There was the letter Melville received from an old shipmate:
“. . .first of all I will let you know who I am you probably have not forgotten all of the crew of the Old Frigate United States and more especially our visit to the city of Lima. my name is Oliver Russ, although I went by another name when at sea to conceal from my friends the unwise step I had taken and that name was Edward Norton I assumed my right name on coming home. Now what I wish to say is that I in the course of the next year after our return from sea I took to wife one of the fair daughters of the state of Maine and in two years from that day a son was born to us a substantial token of our mutual love and to manifest the high regard in which I have ever held yourself I named him Herman Melville Russ at that time I did not expect ever to hear of you again or that you would be numbered among the literary writers of the day. I say this to let you know that it was not the almost universal desire to name after great men that led me to do it, but a regard for those qualities which an acquaintance of eighteen month with you led me so much to admire.”
. . . and on the lists of the 4th voyage, many names appeared—men from Palos and the Niebla—men who had shipped earlier with Columbus . . .
they recalled, perhaps, the storm between Jamaica and Cuba, on the 2nd voyage, when the flagship was hove-to and all hands went below for a rest: the Admiral was the first on deck, and, noting that the weather was moderating, began to make sail himself, so as not to disturb his weary shipmates . . .
Melville: “If ever, in days to come, you shall see ruin at hand, and, thinking you understand mankind, shall tremble for your friendships, and tremble for your pride; and, partly through love for the one and fear for the other, shall resolve to be beforehand with the world, and save it from a sin by prospectively taking that sin to yourself, then will you do as one I now dream of once did, and like him will you suffer; but how fortunate and how grateful should you be, if like him, after all that had happened, you could be a little happy again.”
Columbus,
who had always been mysterious about his past, without mother or father, a roving widower—takes a late interest in Genoa:
From the Deed of Entail: “Item. I also enjoin Diego, or any one that may inherit the estate, to have and maintain in the city of Genoa one person of our lineage to reside there with his wife, and appoint him sufficient revenue to enable him to live decently, as a person closely connected with the family, of which he is to be the root and basis in that city; from which great good may accrue to him, inasmuch as I was born there, and came from thence.”
“. . . and Genoa is a noble city, and powerful by sea . . .”
“I command the said Diego, or whoever may possess the said estate, to labor and strive for the honor, welfare and aggrandizement of the city of Genoa, and make use of all his power and means in defending and enhancing the good and credit of that republic.”
Aging, lonely, the Admiral seeks his sources . . .
writing to friends in Genoa: “Although my body is here, my heart is continually yonder.”
and to another, just before leaving on the 4th voyage: “The loneliness in which you have left us cannot be described . . . I am ready to start in the name of the Holy Trinity as soon as the weather is good.”
and another: “If the desire to hear from you troubles me as much in the places to which I am going, as it does here, I shall feel great anxiety.”
On the 4th voyage, heading for Jamaica:
“. . . my ships were pierced with worm-holes, like a bee hive, and the crew entirely dispersed and downhearted.”
“. . . all the people with pumps and kettles and other vessels were insufficient to bail out the water that entered by the worm-holes.”
(Melville: “Bail out your individual boat, if you can, but the sea abides.”
Shore-bound, shipwrecked, on Jamaica . . .
(Melville three times underscores, in the works of another: “He that is sure of the goodness of his ship and tackle puts out fearlessly from the shore . . .”
(and Melville, on his last sea voyage, age 68—a pleasure trip to Bermuda: “Rough passage home during blizzard Got around on hands and knees.”
Back in Spain, finished forever with the ocean-sea, Columbus writes his son Diego:
“Very dear son:
“Since I received your letter of November 15 I have heard nothing from you. I wish that you would write me more frequently. I would like to receive a letter from you each hour. Reason must tell you that I now have no other repose. Many couriers come each day, and the news is of such a nature and so abundant that in hearing it, all my hair stands on end, it is so contrary to what my soul desires.
“I told you in that letter that my departure was certain, but that the hope of my arrival there, according to experience, was very uncertain, because my sickness is so bad and the cold is so well suited to aggravate it, that I could not well avoid remaining in some inn on the road. The litter and everything were ready. The weather became so violent that it appeared impossible to every one to start when it was getting so bad . . .
