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DID THOREAU MAJOR IN COMP-LIT AT HARVARD?

“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the abilityto hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same timeand still retain the ability to function.”

— F. Scott Fitzgerald “The Crack-Up”

It could be fairly said that at Harvard College, DavidHenry Thoreau was “an early comp-lit major.” He had 6semesters of Greek, 6 of Latin, 5 of Italian, 4 ofFrench, 3 of German, and 2 of Spanish. In addition, hestudied German with the Reverend Orestes AugustusBrownson. At that time there was no English Department,but instead a Department of Rhetoric and Oratory. Theprofessor was Edward Tyrrell Channing, and the primarytexts were Archbishop Richard Whately’s ELEMENTS OF

RHETORIC and LOGIC. This, in conjunction with classes inliterature, enable us to say fairly that Thoreau tookthe equivalent of “five semesters of English” (althoughno courses at all were then being thus denominated).When one combines what Harvard College had to offer inthe way of a “classical education” back in the 1st halfof the 19th Century, with what Thoreau’s interests were,one is forced to the conclusion that, as a firstapproximation, the best way to explain Thoreau’s formaleducation to the modern college undergraduate studentis simply to allow as above that he had been “an earlyComp Lit major.” (One might then go on and explain thatComparative Literature was such a new field of study,in the first half of the 19th Century, that it did noteven yet possess a name or an identity as a separatefield of inquiry. One might then go on and explain thatafter his formal education, due to its ragingEurocentrism, Thoreau had been forced to continue intoindependent study of various literatures which had beenquite omitted from the formal curriculum. One might alsogo on to acknowledge that the sort of comp-litexperience that Harvard then offered was what todaywould be regarded as markedly old-style, obsolescent,even retrograde, rather than the sort of critical-theory-laden experience that is offered by the more up-to-date and up-to-snuff professors lately practicing inthis field.)

2 Copyright 2013 Austin Meredith

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Cristóbal de Villalón’s INGENIOSA COMPARACIÓN ENTRE LO ANTIGUO Y LO PRESENTE inaugurated the quarrel between the ancients and moderns.

P.J.G. Cabanis opinioned that “It is undoubtedly, citizens, a beautiful and great idea that considers all sciences and arts to be a part of an ensemble, an indivisible whole.”

Adam Müller opinioned that “The single works of art and single genres were considered to be like limbs and nerves and muscle system of a large body, each one functioning independently in its own fashion and each one regarded as an obedient part of a beautiful and incomparable whole.”

January 31, Wednesday: In a letter to Johann Peter Eckermann, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe coined the term Weltliteratur to designate an idea that had been being circulated by the likes of Voltaire, Johann Georg Hamann, and especially by Johann Gottfried von Herder in his notion of Weltpoesie. They had previously been referring to this supranational unity of all lettered persons worldwide merely as “The Republic of Letters.” More and more the spirit of poetry was going to become the common patrimony (Gemeingut, the public domain) of humankind, revealing itself universally rather than particularly.

National literature is now rather an unmeaning term; the epoch of world literature is at hand.

What this has to do with, obviously, is the conceit that the “major” of David Henry Thoreau, a decade later at Harvard College, can most accurately be described by characterizing him as a student in what today would be denominated as a program in “Comparative Literature.” Here is what my spouse Rey Chow has had to say about this in her THE AGE OF THE WORLD TARGET (Durham and London: Duke UP, 2006):

The universalist concept of all the literatures of the worldbeing held together as a totality, one that transcends

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mailto:[email protected]

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/thumbnails/T/HDT.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/explanation.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/ActiveIndex.pdf

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 3

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restrictive national and linguistic boundaries, remains anenormously appealing one to many people nearly two centuriesafter Goethe proclaimed the notion of Weltliteratur in the1820s. As Edward Said writes, “For many modern scholars –including myself– Goethe’s grandly utopian vision is consideredto be the foundation of what was to become the field ofcomparative literature, whose underlying and perhapsunrealizable rationale was this vast synthesis of the world’sliterary production transcending borders and languages but notin any way effacing their individuality and historicalconcreteness.”1 Arising in the historical context of nascentnationalisms in Europe, the notion of world literature partookof the aspirations toward global peace, cosmopolitical right,and intercultural hospitality that were among the most importantintellectual legacies of that period.2 As Susan Bassnett notes:“With the advantages of retrospection, we can see that‘comparative’ was set against ‘national’, and that whilst thestudy of ‘national’ literatures risked accusations ofpartisanship, the study of ‘comparative’ literature carried withit a sense of transcendence of the narrowly nationalistic.” 3 Itwas such transcendence toward a general, cosmopolitan humanitythat Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, author of the first book-lengthstudy of comparative literature in the English language,proposed as the rationale for the discipline: “the gradualexpansion of social life, from clan to city, from city to nation,from both of these to cosmopolitan humanity, [should be adopted]as the proper order of our studies in comparative literature.”4

In this year and the following one, Abel François Villemain’s series of lectures on comparative literature were being published in four volumes as TABLEAU DE LA LITTÉRATURE AU VIIIE SIÈCLE.

1. Edward W. Said, “Introduction to the Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition,” in Erich Auerbach, MIMESIS: THE REPRESENTATION OF REALITY IN WESTERN LITERATURE, trans. Willard R. Trask, Fiftieth-Anniversary Edition (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1953, 2003), xvi.2. For an example of an influential and controversial philosophical essay on these ideas, see Immanuel Kant, PERPETUAL PEACE, preface by Nicholas Murray Butler (Los Angeles: U.S. Library Association, Inc., 1932). The text of this edition follows the first edition of Kant’s essay, translated from the German and published in London in 1796.3. Susan Bassnett, COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: AN INTRODUCTION (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1993), 21. Bassnett offers an informative discussion of the origins of comparative literature as a discipline; see especially pages 12-30.4. Hutcheson Macaulay Posnett, COMPARATIVE LITERATURE (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1896), 86. Posnett’s work was published in “The International Scientific Series,” with a preface bearing the date January 14, 1886.

1828








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Abel François Villemain’s TABLEAU DE LA LITTÉRATURE AU MOYEN AGE EN FRANCE, EN ITALIE, EN ESPAGNE ET EN ANGLETERRE extolled the “amateurs de la littérature comparée.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe noticed that:

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[I]t is expected that a person who has distinguished himselfin one field ... will not ... venture into one entirely unrelated.Should an individual attempt this, no gratitude is shown.






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An individual who failed to follow Goethe’s advice, becoming not only a man of literature but also an attorney at law: Richard Henry Dana, Jr. As a 15-year-old he had been attending a private school in which the teachers frequently and severely flogged the students: “There was never a half-day without a good deal of flogging.” During this year he matriculated at Harvard College. Quite unlike Henry Thoreau in temperament, he would make poor use of his abundant scholarly free time while enrolled. Evidence of this is that in all of this first three-year period of education he would check out from the library only a total of 10 books. Toward the end of this first year he would be rusticated for his part in the Harvard Rebellion, and during this period of rustication he would be tutored by the conservative professor religion at Andover Theological Seminary, the Reverend Leonard Woods (1807-1878).

After his dropping out of school in his junior year because his eyesight had been temporarily impaired by measles, and after his famous period of recuperation and adventure in California, he would be significantly older and more disciplined and yet he would do only slightly better in the study department: he would check out only 11 more books from the college library. Although Professor Edward Tyrrell Channing had both Dana (who was his cousin) and Thoreau as students, clearly Thoreau learned better about writing from Professor Channing than did Dana — all his life this sailor/lawyer/author would preserve a sloppy tendency to leave danglers in his prose.

Another individual who failed to follow Goethe’s advice, becoming not only a medical doctor but also a man of literature: Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes in this year published a series of essays, in the New England Magazine, entitled “The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table.”

(A quarter of a century later, this series would continue, in The Atlantic Monthly.)







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Richard Whately, D.D., Archbishop of Dublin took a small place at Redesdale just outside Dublin, where he could garden. He prepared a statement of his views on the Sabbath, THOUGHTS ON THE SABBATH. He published his course of INTRODUCTORY LECTURES as Professor of Political Economy at Oxford University and endowed a Whately Chair in Political Economy at Trinity College, Dublin. As an opponent of Ricardian theory, he set out the rudiments of a subjective theory of value in INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY (to problematize the labor theory of value he argued that “It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price”; he declared that economics ought to be known as catallactics, the “science of exchanges”). Revision and separate publication of what previously had been an article in the ENCYCLOPÆDIA METROPOLITANA as a textbook suitable to be used during Henry Thoreau’s college education: ELEMENTS OF LOGIC... (Cambridge: James Munroe, and Company / Booksellers to the University; New-York: Published by William Jackson, No. 71 Maiden Lane).


RHETORIC and LOGIC. This, in conjunction with classes inliterature, enable us to say fairly that Thoreau tookthe equivalent of “five semesters of English” (althoughno courses at all were then being thus denominated).When one combines what Harvard College had to offer inthe way of a “classical education” back in the 1st halfof the 19th Century, with what Thoreau’s interests were,one is forced to the conclusion that, as a firstapproximation, the best way to explain Thoreau’s formaleducation to the modern college undergraduate studentis simply to allow as above that he had been “an earlyComp Lit major.” (One might then go on and explain thatComparative Literature was such a new field of study,in the first half of the 19th Century, that it did noteven yet possess a name or an identity as a separatefield of inquiry. One might then go on and explain thatafter his formal education, due to its ragingEurocentrism, Thoreau had been forced to continue intoindependent study of various literatures which had beenquite omitted from the formal curriculum. One might alsogo on to acknowledge that the sort of comp-litexperience that Harvard then offered was what todaywould be regarded as markedly old-style, obsolescent,

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WHATELY’S LOGIC





http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/32/1832_ElementsOfLogic.pdf


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even retrograde, rather than the sort of critical-theory-laden experience that is offered by the more up-to-date and up-to-snuff professors lately practicing inthis field.)







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August 9, Friday: Waldo Emerson left London on a visit to Oxford.

David Henry Thoreau, accepted as a charity scholar, left home for Harvard College.5 While an undergraduate at Harvard 1833-1837 in what essentially was its “Comp Lit” program, he would reside initially with Charles Stearns Wheeler of Lincoln in an upstairs room, 20 Hollis Hall, that had (has) a fine view of the sunsets across the Common.6

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5. Since the native-son undergraduates Lemuel Shattuck mentions in Chapter XVI of his history of Concord were in the Harvard College classes of 1834 (George Moore) and 1835 (Hiram Dennis and Ebenezer Hoar), this material would have needed to have been written between May 1833 and May 1834. The earlier date is more likely than the later date since Marshall Meriam, who graduated from Yale College with its Class of 1833, is carried as still an undergraduate there. David Henry Thoreau of Concord was unmentioned as a current Harvard College undergraduate in that 1835 history, therefore, simply because at the time the material was being penned, he had not yet matriculated.6. He later occupied other rooms nearby in the same dormitory.







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He had “many and noisy neighbours, and a residence in the fourth storey.” At that time tuition was $55.00 per year, Harvard had a faculty of perhaps 25 and a student body of perhaps 425, and the library boasted perhaps 40,000 books. Meals at the commons were $1.35 a week. From the 1820s into the 1840s, the regulation student attire was a “black-mixed” suit consisting of pantaloons, waistcoat, coat, tie, hat, shoes, and buttons of prescribed color, and various versions of this regulation attire were available at stores near campus for between $15.00 and $25.00. Thus although the top hat and the cane did not become de rigeur for the Harvard Man until the 1840s, to outfit Freshman Thoreau properly for his college career in 1833 would have required 30% to 50% of his scholarship money, and was just out of the question. In addition, President Josiah Quincy, Sr. informed Thoreau that his performance on the entrance examination had been such that

We need not ask why, in the 19th Century, David Henry was favored by his family over Helen and over Sophia for this expensive education, but one of the unresolved questions in my mind is how it came about that, in a family in which first son and namesake John clearly was regarded as the more capable manchild, and in which there had been talk of apprenticing little brother to a carpenter, it came about that it was young David Henry

One branch more, and you had been turned by entirely.You have barely got in.






To say this to a boy who lacks the prep-school background does not constitute unkind hazing. The sooner these people learn that they are considered at the margin and at risk, the more likely it will be that they will stay safe in their place.


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who went off to college to be partly supported by the earnings of his siblings.

During this initial year at Harvard, David Henry would be subjected to a “thorough course” of “Plane Trigonometry, Analytic Geometry, and Algebra with practical application to Heights and Distances, and Surveying and Navigation.” It would appear clear from the presence of a copy of Ebenezer Bailey’s FIRST LESSONS IN ALGEBRA; BEING AN EASY INTRODUCTION TO THAT SCIENCE. DESIGNED FOR THE USE OF ACADEMIES AND COMMON SCHOOLS. BY EBENEZER BAILEY, PRINCIPAL OF THE YOUNG LADIES’ HIGH SCHOOL, BOSTON; AUTHOR OF “YOUNG LADIES’ CLASS BOOK,” ETC. in Thoreau’s personal library, and from the fact that this text was published by Carter, Hendee & Co. during July of this year in Boston, that the book

THOREAU RESIDENCES






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must have been useful for this course.

This course on navigation is still being offered and happens now to be the longest continuously running subject-matter offered there! “It’s the most practical course you can take at Harvard,” commented Dan Justicz ’91, an alum. “You find your way by watching the movements of the sun and stars. You even construct your own navigation instruments. There’s a minimum of lecturing.” “We use the historical instrument collection at [Harvard] Science Center, maps dating back to the 13th century at Pusey Library, and ships’ logbooks as old as 200 years,” says the instructor, Dr. Sadler. “Students come to appreciate how difficult it was for Columbus, or Magellan, to find their way without accurate clocks.” The course is now offered as endowed under the Francis W. Wright Lectureship in Celestial Navigation.(Thoreau’s Harvard curriculum would include eight terms of Greek under Professor Cornelius Conway Felton and [Instructor?] Dunkin. These eight terms would begin with Greek composition and grammar, and continue into “Greek Antiquities” and works by Xenophon, Demosthenes, Aeschines, Sophocles, Euripides, and Homer. –What, your college education was not like that?

— Perhaps you didn’t major in Comp Lit! :-)

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http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/33/1833_BaileyALGEBRA.pdf


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September 1, Sunday: An excerpt from a letter from Caroline Downes Brooks to her remote stepmother Mary Merrick Brooks:

PS. My Dear Mother, I have always noticed when any thing happens with me and George or the girls, that you think that I do not care any thing about you, because I have been told that you are not my own mother, but it is very different. I have never known any other mother, therefore I know no difference. There has been very little told me about her, therefore why should I have such a detestation of you, because you are not my mother, when I knew no other. I certainly do not think my Dear Mother that I spite you, as you say, think of it how horrid. I am sure that your daughter shall not be guilty of such injustice. Forgive me past injuries and be assured you shall ever after have a [sic] affectionate and dutiful daughter, in your own Caroline.

At Harvard College, David Henry Thoreau enrolled for freshman classes in Greek, Latin, Mathematics, and History.

Revision and separate publication of an article in the ENCYCLOPÆDIA METROPOLITANA as a textbook suitable to be used during Henry Thoreau’s college education: Archbishop Richard Whately, D.D.’s ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC... (Cambridge: James Munroe and Company / Booksellers to the University; New York: William Jackson).


RHETORIC and LOGIC. This, in conjunction with classes inliterature, enable us to say fairly that Thoreau took

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NEW “HARVARD MEN”



WHATELY’S RHETORIC






http://surnamesite.com/harvard/harvard1833.htm


http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/34/1834_ElementsOfRhetoric.pdf


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the equivalent of “five semesters of English” (althoughno courses at all were then being thus denominated).When one combines what Harvard College had to offer inthe way of a “classical education” back in the 1st halfof the 19th Century, with what Thoreau’s interests were,one is forced to the conclusion that, as a firstapproximation, the best way to explain Thoreau’s formaleducation to the modern college undergraduate studentis simply to allow as above that he had been “an earlyComp Lit major.” (One might then go on and explain thatComparative Literature was such a new field of study,in the first half of the 19th Century, that it did noteven yet possess a name or an identity as a separatefield of inquiry. One might then go on and explain thatafter his formal education, due to its ragingEurocentrism, Thoreau had been forced to continue intoindependent study of various literatures which had beenquite omitted from the formal curriculum. One might alsogo on to acknowledge that the sort of comp-litexperience that Harvard then offered was what todaywould be regarded as markedly old-style, obsolescent,even retrograde, rather than the sort of critical-theory-laden experience that is offered by the more up-to-date and up-to-snuff professors lately practicing inthis field.)






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At Harvard College, Cornelius Conway Felton became Eliot Professor of Greek Literature and had David Henry Thoreau as one of his pupils. Professor Felton was positioning an essay in the North American Review in defense the teaching and study of classical mythology, especially Greek mythology, which evidently was considered in need of a defense as it seemed to be encouraging lewdness. For Professor Felton, expurgation of the classic texts to delete titillating stuff did not represent a problem of suppression and censorship, but rather represented the correction of a problem of debasement and inauthenticity, because it was inconceivable that there could have been any actual “food for the passions” in originary authentic works of classicism, or, at least, in works of Greek classicism.

No, for if you credit Professor Felton’s reconstruction of European history, these dead white men could never have been guilty of worshiping at “altars of indecency and wantonness.”

To the scholar we would say, then, expurgate yourHoraces and your Ovids, till not an obscene thoughtshall stain their pages; and you may be sure thatnothing will be lost in your enquiries respecting theclassic religion.







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Hanging being a piece of public theater, however, it was sometimes required of a condemned man in this modern decent society that he attire himself in his shroud (a long white linen or cotton garment with open back and long sleeves) prior to the placement of the hood and the noose. Local taverns would sometimes hire “watchers” to keep around-the-clock guard upon a condemned man, not to prevent his escape of course but to ensure that he would not cheat them of their profits from the alcohol-imbibing throng of men come to witness a hanging. No way would such an important participant in an expected ceremony be allowed to off himself in private in advance. When a condemned man was reprieved at the last moment, as indeed sometimes happened, this might incite the disappointed throng to riot, for although we have few records for such items as the shroud and the death watch, we know that this sort of riot is actually what did result from a reprieve in Pembroke MA in this year.7

The lenience of Harvard President Reverend John T. Kirkland had been succeeded by the strictness of President Josiah Quincy, Sr., the former mayor who was attempting to deal with student rebellion as he had once dealt with mobs attempting to tear down Boston’s whorehouses: by repression. Students at Harvard were rioting over living conditions and the entire Sophomore class was being not merely expelled but hauled before a court.

7. In this year Pennsylvania became the first state to move executions away from the public eye and carry them out only within prison enclosures.






