In wintry mourning draped

The Desert truly is here— Moral and Natural Wastes.— Gray stunted trees in wintry mourning draped with moss. Chill winds wail,— wild beasts howl,— and my heart echoes, 'Far—lone—forgot.'

 

-- March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army 

Winter pine tree draped in snow. William S. Keller, 1979.
via National Park Service

 

By wintry hills his hermit-mound
       The sheeted snow-drifts drape.... --Monody by Herman Melville

Dreaming and philosophizing

 KING MEDIA DREAMS

“Gods and demi-gods! With one gesture all abysses we may disclose; and before this Mardi's eyes, evoke the shrouded time to come. Were this well? Like lost children groping in the woods, they falter through their tangled paths; and at a thousand angles, baffled, start upon each other. And even when they make an onward move, ’tis but an endless vestibule, that leads to naught.  -- Herman Melville, Mardi: And a Voyage Thither Volume 2, King Media Dreams.

Like lost children groping in the woods, they falter through their tangled paths; and at a thousand angles, baffled, start upon each other.

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER

Did I dream? — Had I slumbered at my post ? — I did dream.

And why not tell my dream? — Life is little better; nay, it is little different. We wander at most in the dark—stumbling on temptations,—walking on the thorns of passions; or in an awful, but obscure light, refracted by the cloudy medium of philosophy. Sleep on, my friend! Though I would question you if I could, in this dark hour, if sympathy may pass the mysterious boundary of dream-land;—if that deathlike seeming calm were of careless oblivion,—or of the soul profoundly disturbed.  --March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border ; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

In the book version, "the soul profoundly disturbed" has been revised to read, "some divine despair."

Rhetorical questions with whom or what then shall I

MOBY-DICK (October-November 1851)

What then shall I liken the Sperm Whale to for fragrance, considering his magnitude? Must it not be to that famous elephant, with jewelled tusks, and redolent with myrrh, which was led out of an Indian town to do honor to Alexander the Great? -- Moby-Dick; or, The Whale chapter 92, Ambergris.

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (July 1852)

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 at 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.

--July 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857).

Scenes Beyond the Western Border
Southern Literary Messenger (July 1852)

Honorable mention, from Clarel Part 3 Canto 26, Vine and The Palm:

Tropic seraph! thou once gone,
Who then shall take thy office on —
Redeem the waste, and high appear,
Apostle of Talassa’s year
And climes where rivers of waters run?

Heedless buffalo and whale

Buffalo Bull, Grazing on the Prairie. George Catlin.
Smithsonian American Art Museum

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (September 1851)

... wonderful it was to think that a bull, after being wounded and stunned by a twelve-pound shell, should rush upon a great column of horse, and heedless of a hundred shots and twenty wounds, with a bull-dog to his lip, should toss a horse and rider like a feather.... -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, September 1851; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, pages 260-261.

Southern Literary Messenger - September 1851

MOBY-DICK (October-November 1851)

... the White Whale churning himself into furious speed, almost in an instant as it were, rushing among the boats with open jaws, and a lashing tail, offered appalling battle on every side; and heedless of the irons darted at him from every boat, seemed only intent on annihilating each separate plank of which those boats were made. -- Moby-Dick chapter 134, The Chase—Second Day.

The word heedless does not appear in the source-text for the affair of the death-defying buffalo, the entry for June 28th in Philip St. George Cooke's 1843 Journal of the Santa Fe Trail. Transcribed by William E. Connelley in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 12, No. 1 (June 1925), pages 72-98; and Vol. 12, No. 2 (September 1925), pages 227-255. For Cooke's 1843 journal in manuscript, see National Archives Letters Received by the Office of the Adjutant General 1822-1860 / 1843 / C / Cooke, P St G / C252; available online via fold3.

June 28th [1843]

