Page:The American Novel - Carl Van Doren.djvu/92

76 pointing figures. Of late years, however, his fame shows a tendency to revive, perhaps more considerably in England than in America. Barrie's Captain Hook is confessedly derived from Melville; John Masefield has said that Moby Dick speaks the whole secret of the sea; Lady Sybil Scott admitted passages from Melville to The Book of the Sea, which, though verse for the most part, she could not think complete without Defoe, Melville, and Joseph Conrad. And while Melville at home has had somewhat slighter praise, an acquaintance with his work is a sign by which it may be learned whether any given American knows the literature of his country.