“. . . telling of my sickness and that it is now impossible for me to go and kiss their Royal feet and hands and that the Indies are being lost and are on fire in a thousand places, and that I have received nothing and am receiving nothing from the revenues derived from them, and that no one dares to accept or demand anything there for me, and I am living upon borrowed funds. I spent the money which I got there in bringing those people who went with me back to their homes, for it would be a great burden upon my conscience to have left them there and to have abandoned them.
“Take good care of your brother. He has a good disposition and is no longer a boy. Ten brothers would not be too many for you. I never found better friends to right or to left than my brothers. We must strive to obtain the government of the Indies . . .
“My illness permits me to write only at night, because in the daytime my hands are deprived of strength.”
and another time:
“I wrote a very long letter to his Highness as soon as I arrived here, fully stating the evils which require a prompt and efficient remedy . . . I have received no reply . . .”
(Melville, in a letter, advertises CLAREL: “. . . a metrical affair . . . eminently adapted for unpopularity.”
and Columbus signs his letters to Diego, “Your father, who loves you as himself.”
as Melville ended a letter to Stanwix: “Good bye, & God bless you, Your affectionate Father, H. Melville.”
Melville,
age 69, begins work on BILLY BUDD, as an afterthought to his life . . .
creates “Starry” Vere, the educated, literary captain, aware (as Melville was) of history and tradition, knowing that their demands must and will be met . . . knowing, too, that the present act is a compound of many elements: out of the hazy near-past, the strong and clear distant-past, and the immediate moment . . .
Melville, as Captain Vere, creates himself a bachelor . . . the old dream!
and creates Billy, the Handsome Sailor—a foundling . . . the old Ishmael dream!
Vere and Billy, bachelor and bastard—the two elements of Melville, split . . .
and Vere it is (as the agent of tradition) who sends Billy to his death . . . Melville, as Vere, thereby accepting responsibility for his son Mackey’s death; and perhaps, too, for the death of the Handsome Sailor in himself . . .
or perhaps Billy—pure and merry—was the sexual transposition of Fayaway: the dark savage girl become a pure white man,
(Billy: “. . . a lingering adolescent expression in the as yet smooth face, all but feminine in purity of natural complexion . . .”
(it being safer to love a man than a woman . . .
(as Dreiser transposed himself, saying, in effect, it is not safe to be myself, I will be SISTER CARRIE . . .
Melville, an old man, recalls Fayaway . . .
BILLY BUDD: “In fervid hearts self-contained some brief experiences devour our human tissue as secret fire in a ship’s hold . . .”
and Julian Hawthorne reports an interview with Melville: “. . . he told me, during our talk, 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.”
Melville—ever the writer—placing things of self in someone else . . .
Mrs. Glendinning, in PIERRE: “Oh, that the world were made of such malleable stuff, that we could recklessly do our fiercest heart’s wish before it . . .”
and my hand reaches for a newspaper clipping, the first in a series—date, 1953:
BOY, 6, IS KIDNAPPED
AT PRIVATE SCHOOL
Son of Wealthy Kansas City
Family Taken by Woman Who
Gave False Story to Nuns
KANSAS CITY, Mo., Sept. 28 (UP)—The 6-year-old son of a wealthy Kansas City business man was kidnapped from a Roman Catholic school here today by a woman who represented herself to be the boy’s aunt.
The stocky, red-haired woman led Robert C. (Buddy) Williams Jr. from the French Institute of Notre Dame de Sion after falsely telling the nuns that his mother had had a heart attack. Hours later the police had been unable to find any trace of the boy or his abductor.
The child’s father is the owner of the only Cadillac automobile agency in Kansas City, and has similar interests in Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Oklahoma. The family has a large, English-style home across the state line in Kansas.
The police said that there was no indication whether the kidnapper planned to seek a ransom.
The boy was in the primary grade of the school. He was a half-day pupil and was picked up each school day by the family chauffeur and taken home during the lunch hour. When the chauffeur arrived today the boy was gone.