory.

Where's Bacchus?

Herman Melville, To Daniel Shepherd (1859):

Now, is it for oft cursing gold,
   For lucre vile,
The Hags do thus from me withhold
   Sweet Bacchus' smile?

Scenes Beyond the Western Border by A Captain of U. S. Dragoons (June 1851):

Here Venus never smiles; nor Bacchus grins....

Southern Literary Messenger 17 (June 1851): 372 ; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857).

but in degree

Mardi

Other worlds differ not much from this, but in degree.

Scenes and Adventures in the Army, 316

Human intelligences, emanations from Divinity, and partakers of God's nature, can differ in myriad worlds but in degree...

instinct = prejudice

Babbalanja the wandering philosopher in Herman Melville's Mardi: And a Voyage Thither (1849):

"Our very instincts are prejudices," saith Alla Mallolla....

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger Volume 18, July 1852, page 415; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857 and 1859) page 341.

... a kind of prejudice or instinct—often the same thing—

Books and Brains

But I don’t know but a book in a brain is better off than a book bound in calf—at any rate it is safer from criticism. And taking a book off the brain, is akin to the ticklish & dangerous business of taking an old painting off a panel—you have to scrape off the whole brain in order to get at it with due safety—& even then, the painting may not be worth the trouble.

-- Herman Melville, letter to Evert A. Duyckinck on December 13, 1850; collected in the 1993 Northwestern-Newberry Edition of Melville's Correspondence, edited by Lynn Horth page 174.

* * * 

C.—" Well, well,—I wrote what pleased myself; and,—another object I have, which I did not mention: with scarce a book to read, if one did not write, I fancy the beef and pork and beans would in time form a coating round his brain,—turn it all perhaps to thick and solid skull! How is it with you, Frank? Does yours retain a slight softness?"  

-- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger 19 (August 1853) page 461; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army page 426.

Talk about Trelawny

Jack Chase in Melville's White-Jacket:

Trelawny was by at the burning; and he was an ocean-rover, too!

"...the prototype of Melville's early works is Childe Harold, or, to name a more specific model flavored with Byronism, Trelawny's Adventures of a Younger Son."  

-Henry A. Murray, Intro to Pierre Or The Ambiguities (Hendricks House, 1949).

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger (September 1851): 570-571.  Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857), 254-5.

I. F.—'The Adventures of a Younger Son' by Trelawny, is another instance; a book which I have read twice with delight; but it is out of print; I know no one who has read it.

"Excuse me, but I have,—and laughed till my sides ached. What a keen sense of the ridiculous. An original work altogether."

I. F.—And how superior to the sentimental tribe of heroines, is the Arab bride; and Van Scalpvelt [Van Scolpvelt] is a jewel.

"Yes, the eccentric and inhuman martyr of science; he is food for much laughter."

I. F.—De Witt and the nameless hero, are every inch sailors and soldiers too.

"Do you remember the Malay chief and his red horse?"

I. F.—Remember them! It is a splendid picture of glorious bravery—of heroic action!

 

 

Love is all in all

Melville, Mardi 

Love is all in all.

 "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger (August 1852): 508    

Thus love at last, as love at first—all absorbing—feeding upon music,—sporting with war:—love, the link of earth to heaven,—love is all in all!

passing the love of women

Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852):

August 1852 quoting
2 Samuel 1:26

Scenes and Adventures in the Army, p 356:

1857 book version with
"passing the love of women" deleted

Can be a bond 
(Thought he) as David sings in strain
That dirges beauteous Jonathan,
Passing the love of woman fond?
And may experience but dull
The longing for it? Can time teach?  (Clarel 3.30)

reality too real

 Melville, Pierre (1852):

the reality was too real

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (December 1851): 729

But the Reality I think is too darkly, coldly real, the earth very earthy; but, to please you, mark—I now attempt a lower level.