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Records of faculty meetings from this period show that in the shifting minority of professors who opposed and attempted to moderate Quincy’s crackdowns, Professor Charles Follen was alone in constancy of opposition.8 Freshman David Henry Thoreau evidently made himself scarce during the tearing of shutters off windows and the building of bonfires in front of doorways and his only contribution to the rebellion was a comment he appears to have made in Dr. Beck’s examination room –apparently sarcastically– “Our offense was rank.”9

One midnight during the great Harvard Rebellion Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar lay on his back in the belfry of Harvard Hall and sawed off the tongue of the bell that summoned the students to morning chapel. Fortunately he was not caught destroying property, or perhaps later he would not have been able to become Attorney General of the United States of America:

It need only be added to this, that the student who was first scholar in the Harvard College class of 1835, a class that included Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and who was chosen to replace H.G.O. Blake, who was that class’s fourth scholar, as the class Orator, Charles Chauncy Shackford, after graduation went out to Concord and became a schoolteacher and romanced the local lasses, before going on to study law, and becoming a minister in 1841, and eventually becoming a professor at Cornell University. At Cornell, he would be their professor of rhetoric and literature, and, incidentally, would make himself one of the pioneers in the field now known as Comparative Literature.

8. Professor Karl Follen’s brother Paul Follen was at this point emigrating to the United States, and would settle in Missouri. We’ll allow you three guesses as to what is about to happen to Professor Follen himself.9. At Harvard at this time, the offense of “grouping” in Harvard Yard, that is, students assembling for some purpose not condoned by the faculty (such as, for instance, free speech), was grounds for being asked to “take up one’s connexions,” that is, grounds for permanent expulsion from college. (Such rules are of course not limited to the Harvard of the 19th Century: my own memories are of smelling tear gas on the steps of Widener Library as I came away from my carrel and found out that there had been a “Pogo Riot” in which the police had rioted and cleared the intersection in front of the student bookstore of passersby in 1960-1961, and then of being vomit gassed by US Marine guards on the street outside our embassy in Tehran, Iran in 1978 for the offense of attempting to obtain entry thereto as a US citizen in an Iran in which soldiers were authorized to kill anyone “assembling” in any public place in a group larger than two persons.)

Of his college life little remains to say. In hisJunior and Senior years he attracted the attention ofEdward Tyrrell Channing, then the valued Professor ofRhetoric and Oratory, and received the highest marksfor English Composition. He also won the second Bowdoinprize for an essay, and at the Exhibition in his Senioryear had, as his part, the English oration, taking ashis subject “Reverence.” His part at Commencement whenhe graduated was an English oration on “The ChristianPhilosophy; its Political Application.” Only fifty-twoof his class received degrees at Commencement [80 hadentered this class of 1835, and Richard Henry Dana, Jr.had been forced to drop out on account of his eyes],largely a result of the “Rebellion,” but five more wereallowed their Bachelor’s degree years later. RockwoodHoar was third scholar. The refined and attractiveHarrison Gray Otis Blake of Worcester, later Thoreau’snear friend, was chosen Orator by a large majority, buthis modesty made him decline, and Charles C. Shackford,later a minister, and a professor at CornellUniversity, was then chosen. Blake, however, gave theLatin Salutatory. Benjamin Davis Winslow was the Poet.Hoar was chosen a member of the Class Committee.







Storey, Moorfield and Edward W. Emerson. _Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar: A Memoir_. Boston and NY: The Riverside Press Cambridge, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1911, pages 25-6


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May 19, Monday: Infelice op.94 for soprano and orchestra by Felix Mendelssohn was performed for the initial time, in London.

Marie, daughter of Medora Leigh and her brother-in-law, Henry Trevanion, was born.

That morning at Harvard College an unfortunate tendency had begun to develop: A freshman had been reciting in Mr. Christopher Dunkin’s class in Greek, and, as his performance was being critiqued, appeared to that Tutor to be displaying some sort of attitude of questioning, of the judgment of his betters. Unfortunately, also, as Tutor displayed a bad reaction, other of the students began to make “catcalls,” appearing to be in support of this student.

July 3, Thursday: David Henry Thoreau was elected to the oldest debating fraternity at Harvard College, which was during that period known as “The Institute of 1770” after having gone through several name changes.

In consequence of all the immediate members of the Society being absent, a special meeting was called by Cushing, the last Junior President, for the purpose of choosing a Librarian, and Fresh[men] into the Society. The meeting being called to order — Cushing was chosen President and Brooks Sec. pro tem — The Society then proceeded to the choice of a Librarian, and chose Lyon. The nomination list of Freshmen left by the Sophomores was next taken up, and Hildreth, Richardson, Eustis, Thomas, Perry, Trull, Thoreau, were chosen from this list. Russell, Rice, Barnes, Wight, Phelps, Davis, Treat, Lane, Williams 1st and Wheeler were nominated to be chosen at the next meeting.

This is the club which, after several more name changes, would become immortal as our “Hasty Pudding Club.” We note in passing that of the Emerson brothers, Judge William Emerson, Edward Bliss Emerson, and Charles Chauncy Emerson had been members, but –for some unknown reason– not Waldo Emerson.

September 1, Monday: David Henry Thoreau went back to Harvard College for the 1st term of his Sophomore year, living in 32 Hollis Hall with James Richardson, Jr. Ellery Channing (William Ellery Channing II) was matriculating there, but he would soon depart because otherwise he would have been expelled due to a very low point accumulation.

At some point Henry and his room-mate needed to write to Oliver Sparhawk, the steward of the building:

Mr SparhawkSirThe occupants of Hollis 32 would like to have that room paintedand whitewashed, also if possible to have a new hearth put inyours respectfullyThoreau & Richardson

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felix_Mendelssohn




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Until November 30th, David Henry would be studying the Italian language under instructor Pietro Bachi. (Thoreau would be enrolled in the study of Italian for four terms, in the study of French for four terms, in the study of German for four terms, and in the study of Spanish for two terms under Francis Sales.)

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February 14, Saturday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “On what grounds may the forms, ceremonies, and restraints of polite society be objected to? Speak of some of them. What purposes are they intended to answer?”

June 28, Sunday: After graduating from the General Theological Seminary, William Ingraham Kip was ordained as an Episcopal deacon.

For his Junior year at Harvard College, David Henry Thoreau enrolled for classes in Greek, Latin,10 English, French, German, theology, and moral philosophy.

The Sturgeon Bay Ship Canal opened (currently for small craft only). France obtained a Columbian charter to dig a ship canal entirely across its province of Panama, from sea to shining sea.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 28th of 6th M / Our Morng Meeting was well attended & Father engaged in the Ministry acceptably. — In the Afternoon our friend Mead ATwater was at Meeting & well engaged in the Ministry - it was rather larger than in the Morning. - H & Richd went to Fathers to tea, & are to come here to lodge

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10. Would it have been during this period that he had Henry Swasey McKean for his Latin tutor?


AMANAPLANACANALPANAMA

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS











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July 8, Wednesday: It had been the tradition to ring the Liberty Bell annually, on the 4th of July. This year, it was tolled in addition during the funeral of Chief Justice of the United States of America John Marshall,11 and during this tolling, for a second time, it cracked. (Years later it would crack again while being rung in celebration of the birthday of another slavemaster, General and then President George Washington, and would be retired from service. Attempts to rivet our Liberty have to this point been unsuccessful although there is an urban legend that has been making the rounds, to the effect that finally we have outlawed human slavery here.)

At Harvard College, David Henry Thoreau was back for his Junior year of studies, and here are the records of the “Institute of 1770” in which he was participating:

Business.

September: As William Whiting (Junior) began to attend the Harvard Law School, his replacement as preceptor in the Concord Academy would be Charles C. Shackford, who had just graduated there as the top scholar in the class and would go on to become a professor of Rhetoric at Cornell University.

John Shepard Keyes, one of the pupils, would report:

Mr. C.C. Shackford the first scholar in the class of 1835,succeeded in September of that year Mr Whiting, who began thenthe study of law Mr S was a very different man, as bright andkeen, but without ambition, and bilious, moody, and very unequalin his instruction, at times thrilling and inspiriting and atothers sour and cross and depressing Our training under thefirst teacher and the impulse carried the older scholars throughthe second year, but the newcomers of whom there were severaldidnt have that help and the school so far ran down that itclosed with Mr Shuckfords twelve month. He was a strangecompound, and rather an exciting mystery to the older girls, towhom he paid great deference, and soon became blindly in lovefirst with my charmer and then when rejected, by her, with thenext prettiest but most wayward of them all. How he fared inthis pursuit was the theme of endless discussion of the olderscholars and took much time from our studies to watch the tracesof success or despair. Some of us thought them engageddefinitely others that she refused, and it ended in smoke ifthere was ever more to it. And he has been married twice, andis a Professor at Cornell, and she a matron of a large familyand high position in Concord, of course like a dutiful pupil andthe oldest boy in the school I was bound to follow such anexample, and did my utmost to plague his life, and make him feelthe jealousy from which I suffered, as much as he did. But alashow time cures all wounds.—

11. The slavemaster John Marshall had, to the end of his life, tried to prevent the Supreme Court of the United States of America from ever coming to grips with the issue of human slavery. Those of his colleagues who seemed likely to be tempted to intercede in this area, he had visited privately to discourage.


J.S. KEYES AUTOBIOGRAPHY







http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Keyes/index.html


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David Henry Thoreau was back at Harvard College for his Junior year as of the age of eighteen, living in 31 Hollis Hall. This month his assigned composition was on classroom discipline, “The comparative moral policy of severe and mild punishments.”

The end of all punishment is the welfare of the state — the goodof community at large — not the suffering of an individual. Itmatters not to the lawgiver what a man deserves, for to saynothing of the impossibility of settling this point, it wouldbe absurd to pass laws against prodigality, want of charity, andmany other faults of the same nature, as if man was to befrightened into a virtuous life, though these in a great measureconstitute a vicious one. We leave this to a higher tribunal.So far only as public interest is concerned, is punishmentjustifiable — if we overstep this bound our own conduct becomescriminal. Let us observe in the first place the effects ofseverity. Does the rigor of the punishment increase the dread operatingupon the mind to dissuade us from the act? It certainly does ifit be unavoidable. But where death is a general punishment,though some advantage may seem to arise from the severity, yetthis will invariably be more than counterbalanced by theuncertainty attending the execution of the law. We find that inEngland, for instance, where, in Blackstone’s day,12 160offences were considered capital, between the years 1805 and1817 of 655 who were indicted for stealing, 113 being capitallyconvicted, not one was executed; and yet no blame could attachto the conduct of the juries, the fault was in the law. Haddeath, on the other hand, been certain, the law could haveexisted but a very short time. Feelings of natural justice,together with public sentiment, would have concurred to abolishit altogether. In fact wherever those crimes which are madecapital form a numerous class, and petty thefts and forgeriesare raised to a level with murder, burglary, and the like, thelaw seems to defeat its own ends. The injured influenced,perhaps, by compassion, forbear to prosecute, and thus arenumerous frauds allowed to escape with impunity, for want of apenalty proportionate to the offense. Juries too, actuated bythe same motives, adopt the course pointed out by theirfeelings. As long as one crime is more heinous and more offensivethan another, it is absolutely necessary that a correspondingdistinction be made in punishing them. Otherwise, if the penaltybe the same, men will come to regard the guilt as equal in eachcase.It is enough that the evil attending conviction exceed theexpected advantage. This I say is sufficient, provided theconsequences be certain, and the expected benefit be notobtained. For it is the hope of escaping punishment — a hopewhich never deserts the rogue as long as life itself remains,that renders him blind to the consequences, and enables him tolook despair in the face. Take from him this hope, and you willfind that certainty is more effectual than severity ofpunishment. No man will deliberately cut his own fingers. Thevicious are often led on from one crime to another still moreatrocious by the very fault of the law, the penalty being no

12. Sir William Blackstone’s 1765-1769 COMMENTARIES ON THE LAWS OF ENGLAND.






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greater, but the certainty of escaping detection being very muchincreased. In this case they act up to the old saying, that “onemay as well be hung for stealing an old sheep as a lamb.” Somehave asked, “cannot reward be substituted for punishment? Ishope a less powerful incentive to action than fear? When apolitical pharmacopoeia has the command of both ingredients,wherefore employ the bitter instead of the sweet?” Thisreasoning is absurd. Does a man deserve to be rewarded forrefraining from murder? Is the greatest virtue merely negative,or does it rather consist in the performance of a thousandeveryday duties, hidden from the eye of the world? Would it begood policy to make the most exalted virtue even, a subject ofreward here? Nevertheless, I question whether a pardon has nota more salutary effect, on the minds of those not immediatelyaffected by it, vicious as well as honest, than a publicexecution. It would seem then, that the welfare of society calls for acertain degree of severity; but this degree must bear someproportion to the offence. If this distinction be lost sight of,punishment becomes unjust as well as useless — we are not to actupon the principle that crime is to be prevented at any rate,cost what it may; this is obviously erroneous.







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September 18, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Speak of the privileges and pleasures of a literary man.”

In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

6th day 18th of 9th M 1835 / Today Sister Mary returned to me the Letters which I wrote to my Lamented & dear Sister Ruth during my residence in Providence - I have read them all over, between 30 & 40 in Number - they revived some past occurrences which were much effaced from my memory - & renewd the feelings & rememberance of others, & were on the whole very interesting to me - I was glad they were preserved, as they contain an account of some things, which may be remembered to some advantage in a future day. —







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December 6, Sunday: David Henry Thoreau finished the second term of his junior year and withdrew briefly from Harvard College in Cambridge in order to teach school in Canton, Massachusetts while residing with the Unitarian Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, with whom he was to study German. (He would be out of college for some three months but the only time we can account for is the six weeks he spent with the Reverend Brownson.)

Some have attempted to allege that Thoreau’s encounter with theReverend Orestes Augustus Brownson during his college years“transformed” David Henry Thoreau — that when he returned fromthe minister’s house in Canton, and the study of the Germanlanguage, to his Cambridge dorm room, he was an entirelydifferent young man. In evaluating that account of it, we cantake into consideration that in Thoreau’s personal library wasa copy of the Reverend’s first book, NEW VIEWS... (undoubtedly agift of the Reverend — but we have no indication whatever thatThoreau ever so much as glanced at it), and that in theReverend’s personal library was a copy of Thoreau’s A WEEK...(inscribed as a gift from its author — but we know for sure thatthe Reverend did not ever bother to read it all the way through).

I am unable to come across any evidence whatever, that thewritings or the example of the Reverend Brownson ever had theslightest impact on Thoreau’s ideas or upon Thoreau’s life. Themost I have been able to infer is that Thoreau benefittedslightly, academically, from being able to have conversationsin the German language.


1st day 6 of 12 M / Both meetings were solid quiet seasons Father had short service. —

THOREAU RESIDENCES








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January-February: “At Brownson’s while teaching,” David Henry Thoreau lived in the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s home in Canton, Massachusetts and studied German with this man, who was at the time a Unitarian, while teaching school between college terms. Thoreau had 70 students. It was in this period that Brownson’s socio-religious vision of a new order was being promulgated in his NEW VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH.13 This book, of which we would find a copy in Thoreau’s personal library, envisioned a “Church of the Future” which would transcend the overly spiritual or sacramental concerns of Catholicism, the material or earthly emphasis of Protestantism, and the weaknesses of New England Puritanism and Unitarianism. It was the title of this publication which would cause the expression “new views” to become a synonym for Transcendentalism.14 According to Brownson, Christ’s mission, the mission of the God-Man, was to reconcile earth and heaven, spirit and matter. At Christ’s second coming He would be “truly incarnated in universal humanity” and this would confirm the unity and progress of humankind. Although the

1836

13. Orestes Augustus Brownson. NEW VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH. Boston MA: C.C. Little and J. Brown, 1836 (there is a copy in Thoreau’s personal library, evidently presented to him by the author; reprinted as pages 114-23 of THE TRANSCENDENTALISTS: AN ANTHOLOGY. Miller, Perry, ed. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1950)


BROWNSON’S NEW VIEWS

“A Review From Professor Ross’s Seminar”

Brownson advances a social and religious vision which includes all of humanity in“UNION.” All philosophical approaches to religion, he suggests, are reducible tothree: “materialism,” “spiritualism,” and an emerging view which reconciles thesepartial ones.

“Materialism” espouses the superiority of Reason and leads inevitably to materialprogress, what he terms “industry.” Their materialistic philosophy, however, admitsno truth unless it is “empirically” verified, a bias hostile to religion.

The “Protestant” religion which flourished in Europe and America developed as areaction against the excessive “spiritualism” of the Catholic church, yet manyProtestant sects—esp. the Calvinists—”reject human nature and declare it unworthyof confidence,” and in so doing impugn our ability to “distinguish truth fromfalsehood.” The Unitarians have swept away such fears in the name of humanpotential.

Unitarians must go further, however. What is needed in 1836, Brownson insists, isa synthesis of these antagonistic philosophies, as a means to usher in a world ofmutual understanding and peace. Brownson is nothing if not optimistic: “Men arebeginning to understand one another, and their mutual understanding will begetsympathy, and mutual sympathy will bind them together and to God.”

(Johan Christopherson, January 24, 1992)






http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/36/1836_NewViews.pdf


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time was not yet ripe, Brownson offered that practical steps could be taken toward this in the present era.

14. Thoreau would cunningly hide this transcendental idiom “new views” in plain sight as part of the 1st sentence of his “Winter Animals” chapter:

WALDEN: When the ponds were firmly frozen, they afforded not only newand shorter routes to many points, but new views from their surfaces ofthe familiar landscape around them. When I crossed Flint’s Pond, afterit was covered with new snow, though I had often paddled about and skatedover it, it was so unexpectedly wide and so strange that I could thinkof nothing but Baffin’s Bay. The Lincoln hills rose up around me at theextremity of a snowy plain, in which I did not remember to have stoodbefore; and the fishermen, at an indeterminable distance over the ice,moving slowly about with their wolfish dogs, passed for sealers orEsquimaux, or in misty weather loomed like fabulous creatures, and I didnot know whether they were giants or pygmies. I took this course when Iwent to lecture in Lincoln in the evening, travelling in no road andpassing no house between my own hut and lecture room. In Goose Pond,which lay in my way, a colony of muskrats dwelt, and raised their cabinshigh above the ice, though none could be seen abroad when I crossed it.Walden, being like the rest usually bare of snow, or with only shallowand interrupted drifts on it, was my yard, where I could walk freelywhen the snow was nearly two feet deep on a level elsewhere and thevillagers were confined to their streets. There, far from the villagestreet, and except at very long intervals, from the jingle of sleigh-bells, I slid and skated, as in a vast moose-yard well trodden, over-hung by oak woods and solemn pines bent down with snow or bristling withicicles.