... the command was halted, and riding a very wild horse, I dismounted and approached on foot with a carbine to 25 paces, when the piece snapped, and the bull rose and dashed at me; after passing the spot I had stood on, his attention was drawn off by the di[s]charge of a horseman's pistol; and at another essay I struck him as he ran at speed, full in the side; when, again he rushed at me; again his course was changed; and threatening continually to break through the column, and to frighten the wagon teams he was assailed by many horsemen whom I did not wish to restrain; pistol and carbine shots increased every moment and the frightened horses rendered them dangerous; it seemed a confused action; a doubtful battle: after falling with a great shock, the beast arose and attacked a mounted corporal: tossed his horse like a plaything, goring him in two places: the corporal fell headlong on the bull's horns, his pistol discharged at the same instant, the ball passed through his horse's neck, which then ran off frantically: the man was borne, hanging by his clothes on the horns, for several leaps: a bull dog seized the monster by the lip, and all fell into a confused heap; we next through the dust saw the corporal scrambling desperately from the melee, having wonderfully escaped from injury; the deathless animal again rose, and shook his black and shaggy front, in defiance: then many deliberate carbine shots were fired at him: and he fell and rose repeatedly —while lying down carbine balls were fired with deliberate aim at 10 paces, seemingly without effect: when finally I sent one through the eye into his brain — the shell had broken the shoulder blade. The animal died, and has been eaten; the horse is doing well.

(William E. Connelley, ed., A Journal of the Santa Fe Trail in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review Vol. 12, No. 1 (June 1925), page 97.)

Cooke seems to have regretted the breezy treatment of this episode in the magazine and book versions of Scenes and Adventures in the Army. The rewrite condensed the graphic account he had written in his 1843 army journal, incorporating a summary of the affair into one of the ongoing dialogues between the narrating captain and his "Imaginary Friend." Decades later, Cooke managed to get most of the original version into print, when The United States Army and Navy Journal published his letter to the editor under the title, An American "Bull Fight." From The United States Army and Navy Journal, April 8, 1882, page 819:

AN AMERICAN “BULL FIGHT." 

To the Editor of the Army and Navy Journal:

SIR: I have been delving into the MS. of an old official journal and have found verbal daguerrotypes of some scenes which your readers may find racy, despite their age. Of course they might receive more polished expression, but it would be almost a pity to alter a hue of a picture freshly drawn from nature. 

We all have read, ad nauseum, of Spanish bull fights, when the poor beast is cornered and nearly every thing prearranged, but here you find a tolerably fair fight between a valiant buffalo and some two hundred “ horse, foot, and " — artillery. Place, Upper Arkansas; time, June, 1843. 

“For six miles we marched through one village of ‘prairie dogs,’ whose shrill barking was incessantly sounding in our cars; but their strange antics scarcely attracted attention when thousands of buffalo, dotting the visible world far and near, were the whole day seen around us; each moment shifting views of chases by officers or traders, fixing the attention with a new interest. In the afternoon from the brow of a small hill we suddenly came in view of hundreds of the huge savage looking animals, grazing and lying about in the most natural manner, only three hundred paces from us. I instantly determined to give the artillerists some desired practice, and to get some experience of the range and effects of the mountain howitzer shells. I directed one myself at a group; the shell passed over it, but in ricochet upset one animal. Another was discharged which passed in their midst in three or four rebounds, and then exploded, creating a wonderful confusion. Still another was directed at a dense group, full five hundred paces off, and on higher ground; it struck rather beyond, exploding beautifully at the same instant, but none were prostrated. I then marched on (rather disgusted in truth with mountain howitzers). In a few minutes, as we approached the bull which had been struck, he raised himself up on his chest; the command was halted. Being mounted on a very wild horse I dismounted and approached him afoot to twenty-five paces, aimed and snapped my carbine. Then the bull rose and rushed at me. After passing the spot I had stood on, his attention was diverted to a horseman and his pistol shot; a moment after, as he was charging past me, I fired and struck him in his side; again he turned and pursued me until his course was changed to a new enemy. The bull seemed set to break through the column; and the baggage train mules, which had come close up, were turning short and trying to run. He was assailed now by many horsemen with a free discharge of pistol shots from riders of prancing horses; it was like a confused and doubtful melee.

“ After falling with a great shock, the bull rose and charged a mounted corporal, tossed his horse like a plaything, goring him in two places; the corporal fell headlong, his pistol at the same instant going off, and the ball passing through his horse‘s neck, which then ran off; but the corporal was caught on a horn, only by his clothes, fortunately, and was thus borne by the bull for several leaps; but a new actor appeared, a bulldog: and he caught the buffalo by his under lip, and then all fell in a confused heap. Next from out the cloud of dust the corporal was seen, desperately scrambling on hands and knees. The deathless animal again rose, and shook at us his shaggy front in defiance. Then many deliberate carbine shots were fired into him, and he fell and rose repeatedly; some were fired close by while he lay, but seemed to have no effect. Finally, I sent a ball through an eye to his brain. The shell had broken a shoulder blade. 

