Melville's specialty, "the weaving of sparkling fancies into a web of incident and fact"

This complimentary review of Melville's lecture on Statues in Rome is excerpted in the second volume of Jay Leyda's Melville Log at page [586]. But if you only have the old Melville Log, you won't know the Boston Evening Transcript called Melville "a pleasant bookmaker" whose forte is "the weaving of sparkling fancies into a web of incident and fact." Or that Melville's audience left persuaded of his "keen eye for the beautiful in art as well as in literature." Merton M. Sealts, Jr. cites the Boston Transcript review on page 23 of Melville as Lecturer, quoting the "pleasant bookmaker" bit without any mention of web-weaving.

Boston Evening Transcript - Thursday, December 3, 1857

MERCANTILE LIBRARY LECTURES. At the Tremont Temple, last evening, a large audience listened with evident satisfaction, to the description of the various sculptures of the Eternal City, by Herman Melville. The pleasant bookmaker proved himself as much at home in the lecture-room as in prosecuting his peculiar vocation, i.e., the weaving of sparkling fancies into a web of incident and fact—the result of extended observation and travel. The lecture contained many trenchant passages, similar to those which have made Mr. Melville’s works so highly prized by the large class whose literary appetite relishes only richly-flavored dishes. There was but one defect about the evening’s entertainment—the subject was too vast for an hour’s consideration; but enough was done, in the time allotted, to convince the auditory that the lecturer had a keen eye for the beautiful in art as well as in literature.

Mr. Melville will be succeeded, on Wednesday evening next, By George W. Curtis, Esq.

 Related melvilliana post:

•  Can Art, not life make the ideal?

Annual Fair of the Berkshire Agricultural Society, October 3-5, 1855; Committee Report by Simon Brown

Image Credit: The Old Print Shop

The Middlesex digression in this 1855 report from Simon Brown of Concord is especially intriguing in view of the 1846 Middlesex source for the 1850 report on Berkshire farming that Herman Melville was long thought (by Melville scholars from Jay Leyda on) to have co-written or ghost-written for his cousin Robert Melvill.

Published over the signature of state delegate Simon Brown, this tour de force of descriptive writing appears in the 1856 volume of Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture. Simon Brown, editor of the New England Farmer, was then serving as Lt. Governor of Massachusetts. The same report was also published in the New England Farmer for November 1855 under the heading "BERKSHIRE COUNTY CATTLE SHOW." There Simon Brown and his public remarks after those of headliner Julius Rockwell are referenced as "a brief address, by the Editor of the New England Farmer" instead of "a brief address by your delegate." The 1855 address by Julius Rockwell on "The Farmer" appears in the same volume of Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, at pages 391-401. The featured speaker would later recommend Melville for a diplomatic office. On March 25, 1861 Julius Rockwell wrote Charles Sumner from Pittsfield on behalf of "my neighbor & friend Herman Melville, author of Omoo--Typee--and many, many, other things which are 'joys forever.'" (Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's Correspondence - 684).

Simon Brown's name also appears below the Committee Report for Hampshire. Brown's Hampshire report is capably written and "literary" as well, but it seems driven by a different, moralizing and reforming agenda. I wonder if Simon Brown collaborated with local ghostwriters.

BERKSHIRE.

The forty-fifth anniversary of the Berkshire Agricultural Society took place at Pittsfield, on the 3d, 4th and 5th days of October. All the exhibitions, and all the exercises of the whole three days, including the ball on the evening of the third day, were on the grounds of the society.

The show this year was the first under important changes, and new arrangements of the society. They had purchased and enclosed thirty acres of land, erected yards and stables, laid out and graded a fine trotting course, introduced water in abundance, and constructed a building in the form of a T, each part ninety feet in length, and about fifty feet wide. On the roof is a deck with balustrades, affording space for some ten or fifteen hundred persons, from which position the trotting, the equestrian performances by the ladies, the foot-races, the ploughing, drawing, and all other out-of-door exercises could be seen. So, from this spot, was one of the loveliest panoramas ever presented to the eye. Here the Pontoosuc comes ambling along through the narrow valleys, turning wheels and watering meadows as it flows, and giving examples of animated industry in its babbling course. There flows the Housatonic, enlarged and strengthened by the contributions of the Pontoosuc, and swelling out into the magnitude of a river, gladdening the manufacturer's as well as the farmer's hopes, and fertilizing the waiting intervals, green slopes and shady banks, as it winds along. Yonder are the hills on every side. On the north, old Greylock lifts its hoary head, still venerable and august, but young as when the oldest saw it first, dashing the battling elements from its sides, as the lion shakes the night drops from his impervious mane. There are the hills which circumscribe and mark out the amphitheatre of which these grounds are the centre—their sides covered with the deep forest, or dotted with rock maples, black birch, or groups of hemlock, perhaps the most beautiful evergreen of our climate, as well as among the most symmetrical and elegant of trees. Down the sides of these "crystal hills" pour limpid streams, where sheep and milch cows slake their thirst, and, checked in their course, with gathered strength they turn the wheels that grind the corn, or saw the logs that they have nourished many years. And, autumn frosts having touched with icy fingers the trembling leaves, they gleamed in colors of every hue, golden and scarlet, purple and orange, each vieing in brilliancy with the other, and forming a richness of shade and coloring never imitated by man, and probably unequalled in any other clime. Nearer, shot up the white spires of the village churches, while the rich tones of a bell, or the busy hum of industry, occasionally met the ear. Such is but a feeble portraiture of the spot selected by our Berkshire friends, upon which annually to gather, with their wives and children, and keep The Farmer's Festival. A better selection we have never seen, nor a wiser disposition of all the adjuncts which must surround it.

