The first page of Moby-Dick, and some context for the quote:

#MelvilleMonday "With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship." Moby-Dick ( Ch. 1 Loomings) New Bedford Harbor by Mauritz F. H. De Haas (1832-1895)

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 I say we had best look our times and lands searchingly in the face, like a physician diagnosing some deep disease. Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness at heart than at present, and here in the United States. - Walt Whitman, c. 1871

"And some said softly, 'Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.'" John Steinbeck, The Pearl (1947)

#MelvilleMonday "[Hawthorne] is immeasurably deeper than the plummet of the mere critic. For it is not the brain that can test such a man; it is only the heart. You cannot come to know greatness by inspecting it; there is no glimpse to be caught of it, except by intuition." - Melville, c. 1850

#SundaySentence A pitch-perfect reading by Donald Sutherland. "But man is not made for defeat," he said. "A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 "The ornamental classes make a lot of noise but they create nothing: you may crack a whip over men and you may be useless nevertheless: lots in business that passes for ability is only brutality: don't forget that—you masters: you are not so damned clever as you think."

#MelvilleMonday All over him, Hawthorne's melancholy rests like an Indian Summer, which though bathing a whole country in one softness, still reveals the distinctive hue of every towering hill, and each far-winding vale. - Herman Melville, c. 1850

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 What do you suppose creation is? What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior? Walt Whitman

Yes, prickly pear grows here in New England (with help from the ad hoc microclimate.) From my wife's walk today:

Context: Fever had taken the young wife and infant child of John Marr. Melville writes: "In one coffin, put together by his own hands, they are committed with meager rites to the earth—another mound, though a small one, in the wide prairie..."

#MelvilleMonday "John Marr, toward the close of the last century born in America of a mother unknown […] Being now arrived at middle-life, he resolves never to quit the soil that holds the only beings ever connected with him by love in the family tie." - Melville

Quiet soul of open heart And cupped hand - Hear the whisper The eternal song Of the soft and sacred

It may be important to great thinkers to examine the world, to explain and despise it. But I think it is only important to love the world, not to despise it, not for us to hate each other... - Hermann Hesse, c. 1922

There is a flower a little flower With silver crest and golden eye, That welcomes ev'ry changing hour, And weathers ev'ry sky. James Montgomery, The Daisy

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast... I'd rear a laurel-cover'd monument, High, high above the rest— To all cut off before their time, Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire, Quench'd by an early death. Walt Whitman

Flora and fauna on my wife's walk today...

🩶 Even though the world can try to crush you and put you down with facts, you break up through the concrete and say: Damn it all, I'm a blade of grass and I will survive! Ray Bradbury

#MelvilleMonday On the wilds of midnight waters— Foemen looming through the spray; Do yet your gangway lanterns, streaming, Vainly strive to pierce below, When, tilted from the slant plank gleaming, A brother you see to darkness go? - Melville (from John Marr)

D-Day 🕯️ I think it the necessary thing — I almost pray for it — that each age should have its hero. Walt Whitman

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 See ever so far, there is limitless space outside of that, Count ever so much, there is limitless time around that. - Walt Whitman

#WhitmanWednesday 🌾 The earth—that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them. - Walt Whitman

Thank you, Laura.🙏 What a wonderful opportunity to see his handwritten letters. I am drawn also to his early works, mostly charcoal on paper, and share some of favorites here (probably not new to you?).

#MelvilleMonday "After hearing my fill of the wild yarns of our top, here would I recline – if not disturbed – serenely concocting information into wisdom." - Herman Melville, White-Jacket (Ch. LXXVI, The Chains) Isle of Arran by James Francis Danby (1816-1875)

#Whitman : Born on this day in 1819 🌾 "I believe in the eligibility of the human soul for all perfect things." - Walt Whitman

Died on this day, 1744. What nothing earthly gives or can destroy, The soul's calm sunshine, and the heartfelt joy. - Alexander Pope

🌱 Sweets for a hundred flowery springs To load the May-wind's restless wings.. - William Cullen Bryant 📷from my wife's walk today:

#blooms #couplet Of humble mire, Stars are born. 📷 from my wife's walk today:

#WhitmanWednesday The conceits of the poets of other lands I'd bring thee not, Nor the compliments that have served their turn so long, Nor rhyme, nor the classics, nor perfume of foreign court or indoor library ; But an odor I'd bring as from forests of pine in Maine, or... +

Two Boys Watching Schooners, 1880, by Winslow Homer (American, 1836-1910). Source: Art Institute of Chicago