Saturday, October 11, 2014

Not a whit

First installment, Scenes Beyond the Western Border
Southern Literary Messenger 17 (June 1851): 372
Man lording it over man, man kneeling to man, is a spectacle that Gabriel might well travel hitherward to behold; for never did he behold it in heaven. But Darius giving laws to the Medes and the Persians, or the conqueror of Bactria with king-cattle yoked to his car, was not a whit more sublime, than Beau Brummel magnificently ringing for his valet.  --Mardi (1849)
"...and in asking these questions I was particular to address him in a civil and condescending way, so as to show him very plainly that I did not deem myself one whit better than he was, that is, taking all things together, and not going into particulars."  --Redburn (1849)
Luckily, my Bury blade had no acquaintance in Liverpool, where, indeed, he was as much in a foreign land, as if he were already on the shores of Lake Erie; so that he strolled about with me in perfect abandonment; reckless of the cut of my shooting-jacket; and not caring one whit who might stare at so singular a couple.  --Redburn
Poor, poor Wellingborough! thought I, miserable boy! you are indeed friendless and forlorn. Here you wander a stranger in a strange town, and the very thought of your father’s having been here before you, but carries with it the reflection that, he then knew you not, nor cared for you one whit--Redburn

Life is more awful than Death; and let no man, though his live heart beat in him like a cannon—let him not hug his life to himself; for, in the predestinated necessities of things, that bounding life of his is not a whit more secure than the life of a man on his death-bed. To-day we inhale the air with expanding lungs, and life runs through us like a thousand Niles; but to-morrow we may collapse in death, and all our veins be dry as the Brook Kedron in a drought.  --White-Jacket (1850)
“Not a whit, sir—not one particle...."  --White-Jacket
But why say more? All men live enveloped in whale-lines. All are born with halters round their necks; but it is only when caught in the swift, sudden turn of death, that mortals realize the silent, subtle, ever-present perils of life. And if you be a philosopher, though seated in the whale-boat, you would not at heart feel one whit more of terror, than though seated before your evening fire with a poker, and not a harpoon, by your side.
--Moby-Dick (1851)
Now some Nantucketers rather distrust this historical story of Jonah and the whale. But then there were some sceptical Greeks and Romans, who, standing out from the orthodox pagans of their times, equally doubted the story of Hercules and the whale, and Arion and the dolphin ; and yet their doubting those traditions did not make those traditions one whit the less facts, for all that. --Moby-Dick, Jonah Historically Regarded
From these random slips, it would seem, that Pierre is quite conscious of much that is so anomalously hard and bitter in his lot, of much that is so black and terrific in his soul. Yet that knowing his fatal condition does not one whit enable him to change or better his condition. Conclusive proof that he has no power over his condition. For in tremendous extremities human souls are like drowning men; well enough they know they are in peril; well enough they know the causes of that peril;—nevertheless, the sea is the sea, and these drowning men do drown.  --Pierre (1852)

Oh reader! "gentle" or not,—I care not a whit,—so you are honest—I will tell you a secret. I write not to be read, and I swear never even to transcribe for your benefit, unless I change my mind. All I want is a good listener; I want to converse with you; and if you are absolutely dumb, why I will sometimes answer for you.
--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger vol. 17 (June 1851): 372; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Part II.

2 comments:

  1. I wouldn't think of them as unusual ideas that are particularly dispositive, but commodores and seventy-fours and the "guinea-coast slavery of solitary command" are certainly all through Moby-Dick as well. (Not to mention Star Trek. Well, OK, maybe not seventy-fours.)

    RJO

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    Replies
    1. and White-Jacket:

      "...in his grand, inaccessible cabin, the high and mighty commodore sat silent and stately, as the statue of Jupiter in Dodona."

      http://www.mobydickthewhale.com/melville/white-jacket/chapter-2.htm

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