Dragooned!  Ten Traces of
Herman Melville
in "Scenes Beyond the Western Border" (1851-1853)

Philip St. George Cooke

Radical Freelance, Esq.

William Gibson, USN

Augustus Ely Silliman

Texts by Anonymous

Resources

Events

8

NUMBER EIGHT offers the fruits of old-fashioned source study.  Plagiarists, like poker players, have “tells,” certain idiosyncratic mannerisms that give away their hands to the shrewd observer.  We know plenty of Melville’s sources, and we know some of the sources plundered in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border.”  Consequently, it is possible to isolate specific “tells” by comparing known instances of plagiarism―or, if you prefer, "creative appropriations" by Melville and Cooke.  The method here is to locate unique contributions of Melville and Cooke (or rather, Cooke's editor or "ghostwriter"), then find and compare matches.  Ten cool ones are listed below.  Note that highlighted words and phrases do not merely represent parallels of diction.  More tellingly, each word or phrase reflects a particular strategy of revision that Melville employs, and that the editor or ghostwriter of “Scenes Beyond the Western Border” likewise employs, while creatively re-writing primary sources. 

Revised Versions in MAROON

1.  SUN-LIT
Melville’s revision of Psalm 18 in Moby-Dick (The Sermon):

While floods of high temptations rose
While all God’s sun-lit waves rolled by

Revision of Cooke’s “Sketches of the Great West” (Washington Daily Union, 6 October 1845) in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border” (August 1852; 507), describing summit of the Rocky Mountains:

Its majestic outline stood boldly forth among white and rosy clouds, and its lustrous mantle of snow and ice gleamed gloriously in our eyes
Their sharp pyramids of snow seemed to penetrate—and all sun-lit—were sublimely relieved by the dark clouds.

2.  TARRY
Melville’s revision of Trumbull (48) in Israel Potter (35; see Northwestern-Newbery ed., 334):

and there remain until they should send for me
there to tarry for further instructions

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border” (May 1853; 311):

...inspired us with wonder how man could have attempted to live here
I only wondered that man could be tempted to tarry here

3.  GLITTERING

Melville’s revision of Trumbull (9) in Israel Potter (9; NN ed., 295):

This proved to be a very profitable trip, as I soon disposed of every article at an advance of more than two hundred per cent
Selling his glittering goods at a great advance . .

Revision of 1845 “Oregon, Ho!” in April 1852 (234):

dancing waves of the broad waters
glittering expanse of water

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in August 1852 (507): 

the proud summits of our land
the glittering summits of the Rocky Mountains

Revision of 1845 source (March to South Pass, William B. Franklin’s Journal of the Kearny Expedition, ed. Schubert, p. 17) in August 1852 (505):

several beds of this salt . . .  it resembled Epsom or Glauber salts. 
great plain of white sand, and here and there, of glittering Epsom Salts!

4.  BRIGHT MORNING
Melville’s revision of Trumbull (20) in Israel Potter (15; NN ed., 306):

I was ordered into the boat, to assist the bargemen
But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck.  A bargeman of the commander’s boat is sick.

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in June 1852 (378):

a prevailing mirage—arising, probably, from great and rapid evaporation—like a gauze mantle, throws an additional charm
and the rare atmosphere and the heat of the bright morning, gave rise to a soft and varying mirage

5.  EARNEST
Melville’s revision of Trumbull (46) in Israel Potter (332):

 to make good my escape by the assistance of a friend
thanks to the fidelity of a few earnest well wishers

requesting me to repair immediately to his house (47)
the refugee was earnestly requested to repair on the following evening to that gentleman’s mansion

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in August 1852 (506):

not through the “Devil’s Gate,” but a much less lofty portal
“the Devil’s Gate,” the actual extremity of the ridge.  So named, perhaps, by some earnest believer in Satanic grandeur

(Compare also the Captain’s phrase satanic grandeur with archangelic grandeur in chapter 106 of Moby-Dick.)

6.  OUTLET
Melville’s revision of Trumbull (25) in Israel Potter (17):

I found the whole garden enclosed with a smooth bricken wall
No outlet was discovered in the gloom.

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in August 1852 (506):

the river here passes through a vast chasm of vertical granite
the stream here finds an outlet through a profound and narrow chasm in vertical granite

7.  GLOOM
Melville’s revision of Psalm 18 in Moby-Dick (The Sermon):

Spread over me their dismal shade
Arched over me a dismal gloom

Various expansions of 1845 sources in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border”:

8.   ANCIENT
Melville’s revision of Trumbull (47) in Israel Potter (34):

I reached the house of Squire Woodcock about 8 o’clock in the evening
Israel stole from his retreat, and after a few hours’ walk, arrived before the ancient brick house of the Squire.

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in August 1852 (506) and September 1852 (554):

Meat could be kept fresh almost any length of time; and we saw several buffalo skulls on which the skin an inch thick, and the ears, had been preserved.
The rarity and dryness of this air is proved in an ancient buffalo skull, with the ears an inch thick, hide dried and preserved.

The horns and skull of the chamois, or big horn (a small specimen, but weighing about 18 pounds)
I have got an ancient “big horn” or chamois skull, with the horns, weighing eighteen pounds; but they are said to be quite small.

