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.

Deleting "as of a"; adding direful and Titanic

Suddenly, with  a crash, as of a mountain of rock torn asunder....  --May 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border

Revisions to the May 1853 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" in the Southern Literary Messenger include deletion of the simile introduced with the expression, "as of a...." Cutting "as of a" transforms the metaphorical "mountain of rock" into literal "rocks," vividly re-figured after revision as "Titanic."

But suddenly, with a direful crash amid the Titanic rocks....  --Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Also added in revision, along with "Titanic": the adjective "direful" that describes the "crash" which has been made a more immediate and literal, less metaphorical sound, by deleting "as of a." Deleted or added, the verbal elements of this fascinating revision site are all exampled in Herman Melville's writing. The words direful and Titanic feature with particular significance in Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre (1852), respectively.

AS OF A

And now, loud above the roar of the sea, was suddenly heard a sharp, splintering sound, as of a Norway woodman felling a pine in the forest.  --Mardi: And A Voyage Thither

Touched by the breath of the bereaved Aurora, every sunrise that statue gave forth a mournful broken sound, as of a harp-string suddenly sundered, being too harshly wound.  --Pierre; or, The Ambiguities

DIREFUL
The word direful occurs 10x in Moby-Dick; or The Whale for example:

white curds of the whale's direful wrath --Moby Dick

Borean and dismasting blasts as direful as any that lash the salted wave; --The Town-Ho's Story

That direful mishap was at the bottom of his temporary recluseness.--Ahab's Leg

and once in Pierre; or, The Ambiguities:

 not entirely untempered to human nature are the most direful blasts of Fate. 

TITANIC
4x in Pierre; or The Ambiguities

a fearful pile of Titanic bricks 

 this Inferno of his Titanic vision.

the mountain once called Delectable, but now styled Titanic.

But now at last since the very blood in his body had in vain rebelled against his Titanic soul;

Such was the wild scenery—the Mount of Titans,

Related post:

• Memnon and Mount Pike

something in the idea of

"There is something in the idea of grandeur with which these high plains inspire me, that I cannot fully understand."  --Scenes Beyond the Western Border - August 1852; deleted in revision, not in the book version of this passage as published in Scenes and Adventures in the Army (Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1857), page 361.

"... yet for all these accumulated associations, with whatever is sweet, and honorable, and sublime, there yet lurks an elusive something in the innermost idea of this hue, which strikes more of panic to the soul than that redness which affrights in blood."  --Moby-Dick chapter 42, The Whiteness of the Whale.

"WHALES—a word, which, in the popular sense, always conveys an idea of hugeness."  --Moby-Dick chapter 32, Cetology

In revision of the August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border, "I cannot fully understand" at the end of a sentence:

"There is something in the idea of grandeur with which these high plains inspire me, that I cannot fully understand."

Scenes Beyond the Western Border - August 1852

 was changed to "I cannot tell why..." at the start of a new sentence:

"I cannot tell why,—but even with the snow-peaks in view, it seemed the summit of the earth."

Scenes and Adventures in the Army - page 361

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly...."
--Moby-Dick, Loomings

Compare too (while we're at it) this part, deleted in revision:

the idea of grandeur with which these high plains inspire me

with a similar collocation in Moby-Dick of abstract noun (here horror; there grandeur) plus "with which" plus "inspire":

the peculiar horror with which he seemed to inspire the rest of the herd

Busted again, right?

Why so dull?

"Why so dull?" --Babbalanja in Melville's Mardi: And a Voyage Thither

"Ah, why so dull?" --I. F. [Imaginary Friend] in the September 1851 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

More accusations of dullness, in dialogue:

"How very dull you are."  --deleted in revision of Melville's The Lightning-Rod Man (appears in Putnam's magazine but not The Piazza Tales.

I. F. "Talk of dullness! and you are half asleep, and have just made a pun that is malicious premeditated dullness."  --September 1851 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army

Something of the sort

The highlighted line by C. in this prairie dialogue from the August 1852 installment of Scenes Beyond the Western Border was deleted in revision and does not appear in the 1857 book version.

F. "Is it not the impression of massiveness, which the extent of the level shape adds to the effect of height?

C. "Something of the sort:—perhaps so.... 
--August 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border

 "Something of the sort" in the 1852 version was changed to "There may be something in that."

