GOOD TO KNOW: More than 320,000 patients were waiting to start treatment in a cardiology department as of June, according to the latest figures

Yes, you can die while wearing a Zio Patch and waiting w a i t i n g for diagnosis and action. You just have to laugh and figure it is an easy way to go.

 

A 58-year-old male underwent ambulatory ECG monitoring with continuous patch monitoring (Zio XT Patch) for the complaint of episodic dyspnea. In the period of monitoring the patient suffered sudden cardiac death (SCD) with continuous ECG recording showing pronounced ST segment elevations followed by bradycardia and death. This report highlights the growing potential of continuous ST segment monitoring, and features the infrequent entity of ischemic electromechanical dissociation with bradyarrhythmia as a cause of SCD.

Savoring a wonderful book, Ron Shelton's THE CHURCH OF BASEBALL

       In 1989 while staying with generous hosts on Park Avenue I worked methodically at the tasks I had laid out for myself at the New York Public Library then yielded to temptation, giving myself fifteen minutes to treasure-hunt in a folder with an alluring title, “Undated Letters or Unidentified Correspondents.” Soon I recognized familiar handwriting—what has become known as Melville’s “D. D.” letter to Evert Duyckinck, in which he declined to review a book. I asked for the head librarian at once, but I became so nervous that I shakily rubbed her back as she leaned over to look at the document. She took away the document and did not return, although she sent someone out with a photocopy. Did she understand that I was trembling from excitement at finding the letter? It did not matter that the letter was of no great obvious importance—what mattered was the way a few minutes of self-indulgent kicking over the traces had paid off, for once.

       Still febrile, I shared the new letter with my hosts but did not report to them the phantasmagorical nature of my walk in Manhattan that night. Two Costner brothers from northern Mississippi, sons of a Confederate soldier who had gotten as far north as Gettysburg, had homesteaded near Guymon in the panhandle of Oklahoma Territory, my grandfather Edgar Lugene and his older brother Moses Amariah (Uncle Mode, in my mother’s stories). My mother was born there, in O. T. Now near my hosts’ apartment one of Uncle Mode’s great-grandsons, Kevin Costner, stood on a billboard, looking down, his left jeans-clad leg straight, the right crossed over it at the shin. Who was living a fantasy? There was my 2^nd cousin Bill’s son on the billboard for a new baseball movie, after Bull Durham, and here was I with a newly discovered Melville letter I had found by asking with reckless abandon for a folder of “Undated Letters or Unidentified Correspondents.” Was this Guymon, O.T., or Gotham, N.Y.? Now, 33 years later, with a Zio Patch taped to my chest and the pulse dropping erratically down to 30 per minute, I am enthralled by Ron Shelton’s The Church of Baseball, a gift from Paul Seydor, a copy Ron Shelton had held as he inscribed it to me. Michael Sragow, Douglass K. Daniel, and many other reviewers understood its value. A Chicago reviewer calls it a “casual” book. What was he reading? This is a masterwork about creativity.

       

 

You think you have it bad? Not as bad as this Italian.

 A man who tested positive for COVID-19 broke out in a rash later that day. Tests revealed he also had monkeypox and HIV, according to a case study in the Journal of Infection.

Great gift from Paul Seydor with Ron Shelton's inscription to me THE CHURCH OF BASEBALL

 

Words Herman Melville is Reported to have Spoken

 

Words Herman Melville is Reported to have Spoken

add Glens Falls Barbershop story

MELVILLE SPEAKS.

For this list, have checked:  LOG

                    TS

                    European Journal

                    London Journal

Need still to check:  GM's journals

           Mansfield

           Mrs Metcalf

           Notes on Owen Chase

Need to recheck LOG and TS--too big a gap between 1823 and 1837

Need a section of faults--procrastination being one (New York March 25th 1848 My Dear Sir  Nothing but a sad failing of mine  procrastination has prevented me from replying ere this to yours of the 17 Jany last, which I have just read over)

 

8 April 1823  NEW YORK.  "Pa now got two ittle boys"  HM's comment on the birth of his brother Allan on 7 April.  Letter of Allan Melville to Peter Gansevoort. LOG

22? November 1837  PITTSFIELD.  "Herman remarked at tea this evening that he intended to go to Albany tomorrow, therefore I thought you would like to have a few lines of my scratching."  Letter of Julia Maria to Augusta M, 22 November 1837  TS

 To which you replied, after some hesitation, "extraordinary circumstances demand extraordinary action; the members of the society being together, and some of the officers being present, it was thought expedient to go into a new election; and beside this, those of the society, who had absented themselves twice successively, were by virtue of the constitution expelled."  To which I rejoined, "Sir, out of your own mouth shall I condemn you; you have intimated that I, the president being no longer a member of the society, had no longer the authority to call a meeting, and hence the fact that I did not authorise the meeting holden on Friday evening, did not effect its constitutionality; but, sir, my name has just been called from your roll, and I am now officiating in the capacity of Secretary."  And here I divulged the fact; that you have been authorised by me to call a meeting of the society on Monday evening, but, that from motives not understood by me, you have taken the liberty of calling a meeting on Friday evening, without my knowledge or consent.  After this unpleasant expose you remarked, that, "you understood me to invest you with authority to call a meeting upon any evening of the week deemed most suitable by yourself" . . . Sir, "there is something rotten about Denmark."  At about this point as the last resource in your perilous plight, I was called to order. ([Van Loon,] The Microscope, April 7)

29 Sept 1842   PAPEITE.  HM reportedly says he will "do no more duty and would share the same as others who refused to do their duty"  German affidavit on board the Lucy Ann.  LOG

27 November 1843  BOSTON. Helen Priscilla Melville reports to Augusta M on seeing Macbeth:  "I could not help thinking of poor Herman, who made it a favorite quotation, and talked about the "pilot's thumb, wrecked as homeward he did come," "eye of newt, toe of frog," etc.  Helen Priscilla Melville to Augusta Melville.  LOG

