TO STUDENTS OF HERMAN MELVILLE THE year 1850, when
Moby-Dick was taking form, is of especial interest. The book
was in progress soon after Melville's return to New York from
Europe early in the year, and work on it continued at Pittsfield,
where he spent the summer and located on his newly-purchased farm
in the autumn. Although he was no stranger to the Berkshires,
having lived nearly a year there with his late uncle, Thomas
Melvill, and taught school in the neighborhood during his youth, he
seems to have made a deliberate effort in 1850 to renew his
familiarity with the New England environment through travel and
reading. From July 18 to July 20 he accompanied his cousin Robert
Melvill on a Berkshire excursion, and in the same month he was
reading several books with New England associations— Dwight's
Travels in New England,[1]
A History of the County of Berkshire, Hawthorne's
Mosses
from an Old Manse, and an anonymous
work on the "United Society of Believers, Commonly Called Shakers,"
acquired on a visit to the Shaker settlement at Hancock,
Massachusetts, on July 21. Melville's copy of this book, A
Summary View of the Millenial Church, is now in the Stone
Collection in the Alderman Library, the University of
Virginia.[2]
Although Melville introduced a crazed Shaker sailor into
Moby-Dick as the principal character of the interlude
entitled "The Jeroboam's Story" (Chapter LXXI), his knowledge of
the Shaker sect has so far passed virtually unnoticed by scholars.
In contrast to the extended treatments of Shakers in the writings
of Hawthorne and Emerson, only one other allusion by Melville is
known: in his journal for 1856, during a visit to Constantinople,
he observed that the "convent" of the Dancing Dervishes reminded
him of his Berkshire neighbors.[3]
But from the correspondence of Evert Duyckinck, who visited
Melville at Pittsfield early in August of 1850, it is learned that
he was interested enough during that summer to return to Hancock
with a party of friends on August 7 and also to go to the nearby
Shaker settlement at Lebanon, both communities being popular
attractions in that day for summer residents and their guests.
Another excursion to
Lebanon on August 15, as well as one in the following year, is also
recorded. It is clear, moreover, that Melville's acquaintance with
Shaker beliefs and practices was more than cursory, for in his copy
of A Summary View passages on 25 of its 384 pages have
been
checked, underlined, or marked with marginal lines in Melville's
characteristic manner, familiar and unmistakable to those who have
studied other volumes which were formerly part of his library; and
in addition there is a brief annotation in his hand. Most of the
marked passages, probably a fair indication of the direction of his
interest, occur in the opening sections (Parts I and II), dealing
with the history
of the United Society and its distinctive forms of worship and
government. The long exposition of Shaker theology and escha-tology
which constitutes most of the book is virtually unmarked; whether
Melville read this portion in its entirety or merely dipped into it
here and there cannot be determined from the evidence at hand.
It is not surprising that the Dancing Dervishes reminded
Melville in later years of the Shakers, for in A Summary
View several of the numerous passages on Shaker dancing are
marked and one of them is annotated. "Curious," he observed in a
penciled note, "that this dancing religion should have
originated among the French." His reference is to an account in the
text of the "remarkable revival" which occurred about 1689 in
"Dauphiny and Vivarais" and "excited great attention."
The subjects of this work were wrought upon in a very
extraordinary manner, both in body and mind; nor could the violent
agitations of their bodies, nor the powerful operations of their
spirits, which appeared in the flaming and irresistable
[
sic] energy of their testimony, be imputed to any thing
short of the
mighty power of God, with which they were
evidently inspired. Persons of both sexes and all ages, were the
subjects of these divine inspirations. Men, women, and even little
children, were wrought upon in a manner which struck the spectators
with wonder and astonishment; and their powerful admonitions and
prophetic warnings "were heard and received with reverence and
awe."
[4]
In Melville, who had been fascinated by the themes of inspiration
and prophetic utterance as early as
Mardi (1849), this
element of the Shaker tradition clearly struck a sympathetic chord.
As divine truth and power increased among the early Shakers, it is
stated,
they were involuntarily led, by the mighty power of God, to go
forth and worship in the dance. The apostolic gifts were also
renewed in their full power; so that "they spake with new tongues
and prophecied [
sic]." In
these operations, they were filled with melodious and heavenly
songs, especially while under the operation of dancing.
[5]
This passage is marked with a marginal line and is also
checked.
Except for the emphasis on music and dancing, this same
preoccupation with inspired utterance is characteristic of the
Shaker sailor in Moby-Dick. Gabriel's "powerful admonitions
and prophetic warnings," an ominous foreshadowing of the
catastrophe to come, are "heard and received with reverence and
awe" by his impressionable shipmates, but his testimony is
presented to the reader as akin to that of the prophetic Elijah and
the crazed negro Pip, in whom inspiration is allied with madness.
