"Only too true! Other works of genius are scarcely
recognized: poetry is as dead as astrology: life is exhausted, and the mind overpowered by the accumulation of facts." --June 1852 Scenes Beyond the Western Border; and revised in Scenes and Adventures in the Army ("by the accumulation of facts" changed to "in the attempt to master a vast accumulation of facts.")
PIERRE (1852)
And though this state of things, united with the ever multiplying freshets of new books, seems inevitably to point to a coming time, when the mass of humanity reduced to one level of dotage, authors shall be scarce as alchymists are to-day, and the printing-press be reckoned a small invention.... --Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities
Scenes Beyond the Western Border Southern Literary Messenger 18 (August 1852): 506
The revised 1857 version switches prepositions in and with: calm "with which" revised to calm "in which"; "in fairy creations" then becomes "with fairy creations."
It is near midnight. Silence reigns in the desert; but now and then come the cries of wolves from the mountains. They give an almost supernatural tone to these solemn solitudes. The repose which twenty hours of excitement and toil demand, is banished. Hark! how they howl! Be grandly dreary, and ye will be attuned to the heart! Yes, never better to a sentimental girl the gentlest breathings of an AEolian harp. Ah! how very doleful is that plaint! Never, never, the doleful! Give me the placid calm in which the soul may revel with fairy creations, adorned by all the flowers of thought—or proud action, the storm of wild and passionate will. The gilded and painted memory, or fierce oblivion.
MOBY-DICK (1851)
“Great God! but for one single instant show thyself,” cried Starbuck; “never, never wilt thou capture him, old man— --Chapter 134, The Chase—Second Day.
PIERRE (1852)
Then,
swear to me, dear Pierre, that thou wilt never keep a secret from
me—no, never, never;—swear!" 1852 first edition, page 49
Nay, nay, groaned Pierre, never, never, could such syllables be one instant tolerated by her. --page 120
And Pierre felt
that never, never would he be able to embrace Isabel with the mere
brotherly embrace; --page 193
In the same passage from Scenes Beyond the Western Border (August 1852) with "Never, never", the figurative AEolian harp communicates a "plaint" described as "doleful"; in Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities (first published at the end of July 1852), Isabel's guitar voices her "melancholy plaints":
But the wonderful melodiousness of her grief had touched the secret monochord within his breast, by an apparent magic, precisely similar to that which had moved the stringed tongue of her guitar to respond to the heart-strings of her own melancholy plaints. --Page 234
THE PIAZZA (1856)
"Oh, sir," tears starting in her eyes, "the first time I looked out of this window, I said 'never, never shall I weary of this.'" --first story in Melville's The Piazza Tales
How am I changed, that my appearance on any scene should have power to work such woe? --Herman Melville, Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities (1852)
SCENES BEYOND THE WESTERN BORDER
In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.
It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this
dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage,
was in "high" tragedy—
By
infallible presentiment he saw, that not always doth life's beginning
gloom conclude in gladness; that wedding-bells peal not ever in the last scene of life's fifth act....
Decreed by God Omnipotent it is, that Death should be the last scene of the last act of man's play;—a play, which begin how it may, in farce or comedy, ever hath its tragic end; the curtain inevitably falls upon a corpse.
In the examples below, all from Moby-Dick (1851) and Pierre (1852), the reflexive pronoun himself functions also as an intensive pronoun that emphasizes its antecedent (the noun, pronoun, or proper noun that comes before it). Page numbers refer to First American editions, digitized and available online courtesy of HathiTrust Digital Library:
In crossing the Platte this morning, the grizzly bear cub came on the scene in his final act.
It will be remembered by the patient and attentive future reader of this dry and methodical narrative, that its first appearance on any stage, was in "high" tragedy—that the first act embraced an unusual amount of sanguinary incident—that an innocent brother, (or sister,) being ruthlessly slain, and the baffled lady-mother left (unceremoniously) full of towering and demonstrative rage,— the imprisoned hero himself sank overwhelmed,—or in a well-acted counterfeit of death, (and was borne off, remember, on a "real" horse). That in the next act, (and three acts shall do for the tragedy of my bear,—originally they had but one,—but that was at the sacrifice of a goat,) he came to life in a manner that might very well have been criticized as an overdone piece of stage-effect,—but that in fact, the spectators were much moved, and gave full credit to the dangerous passion of his howl.
To-day, then,—for I scorn anachronism— was performed the final act. The
stage (wagon) was on "real water." Enraged at his wrongs, his losses,
and his galling chain, the "robustious beast" acted in a ridiculous and
unbearable manner; aye, ''tore his passion to tatters, to very rags,"—splinters;
the stage (wagon) could not hold him: and finally in despair, he
"imitated humanity so abominably," as to throw himself headlong, and so
drown—or hang himself: (the author cannot decide which—even after a post mortem examination;—and so leaves the decision of this important point to the commentators).
My tragedy is all true,—and if not quite serious, has, as is proper, its
moral;—but rather, as I have alluded to the primitive tragedy, let that
"future reader" here imagine the entry of Chorus, and their song to
Freedom! That 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! (It is not possible, I think, that the cub could
have known that I would immortalize him.) --March 1853 Scenes Beyond the Western Border"; and Scenes and Adventures in the Army.
An hour—almost of happiness—passes, and we take up our burdens and part forever!
I. F. [Imaginary Friend] ... Your 'almost happiness!' — and 'burden,' of life did you mean? for I never saw one lighter mounted on a finer horse!
Southern Literary Messenger - April 1852
SCENES AND ADVENTURES IN THE ARMY (1857)
Friend. ... Your "almost happiness!"— and "burden," of life did you mean? for I never saw one lighter mounted on a finer horse! --Scenes and Adventures in the Army
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