14 January 1846  BATH, Maine.  Mrs Augusta Whipple Hunter reports to Augusta:  "Poor Herman when your mother, left the room with the request that he would entertain Miss Augusta until "Church going" time his countenance spoke, his thoughts & he e'enmost despaired of entertaining, I should say of accomplishing the task of 'making himself agreeable' to his sister's dull friend."  Letter of Mrs Augusta Whipple Hunter to Augusta Melville  TS

6 April 1846  LANSINGBURGH. HM asks Augusta,  "Who are you writing to Gus?"  "Well, give her my very best love."  Augusta Melville to her cousin, Catherine Van Schaick.  TS

27 April 1847 NEW YORK AND LANSINBURGH   HM "inquired particularly abo all & Herman a little more than particularly abo my coz Eliz.." Letter of Sam Savage to Hope Shaw, 30 April 1847.  TS

19 May 1847  LANSINGBURGH.  "Herman just left the room and sends his love to you."  "[E]very day Herman by accident as it were, tells us something that happened while you were together."  Maria Melville to Augusta.  TS

22 July 1846  NEW YORK.  HM tells Allan to tell Evert Duyckinck "that the advertizing [of] the Revised Edition [of Typee] had better be delayed until his arrival in town."   Letter of Allan Melville to EAD  22 July 1846.  LOG ck final quotation mark. //checked by JH//

Before 18 December 1846  NEW YORK.  HM comes to the Harpers with the MS of Omoo and remarks to Frederick Saunders: "Saunders, I suppose there is no use of offering this to the house?"  LOG

24 June 1847  NEW YORK.  HM or Allan may have described Rossiter's painting of "Ruth and

Naomi" Letter of   Sophia Thurston to Augusta Melville.  TS

4 August 1847  BOSTON.  HM on his wedding day:  "I do."  Elizabeth Melville to her cousin Sam Savage, 12-18 September 1847.  TS

28 August 1847 LANSINGBURGH  HM "desires his kindest remembrances to all."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Hope Shaw.

6 October 1847  NEW YORK.  HM was "delighted with the living tableaus" at a reception of the American Art Union.  EAD's diary.  LOG

4 February 1848 NEW YORK.  "Herman was very much gratified with your remembrance of him--and intends to make his acknowledgements for himself."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Hope Shaw, re her baby presents.  Metcalf 30  Re her what?

18 March 1848  NEW YORK.  EAD writes his brother George of HM's reading "old Books.  He has borrowed Sir Thomas Browne of me and says finely of the speculations of the Religio Medici that Browne is a kind of crack'd Archangel."  LOG

3 April 1848  NEW YORK.  HM's "frequent exclamation" about the book is 'Oh Lizzy!  the book!--the book--what will become of the Book!'"-- Elizabeth Melville to Sam Savage, 3 April 1848.  TS

6 June 1848  NEW YORK.  HM is grateful to Mrs. Shaw for a present of a pocket book:  "he  has long since needed such an article, for his bank bills accumulate to such an extent he can find no place to put them."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to her stepmother.  LOG

29 March 1849  BOSTON.  HM "says he does not want any chapters of the book [MARDI] to be published in advance except in the "'Literary World.'"  Letter of J. W. Harper to EAD.  LOG

11 April 1849  NEW YORK.  HM possibly refers to baby as "Moloch of a baby."  Augusta Melville to EAD.  TS          

Before 12 September 1849  NEW YORK.  HM "put me all in a flutter the other evening by proposing that I should go to Europe with him."  EAD to George Duyckinck.  LOG

13 October 1849  EN ROUTE TO ENGLAND  HM shouts "Man overboard!" LJ

14 October 1849  EN ROUTE TO ENGLAND.  After a passenger tells HM to "look off and see the steamer," HM asks the 2d mate "whether he could see the steamers" LJ

17 October 1849  EN ROUTE TO ENGLAND  HM "in conversation with Adler"  LJ

18 October 1849  EN ROUTE  HM talks with Adler and Taylor re plans for travels on continent.  LJ

22 October 1849  EN ROUTE  HM "talked metaphysics continually, & Hegel, Schlegel, Kant &c were discussed under the influence of whiskey"--with Adler and Taylor.  LJ

26 October 1849  EN ROUTE  "Adler & I have had some 'sober second thoughts' about our grand Oriental & Spanish tour with Taylor. / / /Talked the whole thing over again with Taylor"  LJ

28 October 1849  EN ROUTE  HM et al debate the

question:  which is better, monarchy or republic?

LJ

2 November 1849  EN ROUTE  "Talked metaphysics with my learned friend Adler till midnight"  LJ

5 November 1849  DEAL, ENGLAND  HM proposes

walking to Canterbury with Adler and Taylor  LJ

10 November 1849  LONDON  HM asks fireman where St Swithin is, and after he offers to show the way HM says, "Lead on!"  LJ

12 November 1849  LONDON  HM proposes White Jacket to Bentley  LJ

14 November 1849  LONDON  HM proposes White-Jacket to Murray.  LJ

15 November 1849  LONDON  HM talks "high German metaphysics" with Adler  LJ

19 November 1849  LONDON  HM proposes White-Jacket to Longman; HM replies to a "clark" at Bentley's that "The Devil you say" and  to "Shove it[a message left for him] along then"; and HM tells Murray "that people here having anticipated me, I should stay awhile now, & make some social calls, &c"; that night he "bids goodbye" to Adler, who is leaving for Paris  LJ

20 November 1849  LONDON  Talking to Mr Moton, the publisher, HM "managed to bring him to

 by clever speeches"

21 November 1849  LONDON  HM "had a talk" with Davidson  LJ

22 November 1849  LONDON  After seeing the Queen, HM says "God bless her and long live the prince of wales!"  LJ

23 November 1849  LONDON  HM talks with Davidson re White-Jacket and the copyright question; goes to Bogues and gives him "an idea of the book"; talks with female guest at Murray's at dinner, and with Dr Holland.  LJ

24 November 1849  LONDON  HM proposes White-Jacket to Chapman and to H. G. Bohn.  LJ

30 November 1849  PARIS  HM "jabbers" with Madame Cappelle, proprietress of the hotel where Adler is staying, waiting for Adler to return.  LJ

