Herman Melville (August 1, 1819-September 28, 1891) was an American author. He is considered to be one of the world's greatest novelists. In 1841 he had joined the crew of the whaling ship Acushnet, bound for the South Seas, the experiences of which proved invaluable in providing material for his novels. He sailed around Cape Horn, deserted in the Marquesas Islands, was held captive by Polynesian cannibals, escaped on the Australian whaler Lucy Ann, and finally ended up on the Island of Tahiti. He served on the frigate United States from 1843 to 1844, before settling near Pittsfield, Massachusetts. In 1856, he traveled to Palestine by way of Liverpool, where Nathaniel Hawthorne was serving as U.S. Consul. From 1866 to 1885, Melville served as a U.S. Customs Inspector on the New York docks.
In addition to his work, Moby Dick, 1851, Herman Melville wrote many successful books, such as: Typee, 1846; Omoo, 1847; Mardi, 1849; Redburn, 1849; White Jacket, 1850; Pierre, 1852; and Billy Budd, which was published in 1924 after his death. Melville described America's mission in his book White Jacket:
<Escaped from the house of bondage, Israel of old did not follow after the ways of the Egyptian. To her was given an express dispensation; to her were given new things under the sun.
And we Americans are a peculiar, chosen people...we bear the ark of the liberties of the world...In our youth is our strength, in our inexperience, our wisdom...> 1819HM001
In the forward to Moby Dick, Melville mused on dignity and democracy:
<Thou shalt see it shining in the arm that wields a pick and drives a spike; that democratic dignity which, on all hands, radiates without end from God Himself! The great God absolute! The centre and circumference of all democracy! His omnipresence, our divine quality!> 1819HM002
In 1857, Herman Melville visited Jerusalem, which was under the control of the Ottoman Empire. He described this in 'Clarel: A Poem and Pilgrimage in the Holy Land,' and in his journal, in which he wrote:
<...unless knew it, could not have recognized, it looked exactly like arid rocks, the color of the whole city is grey & looks at you like a cold grey eye in a cold old man...
Stones of Judea. We read a good deal about stones in Scriptures.
Monuments & stumps of the memorials are set up of stones; men are stoned to death; the figurative seed falls in stony places; and no wonder that stones should so largely figure in the Bible. Judea is one accumulation of stones, stony mountains & stony plains; stony torrents & stony roads; stony walls & stony fields, stony houses & stony tombs; stony eyes & stony hearts. Before you and behind you are stones. Stones to the right & stones to the left.> 1819HM102
William J. Federer wrote in the book American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred (Amerisearch, 2008):
<"There she blows!" cried the lookout, sighting Moby Dick. Captain Ahab and his chief mate Starbuck sailed the seas to capture this great white whale. But as fate would have it, when the harpoon struck, the rope flew out entangling Ahab, pulling him under. This classic was written by Herman Melville, born August 1, 1819. Grandson of a Boston Tea Party Indian, Melville's father died when he was 12. Raised by a mother who inspired his imagination with biblical stories, Herman Melville shipped out as a cabin boy on a whaling ship and later sailed the South Seas with the Navy. He fell among Typee cannibals in the Marquesas Islands. Rescued, he wrote in an account: "These disclosures will...lead to...ultimate benefit to the cause of Christianity in the Sandwich Islands." In his classic novel, Moby Dick, Herman Melville wrote: "With this sin of disobedience...Jonah flouts at God...He thinks that a ship made by men will carry him into countries where God does not reign." In 1983, The U.S. District Court stated in Crockett v. Sorenson: "Better known works which rely on allusions from the Bible include Milton's Paradise Lost...Shakespeare...and Melville's Moby Dick...Secular education...demands that the student have a good knowledge of the Bible."> 1819HM003
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1819HM001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Herman Melville, 1850, in White Jacket. Peter Marshall & David Manuel, The Glory of America (Bloomington, MN: Garborg's Heart 'N Home, 1991), 8.24. 1819HM002. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Herman Melville, 1851, Moby Dick, p. XXVI. Charles Fadiman, ed., The American Treasury (NY: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1955), p. 131.
1819HM102. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Herman Melville, 1857. David Sugarman, August 16, 2012, Melville in Jerusalem, Tablet-A New Read on Jewish Life. http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and- culture/books/109333/melville-in-jerusalem
1819HM003. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Herman Melville. William J. Federer, American Minute-Notable Events of American Significance Remembered on the Date They Occurred (Amerisearch, Inc., 2008), p. 220.