GOOSE POND

LINCOLN

BROWNSON’S NEW VIEWS






http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/36/1836_NewViews.pdf


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Thoreau would write later that these weeks of intellectual companionship with Brownson in Canton during the winter break, January and February, while he had been ostensibly studying German and teaching 70 students, had represented for him:

In my own opinion far too much has been made of this remark. In my own opinion, by the use of this German term Lebenstag Thoreau was limiting the “new era” to be merely a new language era. Demonstrably, the Reverend Brownson’s encounter with the young Thoreau left no spiritual skidmarks whatever upon the minister’s soul. He would go on to become the Christian equivalent of the Ayatollah Khomeini, seeking to create a theocracy in which the ruler in absentia would be our Lord Jesus Christ in precisely the same manner in which the Ayatollah sought to create a theocracy in which the ruler in absentia would be the prophet Mohammed. Also, there is an absence of evidence that young Thoreau’s encounter with the Reverend Brownson left any spiritual skidmarks upon Thoreau’s soul. Nevertheless, later on, a college classmate of Thoreau’s, Amos Perry, would fulminate, futilely and entirely without meaningful specifics, about the impact which this exposure to the Reverend Brownson must have had upon the college boy Thoreau:

Thoreau’s figure seems to me as distinct as if I had seen himyesterday. He was during more than two years a diligent student,bright and cheerful. I consulted him more than once about thetranslations of some of Horace’s odes. In his junior year, hewent out to Canton to teach school. There he fell into the

an era in my life — the morning of a new Lebenstag.






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company of Orestes A. Brownson, then a Transcendentalist. Hecame back a transformed man. He was no longer interested in thecollege course of study. The world did not move as he would haveit. While walking to Mount Auburn with me one afternoon, he gavevent to his spleen. He picked up a spear of grass, saying: “Hereis something worth studying; I would give more to understand thegrowth of this grass than all the Greek and Latin roots increation.” The sight of a squirrel running on the wall at thatmoment delighted him. “That,” said he, “is worth studying.” Thechange that he had undergone was thus evinced. At an earlierperiod he was interested in all our studies. Many people todayare deeply interested in his writings. My own interest in themhas never been so great as that of some of my friends. The faultis probably my own.

March 20, Sunday: David Henry Thoreau was back at Harvard College for the 3d term of his Junior year, enrolling in courses in Greek, Latin, English, Italian, mathematics, and possibly chemistry. (Thoreau would be enrolled in the study of Italian for a total of four terms, in the study of French for four terms, in the study of German for four terms, and in the study of Spanish for two terms under Francis Sales.) The Italian studies would, as always, be under the instructor Pietro Bachi. This term would continue for Thoreau only until about May 28th, when he would be obliged by illness to suspend his college studies.

The University of Leipzig conferred an honorary Doctor of Philosophy degree on Felix Mendelssohn.


1st 20th of 3 M / Our Meetings were both silent & very solid quiet opportunities - for which I was thankfulAunt Stanton fell this Afternoon & hurt her hip very badly, but it does not seem as if any bone is broken or out

April: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Advantages and disadvantages of foreign influence on American literature.”

April 7, Thursday: Death of William Godwin in London. The body would be interred next to Mary Wollstonecraft in the burial ground of Old St. Pancras Church (in 1851 both would be moved to Bournemouth Churchyard to be placed next to Mary Shelley).

Here is a fragment that by chance has been preserved, evidently of a Harvard College essay by David Henry Thoreau on Sir Henry Vane although we do not have a record of Professor Channing having made this one of his assignments. The fragmentary essay is now at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, California. At least a third of a page is missing at its center. At its end this fragment bears the marking “Concord, April 7th 1836.” The “Clarendon” reference in the text would be to Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon’s 1717 HISTORY OF THE REBELLION AND CIVIL WARS IN ENGLAND: BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1641:

THOREAU RESIDENCES

NEW “HARVARD MEN”HARVARD 1836 REPORT








http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/36/1836_HarvardREPORT.pdf


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... The fact that he was no party man, the leader of no sect,but equally to be feared by the foes of freedom and religionevery where, explains the circumstance of his being passed over,with little if any notice, by the historians of the day. The agein which he lived was not worthy of him, his contemporaries knewnot how to appreciate his talents or his motives to action, theprinciples which he advanced, the great truths which he foretoldwere soon to shake the civilized world to its very center, andbefore which the bulwarks of tyranny and oppression were tocrumble away, were to them absolutely unintelligible, unmeaningnonsense — opposed to that “clearness of ratiocination” whicheven Clarendon allowed him to possess in conversation. It was peculiarly the duty of America to brush away the dust ofages that had collected around his name — to clear off thecobwebs that prejudices and calumny had spun ... of argument indefence of liberty religious and political, were the captivesthat adorned his triumph — assembled multitudes formed theprocession — the talent, wealth, and nobility of the kingdomwere collected around his chariot, to wonder and admire. Thusfell Vane,

“Than whom”, in the words of a kindred spirit,“a better senator ne’er held

“The helm of Rome, when gowns, not arms, repelled”“The fierce Epirot, and the African bold,”“Whether to settle peace, or to unfold”“The drift of hollow states hard to be spelled.”On whose “firm hand Religion leans”“In peace, and reckons” –him– “her eldest son”.

Equally the terror of evil-doers, and the praise of those whodid well wherever and whoever they might be.


5th day 7th of 4th M 1836 / Our Meeting was silent - but some of the few who met I trust were sensible & knew the Source from whence worship was performed - It was but a low time with me. —







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April 14, Thursday: The brothers Friend William Henry Harvey and Friend Joseph Harvey embarked in Cape Town, South Africa for the journey back to the British Isles.

David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Literary Digressions.” Under this date in Thoreau’s literary notebook there is a detached fragment which appears to be the conclusion to a forensic which might have been titled something like “Do Digressions or Examples Destroy the Unity of a Literary Work?” This detached fragment, which Thoreau indicates that he wrote while in Concord town, evidently on vacation, rather than while in Cambridge town, reads as follows:

In exegesis of this fragment’s “reminds me of the fable of the lion and the painter; — if lions had been painters it would have been otherwise,” we may refer to the fables of Æsop15:

15. Do not assume that you know the Æsop fables. Most editions are highly selective, and your experience may well be with a very partial and tendentious subset of the fables. For the Greek text, consult Ben Perry’s AESOPICA (which can be ordered from amazon.com, shipped in 4-6 weeks), and for an English translation, consult Ben Perry’s Loeb edition of BABRIUS AND PHAEDRUS (shipped within 2-3 days from amazon.com). This Loeb volume contains in addition English translations of 143 Greek verse fables by Babrius, 126 Latin verse fables by Phaedrus, 328 Greek fables not extant in Babrius, and 128 Latin fables not extant in Phaedrus (including some medieval materials) for a total of 725 fables.

author may chance, here and there, to throw out, uponthe characters and actions of his personages, and whichare regarded by the majority of his readers asinterrupting to the course of the narative [sic], andare generally passed over with little if any notice,for wherein, I would ask, do these differ from theadmonitions and exhortations of the express moralteacher? Perhaps his interests in the work, like anaccompanying sweet, may induce the reader to swallowthe bitter potion. Physiologists, however, would say,“let the draught be swallowed voluntarily, if you wouldexpect it to produce its full effect!” With regard tothe “exemplification” business, it reminds me of thefable of the lion and the painter; — if lions had beenpainters it would have been otherwise. Examples may bedivided into good and bad.







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Page 41 of the Ernest Rhys edition:16

Once upon a time a Man and a Lion were journeying together, and came at length to high words which was the braver and stronger creature of the two. As the dispute waxed warmer they happened to pass by, on the road-side, a statue of a man strangling a lion. “See there,” said the Man; “what more undeniable proof can you have of our superiority than that?” “That,” said the Lion, “is your version of the story; let us be the sculptors, and for one lion under the feet of a man, you shall have twenty men under the paw of a lion.” Men are but sorry witnesses in their own cause.

Steve Mailleaux’s version:A Man and a Lion traveled together through the forest. They soon began to boast of their respective superiority

16. London, 1936.






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to each other in strength and prowess. As they were disputing, they passed a statue carved in stone, which represented “a Lion strangled by a Man.” The traveler pointed to it and said: “See there! How strong we are, and how we prevail over even the king of beasts.” The Lion replied: “This statue was made by one of you men. If we Lions knew how to erect statues, you would see the Man placed under the paw of the Lion.”One story is good, till another is told.

[There is, however, an interesting cross-pollination here between the fables of Æsop and the philosophical fragments of the Presocratic Eleatic Xenophanes. For three of his sentences as incidentally preserved for our eyes in the seven books of the MISCELLANIES (STROMATEIS) of St. Clement of Alexandria (but not elsewhere) read as follows:

#14: But mortals deem that the gods are begotten as they are, and have clothes like theirs, and voice and form. (5.109) #15: Yes, and if oxen and horses or lions had hands, and could paint with their hands, and produce works of art as men do, horses would paint the forms of the gods like horses, and oxen like oxen, and make their bodies in the image of their several kinds. (5.110) #16: The Ethiopians make their gods black and snub-nosed; the Thracians say theirs have blue eyes and red hair. (7.22)]







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CAPE COD: It is remarkable that there is not in English anyadequate or correct account of the French exploration of what isnow the coast of New England, between 1604 and 1608, though it isconceded that they then made the first permanent Europeansettlement on the continent of North America north of St.Augustine. If the lions had been the painters it would have beenotherwise. This omission is probably to be accounted for partlyby the fact that the early edition of Champlain’s “Voyages” hadnot been consulted for this purpose. This contains by far the mostparticular, and, I think, the most interesting chapter of what wemay call the Ante-Pilgrim history of New England, extending toone hundred and sixty pages quarto; but appears to be unknownequally to the historian and the orator on Plymouth Rock. Bancroftdoes not mention Champlain at all among the authorities for DeMonts’ expedition, nor does he say that he ever visited the coastof New England. Though he bore the title of pilot to De Monts, hewas, in another sense, the leading spirit, as well as thehistorian of the expedition. Holmes, Hildreth, and Barry, andapparently all our historians who mention Champlain, refer to theedition of 1632, in which all the separate charts of our harbors,&c., and about one half the narrative, are omitted; for the authorexplored so many lands afterward that he could afford to forgeta part of what he had done. Hildreth, speaking of De Monts’sexpedition, says that “he looked into the Penobscot [in 1605],which Pring had discovered two years before,” saying nothingabout Champlain’s extensive exploration of it for De Monts in 1604(Holmes says 1608, and refers to Purchas); also that he followedin the track of Pring along the coast “to Cape Cod, which hecalled Malabarre.” (Haliburton had made the same statement beforehim in 1829. He called it Cap Blanc, and Malle Barre (the Bad Bar)was the name given to a harbor on the east side of the Cape.)Pring says nothing about a river there. Belknap says that Weymouthdiscovered it in 1605. Sir F. Gorges says, in his narration (MaineHist. Coll., Vol. II. p. 19), 1658, that Pring in 1606 “made aperfect discovery of all the rivers and harbors.” This is the mostI can find. Bancroft makes Champlain to have discovered morewestern rivers in Maine, not naming the Penobscot; he, however,must have been the discoverer of distances on this river (seeBelknap, p. 147). Pring was absent from England only about sixmonths, and sailed by this part of Cape Cod (Malebarre) becauseit yielded no sassafras, while the French, who probably had notheard of Pring, were patiently for years exploring the coast insearch of a place of settlement, sounding and surveying itsharbors.

BELKNAP

GORGES

HALIBURTON

HILDRETH

HOLMES

WEBSTER

BANCROFT

CHAMPLAIN

XENOPHANES

ÆSOP






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5th day 14th of 4th M / Our Meeting was small & silent, but a good solid & favour’d season to me for which I feel thankful —Father Rodman was out & the first time he has been at Meeting since he was taken unwell. —

A WEEK: It is remarkable that Homer and a few Hebrews are the mostOriental names which modern Europe, whose literature has taken its risesince the decline of the Persian, has admitted into her list ofWorthies, and perhaps the worthiest of mankind, and the fathers ofmodern thinking, — for the contemplations of those Indian sages haveinfluenced, and still influence, the intellectual development ofmankind, — whose works even yet survive in wonderful completeness, are,for the most part, not recognized as ever having existed. If the lionshad been the painters it would have been otherwise. In every one’syouthful dreams philosophy is still vaguely but inseparably, and withsingular truth, associated with the East, nor do after years discoverits local habitation in the Western world. In comparison with thephilosophers of the East, we may say that modern Europe has yet givenbirth to none. Beside the vast and cosmogonal philosophy of theBhagvat-Geeta, even our Shakespeare seems sometimes youthfully greenand practical merely. Some of these sublime sentences, as the Chaldaeanoracles of Zoroaster, still surviving after a thousand revolutions andtranslations, alone make us doubt if the poetic form and dress are nottransitory, and not essential to the most effective and enduringexpression of thought. Ex oriente lux may still be the motto ofscholars, for the Western world has not yet derived from the East allthe light which it is destined to receive thence.It would be worthy of the age to print together the collectedScriptures or Sacred Writings of the several nations, the Chinese, theHindoos, the Persians, the Hebrews, and others, as the Scripture ofmankind. The New Testament is still, perhaps, too much on the lips andin the hearts of men to be called a Scripture in this sense. Such ajuxtaposition and comparison might help to liberalize the faith of men.This is a work which Time will surely edit, reserved to crown thelabors of the printing-press. This would be the Bible, or Book ofBooks, which let the missionaries carry to the uttermost parts of theearth.

XENOPHANES

ÆSOP








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May 3, Tuesday: David Henry Thoreau turned in his Harvard College essay on the assigned topic “SOME ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WORKS OF SIR W. SCOTT by Allan Cunningham, FAMILIAR ANECDOTES OF SIR W. SCOTT BY JAMES HOGG, AND WITH A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE SHEPHERD by S. Dewitt [Simeon De Witt] Bloodgood.”

At the Exhibition Program that took place on this day, Jones Very presented a new version of his Bowdoin Prize Essay of July 1835, “The Practical Application in This Life, by Men as Social and Intellectual Beings,

SOME ACCOUNT OF ...FAMILIAR ANECDOTES





http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/32/1832_AllanCunningham.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/34/1834_SirWalterScott.pdf


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of the Certainty of a Future State,” which he had for this occasion retitled simply “The Heroic Character.”

Our Literature is uncommonly rich in Biography. No sooner has apassing meteor, whose brilliance and length of train arrests theattention of the gaping multitudes of this nether world, sunkbelow the horizon, than the literary astronomers of the day setabout tracing its orbit, and soon crowd a ponderous tome withthe phenomena it presented. This is all very well as far as itgoes, but, for my part, I am not satisfied with being acquaintedwith a man’s actions merely. I want to be introduced to the manhimself. “Biography,” says Fuseli, “however useful to man, ordear to art, is the unequivocal homage of inferiority offeredto the majesty of genius.” This is not the character of the worksbefore us; we here behold Scott in the capacity of a friend, andpatron, free from all restraint.Divested of all the mystery in which genius is usuallyenveloped, he appears for the moment to have put on mortality,he is no longer the “Author of Waverly” the eighth wonder of theworld. While we imagine him snugly ensconced in his antiquearmchair, poring over the pages of a huge black-letter foliocontaining the marvellous deeds of some Sir Tristram or Sir Guywho figured in border warfare, or performing a pilgrimage a laTerre Sante, we find him, perchance, “leistering kippers inTweed”, or seated on the river’s bank, while Rob Fletcher isgone after another fiery peat, singing Hogg’s ballad of“Gilman’s-cleuch”. The account of the Life and Works of Scottis written in a frank and impartial style, though the authorappears to be a little vain of his intimacy with Sir Walter. Thesame may be said of Hogg. The former winds up with these words,“No other genius ever exercised over the world so wide a rule:no one, perhaps ever united so many great — almost godlikequalities, and employed them so generously for the benefit ofthe living. It is not to us alone that he has spoken: his voicewill delight thousands of generations unborn, and charm hiscountry while wood grows and water runs.”The Ettrick Shepherd was the second son of Robert Hogg andMargaret Laidlaw, and was born on the 25th of Jan’y, 1772, theanniversary of Burns’ birth, who was born 1759. When 6 years ofage he attended for a short time a neighboring school, andlearned to read the Proverbs of Solomon and the ShorterCatechism, but at the age of 7 went to service as a cowherd,receiving for half a year’s service, “a ewe lamb and a pair ofshoes.”It was in his 18th year that he first saw the “Life andAdventures of Sir W. Wallace”, and Ramsay’s “Gentle Shepherd”.It was in 1796 that he first felt the inspiration of the Muse;he now for the first time had access to a valuable library, andhis genius shone forth so conspicuously, that he was known as“Jamie the Poeter.” He could compose, but he could not write“and he wept to think, however fancy and inspiration mightimpart their influence, he could not ‘catch their shadows asthey passed’.” The song commencing,

“My name it is Donald McDonald,”written at the time England was threatened with invasion byNapoleon, was the first he published.The following is a list of his works.







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The Queen’s Wake.Pilgrims of the Sun.The Hunting of Badlewe.Mador of the Moor.Poetic Mirror.Dramatic Tales.Brownie of Bodsbeck.Winter Evening TalesSacred Melodies.Border Garland.Jacobite Relics of ScotlandThe Spy.Queen Hynde.The Three Perils of Man.The Three do. of Women.Confessions of a Sinner.The Shepherd’s Calendar.A Selection of Songs.The Queer Book.The Royal Jubilee.The Mountain Bard.The Forest Minstrel.The Altrive Tales.

Now living, 1834.


3rd day 3 of 5 M / This Afternoon we found a ready conveyance to Greenwich direct in a Packet Cousins Henry & Thomas Gould, Thos Nichols & my wife & self went on board & in about two hours & three Quarters we arrived safely & pleasantly in GreenwichOur friend Thos Howland met us in the Street & took my wife our to his house & Henry & I walked on & got there before tea time - the two Thomas’s stoping at Dr Eldredges.






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September 12, Monday: A visit by Frédéric François Chopin to Robert Schumann on this day inspired Schumann to complete his “Etudes symphoniques.” Chopin, Schumann, and Clara Wieck spent most of the day at the piano.

David Henry Thoreau was back at Harvard College, for his Senior year, enrolling for German, Italian, English, natural philosophy, intellectual philosophy, rhetoric, and criticism. At this point or shortly afterward he changed from “David Henry” to “Henry David.” His current assignment was an essay on the topic “Whether the Cultivation of the Imagination Conduce to the Happiness of the Individual.” He enrolled in a course in intellectual philosophy which would require all three of his remaining college terms for its completion. Among the works which he would be examining would be John Locke’s AN ESSAY CONCERNING THE HUMAN UNDERSTANDING, Say’s POLITICAL ECONOMY, and Story’s COMMENTARIES ON THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. This time he was to occupy 23 Hollis Hall.

Thoreau supplemented his borrowings from the Harvard Library by checking out, from the library of the “Institute of 1770,” the 5th of the ten volumes of the 1st Series of the Reverend Jared Sparks’s THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY (Boston and London, 1836-1839), the one about the Reverend John Eliot written by the Reverend Convers Francis,17

the 1st of the five volumes of Professor Adam Ferguson’s THE HISTORY OF THE PROGRESS AND TERMINATION

17. In 1849 the Reverend Sparks would give over the editing of this series of American biographies in order to become the President of Harvard College — and once in that office he would grant Thoreau a letter by which this former student might continue to check out books from Harvard Library.