As will be seen above, this exhibition made the forty-fifth of this time-honored and flourishing society—a society which has been instrumental in continuing and greatly increasing the fertility of the lovely valleys and the noble hills which are so beautifully planted throughout the county. An intelligent and prosperous farmer remarked, that he had taken the first premiums in nearly every class of the exhibitions, and was happy to say, that he owed whatever of success and skill he had acquired to the encouragements and influences of this society. The condition of the farms, and the homes of the farmers, bear evidence of the truthfulness of the remark. But, in point of seniority, the "Old Berkshire" must yield the palm to Middlesex. The "Middlesex Society" was incorporated on the 28th of February, 1803, by the name of the "Western Society of Middlesex Husbandmen." It had existed as an unincorporated association, under the same name, from the year 1794. On the 24th of January, 1820, it was changed by an act of the legislature, to that of the "Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers," and subsequent to that time—as the manufacturers had little to do with it—to "The Middlesex Agricultural Society," which is its present title. It has now two lusty daughters, one on each side of her, which bid fair soon to come up to the full proportions of the mother, and perhaps, look a little more dressy and important than the good old dame herself. But one agricultural society now existing within the Commonwealth takes precedence of the Middlesex by virtue of seniority,—"The Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture,"—which was incorporated in 1792, and whose members were made by the act incorporating the Western Society of Middlesex Husbandmen, honorary members of that corporation, and entitled to be present and vote at its meetings.

Wednesday, the first day of the show, was pleasant; the elements were propitious, the roads were good, and the temperature so genial as to invite even invalids abroad,—and the fair opened with the most flattering prospect. The object of this day was to show all kinds of animals, except horses, that were to be exhibited for premiums, and all manufactured articles, implements and machinery.

The number of neat cattle was not large, or in any way remarkable in appearance, and were all of the common breeds, or with only a slight admixture of foreign blood. Swine were also quite limited in number, and the show of poultry was not large. The horses tried the track, as also did ladies and gentlemen in easy carriages. The arrangement of fruits, vegetables, harnesses, counterpanes, quilts, embroidery, capes, collars and skirts, went on in the great hall; peddlers made good speeches, selling their whips and words at poverty prices, showmen banged the banjo and stirred up their poor animals with sharp sticks; while the restless cattle lowed for their stanchions and their evening feed at home! So the day waned away. The departing rays fell with their soft beams upon the varied foliage on the hills, lighting for a few lingering moments, nature's grand cathedral, the woods, into a gorgeousness of beauty, far more splendid than the genius of man has, or ever can devise. Light faded, men, women and children departed; the fandango ceased to move, gloom rested on the hills, few sounds were heard, but the measured tread of the tired policeman, as he went his weary rounds, and night was supreme over the late animated scene.

In the language of one of the "fast gentlemen with fast nags," Thursday, the second day, was a "stunner!" The wind, surcharged with a cold, sticky vapor, moved lazily along, clinging to man and beast, like the shirt of Nessus; but the pluck of Old Berkshire was up, and, rain or shine, they were determined to have a good time. So the horses were brought out, and encouraged into some pretty lively paces, while the spectators shivered and took the dismal droppings of about a thousand indigo-colored cotton umbrellas. The great halls were crowded with men, women and children, who examined and commented upon each article about six times over, and then counted the number of boards in the roof and braces in the frame-work of the building, and wondered if it never would be done raining. But before noon it became evident that rain and cold and mud would get the mastery, and drive them home. The horses dropped their ears and hung their heads in sleepy listlessness, and indicated the strongest disposition to "turn tail to the wind." Men's hats and coats looked seedy and old; the borrowed feathers in bonnets hung heavy and meagre, while skirts were wofully bedrabbled, and clung too close to ankles unused to touch the soil. It was a failure. The elements won the race and triumphed in it, leaving every nag behind, drenched, dismal, and discouraged. Then the hotels, bright parlors and inviting sitting-rooms, opened their doors and welcomed tired visitors to their warm and hospitable precincts, while fitful gusts strewed the ground with leaves or drove the rain against the glass. A darker night than the first brooded over the earth, and the hills and valleys were alike lost in the impenetrable gloom. So the second day closed upon the forty-fifth anniversary of the Old Berkshire society.

But Friday—who says that Friday is always an unlucky day?—Friday morning, bright and early, the sun came flashing over the eastern hills, and sent his warm and cheering beams into every nook of that rich and lovely valley. Up went the mists from the meadows and hill tops, and once more shone the gorgeous dyes on their sides; the cocks crowed and strutted in their harems, with unbounded gusto, and geese and ducks, and pigs and horses, and oxen and calves and sheep, each lent a note so as to render the harmony complete! Children clapped their little hands in delight in view of the ride, and ginger-bread and buns, and music and races that were before them, and so the mothers were happy and the fathers glad. The whole world of Berkshire turned out, the gates were thrown open, and the success of the forty-fifth fair became a "fixed fact."

The first exercise was that of ploughing. The bills stated that the teams would start at "nine o'clock, A. M.;" but it was nearly eleven before the chains were straightened. Thirteen teams ploughed, on a gravelly loam, and did the work moderately well. The ploughs used were all single, and one of them had a cast-iron beam. There was but one pair of oxen which exhibited any thing but the most common training, and they were also the finest in proportions, being attentive to the driver's language, strong and quick in their motions. A pair of black and a pair of gray horses were also well matched and well trained. The black pair we afterwards saw attached to a carriage, where they did themselves and driver as much credit as they did with the plough. Six inches in depth and twelve in width were required. The ground was unfavorable in two particulars—it was ridgy and full of pebbles, so that it would be difficult to make handsome work, even with skilful teams and men.

Then came the riding on horseback around the course, by ladies, and a very pleasant and attractive feature it was—and then the exercises in the great hall. These consisted of excellent music by the Longmeadow band, and an address by the Hon. Julius Rockwell, president of the society. It is a common law in the society, that the president shall continue to act as such two years, and on the retiring year shall deliver the address, and an excellent law it is. He took for his subject, the thoughts of the young farmer, and showed, first, that the lessons and habits of early life are never forgotten. Then he spoke of his initiatory steps into the art and mystery of farming, such as yoking and breaking the steers, and other incidents illustrative of the whole;—and of his choice of occupation a little later. He said a thorough training on the farm was capital to the young farmer, as education is capital to the doctor, lawyer or clergyman. He spoke of the professions, gave a budget of good reasons for not going West, painted the autumnal scenery of New England in glowing colors, spoke of the resources of the county, recited the bounties of the Commonwealth, then most felicitously married the young farmer to one of the handsome, healthy, well-educated, and intelligent daughters of the New England hills, and closed his address. A brief address by your delegate, and another by Dr. H. D. Childs, formerly Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth, followed, and then the beautiful silver plate, amounting in value to hundreds of dollars, was distributed to the individuals to whom it had been awarded by the various committees. Afterwards there was trotting on the course, and the fair closed by a grand ball, in the evening, in the great hall on the society's grounds.

