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

More on the theme of poetry and romance favorable to women

In some ways Herman Melville's pseudo-biographical sketch of the Marquis de Grandvin (wine personified) practically examines and develops the philosophy of cultural chivalry advanced in the long prairie dialogue on social injustices to women in the June 1852 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border."  In Melville's poem "At the Hostelry" this same Marquis presides over an imaginary dinner where the ghosts of famous artists debate the meaning and fate of "The Picturesque and Old Romance!"

Kind of hard to find this posthumously published material from Melville's so-called "Burgundy Club" manuscript, but not impossible.  One version of "The Marquis de Grandvin" sketch is published in John Bryant's edition of select Tales, Poems, and Other Writings (410-415).  Another, slightly abridged version appears in Great Short Works of Herman Melville, ed. Warner Berthoff, 396-401.  If you're really far gone you already have Robert Sandberg's dissertation, Melville's Unfinished "Burgundy Club" Book.

Right away, in the first two paragraphs, Melville launches into the Captain's themes of "Women Compared with Men" and "Poetry and Romance Favorable to Women":

… But a person of genial temper is not only very likely to be a popular man’s man, but also, and beyond that, a favourite with the ladies. ...Some musky dew drops from the Garden expelled Eve unwillingly carried away quivering in her hair.  More than man, she partakes of the paradisiac spirit.  Under favourable conditions evincing a quicker aptitude to pleasure than man.  How alert to twine the garland for the holiday!  How instinctively prompt for that faint semblance of Eden, the picnic in the greenwood!

Now there is something in the fine, open, cheery aspect of the Marquis de Grandvin that conveys a thrill to those frames so exquisitely strung to happiness.  Not invariably running the risk of incurring dark clouds from their lords, the dames and sisters of the Benedicks of the clubs, at their balls and parties, cast upon the Marquis that kindled merry glance which, according to the old French epic whose theme is Roncesvalles, the ladies bestowed upon Roland; not alone smitten by the fame and taken with the person of that noble accredited nephew of Charlemagne, but rightly inferring him to be not more of a David against the Saracen than a champion against still more flagitious infidels, impugners of the sex.   Yes, it is by instinct that all superior women recognize in this gentleman a cordial friend.  This is a verity not out of keeping with another, namely, this feminine appreciation of the Marquis, gracious though it be, hardly extends to such of his qualities as partake of the Grand Style, as one may say, the highly elevated style; a style apparently demanding for its due appreciation a robust habit, in short, the masculine habit.  For the most part, it is for his less exalted qualities that the ladies approve de Grandvin. They approve him for the way in which he contributes to those amenities and gaieties in which the sexes upon common ground participate, and wherein, thanks to their gallantry of good-nature, the countrymen of the Marquis de Grandvin have always excelled. 

"The Marquis de Grandvin" in Great Short Works of Herman Melville pages 396-7

Related post:

• Poetry and Romance Favorable to Women
  https://dragooned.blogspot.com/2013/02/poetry-and-romance-favorable-to-women.html