THE REVEREND ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON ENCOUNTERS THE

THE REVEREND ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON

ENCOUNTERS “THE ERRATIC THOREAU”1

“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY

1. “The experiment of the erratic Thoreau, had it been successful, would have proved him stronger than Massachusetts, stronger than the United States; would have proved the same as to every other individual under the Government, and, of course, would have subverted its very foundation.”

1800 1801 1802 1803 1804 BORN 1806 1807 1808 1809

1810 1811 1812 1813 1814 1815 1816 1817 1818 1819

1820 1821 1822 1823 1824 1825 1826 1827 1828 1829

1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 1835 1836 1837 1838 1839

1840 1841 1842 1843 1844 1845 1846 1847 1848 1849

1850 1851 1852 1853 1854 1855 1856 1857 1858 1859

1860 1861 1862 1863 1864 1865 1866 1867 1868 1869

1870 1871 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 1877 1878 DIED

Brownson offered this opinion in 1873.

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

ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON

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

I am unable to come across any evidence whatever, that the writings or the example of the Reverend Brownson ever had the slightest impact on Thoreau’s ideas or upon Thoreau’s life. The most I have been able to infer is that Thoreau benefitted slightly, academically, from being able to have conversations in the German language. Nevertheless, John Henry Newman has averred that “Brownson is by far the greatest thinker America has ever produced” and Robert A. Herrera alleges on page 30 of his recent ORESTES BROWNSON: SIGN OF CONTRADICTION that “Thoreau spoke of Brownson with greater admiration than for any other writer. [Thoreau’s] profound love of nature was inspired by Brownson and not Emerson.”

Just for the fun of it, I think I will start off by citing what THE THOREAU LOG has to offer in its “Biographical Notes” section, in regard to Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876), and then contrasting this with what the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA has to offer:

• THE THOREAU LOG: “... was born in Stockbridge, Vt., into a Calvinist family. He later rejected Calvinism for Universalism, and then moved further left to become a Unitarian. Dissatisfied again, he turned to transcendentalism. Thoreau came under his influence in the fall of 1835, when, wishing to earn some money to help pay for college expenses, he applied for a teaching position at Canton, Mass. Reverend Brownson, then a Unitarian minister and a member of the school committee, interviewed Thoreau, hired him, and took him into his home to live. Together they studied German and discussed transcendentalism. In 1844 Brownson found a permanent spiritual home by moving to the right and embracing Catholicism.”

• ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA: “... writer on theological, philosophical, scientific, and sociological subjects reflecting the intellectual restlessness and vitality of the pre-Civil War period. Self-educated and originally a Presbyterian, he subsequently became a Universalist minister (1826-31); a Unitarian minister (1832); pastor of his own religious organization, the Society for Christian Union and Progress (1836-1842); and, in 1844, a Roman Catholic, which he remained. During the period 1830-1870, despite the unpopularity of many of the subjects he treated, Brownson

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

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



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wrote on Calvinism, labour and social reform, Transcendentalism, Roman Catholicism, states’ rights, democracy, nativism, and emancipation. Philosophically, he was a moderate follower of the Positivist Auguste Comte and the systematic eclectic Victor Cousin. Before his conversion to Roman Catholicism, he supported the views of the British social reformer Robert Owen. His versatility was expressed in mystical poetry, an interest in philosophy and social amelioration. Typical of his many writings are THE SPIRIT-RAPPER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1854); THE CONVERT (1857); and THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC (1865), in which he based government on ethics, declaring the national existence to be a moral and even a theocratic entity, not depending for validity upon the sovereignty of the people. Brownson published Brownson’s Quarterly Review (1844-1875) as a journal of personal opinion, except for the years 1865-1872, when it was suspended. After Brownson’s death, his son, Henry F. Brownson, collected and published his WORKS (1882-1907) in 20 volumes. There was a Brownson revival during the second quarter of the 20th century, and in 1955 Alvan S. Ryan issued THE BROWNSON READER. A.M. Schlesinger’s ORESTES A. BROWNSON: A PILGRIM’S PROGRESS appeared in 1939, followed by T. Maynard’s ORESTES BROWNSON: YANKEE, RADICAL, CATHOLIC in 1943.”





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September 16, Friday: Orestes Augustus Brownson and Daphne Augusta Brownson, fraternal twins, were born in Stockbridge, Vermont. The father, Sylvester Augustus Brownson, born in about 1768, would die while these twins were yet in their infancy. We will follow this impressive manchild through Presbyterianism, Universalism, radical humanism, Unitarianism, and Transcendentalism to Catholicism and then the founding of his own “Society for Christian Union and Progress,” noting along the way how the unifying thread of all the stages of his vocalization and theorization would amount to self-promotion, would be the coming up with this idea or that idea the effect of which would be to position himself where he truly belonged — at the precise center of everything.