2 December 1849  PARIS  HM "had a talk" with Adler and Hotchkiss, Adler's friend.  LJ

4 December 1849  PARIS  HM invited Adler to dinner; they talk "high German metaphysics till two o'clock"  LJ

6 December 1849  PARIS  HM "sat up with Adler till pretty late,--(Topic--as usual--metaphysics)"  LJ

9 December 1849  COLOGNE  HM stops people in street to ask for a light for his cigar.  LJ

10 December 1849  EN ROUTE TO COBLENZ  HM talks with a German "who was just from St. Louis in Missouri"; talks with a young Englishman who had been in America and was related to "Cunard of the Steamers" at a cigar shop  LJ

15 December 1849  LONDON  HM speaks to Bentley re "Liet. Wise's book"  LJ

17 Dec 49  LONDON  HM speaks to his namesake, the Rev. H. M. Melville, who asks HM "whether [he is] a relation of Gansevoort Melville & of

Herman Melville."  HM replies that he is.

LJ

20 December 1849  LONDON  HM speaks to Bentley re "the time of bringing out White-Jacket"  LJ

22 December 1849  LONDON  HM has "pleasant conversation" with Davidson   LJ

21 December 1849  LONDON.  David Davidson comments on HM's visit:  "We asked each other--where in American can you find such a place to dine and punch as this?  We talked of you, of several New Yorkers."  Letter of David Davidson to George Duyckinck, 24 December 1849.  LOG

22 December 1849  LONDON  HM has "pleasant conversation" with Davidson   LJ

30 April 1850  NEW YORK  "Herman was much pleased with his neckcloth and desires his love and thanks."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Hope Shaw.

7 August 1850  NEW LEBANON, MASS. "Herman M saw a long handled brush at a bed head and asked its object."  "Why I guess it's for him to scratch himself with when he itches." Letter of EAD to his wife, 8 August 1850, on his outing with HM, Elizabeth, and Mathews. EAD says he is going to make a book of its features.  LOG

11 August 1850  PITTSFIELD.  "Herman came to us and told Allan to take me home quietly."  Letter of Sophia Melville to Augusta.  TS  Ck date--it's easy to get

"Early autumn" 1850.  LENOX.  HM said "Mr. Hawthorne was the first person whose physical being appeared to him wholly in harmony with the intellectual and spiritual."  Letter of Sophia Hawthorne to her mother.  Metcalf 91

Autumn? 1850,  LENOX.  HM tells Sophia Hawthorne that he wants to build "a real towered house."  Metcalf 93

1 September 1850  LENOX  "It is said the Indian summer in the Berkshires surpasses the Indian summer in any other region.  So says Mr. Melville, good authority for this."  Letter of Sophia Hawthorne to her sister[?].

5-6 September 1850  NEW YORK? CK.//LOG says "Lenox"--JH// HM tells George Duyckinck that he "intends to preserve and have a road through [Arrowhead], making it more of an ornamental place than a farm."  TS

17 October 1850   PITTSFIELD.  News item in Pittsfield Sun on  HM's purchase of farm:  He contemplates the erection of "a house to suit him" in a beautiful grove on the premises."  LOG

31 December 1850  ARROWHEAD.  HM "told us that [Lizzie] would be home tomorrow."  Augusta to Helen.  TS --redo to supply what was elided

1 January 1851  NEW YORK.  HM was in the habit of talking about "pitching in to" Malcolm.  Sophia Melville to Augusta.  TS

6 January 1851  ARROWHEAD.  "Herman says he will take us there if we want to go , & call for us again in the evening."  Re "the young ladies" (ie Augusta and Lizzie?) having been invited to join a sewing society which meets ?at the church?  Leeter of Augusta Melville to Helen Melville.  TS

 

14 January 1851  PITTSFIELD.  Herman "laughed loudly at  [Helen's] description of the visit to Mrs Taylor."  Augusta Melville to Helen Melville.  TS  (fill in ellipsis

24 January 1851  PITTSFIELD. HM said he "had a very delightful visit" with the Hawthornes, "the warmest of welcomes, '& a cold chicken.'"  "Herman says that they are the loveliest family he ever met with, or anyone can possibly imagine."  Augusta Melville to Helen Melville. TS

12 February 1851  LENOX.  Of Captain Caleb Smith HM "says he is quite a gem."  Sophia Hawthorne to her mother.  LOG

12 March 1851  LENOX.  HM invites the Hawthornes "to go and spend tomorrow at his house."  Diary of Sophia Hawthorne.  LOG

27 April 1851  LENOX.  NH and HM "talk of making an excursion" to New York.  Letter of NH to EAD. LOG

Before 7 May 1851  LENOX.  HM "dash[es] his tumultuous waves of thought up against Mr Hawthorne's great, genial, comprehending silences."  Sophia Hawthorne to her sister Elizabeth.  TS

1 August 1851  LENOX.  HM and NH "talk about time and eternity, things of this world and of the next, and books, and publishers and all possible and impossible matters."  NH's journal.  LOG

3 August 1851  PITTSFIELD.  "Herman was much pleased with his cravat, and begs me to thank you with his love."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Hope Shaw.  Metcalf 93-94.

8 August 1851 LENOX.  HM "had spoken" of bringing EAD and GD "to call on" NH.  NH's journal.  LOG

7? August 1851? HM speaks: "Great!" "Glorious!"  "By Jove, that's tremendous!." EAD to Mrs. D.

