 |
| via North Dakota Geological Survey |
Inviting discussion of Geology on the Isle of Fossils, King Media warns Babbalanja:
On the same subject, in a similarly plain-speaking role as representative realist, the Captain's imaginary friend "Frank" in "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" would also steer the talk away from useless profundity:"Philosopher, probe not too deep." --Melville's Mardi (1849)
F. "Bah! your modern geognosy is a humbug! or, too deep at least, for a wandering dragoon. --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852; andIn the previous installment, July 1852, the Captain self-consciously began to try out different writing styles for different readers--romantics first, then realists--but stopped himself before getting "too deep" in the experiment:
Scenes and Adventures in the Army, p359
" Whom then shall I address? — the mock sentimentalist? and begin the day: 'Our slumbers this morning were gently and pleasantly dissolved by the cheerful martins, which sang a sweet reveille with the first blush of Aurora, at our uncurtained couches.' Or the statist? 'Not a sign of buffalo to-day; it were melancholy and easy to calculate how soon the Indians, deprived of this natural resource, and ignorant of agriculture' — but I should soon get too deep."
I[maginary]. F[riend]. — But this soil is devilish shallow. --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, July 1852; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, p333In the 1876 poem Clarel, Melville's easygoing clergyman Derwent tries hard to cheer up Clarel. But the young divinity student can't stop his pained and doubtful line of questioning--which makes Derwent sigh,
"Alas, too deep you dive." --Clarel 3.21, Mar Saba/In Confidence
"all this to explain, would be to dive deeper than Ishmael can go. The subterranean miner that works in us all, how can one tell whither leads his shaft by the ever shifting, muffled sound of his pick?" --Chapter 41
ReplyDelete(There are a couple of places where HM uses the word "subterranean" where the literally correct term would be "subaqueous" -- the above isn't one of them strictly speaking, but he does sometimes switch a little irregularly, it has seemed to me, between land and sea.)
Good one, thanks. Does sound like a mixed metaphor, now that you mention it. In Pierre we have this reference to Cornish miners and submarine mines:
Delete"No Cornwall miner ever sunk so deep a shaft beneath the sea, as Love will sink beneath the floatings of the eyes."
and this, mixing disciplines of geology and, what? archaeology or egyptology I guess:
"But, far as any geologist has yet gone down into the world, it is found to consist of nothing but surface stratified on surface. To its axis, the world being nothing but superinduced superficies. By vast pains we mine into the pyramid; by horrible gropings we come to the central room; with joy we espy the sarcophagus; but we lift the lid—and no body is there!—appallingly vacant as vast is the soul of a man!"