Herman Melville, Mariner and Mystic
Lies there no unexplored rich ground?
_Some other world_: well, there’s the New--
Ah, joyless and ironic too!
* * * * *
Ay, Democracy
Lops, lops; but where’s her planted bed?
The future, what is that to her
Who vaunts she’s no inheritor?
’Tis in her mouth, not in her heart.
The past she spurns, though ’tis the past
From which she gets her saving part--
That Good which lets her evil last.
Behold her whom the panders crown,
Harlot on horseback, riding down
The very Ephesians who acclaim
This great Diana of ill fame!
Arch strumpet of an impious age,
Upstart from ranker villainage:
Asia shall stop her at the least
That old inertness of the East.
* * * * *
But in the New World things make haste:
Not only men, the _state_ lives fast--
Fast breed the pregnant eggs and shells,
The slumberous combustibles
Sure to explode. ’Twill come, ’twill come!
One demagogue can trouble much:
How of a hundred thousand such?
* * * * *
Indeed, those germs one now may view:
Myriads playing pygmy parts--
Debased into equality:
Dead level of rank commonplace:
An Anglo-Saxon China, see,
May on your vast plains shame the race
In the Dark Ages of Democracy.
* * * * *
Your arts advance in faith’s decay:
You are but drilling the new Hun
Whose growl even now can some dismay;
Vindictive is his heart of hearts.
He schools him in your mines and marts
A skilled destroyer.
* * * * *
Old ballads sing
Fair Christian children crucified
By impious Jews: you’ve heard the thing:
Yes, fable; but there’s truth hard by:
How many Hughs of Lincoln, say,
Does Mammon, in his mills, to-day,
Crook, if he does not crucify?
The impieties of “Progress” speak;
What say _these_, in effect to God?
“How profits it? And who art Thou
That we should serve Thee? Of Thy ways
No knowledge we desire; _new_ ways
We have found out, and better. Go--
Depart from us!”--And if He do?
Is aught betwixt us and the hells?
* * * * *
Against all this stands Rome’s array:
Rome is the Protestant to-day.
The Red Republic slinging flame
In Europe--she’s your Scarlet Dame.
Rome stands: but who may tell the end?
Relapse barbaric may impend,
Dismission into ages blind--
Moral dispersion of mankind.
If Luther’s day expand to Darwin’s year,
Shall that exclude the hope--foreclose the fear?
* * * * *
Yea, ape and angel, strife and old debate,
The harps of heaven and dreary gongs of hell;
Science the feud can only aggravate--
No umpire she betwixt the chimes and knell,
The running battle of the star and clod
Shall run forever--if there is no God.
* * * * *
Then keep thy heart, though yet but ill resigned--
Clarel, thy heart, the issues there but mind;
That like the crocus budding through the snow--
That like a swimmer rising from the deep
That like a burning secret which doth go
Even from the bosom that would hoard and keep;
Emerge thou mayst from the last wheeling sea
And prove that death but routs life into victory.
Though _Clarel_ is unconscionably long, and though there are arid
wastes strewn throughout its length, a patient reading is rewarded by
passages of beauty, and more frequently by passages of astonishing
vigour and daring. And it speaks more for the orthodoxy of America than
for her intellect, that _Clarel_--which reposes in the outer limbo of
oblivion--is about all she has to show, as Mr. Mather has observed, for
the poetical stirrings of the deeper theological waters which marked
the age of Matthew Arnold, Clough, Tennyson, and Browning. We should
blush for our neglect of a not unworthy representative.
Besides _Battle-Pieces_ and _Clarel_, Melville printed for private
circulation two slender volumes: _John Marr and Other Sailors_ (1888)
and _Timoleon_ (1891): selections from a larger body of poetry, the
remainder of which is still preserved in manuscript. In these, the
inspiration flags throughout. Two of the better poems have already been
quoted. _John Marr_ was dedicated to W. Clark Russell, _Timoleon_ to
Elihu Vedder.
In 1886, according to Arthur Stedman, Melville “felt impelled to write
Mr. Russell in regard to one of his newly published novels.” This
was the beginning of a correspondence between Russell and Melville.
Melville’s letters are not available. Russell’s reply to Melville’s
first letter follows:
“July 21, 1886.
“MY DEAR MR. HERMAN MELVILLE:
“Your letter has given me a very great and singular pleasure. Your
delightful books carry the imagination into a maritime period so
remote that, often as you have been in my mind, I could never satisfy
myself that you were still amongst the living. I am glad, indeed, to
learn from Mr. Toft that you are still hale and hearty, and I do most
heartily wish you many years yet of health and vigour.
“Your books I have in the American edition. I have _Typee_, _Omoo_,
_Redburn_, and that noble piece, _Moby-Dick_. These are all I have
been able to obtain. There have been many editions of your works
in this country, particularly the lovely South Sea sketches; but
the editions are not equal to those of the American publishers.
