Recorded Books Inc. - Melville in love: the secret life of herman melville and the muse of moby-dick

It is a winter scene like one youd find in a faded calendar of old New England. A snowstorm has swept through the countryside overnight, sending the temperature plummeting and turning the landscape white. And there, on a gentle rise in a valley between two mountains in the Berkshires, is an old colonial mansion with plumes of smoke rising from its tall chimneys, and guests arriving in sleighs for Christmas dinner.

The year is 1851, and the house is the pride of Pittsfield, the nearest town on this western edge of Massachusetts. Lately christened Broadhall by its new owners, the elegant mansion has two grand parlors with fancy chandeliers, separated by a wide hall and a solid old staircase. It was built by expert craftsmen using huge oak timbers from the area, and the upper windows command a sweeping view of the snow-covered mountains and fields that spread out in all directions. To the north, about a mile away, the church towers of the little town dot the horizon.

At the door servants usher inside the dozen or so guests, all from the neighborhood, including a doctor, a rich farmer, the town historian, and their various wives and daughters. The parlors glow with candles and crackling fires, the table is set, and decorations are everywhere for an old-fashiond English Christmas, with Holly & Mistletoe, & bobbing apples.

The hostess for this gathering is Sarah Anne Morewood, the twenty-eight-year-old wife of an English-born merchant and trader. Her husband is the prosperous but bland John Rowland Morewood, who also keeps a house in Manhattan, 150 miles away, where he devotes much of his time to his business and his local Episcopal church. His pretty wife likes living in the country. When the weather allows, she delights in exploring the Berkshire scenery on long rambles of ten miles on foot, or on rides of twenty miles on horseback. A free spirit who enjoys defying convention, she has a direct and open manner that can be unnerving, and she is full of strong passions. Proudly, she tells friends, My feelings... are always intense. The few surviving pictures of her capture that intensity in her eyes, which are dark and penetrating.

In solitary hours she is sometimes known to take paper and pencil to the woods and write lyrical verses about nature and love and death and other subjects typical of so many poems of the time. The editor of the Pittsfield Sun is an admirer of her writing, and a local church choir has set one of her verses to music. Thanks to her wealth, her literary interests, and her strong personality, she is already a prominent figure in the community, though her independent ways have also generated considerable gossip. It is whispered that she has shown too much interest in other men when Mr. Morewood is away.

Her husband is present on this Christmas afternoon, but Sarahs interest is, in fact, focused on a male guest at her party. He is the owner of the adjoining farm, an author who has just published a sprawling novel about the doomed pursuit of a great white whale across the distant reaches of the Pacific.

OVER THE PAST YEAR , in an upper room of his farmhouse overlooking this rolling countryside, Herman Melville has completed Moby-Dick; or, the Whale, and the book is now in print. Landlocked, he has been going to sea in his imagination, spinning out his tale of the relentless Captain Ahab of the Pequod chasing the white monster to the ends of the earth. Here, among these hills, he has found the inspiration to write the most ambitious American novel of the century, creating in Ahab a character to rank with the best of Shakespeares tragic heroes, a wounded soul at war with the world and raging against it at every turn with curses hurled at man, beast, and God.

For the author of such a major work, Melville is still very young. At thirty-two, he is handsome in the rugged, masculine way of a young outdoorsman. Tall for the times, he is broad-shouldered and bearded, with dark brown hair that is thick and glossy, and blue eyes that are ever curious and alert. His own early adventures at sea on whaling vessels and an American warship are now well behind him. Eager to make his mark in the world, he has been trying to win fame as a writer almost from the moment his last ship docked, seven years ago. He has made remarkable progress, with several books now to his credit, each written at blazing speed, and most of them earning him praise if not a lot of money.

Published in November, Moby-Dick is far superior to anything he has done before. It raises its basic tale of a whaling voyage to the level of an epic adventure and a spiritual odyssey. This is supposed to be his breakthrough work, a potential bestseller that will establish him as an author with few peers. It has only recently landed on the shelves of the local bookstore in Pittsfield, and the response has not been good. Buyers have been few. In fact, the novel is selling poorly everywhere, and though there are several favorable reviews, the bad ones are especially damning. Tiresome, inartistic, and not worth the money asked for it are some of the milder criticisms in the American press. The worst attacks portray the author as a clever rascal determined to imperil the readers soul by piratical assaults on the most sacred associations of life. One critic is so outraged by the novels impieties that he confidently prophesizes divine retribution as the price of the authors literary sins. The Judgment Day, declares the reviewer, will hold him liable for not turning his talents to better account.

Even here in Pittsfield some of the criticism has been harsh. An old puritanical streak among the towns best families has caused them to shun the book. They have been shocked to hear the author condemned so forcefully for his irreverence. The serious part of the community about here, Melville has learned, have loudly spoken of the book[,] saying it is more than Blasphemous. Deeply in debt from the purchase of his farmlittle more than a year ago, when he moved abruptly from New Yorkhe has pinned all his hopes on his masterpiece paying rich returns. Now the grim fact is slowly beginning to emerge that his earnings will be paltry. Throughout the rest of his life, the American sales of Moby-Dick will bring him only $556.37 on sales of just over 3,000 copies. The book is an unmitigated commercial disaster.

What should have been the happy close of a triumphant year, a time for celebrating the creation of a groundbreaking work, has instead become for Melville a sobering moment of public defeat. Sensitive to criticism, though often feigning indifference to it, he could be forgiven for avoiding any festive celebrations in the neighborhood and nursing his battered pride at home beside a warm fire. Yet here he is at the holiday party standing beside the most remarkable woman he knows, the new mistress of Broadhall. He seems to have some idea that a surprise is in store for him.

WHEN DINNER IS ANNOUNCED , he takes his hostess by the arm and leads her into the dining room, leaving her husband to follow, as if this is Melvilles home, and Sarah is his wife. When they reach the table, a beautiful Laurel wreath lies before them on a plate gleaming in the candlelight, the handiwork of Mrs. Morewood, who has a talent for floral design. Without a word, she picks up the wreath and gently lifts it to Melvilles brow, pressing close against him on her toes because he is so much taller. For a moment they look like actors playing a scene in an old drama. With a little imagination, this looks like the moment onstage when a queen crowns her champion or a maiden shows her favor to the victor of a race.