Gabriel himself is characterized as a man in a "deep, settled,
fanatic delirium," once a "great prophet" in the "cracked, secret
meetings" of the Shakers. At sea he "announced himself as the
archangel Gabriel" and commanded his captain to jump overboard. As
for his message, he solemnly warned the Jeroboam's master, as he
was later to warn Ahab,
against attacking the White Whale, in case the monster should be
seen; in his gibbering insanity, pronouncing the White Whale to be
no less a being than the Shaker God incarnated; the Shakers
receiving the Bible.
[6]
Deluded or not, Gabriel's intuition is perfectly sound in
prophesying "special doom to the sacrilegious assailants" of
Moby-Dick, whether the White Whale is taken as agent or principal,
incarnate deity or incarnate devil. For "man's insanity is heaven's
sense," as Melville elsewhere remarks of the idiot Pip,
[7] and Ahab's monomaniac quest of
vengeance is the true madness.
The marked passages just discussed are those with the greatest
relevance to
Moby-Dick and its single Shaker character,
whose presence there can be fairly attributed to Melville's
proximity to the Shaker communities and his study of
A Summary
View. There are other features of Shakerism, however, which
interested him as well and which bear some relation to his thought
and writing. In the historical section of
A Summary View he
marked accounts of various stages in the development of the sect:
the formation of a "Society" near Manchester, England,
circa
1747, the origin of the name "Shakers," the early persecutions of
the Society's adherents.
[8] Of
particular interest was the story of the celebrated "Mother Ann"
Lee, who led a group of Shakers to America in 1774. Melville marked
a reference to her as the Society's "spiritual
Mother in
Christ,"
[9] the "second Eve,"
considered inferior in spiritual eminence only to Christ Himself;
he checked
accounts of her initial revelation of 1770 and consequent spiritual
rebirth.
[10] When "born into the
spiritual kingdom," Mother Ann declared,
I was like an infant just brought into the world. They see
colors and objects; but they know not what they see; and so it was
with me. . . . But before I was twenty-four hours old, I saw, and
I knew what I saw.
[11]
Here again is the theme of divine inspiration. Melville made no
comment at this point, but one recalls the absolute contrast of his
own vision of the spiritual world as reflected in the chapters of
Moby-Dick on "The Whiteness of the Whale" and "The
Try-Works," in the torment of Pierre, and in the forlorn words of
the imprisoned Bartleby: "I know where I am."
[12] Perhaps Melville's unwilling
vacillation between belief and unbelief, remarked upon by
Hawthorne, is a clue to his interest
in the theme of spiritual revelation and the spiritual certainty of
the inspired Shakeress.
Attracted as he was to the story of Mother Ann, Melville was
nevertheless openly skeptical of a miraculous deliverance which
purportedly occurred during her voyage to America. The captain of
her ship, it is related, became so irritated by the Shaker dancing
that he considered throwing the company of believers into the sea.
God protected them, however, and for their sakes preserved the ship
and all on board when a terrific gale loosened a plank and
threatened to swamp their vessel. Mother Ann, informing the captain
that their ultimate safety had been assured to her by two angels,
led the Shakers to assist the crew in manning the pumps. "Shortly
after this, a large wave struck the ship with great violence, and
the loose plank was instantly closed to its place." Melville, with
a sailor's interest, marked the whole account with marginal lines,
but after the mention of the wave that closed the leak he placed a
revealing question-mark![13] The
remainder of the historical sketch is matter-of-fact, recounting
how the members of the Society, after their safe arrival in
America, contracted for land "near Niskeyuna," in the state of New
York[14]—Melville underlined the
name, which in a different spelling is mentioned in
Moby-Dick with reference to Gabriel's Shaker
background—
and settled there. "Mother Ann, and a number of the leading
characters," were imprisoned for a time in Albany in 1780,[15] but
were released and permitted to establish additional
communities.
[16]
Toward the equalitarian principles of the Shaker settlements the
democratic Melville was probably not unsympathetic, although one
infers from his remarks on the "Apostles" in Pierre that he
was dubious about the practicality of social reformers in general.
In A Summary View he checked several passages explaining
the
aims and methods of the Shaker community organization. Among "all
the hopeful expectations, labors and desires of mankind, in the
present age," one of these declares,
none appear more evident that those which lead to the formation
of associations in which all the members can enjoy equal rights and
privileges, physical and moral, both of a spiritual and temporal
nature, in a united capacity. Many have become fully convinced that
this is the ultimate destiny of mankind, and that they can never
enjoy that happiness for which their Creator designed them, in any
other way than in such united capacity.