13 August 1851  Pittsfield--North Adams? On a picnic, HM is arrested by local sheriff.  HM asks,   "Go where?"  "You have no business to take me to the hotel--I had no demand.  Where is your bill--So much & my fees.  Your  arrest is worth nothing--make your demand." Letter of EAD to wife, 13 August 1851.  LOG

26 September 1851  PITTSFIELD.  "Each time he came there [to Lake Pontoosuc] he found the place possessing new charms for him"  Letter of Sarah Morewood to George Duyckinck, 8 October 1851.  LOG

4 November 1851  PITTSFIELD.  "Herman said he would take us at once and seem'd well pleased, as we were to be there [STOCKBRIDGE?] at seven or lose our tea."  Maria Melville to Augusta re an invitation from Mrs. Sedgwick, 5 November 1851.  TS

25 December 1851  BROADHALL.  "I laughed at him [HM] somewhat and told him that the recluse life he was leading made his city friends think that he was slightly insane--he replied that long ago he came to the same conclusion himself--but if he left home to look after Hungary the cause in hunger would suffer. " Letter of Sarah Morewood to GLD about her Christmas dinner.

1851?? JEAS 142 in Sealts's Early Lives: "Well, it is pleasant to read what those fellows over the water say about us!"

25 December 1851  BROADHALL. At Christmas dinner at the Morewood's, HM "quickly removed" a laurel wreath from his head,  "saying he would not be crowned."  Maria Melville to Augusta, Dec 29.  TS

13-14 July 1852  NAUSHON.  "Melville expressed himself well pleased with the excursion, he saw many things and met with many people, whom he was extremely glad to see."  Lemuel Shaw to his son, Lemuel 20 July 1852,  on his vacation with HM.  LOG

August? 1852  CONCORD  When speaking to NH, HM, "generally silent and incommunicative, pours out the rich floods of his mind and experience to him, so sure of apprehension, so sure of a large and generous intepretation, and of the most delicate and fine judgment."  Letter of Sophia Hawthorne to her mother.

5 February 1854 LAWRENCE.  HM says "happy" in response to Maria's inquiries about Kate, Fanny, and Mr Hoadley.  Maria Melville to Augusta.  TS check this

20 March 1854  PITTSFIELD. "Herman favors us every now & then with his favorite lines about the little breezes & the little zephyrs."  "Herman begins to talk about the pleasures in anticipation of a visit to Lawrence & another to Longwood."  Augusta to Fanny.  TS

30 March 1854  ARROWHEAD.  Herman "thinks that his visit East cannot take place until June, as he must return home from New York." Augusta Melville to Fanny.  TS

29 May 1856  LAWRENCE. "Is it?  let me see--why so it is!  Well, take it along.  I'll be in presently, and then some of you can read it to me."  (The way Herman lets others open letters addressed to him.)  Letter of  Helen Priscilla Melville Griggs to HM.  TS

30 June 1855  Lawrence  "Herman . . . invited me very politely to come soon again."  Letter of Catherine Gansevoort to her mother, 4 July 1855.  TS

 

1855/56?  "I listened with intense pleasure to his highly individual views of society and politics"  Richard Lathers' Reminiscences.  Metcalf 152.

Add the conversation with Oliver Wendell Holmes on East India Religions

Late August? 1855 Pittsfield  Maunsell B. Field and F. O. C. Darley call on HM:  "He took us to a particular spot on his place to show us some superb trees.  He told me that he spent much time there patting them upon the back"  Maunsell B. Field Memories of Many Men, 1874  LOG

January 1856  Pittsfield-Joe Smith records M's comments on the Dublin University Magazine critical essay on JFC, Dana, and HM:  "We have Mr. Melville's own authority for saying that he was sensitive to the criticism of foreign reviews, for once when reading one of them he looked up to say 'Well, it is pleasant to read what those fellows over the water say about us!'"  LOG

24 September 1856  Pittsfield   HM "convinced that a residence in the country was not the things for him, & could he have met with an opportunity of disposing of his place he would have done so.."  HM's comments on giving Augusta Melville a copy of THE PIAZZA TALES.  Letter of Augusta Melville to Peter Gansevoort, 7 April 1857.

  LOG

1 October 1856  New York.  HM spends the evening with EAD, "with his sailor metaphysics and jargon of

things unknowable . . . [he] instanced old [Rbt?] Burton as atheistical"  Diary of EAD.  LOG

before 25 October 1856 EN ROUTE FROM NEW YORK TO GLASGOW   "With [a fellow passenger] I had many long talks, and we so managed to kill time"  Letter of HM to Allan, 10 November 1856.  TS

8 November 1856  LIVERPOOL  At White Briar Hotel in Liverpool HM asks barmaid "How much?"  EJ

11 November 1856  New York  "My first feeling was to go on at once to London to see Mr Duyckinck /// but Mr Hawthorne told me that upon reading an account of the affair in the paper / / /"  Letter of HM to Allan, 13 November 1856  TS

12 November 1856  Southport  HM "began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had 'pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated'"  NH's journal.  LOG

17 November 1856  Liverpool  HM "said that he already felt much better than in America; but

observed that he did not anticipate much pleasure in his rambles"  NH's journal.  LOG

11 December 1856  AT SEA AROUND THE PRINCE ISLANDS (near Constantinople)  With the ship blanketed in fog, HM says to "Old Turk ('Old Sinope')"  "This is very bad"; Turk answers "God's will is good"  EJ

14 December 1856  CONSTANTINOPLE  HM leans over balustrade "talking" with Greeks.   EJ

c. January 1857  JERUSALEM  HM records in Jerusalem Journal the following conversation with Mr and Mrs Dickson of Groton, Mass.:

HM:  Have you settled her permanently, Mr Dickson?

Mr D:  Permanently settled on the soil of Zion, Sir" with a kind of dogged emphasis

Mrs D (as if she dreaded her husband's getting on his hobby, & was pained by it)--The walking is a little muddy, aint it?--(This to Mr S.)

HM to Mr D:  Have you any Jews working with you?

Mr D:  No. Cant afford to have them. Do my own work, with my son. Besides, the Jews are lazy & dont like work.

HM And to you think that a hindrance to making farmers of them?

Mr D:  That's it.  The Gentile Christians must teach them better.  The fact is the fullness of Time has come. The Gentile Christians must prepare the way.

Mrs D (to me):  Sir, is there in America a good deal of talk about Mr D's efforts her?

Mr D:  Yes, do they beleive <basically> in the restoration of the Jew?

HM:  I cant really answer that.

Mrs D:  I suppose most people beleive the prophesys to that effect in a figurative sense--dont they?

