Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic
Typee and those Paradise islands, but he preferred to pour forth his
philosophy and his theories of life. The shade of Aristotle arose like
a cold mist between myself and Fayaway. We have quite enough of Greek
philosophy at Williams College, and I confess I was disappointed in
this trend of the talk. But what a talk it was! Melville is transformed
from a Marquesan to a gypsy student, the gypsy element still remaining
strong in him. And this contradiction gives him the air of one who has
suffered from opposition, both literary and social. With his liberal
views he is apparently considered by the good people of Pittsfield as
little better than a cannibal or a ‘beach-comber.’ His attitude seemed
to me something like that of an Ishmael; but perhaps I judged hastily.
I managed to draw him out very freely on everything but the Marquesas
Islands, and when I left him he was in full tide of discourse on all
things sacred and profane. But he seems to put away the objective side
of life and to shut himself up in this cold North as a cloistered
thinker.”
An article appearing in the New York _Times_, under the initials
O. G. H., a week after Melville’s death, said of him:
“He had shot his arrow and made his mark, and was satisfied. With
considerable knowledge of the world, he had preferred to see it from a
distance.... I asked the loan of some of his books which in early life
had given me pleasure and was surprised when he said that he didn’t own
a single copy of them.... I had before noticed that though eloquent in
discussing general literature he was dumb when the subject of his own
writings was broached.”
In her sketch of her husband’s life, Mrs. Melville says: “In February,
1855, he had his first attack of severe rheumatism--and in the
following June an attack of sciatica. Our neighbour in Pittsfield, Dr.
O. W. Holmes, attended and prescribed for him. A severe attack of what
he called crick in the back laid him up at his mother’s in Gansevoort
in March, 1858--and he never regained his former vigour and strength.”
In 1863, so runs the account of J. E. A. Smith, while Melville was in
process of moving from Arrowhead, “he had occasion for some household
articles he left behind, and, with a friend, started in a rude wagon to
procure them. He was driving at a moderate pace over a perfectly smooth
and level road, when a sudden start of the horse threw both occupants
from the wagon; probably on account of an imperfectly secured seat.
Mr. Melville fell with his back in a hollow of the frozen road, and
was very severely injured. Being conveyed to his home by Col. George
S. Willis, near whose farm on Williams Street the accident happened,
he suffered painfully for many weeks. This prolonged agony and the
confinement and interruption of work which it entailed, affected him
strangely. He had been before on mountain excursions a driver daring
almost to the point of recklessness.... After this accident he not
only abandoned the rides of which he had been so fond, but for a time
shrank from entering a carriage. It was long before the shock which
his system had received was overcome; and it is doubtful whether
it ever was completely.” Ill health certainly contributed more to
Melville’s retirement from letters than any of his critics--Mr. Mather
excepted--have ever even remotely suggested.
During the last half of his life, Melville twice journeyed far from
home. In her journal Mrs. Melville says: “In October, 1856, his health
being impaired by too close application, he again sailed for London.
He went up the Mediterranean to Constantinople and the Holy Land. For
much of his observation and reflection in that interesting quarter
see his poem of _Clarel_. Sailed for home on the steamer _City of
Manchester_ May 6, 1857. In May, 1860, he made a voyage to San
Francisco, sailing from Boston on the 30th of May with his brother
Thomas Melville who commanded the _Meteor_, a fast sailing clipper
in the China trade--and returning in November, he being the only
passenger. He reached San Francisco Oct. 12th--returned in the _Carter_
Oct. 20 to Panama--crossed the Isthmus & sailed for New York on the
_North Star_. This voyage to San Francisco has been incorrectly given
in many of the papers of the day.”
Of this trip to the Holy Land there survive, beside _Clarel_ and
Hawthorne’s accounts of the meeting _en route_, a long and closely
written journal that Melville kept during the trip, and twenty-one
shorter poems printed in _Timoleon_ under the caption “Fruit of Travel
Long Ago.” Typical of these shorter poems is
THE APPARITION
(The Parthenon uplifted on its rock first challenging the view on the
approach to Athens)
Abrupt the supernatural Cross,
Vivid in startled air,
Smote the Emperor Constantine
And turned his soul’s allegiance there
With other power appealing down,
Trophy of Adam’s best!
If cynic minds you scarce convert
You try them, shake them, or molest.
Diogenes, that honest heart,
Lived ere your date began:
Thee had he seen, he might have swerved
In mood nor barked so much at man.
The journal was surely never written with a view to publication. It
is a staccato jotting down of impressions, chiefly interesting (as is
Dr. Johnson’s French journal) as another evidence of Melville’s scope
of curiosity and keenness of observation. A typical entry is that for
Saturday, December 13,--Melville’s first day in Constantinople:
“Up early; went out; saw cemeteries where they dumped garbage. Sawing
wood over a tomb. Forest of cemeteries. Intricacies of the streets.
Started alone for Constantinople and after a terrible long walk found
myself back where I started. Just like getting lost in a wood. No plan
to streets. Pocket compass. Perfect labyrinth. Narrow. Close, shut
in. If one could but get _up_ aloft, it would be easy to see one’s
way out. If you could get up into a tree. Soar out of the maze. But
no. No names to the streets no more than to natural alleys among the
groves. No numbers, no anything. Breakfasted at 10 A. M. Took guide
($1.25 per day) and started for tour. Took Cargua for Seraglio. Holy
ground. Crossed some extensive grounds and gardens. Fine buildings of
the Saracenic style. Saw the Mosque of St. Sophia. Went in. Rascally
priests demanding ‘baksheesh.’ Fleeced me out of 1/2 dollar; following
me round, selling the fallen mosaics. Ascended a kind of hose way
leading up, round and round. Came into a gallery fifty feet above the
floor. Superb interior. Precious marbles. Prophyry & Verd antique.
