Endnotes
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The American Spaniards have long been in the habit of making presents of islands to deserving individuals. The pilot Juan Fernandez procured a deed of the isle named after him, and for some years resided there before Selkirk came. It is supposed, however, that he eventually contracted the blues upon his princely property, for after a time he returned to the main, and as report goes, became a very garrulous barber in the city of Lima. ↩
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They who may be disposed to question the possibility of the character above depicted, are referred to the 2nd vol. of Porter’s Voyage Into the Pacific, where they will recognize many sentences, for expedition’s sake derived verbatim from thence, and incorporated here; the main difference—save a few passing reflections—between the two accounts being, that the present writer has added to Porter’s facts accessory ones picked up in the Pacific from reliable sources; and where facts conflict, has naturally preferred his own authorities to Porter’s. As, for instance, his authorities place Oberlus on Hood’s Isle: Porter’s, on Charles’s Isle. The letter found in the hut is also somewhat different; for while at the Encantadas he was informed that, not only did it evince a certain clerkliness, but was full of the strangest satiric effrontery which does not adequately appear in Porter’s version. I accordingly altered it to suit the general character of its author. ↩
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Friday, —begun.
Revision begun—.
Finished—. ↩
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Crossed out:
Was one hailed by the noblest men of it.
Even the dry tinder of Wordsworth took fire. -
In Melville’s MS. the vessel is on these occasions given the name Bellipotent. ↩
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Melville’s MS. contains at this point the words “Jonathan Edwards” in brackets. Clearly Melville had in mind the great New England Calvinist preacher and theologian when he was writing this sentence. ↩
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There is an author’s note in the margin of the MS. reading:—Another order to be given here in place of this one. ↩
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There is an author’s note in the margin of the MS. reading:—An irruption of heretic thought hard to suppress. ↩
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Written in pencil above this “one,” an “eight,” allowing a choice of readings. ↩
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An author’s note, crossed out, here appears in the original MS. It reads:—Here ends a story not unwarranted by what happens in this incongruous world of ours—innocence and infirmary, spiritual depravity and fair respite. ↩
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Omitted from “Billy Budd”. ↩
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The following letter from the Editor of Putnam’s Monthly was kept by Melville with the rejected MS. of the “Two Temples.”
It is now published together with the Essay to which it refers, both for its intrinsic interest and as evidence of the date at which the “Two Temples” was written.
Office of Putnam’s Monthly,
10 Park Place, New York,
.Dear Sir—I am very loth to reject the “Two Temples” as the article contains some exquisitely fine description, and some pungent satire, but my editorial experience compels me to be very careful in offending the religious sensibilities of the public, and the moral of the “Two Temples” would sway against us the whole power of the pulpit, to say nothing of Brown, and the congregation of Grace Church.
I will take this opportunity to apologise to you for making a slight alteration in the “Encantadas,” in the last paragraph of the “Chola Widow,” which I thought would be improved by the omission of a few words. That I did not injure the idea, or mutilate the touching figure you introduced, by the slight excision I made, I received good evidence of, in a letter from James R. Lowell, who said that the figure of the cross in the ass’s neck, brought tears into his eyes, and he thought it the finest touch of genius he had seen in prose. The only complaint that I have heard about the “Encantadas” was that it might have been longer.