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.
(34)
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.
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.