THOREAU RESIDENCES

HUMAN UNDERSTANDING

LIBRARY OF AM. BIOG. V






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Chopin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schumann

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/49/1849_JohnLocke.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/36/1836_JohnEliot.pdf


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OF THE ROMAN REPUBLIC (1773, new edition Edinburgh, 1813),

the 1st of the four volumes of THE ILIAD AND ODYSSEY OF HOMER, TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH BLANK VERSE BY THE LATE WILLIAM COWPER, ESQ. (Boston: Printed and published by Joseph T. Buckingham, 1814),

THE ROMAN REPUBLIC, I





The name "Homeros" indicates a hostage status. The name "Cowper" is pronounced as if it were "Cooper."

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/13/1813_AdamFerguson_I.pdf


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and the 1st and 3d of the three volumes of the Reverend Henry Stebbing (1799-1883)’s LIVES OF THE ITALIAN POETS (London, 1832). (Thoreau would renew the Ferguson, Cowper, and 3rd Stebbing volumes.)

October: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on the assignment “Whether the Government ought to educate the children of those parents, who refuse to do it themselves” made allusions of Jesus sayings such as are found in Mark 8:36.

I maintain that the Government ought to provide for theeducation of all children who would otherwise be brought up, orrather grow up, in ignorance. In the first place the welfare of the individual, and in thesecond that of the community, demand it. It is as much the dutyof the parent to educate, as it is to feed and clothe, the child.For on what, I would ask, depends this last duty? Why is thechild to be fed and clothed, if not to enable him to receive andmake a proper use of — an education? an education which he isno better able to obtain for himself, than he is to supply his







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physical wants. Indeed the culture of the physical is importantonly so far as it is subservient to that of the intellectualman. No one disputes this. Should then poverty or neglectthreaten to rob the child of this right — a right more dear andmore worthy to be cherished and defended than any he can enjoy— in such a case, it appears to me to be the duty of that neighborwhose circumstances will allow it, to take the part of the child,and act the part of a parent. The duty in this instance amountsto a moral obligation, and is as much a duty as it is a duty topreserve the life of the infant whose unnatural parents wouldsuffer it to starve by the road-side. What can it profit a manthat he hath enough to eat and drink, and the wherewithal he maybe clothed, provided he lose his own soul?But as these wealthy neighbors can accomplish more good byacting in concert, can more effectually relieve the unfortunateby a community of good offices, it is their duty, or, in otherwords, the duty of the community, so to do. Thus much for thewelfare of the child. That such a course, in the second place, is consistent with,nay, is necessary to, the greatest good of the community,scarcely admits of a doubt.

October 10, Monday: Harvard College had had its bicentennial celebration of its founding in 1636, and the assembled Harvard Men and dignitaries had witnessed the first singing the song which would become their song, known to all and sundry as “Fair Harvard.” A member of the Class of 1811 surveyed his peers, and based upon his characterizations of them, we would need to conclude that had this Harvard Man chanced upon another Harvard Man –HDT of the Class of 1837– who would become a graduate with no real situation and no real prospect of preferment, this Harvard Man in particular would likely not have been much impressed:

October 28, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “What is the meaning of ‘Fate’ in the ancient use of the word? What its popular signification now?” Thoreau confessed an attraction for the attitude of Plato as exemplified in the Cambridge Platonists as modified by the “common sense” philosophy of Edinburgh, over and above the attitude taken by John Locke. Plato’s antique views appear to have been more correct than those of Locke, he explains, because Plato had offered that although everything is within fate’s sphere or scheme, not all things are fated, for “it is not in fate that one man shall do so and so, and another suffer so and so; for that would be the destruction of our free agency and liberty: but if any one should choose such a life, and do such and such things — then it is in fate that such or such consequences shall ensue upon it.”

• will be opulent• will be rich• a wealthy Merchant• a rich man• a thriving merchant• rich• prospering

THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT





http://middarchive.middlebury.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/abercoll/id/409/rec/52


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November 11, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on the assignment “Travellers & Inhabitants. State some of the causes of differing and imperfect accounts of countries given by travellers and by native authors.”

Feeling threatened by the recent confederation, Chile declared war on Peru-Bolivia.

December 16, Friday: The iron fence around Boston Common was complete at a total expenditure of $80,000.

David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on an assignment in Professor Channing’s class, “Show how it is that a writer’s nationality and individual genius may be fully manifested in a Play or other Literary work upon a Foreign or Ancient subject — and yet full justice be done to the Subject.” In this essay he begged to differ with Dr. Samuel Johnson, who had famously opinioned that William Shakespeare’s “adherence to the real story, and to the Roman manners has impeded the natural vigor of his genius.”







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In constructing this essay Thoreau had made reference to the CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE of Isaac C. D’Israeli in one or another edition available at that point in time (however, since as an adult Thoreau would acquire a one-volume 1851 New-York edition of this for his personal library, that is the edition presented here in electronic form):

Show how it is that a Writer’s Nationality andIndividual Genius may be fully manifested in a Play orother Literary Work, upon a Foreign or Ancient Subject— and yet full Justice be done to the Subject.

Man has been called a bundle of habits.18 This truth, I imagine,was the discovery of a philosopher — one who spoke as he thoughtand thought before he spoke — who realized it, and felt it tobe, as it were, literally true. It has a deeper meaning, andadmits of a wider application than is generally allowed. Thevarious bundles which we label French, English and Scotchmen,differ only in this, that while the first is made up of gay,showy and fashionable habits, –the second is crowded with thoseof a more sombre hue, bearing the stamp of utility and comfort;–and the contents of the third, it may be, are as rugged andunyielding as their very envelope. The color and texture ofthese contents vary with different bundles; but the material isuniformly the same.Man is an abstract and general term, it denotes the genus;French, English, Scotch, &c., are but the differentiae. It iswith the genus alone that the philosopher and poet have to do.Where then shall they study it? As well here as there, surely,if it be every where the same; one may as well view the moonfrom mount AEtna as from the Andes, her phenomena will be equallyobvious, his map equally correct, whatever the point from whichhe observes her. But he must look through a national glass. It

18. The Reverend William Paley on “Virtue,” in THE PRINCIPLES OF MORAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY,1786: “There are habits, not only of drinking, swearing, and lying, ... but of every modification of action,speech, and thought: Man is a bundle of habits....”

CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE





http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/51/1851_CuriositiesOfLiterature.pdf


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may be desirable, indeed, to see clearly with the naked eye; weshould then need no astronomers; yet the same glass, since aglass we must use, will afford us an equally accurate view,whatever station we choose. If our view be affected at all bythe quality of the instrument, the effect will be constant anduniform, though our observatories be rolled about upon wheels.It would seem then, that an author’s nationality may be equallyobvious, and yet full justice be done to his subject, whetherthat subject be an ancient or modern, foreign or domestic one.By full justice I mean, he may do all he intended to, or thatany one can reasonably expect or require. Nay further, hisnationality may be even more striking in treating of a foreignthan a domestic subject; since what is peculiar and national inthe writer, by the side of what is real history and matter-of-fact in the description, will be made the more manifest by thecontrast. What is peculiar in the French character will soonerappear in a book of travels than a domestic diary; in hisdescriptions of foreign scenes and customs the Frenchman himselfwill be the most conspicuous object. Suppose him to weave thesematerials into a novel or poem, to introduce his innkeeper orpostillion, he is fully adequate to his task — he has only tolearn particulars — his must be an inductive method — thephenomena he observes are to be referred to a general law. Ishuman nature our study, the humanity of the Romans, forinstance, we ourselves, our friends, the community, are our besttext book. We wish to paint, perhaps, the old Roman courtier;so far as we know anything of him, we know him as a man; aspossessing in a greater or less degree, the same faults andvirtues that we observe in men of modern times; does he possessdifferent ones, he is a sealed book to us — he is no longer oneof us; we can no more conceive of him, describe him, class him,than the naturalist can class or conceive of, he knows not what;an animal, it may be, but he neither walks, swims nor flies,eats, drinks, nor sleeps, and yet lives.I come now to speak of that peculiar structure and bent of mindwhich distinguishes an individual from his nation. Much that hasalready been said will apply equally well to this part of oursubject. In a play or poem the author’s individual genius isdistinguished by the points of character he seizes upon, and thefeatures most fondly dwelt upon, as well as the peculiarcombination he delights in, and the general effect of hispicture. Into his idea of his fellow enters one half himself;he views his subject only through himself, and strange indeedwould it be, did not the portrait betray the medium through whichthe original was observed. As the astronomer must use his owneyes, though he looks through a national glass, not only are weto consider the quality of the lens, but also the condition ofthe observer’s visual organs. A defect in his sight will not bemade up for by distance, will be equally evident, whether it bethe instrument itself or the star to which it points, that issubjected to his scrutiny. To read history with advantage onemust possess, we are told, a vivid imagination, that he may ina measure realize and enter into the spirit of the story, so asto make himself familiar with the scenes and characters theredescribed. Every one is differently impressed, and eachimpression bears the stamp of the individual’s taste and genius.







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One seizes greedily upon circumstances which another neglects;one associates with an event those scenes which witnessed it,one grasps the ludicrous, another the marvellous; and thus, whenthe taste and judgment come to weave these conceptions intopoetry, their identity is not lost. Here, then, surely, one’sindividual genius is fully manifested.The original ‘Sweet Auburn’ has been ascertained to be Lishoyin the county of Westmeath, Ireland. Though Goldsmith intendedto represent an English village, “he took from Lishoy,” says hisbiographer, “only such traits and characteristics as might beapplied to village life in England, and modified themaccordingly. He took what belonged to human nature in rusticlife, and adapted it to the allotted scene. In the same way apainter takes his models from real life around him, even whenhe would paint a foreign or a classic group.” We may supposeGoldsmith to have written this justly celebrated poem in theIrish village named, where he passed his youth. Many of hisobservations apply rather, in their full extent, to an Irishthan an English village; but this is a difference not in kind,but degree. The desolation which was the subject of these verseswas by no means confined to his native country.

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates and men decay,”

is, alas! a truth but too universal in its application. Has notthis author done full justice to his subject? Let the popularityof his poem answer. Goldsmith is visible in every line. As tohis nationality, I will only add that the hypercritical havediscovered that many of his descriptions “savor more of therural scenery and rustic life of an English than an Irishvillage”; which is proof enough that what is national makes nomean figure in the “Deserted Village.” D’Israeli, speaking ofDante, observes; “Every great genius is influenced by theobjects and feelings which occupy his own times, only differingfrom the race of his brothers by the magical force of hisdevelopments; the light he sends forth over the world he oftencatches from the faint and unobserved spark which will die awayand turn to nothing in another hand.” So confident were hiscommentators that his ‘Inferno’ was but an earthly hell afterall, that the poem had no sooner appeared than they set abouttracing its original; which, satisfactorily to their own minds,they finally discovered. His biographer relates that in the year1304, among the novel and diverse sports on an occasion of publicrejoicing, one was, the representation of the Infernal regionsupon a stage of boats on the Arno at Florence. This, he adds,was the occasion of the ‘Inferno.’ Dante himself has remarked,“I found the original of my hell in the world which we inhabit.”Shakspeare is justly styled the ‘poet of nature’; here is thesecret of his popularity. His was no ideal standard, man was hishobby. It was one of the characteristics of his genius that itadapted itself to the reality of things, and was on familiarterms with our feelings. His characters are men, thoughhistorically faulty, yet humanly true; domesticated at once,they are English in all but the name. Now this characteristicis capable of being made equally manifest, whether his geniusbe employed upon an ancient or modern, foreign or domestic






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subject. He is as much the poet of nature in the one case as inthe other, in describing a Roman as a London mob; in Antony’sspeech over the dead body of Caesar, as in the character ofFalstaff. Were Antony Percy, and Percy Antony,

— “There were an Antony Would ruffle up your spirits” —

and exert perhaps as magical an influence over the wounds ofCaesar and the stones of Rome as did the true Roman orator. Weare told by one author (Pope) that “Invention is one of the greatcharacteristics of the genius of Shakspeare.” “Yet,” he asks,

“What can we reason but from what we know?”

This separating Invention from Imagination, as he does, seemsaltogether unnecessary, as another remarks, “seems to be merelydividing the included from the including term”. It may be, asJohnson has observed, that “Shakspeare’s adherence to the realstory and to Roman manners has impeded the natural vigor of hisgenius”; he may have been confined, but he was no lessShakspeare; though chained he was not tamed. We are not tocompare Shakspeare chained with Shakspeare at liberty, butShakspeare in chains with others in the same condition.A caravan is made up of animals as distinct in their nature andhabits as their fellows of the forest.I question, in the next place, whether our Poet’s powers ofImagination are less manifest when employed upon an ancient orforeign subject. Take, for instance, one of the most powerfulpassages of his ‘Julius Caesar,’ beginning

“But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world;” &c.

What is there foreign in the sentiment here? To be sure, theword Caesar occurs thrice, Brutus and Cassius each once; butthey were no impediment, no more so, at least, than Hotspur orMacbeth would have been. The individual is merged in the man.Is it answered that in the latter case the character will bewell known, and therefore the poet will feel more at ease, moreat home, and under less restraint? I answer, this veryfamiliarity, though a desideratum with the biographer, may provea hindrance to the poet; facts are so many guideboards,confining him to a beaten track and leaving no room forImagination. Some talk as if this faculty, wearied by a flightto so distant a scene, would be unable to exhibit its accustomedfertility and vigor: or among so many strange scenes and faces,being overcome by feelings of home sickness and loneliness,would lose a great portion of its energy and creative power. Butthis objection is far from applying to Shakspeare. He was, aswe say, never less alone than when alone. Fortunately, hisfamiliarity with Roman history was not so remarkable as tomultiply guideboards to a troublesome degree; or supersede thenecessity of his judging for himself, or hazarding a conjecturenow and then.Shakspeare is Shakspeare, whether at home or abroad.







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February 17, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Speak of the characteristics which, either humorously or reproachfully, we are in the habit of ascribing to the people of different sections of our own country” utilized, among other resources, Archbishop Richard Whately, D.D.’s ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC....

... Rome had never been mistress of the world had not the distinction of allies been merged in the title of Roman citizens. They were Romans who conquered the world; so many Latins, Apulians, and Campanians, had they stood, in other respects, in precisely the same relative situations, would sooner have gone to war with each other. How much mischief have those magical words, North, South, East, and West, caused. Could we rest satisfied with one mighty, all- embracing West, leaving the other three cardinal points to the old world, methinks we should not have cause for so much apprehension about the preservation of the Union. When, in addition to these natural distinctions, descriptive and characteristic epithets are applied, by their own countrymen, to the people of different sections of the country, though in a careless and bantering manner, the patriot may well tremble for the Union. ...

March 3, Friday: “An Act making appropriations for the naval service,” etc. “For carrying into effect the acts for the suppression of the slave trade,” etc., $11,413.57 (STATUTES AT LARGE, V. 155, 157).

Completion of the 2d (lame duck) session of the 24th federal Congress, with human enslavement still legal in the United States of America.

On his final full day in office, United States President Andrew Jackson recognized the independence of the Republic of Texas.

David Henry Thoreau’s essay on his Harvard College assignment “Compare some of the Methods of gaining or exercising public Influence: as, Lectures, the Pulpit, Associations, the Press, Political Office.”

March 17, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s essay on his Harvard College assignment “Name, and speak of, Titles of Books, either as pertinent to their Matter, or merely Ingenious and Attractive.”

When at length, after infinite toil and anxiety, an author hasfairly completed his work, the next, and by far the mostimportant concern that demands his attention is the christening.He is about to send forth his bantling to seek its fortune inthe world; and he feels a kind of parental interest in itswelfare, prompting him to look about for some expressive and

1837


INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE







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euphonic Title, which at least will secure it a civil treatmentfrom mankind, and may perchance serve as an introduction totheir sincere esteem and regard.A Title may either be characteristic, consisting of a singleexpressive word or pithy sentence, or ingenious and amusing, soas to catch the fancy or excite the curiosity. Some (such as“Ivanhoe,” for instance,) although familiarity with its contentsmay impart to them an interest not their own, or otherassociations render them pleasing to the ear, — seem to havebeen adopted as merely or chiefly distinctive; without anyattempt to enlighten the reader upon the nature of the subject,or to deceive him into a perusal of the volume. In the infancyof a nation’s literature, when books, like angel’s visits, are“few and far between,” their very rarity seems to require thatthey should be distinguished by titles equally rare; and notunusually does it happen that these prove so exceedinglyattractive as to cast quite into the shade the humble volumewhich they were intended to usher into notice.The character of the contents is often quite overlooked in thedesire to make a favorable first impression; and the author’swhole ingenuity is exerted in the framing of some fanciful ordignified Title, which will at once recommend his book to thefavor of the reading public. As some fond parents in the lowerwalks of life are accustomed to ransack the long list of departedworthies for sonorous and well-tried names; or from the cast-off spoils of the novel-heroine seek to swell the scanty portionwhich Fortune has allotted to their offspring.What can be more alluring than the following tempting andsomewhat luxurious display of verbal delicacies?

“Paradise of Dainty Devices.”What may be the nature of these “Dainty Devices” is left to beimagined by the reader, — it being safer to leave him to his ownvague conjectures than to tell the plain truth at once. RobertLangland, a contemporary of Chaucer, taught the fundamentaldoctrines of Christianity in a voluminous poetical work,entitled “Pierce the Ploughman’s Crede.” One William isovertaken by sleep among the Malvern Hills, and in a dreambeholds the different classes of society pursuing theirrespective avocations upon a spacious plain before him. He isaddressed by various allegorical personages, among whom TrueReligion and Reason are the most conspicuous. By Piers Plowmanis sometimes meant the “true and universal Church”; at othershe is a mysterious personage who undertakes to guide mankind tothe abode of Truth, — declaring that he has himself long beenTruth’s faithful and devoted follower.Where the uninitiated reader would expect a rude pastoral orrural ditty, or perhaps an essay on husbandry, nothing is foundto repay him for the trouble of a perusal but obscure andinterminable allegories,

“In notes with many a winding boutOf linked dulness long drawn out.”

