In dialogue! Besides the similar vocabulary, observe, too, the passionately gloomy theme (incineration of ideals born of hope) and, say cadence.
I. F. This profoundly silent Desert—like a world without life—awes and stills the senses: but the soul is excited to speculations on the origin, the history—if it have one—and the destiny of these boundless wastes.
C. Or surrounds itself with the airy creations of fantasy,—or, mournfully wanders back among the dim traces of joys and sorrows gone. I address not then, the shallow or hurried worldling; but the friendly one, who in the calm intervals from worldly cares, grants me the aid of a quiet and thoughtful,—and if it may be,—a poetic mood!
Ay de Mi! Our life is a sad struggle;—our material nature with its base cravings,—its cares for animal comforts, and all the ills of the flesh, preys upon and tethers the soul, which yearns for the Beautiful, the Noble, the Exalted ;—essays to soar in that sphere, whose types are the bright stars of Heaven! Or, clings to that electric chain of Love which binds humanity—and is the olden Time drew down angels!
I. F. Ay! it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men, and leaves but wrecks, mournfully floating upon the dull currents of life.
C. And welcome then, the rapids and the final plunge! Yes: the struggle is ever, and leads us sorrowing to the dark portals which shut out the life beyond. There may this holy fire from Heaven find more happy sympathy. Here, amid ages of pain, it grants us but moments of felicity.
Methinks, amid those stars so refulgent with celestial light, studding the bright blue ether of this moonless summer night, a seraphic Intelligence is hovering with a pale but friendly smile, to rekindle the wasted torch of Hope!
Fond traitor! constant friend—blind guide— beautiful Hope! that leadest us wandering ever,—heartless, but living still.
Yes! Time, the inexorable,—Time the physician and the conqueror,—Time the hopeful, rolls on, dragging us at his chariot wheels, wounded, suffering, unpitied,—but living still!
Scenes Beyond the Western Border, July 1852;
and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army
Above,
C. and I. F. (who later becomes plain "F" for
Frank) as
talking travelers anticipate Charlie and Frank in the second half of
The Confidence-Man. But the conversation below is from the first half of Melville's 1857 book (
chapter 13, "The man with the traveling cap, etc."), before Frank Goodman (the Cosmopolitan) shows up.
At intervals they slowly
quaffed several glasses in silence and thoughtfulness. At last the
merchant's expressive face flushed, his eye moistly beamed, his lips
trembled with an imaginative and feminine sensibility. Without sending a
single fume to his head, the wine seemed to shoot to his heart, and
begin soothsaying there. "Ah," he cried, pushing his glass from him,
"ah, wine is good, and confidence is good; but can wine or confidence percolate down through all the stony strata of hard considerations, and drop warmly and ruddily into the cold cave of truth? Truth will not be comforted. Led by dear charity, lured by sweet hope, fond fancy essays this feat; but in vain; mere dreams and ideals, they explode in your hand, leaving nought but the scorching behind!"
"Why, why, why !" in amaze, at the burst; "bless me, if In vino Veritas be a true saying, then, for all the fine confidence you
professed with me, just now, distrust, deep distrust, underlies it; and
ten thousand strong, like the Irish Rebellion, breaks out in you now.
That wine, good wine, should do it! Upon my soul," half seriously, half
humorously, securing the bottle, "you shall drink no more of it. Wine
was meant to gladden the heart, not grieve it; to heighten confidence, not depress it."