[17]
That the Shaker Society at New-Lebanon has existed there "about
sixty years" without failure is cited as proof of the efficacy of
its organization and government,
[18]
which is later described as follows:
As the leading power of the visible Church is vested in the
Ministry, as the visible head, so in each separate family of the
Society, which is considered as a branch of the Church, the leading
power is vested in the Elders, who are considered as the heads of
their respective families. And so long as the visible head or
leaders of any family conduct themselves in a manner worthy of this
trust, it is necessary that they should be obeyed by all the
members of the family. Without this obedience there can be no
regulation, order nor harmony in the family.
[19]
Melville marked both this and another passage in the same vein:
Now let any candid person examine the causes by which
associations . . . so often fail, and he will find that it arises
from the partial and selfish relations of husbands, wives and
children, and other kindred relations, together with the jealousies
and evil surmises naturally arising therefrom.
[20]
The reference is of course to communal organizations, but the
passage is reminiscent of the bitterness arising between mother and
son, brother and sister, and cousin and cousin in
Pierre.
Perhaps the fact that Melville himself had been living with
relatives, even after his marriage, ever since his return from the
South Seas in 1844 helps to account for his interest in the concept
of the well-governed family.
In view of his own family situation and the seeming ambivalence
of his attitude toward the relation between the
sexes—particularly in Pierre—, one wonders
with what
motives Melville marked various passages on the Shaker rule of
continence, the principle underlying the communal organization of
the Society. None of the passages called forth specific comment in
the form of annotation, but he did underline the key phrase in a
passage stating that Mother Ann
bore an open testimony against the lustful gratifications of the
flesh, as the
source and foundation of human corruption; and
testified, in the most plain and pointed manner, that no soul could
follow Christ in the regeneration, while living in the works of
natural generation, or in any of the gratifications of lust.
[21]
Here again one is reminded of the idealistic Pierre, and the
"terrible self-revelation" that comes upon him when he suddenly
realizes the physical basis of his devotion to Isabel.
[22] According to Mother Ann,
physical
passion is the root of all evil. She had in her visions
a full and clear view of the mystery of iniquity, of the root
and foundation of human depravity, and of the very act of
transgression, committed by the first man and first woman in the
garden of Eden. Here she saw whence and wherein all mankind were
lost from God, and clearly realized the only possible way of
recovery.
[23]
The "only possible way" is of course renunciation of the flesh for
a life of celibacy. Since for Melville the Shaker practices were
not an acceptable solution of the human problem—in
Pierre
it is implied that there is no solution—, he showed little
interest in the detailed theological arguments for the celibate
life which are contained in many of the later pages of
A Summary
View. But if he rejected the Shaker "solution," he at the same
time agreed with much of the Shaker analysis of the alienation of
mankind from God. Within a month after buying
A Summary
View
he was writing, in "Hawthorne and His Mosses," of
that Calvinistic sense of Innate Depravity and Original Sin,
from whose visitations, in some shape or other, no deeply thinking
mind is always and wholly free. For, in certain moods, no man can
weigh this world without throwing in something, somehow like
Original Sin, to strike the uneven balance.
[24]
With his growing belief in a neutral, impassive cosmos he must have
agreed with the thought of a marked passage on the world's
disorders and miseries:
these defects are in the depraved nature of man. How then are
they to be remedied? It is in vain to suppose that nature can
remedy her own defects, and cure the depravity of her
children.
[25]
But he did not mark a single passage in the long sections dealing
with the Shaker conception of the nature of God and His works, the
fall and depravity of man, and the reign of Antichrist (Parts III,
IV, V). Only two pages are marked in the
discussion of the second manifestation of Christ in the female
(Part VI, Chapter IV)
[26] and one in
"The Faith and Principles of the New Creation" (Part VII)—the
passage on obedience in families quoted above.
[27]
In summary, Melville's interest in the Shakers as indicated by
the pattern of his markings is fairly clear. He checked key
incidents in the general story of Shakerism, perhaps in order to
qualify himself as a better guide when conducting his visiting New
York friends to the Shaker villages, as he did again in the summer
of 1851. The character of Mother Ann and the governing principles
of the Shaker communities were other topics of interest. But what
seemingly attracted him most was the prophetic strain in the Shaker
religion, with its association of exalted bodily and mental states.
Despite his evident skepticism toward Shaker sanity and the Shaker
creed, he apparently agreed with their pessimistic outlook upon
this earthly life, and was sympathetic toward their intuitive
yearning for a better life to come. In his personal knowledge of
the sect and in A Summary View lay the material for his
characterization of the Shaker Gabriel in one of the most striking
and
portentous chapters of Moby-Dick.