Herman Melville

While reading Bartleby the Scrivener I stopped after a few paragraphs.  Because the oddest thing happened to me – I could see Herman Melville.

I saw Herman Melville as he loved to write.  Sitting in a corner of a pub, drinking while he wrote.  He loved the sound of words, and he would roll them around in his mouth.  Finding the word, he felt was the best.  Round and around in his mouth.  Sometimes stopping to watch the people carry on in the pub sorta like watching television.

It was such an odd experience.  I saw it with such detail and clarity, I told my brother nearly as soon as I saw it.

After reading more of the story, I saw more of Herman Melville in my head.  He had health problems.  Small and easily unnoticed.  Nothing that would have been detected or cause for alarm in a doctor’s office or visit.  Yet, it caused problems with his mind effecting his relationships with his family and eventually his work relationships.

It could have been something as minor as a vitamin or mineral deficiency.  Today it is possible to not receive enough B-vitamins in our food and diet, so I could only imagine back in the 1800’s where refrigeration and ice where not standard to keep food from spoiling how easily a diet could keep you alive while your organs suffered borrowing nutrients from one another attempting to breathe and keep blood purified.

Island living was something Herman Melville was surprised to find out how much he enjoyed.  The cold, damp, wet weather of Northern winters could have been a little too much of a burden on his system.  It could have been a fabric that bothered his skin.

I saw wool.

I saw itchy wool.

It could have been a sensitivity to the material, or something in the process that his skin did not react well to, yet it was enough of an annoyance that it created conflict with his thought mind.

Shouting at others and unable to make up for it afterwards.  Not wanting to either.  More than a temper, conflicts, personality clashes.

Then, there was the enlightenment that the Anglo church was not the only place God existed.  People of different nationality and races could also have worth, be Godly children.

Then, I don’t know what happened.  Something on the island, the food, the weather conditions, sanitation, something happened where he started to disconnect not just from his family and home.  Herman Melville started to disconnect from the world.

I am uncertain that any of this could be determined to be true so many years after his death.

However still, I saw it.

I saw Herman Melville in my mind’s eye.