From the September 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border:
The example below is from the start of a new chapter in Melville's The Confidence-Man renewing dialogue between, as we eventually learn, "Frank Goodman" and "Charlie Noble." Uh, that would be F. and C. As in the 1852 example above, the C. character is the one now telling the story, the one who speaks of what came before (here, a whole chapter and more) as merely an elaborate "introduction":
For more on the Seminole wars in The Confidence-Man, check out the Melville chapter "Writing and Silence" in Removals by Lucy Maddox.
"Then, of course, we marched back to the river bank; and lay down in our cloaks, supperless. But this is all introduction; I have tired you before the day is begun!"
F. "'No, it is not very late; I was rather amused at your account of those spoiled Seminoles. . . .""F." in the dialogue above stands for Frank, the Captain's imaginary friend. (Altered in the 1857 book version to Friend.) From August 1852 through the end of the series in August 1853, these obviously invented prairie dialogues are typographically represented as conversations between "C." and "F."
The example below is from the start of a new chapter in Melville's The Confidence-Man renewing dialogue between, as we eventually learn, "Frank Goodman" and "Charlie Noble." Uh, that would be F. and C. As in the 1852 example above, the C. character is the one now telling the story, the one who speaks of what came before (here, a whole chapter and more) as merely an elaborate "introduction":
"Coming to mention the man to whose story all thus far said was but the introduction, the judge, who, like you, was a great smoker, would insist upon all the company taking cigars, and then lighting a fresh one himself, rise in his place, and, with the solemnest voice, say— 'Gentlemen, let us smoke to the memory of Colonel John Moredock;'. . . .The reference by Frank #1 to "spoiled Seminoles" I take to be deeply ironic, the flip-side of Melville's featured charity, the "Widow and Orphan Asylum recently founded among the Seminoles."
For more on the Seminole wars in The Confidence-Man, check out the Melville chapter "Writing and Silence" in Removals by Lucy Maddox.
In these extracts I'm often struck by what seems to be an uncommon word that I recognize from another Melville location, in this case "supperless" which appears in M-D. In an attempt to resist confirmation bias, here's an assortment of appearances of the word "supperless" from 1850-1860:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.google.com/search?q=supperless&num=50&safe=off&biw=1149&bih=526&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A1850%2Ccd_max%3A1860&tbm=bks
M-D is among them, but so are some other travel narratives in which people seem to be sitting or lying down supperless. (Melville was writing them all!) So perhaps this is just a testament to HM's exceptional vocabulary: nearly every rare word turns up in his works somewhere.
But one thing the above list almost certainly does point out is a source for the M-D scene in which little Ishmael is sent to bed supperless, and then is sat upon by a demon that prevents him from moving. That was certainly an elaboration, in the usual Melville style, from the passage identified in Vidocq -- as the "Memoirs of Vidocq" are mentioned by name elsewhere in M-D.
This source does not appear in the 1952 centennial edition's notes. Can we publish a three-paragraph note on it somewhere and achieve eternal fame?
RJO
Go for it! (Eternal glory via your note on Vidocq and Melville's Counterpane chapter in Moby-Dick.) Most suggestive parallel, makes me want to read more in Vidocq. Hey there's a weird and vivid dream in Scenes Beyond the Western Border I never could get a handle on. I have to look at that again, too.
ReplyDeleteWell, well, in skimming the first few pages I see that Vidocq opens with an angry young man who runs away from home to a couple of port towns, gets robbed and so ends up with little to no money in his purse, chats with innkeepers, and feels an itch to go to sea.
ReplyDeleteRJO