The exhibition of fruits and vegetables was meagre; that of butter and cheese was large, and of the finest quality; of domestic manufactures there was a considerable display of carpets, rugs, hosiery and embroidered work, such as collars, skirts, &c. A few loaves of bread only were seen, and that of quite an ordinary appearance.
 
The exhibition, on the whole, was one of great merit and interest, though, in some respects, deficient. There was an evident want of taste and arrangement in the articles shown in the hall, and of punctuality in the time of commencing the several exercises of the day; while the choice of location, the construction and arrangement of buildings, the mode of distributing premiums, and the excellent butter and cheese presented, are all worthy the highest commendation.

The moneys received for admission to the grounds were cheerfully paid, amounting to some thousands of dollars, and the farmers and others of the county were apparently gratified with the new arrangements of the society.

In conclusion, I beg to express my belief in the great utility of these associations,—in them as agencies to promote the pecuniary interests of the farmer, to advance him and his family in social position, to encourage scientific investigation, and make the agricultural population that intelligent, thrifty, permanent class upon which our free institutions must always look for strength and perpetuity.

SIMON BROWN.
--Third Annual Report of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture

Sarah Morewood's costume picnic at Melvill Lake took place in September 1855, a month before the 3-day Fair described above. Herman Melville is known to have attended the September "fancy dress" event in company with his wife Elizabeth, who went as "Cypherina Donothing." First installment of Benito Cereno was just out in the October 1855 issue of Putnam's Monthly Magazine. The book version of Israel Potter had been published in March.

On October 11, 1855 the Pittsfield Sun published a detailed report of the Annual Fair, headed "The Farmer's Holiday." The Sun acknowledged the rain, describing the weather over the first two days as "extremely unpleasant." The fortunate change on Friday is described in relatively plain terms:

"The splendid weather on the third day, and the enjoyment of the immense assemblage gathered at that time on the Exhibition Grounds, was some amend for the disappointment on Wednesday and Thursday."

 The Sun article of October 11th also gives names of all prize-winners.

Annual Reports of the Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture for much of the period that Herman Melville lived and farmed at Arrowhead in Pittsfield are accessible online in Google-digitized volumes from academic and other libraries. A good run of digitized volumes from 1854-1863 and after is available courtesy of the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Links for further research:

• 1850 Transactions with Robert Melvill's committee report "On Agricultural Products."  

• 1846 Middlesex Agricultural Society report; the source of Robert Melville's 1850 report above.
  https://books.google.com/books?id=1GQ0AQAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA45&dq#v=onepage&q&f=false

•  Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts - catalog record of volumes for 1847-1852 in the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

• First Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture - 1853 Volume 1.

• Annual Report of the Secretary of the Board of Agriculture -catalog record of volumes for 1854-1863 and after in the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

• The New England Farmer - Volume 7

Related posts:

• Robert Melvill's 1850 Report of the Committee on Agriculture, plagiarized

• More on the 1846 Middlesex source for Robert Melvill's 1850 farm report

• Sketches of Middlesex Husbandry--Boston Courier printing of 1846 farm report
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/07/sketches-of-middlesex-husbandry-in.html

• Emerald Attire revised
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/07/emerald-attire-revised.html

More on the 1846 Middlesex source for Robert Melvill's 1850 farm report; with more parallels in Melville than Jay Leyda knew

Found on Newspapers.com

According to Jay Leyda and scholarly consensus up to now, Herman Melville probably ghostwrote the 1850 farm report of the Berkshire Agricultural Society that was signed by his cousin Robert as Chairman of the Committee on Agriculture and published October 9 and 10 in Pittsfield newspapers. The full 1850 report "On Agricultural Products" was also published in Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts over the signature of "ROBERT MELVILLE, Chairman." As shown in our last, however, Robert Melvill's 1850 report is adapted (that is, plagiarized) from the 1846 report "On Farms, &c." to the Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers, submitted after their annual Exhibition and Cattle Show at Concord.

Leyda in "White Elephant vs. White Whale" (Town and Country v.101 [August, 1947]: 68-9; 114-118) gave impressive parallels between the 1850 text and Melville's writings without knowing about the 1846 Middlesex source. Did Herman Melville write the 1846 farm report, too?

The longer, earlier composition features more verbal parallels to Melville's writings than Jay Leyda knew, or could have known about. Not that verbal parallels alone will ever finally establish authorship. Usually they don't, not without corroborative historical and biographical evidence. Leyda's 1947 attribution was admittedly conjectural, even backed by tangible evidence of Herman Melville's participation with his cousin Robert in July 1850 on a tour of Berkshire farms. (Melville's Marginalia Online has the volume of Field's History of Berkshire County with Herman's notes in the front about the trip with cousin Robert.) Still, Melville scholars have regarded Leyda's case as a pretty good one, strong enough to warrant inclusion of the 1850 "Report" among "Attributed Pieces" in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces. To aid further study of authorship and other questions, I want to provide some more verbal parallels to Melville's known writings in deleted portions of Robert Melvill's main source, the 1846 farm report of the Middlesex Agricultural Society.

Robert Melvill's 1850 version omits most of the political language in the original 1846 report, in particular the language of class conflict, and metaphors that describe agricultural improvements as the result of radical democracy. One whole paragraph on the "levelling principle" was deleted in revision. This bit, for example, appears only in the 1846 version:

"the Committee must frankly pronounce their approbation of the prevalent democratic propensity, to produce a horizontal surface, by removing sandhills to elevate the adjoining bogs and marshes."

The "levelling" theme recurs in Melville. In White-Jacket Chapter 40 Melville similarly equated social levelling with natural levelling:

"how raise the valleys, without filling them up with the superfluous tops of hills?" 

