HERMAN MELVILLE (1819-1891) N 1846 appeared a volume of travel and adventure called 'Typee,' with the name of Herman Melville on the titlepage. It created a stir, which in these days would be What was Was the called a sensation, which speedily spread to England. Typee? What was this South Sea island? Did it exist, with its soft airs and compliant people, only in romance? The romantic name "Herman Melville" must be only a nom de plume. The critics and the newspapers took up the mystery and tossed it about. whole thing an invention of a clever romancer? Was there any such person as Melville and his sailor comrade "Toby"? The newspapers were facetious about the latter, and headed their paragraphs "To Be or not To Be." It was a great relief when one day the veritable sailor Toby turned up in Buffalo, New York, and made affirmation to the truth of the whole narrative. HERMAN MELVILLE 'Typee was the first of the long line of books of travel, adventure, and romance about the South Seas; and Fayaway was the first of the Polynesian maidens to attract the attention of the world. The book not only opened a new world, but it gave new terms like taboo-to our language. It led the way to a host of other writers, among whom recently are Pierre Loti and Stevenson. The Mariage de Loti,' in its incidents and romanticism, copies 'Typee.' It is not probable, however, that Pierre Loti ever saw Melville's book, or he would not have made such an imitation. Herman Melville, son of a New York merchant, and born in that city in October 1819, in a state of life which hedged him about with a thousand social restrictions, early "came to live in the all," as Goethe has it; though Melville himself put the transformation much later, when he broke away from home, became a sailor on a whaling vessel, and there endured innumerable hardships and cruelties. Finally escaping from his tyrants, he reached the Marquesas Islands, where he enjoyed strange adventures for many months,- a captive in a tribe of cannibals in the Typee Valley. An Australian ship having taken him aboard, he returned home, the hero of strange tales which he at once chronicled in the romances (Typee' (1846) and Omoo' (1847). No sooner were these volumes published than his promise of lasting fame "was voluble in the mouths of wisest censure," while his actual success put him in the first rank of American authors at the age of twenty-six. But for some mysterious reason (for most of his other books were written on the subject which inspired Typee' and 'Omoo,' and were possessed with the same enthusiasm) Moby Dick,' published when he was only thirty-two years old, disclosed that he had "come to the last leaf in the bulb." He wrote several books afterwards, musings and stories, and three volumes of poems which just miss the mark. Mr. R. H. Stoddard, his kindly and sympathetic critic, said of him that he thought like a poet, saw like a poet, felt like a poet; but never attained any proficiency in verse, because, though there was a wealth of imagination in his mind, it was an untrained imagination, and "a world of the stuff out of which poetry is made, but no poetry, which is creation, not chaos." At one time Melville and Hawthorne were near neighbors, — when Hawthorne lived on the brink of Stockbridge pool, and Melville at Lenox; and it is possible that each was influenced by the genius of the other. Mr. Stoddard thinks there were dark, mysterious elements in Melville's nature akin to those that possessed Hawthorne; but that unlike Hawthorne, Melville did not control his melancholy, letting it rather lead him into morbid moods. Certainly, in the days of 'Omoo' and Typee' Melville exhibited no such traits; but he had probably. like Emily Bronté, "an intense and glowing mind" to see everything through its own atmosphere. Really to know Melville the man, it is necessary to read the letters that passed between Hawthorne and himself, which are printed in Mr. Julian Hawthorne's memoir of his parents. There Melville pours out his sad strange views of life, which on the whole had treated him kindly, given him a success which would have intoxicated another man with joy, and the promise of favors to come. His later years were passed in the world of thought rather than of action. He published nothing; and New York, his old campingground, seldom knew him. But when he appeared, his gray figure, gray hair and coloring, and piercing gray eyes, marked him to the most casual observer. Though a man of moods, he had a peculiarly winning and interesting personality, suggesting Laurence Oliphant in his gentle deference to an opponent's conventional opinion while he expressed the wildest and most emancipated ideas of his own. Herman Melville died in New York, September 28th, 1891; and in his death he was revived in the memories of many of his old-time associates and admirers, to whom his personality had become shadowy, but who still regarded 'Omoo' and 'Typee' as landmarks in American literature. The Marquesas Islands, when Melville visited them, were virgin soil; the report that their inhabitants were cannibals having kept the country safe from the invading tourist. Melville soon ingratiated himself with the gentle creatures who ate human beings, as Emerson's savage kills his enemy, only out of pure compliment to their virtues, fancying that the qualities of a great antagonist will pass into his conqueror. The feminine element came in to add romance; and though a human soul, even that of a South Sea Islander, is always more interesting than all the coral reefs and the cocoanut palms in the world, and Melville's beautiful heroines are a little too subsidiary to scenery, the critic must remember that the primitive woman is a thing of traits, not of peculiarities, and therefore alike the world over. We should therefore judge him not too harshly because there is little character-drawing in his romances; and be thankful to breathe as he makes us breathe-the soft airs, see the blue sky, and visit the coral caves, of the South Seas. His great advantage is in placing his stories in a sort of poetic or fairy precinct, where the groves are sylvan haunts and the very names full of romance; while his dramatis personæ, if not marked, are a people gentle but lofty, eloquent, and full of poetry and hospitality. All this he embodied in his first novels; and although he had the advantage of "breaking ground," as the farmers say, he had to compete not with the literature of a new country, but with the prejudices of a new country against anything not produced in the old. 