Quotations From HERMAN MELVILLE

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• 201.

  The only ugliness is that of the heart, seen through the face. And though beauty be obvious, the only loveliness is invisible.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 30, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970).
  
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• 202.

  The two great things yet to be discovered are these—The Art of rejuvenating old age in men, & oldageifying youth in books.—Who in the name of the trunk-makers would think of reading Old Burton were his book published for the first to day.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. letter, Apr. 5, 1849, to Evert A. Duyckinck. Correspondence, vol. 14, The Writings of Herman Melville, ed. Lynn Horth (1993).
• 203.

  man rebounds whole aeons back in nature.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. poet, novelist. The House-Top (l. 16). . . Selected Poems of Herman Melville. Hennig Cohen, ed. (1991) Fordham University Press.
  
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• 204.

  It is with fiction as with religion: it should present another world, and yet one to which we feel the tie.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. The Confidence-Man (1857), ch. 33, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 10, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1984).
  
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• 205.

  To be hated cordially, is only a left-handed compliment.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Omoo (1846), ch. 50, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 2, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1968).
• 206.

  There is a savor of life and immortality in substantial fare. Like balloons, we are nothing till filled.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 55, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970).
  
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• 207.

  Bless my soul, Sir, will you Britons not credit that an American can be a gentleman, & have read the Waverly Novels, tho every digit may have been in the tar-bucket?

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. letter, Mar. 25, 1848, to his publisher, John Murray. Correspondence, vol. 14, The Writings of Herman Melville, ed. Lynn Horth (1993). In performing his duties as a common sailor, Melville would have dipped his hand in tar.
• 208.

  One would like to know, what were foes made for except to be used?

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Pierre (1852), bk. XV, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 7, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1971).
• 209.

  Students of history are horror-struck at the massacres of old; but in the shambles, men are being murdered to-day.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Mardi (1849), ch. 161, The Writings of Herman Melville, vol. 3, eds. Harrison Hayford, Hershel Parker, and G. Thomas Tanselle (1970). Read from a scroll.
  
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• 210.

  Let us speak, though we show all our faults and weaknesses,—for it is a sign of strength to be weak, to know it, and out with it,—not in a set way and ostentatiously, though, but incidentally and without premeditation.

  Herman Melville (1819-1891), U.S. author. Letter, June 29, 1851, to Nathaniel Hawthorne. The Letters of Herman Melville, eds. Merrell R. Davis and William H. Gilman (1960).
  
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