Dragooned! Ten Traces of
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Riffs William Gibson, USN Augustus Ely Silliman |
9 NUMBER
NINE points up an arresting
double coincidence of argument and timing. Melville and the Captain of
U.S. Dragoons start the new year of 1852 by railing against the arrogance
of popular lecturers on “Human Destiny.” The April 1852 installment of
"Scenes Beyond the Western Border" re-conceives a newspaper sketch
entitled “Oregon, Ho!,” first published 15 July 1845 in the Washington
National Intelligencer and credited only to "St. George." The
original article depicted Oregon emigrants as "rough and hardy
frontiersmen" destined "to lay the foundations of a new empire" in the
west. In 1852, however, the
bringing of civilization to the Wild West is likened to the original Fall
of Man: "the best diplomatists of us all, they would conquer the land as
easily as,
April 1852
After revision in 1852, the “rough and hardy frontiersmen” of “Oregon, Ho!” have devolved into “rude founders of a State." Their new-world Paradise now seems doomed by the pursuit of Manifest Destiny. The 1852 view is nearly identical to Ungar’s in Melville’s epic poem, Clarel (1876), as expressed in a debate on progress in “the New World” (4.21: 83, 105). In reply to Derwent’s optimistic view of the frontier as a haven for the poor and oppressed, Ungar the “self-exiled” (4.5, line 154) soldier predicts a reign of mediocrity providing New confirmation of the fall / Of Adam. (4.21, lines 124-125)
Significant revisions to “Oregon, Ho!” include a new Ungaresque view of the pioneers, not as self-reliant representatives of American expansionism, but as automatons driven by irrational instinct:
Self-exiled and led by a human instinct—inspired, and superior to reason; neither pilgrims nor of broken fortunes, but unconscious workers of National Human Destiny, they seek the perfect independence of savage life, aided by some invented powers of civilized art. (231; emphasis mine)
This revisionist view of the Oregon emigrants as lemmings of Human Destiny was published shortly after Melville finished satirizing contemporary prophets of “Human Destiny” in the yet-unpublished manuscript of Pierre. In Book 17 (“Young America in Literature”), Pierre receives an invitation from the Urquhartian Club for the Immediate Extension of the Limits of all Knowledge, both Human and Divine to lecture, preferably on the subject of “Human Destiny.”
New material on "Human Destiny" first appears in the Southern Literary Messenger only a few months later, in April 1852. In the June 1852 installment of "Scenes Beyond the Western Border," the Captain of U. S. Dragoons continues his rant, only this time his target, demagogues, is more like Melville’s target, lecturers:
The public mind is occupied with the theorism of demagogues and infidels, who, abandoning themselves to licentious speculations on human destiny, attract multitudes of fanatical followers, whose minds they bewilder, and whose morals they debase. (377; emphasis mine)
The language of the Captain’s critique again foreshadows that of Melville’s Ungar, who regards the manifestly destined expansion of democracy over the western prairies as the dubious achievement of a “Debased" brand of "equality” (Clarel 4.21:128; emphasis mine). Like the Captain before him, Ungar fumes at demagogues and their expanding powers of mischief making, especially in the great democratic west: One demagogue can trouble much: / How of a hundred thousand such? (4.21:110-111; emphasis mine). Ungar forecasts the “Dark Ages of Democracy” Whatever happen in the end, Clarel 4.21, lines 122-133
Scenes Beyond the Western Border (June 1852) C. But even science is at fault—philosophy at a discount. The public mind is occupied with the theorism of demagogues and infidels, who abandoning themselves to licentious speculations on human destiny, attract multitudes of fanatical followers, whose minds they bewilder, and whose morals they debase. [“Scenes Beyond the Western Border” by A Captain of U. S. Dragoons.
Hershel Parker on Melville and “Human Destiny”: All of Unitarian Boston had been enthralled with the lecture series at the Lowell Institute by Lemuel Shaw’s friend Orville Dewey [during October and November, 1851] . . . The final title, “The Problem of Human Destiny, considered in its bearings on Human Life and Welfare,” was one Melville could hardly speak neutrally about, since it epitomized for him pseudo-Christian piety passing for true biblical religion. (Herman Melville: A Biography, V2:33.) ... Later, in January 1852, Melville exploded at the fatuous pomposity and impious arrogance of Dewey’s lecture series . . . and wrote the lecture title ‘Human Destiny’ into his book as the ne plus ultra of fatuousness. (V2:67) Parker refers to Pierre’s invitation by the Urquhartian Club for the Immediate Extension of the Limits of all Knowledge, both Human and Divine to lecture “on any subject,” preferably “Human Destiny.” (Book 17, “Young America in Literature”; pp. 252-253 in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Pierre.)
The new material on Human Destiny in “Scenes Beyond the Western Border” most likely were written in January and February 1852. New installments were then submitted by Philip St. George Cooke around February 19th and on March 14th (Letter to John Esten Cooke, 14 March 1852; now located with Letters in the John Esten Cooke Papers, Duke University Rare Book, Manuscript and Special Collections Library, Durham, North Carolina). Thus, in the early months of 1852, the Captain of U. S. Dragoons and Melville are using remarkably similar language to critique self-appointed experts on "Human Destiny." In addition, the Captain's disdain for popular science anticipates the critique of popular science and its leveling influence by Ungar in Melville's Clarel, quoted above from Book 4, Canto 21.
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