 9.  OWING TO

Melville’s revision of Amasa Delano in “Benito Cereno”:

on account of a reef that lay off the head (322)
owing to a sunken reef making out on her bow

We soon had our guns ready; but the Spanish ship had dropped so far astern of the Perseverance, that we could bring but one gun to bear on her, which was the after one.
Meantime, the guns were in readiness, though, owing to the San Dominick having glided somewhat astern of the sealer, only the aftermost one could be brought to bear.

Melville’s revision of Trumbull (11) in Israel Potter (10):

orders were immediately thereupon given by the captain to hoist out the long boat, which was found in such a leaky condition as to require constant bailing to keep her afloat
The boat was hoisted out, but owing to long exposure to the sun, it needed continual bailing to keep it afloat.

With a piece of the flying-jib, which had been fortunately thrown into the boat, we made shift to erect a sail
Israel caught at a fragment of the flying-jib, which sail had fallen down the stay, owing to the charring, nigh on the deck, of the rope which hoisted it.

Revision of Cooke’s 1845 “Sketches” in August 1852 (507):

we felt very sensibly the dryness and rarity of the atmosphere; combined with the heat of the sun reflected from sands, it often produced dizziness; and all remarked the absence of any sensible perspiration. . . .  a prevailing mirage—arising, probably, from great heat and rapid evaporation—like a gauze mantle, throws an additional charm
the reflection was blinding—the heat scorching; there was no sensible perspiration, owing to the rapidity of evaporation.

10.  I AM TOLD

Encantadas, Sketch Fourth:

When ships first cruised hereabouts, I am told, they used to blockade the entrance of Lee Bay, when, their boats going round by Weather Bay, passed through Narborough channel, and so had the leviathans very neatly in a pen.

Moby-Dick (Chapter 45):

I am told, on good authority, that on the Barbary coast, a Commodore Davis of the British navy found the skeleton of a sperm whale.

Revision of William B. Franklin’s 1845 Journal of the Kearny Expedition in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border”:

those in the rear found the women all crying and the men looking very sad.  Poor people!  they felt that in passing us they broke the last link that bound them to the United States.  (22)
I am told, that by the time our rear passes their companies, toward what they will ever consider their homes, the women generally are seen to weep.  (September 1852; 554)

At the point where we left the river the rock bore a great resemblance to the representations of Stirling Castle.  (11)
One view of it, I am told, resembles strongly some picture of Sterling Castle. 
(June 1852; 379—corrected to Stirling in 1857 book edition)

Scenes Beyond the Western Border
 

May 1853 (509):
We passed two bold branches of Horse Creek:  a gentleman told me he saw bees hiving their honey in holes in a clay bank; they are rarely seen so far away from plantations, or from trees.

September 1851 (572):
Re-hashed buffalo chase, humorously summarizing a long entry in Cooke’s 1843 Santa Fe Journal, is punctuated by this comment from the narrator’s “Imaginary Friend”:

“But you have told me this before.”

The ten examples above comprise a distinctive dictionary of “go to” words for disguising and/or improving a source text.  Interestingly, Melville and the Captain adopt a painterly approach to the work of revising and rewriting.  They frequently retouch old texts by adding lights and shades.  Examples 1,3, and 4 show how Melville and the Captain lighten their sources with a common palette of adjectives such as “sun-lit”; “glittering”; and “bright.”  Example 7 illustrates the darkening of a scene by the addition of gloom.

The last example, “But you have told me this before” is uniquely “telling.”  In the original journal entry for June 28, Cooke boasts of slaughtering buffalo on the prairie at 500 yards, with howitzers.  Most of the long entry deals with the killing of a die-hard buffalo, a wild affair involving a gored horse, toppled rider, and snarling bulldog.  A sincere effort to imitate the picturesque mode of Washington Irving, the passage nevertheless ends (after Cooke puts a bullet through the buffalo’s eye) on a note of seemingly unconscious bathos:  “The animal died, and has been eaten:  the horse is doing well” (Connelley, 97). 

As elsewhere, the rewrite of Cooke’s journal entry displays a sophisticated grasp of literary style and narrative technique.  Having creatively transformed the factual report into dialogue with an imaginary friend, the author adapts a “tell” that Howard Vincent calls “one of Melville’s favorite coverings for literary theft.”  First, the narrator, ostensibly writing “on the prairie” in September 1843, distills the essence of Cooke’s overblown journal report from earlier that summer.  The purposeful tinkering with Cooke’s chronology also signals a trained professional at work.  The narrator gives the condensed story of the die-hard buffalo in response to a query from the imaginary friend, who leadingly (and teasingly!) asks about that “wonderful bullfight in June.”  The imaginary friend then shuts down the conversation and the installment with the line, “But you have told me this before.”  Melville’s trick for masking literary plagiarism is thus employed to both reveal and conceal a theft.  “[Y]ou have told me this before” acknowledges the source in Cooke’s Journal, but minimizes the importance of the original entry.  Paradoxically, the backhanded citation aims to validate the authority of the speaker, I. F., an imaginary character in a fictional dialogue.