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1803

Orestes Augustus Brownson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project




mailto:[email protected]?subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture

mailto:[email protected] subject=Contribution to Kouroo Contexture


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Relief Metcalf Brownson, Orestes Augustus Brownson’s widowed mother (date of birth uncertain, died about 1865), found herself unable to provide for all her children, and so at the age of six Orestes was sent to help an older couple on a farm near Royalton, Vermont, and thus severed from his older siblings Daniel (who would become an orator), Oran (who would convert from Mormonism to Catholicism in Ireland in 1860), and Thorina Brownson (Dean), and in particular from his twin sister Daphne Augusta Brownson (Ludington). These guardians were of Calvinist-Congregationalist heritage, but seldom attended church services, and so Brownson would not be baptized during these years and would not officially belong to any sect or denomination. Nevertheless his guardians would instill in him the traditional Calvinist values, training him to read the BIBLE, to “be frugal and industrious, to speak the truth, … to keep the Sabbath, and never to let the sun go down on wrath.”

LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD?— NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES.

LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD.

1809








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At the age of 14, after eight lonely years, Orestes Augustus Brownson was reunited with his mother and his twin and his older brothers and sister, and the entire family relocated to Ballston Spa, which is north of Albany in upstate New York. During his adolescence he would be exposed to various sectarians, atheists, and “nothingarians,” in the frenetic religious agitation of that region.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

1817








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September: At age 19 Orestes Augustus Brownson was “in a labyrinth of doubt with no Ariadne’s thread to guide [him] out to the light of day” when on a sunny Sunday morn he wandered into a Presbyterian church in Ballston, New York.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

1822








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October: Orestes Augustus Brownson was baptized in the Presbyterian church into which he had wandered the month before. Soon he would determine that God was calling him into the ministry, but then he began to suspect that his ministry could not be to the Presbyterians. He would confide to his pastor that he felt himself confined by an absence of intellectual freedom, caused by the exclusive spirit of the congregation as much as by double predestination and unconditional election and damnation, “the harsh doctrines of Calvin.” He didn’t like to think that God would predestine some to salvation, others to damnation, and didn’t want to believe that a book which offered such offensive ideas could have been written under divine inspiration. Soon he would be aiming himself in the direction of the Universalists, who were offering more pleasant attitudes, the possibility of universal salvation offered by a God who was such a good guy that he could not bring himself to pack us off to eternal damnation.

David Lawrence and Thomas G. Fessenden spoke at the Concord annual agricultural exhibition. Exhibitors received prizes totaling $245. The address of Thomas G. Fessenden would be printed.

Agricultural Society. — This, though properly a county society,is so connected with Concord, as to deserve to be noticed in itshistory. The members of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society,living in the western parts of the county, met at Chelmsford,January 6, 1794, and formed a society for the “promotion ofuseful improvements in agriculture,” and were incorporated,February 28, 1803, as “The Western Society of MiddlesexHusbandmen.” It did not include Concord, nor other towns in theeasterly part of the county. Meetings were held semi-annually,alternately at Westford and Littleton, but no public exhibitionstook place. The following gentlemen were successively electedPresidents; the Rev. Jonathan Newell of Stow, the Rev. PhineasWhitney of Shirley, the Rev. Edmund Foster of Littleton,Ebenezer Bridge of Chelmsford, Dr. Oliver Prescott of Groton,Colonel Benjamin Osgood of Westford, Wallis Tuttle, Esq., ofLittleton, and the Hon. Samuel Dana of Groton.An act was passed, February 20, 1819, authorizing anyagricultural society, possessing $1,000 in funds, to draw $200from the state treasury, and in the same proportion for a largersum. This society accordingly voted, in the following September,to extend its operation throughout the county, and to raise





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funds that it might avail itself of the grant of the state. Anact passed, January 24, 1824, incorporating it as “The Societyof Middlesex Husbandmen and Manufacturers”; and it was agreedto have annual shows at Concord. The first was held here October11, 1820; and they have since been annually repeated. Thesubjoined table exhibits the names of the presidents, orators,and amounts of premiums awarded. The names of those orators,whose addresses have been published, are printed in italics.2

2. Lemuel Shattuck’s 1835 A HISTORY OF THE TOWN OF CONCORD;.... Boston: Russell, Odiorne, and Company; Concord MA: John Stacy(On or about November 11, 1837 Henry Thoreau would indicate a familiarity with the contents of at least pages 2-3 and 6-9 of this historical study. On July 16, 1859 he would correct a date mistakeburied in the body of the text.)




