Among other significant changes the word buoyant was added in revision of the August 1852 dialogue in Scenes Beyond the Western Border between the narrating Captain of U. S. Dragoons and "Frank," his imaginary friend. As revised in Part II of Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857), the narrator feels "buoyant and bitter," elevated in spirit by the "wild mountain air" near Devil's Gate and the South Pass of the Rockies.
"I am only in a mood; buoyant and bitter; tameless as the Arab coursing his native desert; free as yonder soaring eagle! it's this wild mountain air!"
| Scenes and Adventures in the Army (1857) page 355 |
The 1852 passage had "wild mountain air" but not buoyant:
| Southern Literary Messenger August 1852 |
F. “When I have you committed, fairly pinned in contradiction, you fly off into a maze of extravagant fancies, where I should be lost as well, if I followed.”
C. “And get the best of it! Ah! my good friend, let this wild mountain air have fair play; let us with the desert's freedom joyously flout convention and opinion—upstart usurpers!—let us make mocking sport of the prosaic solemnity of ignorant prejudice;—let us shoot popguns at least, against the solid bulwarks where folly and selfishness sit enthroned!"
F. “Then fire away!—though hang me if I know what you mean.”
Scenes Beyond the Western Border - August 1852
https://books.google.com/books?id=-AkNAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA508&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
In the original version of Melville's short story "Benito Cereno," buoyant occurs in the November 1855 issue of Putnam's Monthly Magazine:
"Possibly, the vexation might have been something different, were it not for the buoyant confidence inspired by the breeze."
https://books.google.com/books?id=i_FIAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA472&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false
But the book version in The Piazza Tales (1856) replaces buoyant with brisk, thus:
"Possibly, the vexation might have been something different, were it not for the brisk confidence inspired by the breeze."
https://archive.org/details/piazztales00melvrich/page/222/mode/2up
Both usages link the elevated, "buoyant" mood to an experience of fresh air: sea "breeze" in the magazine version of "Benito Cereno"; and "wild mountain air" in Scenes and Adventures in the Army.
Related posts:
- Why can't you forget the past?
https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-cant-you-forget-past.html
- the mind gets morbid
https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2011/06/mind-gets-morbid.html
- Human fiends
https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2019/02/human-fiends.html - Deleted in revision
https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2014/04/deleted-in-revision.html
