Life is little better than sleep

... life is little else than an often interrupted and luxurious nap. --Typee

And why not tell my dream?—Life is little better; nay, it is little different.  --March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.

"All I want is a good listener": promiscuous apostrophe at the start of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border"

The beginning of Typee displays another of Melville's techniques, what can be called promiscuous apostrophe. He begins by addressing the reader directly, fades into soliloquy, and in subsequent paragraphs addresses the rooster, another sailor, and the "poor old ship" itself. The impression created is of a voice ready to fix on any imaginable auditor.  --Bryan C. Short on Melville's Self-Discovery in Typee

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.

(opening lines of the first installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger vol. 17, June 1851, 372; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Part II.)

But "Oh reader!" only makes one apostrophe—when does it get promiscuous? From the same first chapter:

Oh, wide and flat,—shall I say "stale and unprofitable"—prairies! ...
Oh, gentle Herald [Mercury], that I could fly with thee!
Oh! ye hypocrites,—demagogues....
"Friend," thought I ....
Oh Truth!
Oh Sirius! thou brightest and nearest sun;
"Immortal man, brave General ———."
Oh Steam!

All these occur in quick succession, right at the start of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border."

Image Credit: Rita's Dog Blog

locomotive bipeds and state-room sailors

Image Credit: Steamboat Times

Point is, they should quit whining:

At the foot of these rapids was a passenger barge in tow of a steam keel-boat, with about twenty passengers, who had already waited some two weeks with Turkish resignation, for fate, or higher water, to forward them on their journey. Genius of railroads! spirit of a travelling age! Think, ye eastern locomotive bipeds, who, spirited over the earth at the rate of 600 miles a day, snarl at the grievous detention of a minute,—think of this, and learn moderation.

--Notes and Reminiscences No. 3 (Army and Navy Chronicle / July 23, 1840); and Scenes and Adventures in the Army (June 1842; 1857)

Deleted from the first page of Typee:

Oh! ye state-room sailors, who make so much ado about a fourteen-days’ passage across the Atlantic; who so pathetically relate the privations and hardships of the sea, where, after a day of breakfasting, lunching, dining off five courses, chatting, playing whist, and drinking champaign punch, it was your hard lot to be shut up in little cabinets of mahogany and maple, and sleep for ten hours, with nothing to disturb you but “ those good-for-nothing tars, shouting and tramping over head,”—what would ye say to our six months out of sight of land?

Cut by Melville along with many other expurgations, the passage above does not appear in the Revised American edition of Typee. On the likely reason for this particular deletion, Bryan C. Short observes:

Removal of the “state-room sailors” passage dispels an early belligerence out of tune with Tommo’s narrative personality in the rest of the work. --Bryan C. Short, "The Author at the Time": Tommo and Melville's Self-Discovery in Typee.

Rewriting the Sweetwater, August 1852

Photo by Tom Rea via WyoHistory

This is only a sample of the extensive rewrite inspired by Philip St George Cooke's 1845 description in Sketches of the Great West of the "coquetting" Sweetwater. The rewrite, including added dialogue between the narrator and his imaginary prairie friend "Frank," runs through two installments of Scenes Beyond the Western Border, August 1852 and September 1852. Here I want to isolate a few of the elements added in revision.

From Cooke's 1845 Sketches of the Great West:

The beautiful Sweetwater, pure as the ice from which it flows over golden (mica) sands, seems carefully to avoid a blue range of fir-clad mountains, which bounds its wide valley at the south, and cleaves to the primitive rocks―

From "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," August 1852 installment:

... certain it is, this merry little river, whose sparkling waters often demurely purl over golden sands, this very coquette of all the mountain offspring, if it ever approaches the fir-clad mountains of soft, inviting blue, turns suddenly back; leaves, too, the grassy bed of the valley, and cleaves to the stern rocks....

