Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Tormenting Puzzlements

 
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2 comments:

  1. I could not figure out how to get the paragraph with the cartoon. I will learn.

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  2. Tormenting Puzzlements
    Category: Tormenting Puzzlements:
    In Herman Melville: A Biography, 1851-1891, p. 538 I confessed my failure to identify some current political “anecdote” that Melville’s wife casually referred to in 1863. When the Alexander Street Press magnanimously opened up its Civil War databases to the public for a glorious month in 2008, I rushed to look for Greeley and the Nigger” and within 5 minutes had this cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, 5 April 1862. From this it is clear that the family did pass papers around among their different households, as other evidence showed, and talked about the papers in detail. More than a year later, Lizzie could count on Augusta Melville to know just what level of frustration she was feeling, if she was like
    Greeley, about to bust. Greeley’s frustration, of course, is that McClellan has not yet signed a paper emancipating the slaves in Virginia.

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