Herman Melville

Name: Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX
Author: Herman Melville

Summary

“Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX”, is a work by Herman Melville. It explores elements such as Liverpool, clime and antiquities.

Quotes from Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX (Herman Melville)

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ And even as this old guide-book boasts of the, to us, insignificant Liverpool of fifty years ago, the New York guidebooks are now vaunting of the magnitude of a town, whose future inhabitants, multitudinous as the pebbles on the beach, and girdled in with high walls and towers, flanking endless avenues of opulence and taste, will regard all our Broadways and Bowerys as but the paltry nucleus to their Nineveh. From far up the Hudson, beyond Harlem River, where the young saplings are now growing, that will overarch their lordly mansions with broad boughs, centuries old ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ Turning over the next leaf, I unfold a map, which in the midst of the British Arms, in one corner displays in sturdy text, that this is “A Plan of the Town of Liverpool.” But there seems little plan in the confined and crooked looking marks for the streets, and the docks irregularly scattered along the bank of the Mersey, which flows along, a peaceful stream of shaded line engraving.
On the northeast corner of the map, lies a level Sahara of yellowish white: a desert, which still bears marks of my zeal in endeavoring to populate it with all manner of uncouth monsters in crayons. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ Barbauld, upon the opening of the Theater Royal, Liverpool, in 1772:—
“Where Mersey’s stream, long winding o’er the plain, Pours his full tribute to the circling main, A band of fishers chose their humble seat; Contented labor blessed the fair retreat, Inured to hardship, patient, bold, and rude, They braved the billows for precarious food: Their straggling huts were ranged along the shore, Their nets and little boats their only store.” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ As I now fix my gaze upon this faded and dilapidated old guide-book, bearing every token of the ravages of near half a century, and read how this piece of antiquity enlarges like a modern upon previous antiquities, I am forcibly reminded that the world is indeed growing old. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ Reverentially folding this map, I pass a plate of the Town Hall, and come upon the Title Page, which, in the middle, is ornamented with a piece of landscape, representing a loosely clad lady in sandals, pensively seated upon a bleak rock on the sea shore, supporting her head with one hand, and with the other, exhibiting to the stranger an oval sort of salver, bearing the figure of a strange bird, with this motto elastically stretched for a border—“Deus nobis haec otia fecit.” ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ For the cope-stone of to-day is the corner-stone of tomorrow; and as St. Peter’s church was built in great part of the ruins of old Rome, so in all our erections, however imposing, we but form quarries and supply ignoble materials for the grander domes of posterity. ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ Where’er the Baltic rolls his wintry waves; Where’er the honored flood extends his tide, That clasps Sicilia like a favored bride. Greenland for her its bulky whale resigns, And temperate Gallia rears her generous vines: ’Midst warm Iberia citron orchards blow, And the ripe fruitage bends the laboring bough; In every clime her prosperous fleets are known, She makes the wealth of every clime her own.”
It also contains a delicately-curtained allusion to Mr. Roscoe:—
“And here R*s*o*, with genius all his own, New tracks explores ”

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Source: Wikisource

Herman Melville, Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX

“ It then goes on to give an account of the history and antiquities of the town, beginning with a record in the Doomsday-Book of William the Conqueror.
Here, it must be sincerely confessed, however, that notwithstanding his numerous other merits, my favorite author betrays a want of the uttermost antiquarian and penetrating spirit, which would have scorned to stop in its researches at the reign of the Norman monarch, but would have pushed on resolutely through the dark ages, up to Moses, the man of Uz, and Adam ”

Herman Melville

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Quotes from Redburn. His First Voyage — Chapter XXX (Herman Melville)

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