Southwell’s “Funeral Tears” is another title of the samedescription. The following gives one a slight insight into thesubject, “Abuses Stript and Whipt” — being a volume of satirical







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essays; in later times, “Heliconia,” a selection of Englishpoetry of the Elizabethan age, and “Archaica,” a reprint ofscarce “Old English Prose Tracts,” by Sir Edgerton Brydges.Davy’s “Salmonia,” which must have puzzled many, is also of thisdescription. Our early literature abounds in such conceitedtitles as the following: “A Ladder of Perfection,” “A Looking-Glass for London and England,” “A Fan to drive away Flies,” and“Matches lighted by the Divine Fire.”One author, through an excess of modesty or squeamishness, callsa discourse upon the life and death of an individual, an“Epitaph”; another has packed off a quarto with an inexplicable(and therefore attractive) title, — “Prayse of the Red Herring.”Our ancestors were fond of regarding their works aa so manydifferent centres, from which diverged rays of various hues,carrying light and heat to every quarter, — as choicerepositories of learning, or perennial fountains of amusement;and therefore, overlooking their general character, gave themcollective titles, taken, for the most part, from the analogyof matter. Some such have already been mentioned. “Painter’sPalace of Pleasure,” “Temple of Memory,” “Coryat’s Crudities,”etc., are other instances. We may also add, “Mirror forMagistrates,” — a rather odd title for a chronicle History,written during the reign of Queen Mary, and embracing “The Livesand untimely Fates of unfortunate Princes and men of note,” fromBrutus down.Not even sober philosophical and grammatical works have escapedthe absurdity of unintelligible and affected titles. HorneTooke’s “Diversions of Purley” must have disappointed many adesultory reader in search of amusement. The difficulty is notremoved by the addition of the poetical expletive, “EpeaPteroenta.”The student has heard of this celebrated treatise, and he feelsa desire to examine it. He has recourse, perhap, to the catalogueof some library, which informs him merely that John Horne Tookewas the author of a book called “The Diversions of Purley.”He is somewhat astonished that so learned a philologist as Mr.Tooke should have condescended to dabble in light literature,or have sacrificed a moment in amusements or diversions of anykind.It cannot be that he is mistaken. Mr. Tooke was certainly theauthor of the work he is in quest of. Perhaps those ill-starredDiversions, however, may contain a biographical notice of theirauthor, which will throw some light upon the subject.He examines and is undeceived. Instead of a Dictionary ofSports, or a Panegyric on the Delights of Rural Life, he findsa critical treatise on the English language, displaying no smalldegree of philological learning.No people have been more prone to these extravagances than thePersians. Mohammad Ebn Emir Chowand Shah, who flourished in1741, was the author of a voluminous historical work entitled“Hortus Puritatis in Historia Prophetarum, Regum et Chalifarum.”A Persian-Turkish dictionary bears the title of “Naamet Allah”or “Delight of Gods.” “The Gulistan,” or “Flower-Garden,”a collection of moral fables and apophthegms, by Sheikh Sadi ofShiraz, being written in an excessively florid style, may aptlyenough be compared to a garden of flowers, or a parcel of






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nosegays. We next come upon the ground of the “Lebtarik or Marrowof History,” by the immortal (so far as his name is concerned)Al Emir Yahia Ebn Abdolatif al Kaswini. Abu Said wrotea universal history from Adam to his own time, under the titleof a “Historical Pearl Necklace.”Revolutions have not been confined to political institutions andforms of government; not even old Books nor old Clothes haveescaped the all-grasping hand of reform. Men have learned that“All is not gold that glisters.” Books have cast off their gaudyand cumbrous court dresses, and appear, in these days, in a plainRepublican garb. The works of the philosopher, the poet and thestatesman carry no recommendation upon their backs; nor do adiscouraging array of clasps compel the faint-hearted reader torely upon outward appearances. Indeed their Titles, should aperusal warrant it, are concealed by an everyday dress of paper;while their contents are equally accessible to all. It is nota little remarkable that so few really valuable works haveanything to recommend them in their externals.

Although Thoreau might have been able to derive some of the above material about Persian titles from ENCYCLOPÆDIA AMERICANA: A POPULAR DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE, HISTORY, POLITICS, AND BIOGRAPHY, BROUGHT DOWN TO THE PRESENT TIME, which had been published in Philadelphia in 1832 and 1836 and offered that “Mirchond or Mohammed Ebn Emir Chowand Shah, who flourished in 1741, wrote the voluminous historical work entitled HORTUS PURITATIS IN HISTORIA PROPHETARUM, REGUM ET CHALIFARUM (GARDEN OF PURITY IN THE HISTORY OF THE PROPHETS, KINGS AND CALIPHS)...,” “Abu Said, or Abdallah Ben Abulkasin Beidavi, wrote a universal history, from Adam to his own time (1276), under the title of HISTORICAL PEARL NECKLACE,” and “The LEBTARIK (MARROW OF HISTORY) of Al Emir Yahia Ebn Abdollatif al Kazwini (who died 1351) has been translated...,” some other portions of this material are not in that source — clearly the young scholar was not perpetrating a schoolboy “copy and paste.”

Commenting on this school essay, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn would derive Thoreau’s interest in Persian literature from Waldo Emerson (“Quite possibly, Emerson had inspired this taste...”) despite the fact that the young scholar was turning in this class assignment considerably before becoming personally involved with Emerson (“My first intimacy with Henry began after his graduation...”).

March 31, Friday: John Constable died.

David Henry Thoreau’s essay on his Harvard College assignment “Examine this theory [that various dreadful natural phenomena derive their dread sublimity from Death].” In the course of this essay he made reference not only to the aesthetic theory found in Edmund Burke’s A PHILOFOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. ... WITH FEVERAL OTHER ADDITIONS

(London, Printed for J. Dodsley, in Pall-mall. 1770, 6th edition) but also to the Rev. Archibald Alison’s ESSAYS ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF TASTE.

Here, then, is what Thoreau turned in for satisfaction of this class assignment:

“The thunder’s roar, the Lightning’s flash, the billows’ roar,

7TH EDITION, OF 1773

REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON






http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constable

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Constable

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/17/70DECADE/70/1773_Burke7thEd.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/30/1830_Taste.pdf


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the earthquake’s shock, all derive their dread sublimity fromDeath.”

“The Inheritance,” chapter 56.

Examine this theory.

“Whatever,” says Burke, “is fitted in any sort to excite theideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in anysort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, oroperates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of thesublime.” — “Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, eithermore openly or latently, the ruling principle of the Sublime.”Hence Obscurity, Solitude, Power, and the 1ike, in so far asthey are fitted to excite terror, are sources of the sublime.This is a theory far more satisfactory than that which we areabout to examine. He does not make death the source of terror,but rather pain, using the word in its broadest sense.Death itself is sublime. It has all the attributes of sublimity— Mystery, Power, Silence — a sublimity which no one can resist;which may be heightened, but cannot be equalled, by thethunder’s roar, or the cannon’s peal. But yet, thoughincomparably more awful, this is the same sublimity that weascribe to the tumult of the troubled ocean, the same in kind,though different in degree, depending for its effect upon thesame principles of our nature, though affecting us morepowerfully and universally. To attribute the two to differentprinciples, is not only unphilosophical, but manifestlyunnecessary.We shrink with horror from attributing emotions so exalted andunearthly, and withal so flattering to our nature, to an abjectfear of death. We would fain believe that the immortals, whoknow no fear, nor ever taste of death, can sympathize with uspoor worldlings in our reverence for the sublime, — that theylisten to the thunder’s roar, and behold the lightning’s flash,with emotions similar to our own. We do believe it; we have sorepresented it. The sublimity of the conflict on the plains ofHeaven, between the rebel angels and the Almighty’s loyal bands,as described by Milton, was not lost upon the spirits engagedin it. Raphaël, who recounts the particulars of the fight to ourforefather Adam, describes the Messiah as riding sublime “on thewings of cherub,”

“On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron’d,Illustrious far and wide;” —

Nor could he have been entirely unconscious of the emotion inquestion, when he compared the combat between Satan and Michael,to the meeting of two planets. “As if”, to use his ownexpression,

“Among the constellations war were sprung, “Two planets, rushing from aspect malign“Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky“Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound.”






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—Who can contemplate the hour of his birth, or reflect on theobscurity and darkness from which he then emerged into a stillmore mysterious existence, without being powerfully impressedwith the idea of sublimity? Shall we derive this sublimity fromdeath? Nay, further, can anything be conceived more sublime thanthat second birth, the resurrection? It is a subject which weapproach with a kind of reverential awe. It has inspired thesublimest efforts of the poet and the painter. The trump whichshall awake the dead is the creation of poetry; but to followout the idea, will its sound excite in us no emotion, or willthe blessed, whom it shall summon to forsake the moulderingrelics of mortality, and wing their way to brighter and happierworlds, listen with terror, or indifference? Shall he who isacknowledged while on earth to have a soul for the sublime andbeautiful in nature, hereafter, when be shall be all soul, losethis divine privilege? Shall we be indebted to the body foremotions which would adorn heaven? And yet there are some whowill refer you to the casting off of this “mortal coil”, as theorigin, and, I may add, the consummation of all this.We can hardly say that fear is a source of the sublime; it maybe indispensable, it is true, that a certain degree of awe shouldenter into the admiration with which we listen to the billow’sroar, or the howling of the storm. We do not tremble with fright,but the calm which comes over the soul, is like that whichprecedes the earthquake. It is a pleasure of the highest kind,to behold a mighty river, rolling impetuously, and, as it were,blindly onward to the edge of the precipice, where, forsuccessive ages, it plunges headlong to the bottom, roaring andfoaming in its mad career, and shaking the solid earth by itsfall, but it is not joy that we experience, it is pleasure,mingled with reverence, and tempered with humility. Burke hassaid that “terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openlyor latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.” Alison saysas much, and Stewart advances a very different theory. The firstwould trace the emotion in question to the influence of pain,and terror, which is but an apprehension of pain. I would makean inherent respect, or reverence, which certain objects arefitted to demand, that ruling principle; which reverence, as itis altogether distinct from, so shall it outlive, that terrorto which he refers, and operate to exalt and distinguish us,when fear shall be no more.Whatever is grand, wonderful, or mysterious, may be a source ofthe sublime. Terror inevitably injures, and if excessive, mayentirely destroy its object. To the coward, the cannon’s peal,the din and confusion of the fight, are not sublime, but ratherterrible, the calm and self-collected alone, are conscious oftheir sublimity. Hence, indeed, are they inspired with courageto sustain the conflict. To fear is mortal, angels mayreverence. The child manifests respect ere it had experiencedterror. The Deity would be reverenced, not feared.Hence it is, that the emotion in question is so often attendedby a consciousness of our own littleness; we are accustomed toadmire what seemeth difficult or beyond our attainment. But tofeel conscious of our own weakness is not positively unpleasant,unless we compare ourselves with what is incapable of commandingour respect or reverence and consequently is not a source of the







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sublime. Grandeur, of some kind or other, must ever enter into our ideaof the sublime. Niagara would still retain her sublimity, thoughher fall should be reduced many feet, but the puny mountainstream must make up in depth of fall, for what it lacks involume. What is more grand than mystery? The darker it is, thegrander it grows. We habitually call it great. Burke has wellremarked that divisibility of matter is sublime, its veryinfinity makes it so. Infinity is the essence of sublimity.Whatever demands our admiration or respect is, in a degree,sublime. It is true, nothing could originally demand ourrespect, which was not, at the same time, capable, in a greateror less degree, of exciting our fear, but this does not provefear to be the source of that respect. Nothing, on the otherhand, of which we stand in awe, is an object of our contempt;yet the source of our contempt is not, surely, indifference, ora feeling of security. It will be enough, merely to advert tothe immense influence which the association of ideas exerts.Burke’s theory would extend those emotions which the sublimeexcites, to the brute creation. They suffer pain — theyexperience terror — they possess the faculty of memory, andphilosophers have ascribed to them imagination and judgment. Whymay not, then, the brute hearken with rapture to the thunder’speal, or, in the deep of the forest, enjoy the grandeur of thestorm? Man’s pride will not admit it. It savors of Immortality.But the brute knows not that peculiar reverence for what isgrand, whether in nature, or in art, or in thought, or in action,which is the exclusive birthright of the lord of creation. Thereis an infinity in the mystery, the power, and grandeur, whichconcur in the sublime, the abstract nature of which is barelyrecognized, though not comprehended, by the human mind itself.Philosophers, it is true, have ascribed to brutes “devotion, orrespect for superiors”, but, so to speak, this is a respectgrounded on experience, it is practical or habitual, not thefruit of abstract reflection, nor does it amount to therecognition of any moral superiority.But to some it may appear, that this reverence for the grand,if I may so style it, is not an original principle of our nature,— that it originates in fear. I answer, if this is not, neitheris fear. Nay more, the former is a principle more universal inits operation, more exalting and ennobling in its influence, andis, besides, so superior to, and at variance with fear, that wecannot for a moment derive it from the latter. The philosopher sees cause for wonder and astonishment ineverything, in himself, and in all around him, he has only toreflect, that he may admire. Terror avoids reflection, thoughreflection alone can restore to calmness and equanimity. Howregard, respect, reverence, can grow out of fear, is, I mustconfess, incomprehensible.We reverence greatness, moral and intellectual, the giantintellect is no sooner recognized, than it demands our homage.Moral greatness calls for the admiration of the depraved even. The emotion excited by the sublime is the most unearthly andgodlike we mortals experience. It depends for the peculiarstrength with which it takes hold on and occupies the mind, upona principle which lies at the foundation of that worship which






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we pay to the Creator himself. And is fear the foundation ofthat worship? is fear the ruling principle of our religion? Isit not, rather, the mother of superstition? Yes, that principlewhich prompts to pay an involuntary homage to the infinite, theincomprehensible, the sublime, forms the very basis of ourreligion. It is a principle implanted in us by our Maker, a partof our very selves, we cannot eradicate it, we cannot resist it;fear may be overcome, death may be despised, but the infinite,the sublime, seize upon the soul and disarm it. We may overlookthem, or, rather, fall short of them, we may pass them by, butso sure as we meet them face to face, we yield.

April 28, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on an assignment in Professor Edward Tyrrell Channing’s rhetoric and oratory class, to consider the moral attitudes of two Quakers, Jonathan Dymond and Amelia Anderson Opie: “The opinions of Dymond and Mrs. Opie respecting the general obligation to tell the truth; are they sound and applicable? Vide Dymond’s [1829] ‘Essays on [the Principles of] Morality’ and Mrs. Opie’s [1825] ‘Illustrations of Lying [, in All its Branches].’”

I shall confine myself to the examination of Mr. Dymond’sopinions without pretending to offer any of my own. He definesa lie to be “uttering what is not true when the speaker professesto utter truth, or when he knows it is expected by the hearer.”We are to bear in mind that whether the term is to be understoodin a good or a bad sense, must depend upon the definitionassigned it. As here used, it is altogether arbitrary. Mr.Dymond does not tell us that this or that is a lie, but findsit necessary first to define the term — to inform us what, inthe following essay, is to be understood by the term lie.This being premised, let us inquire first, whether a man may,under any conceivable circumstances, tell a lie without theinfraction of the moral law. May we not lie to a robber, in orderto preserve our property? Our author thinks not. If we may lieto preserve our property, says he, we may murder, and as it wouldbe wrong to murder in such a case, so would it be wrong to lie.But this reasoning is by no means conclusive, for who can saywhat constitutes a lie. Dymond applies the term arbitrarily tocertain forms of speech; suppose we do the same. To lie, we willsay, is to “utter what is true when the speaker professes toutter truth, or when he knows it is expected by the hearer.”To lie then, in this sense, would be immoral, because to murder,with the same view, would be immoral. It is the similarity ofpurpose, and not of means, which constitutes the immorality inthis case. This method of reasoning amounts, in fact, to amanifest petitio principii.But further, may we not “tell a falsehood to a madman for hisown advantage”? Dymond’s answer amounts to this. It would notbe for his advantage, and hence would it be morally wrong tocommit so egregious a blunder. Indeed, this is the only sign ofan argument adduced to prove this particular point. This surelyis founding the guilt of lying upon its ill effects, whichprocedure our author condemns in the outset.In the second place, are those untruths sometimes amounting tolies, in the sense in which Dymond uses the term, which customhas sanctioned, in any way defensible? We must here have someregard to the effects of the practice, the motives and







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expectations of the parties being unknown. If these are not liesthey are evidently gratuitous, for where is the use of tellingan untruth to one who receives it as such, if it be not a fictioncalculated to please or instruct? Might not one as well remainsilent? But what is useless is never harmless. If, on the otherhand, these are lies, if the speaker “utters what is untrue whenhe profess to utter truth, or when he knows it is expected bythe hearer,” his conduct is certainly to be condemned.As for those cases in which it is impossible to be deceived —the compliments which bring up the rear in a dedication orepistle, — we can at best say no good of them. To excuse thembecause they are taken for what they are worth, would be likepardoning the vices of a dangerous member of society, becausehis character is properly estimated — the very fact of its beingunderstood implying its condemnation.

May: Graduating senior Henry David Thoreau attended Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s initial lectures upon his being appointed to the Harvard College faculty.

May 19, Friday: David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Speak of the duty, inconvenience and dangers of conformity, in little things and great” made reference to Matthew 5:17-19:

Neither natural nor revealed religion affords any rules by whichwe may determine the comparative enormity of different vices,or the comparative excellence of different virtues. The Hebrewcode, which Christ came not to destroy but to fulfill, makes nosuch distinction — vice, under whatever form, is condemned inunqualified and positive terms. We are told, in our Savior’sexposition of the law, that one jot or one tittle shall in nowise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled; — and whosoevershall break one of the least commandments, and shall teach menso, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. Sofar, too, as man has deduced a moral code from a philosophicalstudy of the works of creation — their operation and design —our remark will hold good with respect to that also.The idea appears to be a prevalent one, that duty consists incertain outward acts, whose performance is more or lessobligatory under different circumstances, though it can neverbe entirely neglected with impunity; and, consequently, that oneduty may interfere with another, and that there may besituations in which a man cannot possibly avoid the violationof duty. This arises, I think, from confining duty to the outwardact, instead of making it consist in conformity to the dictatesof an inward arbiter, in a measure independent of matter, andits relations, time and space. Duty is one and invariable — it requires no impossibilities, norcan it ever be disregarded with impunity; so far as it exists,it is binding, and if all duties are binding, so as on no account

READ DYMOND’S ESSAYS

THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT





http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/90S/96/1896_JonathanDymondESSAYS.pdf

http://middarchive.middlebury.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/abercoll/id/364/rec/19


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to be neglected, how can one bind stronger than another? So far then as duty is concerned, we may entirely neglect thedistinction of little things and great.Mere conformity to another’s habits or customs is never,properly speaking, a duty, though it may follow as a naturalconsequence of the performance of duty.The fact that such is the general practice of mankind does notaffect a question of duty. I am required, it is true, to respectthe feelings of my neighbor within the limits of his own estate,but the fear of displeasing the world ought not, in the least,to influence my actions; were it otherwise the principal avenueto reform would be closed.

May 26, Friday: John Augustus Roebling’s son Washington Augustus Roebling was born in Saxonburg, Pennsylvania.19

David Henry Thoreau’s Harvard College essay on assignment “Whether Moral Excellence tend directly to increase Intellectual Power?”