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/35/1835_HistoryOfConcord/DrShattuck1835_CONTENTS.pdf


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While teaching school at Elbridge, New York, Orestes Augustus Brownson applied to the Universalist Association for a preaching license. Accepted, he began ministerial tutoring.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1825








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June 15, Thursday: Orestes Augustus Brownson was ordained at Jaffrey, New Hampshire as a Universalist minister (until becoming a Unitarian minister, in 1832). In about this period he also became the editor of a respected theological journal of the Universalist denomination, The Gospel Advocate.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

1826








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The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson got married to one of his former students from Elbridge, New York, named Sally Healy.

1827





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The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson was becoming perplexed at the inanity of the Universalist doctrine which had so attracted him: If all would ultimately be saved, what need was there for a Savior? If God forgave unconditionally and let human sinfulness go entirely unpunished, what need was there for morality?

He was one perplexed guy!

WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MINDYOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF

1828








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Late in the year: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson repudiated the authority of the BIBLE, embracing a radically agnostic humanism. Abandoning his Universalist flock, he realigned his efforts with the aims of New York State’s “Workingmen’s Party.” Soon he was (temporarily) under the sway of the revolutionary social theories being promulgated by Fanny Wright and Robert Dale Owen. He became an editor for The Free Enquirer, and helped disseminate its novel reform program and educational views. Then, becoming in turn disheartened by the Owen-Wright utopian scheme, he would separate from that journal and from the Workingmen’s Party. During this period, only his concern for the cause of the laboring class would remain constant.

1829





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The Reverend William Ellery Channing’s DISCOURSES, REVIEWS, & MISCELLANIES (Boston: Published by Gray and Bowen, Stereotyped by Lyman Thurston and Company). A copy of this would be in the personal library of Henry David Thoreau.

Also, the Reverend Channing’s essay “Remarks on National Literature,” essentially a rewrite of the speech he had delivered before the American Philosophical Association in Philadelphia on October 18, 1823, was printed in the Christian Examiner, prefiguring Waldo Emerson’s famous declaration of 1837 on this subject:

During this year a reading of the Reverend Channing’s famous sermon “Likeness to God” would reawaken Orestes Augustus Brownson’s interest in Christianity. Channing’s emphasis upon humankind’s having been created in God’s image and likeness, in contrast with Calvin’s stress on the wide gap between God and man, would favorably disposed him toward Unitarianism, and he would resume preaching — but as an independent.

The Reverend Channing would be seeing enough in the West Indies in this year, and the next, to cause him to take out a personal subscription to The Liberator, but it would prove to be one thing for a gent like him to read their weekly gazette, mebbe with white gloves on, and another thing to actually sometime be in the same room with such suspect darkly countenanced persons. In America in general, and most especially today, there seems to be a conspiracy to pay a lot of attention to problems of race and gender while ignoring the phenomena of class segregation, yet in a case like this it would seem that unless class is taken into account, one is unable to understand what is going down in the mind of a person such as the Reverend.

1830

DISCOURSES, ETC.

A people, into whose minds the thoughts of foreignersare poured perpetually, needs an energy within itselfto resist, to modify this mighty influence, and,without it, will inevitably sink under the worstbondage, will become intellectually tame and enslaved.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE




It do sound famooliar, dunt it?

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

http://www.bartleby.com/225/1704.html


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The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson became the publisher and editor of The Philanthropist at Ithaca, New York, and began to defend Unitarianism against Presbyterian influences.

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).

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 primary

1832

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE

WHATELY’S LOGIC




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


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texts 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.)

Summer: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson was assigned the Unitarian pastorate of Walpole, New Hampshire (until becoming in 1836 the pastor of his own religious organization, the Society for Christian Union and Progress).

There was no real summer this year.

There was a republican rising in Paris.





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During this period the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson was studying the French language and was making frequent trips into Boston to encounter leading intellectuals. Soon he would be contributing articles to Unitarian journals such as The Unitarian, The Christian Register, The Christian Examiner, and –while it existed– the Boston Observer and Religious Intelligencer.