The Byronic bit about reality being too real was deleted in the 1857 book Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  Also cut in revision was the word "mark," corresponding to Melville's "mark" and "hark" in Moby-Dick.  The book version keeps the Captain's "lower level" which parallels Ahab's "lower layer."

behind and before

Last chapter title of Melville's third book:

Mardi behind:  an Ocean before

End of first major narrative section of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (January 1852): 50

...with charred deserts behind,—and forgotten; and new storms before, but unforeseen....

skepticism and credulity

In Mardi and A Voyage Thither (1849) Herman Melville's wandering philosopher Babbalanja posits

... a brutality of indiscriminate skepticism

as a bad thing. The opposite of that would be

... a blind heroism of credulity!

as proposed by the wandering Captain of U. S. Dragoons in the August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border. Revised in Part II of Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857).

silence, fearful, never so

 Herman Melville, Pierre, or The Ambiguities (1852):

"Pierre," said Isabel, "this silence is unnatural, is fearful. The forests are never so still."

 "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger Volume 19 (March 1853) page 157:

F.—"And what was there remarkable in my natural calmness?"

C.—"It was never so! There was a brooding desolation around that could penetrate a sleeping soul!—There is a re-action of extraordinary excitement,—such as ours of yesterday—that has a power over me which renders a profound silence awful—of all else, fearful! Silence! Then, every sentient of my soul has ears, in which air spirits supernaturally whisper distracting, sonorous thoughts :— in darkness, with long unrest, it verges madness..."

Note:  the line with "never so" disappears from this dialogue in Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  Also missing are the words awful and fearful ("fearful" in the revised version becomes "fearfully," thus:  "My watch is lonely and fearfully silent"). 

fossiliferous

via NYPL Digital Collections

Yow! It's the middle term (second of three adjectives) in both cases...

Melville, Moby-Dick

...to magnify him in an archaeological, fossiliferous, and antediluvian point of view.

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (August 1852): 510

—all by the light of your chronological, fossiliferous, infernal shell!

the mind gets morbid

Captain Delano in Melville's Benito Cereno - November 1855:

Well, well; these long calms have a morbid effect on the mind, I've often heard, though I never believed it before.

Captain of U.S. Dragoons in Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger, March 1853 pages 157-8:

It may result from our profession, that the mind has these fits of morbid activity, as if to revenge itself for seasons of neglect.

Note:  this 1853 comment on "morbid activity" of "the mind" was deleted in revision of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" and does not appear in the 1857 book version, Scenes and Adventures in the Army.  Why cut it...too close to the phrasing of practically the same idea in "Benito Cereno," first published October-November-December 1855 in Putnam's?

mazes and fancies

Melville, Mardi:

...her fancies all roving through mazes.

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger (August 1852): 508

...a maze of extravagant fancies

fly off

Herman Melville, in Mardi (1849):

"You all fly off at tangents," cried Media...

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger (August 1852): 508

"...you fly off into a maze of extravagant fancies..."

A Truce

Maybe it's from living out here on the prairie too long but these things haunt me.  These innumerable congruences I mean between the writings of Herman Melville and the prairie musings of "A Captain of U. S. Dragoons" in "Scenes Beyond the Western Border."  Originally serialized in the Southern Literary Messenger from June 1851 through August 1853, "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" became (after revision) Part II of Philip St. George Cooke's first book, Scenes and Adventures in the Army: Or, Romance of Military Life (Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1857).  Did Herman Melville ghost-write military memoirs for Philip St George Cooke?  Despite no, that is to say, zero documentary evidence linking Melville and Cooke, I don't know how else to account for so many congruences or correspondences or parallels or whatever they are.  What am I talking about?  Ah, thank you for asking!  Here goes then...

Herman Melville in Mardi (1849):

"A truce to your everlasting pratings of old Bardianna," said King Media.

 "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger (August 1852):  509;  Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857), p. 358:

C. "...But a truce to day-dreams; light as they are, the whole world granteth them not a foundation spot!"