"beautiful" revised to "merry little"
"a kind of merry little walk" --Melville's January 20, 1845 letter to his sister, Kate 

sparkling added: a favorite adjective to describe water in Melville's writing, for example: 

"streams of sparkling water" --Encantadas Sketch Fourth 

"flows" changed to "demurely purl"

"Down each of these little valleys
flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form of a
slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it burst upon
the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last
demurely wanders along to the sea." --Typee

"watered by purling brooks"  --Typee, chapter 2

grassy added

Oh, grassy glades! --Moby-Dick, The Gilder  

the grassy billows --John Marr 

"primitive" revised to "stern" 

"... some stern thing of antediluvian art." --Herman Melville's Pierre

Melville's use of "stern" with "antediluvian' in the Enceladus chapter from Pierre makes a fascinating association in view of the revision from "primitive rocks" to "stern rocks" in Scenes Beyond the Western Border. Melville's narrator also is describing remarkable rocks, and one in particular named "Enceladus" after the ancient Titan. Melville's expression "stern thing of antediluvian art" involves the same mental or conceptual association of "primitive" and "stern" evident in the 1852 revision.

In mid field again you paused among the recumbent sphinx-like shapes thrown off from the rocky steep. You paused; fixed by a form defiant, a form of awfulness. You saw Enceladus the Titan, the most potent of all the giants, writhing from out the imprisoning earth;—turbaned with up-born moss he writhed; still, though armless, resisting with his whole striving trunk, the Pelion and the Ossa hurled back at him ;—turbaned with upborn moss he writhed; still turning his unconquerable front toward that majestic mount eternally in vain assailed by him, and which, when it had stormed him off, had heaved his undoffable incubus upon him, and deridingly left him there to bay out his ineffectual howl. 

To Pierre this wondrous shape had always been a thing of interest, though hitherto all its latent significance had never fully and intelligibly smitten him. In his earlier boyhood a strolling company of young collegian pedestrians had chanced to light upon the rock; and, struck with its remarkableness, had brought a score of picks and spades, and dug round it to unearth it, and find whether indeed it were a demoniac freak of nature, or some stern thing of antediluvian art.

Image Credit: Stone Structures

quick-witted valets

My quick-witted attendant [Kory-Kory] fully appreciated the compliment I was paying to the costume of his race, and began more sedulously to arrange the folds of the one only garment which remained to me.  (Typee)

I. F. ... "Did you ever remark that his valets are often the most intelligent and quickwitted of his characters?" (Scenes Beyond the Western Border, January 1852)

The Captain's Imaginary Friend is talking about valets in the novels of G. P. R. James, specifically Jean Marais in The False Heir.

Strange to say, the servant's name is misspelled Marois in both the magazine and book version.

likes to say "Heaven help"

Heaven help the “Isles of the Sea!”—The sympathy which Christendom feels for them has, alas! in too many instances proved their bane.  (Typee)

To be short, Annatoo was a Tartar, a regular Calmuc, and Samoa—Heaven help him—her husband.  (Mardi)

"In either case, Heaven help the sailors, their wives, and their little ones; and Heaven help the underwriters." (White-Jacket)

"If you yourself can withstand three cheers at beholding these vivacious fish, then heaven help ye; the spirit of godly gamesomeness is not in ye." (Moby-Dick)

I. F. "Heaven help you of your mood! I give it up."  (June 1852)

"... the women generally are seen to weep. Heaven help them!"  (September 1852)

Anglo-Saxon Depredations

Billy Frank, Jr.

I. F. "Yes, far sweeter than this dark forest, fit haunt for Druids! There were bowers, fragrant with rich wild blossoms, vocal with the songs of birds! Under their arching vines the eye enjoyed a picture where the light danced upon bright leaves, shaken by gentle airs and which the smooth green hills and distant groves completed!"