Likewise Melville's Pierre juxtaposes democratic principles with natural ones. In America "the democratic element operates as a subtle acid," corrosively, and yet democratic institutions "seem to possess the divine virtue of a natural law" (Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities). And Pierre himself embodies the division between aristocratic and democratic politics:

"And if this seem but too fond and foolish in Pierre; and if you tell me that this sort of thing in him showed him no sterling Democrat, and that a truly noble man should never brag of any arm but his own; then I beg you to consider again that this Pierre was but a youngster as yet. And believe me you will pronounce Pierre a thoroughgoing Democrat in time; perhaps a little too Radical altogether to your fancy."  --Pierre; Or, The Ambiguities

In a humorous vein the Middlesex Society affirms "vested rights" as a principle of essential political liberty, using the term that Melville would employ in Mardi to describe a sailor's free will--which in a calm turns out to be only theoretical:

Even his undoubted vested rights, comprised in his glorious liberty of volition, become as naught.  --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither

For the Middlesex Society, the ideal of "vested rights" similarly gets overturned by practical considerations. Embracing the policy of removing invasive plants, the writer puns on our understanding of the word radical to mean getting at the root of something:

they witnessed, with unmingled delight, certain demonstrations of radicalism, in the uprooting of thorns and brambles, and an apparent determination to eradicate the dogwood and ivy, and all their relations.

Here are a dozen more verbal parallels to known writings by Herman Melville in the 1846 report of the Middlesex Agricultural Society, signed by Chairman (and Boston Courier editor) Joseph Tinker Buckingham. Half of them occur in Typee or Omoo.

1. SPACIOUS
1846: neat and spacious dwellings
1850: new and commodious dwellings

--Omoo Chapter 8: "spacious houses"
--Omoo, Chapter 81: "an edifice, by far the most spacious"

2. THRIFTY
1846: plantations of thrifty trees, luxuriantly laden with fruit
1850: plantations of thriving trees

--Omoo Chapter 52: "a thrifty growth of the sugar-cane, just ripening"; Typee Chapter 13 has "all manner of luxuriant fruits"

3. UNDISPUTED POSSESSION
1846: for aught we know to the contrary, had held undisputed possession thereof
1850: for ought that we know to the contrary, had a life estate thereof

"Such were our accommodations aboard of the Julia; but bad as they were, we had not the undisputed possession of them. Myriads of cockroaches, and regiments of rats disputed the place with us."  --Omoo, Chapter 10 - A Sea-Parlor Described, With Some of its Tenants:

4. INTERVAL OF SILENCE
"An interval of silence was at last broken by Babbalanja." --Mardi: and a Voyage Thither
"It was noon, when an interval of silence falls upon the docks." --Redburn Chapter 37

 5. WERE WONT TO
"they were wont to present themselves before the heir to the isle"  --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither
"those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex"  --Moby Dick, The Mast-Head

6. RATHER INCLINE TO THE BELIEF
 "rather incline to the opinion" --Moby-Dick, The Cabin Table

7. UNSPEAKABLE DELIGHT
"to my unspeakable delight I perceived that some difference of opinion had arisen between them...." --Typee Chapter 33 - The Escape

8. FASTIDIOUSNESS
 "a degree of fastidiousness that seemed to me ill-timed"
--Typee Chapter 7

  9. BOREAS
"Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!"  --White-Jacket, Chapter 3 alluding to the famous song  "The Storm" by George Alexander Stevens.

10. AY

One piece of wall, thirty or forty rods in length, presents an upper surface of flat stones, on which the committee walked with as much ease and rapidity as they could on the surface of the ground,—ay, and with much greater facility than one can travel across some of the fields in our county, which the owners appear to think easy of cultivation. It afforded really a pleasant promenade.

"These islanders were heathens! savages! ay, cannibals!"  --Typee - The social Condition and general Character of the Typees

"fine dwelling-houses, several hotels, and barber-shops, ay, even billiard-rooms;"  --Omoo Chapter 49

11. THESE DEGENERATE DAYS
"but we are loth to believe that, in these degenerate days, any grievous malediction would follow the practice of eating abundantly of the fruit of our vineyards, gardens and orchards." --1846 report of the Middlesex Agricultural Society

"And as the great wrought nails, binding the clapboards, are unknown in these degenerate days, so are the huge bricks in the chimney walls."  --I and My Chimney

 12. PROMENADE

As garrulous guide to the party, Braid-Beard soon brought us nigh the great Morai of Maramma, the burial-place of the Pontifis, and a rural promenade, for certain idols there inhabiting.  --Mardi: And a Voyage Thither

For the context of walls, a better example of "promenade" occurs in Melville's 1849 Journal, where Melville describes his tour of Canterbury in the entry dated November 6th 1849:

"The old wall forms a fine promenade."  --Journals - Herman Melville, ed. Howard C. Horsford with Lynn Horth (Northwestern University Press, 1989) page 13.

Seven years later, Nathaniel Hawthorne recorded the same observation of Chester's city walls:

 "as interesting a promenade as can be found in England." --Hawthorne, quoted in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Melville's Journals

Coincidentally, he wrote that after walking "round the wall" with his friend Herman Melville.

One more will make it a baker's dozen...

13. HASTY PUDDING (the dish and the poem by Joel Barlow)
One of our New-England poets has said, that "all his bones were made of Indian corn;" and we cannot doubt that it enters largely into the composition of our Yankee blood and muscle, and that its invigorating energies give strength and health to the sons, and beauty and loveliness to the wives and daughters of New England husbandmen. We compassionate the depravity of taste that cannot relish a jonny-cake, and despise the fastidiousness of appetite that cannot make a supper on hasty-pudding.

The staple food of the Irish emigrants was oatmeal and water, boiled into what is sometimes called mush; by the Dutch is known as supaan; by sailors burgoo; by the New Englanders hasty-pudding; in which hasty-pudding, by the way, the poet Barlow found the materials for a sort of epic. --Redburn Chapter 52, The Emigrants' Kitchen

Let's see. Where was Melville around that time? What was he doing in early October 1846?  The BIG news in Herman Melville's life was his engagement to Lizzie Shaw in Lansingburgh on the last day of August, 1846. After which, Lizzie evidently stayed in Lansingburgh for two months, until Sam Savage came from Boston at the end of October to get her. Then it was back to work, finishing up Omoo in New York City and looking for a job in the Custom House. Read all about it in the first volume of Herman Melville: A Biography. I don't suppose our lovebirds flew away to Concord, Massachusetts for the annual Cattle Show? Did they? Did Herman Melville around this time (in between Typee and Omoo) ever socialize with Boston Courier editor Joseph Tinker Buckingham? Let's keep a lookout, just in case...

