The Piazza Tales

The Piazza Tales

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Title: The Piazza Tales The Piazza; Bartleby; Benito Cereno; The
Lightning-Rod Man; The Encantadas, Or, Enchanted Islands; The
Bell-Tower
Author: Herman Melville
Release Date: May 18, 2005 [eBook #15859]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE PIAZZA TALES
by
HERMAN MELVILLE,
Author of "Typee," "Omoo," etc., etc., etc.
New York; Dix & Edwards, 321 Broadway. London: Sampson Low,
Son & Co. Miller & Holman, Printers & Stereotypers, N.Y.
1856

CONTENTS
THE PIAZZA
BARTLEBY

BENITO CERENO
THE LIGHTNING-ROD MAN
THE ENCANTADAS; OR, ENCHANTED ISLANDS
THE BELL-TOWER

THE PIAZZA.
"With fairest flowers, Whilst summer lasts, and I live here, Fidele--"
When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashioned
farm-house, which had no piazza--a deficiency the more regretted,
because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the
coziness of in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant
to inspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was
such a picture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale
without coming upon easels planted in every nook, and sun-burnt
painters painting there. A very paradise of painters. The circle of the
stars cut by the circle of the mountains. At least, so looks it from the
house; though, once upon the mountains, no circle of them can you see.
Had the site been chosen five rods off, this charmed ring would not
have been.
The house is old. Seventy years since, from the heart of the Hearth
Stone Hills, they quarried the Kaaba, or Holy Stone, to which, each
Thanksgiving, the social pilgrims used to come. So long ago, that, in
digging for the foundation, the workmen used both spade and axe,
fighting the Troglodytes of those subterranean parts--sturdy roots of a
sturdy wood, encamped upon what is now a long land-slide of sleeping
meadow, sloping away off from my poppy-bed. Of that knit wood, but
one survivor stands--an elm, lonely through steadfastness.
Whoever built the house, he builded better than he knew; or else Orion
in the zenith flashed down his Damocles' sword to him some starry
night, and said, "Build there." For how, otherwise, could it have entered
the builder's mind, that, upon the clearing being made, such a purple
prospect would be his?--nothing less than Greylock, with all his hills
about him, like Charlemagne among his peers.
Now, for a house, so situated in such a country, to have no piazza for
the convenience of those who might desire to feast upon the view, and
take their time and ease about it, seemed as much of an omission as if a
picture-gallery should have no bench; for what but picture-galleries are

the marble halls of these same limestone hills?--galleries hung, month
after month anew, with pictures ever fading into pictures ever fresh.
And beauty is like piety--you cannot run and read it; tranquillity and
constancy, with, now-a-days, an easy chair, are needed. For though, of
old, when reverence was in vogue, and indolence was not, the devotees
of Nature, doubtless, used to stand and adore--just as, in the cathedrals
of those ages, the worshipers of a higher Power did--yet, in these times
of failing faith and feeble knees, we have the piazza and the pew.
During the first year of my residence, the more leisurely to witness the
coronation of Charlemagne (weather permitting, they crown him every
sunrise and sunset), I chose me, on the hill-side bank near by, a royal
lounge of turf--a green velvet lounge, with long, moss-padded back;
while at the head, strangely enough, there grew (but, I suppose, for
heraldry) three tufts of blue violets in a field-argent of wild strawberries;
and a trellis, with honeysuckle, I set for canopy. Very majestical lounge,
indeed. So much so, that here, as with the reclining majesty of
Denmark in his orchard, a sly ear-ache invaded me. But, if damps
abound at times in Westminster Abbey, because it is so old, why not
within this monastery of mountains, which is older?
A piazza must be had.
The house was wide--my fortune narrow; so that, to build a panoramic
piazza, one round and round, it could not be--although, indeed,
considering the matter by rule and square, the carpenters, in the kindest
way, were anxious to gratify my furthest wishes, at I've forgotten