Immense magnitude of the building. Names of the prophets in great
letters. Roman Catholic air to the whole. To the hippodrome, near which
stands the six towered mosque of Sultan Achmed; soaring up with its
snowy white spires into the pure blue sky. Like light-houses. Nothing
finer. In the hippodrome saw the obelisk with Roman inscription on the
base. Also a broken monument of bronze, representing three twisted
serpents erect upon their tails. Heads broken off. Also a square
monument of masoned blocks. Leaning over and frittered away,--like
an old chimney stack. A Greek inscription shows it to be of the time
of Theodoric. Sculpture about the base of the obelisk, representing
Constantine & wife and sons, &c. Then saw the ‘Burnt Column.’ Black and
grimy enough & hooped about with iron. Stands soaring up from among a
bundle of old wooden stakes. A more striking fire mount than that of
London. Then to the cistern of 1001 columns. You see a rounded knoll
covered with close herbage. Then a kind of broken cellar-way you go
down, and find yourself on a wooden, rickety platform, looking down
into a grove of marble pillars, fading away into the darkness. A
palatial sort of Tartarus. Two tiers of pillars, one standing on the
other; lower tier half buried. Here and there a little light percolates
through from breaks in the keys of the arches; where bits of green
struggle down. Used to be a reservoir. Now full of boys twisting silk.
Great hubbub. Flit about like imps. Whirr of the spinning Jenns. In
going down, (as into a ship’s hold) and wandering about, have to beware
the innumerable skeins of silk. Terrible place to be robbed or murdered
in. At whatever place you look, you see lines of pillars, like trees in
an orchard arranged in the quincunx style.--Came out. Overhead looks
like a mere shabby common, or worn out sheep pasture.--To the bazaar.
A wilderness of traffic. Furniture, arms, silks, confectionery, shoes,
saddles,--everything. (Cario) Covered overhead with stone arches,
with wide openings. Immense crowds. Georgians, Armenians, Greeks,
Jews & Turks are the merchants. Magnificent embroidered silk & gilt
sabres & caparisons for horses. You lose yourself & are bewildered and
confounded with the labyrinth, the din, the barbaric confusion of the
whole.--Went to Watch Tower within a kind of arsenal (Immense arsenal)
the tower of vast girth & height in the Saracenic style--a column. From
the top, my God, what a view! Surpassing everything. The Propontis, the
Bosphorus, the Golden Horn, the domes, the minarets, the bridges, the
men-of-war, the cypresses.--Indescribable. Went to the Pigeon Mosque.
In its court, the pigeons covered the pavement as thick as in the West
they fly in hosts. A man feeding them. Some perched upon the roof of
the colonnades & upon the fountain in the middle & on the cypresses.
Took off my shoes and went in. Pigeons inside, flying round in the
dome, in & out the lofty windows. Went to Mosque of Sultan Suleiman.
The third one in point of size and splendour. The Mosque is a sort of
marble mosque of which the minarets (four or six) are the stakes. In
fact when inside it struck me that the idea of this kind of edifice
was borrowed from the tent. Though it would make a noble ball room.
Off shoes and went in. This custom more sensible than taking off hat.
Muddy shoes; but never muddy head. Floor covered with mats & on them
beautiful rugs of great size & square. Fine light coming through the
side slits below the dome. Blind dome. Many Turks at prayer; lowering
head to the floor towards a kind of altar. Charity going on. In a
gallery saw lot of portmanteaux, chests & bags; as in a R. R. baggage
car. Put there for safe-keeping by men who leave home, or afraid of
robbers and taxation. ‘Lay not up your treasures where moth and rust do
corrupt’ &c. Fountains (a row of them) outside along the side of the
mosque for bathing the feet and hands of worshippers before going in.
Natural rock.--Instead of going in in stockings (as I did) the Turks
wear overshoes and doff them outside the mosque. The tent-like form
of the Mosque broken up & dumbfounded with infinite number of arches,
trellises, small domes, colonnades, &c, &c, &c. Went down to the
Golden Horn. Crossed bridge of pontoons. Stood in the middle and not a
cloud in the sky. Deep blue and clear. Delightful elastic atmosphere,
although December. A kind of English June cooled and tempered
sherbet-like with an American October; the serenity & beauty of summer
without the heat.--Came home through the vast suburbs of Galatea,
&c. Great crowds of all nations--money changers coins of all nations
circulate--placards in four or five languages: (Turkish, French, Greek,
Armenian) Lottery advertisements of boats the same. Sultan’s ship in
colours--no atmosphere like this for flags. You feel you are among the
nations. Great curse that of Babel; not being able to talk to a fellow
being, &c.--Have to tend to your pockets. My guide went with his hands
to his.--The horrible grimy tragic air of the Streets. (Ruffians of
Galatea) The rotten & wicked looking houses. So gloomy & grimy seem
as if a suicide hung from every rafter within.--No open spaces--no