His articles were taking the Unitarian clergy to task on account of the dryness of their preaching, the obsessiveness of their intellectualism, the lifelessness of their theological rationalism, and the indifference with which they greeted the struggle of working people. During this period he was freely adapting the ideas of the philosophers he was reading in French. In particular he saw Claude Henri de Saint-Simon’s “New Christianity,” which de-emphasized worship and dogma in favor of the morality and social equality demanded by the Christian law of brotherly love, as the antidote for Unitarianism’s social conservatism. This rising tide of Christian democracy was going to inundate the vessel of Unitarianism unless it would cut its moorings to wealth and power. Brownson picked up Henry-Benjamin Constant’s attitude that religion and morality were grounded, not in intellectual capabilities which were present in some but unavailable to others, but in a “sentiment” internal to every human being. It was this internal sentiment which led toward religion, and was the source of spiritual intuition and neighborly love, and it was this sentiment –although it had become embodied in different historical forms– which was truly universal. Brownson identified Victor Cousin’s

1834





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Universal or Absolute Reason with God and declared that it was this which was independent of person yet present within each person. It was study of Constant and Cousin which began to make him receptive to the romanticism of the New England Transcendentalists:

He was coming, at least temporarily, to regard Transcendentalism as a necessary alternative to the overly historical and rational approach to religion advocated by the scholarly types, such as Professor Andrews Norton, whom he was encountering at the home of the Reverend William Ellery Channing. Still, he was wary of the subjective tendencies of Transcendentalism, which he suspected of substituting a “lawless fancy for an enlightened understanding.” He felt the meditations of Waldo Emerson to be particularly egregious and dangerous. We become moral, he declaimed, not by pleasing ourselves to satisfy the needs of our inner nature, but by submitting to the requirements of a power independent of these desires, a power transcending ourselves.

So far as Transcendentalism is understood to be therecognition in man of the capacity of knowing truthintuitively, or of attaining to a scientific knowledgeof an order of existence transcending the reach of thesenses, and of which we can have no sensibleexperience, we are Transcendentalists.





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May 14, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson lectured at the Lyceum in Concord.

The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson was installed as the Unitarian pastor of the 1st Congregational Church and society in Canton, Massachusetts.

The installation sermon was preached by the Reverend George Ripley. The Reverend Adin Ballou took an important part in the proceedings and would later describe that sermon and its aftermath as follows:

The council was composed mostly of members of theUnitarian denomination, the sermon being preached byRev. George Ripley of Boston, from Heb. 13:8: “JesusChrist, the same yesterday, today, and forever.” Mr.Brownson was a ripe scholar, an able preacher, and awriter of rare ability. But in theology, metaphysics,ethics, and ecclesiasticism, his convictions,positions, and associations underwent strangevicissitudes. Soon after his settlement at Canton, hebecame a Transcendentalist, subsequently espousing the“Workingmen’s Movement” (of which he was for awhile adistinguished champion), and later went over to theRoman Catholic church, resting there from his religio-philosophical journeyings, and rising to eminence asthe author of several works devoted chiefly to thedefence of the doctrines, polity, and traditions of thepapal hierarchy. Rev. Mr. Ripley afterwards acquired awide notoriety as the leader of the “Brook Farm”community, and later still, as literary editor for ageneration of the New York Tribune.




Adin Ballou. AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF ADIN BALLOU 1803-1890. Completed and edited by his son-in-law William S. Heywood (Lowell MA, 1896), pages 254-5.


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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.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

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

1835

THOREAU RESIDENCES

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS





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The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s “Victor Cousin.” The Unitarian reverend moved to Chelsea, to engage in an experimental ministry to the working classes of Boston. That is, he became the pastor of his own religious organization, the Society for Christian union and Progress (until 1842). He published a pamphlet titled “New Views of Christianity, Society and the Church” which caused the expression “new views” to become a synonym for Transcendentalism.

Horace Wells completed the study of dentistry in Boston, and eventually would go to Hartford, Connecticut to practice. At that time he was considered a leader of his profession.

1836





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January-February 1836: “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.3 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.4 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 time was not yet ripe, Brownson offered that practical steps could be taken toward this in the present era.

3. 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)

BROWNSON’S NEW VIEWS




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

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:

4. 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

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





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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 thecompany 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 gave





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vent 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.

May 29, Sunday: Publication of the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF THE TIMES accompanied the founding of his Boston Society for Christian Union and Progress. This society was to serve laborers who had been alienated from the established churches by providing nondenominational worship services each Sunday. Free inquiry into religious truth would be countenanced, the practice of a more genuine morality would be encouraged, and the lot of the poor and oppressed would be ameliorated. When Brownson would become editor of the Boston Reformer, he would use its pages to advocate universal public education and the establishment of manual labor schools.

September: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s review of Waldo Emerson’s NATURE appeared in the Boston Reformer.

