At Arrowhead

I have a sort of sea-feeling here in the country . . .

—Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck, December 13, 1850

Melville walks from the farmhouse to the barnevery morning through that one winter,forgetting his coonskin hat to feedthe horse hay, the cow pumpkin . . . splits wood,fitting it in the fireplaces, making sureall’s well for the household & his first-born;

climbs the worn stairs to the second-floor,his study cluttered with whale lore,books (the Bible, Shakespeare, Hawthorne),a carved heathen paddle blade,and the fireplace spouting woodsmoke & ashagainst a two-reef nor’west wind,to stand on watch at the north window,his mind seized once by whaling,seized once more, its try-works hissing,manic now with Ahab’s hunt for what in its rudecompass not even Ahab can know

for sure. Farmer & sailor, father & son,husband & writer, Melville at thirty-one staresover the meadow, snow-crusted, on which appearsnot the ten-point buck

                                 but a two-tiered sail.Gripping the sash as if a salt-lashed shroud,he stares toward Greylock, Greylockwhose twin anvil-headed peaks taunt him, haunt . . .Hast seen the White Whale?

                                 Stepping back,he considers Dr. Bunger who, teasing Captain Boomer,will next say something about a whale

being no more ableto digest an arm . . . when, at a knockon the door, disturbed, he walksdownstairs not hearing Malcolm’s mewling,smells the thyme in Lizzie’s rabbit stewbut first, before dinner, feeds the horse & cow.