Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic
see his face it would be a pleasant one.” While such pronouncements
were no earnest of fame, they may have contributed somewhat to augment
Melville’s royalties. And in _Mardi_--written before Melville’s secular
critics began to assail him--Melville took a violent fling at his
reviewers. “True critics,” he said, “are more rare than true poets. A
great critic is a sultan among satraps; but pretenders are thick as
ants striving to scale a palm after its aerial sweetness. Oh! that an
eagle should be stabbed by a goose-quill!” Withal, when Melville wrote
_Mardi_ he had spent some reflection on the nature of Fame, and mocked
at those who console themselves for the neglect of their contemporaries
by bethinking themselves of the glorious harvest of bravos their ghosts
will reap. And time, he saw, was an undertaker, not a resurrectionist:
“He who on all hands passes for a cipher to-day, if at all remembered,
will be sure to pass to-morrow for the same. For there is more
likelihood of being overrated while living than of being underrated
when dead.”
Noticed by reviewers, and encouraged by payments from his publishers,
Melville began to look more hopefully at the world. In _Clarel_ he
later wrote: “The dagger-icicle draws blood; but give it sun.” He
seemed at last to have stepped decoratively and profitably into his
assigned niche in the cosmic order. It was delightful to rehearse
outlived pleasures and hardships; and it was a lucrative delight:
by writing, too, some men had achieved fame. And so, undeterred
by the wail of the Preacher of Jerusalem, Melville settled to the
multiplication of books. He would perpetuate his reveries--and he
doubted not that sparkling wines would crown his cup. Then it was that
the beckoning image of an ultimate earthly felicity swam over the
beaded brim.
Melville had dedicated _Typee_ to Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw of
Massachusetts. The Shaws and the Melvilles were friends of years’
standing. When a student at Amherst, Lemuel Shaw had been engaged to
Melville’s aunt, Nancy. “To his death,” says Frederic Hathway Chase in
his _Lemuel Shaw_, “Shaw carefully preserved two tender notes written
in the delicate hand of his first betrothed, timidly referring to
their immature plans for the future and her admiration and love for
him. The untimely death of the young lady, unhappily cut short their
youthful dreams, and not until he was thirty-seven years of age were
Shaw’s affections again engaged. The intimacy between Shaw and the
Melville family, however, continued after the young lady’s death.” Yet
were the demands of Shaw’s affections not satisfied by his intimacy
with the Melvilles or by the two love-letters among his precious
belongings. He married twice; the first time in 1818 to Elizabeth
Knapp; the second time in 1827 to Hope Savage. By each wife he had two
children. By Elizabeth, John Oakes, who died in 1902; and Elizabeth,
who married Melville. By Hope, was born to him Lemuel, who lived till
1884, and Samuel Savage, born in 1833 in the Shaw home at 49 Mount
Vernon Street, Boston, where he lived till his death in 1915. Melville
heartily detested his brothers-in-law.
On March 19, 1846, Melville wrote from Lansingburg to Chief Justice
Shaw:
“MY DEAR SIR:
“Herewith you have one of the first bound copies of _Typee_ I have
been able to procure--the dedication is very simple, for the world
would hardly have sympathised to the full extent of those feelings
with which I regard my father’s friend and the constant friend of all
his family.
“I hope that the perusal of this little narrative of mine will afford
you some entertainment, even if it should not possess much other
merit. Your knowing the author so well, will impart some interest
to it.--I intended to have sent at the same time with this copies
of _Typee_ for each of my aunts, but have been disappointed in
not receiving as many as I expected.--I mention, however, in the
accompanying letter to my Aunt Priscilla that they shall soon be
forthcoming.
“Remember me most warmly to Mrs. Shaw & Miss Elizabeth, and to all
your family, & tell them I shall not soon forget that agreeable visit
to Boston.
“With sincere respect, Judge Shaw, I remain gratefully & truly yours,
“HERMAN MELVILLE.
“CHIEF JUSTICE SHAW,
”Boston.”
The Aunt Priscilla mentioned in this letter was a sister of Melville’s
father--fifth child of Major Thomas Melville. She was born in 1784, and
upon her death in 1862, she showed that her appreciation of Melville’s
earlier solicitude had been substantial, by bequeathing him nine
hundred dollars. The Miss Elizabeth of the letter, the only daughter of
Chief Justice Shaw, and Melville were married on August 4, 1847.
On the evidence of surviving records, Melville’s father had resigned
himself to the institution of marriage as to one of the established
conveniences of Christendom. Allan was a practical man, and he soberly
saw that he gained more than he lost by generously sharing his bed
and the fireside zone with a competent accessory to his domestic
comforts. If he was ever a romantic lover, it was in the folly of his
youth. Though romantic love be a tingling holiday extravagance, he
mistrusted--and Allan never doubted his wisdom--its everyday useability
for a cautious and peace-loving man. And since Dante had married Gemma
Donati, since Petrarch had had children by an unknown concubine, Maria
had reason to congratulate herself that Allan evinced for her no
adoration of the kind lavished upon the sainted Beatrice or upon the
unattainable Laura.