HM:  Not unlikely           EJ

26 January 1857  BEIRUT  HM has a "luckless discussion at dinner" with a "young prussian" 

10 February 1857  ATHENS  HM "Told story of Lindy

Foote's son" to young English officer from Zephalonia [Cephalonia].  EJ

15 February 1857  MESSINA  HM notes "Much talk" with Masques on long walk.  EJ

21 February 1857  NAPLES  HM "encountered by jabbering man with document"  Asks people at breakfast room "Do any of you speak French?"  EJ

22 February 1857  NAPLES  In trying to arrange for veturino, HM "got man to speak English & engaged 1st seat in coupe"  EJ

26 February 1857  ROME  HM goes to Tortoni's [Torlonia's--bank] "to find out about S. Shaw or letters."  EJ

5 March 1857  ROME  HM talks with Mr Rows (of Brunswick NJ) in his room.  EJ

10 March 1857  ROME  HM talks with English sculptor, Gibson--"His colored Venus . . . The 7 Branched candlestick &C. ARt perfect among Greeks. Limit to human power,--perfection"  EJ

5 April 1857  VENICE  HM has the following conversation with his guide:  ["How I met him, & where"]:  "How you do, Anatonio--hope you very well, Antonio--Now Antonio no money,  Antonio no compliment. Get out of de way Antonio. Go to the devil, Antonio. Antonio you go shake yourself. You know dat Sir, dat to de rich man, de poor man habe always de bad smell? You know dat Sir? [HM's note: (For Con. Man)]

Yes, Antonio, I am not unaware of that. Charitably disposed. Old blind man, give something & God will bless you [Will give, but doubt blessing].   EJ

7 April 1857  MILAN  HM talks with "Young man" "About Cathedral"  EJ

27 May 1857  Boston  HM "says he is better than at any time while absent, but still he is not perfectly well"  Letter of Lemuel Shaw Jr to brother Samuel, 2 June 1857  LOG

Before 2 June 1857  Boston  HM "says he is not going to write any more at present and wishes to get a place in the New York Custom House"  Letter of Lemuel Shaw Jr to brother Samuel , 2 June 1857.  LOG

8 December 1857  BOSTON  "Herman Melville . . .

desired me to remember them particularly to you."  Letter of Henry Gansevoort to his father, 9 December 1857.

9 December 1857  HM said in his lecture "that it was a mooted question as to whether--objects of art saw with greater power the minds of the educated or uneducated"  Letter of Henry Gansevoort to his father.  Metcalf 167.

6 January 1858 Auburn   HM's "lecture was completely, absolutely spoiled by his inexcusable blundering, sing-song, monotonous delivery"  report of HM's lecture in the Auburn Daily Advertiser, 6 January.  TS

12 January 1858 "He speaks of the heathenism of Rome as if the world were little indebted to christianity"  Ohio Farmer, 23 January 1858.  TS

7 February 1859  NEW YORK  Review of HM's South Seas lecture:  "He remembered once, after five months weary navigation out of sight of land, turning to a secluded island in search of fruit.  The pensive native lay upon the bank, gazing listlessly, hardly turning on their mats at their landing, for they had seen white men before.  There, in that remote island, among its sixty or seventy lazy inhabitants, he found an American, not imposing in his breech cloth and the scanty shreds of tappa which hung from his shoulders as signals of distress, which, it appeared to the traveller, the assiduous diligence of three wives--for the ill-clothed gentleman was blessed with that number--might have remedied.  On conversation it came to light that this virtuous exile from civilization had been Professor of Moral Philosphy in a college in his own land; though, for the credit of the country, he did not mention the name of the institution."  unidentified New York Newspaper, 8 February 1859.

 

8 February 1859  New York.  A New York newspaper reports on HM's South Seas lecture.  When asked by a disciple of Fourier for information about the prospects of a party emigrating to the Marquesas, HM replies "that his old friends, the Typees, were undoubtedly good fellows, with strong points for admiration"  LOG

24 February 1859  CHICAGO  On HM's South Seas lecture:  "He said he would direct the gas to be turned down, and repeat to his audience in a whisper the mysterious rites of the 'Taboo,' but the relation would so far transcend any of Mrs. Ratcliffe's stories in the element of the horrible, that he would not willingly afflict any one with its needless recital."  Daily Press and Tribune, 25 February 1859.

25 February 1859  Milwaukee  "He commenced by saying that he should not detail any of his own personal adventures . . "  Daily Free Democrat, 26 February 1859.  TS

20 April 1859  Pittsfield  Titus Munson Coan tells his mother of his visit to HM:  "he would not repeat the experiences of which I had been reading with rapture in his books....he preferred to pour forth his philosophy and his theories of life..."LOG

1860?  "M dictates [?] to Lizzie" TS p 258

26 and 31 January 1860  New York  HM says "that the mealy mouthed habit of writing of human nature of the present day would not tolerate the plain speaking of Johnson..." EAD's comments on HM's calling for some volumes of essayists.  EAD's diary.  LOG

3 December 1860  Boston  "I have seen Herman

Melville . . . & from him learn of their return to Albany."  Letter of George W. Wales to Henry S. Gansevoort.  TS

12 July? 1861  Albany  HM "wishes to be most kindly remembered [to Henry Gansevoort] and hopes you are sound on Affairs of the country."  Letter of Catherine Gansevoort to her brother Henry  13 July 1861.  LOG

26 April 1862 Pittsfield.  Sarah Morewood writes to George L. Duyckinck: "Leaving . . . the Farm to be planted, or as Herman Melville says, 'to go to grass' we packed our boxes . . . and off we trotted . . . . added 8 May 2008!

