ABSTRACT
HERMAN MELVILLE PROBABLY WOULD HAVE LIKED TO SOLVE THE problems of the world as optimistically as Emerson did, but his experiences and his recognition of the limitations of the human condition seem to have made the Transcendental doctrine appear shallow and superficial to him at times. The doctrine did not offer any solace for the situation as he saw it:
Watch yon little toddler, how long it is learning to stand by itself! First it shrikes and implores, and will not try to stand at all, unless both father and mother uphold it; then a little more bold, it must, at least, feel one parental hand, else again the cry and the tremble; long time is it ere by degrees this child comes to stand without any support. But, by and by, grown up to man’s estate, it shall leave the very mother that bore it, and the father that begot it, and cross the seas…. There now, do you see the soul. In its germ on all sides it is closely folded by the world, as the husk folds the tenderest fruit; then it is born from the world-husk, but still now outwardly clings to it;—still clamors for the support of its mother the world, and its father the Deity. But it shall yet learn to stand independent, though not without many a bitter wail, and many a miserable fall.1