“ The poor bull died, and has been eaten—in defiance of nightmare!” 

P. St. G. Cooke, U. S. A.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Xvg-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA819&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

In a footnote to his 1925 edition of Cooke's Santa Fe journal, William E. Connelley remarks:

"This is the first instance known to this editor where the buffalo was hunted with artillery and killed with explosive shells fired from cannon."

Another editor, Joseph Macaulay Lowe was more sympathetic to the defiant buffalo:

"(If the writer of this book had have been in command, we would have erected a monument to this gallant foe. — Ed.)"  -- The National Old Trails Road (Kansas City, 1925) page 110.

Lowe called this episode, "The Strangest Battle in History." Cooke again referenced his firsthand narrative of the defiant buffalo bull in A Day's Work of a Captain of Dragoons, published in The United States Army and Navy Journal on July 1, 1882, pages 1106-1107.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Xvg-AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1106&lpg#v=onepage&q&f=false

 Related post:

• Poetry and reality, Byron and buffalo
  https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2014/12/poetry-and-reality-byron-and-buffalo.html

Prairie "Friend" channels Yoomy, and Ahab

“Are all our dreams, then, vain?” sighed Yoomy. “Is this no dawn of day that streaks the crimson East! Naught but the false and flickering lights which sometimes mock Aurora in the north! ..."   -- Mardi; and a Voyage Thither

Friend. — A false and self-consuming fire! that sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men, and leaves but wrecks, mournfully floating upon the dull currents of life. Scenes and Adventures in the Army, pages 333-4

 https://archive.org/details/scenesadventures00cook/page/332

Revised from the July 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border. Revisions include deletion of the interjection "Ay!" spoken by the narrating captain's Imaginary Friend:

 I. F. Ay! it is a fire that consumes; and sometimes burns to ashes the hearts and hopes of proud men.... -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border, July 1852.

Both versions recall the fire-and-ashes imagery used by Ahab in Moby-Dick, chapter 119:

 "Thou canst consume; but I can then be ashes."

Elk, forests, antlers

Goldsmith's History of the Earth and Animated Nature

The "Dreams" chapter in Melville's Mardi (1849) offers the image of forests as elk-antlers. Here it's all dream vision. In context, the "wide woodlands" are conceived more literally than the figurative elk and antlers. From Mardi: And a Voyage Thither:

"... to and fro, toss the wide woodlands: all the world an elk, and the forests its antlers."

Same terms, altered conceit in Scenes Beyond the Western Border ("Elk-Shooting," January 1852); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army ("Splendid Elk Chase"), page 273. Now the narrator supposedly chases real elk with real antlers; so the forest is figurative:

The noble creatures, with a whole forest of antlers, taking the alarm, first began to trot round loftily, with heads tossed high in air....

Detail. Front cover, January 1852 Southern Literary Messenger

The ensuing prairie dialogue between the narrator and his Imaginary Friend features a detailed critique of The False Heir by G. P. R. James. This section was synopsized as "Literature on the Little Arkansas" on the front cover of the January 1852 issue of The Southern Literary Messenger. The 1857 book version drops "Literature on the Little Arkansas." As shown below, the Table of Contents summarizes the same material as "Criticism of J. P. R. James."

 Related posts:

• Criticism of G. P. R. James
  https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2014/05/criticism-of-g-p-r-james.html

• riddle, cipher, mask
  https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2012/06/riddle-cipher-mask.html

• Has a problem with artificial plot twists
  http://dragooned.blogspot.com/2012/06/has-problem-with-artifical-plot-twists.html

dead as astrology, scarce as alchymists

 

An Alchemist. 1661, Adriaen van Ostade via The National Gallery

 

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (JUNE 1852)

"Only too true! Other works of genius are scarcely recognized: poetry is as dead as astrology: life is exhausted, and the mind overpowered by the accumulation of facts." --June 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and revised in Scenes and Adventures in the Army ("by the accumulation of facts" changed to "in the attempt to master a vast accumulation of facts.")

PIERRE (1852)

And though this state of things, united with the ever multiplying freshets of new books, seems inevitably to point to a coming time, when the mass of humanity reduced to one level of dotage, authors shall be scarce as alchymists are to-day, and the printing-press be reckoned a small invention.... --Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities

Never, never land

"Ah! how very doleful is that plaint! Never, never the doleful!"

