Appendix I. GREP Works

Exhibit III.

"Grep on 'Y'"

Ego non baptiso te in nomine: A grep on Y

Source text by Herman Melville

My dear Hawthorne -- The clear air and open window invite me to write

to you. For some time past I have been so busy with a thousand things

that I have almost forgotten when I wrote you last, and whether I

recalled me from certain crotchetty and over doleful chimearas, the

like of which men like you and me and some others, forming a chain of

then, and fight them the best way we can. But come they will, -- for,

through which these outposts run, the Indians do sorely abound, as

well as the insignificant but still stinging mosquitoes. Since you

and essays. I have been plowing and sowing and raising and painting

and printing and praying, -- and now begin to come out upon a less

bustling time, and to enjoy the calm prospect of things from a fair

Not entirely yet, though, am I without something to be urgent with.

The "Whale" is only half through the press; for, wearied with the long

delay of the printers, and disgusted with the heat and dust of the

babylonish brick-kiln of New York, I came back to the country to feel

the grass -- and end the book reclining on it, if I may. -- I am sure

you will pardon this speaking all about myself, for if I _say_ so much

know it, and out with it, -- not in [a] set way and ostentatiously,

though, but incidentally and without premeditation. -- But I am

falling into my old foible -- preaching. I am busy, but shall not be

very long. Come and spend a day here, if you can and want to; if not,

stay in Lenox, and God give you long life. When I am quite free of my

present engagements, I am going to treat myself to a ride and a visit

to you. Have ready a bottle of brandy, because I always feel like

This is rather a crazy letter in some respects, I apprehend. If so,

operating upon a very susceptible and peradventure feeble temperament.

Shall I send you a fin of the _Whale_ by way of a specimen mouthful?

The tail is not yet cooked -- though the hell-fire in which the whole

book is broiled might not unreasonably have cooked it all ere this.

nomine -- but make out the rest yourself.