Melville was using his “unobstructed leisure” in a return to the writing of prose. Ten prose sketches and a novel were the result. But the result is not distinguished. The novel, Billy Budd, is built around the character of Jack Chase, the “Handsome Sailor.” In the character of Billy Budd, Melville attempts to portray the native purity and nobility of the uncorrupted man. Melville spends elaborate pains in analysing “the mystery of iniquity,” and in celebrating by contrast the god-like beauty of body and spirit of his hero. Billy Budd, by his heroic guilelessness is, like an angel of vengeance, precipitated into manslaughter; and for his very righteousness he is hanged. Billy Budd, finished within a few months before the end of Melville’s life, would seem to teach that though the wages of sin is death, that sinners and saints alike toil for a common hire. In Billy Budd the orphic sententiousness is gone, it is true. But gone also is the brisk lucidity, the sparkle, the verve. Only the disillusion abided with him to the last.
Melville died at 104 East 26th Street, New York, on Monday, September 28, 1891. His funeral was attended by his wife and his two daughters—all of his immediate family that survived him—and a meagre scattering of relatives and family friends. The man who had created Moby-Dick died an obscure and elderly private citizen. He had in early manhood prayed that if indeed his soul missed its haven, that his might, at least, be an utter wreck. “All Fame is patronage,” he had once written; “let me be infamous.” But as if in contempt even for this preference, he had, during the last half of his life, cruised off and away upon boundless and uncharted waters; and in the end he sank down into death, without a ripple of renown.
“Oh, what quenchless feud is this, that Time hath with the sons of Men!”
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Herman Melville’s Sea Tales. 4 Volumes. Edited by Arthur Stedman. New York, 1892, 1896; Boston, 1900, 1910, 1919.
Typee (with a biographical and critical introduction by the editor).
Omoo.
Moby-Dick.
White-Jacket.
Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life. During a Four Months’ Residence in a Valley of the Marquesas.... New York, 1846.
A Four Months’ Residence among the Natives of a Valley of the Marquesas Islands; or, a Peep at Polynesian Life.... London, 1846, 1847, 1855, 1861.
Typee: a Peep at Polynesian Life.... Revised edition, with a Sequel, The Story of Toby.... New York, 1846, 1847, 1849, 1855, 1857, 1865, 1871. London, 1892, 1893 (ed. H. S. Salt), 1898, 1899. Boston, 1902 (ed. William P. Trent). London, 1903 (ed. William P. Trent). London and New York, 1904 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1907 (ed. Ernest Rhys). London 1910; another edition 1910 (ed. W. Clark Russell). New York, 1911 (ed. W. Clark Russell); 1920 (ed. A. L. Sterling). New York and London, 1921 (ed. Ernest Rhys).