In his approach to marriage, Melville showed none of the prosaic
circumspection of his father. From his idealisation of the proud
cold purity of Maria, Melville built up a haloed image of the wonder
and mystery of sanctified womanhood: without blemish, unclouded,
snow-white, terrible, yet serene. And before this image Melville
poured out the fulness of his most reverential thoughts and beliefs.
The very profundity of his frustrated love for Maria, and the accusing
incompatibility between the image and the fact, made his early life a
futile and desperate attempt to escape from himself. The peace, and at
the same time the stupendous discovery that he craved: that he found
neither at home nor over the rim of the world. When with Maria, he had
craved to put oceans between them; when so estranged, he was parched to
return.
In his wanderings, he had seen sights, and lived through experiences to
disabuse him of his fantastic idealisation of woman. In fact, however,
such experiences may but tend to heighten idealisation. In the Middle
Age, the Blessed Mother was celebrated in a duality of perplexing
incompatibility: she was at once the Virgin Mother of the Son of God,
and the patron of thieves, harlots and cutthroats. She was at once an
object of worship and a subject of farce. She was woman. Protestantism,
restoring woman to her original Hebraic dignity of a discarded rib,
evinced in marriage an essentially biological interest, and regulated
romantic love into uxoriousness. Allan was a good Protestant. But
neither Mrs. Chapone nor Fayaway were able to precipitate Melville
into that form of heresy. Fayaway was Fayaway: and her father was a
cannibal. Civilisation had given her no veils; Christianity had given
her no compunctons. She was neither a mystery nor a sin. Untouched did
she leave the sacred image in his heart.
To Elizabeth Shaw, Melville transferred his idealisation of his
mother. In _Pierre_ he says: “this softened spell which wheeled the
mother and son in one orbit of joy seemed a glimpse of the glorious
possibility, of the divinest of those emotions which are incident to
the sweetest season of love.” In _Pierre_, Melville declared that the
ideal possibilities of the love between mother and son, seemed “almost
to realise here below the sweet dreams of those religious enthusiasts,
who paint to us a Paradise to come, when etherealised from all dross
and stains, the holiest passion of man shall unite all kindreds and
climes in one circle of pure and unimpaired delight.” And in this
“courteous lover-like adoration” of son for mother, Melville saw the
“highest and airiest thing in the whole compass of the experience of
our mortal life.” And “this heavenly evanescence,” Melville declares,
“this nameless and infinitely delicate aroma of inexpressible
tenderness and attentiveness,” is, “in every refined and honourable
attachment, contemporary with courtship.” In _Pierre_, Melville
spends a chapter of dithyramb in celebration of this sentiment which,
inspired by one’s mother, one transfers to all other women honourably
loved. “Love may end in age, and pain and need, and all other modes
of human mournfulness; but love begins in joy. Love’s first sigh is
never breathed, till after love hath laughed. Love has not hands, but
cymbals; Love’s mouth is chambered like a bugle, and the instinctive
breathings of his life breathe jubilee notes of joy.” And during his
courtship of Elizabeth Shaw, it seems that in Melville were “the
audacious immortalities of divinest love.”
None of Melville’s letters of courtship survive. There are more direct
evidences of the fruits of his love, than of its early bloom. There
are, however, two letters of his wife’s, written during the month of
the marriage. The first was written during the wedding trip.
“CENTER HARBOR, Aug. 6th, 1847.
“MY DEAR MOTHER:
“You know I promised to write you whenever we came to a stopping
place, and remained long enough. We are now at Center Harbor, a most
lonely and romantic spot at the extremity of Winnipiscogee Lake,
having arrived last evening from Concord--and we intend to remain
until to-morrow. One object in stopping so long and indeed principal
one was to visit ‘Red Hill’--a mountain (commanding a most beautiful
view of the lake) about four miles distant. But to-day it is so
cloudy and dull, I am afraid we shall not be able to accomplish
it--so you see I have a little spare time, and improve it by writing
to relieve any anxiety you may feel. Though this is but the third day
since our departure, it seems as if a long time had passed, we have
seen so many places of novelty and interest. The stage ride yesterday
from Franklin here, though rather fatiguing, was one of great
attraction from the beautiful scenery. To-morrow we again intend to
take the stage to Conway, and from there to the White Mountains. I
will write again from there, and tell you more of what I have seen,
but now I send this missive more to let you know of our safety and
well-being than anything else.
“I hope by this time you have quite recovered from your
indisposition, and that I shall soon hear from you to be assured
of it--I hardly dare to trust myself to speak of what I felt in
leaving home, but under the influence of such commingling thoughts,
it entirely escaped me to tell you of any place to which you might
address a letter to me so that I should be sure to get it. Now I
am _very_ anxious and impatient to hear from you, and I hope you
will lose no time in writing if it be only a very few lines. Herman
desires to add a postscript to my letter, and he will tell you when
and where to write so that I may get it.
“Remember me with affection to father and ask him to let me have
a letter from him soon, to all members of the family and to Mrs.
Melville and the girls--my mother and sisters--how strangely it
sounds. Accept a great deal of love for yourself, my dear mother,
and believe me as ever, your affectionate daughter, Elizabeth--even
though I add to it--Melville--for the first time.
“Friday morning.
“MY DEAR SIR:
“At my desire Lizzie has left a small space for a word or two.--We