The Goal Is To Know How Not-to-know.

Since Obscenity Is The Truth Of Our Passion Today, It Is The Only Stuff Of Art -- Or Almost The Only Stuff.

I Am Part Of The Sun As My Eye Is Part Of Me. That I Am Part Of The Earth My Feet Know Perfectly, And My Blood Is Part Of The Sea. There Is Not Any Part Of Me That Is Alone And Absolute Except My Mind, And We Shall Find That The Mind Has No Existence By Itself, It Is Only The Glitter Of The Sun On The Surfaces Of The Water.

Melville Had To Fight, Fight Against The Existing World, Against His Own Very Self. Only He Would Never Quite Put The Knife In The Heart Of His Paradisal Ideal. Somehow, Somewhere, Somewhen, Love Should Be A Fulfillment, And Life Should Be A Thing Of Bliss. That Was His Fixed Ideal. Fata Morgana. That Was The Pin He Tortured Himself On, Like A Pinned-down Butterfly.

California Is A Queer Place In A Way, It Has Turned Its Back On The World, And Looks Into The Void Pacific. It Is Absolutely Selfish, Very Empty, But Not False, And At Least, Not Full Of False Effort.

Humanity Is Less, Far Less Than The Individual, Because The Individual May Sometimes Be Capable Of Truth, And Humanity Is A Tree Of Lies.