 PIERRE - 1852

• Already Pierre had anticipated something of this sort;

• I believe I was dreaming—sleep-walking, or something of that sort.

CORRESPONDENCE - May 1851

•  "So, when you see or hear of my ruthless democracy on all sides, you may possibly feel a touch of a shrink, or something of that sort"

MOBY-DICK - 1851

• I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind.”

• ever since then has something of the same sort of license prevailed....

• “Oh, I never hurt when I hit, except when I hit a whale or something of that sort; 

• his silver watch, or his soul, or something of that sort....

MARDI - 1849

... Traitor, I'll stand by this to the last gasp, you are inebriated, Babbalanja."

"Perhaps so, my lord; but I was treating of the imagination, may it please you."

"It seems to have been added for a postscript," rejoined Braid-Beard, screwing his eyes again.

"Perhaps so," said Babbalanja, "but some wag must have done it."

Nerves, strong coffee

Old subjects but perhaps worth another look--especially in view of deletions in the book version...



 March 1853-Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

But now, "the morn is up again,"—and we have marched many miles fasting, and have been attracted through a turbid river by the sight of grass, and have stopped for breakfast under some cotton woods,—and in their shade I am scribbling with a pencil—

F.—"Yes, and fine work you are making of it! The day should commence with the morning, and the brighter the better; not with the nightmare of a sleeper, who should have watched."

C.—"Perhaps a nervous fit—from your strong coffee?"

Herman Melville, Redburn: His First Voyage

... the fact was, his nerves could not stand it; in the course of his courtly career, he had drunk too much strong Mocha coffee and gunpowder tea, and had smoked altogether too many Havannas.

White-Jacket chapter 83 A Man-of-War College

... owing to his partiality for strong coffee, he was apt to be nervous when we fired salutes....

March 1853-Scenes Beyond the Western Border:

F.—"Now, listen to the song of that bird; it will soothe your nerves."

C.—"Nerves! It is medicine to the mind!—it comes like a message of love!"

The book version of this invented prairie dialogue drops all reference to nerves and coffee.

July 7th.—But now, "the morn is up again," and we have marched many miles fasting, and have been attracted over the turbid river by the sight of grass, and have stopped and breakfasted under some cotton-woods; and in their shade my pipe and pencil are struggling for exclusive attention;—but pipe has it!—for here comes my sympathetic companion of the night, looking as discontented as if he had not been luxuriously talked to sleep.

"What's the matter?"

Friend.—O, confound the bivouac! the dew or frost has got into my joints.

"Delicate, indeed!"

Friend.—I believe this the very Valley of Acheron! in fact I had bad dreams,—of midnight incantations,— infernal revels.

"Pshaw! it was a calm and beautiful night; and never shone the stars through purer air, into the dark mountain vale. Listen to that sweet bird! it is piping now of some dream of love."  --Scenes and Adventures in the Army

  Herman Melville, 1849 journal entry:

I impute the nightmare to a cup of prodigiously strong coffee...

 Herman Melville, Letter to Catherine Gansevoort Lansing (12 August 1878):

After two prodigious bumpers of coffee at the depot (from the effect of which I have hardly yet recovered)...

Echoes

HERMAN MELVILLE'S PIERRE (first published at the end of July 1852):

Not his refined, courtly, loving, equable mother, Pierre felt, could unreservedly, and like a heaven's heroine, meet the shock of his extraordinary emergency, and applaud, to his heart's echo, a sublime resolve, whose execution should call down the astonishment and the jeers of the world.

"... does not that involve for thee unending misery? And my truthful soul would echo—Unending misery!"  --Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities

 MARCH 1853 - SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER, reprinted in Part II of Scenes and Adventures in the Army (subtitle: "Romance of Military Life"; working title: "Fragments of a Military Life"):

Southern Literary Messenger - March 1853

"... Chill winds wail,—wild beasts howl,—and my heart echoes, 'Far—lone—forgot.'"
--Scenes Beyond the Western Border

 ***

 Oh, Yillah, Yillah! All the woods repeat the sound, the wild, wild woods of my wild soul. Yillah! Yillah! cry the small strange voices in me, and evermore, and far and deep, they echo on. --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither - Volume 1

 "Amen! amen! amen!" cried echoes echoing echoes.  --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither - Volume 2