28 October 1862  Pittsfield  "One night Papa [HM] said that he wanted to take a ride the next day"  Letter of Stanwix Melville to his Aunt August  TS 

29 June 1863  Gansevoort  "Mama & Herman talk of going over to spend a day & night at Glens Falls, & they may go to the springs for a day also."  Letter of Fanny Melville to Augusta.  TS

29 February 1864  Gansevoort.  HM "has been talking of going to Albany."  Letter of August Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

29 February 1864  Albany HM "reports that his mother is much better..."  Peter Gansevoort's diary.  LOG

undated reminiscences of Metcalf:Prob in 1860s

Frances Melville heard people talk about

'property':  HM dubbed her "Little Miss Property."  metcalf 206

17 August 1865  Gansevoort  HM "desires me to give his love and regards to Uncle and Aunt Susan."  Letter of Maria Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

Before 20 March 1866  New York  HM tells Augusta that "Mamma had been quite sick for three days, and although she was then able to sit up, he thought I had better come down as soon as possible."  Letter of Augusta Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

2 August 1866  HM "talks of making you a flying visit on his way  to New York..."  Letter of August Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  Metcalf 205.

What about the report that he visited the salon of the Carey sisters?

11 September 1867  New York.  HM "advised Lizzie to let [Malcolm] sleep" the morning he was later found to be dead.  Letter of Samuel Shaw to his mother, 12 September 1867.  LOG

30 October 1869  New York  "Herman says he will go with [his daughters] next Saturday morning and take the chance of finding you in.."  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Susan Gansevoort, 28 October 1869.  LOG

3 November 1867  New York  "Cousin Lizzie and Herman . . . speak of Malcome [sic] with such pleasure & [seem] gratified to see me-"  Letter of Catherine Gansevoort to her mother.  TS.

7 January 1871  New York  "Lizzie says Herman said at the breakfast table this morning, see that a letter goes to Kate Gansevoort inviting her to one night here."  Letter of Augusta Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

25 December 1871  "John & George Herman & Tom shone their brightest.  You should have heard their bright sallies & the toasts which so quickly followed each other / / / Herman [proposed] 'The souls in Paradise'"  Letter of August to Aunt Susan, 26 December 1871  TS

9 January 1872  "Herman often speaks of him [Peter Gansevoort]" Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  Metcalf 221.

17 February 1872  NEW BRIGHTON  "Herman was here this morning, & said she [Kate] was to leave New York for Albany at 10 O'clock." Letter of Augusta to Peter and Susan Gansevoort.

7 December 1872  New York  HM asks Bessie Melville to thank Catherine Gansevoort for the gift of a soup ladle:  "he said it must not be put off any longer, and yesterday asked me to write and thank you for him"  Letter of Bessie Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

2 July 1873  New York.  HM "wishes to know if you [Catherine Gansevoort] have succeeeded in getting the book you wished"  Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Catherine Gansevoort.  LOG

14 November 1873  New York.  "Cousin Herman says if you [Abraham Lansing] are not happy it will be my fault--how cruel always to blame we poor women!!!" Letter of Catherine Gansevoort to her fiance Abraham Lansing.  LOG

2 January 1874  New York.  "Herman begs me to say particularly for him that he was much gratified and that they reminded him of the 'days of his youth' when the chief occupation for himself and the other youngsters on the first day of the years used to be to'nibble round' their new years cakes from morning till night--'  Letter of Elizabeth  Melville to her aunt, Susan Gansevoort  TS

Before 20 June 1874  New York  "Cousin Herman / / /  says he is surprised at your leaving all your treasures"  Letter of Catherine Lansing to husband Abraham on his going to an army training camp, 20 June 1874  LOG

before 15 January 1876  New York  "Lizzie says Herman was so much pleased to secure his [copy of the Evening journal's obituary of Peter Gansevoort].  Said it told him many things he did not know."  Letter of Augusta Melville to Catherine Lansing, 14 January? 1876.  LOG

22 April 1876  New York  HM "wants me to tell you

he is going to inscribe that book [CLAREL] in your father's name, as seems most natural and fit..."  Letter from Elizabeth Melville to Catherine Lansing.  LOG

22 April 1876  New York  (same letter).  HM "sends kind remembrances to yourself and husband"  Metcalf 237-38.

14 May 1876  New York.  "Cousin Herman invites us to stay over Sunday"  Letter of Catherine Lansing to Abraham Lansing.  LOG

31 March 1878  New York  "Cousin Herman wished for you at dinner and drank to you--"  Letter of Catherine Lansing to Abraham Lansing.  LOG

13 June? 1878  New York  HM tells Frances Priscilla Melville, "his left hand has not yet..entirely recovered --Speaking of Charles Thurston's sudden death--he says, "whose end by the way may hardly be

thought unhappy--"  Letter of Frances Priscilla Melville to cousin Cathering Lansing LOG

6 November 1878  New York  H "thinks [the carpet Catherine Lansing sent] is a very handsome one"

Letter of Elizabeth Melville to Catherine Lansing, LOG

25 June 1879  New York  HM "says he will not be able to come as he does not like to leave home when mamma is feeling so miserably"  TS

before 28 August 1882  New York  "Herman writes that he hoped to get away for a week's vacation soon, to join Lizzie at the overlook"  Letter of Helen M Griggs and Frances Priscilla Melville to Catherine Lansing, 28 August 1882  LOG

mid 1880s?  Boston. HM says  "my books will speak for themselves"  Titus Munson Coan in Boston  Literary World, 19 December 1891  LOG

mid 1880s?  New York  HM said "he did not own a single copy of" one of his own books.  O. G. Hillard,"The Late Herman Melville," NYTimes 6 October 1891.  LOG

Spring 1883  Julian Hawthorne's reminiscences: HM "said several interesting things, among which the most remarkable was that he was convinced Hawthorne had all his life concealed some great secret, which would, were it known, explain all the mysteries of his career."  Julian Hawthorne, "Hawthorne at Lenox, " Booklover's Weekly 30 December 1901.  LOG

Spring 1883  Julian Hawthorne's reminiscences: "he told me / / / that he was convinced that there was some secret in my father's life which had never been revealed, and which accounted for the gloomy passages in his books."  JH, Hawthorne and His Circle

Spring 1883  Julian Hawthorne's reminiscences: when JH asked for any letters to HM from NH, "he said, with a melancholy gesture, that they had all been destroyed long since, as if implying that the less said or preserved, the better!"  "When Herman Melville was 'Mr Omoo', Literary Digest International Book Review, August 1926  LOG