What follows below is review of that review by a student whose initials are “GS,” for Donald Ross’s class in 1989:

This review of NATURE has historical value in that it gives usan idea of the contemporary reception of Emerson’s writing. Itis heavy with fulsome praise for the “harbinger of a newliterature,” and “a genuine lover of nature.” The book can be“admired as a perfect specimen of Art.” It is however almostironic in the numerous ways it misunderstands Emerson’sintentions. “This book is aesthetical rather than philosophical.It inquires what is the Beautiful rather than what is the True.”This seems to be the reviewer’s way of dealing with anyuncomfortable ideas that Emerson’s writing may throw up. YetBrownson has prefigured with intuitive astuteness what moderncriticism was to later state, namely, “It uniformly subordinatesnature to spirit, the understanding to the reason, and mere hand“actions to ideas.” On the other hand he cannot approve of soastute a thinker as Emerson repeating the fallacious philosophyof “the audacious Fichte,” and others who take “their stand-point in the creative power of the human soul, and observing thelandscape to change in its coloring as the hues of their ownsouls change, they have thought the landscape was nothing butthemselves projected, and made an object of contemplation.”Brownson concludes “the author may deviate from what we callsound philosophy,” but he provides us with “an example of a calm,morally independent, and devout spirit...”




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


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September 8, Thursday: Some 1,100 to 1,300 alums attended Harvard College’s Bicentennial, and heard a professional choir offer the very original of “Fair Harvard.” Although the very oldest living alumnus, 96-year-old Judge Paine Wingate (Class of 1759, of New Hampshire) was, unfortunately, unable to be present, 86-year-old Samuel Emery (Class of 1774, of Philadelphia) was able to march in the parade. Word arrived that President Josiah Quincy, Sr. had, while researching for a “History of Harvard University” in the College Archives, located in filed-and-forgotten records of an Overseers meeting on January 6, 1644 the first rough sketch for the shield with the Latin motto “VE RI TAS” (“Verity” or “Truth”) and three open books, which was to become the College’s arms. This is how it looks today, as a refrigerator magnet:

During this Bicentennial, a white banner atop a large tent in the Yard for the 1st time publicly displayed this design, which in 1843 would become the basis of the seal officially adopted by the Harvard Corporation, and then in 1847 would be dropped in favor of another seal, and then in 1885 would be readopted.





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Some of the alums had an interestingly historic discussion:

(following screen)

In September 1836, on the day of the second centennialanniversary of Harvard College, Mr. Emerson, George Ripley, and myself[Frederic Henry Hedge], with one other [who was this fourth person:would it have been an unnamed woman, an unnamed wife, specificallySophia Ripley??], chanced to confer together on the state of currentopinion in theology and philosophy, which we agreed in thinking wasvery unsatisfactory. Could anything be done in the way of protest andintroduction of deeper and broader views? What we strongly felt wasdissatisfaction with the reigning sensuous philosophy, dating fromJohn Locke, on which our Christian theology was based. The writings ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge, recently edited by Marsh [Henry NelsonColeridge had only at this point initiated publication of THE LITERARYREMAINS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE], and some of Thomas Carlyle’s earlieressays, especially the “Characteristics” and “SIGNS OF THE TIMES,” hadcreated a ferment in the minds of some of the young clergy of that day.There was a promise in the air of a new era of intellectual life.We four concluded to call a few like-minded seekers together in thefollowing week. Some dozen of us met in Boston, in the house,I believe, of Mr. Ripley. Among them I recall the name of OrestesAugustus Brownson (not yet turned Romanist), Cyrus Augustus Bartol,Theodore Parker, and Charles Stearns Wheeler and Robert Bartlett,tutors in Harvard College. There was some discussion, but no conclusionreached, on the question whether it were best to start a new journalas the organ of our views, or to work through those already existing.The next meeting, in the same month, was held by invitation of Emerson,at his house in Concord. A large number assembled; besides someof those who met at Boston, I remember Mr. Alcott, [Bronson Alcott]John Sullivan Dwight, Ephraim Peabody, Dr. Convers Francis, Mrs. SarahAlden Bradford Ripley, Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller,Caleb Stetson, James Freeman Clarke. These were the earliest of aseries of meetings held from time to time, as occasion prompted, forseven or eight years. Jones Very was one of those who occasionallyattended; H.D. Thoreau another. There was no club, properly speaking;no organization, no presiding officer, no vote ever taken. How the name“Transcendental,” given to these gatherings and the set of persons whotook part in them, originated, I cannot say. It certainly was neverassumed by the persons so called. I suppose I was the only one who hadany first-hand acquaintance with German transcendental philosophy, atthe start. THE DIAL was the product of the movement, and in some sortits organ.







