"you call that abstraction, the real?"

"In the person of Media, however, Melville resorts to another kind of putative authority. Media repeatedly asserts the utter worthlessness of philosophical discourse. In playing the role of demigod, he takes a stand above the swirl of Babbalanja's incessant pondering and frequently advises him to give up such runaway speculations." 

-- John Wenke, Melville's Muse: Literary Creation & the Forms of Philosophical Fiction (Kent State University Press, 1995) pages 65-66. 

In "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," the Captain's imaginary friend Frank plays Media to the Captain's Babbalanja:

C. "Amigo Mio! Didn't you desert me on the eve of a snow storm, like many another friend of so honest mouthing! And is a touch of poetry a bad companion in difficulty and trial? Never a bit; it was the boon of a God—Wisdom was ever feminine."

I. F.  "Phew! The fit is on! Sorry I said a word! I supposed frost and starved horses—the sight of poor women to-day trudging the weary road—the driving poor beef instead of the spirit striving [1857: spirit-stirring] chase, would have tempered you to the philosophy of a very materialist, (male or female)."  -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, April 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1857) page 286.

* * *

F.  "When I have you committed, fairly pinned in contradiction, you fly off into a maze of extravagant fancies, where I should be lost as well if I followed."  --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger Volume 18 (August 1852) page 508.

 F.  "Well! what care we in this honest wilderness! Care for nothing you cannot help, is the sum of my philosophy."  -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852.

F.  "Bah!  your modern geognosy is a humbug!  or, too deep at least, for a wandering dragoon." -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852, page 509.

But now, “the morn is up again,”—and we have marched many miles fasting, and have been attracted through a turbid river by the sight of grass, and have stopped for breakfast under some cotton woods,—and in their shade I am scribbling with a pencil—

F.—“Yes, and fine work you are making of it!  The day should commence with the morning, and the brighter the better; not with the nightmare of a sleeper, who should have watched.” 

-- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger Volume 19, March 1853, page 157.

* * *

I read to him my day’s experiences.  He listened impatiently; and at last broke out—

“You are incorrigible!  Do you call that abstraction, the real?”

C.—Surely it has a mournfully same, and daily reality!”

F.—“And how easily by a mere turn of expression, you could have given it the interest of a simple narrative!”

C.—“Well, I’m too indolent; for, if I commenced, I might imagine myself bound to keep it up; and I scribble by no rule, and with no object but pastime; and, to compare in some future day the old with the new tone of mind."  

-- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1853; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.