Related posts:

• Robert Melvill's 1850 Report - plagiarized

• Annual Fair of the Berkshire Agricultural Society

• Sketches of Middlesex Husbandry--Boston Courier printing of 1846 farm report
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/07/sketches-of-middlesex-husbandry-in.html

• Emerald Attire revised
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/07/emerald-attire-revised.html

As mentioned at the start, the 1850 report "On Agricultural Products" was also published in Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts over the signature of "ROBERT MELVILLE, Chairman." In case you missed it in the mess that followed, here's a link to that volume at Google Books:

• Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts 

Robert Melvill's 1850 "Report of the Committee on Agriculture," plagiarized from the Middlesex County Agricultural Society Report for 1846

Signed by Herman Melville's cousin Robert Melvill, the 1850 "Report of the Committee on Agriculture" appears with other "Attributed Pieces" in the Northwestern-Newberry edition of Meville's Piazza Tales and Other Prose Pieces, 1839-1860 (pages 449-451). The N-N copy text is the printing in the Pittsfield Culturist and Gazette (October 9, 1850). Below is the version printed in the Pittsfield Sun on Thursday, October 10, 1850; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank.

Jay Leyda attributed the 1850 "Report" to Herman Melville in "White Elephant vs. White Whale," published in Town and Country Vol. 101 (August 1947): 8-9, 114-118. Herman Melville really did make an agricultural tour of Berkshire in 1850, as we know from surviving notations in his copy of David Dudley Field's History of the County of Berkshire. Amazing but true: you can read Melville's penciled notes in the Field volume at Melville's Marginalia Online.

The tone of Robert Melvill's 1850 "Report" sounds something like Herman Melville in a satirical vein. So does the borderline-irreverent biblical language, and so do the biblical allusions to Adam and Eve and to Noah and the Ark. Thus, Leyda makes a good case on circumstantial and internal evidence for Melville's help with the composition of Robert Melvill's agricultural report.

"Herman could not resist the opportunity to write an agricultural report to end all agricultural reports."  --Jay Leyda

Problem is, most of Robert Melvill's 1850 "Report" on crops in Berkshire is borrowed or adapted from the agricultural report of another Massachusetts county in another year: Middlesex County, 1846. Plagiarized, to be honest.

On October 7, 1846, a Wednesday, the Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers held their annual Exhibition and Cattle Show at Concord, Massachusetts. The day was very fine according to newspaper reports, unlike the drenching rain on Exhibition and Cattle Show day the year before ( October 1, 1845). The published farm report for 1846, signed by then Chairman Joseph T. Buckingham (founder and editor of the Boston Courier), looks back to and in some measure burlesques the relatively straightforward report of 1845, credited to Secretary Moses Prichard.

Robert Melvill's entire 1850 Berkshire "Report" closely follows (word-for-word in many places) the similarly formatted account of the 1846 Annual Exhibition and Cattle Show at Concord, as reported to the Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers and accessible online via Google Books in Transactions of the Agricultural Societies of Massachusetts (Boston, 1846).



Without question, the 1850 writer or writers plagiarized heavily from the 1846 committee report "On Farms, &c." to the Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers. Again, the annual Fair, Exhibition, Ploughing Match, and Cattle Show took place at Concord on October 7, 1846. As printed in the 1846 Transactions volume, the formal Middlesex account is signed by Joseph T. Buckingham as Chairman of the Middlesex Society. Presumably then, Buckingham or Abiel Heywood (then Secretary of the Society) or some other member of the Middlesex Society wrote the 1846 farm report. A correspondent ("R.") of the Lowell Courier wrote that "The farm report, by Mr. Buckingham, is quite long, and of course good. I did not happen to hear it" (Boston Daily Atlas, October 12, 1846; also reprinted in the Cambridge Chronicle, October 15, 1846).

On the other hand... In light of Herman's summer expedition with Robert Melvill in 1850, and the related marginalia in Herman's copy of Field's History of Berkshire, Melville scholars will want to examine the 1846 source. More work should be done I think to see if authorship of Robert Melvill's 1846 source can be established definitely. At several points the Middlesex Report "On Farms, &c." signed by Joseph T. Buckingham can be shown to satirize another published report credited to Moses Prichard. The comparatively serious and sober 1845 report on the Middlesex Cattle Show by Moses Prichard appears in the 1846 Abstract from the Returns of Agricultural Societies in Massachusetts on pages 37-45.

What would Jay Leyda say? Some of the 1846 bits that Robert Melvill and Co. left out of their 1850 "Report" sound even more like Herman Melville than parts that Leyda identified as elements of Herman's "satirical triumph." Goths and Vandals; "degenerate days"; Joel Barlow and Hasty Pudding. Even Indians!

In revision, Melvill or his collaborator removed the original figure of Indians as troublesome native creatures ("aboriginal tribes reptiles and insects"), deleting the words aboriginal and extirpate (a form of which Melville had used in Typee).

1846: 

they flatter themselves that they have as natural an aversion to war as the most enthusiastic members of the Peace Society, yet they cannot refrain from expressing their approbation of the industry and skill which had enabled the proprietors of these swamps to extirpate the aboriginal tribes of reptiles and insects, which, for aught we know to the contrary, had held undisputed possession thereof, from the day when Noah, with his family of creeping and flying things, emerged from the Ark.

1850:

and they profess to have as great an aversion to strife as the most enthusiastic members of the Peace Society; yet they cannot withhold their approbation of the determination manifested by the proprietors of these swamps, to exterminate the tribes of insects and reptiles, which, for ought that we know to the contrary, had a life estate thereof from generation to generation, since the day when Noah, with his numerous family, emerged from the Ark.

Also deleted in revision: the phrase "undisputed possession" which Melville had used in Omoo, Chapter 10 - A Sea-Parlor Described, With Some of its Tenants:

"Such were our accommodations aboard of the Julia; but bad as they were, we had not the undisputed possession of them. Myriads of cockroaches, and regiments of rats disputed the place with us." 

Transcribed below from the 1846 volume Abstract from the Returns of Agricultural Societies in Massachusetts - pages 45-51:

MIDDLESEX AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

In the return of the doings of the Society of Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers, its Secretary, Abiel Heywood, of Concord, states, "That the Society on the 7th of October last, held its Annual Exhibition and Cattle Show at Concord. The large crowd of farmers present from all parts of the county, and the number, variety and beauty of the articles and products brought for exhibition and premium, showed the deep interest felt in the Society and its objects. There were more than twenty entries for the ploughing match, and it was well contested, though the previous drought had baked the earth so hard that the furrows were turned with great difficulty. The other departments of the exhibition were unusually full, and evidenced a high state of skill, industry and productiveness in the county, especially in that of fruits.