Material contributed by the Reverend Frederick Henry Hedge to Cabot’s Memoir of R.W. Emerson, Volume I, pages 244-5



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At the wrap-up of the day, guest speaker Josiah Quincy, Jr. (Class of 1821) made a motion “that this assembly of the Alumni be adjourned to meet at this place on the 8th of September, 1936” — and the motion was unanimously adopted.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal:

5th day 8th of 9 M / Our meeting was small but very quietly solid — I missed father Rodman at my right hand being confined at home with a lame back — Thro’ the day my mind has been much at Providence where I have concluded to go tomorrow (if the Steam Boat get in in season) to attend the funeral of my ancient & much beloved friend Moses Brown

RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS





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September 19, Monday: Formation of “Hedge’s Club” centering around the visits of the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge to Boston from Bangor, Maine.5

In September 1836, on the day of the second centennialanniversary of Harvard College, Mr. Emerson, George Ripley, and myself[Frederic Henry Hedge], with one other [who was this fourth person:would it have been an unnamed woman, an unnamed wife, specificallySophia Ripley??], chanced to confer together on the state of currentopinion in theology and philosophy, which we agreed in thinking wasvery unsatisfactory. Could anything be done in the way of protest andintroduction of deeper and broader views? What we strongly felt wasdissatisfaction with the reigning sensuous philosophy, dating fromJohn Locke, on which our Christian theology was based. The writings ofSamuel Taylor Coleridge, recently edited by Marsh [Henry NelsonColeridge had only at this point initiated publication of THE LITERARYREMAINS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE], and some of Thomas Carlyle’s earlieressays, especially the “Characteristics” and “SIGNS OF THE TIMES,” hadcreated a ferment in the minds of some of the young clergy of that day.There was a promise in the air of a new era of intellectual life.We four concluded to call a few like-minded seekers together in thefollowing week. Some dozen of us met in Boston, in the house,I believe, of Mr. Ripley. Among them I recall the name of OrestesAugustus Brownson (not yet turned Romanist), Cyrus Augustus Bartol,Theodore Parker, and Charles Stearns Wheeler and Robert Bartlett,tutors in Harvard College. There was some discussion, but no conclusionreached, on the question whether it were best to start a new journalas the organ of our views, or to work through those already existing.The next meeting, in the same month, was held by invitation of Emerson,at his house in Concord. A large number assembled; besides someof those who met at Boston, I remember Mr. Alcott, [Bronson Alcott]John Sullivan Dwight, Ephraim Peabody, Dr. Convers Francis, Mrs. SarahAlden Bradford Ripley, Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller,Caleb Stetson, James Freeman Clarke. These were the earliest of aseries of meetings held from time to time, as occasion prompted, forseven or eight years. Jones Very was one of those who occasionallyattended; H.D. Thoreau another. There was no club, properly speaking;no organization, no presiding officer, no vote ever taken. How the name“Transcendental,” given to these gatherings and the set of persons whotook part in them, originated, I cannot say. It certainly was neverassumed by the persons so called. I suppose I was the only one who hadany first-hand acquaintance with German transcendental philosophy, atthe start. THE DIAL was the product of the movement, and in some sortits organ.









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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 Octoberin 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, at

5. This would become the Transcendental Club. It was at this first regular meeting that the Reverend Convers Francis first met Bronson Alcott. Francis would also be present for the second meeting, in Alcott’s home in Boston. As the eldest member of the Club, it would become the lot of the Reverend Francis to announce the principal topic for conversation, and to preside.

1837




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


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one 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:

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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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?

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

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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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.

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

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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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 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.6 Profound study and observation have discovered, that the characteristic of our epoch is perfect freedom — freedom of thought and action.7 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 waves8 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;9 buying and selling, money-changing and

6. 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 272-4.7. 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.8. If this indicates anything, Waldo Emerson had written, in NATURE in 1836, that:

9. 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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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?10 Doubtles[s] he would first be 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,11 but where he found one to admire with him his fair dwelling place, the ninety and nine12 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—13 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,14 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

10. 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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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.15 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 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.16

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,

11. 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:

12. MATTHEW 18:12/13, LUKE 15:4,7.13. 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




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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: 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.

14. 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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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.”17

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

16. This reflects Victor Cousin’s principal thesis in ECLECTICISM. “Lord of Creation” reflects GENESIS 3:19 as well as Emerson’s NATURE.17. 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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December 30, Saturday: Henry Thoreau wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson in Canton, Massachusetts:

My apology for this letter is to ask your assistance in obtaining employment.... I seek a situation as a teacher of a small school, or assistant in a large one, or, what is more desireable, as private tutor in a gentleman’s family.





