Melville in Love (26 page)

CHAPTER 5

   
1.
In 1850 HM was reading Smollett's
Roderick Random
in a copy borrowed from Evert Duyckinck (Sealts,
Melville's Reading,
95). Smollett was already one of HM's favorite authors, and he had mentioned his work in three of the five books written before
Moby-Dick
:
Omoo
(see note 3 below);
Redburn
(chapter 29); and
White-Jacket
(chapters 8 and 12). For Scott on Smollett, see his
Lives of the Novelists,
59. It has been suggested that SAM was thinking of Dr. Holmes's poem “Aunt Tabitha,” but that would not have been possible in 1850 because the poem wasn't published until 1872. See Holmes,
Poetical Works,
2:6–7, and Wyn Kelley, “Melville's Carnival Neighborhood,”
Lectora,
20 (2014). See the malapropisms of “our aunt Tabitha” in the Norton Critical Edition of
Humphry Clinker
(165, 279, 280, 12, 84, 280).

   
2.
For identification of the costumes at the party, see
Melville in His Own Time,
51.

   
3.
Updike,
Hugging the Shore,
93. Evan Gottlieb's Norton Critical Edition of
Humphry Clinker
spells Melville's surname with the final
e,
but the spelling
varies in earlier editions. For the reference to Smollett in
Omoo,
see chapter 77. Gottlieb's edition of
Humphry Clinker
reprints the Rowlandson engraving of the “venerable Turk” (120).

   
4.
William Allen Butler to George Duyckinck, August 20, 1850 (see Luther Stearns Mansfield, “Glimpses of Herman Melville's Life in Pittsfield,”
American Literature,
March 1937, 35).

   
5.
HMCR,
398.

   
6.
Mansfield, “Glimpses of Herman Melville's Life in Pittsfield,” 35; Evert Duyckinck, “Notes of Excursions: Glimpses of Berkshire Scenery,”
Literary World,
September 27, 1851.

   
7.
Traubel,
With Walt Whitman in Camden,
139.

   
8.
Quoted in Mansfield, “Glimpses of Herman Melville's Life in Pittsfield,” 28.

   
9.
Melville in His Own Time,
49.

CHAPTER 6

   
1.
Smith,
The Poet Among the Hills,
151–54; Holmes,
Elsie Venner,
56–57.

   
2.
Holmes,
Elsie Venner,
134, 137, 105–6. J. C. Burton, “Through the Berkshires,”
Motor Age,
September 17, 1914; Smith,
The Poet Among the Hills,
151–54. Though he makes no mention of a love affair between HM and SAM, see Rogin,
Subversive Genealogy
(184–85) for a more modern reference to the connection between SAM and
Elsie Venner,
and SAM and
Pierre
.

   
3.
Holmes,
Elsie Venner,
157, 57, 156.

   
4.
Bacon,
Literary Pilgrimages,
450. This book of 1902 also associates the Pittsfield area of South Mountain with the main setting of
Elsie Venner
.

   
5.
Smith,
The Poet Among the Hills,
151–54; and see John Dryden's translation of Virgil's
Aeneid
.

   
6.
ML,
502.

   
7.
“Forrest or Willis—Mr. Stevens's Card,”
New York Tribune,
June 19, 1850.

   
8.
Morse,
Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes,
1:56; Holmes,
Elsie Venner,
229, 113, 118, 115, 116, 131, 229, 132.

   
9.
Hawthorne,
The American Notebooks,
447–48.

 
10.
ML,
636, and Gibian,
Oliver Wendell Holmes,
3.

 
11.
Melville in His Own Time,
172.

 
12.
Holmes Jr. to Harold Laski, March 27, 1921 (
ML,
936–37). In
ML
Jay Leyda suggests of Dr. Holmes and HM, “The two writers may have exchanged disguised portraits,” in “I and My Chimney,” and in
Elsie Venner
(xxviii).

CHAPTER 7

   
1.
SAM to George Duyckinck, November 21, 1851 (NYPL). Emanuel Leutze painted Hawthorne's portrait in Washington, D.C., in 1862.

   
2.
Wineapple,
Hawthorne,
218.

   
3.
Melville in His Own Time,
36.

   
4.
Ibid., 75.

   
5.
HM, “Hawthorne and His Mosses.”

   
6.
See HM's copy of
Mosses from an Old Manse
at melvillesmarginalia.org.

   
7.
Melville in His Own Time,
74.

   
8.
Ibid., 75.

   
9.
Wineapple,
Hawthorne,
226; Holmes, “At the Saturday Club,”
Poetical Works,
2:271.

CHAPTER 8

   
1.
SAM to George Duyckinck, October 27, [1851] (NYPL).

   
2.
“Dedication of the Pittsfield Rural Cemetery,”
Pittsfield Sun
, September 12, 1850.

   
3.
“Deaths,”
Pittsfield Sun,
October 22, 1863.

   
4.
Holmes,
Elsie Venner,
197

   
5.
“Dedication of the Pittsfield Rural Cemetery.”

   
6.
HPBio,
1:778; HM to Lemuel Shaw, May 22, 1856 (
HMC,
295).

   
7.
See the original newspaper passage, an excellent analysis of Smith's recollections, and early biographical work in Sealts,
The Early Lives of Melville,
38–39, 130. In a letter to George Duyckinck (November 21, 1851), SAM had another explanation for “Broadhall” as the name of her house, saying that one of Melville's sisters had chosen the name (NYPL).

   
8.
HPBio,
1:788, and
ML,
396.

   
9.
Melville in His Own Time,
76.

 
10.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, October 6, 1850 (
HMC,
170–71).

CHAPTER 9

   
1.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, December 13, 1850 (
HMC,
173–74).