One of the most interesting features of the exhibition, was that of the stock imported by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. They attracted much attention, and showed the wisdom of that Society in their purchase, as, from the interest manifested in them, there can be no doubt of their being employed, to a large extent, in improving the breed of cattle throughout the county.

The Address was delivered by the Hon. John G. Palfrey.

On Farms, &c.

In prosecuting their examination of Farms, the Committee observed, with high satisfaction, the manifestations of the spirit of improvement, in every town to which they were called. Their attention was frequently attracted, as they passed from place to place, by many neat and spacious dwellings,—by new and well-filled barns,—by plantations of thrifty trees, luxuriantly laden with fruit,—by extensive fields of corn,—and by numerous reclaimed meadows. The contrast between the present appearance of these meadows and that which they exhibited a few years ago, must strike with admiration every beholder who has an eye susceptible of the attractions of beauty, and a mind capable of estimating the worth of useful improvement. 

Some of the meadows which were entered for a premium have been, within the knowledge of some of the members of the committee, mere swamps and quagmires, in which frogs, serpents, and turtles, had held a life estate from generation to generation. The only vegetable productions were alders and ferns, interspersed with bogs, and decorated here and there with a few cat-tails, on which a bob-o-link might be tempted to alight to enjoy a moment's interval of silence. From these same swamps, also, were wont to issue hordes of gnats and mosquitoes, like the Goths and Vandals of a former age, to war upon civilized humanity. Those once unsightly swamps are now covered with grass, and afford exuberant crops of hay, for the support of domestic animals. Although the Committee would be sorry to give occasion for a suspicion that they are deficient in the milk of human kindness, and they flatter themselves that they have as natural an aversion to war as the most enthusiastic members of the Peace Society, yet they cannot refrain from expressing their approbation of the industry and skill which had enabled the proprietors of these swamps to extirpate the aboriginal tribes of reptiles and insects, which, for aught we know to the contrary, had held undisputed possession thereof, from the day when Noah, with his family of creeping and flying things, emerged from the Ark. The Committee profess to be strict conservatives in principle, and have great regard for "vested rights;" yet they witnessed, with unmingled delight, certain demonstrations of radicalism, in the uprooting of thorns and brambles, and an apparent determination to eradicate the dogwood and ivy, and all their relations.

The Committee perceived, also, that the levelling principle pervaded the whole community of husbandmen, to an extent that is quite alarming to those who think it wrong to disturb the naturally undulating scenery of barren, gravelly knolls, and ponds of stagnant water, and who like the green mantle of the standing pool better than a meadow covered with a carpet of herd's grass and clover. We are not partial to a horizontal tariff; but, however unpleasantly the declaration may strike the minds of some of our aristocratic friends, the Committee must frankly pronounce their approbation of the prevalent democratic propensity, to produce a horizontal surface, by removing sandhills to elevate the adjoining bogs and marshes. It was pleasant, moreover, to see a reclaimed meadow of fifteen acres, marked out in squares almost as numerous as those on a chequer-board, by ditches, the mud from which had been converted to manure, and, being spread on dry and barren protuberances, had transformed them to cornfields and orchards.

The Committee witnessed, with unspeakable delight, the evidences of a growing taste for the cultivation of the various kinds of fruits adapted to the soil and climate, and the success which has followed the efforts to improve the qualities, and increase the quantity, of that sort of food which nourished our great progenitors in the garden of Eden. It is said, indeed, that the eating of an apple by that virtuous pair—our chaste grandparents—in Paradise, brought upon them the awful denunciation of an offended Deity, and entailed on all their posterity the curse, to eat bread in the sweat of their brow!—but we are loth to believe that, in these degenerate days, any grievous malediction would follow the practice of eating abundantly of the fruit of our vineyards, gardens and orchards. The committee rather incline to the belief, that a more free and constant use of the fruits adapted to our soil would be conducive to health, and, as far as physical nutriment can contribute to the improvement of the intellectual powers of man, that a diet of fruits is favorable to the refinement of taste, the improvement of the mind, the progress of moral culture, and the general melioration of the human character. While the committee have seen with pleasure the increasing disposition, among their brethren of the agricultural community, to cultivate the apple, the pear, the peach, and the plum, they regret that they have seen but few and feeble attempts to embellish the roads with forest trees. A few hours at the proper season, devoted to this object, would improve the scenery adjacent to a farmer's residence. Some one has said, that every one who plants a clump of trees adds a beauty-spot to the face of Nature. We hope that our successors, at no distant day, may have the privilege of recording the names of many, who will have shown their grateful affection, by adding these embellishments to the already beautiful countenance of our common parent.

In their progress through the county, the attention of the committee was frequently attracted by noble fields of Indian corn. We know of nothing which can render a farm more worthy of the society's premium, than a plentiful crop of this valuable grain. In the husbandman's provision for himself, his family, and his cattle, it is an indispensable article. One of our New-England poets has said, that "all his bones were made of Indian corn;" and we cannot doubt that it enters largely into the composition of our Yankee blood and muscle, and that its invigorating energies give strength and health to the sons, and beauty and loveliness to the wives and daughters of New England husbandmen. We compassionate the depravity of taste that cannot relish a jonny-cake, and despise the fastidiousness of appetite that cannot make a supper on hasty-pudding.

The spirit of improvement is signally displayed in many parts of the county, in the construction of stone walls. This is a branch of industry which is worthy of high commendation. The work of building a good wall is a laborious employment, and requires something more than an ordinary degree of physical power. But it is labor well expended. A farmer who gets his premises enclosed with a substantial fence of this description may defy his neighbor's cattle, however unruly; and if his division fences are of a like construction, his own animals will learn to be content in their appropriate enclosures, or at least will prefer feeding in the pasture where he places them, to the hazard of breaking their legs by leaping into his mowing lots and cornfields. The committee would hardly be justified if they neglected to notice, particularly, the walls on the farms of Messrs. A. Carleton and E. P. Spaulding, of Chelmsford, O. C. Rogers, of Woburn, and Stephen Howe, of Marlboro'. Portions of the walls on some of these farms were five feet in height, five feet broad at the foundation, and from three to four feet at the top. The improvement already made, and still in progress by Mr. Howe, excited the Committee's admiration. It is composed, in a great measure, of large masses of rock, removed from their native beds by immense labor, and not without the aid of gunpowder. One piece of wall, thirty or forty rods in length, presents an upper surface of flat stones, on which the committee walked with as much ease and rapidity as they could on the surface of the ground,—ay, and with much greater facility than one can travel across some of the fields in our county, which the owners appear to think easy of cultivation. It afforded really a pleasant promenade. But its beauty is perhaps the quality for which it should be least admired. Its strength, usefulness and durability, are its valuable characteristics. Such a wall may laugh in the face of Old Boreas, defy the attempts of frost to heave its foundation, and stand the tolerable shaking of a New-England earthquake without tottering.