--from Scenes Beyond the Western Border (August 1852); and (slightly revised) in Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

Scenes Beyond the Western Border
Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852): 506

The revised 1857 version switches prepositions in and with: calm "with which" revised to calm "in which"; "in fairy creations" then becomes "with fairy creations."

It is near midnight. Silence reigns in the desert; but now and then come the cries of wolves from the mountains. They give an almost supernatural tone to these solemn solitudes. The repose which twenty hours of excitement and toil demand, is banished. Hark! how they howl! Be grandly dreary, and ye will be attuned to the heart! Yes, never better to a sentimental girl the gentlest breathings of an AEolian harp. Ah! how very doleful is that plaint! Never, never, the doleful! Give me the placid calm in which the soul may revel with fairy creations, adorned by all the flowers of thought—or proud action, the storm of wild and passionate will. The gilded and painted memory, or fierce oblivion.

MOBY-DICK (1851)

“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man—  --Chapter 134, The Chase—Second Day.

PIERRE (1852)

Then, swear to me, dear Pierre, that thou wilt never keep a secret from me—no, never, never;—swear!" 1852 first edition, page 49

 Nay, nay, groaned Pierre, never, never, could such syllables be one instant tolerated by her. --page 120

And Pierre felt that never, never would he be able to embrace Isabel with the mere brotherly embrace; --page 193

In the same passage from Scenes Beyond the Western Border (August 1852) with "Never, never", the figurative AEolian harp communicates a "plaint" described as "doleful"; in Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities (first published at the end of July 1852), Isabel's guitar voices her "melancholy plaints":

But the wonderful melodiousness of her grief had touched the secret monochord within his breast, by an apparent magic, precisely similar to that which had moved the stringed tongue of her guitar to respond to the heart-strings of her own melancholy plaints.  --Page 234

THE PIAZZA (1856)

"Oh, sir," tears starting in her eyes, "the first time I looked out of this window, I said 'never, never shall I weary of this.'"  --first story in Melville's The Piazza Tales

O(h) my friend(s)

MOBY-DICK (1851)

Oh! my friends, but this is man-killing!  --Chapter 98, Stowing Down and Clearing Up.

 SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (AUGUST 1852)

"O! my friend!"

--Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852

 Deleted in revision, "O! my friend!" does not appear in the 1857 book version,  Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border"
Southern Literary Messenger - August 1852

Also deleted in revision of the same 1852 dialogue: "Ah! my good friend...."



which does not appear in the 1857 book version:

Appearance on any scene or stage

PIERRE

How am I changed, that my appearance on any scene should have power to work such woe?  --Herman Melville, Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities (1852)

 SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER

In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.

It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—

 --March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border"; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

Scenes Beyond the Western Border
Southern Literary Messenger 19 (March 1853): 159

Metaphorical acts and scenes in Melville's Pierre:

By infallible presentiment he saw, that not always doth life's beginning gloom conclude in gladness; that wedding-bells peal not ever in the last scene of life's fifth act....

Decreed by God Omnipotent it is, that Death should be the last scene of the last act of man's play;—a play, which begin how it may, in farce or comedy, ever hath its tragic end; the curtain inevitably falls upon a corpse.

Related posts:

• Himself
• dumb beasts prefer death to slavery
• Hamlet on the Prairie
• the moral of the story
• bears again
• his sentence-ending howl
• immortalize this

Himself

Himself was too much for himself. --Herman Melville, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities (1852).

... the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed....  -- Scenes Beyond the Western Border (March 1853); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857).

In the examples below, all from Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre (1852), the reflexive pronoun himself functions also as an intensive pronoun that emphasizes its antecedent (the noun, pronoun, or proper noun that comes before it). Page numbers refer to First American editions, digitized and available online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/dul1.ark:/13960/t3kw6ns1s

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities
https://hdl.handle.net/2027/hvd.32044011420494

and the Internet Archive:

Moby-Dick; or, The Whale
https://archive.org/details/mobydickorwhale01melv/page/n7

Pierre; or, The Ambiguities
https://archive.org/details/pierreorambigui00melvgoog

MOBY-DICK [39/205]

