riffing on the "very sound" of a Saxon word

Image Credit: Celler Devinssi via Duff's Wines

Italicizing the Saxon word and also exclaiming! it at least once in the riff, thus:

The rest of the day is called afternoon; the very sound of which fine old Saxon word conveys a feeling of the lee bulwarks and a nap; a summer sea—soft breezes creeping over it; dreamy dolphins gliding in the distance. Afternoon! the word implies that it is an after-piece, coming after the grand drama of the day; something to be taken leisurely and lazily. --Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850)

What with inspections, re-organizations, writing reports, &c., I have worked sixteen hours to-day; and it is the least in the world singular that I should be now writing for my own amusement; for any other's, quite absurd! There must he something dry about it for recommendation. Oh! expressive and honest Saxon monosyllable!—dry!—thy very sound is pleasing— the idea rapturous! Only think, though it be extravagant, at this hour of inevitable repose, of a dry blanket! think too of dry wine! --September 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

you shall be my Imaginary Friend, and I will talk to you...

Southern Literary Messenger (June 1851)

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.

Hundreds go and come at my word; none are my "equals," so none are my social friends. I have much to do; very much;—if I nod at my post, some one, or some interest suffers,—nevertheless, the race of hermits is extinct, and man requires companionship; there are some moments unoccupied, sometimes even hours, and you shall be my Imaginary Friend, and I will talk to you.  

--June 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army [with "Imaginary Friend" revised to "Friend"].

"You see, good reader, I am making a confidant of you, and that too in matters that another tyro-editor more discreet would very likely keep to himself, seeking to pass himself off as a veteran. But I desire to make a friend of you, and without frankness how accomplish it?" 

--Herman Melville, "House of the Tragic Poet," in Robert A. Sandberg's edition of Melville's unfinished "Burgundy Club" book (PhD Dissertation, Northwestern University, 1989).

The Captain's Imaginary Friend gets a name in the August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border. Yes, Frank.

Update 07/14/2018: the text of Melville's "House of the Tragic Poet" is now available in Volume 13 of The Writings of Herman Melville:

• Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Uncompleted Writings ed. Harrison Hayford, Alma A. MacDougall, Robert A. Sandberg, and G. Thomas Tanselle (Northwestern University Press and The Newberry Library, 2017), pages 141-5.

Related posts:

• the importance of being Frank 
• he will do the talking 
• All I want is a good listener

Colonel Philip St George Cooke in 1856-1859, remembered in 1906 by H. H. Wilson

Found on Newspapers.com    "...a splendid officer...About as long as a rail, as slim as a snake, as straight as a bean pole and with a bad nasal twang...."

Here's a rare 1906 recollection with the ring of truth, picturing Philip St George Cooke around the time that Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857, 1859) was published in Philadelphia. From a Letter to the Editor by H. H. Wilson, published in the Washington, D. C. National Tribune on July 26, 1906:

... I served in Co. C, 2d U. S. Dragoons, under command of Lieut-Col. Philip St. George Cooke in '56 and '57 in Kansas and in '58 and '59 in Utah. Col. Cooke left Camp Floyd, Utah, early in the Spring of '59 on his famous European trip.

I never saw him again, but remember him very well. He was a splendid officer to those under his command. If any of your readers wish to know what kind of a looking man he was, fancy this picture: About as long as a rail, as slim as a snake, as straight as a bean pole and with a bad nasal twang attached to his voice.

I remember while in Utah our little army was paraded out for a general inspection. I think there were 12 companies of mounted troops in line. When Col. Cooke gave the command, "Draw saber," not a single blade was unsheathed. This was not because we were mutinous, but, on account of his nasal twang, because we did not understand the command.

Whereupon the Colonel straightened himself up and gave the command in clear and distinct language with the addition of, "D'ye understand that, ———  ——— you?" We understood it. It brought the answer.

I do not know when Cooke returned from Europe, but I think Albert Sidney Johnston was in command of the Department of Utah until he resigned to enter the Confederate army—H. H. Wilson, Newell, Pennsylvania