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The Reverend William Ellery Channing declared, in his essay “Self-Culture,” that the primary focus of our energies should be upon our own rectification rather than on the rectification of society in general, which was an end in itself rather than merely a means to a greater end. In reaction to this, the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson would declare, in his essay “The Laboring Classes” in the Boston Quarterly Review for July 1840, that “Self-culture is a good thing, but it cannot abolish inequality, nor restore men to their rights.”18

1838

18. Refer to Robinson, David. APOSTLE OF CULTURE: EMERSON AS PREACHER AND LECTURER.Philadelphia PA: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982.

1ST QUARTER, 18382D QUARTER, 18383D QUARTER, 1838

4TH QUARTER, 1838




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http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/38/JUL/Jul1838_BostonQuarterlyReview.pdf

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In this year Spiridione Gambardella painted the portrait of the Reverend Channing which is now, thanks to Mary Channing Eustis, on display at the Andover-Harvard Theological Library of the Harvard Divinity School, 45 Francis Avenue in Cambridge. It may be that this frequently reproduced engraving has been created on the basis of this portrait:





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September: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson was appointed to the Boston Custom House, a political patronage plum.

(Nathaniel Hawthorne would in January 1839 be appointed there as well.)

October: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson had an article in the Boston Quarterly Review about Waldo Emerson’s “Divinity School Address” at the Harvard Divinity School:

ART. VII.—An Address delivered before the Senior Class inDivinity College, Cambridge, Sunday Evening, 15 July, 1838. By





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RALPH WALDO EMERSON. Boston: James Munroe & Co. 1838. 8vo. pp.32.

This is in some respects a remarkable address,—remarkable forits own character and for the place where and the occasion onwhich it was delivered. It is not often, we fancy, that such anaddress is delivered by a clergyman in a Divinity College to aclass of young men just ready to go forth into the churches aspreachers of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Indeed it is not oftenthat a discourse teaching doctrines like the leading doctrinesof this, is delivered by a professedly religious man, anywhereor on any occasion.

We are not surprised that this address should have produced someexcitement and called forth some severe censures upon itsauthor; for we have long known that there are comparatively fewwho can hear with calmness the utterance of opinions to whichthey do not subscribe. Yet we regret to see the abuse which hasbeen heaped upon Mr. Emerson. We ought to learn to tolerate allopinions, to respect every man’s right to form and to utter hisown opinions whatever they may be. If we regard the opinions asunsound, false, or dangerous, we should meet them calmly, refutethem if we can; but be careful to respect, and to treat with allChristian meekness and love, him who entertains them.

There are many things in this address we heartily approve; thereis much that we admire and thank the author for having uttered.We like its life and freshness, its freedom and independence,its richness and beauty. But we cannot help regarding its toneas somewhat arrogant, its spirit is quite too censorious anddesponding, its philosophy as indigested, and its reasoning asinconclusive. We do not like its mistiness, its vagueness, andits perpetual use of old words in new senses. Its meaning toooften escapes us; and we find it next to impossible to seize itsdominant doctrine and determine what it is or what it is not.Moreover, it does not appear to us to be all of the same piece.It is made up of parts borrowed from different and hostilesystems, which “baulk and baffle” the author’s power to forminto a consistent and harmonious whole.

In a moral point of view the leading doctrine of this address,if we have seized it, is not a little objectionable. It is noteasy to say what that moral doctrine is; but so far as we cancollect it, it is, that the soul possesses certain laws orinstincts, obedience to which constitutes its perfection. “Thesentiment of virtue is a reverence and delight in the presenceof certain divine laws.” “The intuition of the moral sentimentis an insight of the perfection of the laws of the soul.” Themoral sentiment results from the perception of these laws, andmoral character results from conformity to them. Now this isnot, we apprehend, psychologically true. If any man will analyzethe moral sentiment as a fact of consciousness, he will find itsomething more than “an insight of the perfection of the lawsof the soul.” He will find that it is a sense of obligation. Man





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feels himself under obligation to obey a law; not the law of hisown soul, a law emanating from his soul as a lawgiver; but a lawabove his soul, imposed upon him by a supreme lawgiver, who hasa right to command his obedience. He does never feel that he ismoral in obeying merely the laws of his own nature, but inobeying the command of a power out of him, above him, andindependent of him.