   
2.
Sealts,
The Early Lives of Melville,
106.

   
3.
Maria Gansevoort Melville to Augusta Melville, March 6, 1852 (NYPL).

   
4.
Sealts,
The Early Lives of Melville,
169.

   
5.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, December 13, 1850 (
HMC,
174), and
ML,
404.

   
6.
See “Knights and Squires,” chapter 27 of
Moby-Dick,
for an extended treatment of these ideas.

   
7.
Ibid., “The Quarter-Deck,” chapter 36.

   
8.
Melville in His Own Time,
30.

   
9.
“Sunset,” chapter 37,
Moby-Dick
.

 
10.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, March 3, 1849 (
HMC,
121).

   
CHAPTER 10

   
1.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, November [17?,] 1851 (
HMC,
212).

   
2.
Henry A. Murray, “In Nomine Diaboli,”
Princeton University Library Chronicle,
Winter 1952, 47–62; Rebecca Stott, “
Moby-Dick,
into the Wonder-World, Audaciously,”
You Must Read This,
with Robert Siegel, National Public Radio, June 13, 2007, and updated July 17, 2011.

   
3.
HM to SAM, September [12 or 19?,] 1851 (
HMC,
206).

   
4.
The Melville copy of Todd's
Student's Manual
is held at BA.

   
5.
Marvel,
Reveries of a Bachelor,
67. See chapter 15 here for the evidence of SAM's awareness of Marvel's book.

6.
HM to R. H. Dana Jr., May 1, 1850 (
HMC,
162).

CHAPTER 11

   
1.
Written in a note at the end of a poem whose first line is “The sky is clear. The moon her silvery light,” SAM to George Duyckinck, [n.d.] (NYPL).

   
2.
SAM to George Duyckinck, October 27, [1851] (NYPL).

   
3.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, December 13, 1850 (
HMC,
173).

4.
“The Fountain,” chapter 85,
Moby-Dick
.

CHAPTER 12

   
1.
Review of HM's
White-Jacket
in the
Athenaeum,
February 2, 1850 (
HMCR,
296). HM read of Turner's work as early as 1848 in Ruskin's
Modern Painters
(Sealts,
Melville's
Reading,
89).

   
2.
Steven Olsen-Smith, “Melville's Copy of Thomas Beale's
The Natural History of the Sperm Whale
and the Composition of
Moby-Dick,
”
Harvard Library Bulletin
21 (Fall 2010): 1–77; “A Scamper Through the Exhibition of the Royal Academy,”
Punch
8 (1845): 233; and “A Peep into the Royal Academy,”
New Monthly Magazine,
June 1845.

   
3.
Leslie,
Autobiographical Recollections,
138.

   
4.
“Loomings,” chapter 1,
Moby-Dick
.

   
5.
Ibid., “The Pulpit,” chapter 8.

   
6.
Ibid., “The Funeral,” chapter 69.

   
7.
Quoted in Waid,
Edith Wharton's Letters from the Underworld,
171.

   
8.
“The Needle,” chapter 124, and “The Chase—Third Day,” chapter 135,
Moby-Dick
. For discussion of another painting in
Moby-Dick
with suggestions of Turner's style, see Robert K. Wallace, “Melville and the Visual Arts,” in
A Companion to Herman Melville
, where Wallace writes about the “squitchy picture” of “unimaginable sublimity” in the Spouter-Inn (349).

   
9.
Finley,
Angel in the Sun,
179; Bell,
A List of the Works Contributed to Public Exhibitions by J. M. W. Turner, R.A.,
155; Rogers,
The Voyage of Columbus
in
Poems,
131.

 
10.
HM's comment on Italy is quoted in
HMJ,
368.

 
11.
Roberts,
Samuel Rogers and His Circle,
48; Cunningham,
Modern London,
26.

CHAPTER 13

   
1.
Julian Hawthorne,
Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife,
1:376.

   
2.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, February 12, 1851 (
HMC,
180).

   
3.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, [January 29?,] 1851 (
HMC,
176).

   
4.
Melville in His Own Time,
147.

   
5.
HM,
White-Jacket,
chapter 4.

   
6.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, [June 1?,] 1851 (
HMC,
191–92); HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, June 29, 1851 (
HMC,
196).

   
7.
Melville in His Own Time,
77. This is the most reliable version of Sophia Hawthorne's remarks.

   
8.
Wineapple,
Hawthorne,
345.

   
9.
Hawthorne,
The House of the Seven Gables,
chapter 11.

 
10.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, [April 16?,] 1851 (
HMC,
185).

 
11.
Ibid. (
HMC,
187).

 
12.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, [May ?,] 1851 (
HMC,
191). This letter has been published with an indication that it was written in June, but May seems more likely (see
HPBio,
1:840–41); and June 29, 1851 (
HMC,
196).

 
13.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, [May ?,] 1851 (
HMC,
191). For the dating of this letter, see the note above.

CHAPTER 14

   
1.
HM to Evert Duyckinck, March 26, 1851 (
HMC,
183). SAM's date of return from England can be determined from shipping news in various periodicals and in documents in BCHS, especially George Morewood to Rowland and Sarah Morewood, May 23, 1851.

   
2.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, June 29, 1851 (
HMC,
195). See also
HPBio,
1:839–40.

   
3.
SAM to Susannah Perrin, [n.d.] (BCHS).

   
4.
See
HPBio
, 1:852.

   
5.
ML,
419.

   
6.
HM to Nathaniel Hawthorne, July 22, 1851 (
HMC,
199).

   
7.
Smith,
Taghconic,
156. As evidence of SAM's authorship of the Greylock essay, see
ML,
461. Evert Duyckinck to Margaret Duyckinck, August 7,
1851 (Luther Stearns Mansfield, “Glimpses of Herman Melville's Life in Pittsfield,”
American Literature,
March 1937, 39).