"No fancy picture either! But I am not in that vein. How long will your "bowers," scanty though they be, escape the Vandal axe? How long will the law, the parchment defence of the weak red man, resist the Saxon?
(September 1851; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

"The Anglo-Saxon hive have extirpated Paganism from the greater part of the North American continent; but with it they have likewise extirpated the greater portion of the Red race."  (Typee)

The Anglo-Saxons--lacking grace
To win the love of any race;
Hated by myriads dispossessed 
Of rights--the Indians East and West.
These pirates of the sphere! grave looters--
Grave, canting, Mammonite freebooters,
Who in the name of Christ and Trade
(Oh, bucklered forehead of the brass!) 
Deflower the world's last sylvan glade!"  (Clarel 4.9)

UPDATE:  For "Vandal" as an adjective, compare the "Vandal axe" in "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" with Melville's "Vandal burn" in Clarel 2.29.

no fancy picture / sketch / piece

"No fancy picture either!"  (September 1851; and Scenes and Adventures)

 "This picture is no fancy sketch...."  (Typee)

"Undoubtedly a portrait, and no fancy-piece...." (Pierre)

on civilization

Review of Typee in Graham's Magazine (May 1846):

[Mr. Melville] writes of what he has seen con amore, and at times almost loses his loyalty to civilization and the Anglo-Saxon race.... "The white civilized man," he considers to be entitled, in point of "remorseless cruelty," to the dubious honor of being " the most ferocious animal on the face of the earth."  So far he seems to think sailors and missionaries have carried little to the barbarous nations which have come under his notice, but disease, starvation and death.

"As a philanthropist in general, and a friend to the Polynesians in particular, I hope that these Edens of the South Seas, blessed with fertile soils and peopled with happy natives, many being yet uncontaminated by the contact of civilization, will long remain unspoiled in their simplicity, beauty, and purity. And as for annexation, I beg to offer up an earnest prayer—and I entreat all present and all Christians to join me in it—that the banns of that union should be forbidden until we have found for ourselves a civilization morally, mentally, and physically higher than one which has culminated in almshouses, prisons, and hospitals.'  (Close of Melville's 1859 lecture on "The South Seas," as reconstructed by Merton M. Sealts, Jr. in Melville as Lecturer)

 "Civilization ever advances sword in hand, with poisons, pestilence and crime in her train."

("Scenes Beyond the Western Border," May 1853; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

really wants to converse

There was no one with whom I could freely converse; no one to whom I could communicate my thoughts; no one who could sympathize with my sufferings. (Typee)

"They Converse of the Mollusca, Kings, Toad-stools and other Matter"  (Mardi)

Have tried to read, but found it hard work. However, there are some very pleasant passengers on board, with whom to converse.  (1849 Journal)

More familiarly to consort, men of a practical turn must sympathetically converse, and upon topics of real life.  (“John Marr” prose headnote)

 and here as a noun, but again the theme of wanting (though usually not getting) a good conversation:

In this line of reading he found confirmation of his own more reasoned thoughts--confirmation which he had vainly sought in social converse….  (BillyBudd)

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.   

(opening lines of first installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," Southern Literary Messenger vol. 17, June 1851, 372; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, Part II.)

grim warriors and ghosts

"I loved to yield myself up to the fanciful superstition of the islanders, and could almost believe that the grim warrior was bound heavenward. . . ."  (Typee)

over that grim warrior's grave  (Mardi)

"On that very camp-bedstead, there, beneath his tent on the field, the glorious old mild-eyed and warrior-hearted General had slept, and but waked to buckle his knight-making sword by his side; for it was noble knighthood to be slain by grand Pierre; in the other world his foes' ghosts bragged of the hand that had given them their passports."  (Pierre)

" 'tis enough to disturb the ghosts of the grim old warriors...."
Scenes Beyond the Western Border and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army

going down to posterity

"... 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!"  (March 1853)

Melville on Cooper:

"He was a great, robust-souled man, all whose merits are not even yet fully appreciated.  But a grateful posterity will take the best of Care of Fenimore Cooper."  (December 1851)

 Melville on Melville:

My dear Sir, they begin to patronize. All Fame is patronage. Let me be infamous: there is no patronage in that. What “reputation” H.M. has is horrible. Think of it ! To go down to posterity is bad enough, any way; but to go down as a “man who lived among the cannibals”! When I speak of posterity, in reference to myself, I only mean the babies who will probably be born in the moment immediately ensuing upon my giving up the ghost. I shall go down to some of them, in all likelihood. Typee will be given to them, perhaps, with their gingerbread. 
(Letter to Nathaniel Hawthorne, early May 1851)

moods and tenses

"Candid! Would you prefer discussing 'sacred fountains and groves?' "