1. the great whale himself --Chapter 1, Loomings - page 6
2. Dives himself --Chapter 2, The Carpet-Bag - page 11
3. the great leviathan himself --Chapter 3, The Spouter-Inn - page 12
4. the devil himself  --Chapter 3, The Spouter-Inn - page 24
5. Jove himself --Chapter 7, The Chapel - page 41
6. he himself [Queequeg] --Chapter 17, The Ramadan - page 96
7. a deacon himself [Queequeg] --Chapter 18, His Mark - page 98
8. Father Mapple himself --Chapter 18, His Mark - page 99
9. Bildad himself  --Chapter 20, All Astir - page 107
10. Peleg himself --Chapter 22, Merry Christmas - page 116
11. The whale himself  Chapter 24, The Advocate - page 123
12. God; Himself! The great God absolute! --Chapter 26, Knights and Squires - page 128
13. the great Sperm whale himself.   --Chapter 32, Cetology - page 158
14. he himself [Ahab]  --Chapter 34, The Cabin Table page 165
15. the Baron himself  Chapter 41, Moby Dick - page 199
16. Great Jove himself  Chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale - page 208
17. he himself [Ahab]  --Chapter 44, The Chart  - page 219
18. Starbuck himself   --Chapter 48, The First Lowering - page 245
19. he himself [Daggoo] --Chapter 48, The First Lowering  - page 246
20. Beelzebub himself  --Chapter 50, Ahab’s Boat and Crew. Fedallah - page 257
21. the captain of the Town-Ho himself.  --Chapter 54, The Town-Ho's Story  - page 270
22. the devil himself  --Chapter 55, Of the Monstrous Pictures of Whales - page 297
23. the fanatic himself [Gabriel] --Chapter 71, The Jeroboam's Story - page 351
24. the captain himself  --Chapter 71, The Jeroboam's Story - page 352
25. Death himself  --Chapter 71, The Jeroboam’s Story  - page 354
26. the Evil One himself  --Chapter 78, Cisterns and Buckets - page 380
27. man himself  --Chapter 79, The Prairie - page 385
28. the great Leviathan himself.  Chapter 82, The Honor and Glory of Whaling - page 404
29. this divine Vishnoo himself --Chapter 82, The Honor and Glory of Whaling - page 405
30. the all-seeing sun himself --Chapter 60 - The Line - page 314
31. Moby Dick himself --Chapter 87, The Grand Armada - page 426
32. great leviathan himself  --Chapter 98, Stowing Down and Clearing Up - page 476
33. Jimimi! here’s Gemini himself  --Chapter 99, The Doubloon - page 481
34. the patient himself [Captain Boomer] --Chapter 100, Leg and Arm - page 489
35. Queequeg himself  --Chapter 110, Queequeg in His Coffin - page 531
36. the blacksmith himself  --Chapter 112, The Blacksmith - page 538
37. the stranger captain himself  --Chapter 128, The Pequod Meets the Rachel - page 584
38. the judge himself  --Chapter 132, The Symphony - page 600
39. the mad fiend himself  --Chapter 134, The Chase—Second Day  - page 613

PIERRE [32/246]

1. Pierre himself  (8x) pages 26, 321, 328, 333, 334, 354, 358, 386, 393.
2. the American that himself - Book 1 page 15
3. the noble beast himself - page 39
4. the Evil One himself - page 187
5. he himself (11x) pages 83, 96, 152, 186, 234, 241, 298, 301, 392, 400, 490.
6. God himself - page 222
7. God himself - page 448
8. the original man himself - Book 17.3 page 345
9. the author himself - page 352
10. the first man himself [Adam] - page 353
11. the eminent Jugglarius himself - page 356
12.  Plotinus himself - page 398
13.  —the face itself—the man himself—this inscrutable Plotinus Plinlimmon himself— page 400
14.  the individual himself - Book 26 page 478 

MELVILLE'S CORRESPONDENCE

• "...the Devil himself cannot make him say yes." --Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, April 1851
• "Crash! comes Moby-Dick himself.... " --Letter to Evert Duyckinck, November 1851

Southern Literary Messenger Vol. 19 - March 1853. Cub, a tragedy in three acts.

In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.

It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—that the first act embraced an unusual amount of sanguinary incident—that an innocent brother, (or sister,) being ruthlessly slain, and the baffled lady-mother left (unceremoniously) full of towering and demonstrative rage,— the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed,—or in a well-acted counterfeit of death, (and was borne off, remember, on a "real" horse). That in the next act, (and three acts shall do for the tragedy of my bear,—originally they had but one,—but that was at the sacrifice of a goat,) he came to life in a manner that might very well have been criticized as an overdone piece of stage-effect,—but that in fact, the spectators were much moved, and gave full credit to the dangerous passion of his howl.

