Mysterious girl! who art thou? by what right snatchest thou thus my deepest thoughts?
—Pierre by Herman Melville
Whence come you, Hawthorne? By what right do you drink from my flagon of life? And when I put it to my lips—lo, they are yours and not mine. I feel that the Godhead is broken up like the bread at the Supper, and that we are the pieces. Hence this infinite fraternity of feeling.
—letter from Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne, November 1851
Though but one day hath passed, my brother, since we first met in life, yet thou hast that heavenly magnet in thee, which draws all my soul's interior to thee.
—Pierre (Isabel speaking to Pierre)
The divine magnet is on you, and my magnet responds. Which is the biggest? A foolish question—they are One.
—the same letter
Not mere sounds of common words, but inmost tones of my heart’s deepest melodies should now be audible to thee. Thou speakest to a human thing, but something heavenly should answer thee;—some flute heard in the air should answer thee; for sure thy most undreamed-of accents, Pierre, sure they have not been unheard on high. Blessings that are imageless to all mortal fancyings, these shall be thine for this.
—Pierre (Isabel speaking to Pierre)
But I felt pantheistic then—your heart beat in my ribs and mine in yours, and both in God's.
—the same letter
Therefore, forever unsistered for him by the stroke of Fate, and apparently forever, and twice removed from the remotest possibility of that love which had drawn him to his Lucy; yet still the object of the ardentest and deepest emotions of his soul; therefore, to him, Isabel wholly soared out of the realms of mortalness, and for him became transfigured in the highest heaven of uncorrupted Love.
—Pierre (after Pierre has determined not to pry into Isabel's mystery, and did not "feel a pang at this")
This is a long letter, but you are not at all bound to answer it. Possibly, if you do answer it, and direct it to Herman Melville, you will missend it—for the very fingers that now guide this pen are not precisely the same that just took it up and put it on this paper. Lord, when shall we be done changing? Ah! it's a long stage, and no inn in sight, and night coming, and the body cold. But with you for a passenger, I am content and can be happy. I shall leave the world, I feel, with more satisfaction for having come to know you. Knowing you persuades me more than the Bible of our immortality.
—the same letter
Oh, my dear brother—Pierre! Pierre!—could’st thou take out my heart, and look at it in thy hand, then thou would’st find it all over written, this way and that, and crossed again, and yet again, with continual lines of longings, that found no end but in suddenly calling thee.
—Pierre (Isabel speaking to Pierre about how she came to write to him)
I should have a paper-mill established at one end of the house, and so have an endless riband of foolscap rolling in upon my desk; and upon that endless riband I should write a thousand—a million—billion thoughts, all under the form of a letter to you.
THE THINGGGG that drives me so crazy about the “and i only am escaped alone to tell thee” epigraph in the epilogue of moby dick is that that, though (at least in my edition) it’s attributed to job, that line isn’t actually spoken by job. it’s in the book of job, but that particular line is spoken by a number of unnamed messengers who come to tell job of what’s befallen his family, land, and property. his servants are put to the sword, his livestock burnt, his house destroyed, his children killed. after each of these messages is delivered, the messenger says, “and i only am escaped alone to tell thee.” if we attribute the line to job, we equate ishmael with job; both are men who’ve undergone unthinkable horrors for no discernible reason. but ishmael isn’t equating himself with job; he’s equating himself with the messenger, which forces the reader to occupy job’s position. which might feel counterintuitive considering the account we’ve just read of ishmael’s journey, but it’s less about the journey and more about the message. because each time a messenger comes to job and tells him of his stolen livestock or his dead children, the implicit question is “can you still have faith after i tell you this story?” so if ishmael is the messenger and the reader becomes job, it means ishmael’s asking us that same question: here is what happened. here is my story. can you still have faith after hearing it?
This image taken during the 1890s, is presumed to depict photographer Henry Winkelmann and Charlie Horton. The story goes that it was torn during a lovers quarrel.
A Penguin Kindergarten in the front and the barque Europa sits on anchor in the background, creating a perfect scene for photograph, by Frits Meyst 2020
Let us first glance low down to the lowermost shelf of all, which is the widest, too, and but a little space from high-water mark. What outlandish beings are these? Erect as men, but hardly as symmetrical, they stand all round the rock like sculptured caryatides, supporting the next range of eaves above. Their bodies are grotesquely misshapen, their bills short, their feet seemingly legless; while the members at their sides are neither fin, wing, nor arm. And truly neither fish, flesh, nor fowl is the penguin; as an edible, pertaining neither to Carnival nor Lent; without exception the most ambiguous and least lovely creature yet discovered by man. Though dabbling in all three elements, and indeed possessing some rudimental claims to all, the penguin is at home in none. On land it stumps; afloat it sculls; in the air it flops. As if ashamed of her failure, Nature keeps this ungainly child hidden away at the ends of the earth, in the Straits of Magellan, and on the abased sea-story of Rodondo.
The Encantadas, "Sketch Third," by Herman Melville
Moby-Dick, Epilogue, by Herman Melville. Image from Duke University Libraries. (first and third images)
Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2, by William Shakespeare. This copy is from the library of Herman Melville, and these marks may have been made by him. Image from Houghton Library, Harvard University. (second image)
Full image text below
Moby-Dick
EPILOGUE.
"And I only am escaped alone to tell thee."
Job.
The drama's done. Why then here does any one step forth?—Because one did survive the wreck.
Hamlet
But let it be.—Horatio, I am dead;
Thou liv'st; report me and my cause aright
To the unsatisfied.
Hor. Never believe it;
I am more an antique Roman than a Dane,
Here’s yet some liquor left.
Ham. As thou ’rt a man,—
Give me the cup; let go; by Heaven, I’ll have it.—
O God!—Horatio, what a wounded name,
Things standing thus unknown, shall live behind
me!
If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,
Absent thee from felicity awhile,
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,
To tell my story.— [March afar off, and shot within.
Moby-Dick
the coffin life-buoy shot lengthwise from the sea, fell over, and floated by my side. Buoyed up by that coffin, for almost one whole day and night, I floated on a soft and dirge-like main.
