“Despite his penetration of the nation­al psyche, and his status as more or less the George Washington of American letters, the respect Cooper has received at home has rarely been more than grudging”

“If their work becomes indistinguishable, it’s a sign they were on the right track. They had found a formula for sublimity, and their duty was to repeat it as often as possible.”

“About sunset we got fairly ‘outside,’ and well may it so be called; for I felt thrust out of the world.” Such is the transfixed Melvillean moment, wide awake and lonely and equally alienated from point of depar­ture and ultimate destination. He wants­ — or wants to want — to live forever in that “outside,” to be permanently in transit, to be away.

Looking back on the publication that endowed America with a B.S. detector