His earlier work told the story of a desperate, rural poverty; "Last Man in Tower" depicts a genteel middle-class impoverishment of imagination and hope.

他早期的作品讲述了一个绝望的贫困农村故事；《最后一个塔中人》则描绘了一个有教养但想象力、希望缺失的中产阶级。

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Yet it can lead as easily to genteel poverty as to prosperity.

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Melville senior died when the boy was 13, leaving his family in genteel poverty, from which, seven years later, in 1839, the young Melville escaped as cabin boy on a merchant ship bound for Liverpool.

ECONOMIST: American writers