There is one other feature in the system of improvement, to which the committee refer with pleasure and approbation, viz., the construction of barns, with cellars for the making of manure. A descriptive detail of all that the committee observed during the week occupied in their examination would consume more time than they have at their disposal; but they cannot omit the opportunity now presented to impress upon the minds of all their brethren the importance of saving all the ingredients that enter into the composition of that substance which renovates exhausted soil, and restores to the earth the nutritious particles which have been extracted from it by successive crops, —enabling Nature to reinvest herself in her emerald attire, and to present to her votaries her annual tribute of ambrosial flowers and golden fruits. The philosopher and the naturalist—and the farmer should be both—may take pleasure in contemplating the benign process by which ingredients, the most offensive to the human senses, are converted into articles that gratify the most delicate taste and pamper the most luxurious appetite.

In awarding the Society's premiums, the committee have endeavored to fulfil the supposed intentions of the Society; and it gives them pleasure to add, that, in no single instance, was there any difference of opinion. There were but three applications for premiums on farms, and the committee awarded—

To Stephen Howe, of Marlborough, the Society's first premium of $25 00.

To Amos Carleton, of Chelmsford, the second premium of $20 00.

There were eight applications for the premiums offered for reclaimed Bog Meadows. And here the Committee cannot stifle an expression of deep and sincere regret that they had not eight premiums instead of three, at their disposal. All the meadows submitted to their inspection exhibited undoubted evidences of industry and skill in their respective proprietors; and, though some had been reclaimed at greater cost of time and labor than others, yet none had undergone the change from worthless and unproductive fens to rich and valuable land, susceptible of exuberant production, without the exercise of patient and intelligent industry. Where all were so deserving, it was painful to make a selection; but the directions of the Society are imperative, and the Committee have awarded—

To Caleb Wetherbee, of Marlborough, the first premium of $20 00.

To E. A. and A. Lawrence, of Pepperell, the second premium of $12 00;—and

To Stephen Morse, of Marlborough, the third premium of $8 00.

The applicants for the Society's premiums for Compost Manure were only two. The Committee cheerfully award the first premium of $10 00 to Oliver C. Rogers, of Woburn.

There were five applicants for the premiums for Apple Orchards.

To Thomas S. Tuttle, of Littleton, is awarded the first premium of $15 00.

To Jonas Viles, of Waltham, the second premium of $12 00.

To Benjamin Wheeler, of Framingham, the third premium of $8 00.

There were also five applicants for two premiums offered for Peach Orchards.

To Galen Merriam, of West Newton, the Committee awarded the first premium of $10.00;—and

To Benjamin Wheeler, of Framingham, the second premium of $5 00.

Of the two premiums offered for Pear trees, the first, of $10 00, is awarded to Galen Merriam, of West Newton; the second, of $5 00, to Eliphalet Wheeler, of Framingham.

To Simon Whitney. of Framingham, is awarded the premium of $5 00 for the best and only Plum trees to which the attention of the Committee was requested.

The Committee cannot close their Report without remarking, that very few of the statements offered by the applicants present details of practice so ample as the Society requires and has a right to expect. Some of them were too meagre to afford much assistance to the Committee. It is hoped that, hereafter, more attention will be given to this subject, and that applicants for premiums will remember, that much of their own time, as well as the time of the Committee, will be saved, if they will prepare written statements, agreeably to the printed rules of the Society, previous to the official visit of the Committee.

JOS. T. BUCKINGHAM, Chairman.
--Abstract from the Returns of Agricultural Societies in Massachusetts - pages 45-51.

Compare to the mostly matter-of-fact account of the 1845 festivities by Moses Prichard in the 1846 Abstract from the Returns of Agricultural Societies in Massachusetts, also digitized and accessible via Google Books.

Good place to go for further research:

• Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agricultural Records

Related posts:

• More on the 1846 Middlesex source for Robert Melvill's 1850 farm report

• Annual Fair of the Berkshire Agricultural Society

• Sketches of Middlesex Husbandry in Buckingham's Boston Courier
  https://melvilliana.blogspot.com/2020/07/sketches-of-middlesex-husbandry-in.html

• Emerald attire revised
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Discarded by the Public Library in Watertown: Piazza Tales, with marginal comment on Melville as "a great humbug"

In this letter to Philip Hale as editor of the "As the World Wags" column, Boston reader "G. E." reports on his purchase of an ex-library copy of The Piazza Tales. From the Boston Herald, Friday, September 23, 1921; found in the online Newspaper Archives at Genealogy Bank. Note the spelling: Melvillians!

Boston Herald - September 23, 1921

 

BENIGHTED WATERTOWN.

As the World Wags:

It would be unkind, if not unjust, to deposit the whole blame at your doorstep: however, you’ll find enough there to stumble over, if you ever cross your threshold to face an angry mob of Melvillians! Your well-intentioned propaganda costs us dearly. Prices have gone up sky high.

One bookseller in Boston can’t get the “Piazza Tales” for love or money. Another had a copy offered to him (first and apparently only edition) at $4.50. I politely declined. At last by the merest chance I obtained through him a copy marked “discarded”—mind you—by the Watertown public library; price $2. I’m not kicking. On the contrary, now that I have read the book, I’ll confess that it is worth those two iron men; and more.

But I am moved to reflect on the fact that Watertown had no use for these stories, and upon this extraordinary thing: At the end of that wonderfully uncomfortably tale about the poor, demented Scrivener, once employed in the Dead Letter Office, one Watertown reader (perhaps the one that recommended the book for the dump-heap) has indulged in the following pencilled opinion: “This Herman Melville is a great humbug.” As one of the converted, I would urge you therefore, move on to Watertown, and smite the Waterstownsman with your ire.

