The astounding prairie dialogues of the Captain and his Imaginary Friend have no counterpart in anything else attributed to Cooke.
April 1852:
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 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
... "I conceived hopes of you, that the poetic spirit was layed; and when at supper to-night you ate so heartily of the elk-steak, I little thought you had been indulging again in such pathetic" —But Mardi abounds in just this kind of talk. In the examples below, see in particular how Melville similarly deployed references to another speaker's "fit"; and the optimistic turn of phrase, "I have hopes..." In Mardi as in Scenes Beyond the Western Border, the "fit" is alleged behavior of the traveling philosopher, while the line "I have hopes" is said by a realist.
"Pshaw! it serves for a gilding to Life's bitter pill! The delicious supper should have mended your humour: for I stake my reputation on it— as 'guide, surgeon and hunter'"—
Imaginary Friend. "And butcher" —
—" That the flesh, cooked, as it was, with a little pork, cannot be distinguished from that of the fattest buffalo cow that ever surrendered tongue and marrow-bones to hungry hunter.
I. F. Bravo! I have hopes of you! Kill your meat with a good conscience, and daily labour and excitement over, solid indeed is the hunter's comfort!...
--January 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army
... The universe is all of one mind. Though my twin-brother sware to me, by the blazing sun in heaven at noon-day, that Oro is not; yet would he belie the thing he intended to express. And who lives that blasphemes? What jargon of human sounds so puissant as to insult the unutterable majesty divine? Is Oro's honor in the keeping of Mardi? — Oro's conscience in man's hands? Where our warrant, with Oro's sign- manual, to justify the killing, burning, and destroying, or far worse, the social persecutions we institute in his behalf? Ah! how shall these self-assumed attorneys and vicegerents be astounded, when they shall see all heaven peopled with heretics and heathens, and all hell nodding over with miters! Ah! let us Mardians quit this insanity. Let us be content with the theology in the grass and the flower, in seed-time and harvest. Be it enough for us to know that Oro indubitably is. My lord! my lord! sick with the spectacle of the madness of men, and broken with spontaneous doubts, I sometimes see but two things in all Mardi to believe:—that I myself exist, and that I can most happily, or least miserably exist, by the practice of righteousness. All else is in the clouds; and naught else may I learn, till the firmament be split from horizon to horizon. Yet, alas! too often do I swing from these moorings."
"Alas! his fit is coming upon him again," whispered Yoomy.
"Why, Babbalanja," said Media, "I almost pity you. You are too warm, too warm. Why fever your soul with these things? .... (Mardi, Babbalanja Discourses in the Dark)
"Profane jester! Would'st thou insult me with thy torn-foolery? Begone—all of ye! tramp! pack! I say: away with ye!" and into the woods Doxodox himself disappeared.
"Bravely done, Babbalanja!" cried Media. "You turned the corner to admiration."
"I have hopes of our Philosopher yet," said Mohi.
"Outrageous impostor! fool, dotard, oaf! Did he think to bejuggle me with his preposterous gibberish? And is this shallow phraseman the renowned Doxodox whom I have been taught so highly to reverence? Alas, alas—Odonphi there is none!"
"His fit again," sighed Yoomy. (Mardi, They Visit One Doxodox)
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