Friend.—That, ingrate, was only to flatter a little, for once, your humor, your "mood,"—which, in all its tenses, I should call the doubtful.
(Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

"In the Missionary College at Lahainaluna, on Maui, one of the Sandwich Islands, I saw a tabular exhibition of a Hawaiian verb, conjugated through all its moods and tenses. It covered the side of a considerable apartment, and I doubt whether Sir William Jones himself would not have despaired of mastering it."  (Typee)

"Each conjugation will I curb,
All moods and tenses of the verb...."  (Clarel 2.3)

respect for women the test of nobility

I[maginary]. F[riend]. “All must observe that the noblest, and in general the most eminent men, evince the highest regard for women; that a profound and deferential respect for them is the first characteristic of a perfect gentleman.”
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

“… and if the degree of consideration in which the ever-adorable sex is held by the men be—as the philosophers affirm—a just criterion of the degree of refinement among a people, then I may truly pronounce the Typees to be as polished a community as ever the sun shone upon. … Nowhere are the ladies more assiduously courted; nowhere are they better appreciated as the contributors to our highest enjoyments; and nowhere are they more sensible of their power.”  (Typee)

UPDATE:  For the whole prairie dialogue on social injustices to women, see here.  For another instance in Melville's writings of the same theme, check out the pseudo-biographical sketch of the "Marquis de Grandvin" from the so-called "Burgundy Club" manuscript:

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.
(The Marquis de Grandvin)

 * * *

“How generally in society, with the audacious, but seldom denied claim to civilization, do men, (alas! uneducated,) like savages, look upon them and treat them as drudges; laborers in their service and ministers to their pleasure."
(Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army)

“Far different from their condition among many rude nations, where the women are made to perform all the work while their ungallant lords and masters lie buried in sloth….” (Typee)

demurely

"this merry little river, whose sparkling waters often demurely purl over golden sands..."

Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852), 506; and
Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Down each of these little valleys flows a clear stream, here and there assuming the form of a slender cascade, then stealing invisibly along until it bursts upon the sight again in larger and more noisy waterfalls, and at last demurely wanders along to the sea.  (Typee)

pop-guns

"'...let us shoot popguns at least, against the solid bulwarks where folly and selfishness sit enthroned.'"  --Scenes Beyond the Western Border, Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852) page 507; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army, page 355.

For three or four hours I was engaged in manufacturing pop-guns,but at last made over my good-will and interest in the concern to a lad of remarkably quick parts, whom I soon initiated into the art and mystery.
Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop, now resounded all over the valley. Duels, skirmishes, pitched battles, and general engagements were to be seen on every side. Here, as you walked along a path which led through a thicket, you fell into a cunningly laid ambush, and became a target for a body of musketeers whose tattooed limbs you could just see peeping into view through the foliage. There you were assailed by the intrepid garrison of a house, who levelled their bamboo rifles at you from between the upright canes which composed its sides. Farther on you were fired upon by a detachment of sharpshooters, mounted upon the top of a pi-pi.

Pop, Pop, Pop, Pop! green guavas, seeds, and berries were flying about in every direction, and during this dangerous state of affairs I was half afraid that, like the man and his brazen bull, I should fall a victim to my own ingenuity. Like everything else, however, the excitement gradually wore away, though ever after occasionally pop-guns might be heard at all hours of the day.--Typee chapter 19.

brilliancy deleted, why?

March 1853

"But those rosy hours will be reflected on the gloom of all years. As, after a day of sombre clouds and wintry winds, suddenly the sun lights up the dreary horizon with lovely brilliancy,—so comes a smile out of the cloudy Past, like a gleam of heavenly light."

1857

"But those rosy hours will be reflected on the gloom of all years. As, in a day of sombre clouds and wintry winds, suddenly the sun sends athwart the earth and sky a dazzling beam,—so comes a smile out of the dreamy Past, like a ray of heavenly light."

What's wrong with "lights up the dreary horizon with lovely brilliancy"?  Too close to language and imagery in Melville's first book:

"...enormous flambeaux, lighting up with a startling brilliancy..."
(Typee, chapter 28)