First, what is moral excellence? Not, surely, the mereacknowledgement of the divine origin of the Scriptures, andobedience to their dictates as such; nor yet an implicitcompliance with the requisitions of what may be termed popularmorality. It consists rather in allowing the religious sentimentto exercise a natural and proper influence over our lives andconduct — in acting from a sense of duty, or, as we say, fromprinciple. The morally excellent, then, are constantly strivingto discover and pursue the right. This is their whole duty; for,in the inquiry what is right, reason alone can decide, and herdictates are ever identical with the dictates of duty. Here thenis ample room for the exercise of the intellectual faculties.What, in fact, is the end of all inquiry but the discovery oftruth — of right? The man of the world, no less than thelogician, though his objects of pursuit be unworthy a man, isstill anxious only to learn the best way to attain them; thedegraded and vicious have already discovered the right way to dowrong. Indeed no man ever proves so wholly false to his natureas not to worship truth under some form or other, none so lostto all sense of honesty, as not to contend for, and lay claimto, the right. The morally right, or true, differs only from theworldly or temporal, in that it is the only real and universalright –that most worthy of man’s inquiry and pursuit –the onlyright recognized by philosophy. As it is the most abstract, sois it the most practical of all, for it admits of universalapplication. None, in fine, but the highest minds, can attainto moral excellence. With by far the greater part of mankind,religion is a habit, or rather, habit is religion, their viewsof things are illiberal and contracted, for the very reason thatthey possess not intellectual power sufficient to attain tomoral excellence. However paradoxical it may seem, it appearsto me that to reject Religion is the first step towards moralexcellence; at least, no man ever attained to the highest degree

19.This engineer’s son would join in his firm after graduating from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. It would be, actually, a father/son team which in the 1850s and 1860s would construct the cable-stayed span over the Niagara upstream from the falls and would begin work on the Brooklyn Bridge. (However, in this database, for convenience, I am focusing on the senior member of the firm.)







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of the latter by any other road. Byron’s character is a favoriteargument with those who maintain the opposite opinion; a betterfor my own purpose I could not have desired. He advanced justfar enough on the road to excellence to depart from the religionof the vulgar, nay further, twelve lines, says Constant,20 (andhe quotes them) of his poetry, contain more true religion thanwas ever possessed by any or all of his calumniators. Couldinfidels but live double the number of years allotted to othermortals, they would become patterns of excellence. So too of alltrue poets they would neglect the beautiful for the true. Sofar, then, from impeding the development of the IntellectualPowers, Moral Excellence is made the sole pursuit, and isattainable only, by the highest minds.

August 30, Wednesday: At the Harvard College graduation ceremonies, William James Hubard was busy cutting memento silhouettes of the various seniors of the graduating Class of 1837, and so of course he one of the silhouettes he cut, presumably attired in a mortar-board graduation hat, was a full-figure one of graduating senior David H. Thoreau. (I do not have an illustration of this, but on the following screen is a silhouette, done of Stansfield Rawson of Wastdale Hall, Cumberland, that is generally representative of Hubard’s skill in the genre.)

http://www.baumanrarebooks.com/browse-books.aspx

AN EXTRAORDINARY DISCOVERY: THE EARLIEST KNOWN PORTRAIT OF HENRYDAVID THOREAU, AN EXTRAORDINARY SILHOUETTE BY HUBARD DONE FORTHOREAU’S 1837 HARVARD GRADUATION THOREAU, Henry David. Original silhouette portrait. Cambridge,Massachusetts, 1837. Image measures 6-3/8 by 9-1/4 inches,mounted in original bird’s-eye maple frame; overall measurements10-3/8 by 13-1/4 inches. $90,000.A splendid, hitherto unknown and unrecorded silhouette portraitof Henry David Thoreau, this silhouette was done by theprominent silhouette artist and painter William J. Hubard on theoccasion of Thoreau’s graduation from Harvard University in 1837and is signed by Hubbard. In fine original bird’s-eye frame. Thoreau allowed only a few portraits to be done in his lifetime,and until now, only a handful of images, all dated after 1854,were known to exist: two daguerreotypes, several roughcaricatures done by friends, and a sketch, the original of whichis nearly completely disintegrated. This silhouette portraitpre-dates the other portraits by some 17 years. It depictsThoreau’s full figure and profile and shows him dressed ingraduation cap and gown. It is identified on the front, in theartist’s hand, “Henry David Thoreau, Harvard 183, Wm. J. Hubard,profilist.” Hubard was an English-born artist who attained fameat an early age as a silhouettist. Upon his arrival in Americain the mid-1800’s, he was widely praised and his silhouetteswere displayed at exhibitions; within a few years, however, hehad retired from silhouette-cutting and devoted himself topainting, exhibiting at the National Academy of Design in 1834.he continued throughout his life to occasionally cut profiles,doing a silhouette of Franklin Pierce as late as 1852. Hubardwas on the east coast in 1837, eventually marrying in October

20. Benjamin Constant’s DE LA RELIGION, CONSIDÉRÉE DANS SA SOURCE, SES FORMES ET SES DÉVELOPPEMENTS

quotes twelve lines out of George Gordon, Lord Byron’s “The Island.”





http://www.baumanrarebooks.com/browse-books.aspx


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in Virginia and traveling to Europe at the beginning of 1838.Hubard is considered to be a major silhouette artist of the 19thcentury, and examples of his work signed are rare.On the reverse of the silhouette is a small piece of paper whichreads in a contemporary hand “David Henry Thoreau, Harvard 1837,given Dr. Joseph Green Cogswell Cambridge, Mass.” Cogswell, atone point librarian of Harvard University, was the firstsuperintendent of the Astor Library in New York. The switch inThoreau’s name –it reads “David Henry,” not “Henry David”– is infact appropriate, as Thoreau’s name was indeed officially “DavidHenry.” Called by his middle name by his family from birth, aftergraduating from college he changed his name to “Henry David” toreflect this practice (though characteristically he neverbothered to make it official, just as he never officiallygraduated from Harvard because he refused to pay a five dollarfee for the diploma).With the help of curators and experts, we have ascertained thatno mention of this portrait exists in Thoreau’s archives or inmodern bibliographies. In our experience, we have encounteredfew pieces of such immediate historical, literary and artisticinterest as this silhouette. Because so few images of Thoreauexist, this will be regarded as an important discovery byliterary scholars and Thoreau enthusiasts. An unusually largesilhouette, the portrait faithfully depicts Thoreau’s profileand characteristic stance, as described by his contemporaries.As an unrecorded signed work by William Hubard, the silhouetteis also of great importance to Hubard experts and collectors ofearly American silhouettes. A truly extraordinary piece.







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The Harvard commencement contributions made by graduating senior Charles Wyatt Rice of Brookfield and by graduating senior Henry Vose of Dorchester in regard to “The Commercial Spirit of Modern Times Considered in its Influence on the Political, Moral, and Literary Character of a Nation” offer interesting points of comparison and contrast with the contribution made on this day by the 3d member of their panel, graduating senior Henry David Thoreau of Concord:

This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient, more beautiful than it isuseful –it is more to be admired and enjoyed then, than used. The order of things should be somewhat reversed,–the seventh should be man’s day of toil, wherein to earn his living by the sweat of his brow, and the other sixhis sabbath of the affections and the soul, in which to range this wide-spread garden, and drink in the softinfluences and sublime revelations of Nature.

1st, the contribution which would have been made by Young Charles Wyatt Rice (had he bothered to show up for this commencement exercise):

Well, first of all, there is the matter of young Charles Wyatt Rice’s spelling. He has been attending a college of some repute for something like four years. Has nobody taken the trouble to teach this student how to spell?

Despite the fact that he has been supplied with the word “commercial,” properly spelled, Rice comes up with “comercial.” He also creates the word “nought,” phonetically spelled, for “naught.”

There is a problem with young Charles Wyatt Rice’s classical allusion:

He should have referred to the worship of Mammon, rather than to the worship of Plutus. Presumably he is attempting to refer to the plutocrat, and to plutocracy?

There is the matter of young Charles Wyatt Rice’s metaphors:

A flame does not light itself up with an intensity, it lights other things with an intensity. A temple may, one is willing to suppose, crackle rather than crack, but when it did so it would crash, rather than clash, upon the head of the zealous votary inside it. Gain is hardly the sort of thing that one finds upon the faces of our fellow men, as what one finds upon the faces of our fellow men are expressions and although greed may involve an expression, gain does not.

Young Charles Wyatt Rice uses curious modifiers:

What might be the function, in this piece, of magnifying mere energy into “thrilling” energy?

Paragraph the first: The distinguishing trait of modern times is, the comercial [sic]spirit. The love of gain seems to have taken an universal hold on the hearts of men. Plutus is nowworshipped with a zeal that consumes itself, and the flame at His altar is lit up with an intensity,that brings the very temple crackling and clashing upon the head of the zealous votary, andburies him in its ruins. In looking around upon the faces of our fellow men for sympathy with thepurer emotions that sometimes spring up in our own bosoms, we find nought [sic] there butgain. Until the question is forced with thrilling energy upon every lover of his country, whatmust be the effect of this universal love of gain, this commercial spirit of modern times on thepolitical character of his nation.







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Young Charles Wyatt Rice’s sentence construction leaves something to be desired:

The last long sentence of this would apparently be a question, if it made sense at all, but it apparently here was intended to function in some other manner.

Young Charles Wyatt Rice presumably would be saying, above, that speculation has brought about a business crash, and that people are in distress. He certainly is not saying this very well. One might have expected better from a young gentleman who has just spent approximately four years in a liberal arts college — or even two years in a junior college.

Young Charles Wyatt Rice presumably is saying, above, that any legislative measures which would be responses to the nation’s economic predicament would be of necessity temporary measures, and would therefore be unreassuring. We note that he does not say why the legislative response would of necessity be in the form of temporary measures. We note also that after having identified the cause of the nation’s economic slump as overextension due to overconfidence, he identifies the solution as a return of confidence without explaining how it might be, that the antidote to a poison is to consist of a great deal more of that very same poison.

Paragraph 2: The answer is every where around us. We read in the crises to which nationshave come. Well do the members of all commercial states exclaim, the country is in bankruptcy;the people are in distress; in every quarter the cry is help. And with this exclamation is utteredthe confession that very much of this calamity has been brought about by the universal love ofgain, the commercial spirit of modern times. Were this questioned, it might be read in the fate ofthe merchant whom once the morn beheld constant at his counting room, content to get richslowly but surely, until the passion became inordinate and in a moment of temptation, he plungedinto speculation and ruin. It might be read in the fate of the mechanick, who saved hishardearned wages, but only to sink them in speculation, and his family in distress. It might beread, indeed, in the conduct and fate of every class of the community.

Paragraph 3: And now the cry for aid has gone up from the people. This cry has arisen toour legislatures. Another week beholds the congress of the nation assembled at its Capitol.The course of our own nation will find its parallel in that of other countries. Let us for a momentplay the prophet, and, reasoning from the nature of things, anticipate the effect of measures.Influenced, then, by the desire of affording some present relief, the national counsellors enactlaws for the present - laws to operate but for a time - laws to which men look for aid, but underwhich they know not how to act. In a word, they bring upon the people all the evils of temporarylegislation. And what a tyranny is this! Under it men stand in suspense, looking eagerly to theground before them, but too fearful to advance to it. They dare not take new steps for they fearthat the laws which urged them to it will cease, and then they may wish, but wish in vain for theirformer station. The country presents a singular but a fearful spectacle, the business of a nationfettered by suspense, and men looking, but looking in vain to the countenances of their fellowsfor hope and assurance. A new reign is brought upon the land, not indeed the reign of Terrour,but one more fearful still, the reign of Doubt. We behold a nation, whose countenance bears butone impress, anxiety, and whose limbs are fettered but by one manacle, uncertainty.







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Young Charles Wyatt Rice has perhaps in the course of his college education read Homer’s Odyssey, or more likely hear of it, but Charybdis was not a rock upon which one’s bark might dash — it was, instead, a humongous whirlpool in which one might be swallowed up. Rice’s metaphor of the chain does not work, for one cannot by riveting (or even by rivetting) tighten a chain. Also, what is this “pressure of the night-mare,” is it maybe like a horse that comes and lies upon one as one sleeps, pressing one down upon one’s bed? Rice’s proffered solution, which is for each businessman to rely on himself rather than waiting upon collective or governmental action, appears to be a standard proposal out of standard polemical party politics. –Rice is a regular Harvard Man, your standard product.

In brief, had Henry David Thoreau delivered such a piece we might have serious doubts at this point that he would ever become competent as a thinker, let alone as a writer! Is it any wonder that, discretion being the better part of valor, Young Charles Wyatt Rice didn’t show up to recite such a commencement exercise as this one, and had to be officially recorded as “sick”?

Paragraph the last: Or if the bark, whose progress we are watching, escape this Scyllaof the Political Sea, it may still dash upon the Charybdis. In times of deep distress, it is thoughtthat any state must be better than the present, any laws better than those now in force. The peoplerise, but too often only to sink into deeper subjection. Witness the popular tumults of the OldWorld, where the mass rule today, only that the morrow may behold them suffering under sternertyranny. The tumult is calmed. But it is the calmness of despair. The attempt to sunder the chains,has been but the occasion of rivetting [sic] them the tighter. The depression of trade, too, isever a strong motive in the people to grant new powers to government. They feel but too deeplythat their trade is depressed, and they fancy that the remedy is not in themselves but in theirlegislators. They come with the humble prayer that the power may be taken from them. For theyfancy they cannot govern themselves. Let them not wonder then, that they feel the power theyhave conferred on others. Let them not be surprised, that the laws which appear to give relief tothe many, give nothing but power to the few. Let them not be disappointed, when they find that aweight, like the pressure of the night-mare, is on them. But let them awake to the consciousness,that their best dependence is upon themselves, and that power is safest, where it is easiestrecalled to those who delegated it.






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Now here is the contribution made by Henry Vose, who at the very least in his approximately four years of study has learned how to spell, if he is not yet entirely clear as to the distinction between “farther” and “further”:

Young Henry Vose has done better than Young Charles Wyatt Rice, in that he has created a 1st paragraph without an egregious spelling error. He posits a world in which a newer commercial spirit, of production and distribution of goods and service, is overwhelming an earlier preoccupation with the appropriation and reappropriation of existing goods.

Young Henry Vose supposes, plausibly, that people who are not in want can be expected to be more productive in science, philosophy, and fiction than people who live in want. Where is this observation going to lead him?

Young Henry Vose demonstrates that commerce influences literature by pointing to financial bequests bestowed. The more “munificent” the male merchants of Boston (by which he evidently means, the richer they get) the larger their financial bequests become, and the more lasting these monuments to their memory become, the nobler the recipient institutions become, and the nobler they become, the more able they become to “ameliorate” mankind (by which he evidently means, to reduce the original ignorance of all of us male citizens, as his ignorance has evidently been reduced). It is therefore our duty as the sons of this maternal institution, Harvard College, our Alma Mater, to respect her, remember her, and be grateful. Wow — what a concept! This has presumably never been said before, or never so well. Vose might as well stop here, but he does not, for he senses that there may be lingering doubts on the parts of those of us who can perceive only the

Paragraph the first: It has been said to be one of the principal signs of the times thatthe commercial spirit is superseding the warlike spirit in Christendom. If this be true it is indeeda triumph, and we may discover in it some of the causes of that superiority we fondly believe in,of modern times over past ages. That commerce in its innumerable relations influences almostevery department of human affairs no one can doubt. Morals and Politics acknowledge its power,and Letters, which might be supposed to be exempt from its sway, are immediately affected by it.This growing commercial spirit of modern days, this love of enterprise cannot but engender aboldness of thought and action, which the whole community must feel. Its power is almostwithout limit. As long as there are lands to be explored, or seas to be navigated, its votaries areimperceptibly carried farther and farther into its meshes. It deals with every nation, and everyclass, and comes in contact with human character of every stamp.

Paragraph 2: And can it be that commerce, in these numberless connections, does not touchthe literary character of a nation? Must not its influence be widely felt, even if indirect and silent,where letters and science are concerned? Philosophy and fiction find in it elements congenial totheir growth. The novelist finds a romance on the sea and in traffic, matter-of-fact as it may seem,and seizes upon it with the boldness and zeal, which characterize the seaman and the merchant;and the philosopher, as he surveys the ordinary courses of business, finds ample materials forthe imagination, or for reflection, wherewith to verify hypotheses, or erect theories. And hisprospect is boundless: he may look onward and onward as far as the mind’s vision can extend,and still there is something beyond; something to exercise curiosity and excite investigation.

Paragraph 3: But commerce exerts a more direct influence on literature. It is from themunificence of its devotees that the noblest institutions for the amelioration and education ofmankind have grown up. If the public in modern times is indebted to any one class of men morethan another for the aid they have given the sciences and arts, it is to our merchants. They haveerected lasting monuments to their memory in the public institutions they have founded: theyhave endeared themselves to a grateful community by their never failing zeal to aid, either bytheir wealth or their talents in the great cause of education and reform; And among other objectsof their liberality they have not forgotten our Alma Mater. They have ever extended to her afostering hand, encouraging her in the day of her adversity, and aiding her to extend herinfluence, when in the full tide of her glory. It is for us, her sons, to regard them with the liveliestfeelings of respect, and to cherish their memory with the warmest gratitude.







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surface appearances of things:

Perhaps we are lucky that Young Henry Vose names no names here. Who would want to be exposed, as biting the hand that feeds?

Young Henry Vose is democratically inclined, one perceives; there may be a mingling of the classes, a circulation of places and roles. The clerk may quit his job and enroll in college, the literary scholar go to work in a downtown firm. This is all OK.

Young Henry Vose posits at the end what he has posited at the beginning, a world in which the production and distribution of goods and service gives people of different areas an excuse to rub elbows with one another. The circularity of this reasoning process seems not to have perplexed him. Now let us compare and contrast this with the contribution made by the third member of the student panel:

Paragraph 4: It is an opinion entertained by many that the operations of traffic must inducea narrowness of mind and soul directly averse to the interests of literature and science. There aresome whose vision is so limited that they only see the merchant through the medium of his day-book and ledger, and who, in the simplicity of their heart believe his whole life consists in buyingand selling merchandize [sic]. They are of that class, who form their judgments from palpableand outward circumstances, and who are either too indifferent or too thoughtless to carry theirobservation farther [sic]. They merely see the ripple on the surface and know nothing of theundercurrent.

Paragraph 5: We need entertain no fears that this growing love of traffic of modern timeswill engross public attention and absorb our best minds to the prejudice of literary pursuits. Thedifferent occupations of life will never suffer for want of numbers. Every man will follow the bentof his feelings and talents, and from the present state of society we have little to apprehend thatany one profession will extend itself to the exclusion of the rest. It is indeed desirable that thepursuits of literature and commerce should have a common feeling and end. It were to be wishedthat their votaries would seek to aid each other; the merchant by imparting his zeal and boldness,and something more solid than either; the scholar by exercising that influence, which letters andscience never fail to give. And we know of no readier means, by which this community of feelingmay be effected than that the scholar and the merchant should oftentimes change places. Shouldone of us descend from the temple of learning to mingle in the walks of business, let us bid himGod-speed, and pray him to remember the interests of science and education, and employ hisextended means in their behalf. And when one, who has begun life in the counting room, entersthe race with us, let us extend to him the hand of welcome, hoping that he may bring with him aportion of that zeal and enterprise, that are the characteristics of his former profession.

