“Arrowhead,’’ also known as the “Herman Melville House,’’ is a historic house museum in Pittsfield, Mass., in The Berkshires. Herman Melville (1819-91) wrote some of his major work there: the novels Moby-Dick (1851) Pierre (dedicated to nearby Mt. Greylock), The Confidence-Man, and Israel Potter; The Piazza Tales (a short story collection named for Arrowhead's porch); and magazine stories such as "I and My Chimney". Melville loved to gaze out his window at Mt. Greylock, at 3,489 feet the highest mountain in The Berkshires. Its shape reminded him of a whale.
“Consider the subtleness of the sea; how its most dreaded creatures glide underwater, unapparent for the most part, and treacherously hidden beneath the loveliest tints of azure….Consider all this; and then turn to this green, gentle, and most docile earth; consider them both, the sea and the land; and do you not find a strange analogy to something in yourself?’’
— From Moby-Dick
A view of the Mt. Greylock Range from South Williamstown (from the west). The Hopper, a glacial cirque, is centered below the summit.
