And In This Passion For Understanding Her

Every New Stroke Of Civilization Has Cost The Lives Of Countless Brave Men, Who Have Fallen Defeated By The Dragon, In Their Efforts To Win The Apples Of The Hesperides, Or The Fleece Of Gold. Fallen In Their Efforts To Overcome The Old, Half Sordid Savagery Of The Lower Stages Of Creation, And Win The Next Stage.

Human Love, Human Trust, Are Always Perilous, Because They Break Down. The Greater The Love, The Greater The Trust, And The Greater The Peril, The Greater The Disaster. Because To Place Absolute Trust On Another Human Being Is In Itself A Disaster, Both Ways, Since Each Human Being Is A Ship That Must Sail Its Own Course, Even If It Go In Company With Another Ship.... And Yet, Love Is The Greatest Thing Between Human Beings.

Behold Then Septimus Dodge Returning To Dodge-town Victorious. Not Crowned With Laurel, It Is True, But Wreathed In Lists Of Things He Has Seen And Sucked Dry. Seen And Sucked Dry, You Know: Venus De Milo, The Rhine Or The Coliseum: Swallowed Like So Many Clams, And Left The Shells.

Melville Had To Fight, Fight Against The Existing World, Against His Own Very Self. Only He Would Never Quite Put The Knife In The Heart Of His Paradisal Ideal. Somehow, Somewhere, Somewhen, Love Should Be A Fulfillment, And Life Should Be A Thing Of Bliss. That Was His Fixed Ideal. Fata Morgana. That Was The Pin He Tortured Himself On, Like A Pinned-down Butterfly.

Another Head - And A Black Alpaca Jacket And A Serviette This Time - To Tell Us Coffee Is Ready. Not Before It Is Time, Too.