Paragraph the last: This growing commercial spirit is of a nature to unite the nationsof the earth. It nurtures a community of interests among people of different tongues and climes.It brings them nearer to each other, and the advance of one nation in education and refinementis made to bear upon the character of its neighbor. And so it is of that internal commerce, whichbinds together the different parts of the same country: giving impetus and nutriment to all theenergies of mankind, and spreading activity, enterprize [sic] and wealth through all classesof society; awakening the moral and intellectual powers of a people as necessary to its ownsuccess, and stamping upon their literary character its own indelible characteristics.






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THE COMMERCIAL SPIRIT OF MODERN TIMES,

CONSIDERED IN ITS INFLUENCE ON THE POLITICAL, MORAL,

AND LITERARY CHARACTER OF A NATION.

The history of the world, it has been justly observed, is the history of the progress of humanity; each epoch is characterized by some peculiar development; some element or principle is continually being evolved by the simultaneous, though unconscious and involuntary, workings and struggles of the human mind.21 Profound study and observation have discovered, that the characteristic of our epoch is perfect freedom — freedom of thought and action.22 The indignant Greek, the oppressed Pole, the zealous American, assert it. The skeptic no less than the believer, the heretic no less than the faithful child of the church, have begun to enjoy it. It has generated an unusual degree of energy and activity — it has generated the commercial spirit. Man thinks faster and freer than ever before. He moreover [inserted above line: ̂ moves] moves faster and freer. He is more restless, for the reason that he is more independent, than ever. The winds and the waves23 are not enough for him; he must needs ransack the bowels of the earth that he may make for himself a highway of iron over its surface.

Indeed, could one examine this beehive of ours from an observatory among the stars, he would perceive an unwonted degree of bustle in these later ages. There would be hammering and chipping, baking and brewing, in one quarter;24 buying and selling, money-changing and speech-making, in another. What impression would he receive from so general and impartial a survey? Would it appear to him that mankind used this world as not abusing it?25 Doubtles[s] he would first be

21. Presumably at the suggestion of the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, who had written on Victor Cousin in 1836, Thoreau had checked out from the Gore Hall library in June 1837, and then renewed in July, the English translation published in Boston in 1832 of Professor Cousin’s 1828 lectures, FRAGMENTS PHILOSOPHIQUES, titled INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY (tr. Henning Gottfried Linberg). Here we can see the influence of this reading. Refer to pages 146-7, 157, and 272-4.22. In NEW VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH, published in Boston in 1836 while Thoreau was staying at his home, Orestes Augustus Brownson had written as if perfect freedom were something to be expected in humankind’s future. Here, ironically, Thoreau, who himself owned a copy of this treatise, situates it instead in our magnificent present.23. If this indicates anything, Waldo Emerson had written, in NATURE in 1836, that:

24. Emerson had written, in NATURE in 1836, that:

NATURE: “The winds and waves,” said Gibbon, “are always on theside of the ablest navigators.”

NATURE: [Humankind’s] operations taken together are soinsignificant, a little chipping, baking, patching, and washing,that in an impression so grand as that of the world on the humanmind, they do not vary the result.







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struck with the profuse beauty of our orb; he would never tire of admiring its varied zones and seasons, with their changes of livery. He could not but notice that restless animal for whose sake it was contrived,26 but where he found one to admire with him his fair dwelling place, the ninety and nine27 would be scraping together a little of the gilded dust upon its surface.

In considering the influence of the commercial spirit on the moral character of a nation, we have only to look at its ruling principle. We are to look chiefly for its origin, and the power that still cherishes and sustains [this may have been: sustains and cherishes] it, in a blind and unmanly love of wealth. And it is seriously asked, whether the prevalence of such a spirit can be prejudicial to a community? Wherever it exists it is too sure to become the ruling spirit, and as a natural consequence, it infuses into all our thoughts and affections a degree of its own selfishness; we become selfish in our patriotism, selfish in our domestic relations, selfish in our religion.

Let men, true to their natures, cultivate the moral affections, lead manly and independent lives; let them make riches the means and not the end of existence, and we shall hear no more of the commercial spirit. The sea will not stagnate, the earth will be as green as ever, and the air as pure. This curious world which we inhabit is more wonderful than it is convenient, more beautiful than it is useful—28 it is more to be admired and enjoyed then, than used. The order of things should be somewhat reversed, —the seventh should be man’s day of toil, wherein to earn his living by the sweat of his brow,29 and the other six his sabbath of the affections and the soul, in which to range this wide-spread garden, and drink in the soft influences and sublime revelations of Nature.

But the veriest slave of avarice, the most devoted and selfish worshipper of Mammon, is toiling and calculating to some other purpose than the mere acquisition of the good things of this world; he is preparing, gradually and unconsciously it may be, to lead a more intellectual and spiritual life. Man cannot if he will, however degraded or sensual his existence, escape truth. She makes herself to be heard above the din and bustle of commerce, by the merchant at his desk, or the miser counting his gains, as well as in the retirement of the study, by her humble and patient follower.

Our subject has its bright as well as its dark side.30 The spirit we are considering is not altogether and without exception bad. We rejoice in it as one more indication of the entire and universal freedom which characterizes the age in which we live — as an

25. Emerson had written, in NATURE in 1836, that:

NATURE: The misery of man appears like childish petulance, when weexplore the steady and prodigal provision that has been made forhis support and delight on this green ball which floats himthrough the heavens. What angels invented these splendidornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, thisocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? thiszodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coatof climates, this fourfold year?






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indication that the human race is making one more advance in that infinite series of progressions which awaits it. We rejoice that the history of our epoch will not be a barren chapter in the annals of the world, — that the progress which it shall record bids fair to be general and decided. We glory in those very excesses which are a source of anxiety to the wise and good, as an evidence that man will not always be the slave of matter, but erelong, casting off those earth-born desires which identify him with the brute, shall pass the days of his sojourn in this his nether paradise as becomes the Lord of Creation.31

Young Henry David Thoreau had been reading, during the preceding June and July, in a book published in Boston in 1832 which he twice checked out from the collection of his student club, the “Institute of 1770,” the Henning Gottfried Linberg translation of Professor Victor Cousin’s INTRODUCTION TO THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. He had also perused Mrs. William Minot’s review of that book, “Cousin’s Philosophy” in the North American Review (XXXV, December 1936) and may have seen the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s review of it in The Christian Examiner (XXI, 1836-1837:33-64). From this introduction to the

history of philosophy, on pages 186-7, he would have learned that any truth or interest considered exclusively inevitably invites displacement or change; that “all the points of view from which truth has been regarded, all the systems and the epochs which history describes, (though excellent in themselves,) are incomplete, and therefore, reciprocally destroy each other; yet there still remains something which preceded and which survives them, namely, humanity itself. Humanity embraces all things, it profits by all; and it advances always, and athwart of every thing. And when I speak of humanity, I speak of all the powers which represent it in history; of industry, the state, religion, art, and philosophy.... In fact, humanity is superior to all its epochs. Every epoch aspires to make itself equivalent to humanity; it endeavors to measure its duration, to fill it, and to give a complete idea of humanity; ... therefore, each of these is good, in its time and its place; and it is also good that each of them should, in its turn, succeed and displace its predecessor.” Might it be from this that young Thoreau derived the sentiment he expressed at the conclusion of his piece, as to the “goodness” of the commercial spirit, and the optimism he expresses in regard to human nature?

Christian P. Gruber has, in THE EDUCATION OF HENRY THOREAU, HARVARD 1833-1837 (Ann Arbor MI:

26. The earth was of course per GENESIS 1:3 contrived for our use. Emerson, in NATURE, quoted a similar conceit as found in a poem by George Herbert:

27. MATTHEW 18:12/13, LUKE 15:4,7.28. NATURE.

The stars have us to bed: Night draws the curtain; which the sun withdraws.Music and light attend our head. All things unto our flesh are kind,In their descent and being; to our mind, In their ascent and cause.

More servants wait on man Than he’ll take notice of. In every path, He treads down that which doth befriend himWhen sickness makes him pale and wan.Oh mighty love! Man is one world, and hath Another to attend him.

Man is all symmetry, Full of proportions, one limb to another, And to all the world besides. Each part may call the farthest, brother; For head with foot hath private amity, And both with moons and tides.

Nothing hath got so farBut man hath caught and kept it as his prey; His eyes dismount the highest star; He is in little all the sphere.Herbs gladly cure our flesh, because that they Find their acquaintance there.

For us, the winds do blow,The earth doth rest, heaven move, and fountains flow;Nothing we see, but means our good, As our delight, or as our treasure;The whole is either our cupboard of food, Or cabinet of pleasure.

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER






http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/38/1838_ChristianExaminerXXIII.pdf


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University Microfilms Publication 8077 of 1954, pages 193-5, 273-6), suggested that Henry David Thoreau may have been influenced by the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s NEW VIEWS OF CHRISTIANITY, SOCIETY, AND THE CHURCH, which had been published in the previous year in Boston and of which Thoreau owned a copy, as well as by the teaching skills of Professor Edward Tyrrell Channing.

Joseph J. Kwiat has, in “Thoreau’s Philosophical Apprenticeship” (New England Quarterly XVIII,1945:61-69), written of the manner in which Henry David Thoreau in this piece preferred the NATURE of Waldo Emerson over the NATURAL THEOLOGY: OR, EVIDENCES OF THE EXISTENCE AND ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY, COLLECTED FROM THE APPEARANCES OF NATURE of the Reverend William Paley.

At graduation from Harvard College, in addition to his commencement lecture, Henry David Thoreau prepared a page for his class’s yearbook in which he referred to Stoughton Hall and Hollis Hall as having

“dank but classic walls” which had shut “his old, and almost forgotten friend, Nature” out.

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Since he ranked 4th among the 47 graduating seniors in Thoreau’s Harvard College graduating class who were receiving Bachelor of Arts Degrees, and since the parts of the graduation ceremony had been assigned on the basis of class standing, it was Charles Theodore Russell of Princeton, Massachusetts who stood up first, and delivered the salutatory oration in Latin. (As 19th in class standing, Thoreau had to wait through this, a conference, and an essay, before being able to participate in the conference to which he had been assigned.) One of the auditors, the Reverend John Pierce, thought that Russell’s piece “was well written and delivered, but spoken, as if he were disappointed in not having one of the English Orations.”32

29. GENESIS 3:19

WALDEN: For more than five years I maintained myself thus solelyby the labor of my hands, and I found, that by working about sixweeks in a year, I could meet all the expenses of living.The whole of my winters, as well as most of my summers, I had freeand clear for study. I have thoroughly tried school-keeping,and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out ofproportion, to my income, for I was obliged to dress and train,not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time intothe bargain. As I did not teach for the good part of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this was a failure. I have triedtrade; but I found that it would take ten years to get under wayin that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the devil.I was actually afraid that I might by that time be doing what iscalled a good business.

WALDEN: In short, I am convinced, both by faith and experiencethat to maintain one’s self on this earth is not a hardship buta pastime, if we will live simply and wisely; as the pursuits ofthe simpler nations are still the sports of the more artificial.It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweatof his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.






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30. By 1854, he no longer shared Victor Cousin’s view of inevitable progress:

31. This reflects Victor Cousin’s principal thesis in ECLECTICISM. “Lord of Creation” reflects GENESIS 3:19 as well as Emerson’s NATURE.32. The Reverend John Pierce, MS journal, entry of 30 August 1837.

WALDEN: When formerly I was looking about to see what I could dofor a living, some sad experience in conforming to the wishes offriends being fresh in my mind to tax my ingenuity, I thoughtoften and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I coulddo, and its small profits might suffice, –for my greatest skillhas been to want but little,– so little capital it required, solittle distraction from my wonted moods, I foolishly thought.While my acquaintances went unhesitatingly into trade or theprofessions, I contemplated this occupation as most like theirs;ranging the hills all summer to pick the berries which came in myway, and thereafter carelessly dispose of them; so, to keep theflocks of Admetus, I also dreamed that I might gather the wildherbs, or carry evergreens to such villagers as loved to bereminded of the woods, even to the city, by hay-cart loads.But I have since learned that trade curses every thingit handles; and though you trade in messages from heaven, thewhole curse of trade attaches to the business.







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David Henry Thoreau

I am of French extract, my ancestors having taken refuge in the isle ofJersey, on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, by Lewis 14th, in theyear 1685. My grandfather came to this country about the year —73, “sanssouci sans sous,” in season to take an active part in the Revolution,as a sailor before the mast.I first saw the light in the quiet village of Concord, of Revolutionarymemory, July 12th 1817.I shall ever pride myself upon the place of my birth ———May she neverhave cause to be ashamed of her sons. If I forget thee, O Concord, letmy right hand forget her cunning. Thy name shall be my passport inforeign lands. To whatever quarter of the world I may wander, I shalldeem it my good fortune that I hail from Concord North Bridge.At the age of sixteen I turned my steps toward these venerable halls,bearing in mind, as I have ever since done, that I had two ears and butone tongue. I came —— I saw —— I conquered —— but at the hardest, anothersuch a victory and I had been undone; “One branch more,” to use Mr.Quincy’s own words, “and you had been turned by entirely. You have barelygot in.” However, “A man’s a man for a’ that,” I was in, and didn’t stopto ask how I got there.I see but two alternatives, a page or a volume. Spare me, and be thouspared, the latter.Suffice it to say, that though bodily I have been a member of HarvardUniversity, heart and soul I have been far away among the scenes of myboyhood. Those hours that should have been devoted to study, have beenspent in scouring the woods, and exploring the lakes and streams of mynative village. Oft could I sing with the poet,

My heart’s in the Highlands, my heart is not here;My heart’s in the Higlands [sic] a-chasing the deer;Chasing the wild deer, and following the roe,My heart’s in the Highlands wherever I go.

The occasional day-dream is a bright spot in the student’s history, acloud by day, a pillar of fire by night, shedding a grateful lustre overlong years of toil, and cheering him onward to the end of his pilgrimage.Immured within the dank but classic walls of a Stoughton or Hollis, hiswearied and care-worn spirit yearns for the sympathy of his old, andalmost forgotten friend, Nature, but failing of this is fain to haverecourse to Memory’s perennial fount, lest her features, her teachings,and spirit-stirring revelations, be forever lost.Think not that my Classmates have no place in my heart —— but this istoo sacred a matter even for a Class Book.

“Friends! that parting tear reserve it,Tho’ ’tis doubly dear to me!Could I think I did deserve it,How much happier would I be.”

As to my intentions ——————— enough for the day is the evil thereof.





Revocation of the Edict of Nantes by King Louis XIV in 1685...

John Thoreau embarking from St. Hélier, Isle of Jersey on May 3, 1773...

French Huguenot service on the revolutionary side during the Revolutionary War...

Birth of David Henry Thoreau...

Psalm 137:5...

As a graduating senior Thoreau had been studying John Milton’s L’Allegro, and had noted his use of the word "cunning" meaning "skill."

Thoreau also quoted Zeno the Stoic early on in his JOURNAL: "On this account have we two ears but one mouth, that we may hear more, and speak less."

Julius Caesar’s "Letter to Amantius" announcing his victory over Pharnaces at Zela in Pontus in 47 BC: "Veni, vidi, vici."

The remark of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, "Another such victory over the Romans, and we are undone," was reported in Plutarch’s LIVES, Chapter 21, Section 9.

Thoreau is quoting what Harvard President Josiah Quincy had to say in regard to his college entrance exam results in 1833.

Robert Burns’s poem "For A’ That And A’ That."

Robert Burns again, "My Heart’s In The Highlands."

(Exodus 13:21-22; 14:19; 33:9-10; Numbers 14:14): Go to Exodus 13:21-22...

Samuel Rogers’s PLEASURES OF MEMORY.

Robert Burns again, "Scenes of Woe."

Matthew 6:34: Go to the Sermon on the Mount...


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March 25, Sunday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

1st day 25 of 3rd M 1838 / Attend Meeting this Morning & set quite comfortably - but I was too unwell to go in the Afternoon & have been quite unwell this evening. —Gilbert Congdon from Providence called last evening & spent the night with us - he left us this Morning by the Steam Boat for home - We were glad to have his company & indeed our Providence friends in general are acceptable to us.

1838










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March 26, Monday: Josiah Quincy, Sr., President of Harvard College, wrote a letter of recommendation for Henry D. Thoreau, graduate:

HENRY THOREAU






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A.L. de Puibusque’s HISTOIRE COMPARÉE DES LITTÉRATURES ESPAGNOLE ET FRANÇAIS.

Philarète Chasles’s ÉTUDES SUR L’ANTIQUITÉ.

E.J.B Rathery’s INFLUENCE DE L’ITALIE SUR LES LETTRES FRANÇAISES, DEPUIS LE XIIIE SIÈCLE JUSQU’AU RÈGNE DE LOUIS XIV.

Philarète Chasles’s QUESTIONS DU TEMPS and Jean-Jacques Ampère’s DE L’HISTOIRE DE LA POÉSIE.

Russell B. Goodman, ed. CONTENDING WITH STANLEY CAVELL. Oxford UP. In the Introduction to this volume, the editor Goodman commented that:

[Professor Emeritus Stanley] Cavell is the only majorphilosopher in any country to write a book on Thoreau.... He is... avoided ... by the literary –and other– establishments....[Professor Richard] Rorty finds [that] Cavell effectively andproperly sets Wittgenstein in a philosophical context thatincludes such “friends of finitude” as Rousseau, Thoreau,Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche.

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I’m not certain what is meant by “friend of finitude” in this context, yet I am going to take a stab at guessing what meaning is intended by this phrase. There are lots of philosophers, or at least, lots of professors of philosophy (not exactly the same thing, you understand), who go for Philosophy As Product. That is, the objective of their philosophizing (whether overtly stated or covertly held), their intention as it were, is to produce as their work product a Philosophy –a definitive product– and thus once and for all to put an end to all this incessant time-wasting activity known as philosophizing. They are positive philosophers. They are going to come to The Conclusion. “The secret of the universe is 43.” Thus it is, for instance, that while Richard Rorty teaches philosophy at Stanford University, he does so, not out of the university’s Department of Philosophy, but instead out of its Comparative Literature Department! –Think of that: a major modern philosopher at a major modern university has been unable to find a comfortable home in that institution’s department of philosophy!

“Philosophers like to practice philosophical thinking on me-too subjects that other philosophers call philosophy, and they leave their minds at the door when they are outside these subjects.... Spending time with these people, whose curiosity is focused on regimented on-the-shelf topics, feels stifling.”

