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)