Ohio History Journal

HERMAN MELVILLE AND THE OHIO PRESS

 

By GEORGE KUMMER

 

Early in 1858 Herman Melville passed through Ohio on a

lecture tour. The hastily written notices of his address which ap-

peared in the newspapers of Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chillicothe

add a few details to our sketchy knowledge of his career as a

lecturer and show how the author of Moby Dick impressed the

people of what was then called "the West."

The average Ohioan of that day was not greatly interested

in Roman statuary, the subject of Melville's lecture. As a Cleve-

land critic remarked:

The fact that we Western people, have not got sufficiently beyond the

influence of the prevailing practicality of pioneer society, and are there-

fore, to a great extent destitute of that cultivation of nature and taste

necessary to a fine and general appreciation of Art will undoubtedly account

for the fact that the hall was not crowded to its utmost capacity, as it

should have been by the announcement of the subject "Roman Statuary"

in connection with the name of Melville.1

Such a subject did not lend itself to warm and passionate

treatment, and Melville's delivery seems to have lacked force.

Mr. Melville has a musical voice, and a very correct delivery, but a

subdued tone and general want of animation prevents his being a popular

lecturer. The same essay, read by him in a parlour as from the pages of

a book, would give far greater satisfaction than it conveyed last evening

when delivered under the guise of a popular lecture. We repeat our

axiom--good writers do not make good lecturers.²

Cincinnati papers in their comments on Melville's manner

made the same point. The Gazette said that his delivery was "too

quiet, commonplace, and unobtrusive for a popular audience."3

Another Cincinnati journal thought Melville

rather an attractive person, though not what anybody would describe good

looking. He is a well built, muscular, gentleman, with a frame capable of

1 Cleveland Morning Leader, January 12, 1858.

2 Cleveland Daily Herald, January 12, 1858.

3 Cincinnati Gazette, February 8, 1858.

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HERMAN MELVILLE                           35

 

great physical exertion and endurance. His manner is gentle and per-

suasive, while a certain indefinable sharpness of features, with small

twinkling blue eyes under arched brows, and a rather contracted and rugged

forehead, indicates the spirit of adventure which sent him roving a sailor's

sturdy life. His face, three parts obscured by a heavy brown beard and

moustache, still glistens duskily with the Polynesian polish it received

under the tawny influences of a Southern sun, and his voice is as soft and

almost as sweet, barring a slight huskiness proceeding from a cold, as the

warbling of the winds in the cocoa groves. His style of delivery is earnest,

though not sufficiently animated for a Western audience, and he enunciates

with only tolerable distinctness.4

Neither the Cleveland nor the Cincinnati newspapers criticized

the structure of the address, although the notices in the Cincinnati

papers included paraphrases of Melville's remarks. The Chilli-

cothe Advertiser, however, did not neglect this important aspect

of the subject. Its notice was one of the most unfavorable which

Melville received from an Ohio newspaper:

The fourth lecture of the first annual course under the auspices of

the Gymnasium and Library Association, was delivered Wednesday eve. in

the Second Presbyterian Church by Herman Melville, esq. The subject

was "Statues in Rome" though the Lecturer did not confine himself to

those statues which immortalize the "Eternal City," but telegraphed his

audience to Naples and Florence, and to Amsterdam with little regard to

their convenience, and did not even take the trouble to render the travelling

easy. He began with the collosal statues before the gate of St. John on

the Naples road. Thence by no very easy transitions wound among the

streets and bye places of the city, cast a furtive glance at the Colosium,

and the miracles of art gathered there, measured the statues by the Yankee

method, eulogized the Oppolo [sic], carried his audience into the court yard

and treated them to an extended view of the Palace, shipped out to villa

Albanicano, closed with remarks applicable to statues in general. Alto-

gether, to those familiar through writers of the day with Rome and its

attractions, the lecture was a string of indifferent Pearls, genuine indeed,

but sadly wanting in that polish which gives even to trite common places a

passing interest and endows the germ of originality with the power of life

and beauty. If the lecture was faulty, the delivery can hardly be said to

have been less so. Perhaps we do injustice to Mr. M by expressing any

opinion in regard to his delivery, since any one who has tried to speak in

public, must know how a slight cold will entirely untune the voice, and

so diminish his control over it as to render the speaker timid and reserved

in his utterance, and it was quite apparent that Mr. M was afflicted with

quite a severe cold, was aware that he could not command his voice and

therefore afraid to trust it.

Doubtless these objections did not occur to many of the audience, for

the general expression with regard to the Lecture was of high appreciation.

And in truth the Lecture was by no means void either of interest or

instruction.5

4 Cincinnati Daily Commercial, February 8, 1858.

5 Chillicothe Advertiser, February 5, 1858.

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36     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

If Melville read this notice, he may have consoled himself

with the praise of the Advertiser's Chillicothe rival, The Scioto

Gazette. According to the Gazette, the lecture was "a rare intel-

lectual treat" and Melville's delivery was excellent:

Although laboring under a severe cold, his voice was still rich and

mellow, and he had the most complete control of it. He speaks with

earnestness and enunciates distinctly; even when he descended, as he some-

times did, almost to a whisper, his words were audible in the remotest

parts of the room.6

Such were the notices Melville received in the Ohio press.

Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Chillicothe newspapers gave the lecture

at least a measure of praise, but it is apparent that Melville lacked

most of the qualities of a popular lecturer. Today, an attempt

to augment a small income from books by talking to Ohioans on

a subject so remote from their interests as Roman statuary would

be ill-advised. But in the late 'fifties, many authors, as, for ex-

ample, Bayard Taylor with his travel lectures, were reaping a

rich financial harvest from western lyceums. Could Melville have

done likewise, perhaps he would not have stopped writing. Per-

haps there would have been another Moby Dick.

 

6 The Scioto Gazette, February 2, 1858.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Scioto Gazette, February 2, 1858.

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