Your reputation here is very great. It is hard to meet a man whose
opinion as a reader is worth having who does not speak of your
works in such terms as he might hesitate to employ, with all his
patriotism, towards many renowned English writers.
“Dana is, indeed, great. There is nothing in literature more
remarkable than the impression produced by Dana’s portraiture of the
homely inner life of a little brig’s forecastle.
“I beg that you will accept my thanks for the kindly spirit in which
you have read my books. I wish it were in my power to cross the
Atlantic, for you assuredly would be the first whom it would be my
happiness to visit.... The condition of my right hand obliges me to
dictate this to my son; but painful as it is to me to hold a pen I
cannot suffer this letter to reach the hands of a man of so admirable
genius as Herman Melville without begging him to believe me to be,
with my own hand, his most respectful and hearty admirer,
“W. CLARK RUSSELL.”
Elihu Vedder and Melville never met or corresponded. The acknowledgment
of the dedication came only after Melville’s death. “I may not have
been very successful in a worldly way,” he said, “but the knowledge
that my art has gained me so many friends--even if unknown to me--makes
ample amends.”
Schopenhauer was enabled to preserve his disillusions because he also
preserved his income. If a man is blessed with a comfortable fortune,
then it is easy for him to lead a tranquil and unpretentious existence,
sheltered from all intruders. But for an unsuccessful writer with a
wife, four children, and no income, to throw down the pen and retire
from the world (except for a season in California and another in the
Holy Land); the secret of such a feat should be popularised. The secret
transpires in the following letter to Melville from his father-in-law,
Justice Shaw.
“BOSTON, 15 May, 1860.
“MY DEAR HERMAN,
“I am very glad to learn from your letter that you intend to accept
Thomas’ invitation to go on his next voyage. I think it affords
a fair prospect of being a permanent benefit to your health, and
it will afford me the greatest pleasure to do anything in my power
to aid your preparation, and make the voyage most agreeable and
beneficial to you.
“The prospect of your early departure renders it proper and necessary
to bring to a definite conclusion the subject we have had a
considerable time under consideration, a settlement of the matter of
the Pittsfield estate, with a view to which you handed me your deeds,
when I was in Pittsfield last autumn.
“You will recollect that when you proposed to purchase a house in
N. York I advanced to you $2000. and afterwards, when you purchased
the Brewster place, I again advanced you $3000. For these sums, as
well as for another loan of $500. afterwards, I took your notes.
This I did, not because I had then any fixed determination to treat
the advances as debts, to be certainly repaid, but I was in doubt at
the time in reference to other claims upon me, and how my affairs
would be ultimately arranged, what I should be able to do by way of
provision for my daughter, and I put these advances upon the footing
of loans until some future adjustment.
“I always supposed that you considered the two first of the
above-named advances as having substantially gone into the purchase
of the Brewster farm, and that I had some equitable claim upon it
as security. I presume it was upon that ground that you once sent
me a mortgage of the estate prepared by your brother Allan. I never
put that mortgage on record nor made any use of it; and if the
conveyances are made, which I now propose, that mortgage will become
superseded and utterly nugatory.
“What I now propose is to give up to you the above mentioned notes
in full consideration of your conveyance to me of your present
homestead, being all the Brewster purchase except what you sold to
Mr. Willis. This being done and the estate vested in me, I propose
to execute a deed conveying the same in fee to Elizabeth. This will
vest the fee as an estate of inheritance in her, subject of course
to your rights as her husband during your life. If you wish to know
more particularly what will be the legal effect and operation of
these conveyances Mr. Colt will explain it to you fully. I have
written to him and enclosed him a draft of a deed for you to execute
to me and my deed executed to be delivered to you and your notes to
be surrendered. I have explained the whole matter to Mr. Colt and I
have full confidence in his prudence and fidelity. I do not see any
advantage in giving the business any more notoriety than will arise
from putting the deeds on record.
“Elizabeth now writes me that you wish the note for $600., given by
the town and coming from the sale of the Brewster place, that part of
it not sold to Mr. Willis, so placed that it may be applied as you
have heretofore, in your own mind, appropriated it, for building a
new barn.
“I propose to treat this as I did the estate itself: first purchase
it of you for a full consideration and then apply it to Elizabeth’s
use. In looking for a consideration for this purchase there is the
interest of the above notes not computed in the consideration for the
deed and now amounting to several thousand dollars.
“But there is another consideration, respecting which I have never
had any direct communication, I believe, but I can see no reason why
it should not be now clearly understood. When you went to Europe in
the fall of 1856 I advanced the money necessary for your outfit and
the expenses of your tour. This was done through your brother Allan
and amounted to about fourteen or fifteen hundred dollars. In my own
mind, though I took no note or obligation for it, I treated it like
the other advances, to be regarded as advance by way of loan or a
gift according to some future arrangement. I propose now to consider
that sum as a set off against the note of $600. and, as to all
beyond that, to consider it cancelled and discharged. This will make