Spring 1883 Julian Hawthorne's reminiscences: HM told JH that the Agatha story "was a tragic story, and that Hawthorne had not seemed to take to it"   Hawthorne and His Circle

Spring 1883 Julian Hawthorne's reminiscences:   "He let fall several hints as to his interpretation of the source of Hawthorne's insight into the human soul."  In reply to JH's request for letter, "he said, with great agitation, that he had kept nothing; if any such letters existed he had scrupulously destroyed them."  "Herman Melville,"  Dearborn Independencer 24 September 1922  LOG

1885?  HM does not speak:  "I never saw them conversing," so says Samuel A. Jones to Archibald MacMechan, 7 Jan 1900  TS

Have to have the Glens Falls barbershop story

April?  1886  New York  "'You know,' [HM] would say, ' more about [his books] than I do'" Peter Toft, letter to NyTimes, 17 March 1900  LOG

7 June 1886  "Herman writes me that if the sideboard can be accommodated . . he would be very thankful to receive it"  Letter of Helen Griggs to Catherine Lansing.  Metcalf 265

before 1 February 1888  HM "said so much of" Whitman.  E.C. Stedman, LOG.

Spring 1890  New York.  Eleanor Metcalf Melville's reminiscences in Weaver, HM:  Mariner and Mystic  "Setting forth on a bring spring afternoon . . . he would follow more slowly and call 'Look out, or the 'cop' may catch you!'...He would point [to the sailboats in a coloured engraving of the Bay of Naples] and say, 'See the little boats sailing hither and thither.' . . . I remember mornings when even sugar on the oatmeal was not enough to tempt me to finish the last mouthful.  It would be spring in the back yard too

. . . He would say in a warning whisper, 'Jack Smoke will come down the chimney and take what you leave!' . . . "'Tittery-eye' he called me [because of her eye for sweets]"  LOG.

HM reportedly asked Frances' suitor:  "Do you prefer oatmeal or hominy for breakfast?";  "He ordered one incumbent [cook] not to cook the oatmeal till the water was boiling, and to let him know when it had reached that state"  Metcalf 216

undated reminiscences of Julian Hawthorne:

"Melville himself said in later years that Hawthorne did not 'take to' Agatha's sad history."  Metcalf 145. 

addenda still; see my notes in log file 11/24/85

Late 1870's-1891.  Source: The New Bedford Sunday Standard, 11 August 1929, page 1 of 4th section and continued on 39--this from p. 1.  Interview with the Thomases, the one where the reporter explains why Mrs. Thomas will not talk of her father: "He had the failings of genius, and her memories of him are not wholly happy ones."  The enthusiasts are Mr. Thomas and his daughter EMM.

Quotation follows: 

  "He never talked about his writing," Mr. Thomas told The Standard.  "If anyone brought up the subject, he'd shut up like a clam.  I never heard him mention Captain Pease or Edgartown.  [The occasion for the interview is their discovery that the house they summer in once belonged to Pease.]  He talked freely and most interestingly on many subjects not connected with his books.  He was fond of walks in the country and liked to talk about nature.  I remember many interesting talks on politics and religion.  He was very much down on politicians.  He called them 'damn fools.'  In fact, that was the term he applied to nearly everybody.  He wasn't sociable, you know.  He didn't care for people." 

  Thomas went on to say that Melville "was always very nice to me."   "That's one thing I never could quite understand."

Mr. T. says: "He would devote his mornings to this [C-H] work, which would keep him busy until 1 or 2 P. M.  Then he came home to dinner, after which he would shut himself up in his roon, and no one knew or dared inquire as to what busied him there."

Challenging questions by and about Herschel Walker. First, "Don't we have enough trees?"--spoken by Walker 22 August 2022, and . . . .

 second, from a 1980s Oklahoma journal: "What possessed Herschel Walker to write Flawed Texts and Verbal Icons was . . . ."

Even the best people suffer in the Academic Jungle

 

Only politicians and some preachers are crueler and more petty than academics. Noel Polk, of all people, the Welty and Faulkner scholar, was driven out of Hattiesburg. So he landed on his feet: so, still, what happened to him is wrong.

 

Surviving in the Academic Jungle--

 

A note from Noel in 2007:

 I fought the good fight against a worthy adversary at USM, the occasion for my removal to MSU . . . Fighting at USM took it out of me---not the starch, I believe, but just some level of constant indignation that the new pres there caused so much havoc. Not a big deal, and I may feel different tomorrow.

   Take keer, pal.

 

 

Only politicians as a class are crueler and more petty than academics. Noel Polk, of all people, the Welty and Faulkner scholar, driven out of Hattiesburg. So he landed on his feet: so, still, what happened to him is wrong.

 

Alison and Sabrina

 

The delay in having a pacemaker

 

Paul McC very kindly helped HAR tape 7 more boxes of Melville books & papers for the Berkshire Athenaeum and took them into the PO with her. Nate has taken a few books, Paul McC took a few, and Andrew Chilton took some more, and Nate is in charge of putting all the American History/Genealogy books in a safe place. Several more boxes of Melville books will be easy to identify and I will start unfolding boxes for them, if I can. So Henry and Brian and Noel died before me when I was counting on them to clean out my shelves! I guess the boxes in the garage on S Crane, James, Twain, Mailer and a few others will just be put out on the street but I can't grieve about that. I keep thinking of 2020 when the great men said I was going blind from lymphoma and we had made a holograph will and were arranging for a more formal one. A complimentary letter came and I said, "I want to keep this!" Then all I could do was laugh at myself. All the things we want to keep, starting with life! I am grateful that I have all the chapters of ONE OKIE'S RACIAL RECKONINGS written in pretty good shape, though I have been trying to write a new preface the last two months when I have had faint spells most of the days. Not a big deal, but I would like to finish and polish the preface. Putting the chapters out on my blog and Facebook was the right thing to do. Can you imagine the months and years that press readers would take pretending to read it? It's clear to me that I want to get the pacemaker as soon as I can, but that is out of my hands. I am very glad to be home tonight.