To-day, then,—for I scorn anachronism— was performed the final act. The stage (wagon) was on "real water." Enraged at his wrongs, his losses, and his galling chain, the "robustious beast" acted in a ridiculous and unbearable manner; aye, ''tore his passion to tatters, to very rags,"—splinters; the stage (wagon) could not hold him: and finally in despair, he "imitated humanity so abominably," as to throw himself headlong, and so drown—or hang himself: (the author cannot decide which—even after a post mortem examination;—and so leaves the decision of this important point to the commentators).

My tragedy is all true,—and if not quite serious, has, as is proper, its moral;—but rather, as I have alluded to the primitive tragedy, let that "future reader" here imagine the entry of Chorus, and their song to Freedom! That dumb beasts prefer death to slavery! Liberty lost, they can die without the excitement of the world's applause, or hopes of a grateful posterity! (It is not possible, I think, that the cub could have known that I would immortalize him.)  --March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border"; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

 Related posts:

• dumb beasts prefer death to slavery
• Hamlet on the Prairie
• the moral of the story
• bears again
• his sentence-ending howl
• immortalize this

Life's burden, 1852

Bogard, Batiste, and I Chasing Buffalo in High Grass on a Missouri Bottom. George Catlin
via Wikimedia Commons

PIERRE (1852)

Pierre little foresaw that this world hath a secret deeper than beauty, and Life some burdens heavier than death.

 "Well, life's a burden, they say; why not be burdened cheerily?"

--Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (APRIL 1852)

 An hour—almost of happiness—passes, and we take up our burdens and part forever!

I. F. [Imaginary Friend] ... Your 'almost happiness!' — and 'burden,' of life did you mean? for I never saw one lighter mounted on a finer horse!

Southern Literary Messenger - April 1852

SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN THE ARMY (1857)

Friend. ... Your "almost happiness!"— and "burden," of life did you mean? for I never saw one lighter mounted on a finer horse! --Scenes and Adventures in the Army

So be it!

MOBY-DICK (1851)

So be it, then. Born in throes, 'tis fit that man should live in pains and die in pangs. So be it, then! Here's stout stuff for woe to work on. So be it, then. --Moby-Dick chapter 99 The Doubloon

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER (August 1852)

Then so be it! let us treat the whole world as it has done us, and—forget it!

"Scenes Beyond the Western Border"
Southern Literary Messenger - August 1852

--August 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Among other things deleted in revision of this August 1852 prairie dialogue, passing the love of women and "nay, I am sure."

Human fiends

Chavez marker via Coronado Quivira Museum

Southern Literary Messenger - September 1851

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER

... 'Twas here that a cry to God, wrested by human fiends from a brother man, fell unanswered,—echoless on the desert air.  --September 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

BENITO CERENO

On heart-broken pretense of entreating a cup of cold water, fiends in human form had got into lonely dwellings, nor retired until a dark deed had been done. --Putnam's Monthly (October 1855); and The Piazza Tales (1856).

The passage quoted above from "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" alludes to the 1843 murder of Don Antonio José Chávez, spelled "Charvis" in both the magazine and book versions.

SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER

Oh! how much better to die thus, than that there should enter into the soul, the hell which must accompany the conception of such a deed! --September 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

PIERRE

Ah! Easy for man to think like a hero; but hard for man to act like one. All imaginable audacities readily enter into the soul; few come boldly forth from it. --Herman Melville, Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities (1852)

With what plus adjective plus noun

With what strange complacency ....

 --August 1853 installment of Scenes Beyond The Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

MOBY-DICK (1851)

with what wondrous habitude of unconscious skill the whaleman will maintain an erect posture in his boat --The First Lowering

with what prodigious fury the Bashaw assails him, and chases him away!  --Schools and Schoolmasters

See with what entire freedom the whaleman takes his handful of lamps --The Lamp

PIERRE (1852)

thereby intimating with what deep reverence his portrait would be handled

For he considered with what infinite readiness now, the most faithful portrait of any one could be taken by the Daguerreotype....

With what marvelous precision and exactitude he now went over in his mind all the minutest details of his old joyous life with his mother at Saddle Meadows.

In the August 1853 episode, the final installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border, the narrator's imaginary traveling companion "Frank" quotes well known lines from James Thomson's The Seasons - Summer, slightly altered ("their minds" replacing Thomson's "her mind" or "his mind" in some anthologies).

                              — ' the smallest part
Exceeds the narrow visions of their minds.' "