— Nassim Nicholas Taleb, THE BLACK SWAN:THE IMPACT OF THE HIGHLY IMPROBABLE (NY:Random House, 2007, pages 289-90)

To my way of thinking, this phrase “friend of finitude” is intended to suggest that Rousseau, Thoreau, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche (names in an interesting sequence, since Kierkegaard both was born before Thoreau, and died before Thoreau) are, the four of them, distinctly different from this sort of professor of philosophy who go in for Philosophy As Product. Not one of the four of them were interested in creating “a philosophy” that would once and for all arrive at The Truth and thus bring an end to philosophizing. To the contrary, they were engaging in Philosophy As Process.Which is to say, they were actually thinking, whereas much of what goes on in departments of philosophy in our major institutions of learning today amounts to merely turning and turning the crank of one or another truth-tripping sausage machine.It is thus the highest honor possible, for Thoreau to be positioned in such company, as a “friend of finitude.” It is an oblique way of saying “This person Thoreau is a real philosopher.”







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Chapter 9 of Professor Stanley Cavell’s PHILOSOPHY THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW is entitled “Thoreau Thinks of Ponds, Heidegger of Rivers.”33 In this chapter the professor revisits his previous study of WALDEN34 and recognizes that in that study he had “mostly left out, or open, the question of what is called, or calls for, philosophy. But the difficulty of determining what philosophy is, or rather of recognizing who is and who is not philosophizing, is something that both Thoreau and Heidegger insist upon.” Cavell cites Thoreau’s remark about professional philosophy: “There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers.” He offers that the reason why the professors of philosophy are not philosophers is, that they are not like Thoreau, who is a philosopher. He then proceeds to draw the obvious parallel between the 19th-Century philosopher Henry Thoreau and the 20th-Century philosopher Martin Heidegger.35 To do this he quotes Heidegger as going “[Ordinary understanding] does not reflect upon the fact and cannot even understand, that what philosophy deals with only discloses itself within and from out of a transformation of human Dasein,” and he glosses this “a transformation of human Dasein” as indicating “a transformation of our existence, and of how we conceive its possibilities.” The parallel he sees in WALDEN is that it “explicitly enough declares itself to be a text about crisis and transformation, or metamorphosis: ‘Our moulting season, like that of the fowls, must be a crisis in our lives. The loon retires to solitary ponds to spend it.’ This is one of a number of Thoreau’s declared identifications with the loon.” Cavell proceeds with this comparison between Heidegger and Thoreau: “What Heidegger refers to as the ‘preparation’ for his transformation (preparation is the most, according to him, that philosophy can provide) he speaks of as awakening, also a fundamental term for WALDEN, heralded in the sentence from itself that WALDEN takes as its epigraph: ‘I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wake my neighbors up.’ Nothing short of WALDEN itself could give what it calls a faithful account of what is strung in such a sentence, of the relations among the concepts of awakening, hence dawning and morning, dejection or melancholy, bragging, roosting, standing, singing, neighboring, writing; and then tell why the audience of this writing must be addressed in such a fashion, meaning why thus allegorically, let’s call it, or duplicitously, and why through precisely these concepts. But what I ask attention to here is that just about all of these are concepts — variously inflected, together with associated others — at work in Heidegger’s texts as well. The beginnings of my project of mutual assessment between Heidegger and Thoreau, hence potentially between the conflicting philosophical traditions contending for our allegiance (anyway, for mine), will happen most surely if I can convey a due astonishment at the sheer extent of coincidence, hence of significant difference, between them.”

Heidegger’s FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTS OF METAPHYSICS speaks of thealternative to awakening as “the slumbering of the fundamentalrelationship of Dasein toward beings in everydayness” (page xv),and formulates awakening as “letting whatever is sleeping becomewakeful” (page 60), where this “letting” names the relation tobeing that forms a world, the distinct privilege of the human.The concept of letting things be what they are –as it wereleaving them to themselves, but at the same time letting themhappen to you– is pervasive in WALDEN, enacted in the main actionof learning to leave Walden (the place and the book, most notably

33. Stanley Cavell. PHILOSOPHY THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. Cambridge MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard UP, 2005

34. Stanley Cavell. THE SENSES OF WALDEN: AN EXPANDED EDITION. Chicago IL & London: U Of Chicago P, 1992

35. Isn't it strange that Professor Cavell would be perceiving a soul similarity between Thoreau and Heidegger? Cavell acknowledges in print what many professional philosophers know very well, but do not often talk about: in Germany under Hitler, Heidegger was a Nazi with a swastika on his sleeve, and not merely an opportunistic go-along-to-get-along Nazi, but a committed, determined Nazi. Cavell offers:

[A] thinker who, as in the case of Thoreau, matches, I would sayuncannily, so many of the philosophical configurations ofHeidegger, while reversing his political sensibilities, is anotable curiosity, one which I find heartens me.







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figured in the double concept of mo(u)rning (with and without a“u,” the pun suggesting that English is itself underinvestigation). That Thoreau’s morning means simultaneouslydawning and grieving, means that what he calls his anticipatingthe dawning of a new day, a new time, an always earlier ororiginal time, is at the same time his undergoing what Freudcalls the work of mourning, letting the past go, giving it up,giving it over, dispensing the Walden it was time for him toleave, without nostalgia, without a disabling elegiacism.Nostalgia is an inability to open the past to the future, as ifthe strangers who will replace you will never find what you havefound. Such a negative heritage would be a poor thing to leaveto Walden’s readers, whom its writer identifies, among manyways, precisely as strangers.Now a specific linking of awakening with sleeping and withquestioning is what Thoreau finds at the moment he actuallydepicts himself awakening at Walden, in the opening sentencesof chapter 16, “The Pond in Winter”:

After a still winter night I awoke with the impressionthat some question had been put to me, which I had beenendeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what-how-when-where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom allcreatures live, looking in at my broad windows withserene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips.I awoke to an answered question, to Nature anddaylight.... Nature puts no question and answers nonewhich we mortals ask. She has long ago taken herresolution.

Heidegger’s problematic of the question (his mode, as often inphilosophy, of awakening), comes under repeated suspicion inJacques Derrida’s text entitled OF SPIRIT (1987), which alsofocuses heavily on Heidegger’s Ister lectures. Derrida’s textwill come back briefly. I note here that in this late chapterof WALDEN Thoreau is gently enough mocking the questions which

WALDEN: After a still winter night I awoke with the impressionthat some question had been put to me, which I had beenendeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what-how-when-where? But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live,looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face,and no question on her lips. I awoke to an answered question, toNature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted withyoung pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house isplaced, seemed to say, Forward! Nature puts no question andanswers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken herresolution. “O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration andtransmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of thisuniverse. The night veils without doubt a part of this gloriouscreation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, whichextends from earth even into the plains of the ether.”





Thoreau is quoting from the Harivansa.


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his opening page had cited as “very particular inquiries ...made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life ... Some haveasked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I wasnot afraid; ... how many poor children I maintained.” Havinginitially taken these inquiries as his justification for“obtrud[ing] my affairs so much on the notice of my readers,”he now declares that his attempt to answer such questions asthey stand has heretofore been undertaken in a sleeping state;accordingly, as he achieves a state of awakening, he is to awakenfrom the sense of such questions (from, let us say, theirmoralism). This is not to deny that he owes his townsmen anearnest effort to make himself intelligible. WALDEN is what herepeatedly calls his account, the terms in which he findshimself accountable, called upon to settle his accounts. (Theseinteract with the scores of economic terms that woof and warphis text throughout, laid out most graphically in his openingchapter, the one called “Economy.”) If this is a moral task whydoes it look so unlike what academic philosophy understands asmoral philosophy?I found myself asking a version of this question some years agoin recognizing that two of the philosophical texts of thiscentury just past that have meant most to me –namely,Heidegger’s BEING AND TIME and Wittgenstein’s PHILOSOPHICALINVESTIGATIONS– can each of them present themselves, on any andevery page, as carrying some urgent message for our lives, whileneither raises any issue that is explicitly about any act weought to be doing or to refrain from doing, or any rights wehave denied, or any goods we have neglected to share fairly. Itseems, reading them, rather that some moral claim upon us isleveled by the act of philosophizing itself, a claim that noseparate subject of ethics would serve to study — as if what iswrong with us, what needs attention from philosophy, is our lifeas a whole (a claim that does not at once require us toarticulate what it means, “our life as a whole”). I confess thatthe first work after which I felt this philosophical urgency,let me call it, was Freud’s INTRODUCTORY LECTURES ON PSYCHOANALYSIS.Heidegger prefaces BEING AND TIME with the charge that our Dasein,our human existence, fails today (and has for an indeterminatetime) to be stirred by the question of Being, that philosophy’sfirst task is accordingly to reawaken an understanding with themeaning of this question; and it seems clear enough that for himthere is no more urgent task philosophy can assign itself, orassign us.When Wittgenstein in the INVESTIGATIONS allows himself to bequestioned as to “Where ... our investigation get[s] itsimportance from, since it seems only to destroy everythinginteresting, that is, all that is great and important” (Section118), his answer amounts to the implication that we do not knowwhat is truly great and important, that we have lost touch withwhat really interests us. So that when he comes to say “We needto turn our investigation around — specifically around the fixedpoint of our real need” (Section 108), the implication is thatwhat Wittgenstein perceives to need turning around are ourlives.It goes with such a perception of, let me say, philosophical orspiritual disorientation that we will be perceived as having a







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disturbed relation to our language, that we live willing neitherto know quite what we wish to say nor why others say what theysay to us. Heidegger attributes this muffled or baffled stateto our being sunk in the everydayness of existence, Wittgensteinattributes it to a craving for, or in, the metaphysical, callsit the flight from the everyday. This state of inexpressibility,of words not matching our needs, Emerson describes many ways,one time by saying, “Every word they say chagrins us, and weknow not where to begin to set them right.” It is a state that,in a more intellectualized form, or in more proper philosophy,goes under the name of skepticism. Emerson and Thoreau perceivethis state of unawakenedness, or spiritual imprisonment (mostfamously depicted in Plato’s myth of the back-lit Cave fromwhich the philosopher is to liberate us) –in an American way andplace– as a fear in each of us of liberating ourselves, somethingas it were producing and produced by a refusal to discoverAmerica. They cannot appeal to the great philosophers who havestruggled with skepticism –most significantly, I suppose,Descartes, Hume, and Kant– (although they allude to themrepeatedly) both because such figures are not part of the commonAmerican intellectual heritage and because they are part of theproblem not the solution of our intellectual suffocation, orparalysis, or disappointment.But how can we be told that to understand ourselves we must turnourselves around, if the language we share has becomeineffective, a set of formulas drenched in what Emerson callsconformity, and what, among other things, Thoreau calls business(busyness), something that Nietzsche, Emerson’s other greatnineteenth-century reader, early calls philistinism. Thoreaulearned from Emerson to make sentences that may attract us bytheir beauty or their curiosity, and at the same time seem toplay with our desire for some transformative understanding. Hesometimes depicts this process as turning us around (bothalluding to what has to happen to the prisoners in Plato’s caveif they are to find the way out, and invoking the idea of turningfound in the concept of conversion); sometimes he says we needto see that we are lost (that is, to recognize perdition in orderto be moved to find ourselves); sometimes he shows us how toturn the world upside down in order to reorient ourselves.This topsy-turvey world makes an appearance in the chapter “ThePond in Winter,” in which after Thoreau has depicted hisawakening, specifically to an answered question, he continues:

Then to my morning work. First I take an axe and pailand go in search of water, if that be not a dream ... Icut my way first through a foot of snow, and then a footof ice, and open a window under my feet, where, kneelingto drink, I look down into the quiet parlor of thefishes ... with its bright sanded floor the same as insummer ... Heaven is under our feet as well as over ourheads.

At some stage, writing of this kind carries its weight with youor it does not. Even when it does in general, we cannot counton it in particular, that is, count on it making sense, saywaking us up as to an answered question (learning what we havebeen doubting, distrusting), at any moment one of us would speak






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of it to another.It is perhaps a good moment, after hearing just now of thepossibility that the search for water is perhaps, or isconducted through, a dream, and recalling that WALDEN’s firstchapter ends with a sentence that, with other things, containsa river, the Tigris (which Thoreau allegorizes in this instancenot as the transitory but as the perpetual, continuing to flow“after the race of caliphs is extinct”) — a good moment for meto cross to the other of Heidegger’s texts I mentioned asmotivating these remarks, that with the title HÖLDERLIN’S HYMN “THEISTER,” one of Heidegger’s most extended and remarkablephilosophical appropriations of Hölderlin’s poetry....WALDEN notably, if implicitly, once contrasts a river, or rathera stream, with a pond. When the writer asks “Why should we knockunder and go with the stream?” (that is, hurry along with thetransitory things others institutionalize as necessities), hecites the institution of the dinner (either family or formal, Isuppose); and he assumes the associated customs of ourcivilization that support one another in his text — big housesand barns that don’t fit us, steady jobs we don’t like, manychanges of clothes for no good reason, ostentatious travel, war,slavery, swallowing things as natural that should disgust us.He goes on to contrast this image of a rushing stream with whathe calls, in the preceding paragraph, “the perpetual instillingand drenching of the reality that surrounds us,” the image ofwhich is quite evidently a pond, Walden for example. WhileHeidegger cautions, still early, “The rivers belong to thewaters. Whenever we make remarks on such poetry, we must ponderwhat is said elsewhere concerning the waters,” he does not, asI recall, include enclosed bodies of water, such as the lakesperhaps dearer to English romanticism.Heidegger of course comments upon Hölderlin’s line “For riversmake arable / The land,” that is, suit the land for plowing,hence for settling (instead of wandering, as nomads). I note inpassing that the writer of WALDEN irritably goes as it were outof his way to plow a field for beans. He announces that he wouldrather do without this, but he undertakes it “to serve a parable-maker one day,” namely to share in authorizing his own eventualparables of settling, or as he also says, sojourning, so ofpreparations for departure, adventure, futurity; and sinceplowing (like settling, and accounting, and warbling in hisnest, and hammering a nail, and so on) is one of his conceptsfor writing, the writing it prepares for us is (also) writingabout departure, which is to say, in view of his death; so whathe is writing is a testament. (This little conceptual outburstis a sort of summary of my book on WALDEN.)...How far a fuller occasion should take us is marked in WALDEN’sgreat concluding lines: “There is more day to dawn. The sun isbut a morning star” — his rewriting of Emerson’s having said,“We shall have a new dawn at noon.”The concept of calling as questioning the given names of thingsand as naming a vocation permeates Thoreau’s work. Morespecifically, anticipating Nature herself seems interpreted byThoreau’s announcing “The universe constantly and obedientlyanswers to our conceptions,” which I have taken as a mock summaryof Kantian Idealism and its progeny, implying a quarrel about







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how to get our concepts (say of the understanding) pure. Thatis, you can get the world to call things houses that are prisons,or to call things necessary which are the merest luxuries, orto call things accidents (such as the death of a certain numberof workers building the railroads) which are not accidents butinevitabilities of the way we live. When he asks “Which is thereal bed?” he is similarly mocking Plato’s picture according towhich the real bed is not the one we actually sleep on, and atthe same time mocking our inability to recognize that the onewe actually sleep on may be an arbitrary measure of what we needa bed to be.Heidegger’s saying “the river determines the dwelling place ofhuman beings upon the earth,” with “pond” substituted for“river,” might be an epigraph for WALDEN. It is Heidegger’s glosson Hölderlin’s line: “Here, however, we want to build.”Comparably early in WALDEN (end of chapter 2), its writer says,somewhere around the pond, “Here I will begin to mine,” namelyto prepare the ground for his house. Thoreau’s context is theparagraph in which he declares his head to be hands and feet andadds, “My instinct tells me that my head is an organ forburrowing, ... and with it I would mine,” another identificationof his writing with the details of his building and hispreparations for building. (I recall Heidegger’s instructions,near the opening of BEING AND TIME, that “in each case Dasein ismine to be in one way or another”; page 68. Shall we put it pastThoreau to be proposing the verb “to mine” to name the act ofmaking my being mine — my possibilities, my way in the world? —But would one see this without Heidegger’s prompting? — Why not,if Thoreau saw it?)...Thoreau’s word for being between is being interested. AndHeidegger too, elsewhere, takes up this registering of what is“inter-.” But in Thoreau the word takes its part, notsurprisingly a disruptive part, in the immensity of economicterms I have noted his text to put in motion, since, in acountermove within what is commonly called economics, Thoreau’sinterest names a withholding or displacement as well as aplacing of investment. I went so far in my book about WALDEN asto relate its concept of interest to what, in translations ofthe BHAGAVAD-GITA (a work cited in WALDEN), is called unattachment.... And what shall we say of Thoreau, as when, for example, hedepicts himself, in what he calls a pretty game with a loon onthe pond, trying for better than an hour to predict this fowl’ssailings out and to anticipate his divings, a pastime the writerdescribes by saying, among many things, “While he was thinkingone thing in his brain, I was endeavoring to divine his thoughtin mine” (chapter 12). Here one is taking the problem of theother in rather the reverse direction from the way philosopherstend to conceive the matter, letting it provoke him to learnsomething about himself from the encounter: it is not the otherthat poses the first barrier to my knowledge of him or her, butmyself. The direction is confirmed early in his recounting ofhis “business” prospects at Walden (anticipating Nature,assisting the sun, waiting for the sky to fall), when, findingthat his fellow citizens were not likely to offer him a living,“I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, whereI was better known” (chapter 1). Do I trust these sallies of






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speculation in Thoreau? I treasure them.

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others,such as extensive quotations and reproductions ofimages, this “read-only” computer file contains a greatdeal of special work product of Austin Meredith,copyright 2013. Access to these interim materials willeventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup someof the costs of preparation. My hypercontext buttoninvention which, instead of creating a hypertext leapthrough hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems—allows for an utter alteration of the context withinwhich one is experiencing a specific content alreadybeing viewed, is claimed as proprietary to AustinMeredith — and therefore freely available for use byall. Limited permission to copy such files, or anymaterial from such files, must be obtained in advancein writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo”Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Pleasecontact the project at <[email protected]>.

Prepared: October 14, 2013


“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over untiltomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.”

– Remark by character “Garin Stevens”in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST







Well, tomorrow is such and such a date and so it began on that date in like 8000BC? Why 8000BC, because it was the beginning of the current interglacial -- or what?

Bearing in mind that this is America, "where everything belongs," the primary intent of such a notice is to prevent some person or corporate entity from misappropriating the materials and sequestering them as property for censorship or for profit.


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ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT

GENERATION HOTLINE

This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by ahuman. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request wehave pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out ofthe shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). Whatthese chronological lists are: they are research reportscompiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data moduleswhich we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining.To respond to such a request for information, we merely push abutton.






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Commonly, the first output of the program has obviousdeficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modulesstored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, andthen we need to punch that button again and do a recompile ofthe chronology — but there is nothing here that remotelyresembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know andlove. As the contents of this originating contexture improve,and as the programming improves, and as funding becomesavailable (to date no funding whatever has been needed in thecreation of this facility, the entire operation being run outof pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweakingand recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation ofa generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward andupward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge.Place your requests with <[email protected]>.Arrgh.







did thoreau major in comp-lit at harvard · did thoreau major in comp-lit at harvard? “the test...

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