This was a time when authors were often paid by the number of words in their book
That is exactly what I expressed to my English professor in class after having read Moby Dick and Billy Budd. My classmates (all 4-5 years younger than me) were aghast that I would say such a thing and were certain I simply did not grasp the multiple layers of meaning contained in Melville’s writing. Perhaps they were correct, but my opinion has not changed.
By the way, the professor just smiled and never contradicted me. Maybe he was just being kind to an obviously deranged ex-GI.
But you must admit, Melville had a talent for verbosity. He could pack a sentence into an entire paragraph...