Long before the lies about Sandy Hook--2018 blog on Robert Ussery, Richard Brodhead, Andrew Delbanco, Donald Trump, and Michael Shelden: "The Stupidification of America."

 

Sunday, March 11, 2018

Robert Ussery, Richard Brodhead, Andrew Delbanco, Donald Trump, and Michael Shelden: "The Stupidification of America."

            In today's San Luis Obispo TRIBUNE Leonard Pitts tells of a new episode of "breathtaking emotional cruelty." Pastor Frank Pomeroy, whose daughter Annabelle was killed in the massacre at the First Baptist Church in November 2017 was accosted by Robert Ussery, who yelled at him: "Your daughter never even existed. Show me her birth certificate." It turns out that Ussery denies many other mass shootings. "Show me her birth certificate" instantly reminds us of the Birther who was elected to the Presidency. If the highest elected official in the country can be an unapologetic Birther for years, why can't Ussery? Pitts deplores "America's vanishing ability—and willingness—to reason." What Pitts calls "the stupidification of America," he says, has "crept upon us over the course of a generation."
            It appeared in American universities even before it "crept" into public discourse. In December 1990 the Melville Society meeting was packed with New Historicists, second-generation New Leftists (who had fervor but less purpose than the first), and a large group of second- and third-generation New Critics who had never done archival research and had certainly not been taught to do responsible research. I misread the atmosphere in the room as one of free-floating political correctness, not sharply focused, but the mood of the audience was hostile from the start. When Wai-chee Dimock resurrected Lewis Mumford’s long-refuted claim that Hawthorne had based Ethan Brand on Melville (before he met him or read anything but Typee), Harrison Hayford mildly reproved her, saying that if she thought it was acceptable to bring forth the Ethan Brand claim as a serious possibility, she was using a different standard for evidence than he used. At that, there was a subterranean murmur of anger in the audience like the incipient rebellion in Billy Budd, the mood hardening into fury that anyone’s idea could be considered invalid on grounds of biographical evidence. My diary for the day described my having gone unknowingly into the Lions' Den.
            In the new post-scholarly climate, to point out errors was to violate the playground rules: one should always enhance one’s playmate’s self-esteem. The audience at the 1990 MLA was further incited when an onlooker described by Robert K. Wallace in Melville and Turner as “the petulant stranger in the doorway” kept crying out, with regard to Melville and history, ‘the facts don’t matter.’” Accepting what the satanic red-bearded prophet meant, I never attended another Melville Society meeting in the United States, although I went in 1997 to Cancun so we could climb the pyramids at Chichen Itza. Partly because of the hostile takeover of the Melville Society, I decided, as I said from the platform of a program on F. Scott Fitzgerald in Toronto in 1993, that attending the annual Modern Language Association convention had become a moral issue. The issue was settled right after that meeting when a Melvillean some years my senior proposed that we adjourn to his hotel room where we could “strip" and go at each other "one to one” over differing interpretations. I declined.
            The facts did not matter in 1990, and have not mattered since then. A dean at Yale and later President of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, in the June 23, 2002, New York Times announced that I had invented two lost Melville books, The Isle of the Cross (1853) and Poems (1860) out of thin air. Only I in my "black hole" had heard of Poems, Brodhead said, although everyone had known about Poems since 1922. As for The Isle of the Cross, everyone had known since 1960 that Melville had completed a book in 1853, but I did not announce my discovery of the title until 1990, in the lead article of American Literature. In the New Republic (September 30, 2002) the biographer-to-be Columbia professor Andrew Delbanco said I couldn’t be trusted at all on anything because I had merely surmised the existence of those lost books (34). He had, of course, not read all of the book he was reviewing, for the evidence about the books is on the pages. And the Kansas professor Elizabeth Schultz in Common Review Winter 2002) echoed those two critics, decrying the merely “putative” existence of those books I claimed Melville had written.
            Even if they have admitted that these two lost books once existed, recent academic critics have continued to ignore the reality that months of Melville's working life went into The Isle of the Cross (December 1852-May or June 1853) and parts of three years (1857-1860) went into the composition of Poems. My point is that when you think of the trajectory of Melville's writing life, you need to take account of months or years spent on something that a writer remembers keenly even if no one else can perceive it. I know something from personal experience about this, having written in the early 1970s a thorough account of Fredson Bowers's astonishingly incompetent edition of Stephen Crane's Maggie, a temperate but relentless exposé which no textual journal would publish and which led Bowers to blackball me from the Center for Scholarly Editions (although he later falsely denied doing so). For two decades I lived with one of my most important studies unpublished, while many people in the textual community knew of it but no one would dare to mention it because of Bowers's threats to sue. At last it was published by a brave editor in the Antipodes, when it was too late to do any good to the editing of American classics. I could imagine how Melville remembered the months he labored on The Isle of the Cross and in the process grew or at least changed from Pierre to his first work on short stories. If you are a writer you do not forget a long important part of your writing life.
            In 2016 Michael Shelden published Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of "Moby-Dick," described as a new account of Herman Melville and the writing of Moby-Dick. It was, the ads said, "based on fresh archival research, which reveals that the anarchic spirit animating Melville’s canonical work was inspired by his great love affair with a shockingly unconventional married woman." The book was in fact not based on new archival documents and in fact wilfully ignored many known documents which flatly contradicted the premise of the book. In fact, Sarah Morewood was an unstable woman who had notoriously pursued a dashing brother-in-law of President Tyler in 1849 and in 1851 and afterwards was pursuing the strikingly demure religious brother of Evert Duyckinck. She was not pursuing Melville in 1850. Melville did not need a living muse for Moby-Dick, for he had the Bible, Shakespeare, and other great writers down to De Quincey. Now we are promised for the Summer 2018 a Newton's Law Productions documentary on Shelden's documentary account of Melville's love affair with Sarah Morewood. What meaning does the word "documentary" have any more? The stupidification of America, Pitts says. Yet some of us try to establish the truth and tell the truth.