Sunday, July 10, 2011

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.

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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 BorderSouthern Literary Messenger 19 (August 1853) page 461; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army page 426.

2 comments:

  1. With the Captain's introductory words "another object I have," compare Melville's phrase "another object" in his Preface to Typee and this from "Bartleby":

    "One object I had..."

    Melville's "Bartleby" first appeared in Putnam's in November and December 1853, same year as the above passage from the final installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" Both 1853. Ha!

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    Replies
    1. Bartleby: "One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen...."
      https://books.google.com/books?id=z2w2AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA550&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

      "Another object proposed..." occurs in the preface to Melville's OMOO (not Typee):
      https://books.google.com/books?id=jYVNAAAAYAAJ&pg=PR10&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

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