tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5538059816904053911.post8426303304981611377..comments2024-03-23T03:06:34.328-07:00Comments on A Boat Against the Current: Flashback, October 1839: Melville Ends First Sea VoyageMikeThttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10865731845343427202noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5538059816904053911.post-64771937286568714172014-10-07T16:18:05.824-07:002014-10-07T16:18:05.824-07:00You are absolutely correct, Peter. For the benefit...You are absolutely correct, Peter. For the benefit of anyone reading this from this point on, there's a passage that seems appropriate given contemporary debates about immigration--an issue about as controversial in our time, one would think from listening to conservative talk radio, as Melville's: "Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God's right to come; though they bring Ireland and all the world's miseries with them. For the whole world is the patrimony of the whole world; there is no telling who does not own a stone in the Great Wall of China. But we waive all this; and will only consider how best the emigrants can come hither, since come they do, and come they must and will."MikeThttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10865731845343427202noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5538059816904053911.post-62729766051092612142014-10-07T09:52:28.330-07:002014-10-07T09:52:28.330-07:00Great piece, as usual. But I'm surprised you m...Great piece, as usual. But I'm surprised you make no mention of the Irish immigrants that fill the hole of the ship on the way back from Liverpool. It's one of the few places in American literature that describe the punishing conditions experienced by the immigrant poor.Peter Quinnhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02309493737260066875noreply@blogger.com