G. E.
Boston

Are booksellers able to procure for you Melville’s “Israel Potter,” The Confidence Man,” “Pierre, or the Ambiguities?” If so, at what price. A contributor to the Nation and Athenaeum of London states that the British Museum is without a copy of the “Piazza Tales.” These stories worked their strange spell on us when years ago we read them in Putnam’s Magazine, that monument to the fine taste of George William Curtis, the editor. Reading the tales again and again, we are at a loss to say which is the best. “The Bell Tower” has been reprinted in collections of short stories, yet we prefer “Bartleby” and “Benito Cereno,” the account of Capt. Amasa Delano’s surprising adventures. Whenever a thunderstorm comes along, we think of “The Lightning Rod Man” and loathe the critic who, years ago, characterized it as “grotesque verbiage.” He probably came from Watertown. Ed. [Philip Hale]

In his reply, Hale references the June 11, 1921 issue of The Nation and The Athenaeum, where (after printing letters from Michael Sadleir and James Billson) the editor notes:

We believe that the British Museum has no copy of "The Piazza Tales." Verb. sap.

In 1881 The Watertown Free Public Library still boasted a first edition of The Piazza Tales.



As shown in the previous melvilliana post Forty Years of Philip Hale and Melville, Hale had been promoting Melville in the pages of the Boston Herald since 1904, not long after he moved there from the Boston Journal--where he had talked nonstop about Melville in "Talk of the Day." Doubtless Hale and his Boston reader are too hard on Watertown, Mass. According to the Librarian's Report for 1907, more than 700 volumes, many "among the most used and most popular books" in the library, had to be discarded as "worn out by constant and increasing usage." Moby-Dick and Typee are listed as 1907 additions to the 1881 catalog.

1929 edition of Pierre

Advertisement in the New York Evening Post, April 26, 1929:

New York Evening Post
Friday, April 26, 1929

One of the lost novels of Melville--lost because it was too far in advance of its time.

PIERRE

By Herman Melville

Author of Moby Dick, Typee, Omoo

A powerful picture of entangled blood relations--a stinging attack on the hypocrisy and snobbery of nineteenth century American society--a novel modern in approach to its daring theme.

$2.50

E. P. Dutton & Co., 681 Fifth Ave.

Published in New York by E. P. Dutton & Co., the 1929 edition of Melville's Pierre is Google-digitized and accessible online, courtesy of the Hathi Trust Digital Library.

Alice C. Hyde on reading Moby-Dick aloud in 1921

"So every night four of us sat around a roaring, open fire in the raw, spring evenings and listened to “Moby Dick.” I did the reading aloud, and I know the sweep of the sentences, and the lift and thrill of their cadences. Never was such a book written before, so drenched with the sea." --Alice C. Hyde, North Cohasset; from her published letter to "As the World Wags" editor Philip Hale in the Boston Herald, July 5, 1921.

Boston Herald, July 5, 1921

The complete letter from Alice Charles Hyde (1872-1936), a graduate of Smith College, is transcribed below. Having looked into the renewed enthusiasm for Moby-Dick in England, Philip Hale introduces correspondence from Melville's American fans, thus:

Now for letters from Melvillians.

A SANE ENTHUSIAST

As the World Wags:

One cannot throw a match into dry tinder without starting a fire, perhaps a conflagration, so after reading the article in your column about “Moby Dick,” I must add to the conflagration and chorus with the others that it is the most remarkable, blood-stirring, romantic, and virile book of adventure that the English language contains. During last month’s cold weather, we—a household of three middle-aged people with a fourth over 70—found ourselves in a country house with everything to make life tolerable except human companionship. No neighbor had “moved” with us. So every night four of us sat around a roaring, open fire in the raw, spring evenings and listened to “Moby Dick.” I did the reading aloud, and I know the sweep of the sentences, and the lift and thrill of their cadences. Never was such a book written before, so drenched with the sea.

Now I know the difference between genius and talent and no academic admirer of style and finished English will ever confuse my mind on that subject again. Stevenson, the great stylist, wrote a toy book, about a toy ocean, with toy men playing around on toy ships, and called it “Treasure Island.” That’s talent. Then Melville wrote a book almost as great as the ocean itself with real men, sailing real oceans, and hunting real Leviathans, and facing awful perils; with the whole shot through with the smell and pull and mystery of the sea, and with more genius on one page of it than on all the pages of all the works of other sea writers put together. (Like your other correspondent, I insist that I am sane-minded.)

Last week I was in Martha’s Vineyard in the house of an old island family where we had the privilege of staying. On the mantel of the main room was a piece of bone about six inches long with a picture on it, rubbed in, in India ink, of a whale boat and three ships’ crews sailing up to those terrible jaws. Not a spark of interest could I get from any other member of the party about it; they saw nothing there to interest one. To me it was the biggest thing on Martha’s Vineyard, for I had read “Moby Dick.”

Couldn’t you get up a Moby Dick club so that a little of the inflammable enthusiasm which those of us who have read the book feel about it could have a safe outlet?

Still sanely-minded yours,

ALICE C. HYDE.
North Cohasset.

Melville is too fine a fellow for a club in his honor. Remember the cruel fate of Walt Whitman and Robert Browning. A letter from Mr. Earle E. Riser must wait its turn. —Ed. [Philip Hale]

First ever Moby-Dick Marathon? Held the previous month (June 1921) "in a country house," presumably the Jerusalem Road estate where the Hydes of 380 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston summered. The two other "middle-aged people" in her group were probably her sister Louvan W. Hyde and brother Benjamin D. Hyde, a Boston lawyer. The unnamed person "over 70" most likely would have been their mother: Mrs. Luvan Charles Hyde, who died the following year at the age of 80.

"Benjamin, Louvan, and Alice Hyde continued to live at 380 Commonwealth during the 1922-1923 winter season, after which they moved to The Charlesgate at 535 Beacon." --Back Bay Houses

Alice C. Hyde wrote and performed one-act plays ("Gladstone's Letter," "Cromwell's Letter") for the Cohasset Dramatic Club and is credited with providing much of the chapter on Cohasset in Agnes Rothery's The Old Coast Road.

Boston Herald - February 16, 1936

Related post:

• Forty years of Philip Hale on Melville
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