'Omoo's' charms, however, penetrated the conservatism of Blackwood and the Edinburgh Review; while his confrères - Lowell, Hawthorne, Bayard Taylor, and the rest- were proud of his recognition abroad. A re-reading does not destroy the illusion of his reputation. The spirit of his books is as fresh and penetrating as when they were first written, his genius keeping for him the secret of eternal youth. His vocabulary is perhaps too large, too fluent; it has been called unliterary: but what he lacks in conciseness is atoned for in spontaneity. And although his romances are permeated with languid airs and indolent odors, and although flower-decked maidens turn their brown shoulders and their soft eyes to the captive hero, the books have a healthy, manly ring as far from sensuousness as from austerity; the reader knows that after all it is a captive's tale, and that one day, when the winds blow to stir him to action, he will sail away to a more bracing clime. M A TYPEE HOUSEHOLD EHEVI having now departed, and the family physician having likewise made his exit, we were left about sunset with the ten or twelve natives who by this time I had ascertained composed the household of which Toby and I were members. As the dwelling to which we had been first introduced. was the place of my permanent abode while I remained in the valley, and as I was necessarily placed upon the most intimate footing with its occupants, I may as well here enter into a little description of it and its inhabitants. This description will apply also to nearly all the other dwelling-places in the vale, and will furnish some idea of the generality of the natives. Near one side of the valley, and about midway up the ascent of a rather abrupt rise of ground waving with the richest verdure, a number of large stones were laid in successive courses to the height of nearly eight feet, and disposed in such a manner that their level surface corresponded in shape with the habitation which was perched upon it. A narrow space however was reserved in front of the dwelling, upon the summit of this pile of stones (called by the natives a "pi-pi"), which being inclosed by a little pocket of canes gave it somewhat the appearance of a veranda. The frame of the house was constructed of large bamboos planted uprightly, and secured together at intervals by transverse stalks of the light wood of the hibiscus, lashed with thongs of bark. The rear of the tenement - built up with successive ranges of cocoanut boughs bound one upon another, with their leaflets cunningly woven together-inclined a little from the vertical, and extended from the extreme edge of the "pi-pi" to about twenty feet from its surface; whence the shelving roof, thatched with the long tapering leaves of the palmetto, sloped steeply off to within about five feet of the floor, leaving the eaves drooping with tassel-like appendages over the front of the habitation. This was constructed of light and elegant canes, in a kind of open screen-work, tastefully adorned with bindings of variegated sinnate, which served to hold together its various parts. The sides of the house were similarly built; thus presenting three quarters for the circulation of the air, while the whole was impervious to the rain. In length this picturesque building was perhaps twelve yards, while in breadth it could not have exceeded as many feet. So much for the exterior; which with its wire-like reed-twisted sides. not a little reminded me of an immense aviary. Stooping a little, you passed through a narrow aperture in its front: and facing you on entering, lay two long, perfectly straight, and well-polished trunks of the cocoanut-tree, extending the full length of the dwelling; one of them placed closely against the rear, and the other lying parallel with it some two yards distant, the interval between them being spread with a multitude of gayly worked mats, nearly all of a different pattern. This space formed the common couch and lounging-place of the natives, answering the purpose of a divan in Oriental countries. Here would they slumber through the hours of the night, and recline luxuriously during the greater part of the day. The remainder of the floor presented only the cool shining surfaces of the large stones of which the "pi-pi" was composed. From the ridge-pole of the house hung suspended a number of large packages enveloped in coarse tappa; some of which contained festival dresses, and various other matters of the wardrobe, held in high estimation. These were easily accessible by means of a line, which, passing over the ridge-pole, had one end attached to a bundle; while with the other, which led to the side of the dwelling and was there secured, the package could be lowered or elevated at pleasure. Against the farther wall of the house were arranged in tasteful figures a variety of spears and javelins, and other implements of savage warfare. Outside of the habitation, and built upon the piazza-like area in its front, was a little shed used as a sort of larder or pantry, and in which were stored various articles of domestic use and convenience. A few yards from the "pi-pi» was a large shed built of cocoanut boughs, where the process of preparing the "poee-poee" was carried on, and all culinary operations attended to. Thus much for the house and its appurtenances; and it will be readily acknowledged that a more commodious and appropriate dwelling for the climate and the people could not possibly be devised. It was cool, free to admit the air, scrupulously clean, and elevated above the dampness and impurities of the ground. But now to sketch the inmates; and here I claim for my tried servitor and faithful valet Kory-Kory the precedence of a first |