By the laws of the soul, we presume, Mr. Emerson means ourinstincts. In his Phi Beta Kappa Address, reviewed in thisjournal for January, he speaks much of the instincts, and bidsus “plant ourselves on our instincts, and the huge world willcome round to us.” The ethical rule he lays down is then, “followthy instincts,” or as he expresses it in the address before us,“obey thyself.” Now if we render this rule into the language itwill assume in practice, we must say, obey thyself,—follow thyinstincts,—follow thy inclinations,—live as thou listest.Strike out the idea of something above man to which he isaccountable, make him accountable only to himself, and why shallhe not live as he listeth? We see not what restraint canlegitimately be imposed upon any of his instincts orpropensities. There may then be some doubts whether the command,“obey thyself,” be an improvement on the Christian command,“deny thyself.”

We presume that when Mr. Emerson tells us to obey ourselves, toobey the laws of our soul, to follow our instincts, he meansthat we shall be true to our higher nature, that we are to obeyour higher instincts, and not our baser propensities. He ishimself a pure minded man, and would by no means encouragesensuality. But how shall we determine which are our higherinstincts and which are our lower instincts? We do not perceivethat he gives us any instructions on this point. Men like himmay take the higher instincts to be those which lead us to seektruth and beauty; but men in whom the sensual nature overlaysthe spiritual, may think differently; and what rule has he fordetermining which is in the right? He commands us to beourselves, and sneers at the idea of having “models.” We musttake none of the wise or good, not even Jesus Christ as a modelof what we should be. We are to act out ourselves. Now why isnot the sensualist as moral as the spiritualist, providing heacts out himself? Mr. Emerson is a great admirer of Carlyle; andaccording to Carlyle, the moral man, the true man, is he whoacts out himself. A Mirabeau, or a Danton is, under a moral pointof view, the equal of a Howard or a Washington, because equallytrue to himself. Does not this rule confound all moraldistinctions, and render moral judgments a “formula,” all wisemen must “swallow and make away with”?

But suppose we get over this difficulty and determine which arethe higher instincts of our nature, those which we must followin order to perfect our souls, and become,—as Mr. Emerson hasit,—God; still we ask, why are we under obligation to obey theseinstincts? Because obedience to them will perfect our souls? But





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why are we bound to perfect our souls? Where there is no senseof obligation, there is no moral sense. We are moral only on thecondition that we feel there is something which we ought to do.Why ought we to labor for our own perfection? Because it willpromote our happiness? But why are we morally bound to seek ourown happiness? It may be very desirable to promote ourhappiness, but it does not follow from that we are morally boundto do it, and we know there are occasions when we should not doit.

Put the rule, Mr. Emerson lays down, in the best light possible,it proposes nothing higher than our own individual good as theend to be sought. He would tell us to reduce all the jarringelements of our nature to harmony, and produce and maintainperfect order in the soul. Now is this the highest good thereason can conceive? Are all things in the universe to be heldsubordinate to the individual soul? Shall a man take himself asthe centre of the universe, and say all things are for his use,and count them of value only as they contribute something to hisgrowth or well-being? This were a deification of the soul witha vengeance. It were nothing but a system of transcendentalselfishness. It were pure egotism. According to this, I ameverything; all else is nothing, at least nothing except whatit derives from the fact that it is something to me.

Now this system of pure egotism, seems to us to run through allMr. Emerson’s writings. We meet it everywhere in his masters,Carlyle and Goethe. He and they may not be quite so grosslyselfish as were some of the old sensualist philosophers; theymay admit a higher good than the mere gratification of thesenses, than mere wealth or fame; but the highest good theyrecognise is an individual good, the realization of order intheir own individual souls. Everything by them is estimatedaccording to its power to contribute to this end. If they minglewith men it is to use them; if they are generous and humane, ifthey labor to do good to others, it is always as a means, neveras an end. Always is the doing, whatever it be, to terminate inself. Self, the higher self, it is true, is always the centreof gravitation. Now is the man who adopts this moral rule, reallya moral man? Does not morality always propose to us an endseparate from our own, above our own, and to which our own goodis subordinate?

No doubt it is desirable to perfect the individual soul, torealize order in the individual; but the reason, the moment itis developed, discloses a good altogether superior to this.Above the good of the individual, and paramount to it, is thegood of the universe, the realization of the good of creation,absolute good. No man can deny that the realization of the goodof all beings is something superior to the realization of thegood of the individual. Morality always requires us to labor forthe highest good we can conceive. The moral law then requiresus to seek another good than that of our own souls. Theindividual lives not for himself alone. His good is but an





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element, a fragment of the universal good, and is to be soughtnever as an end, but always as a means of realizing absolutegood, or universal order. This rule requires the man to forgethimself, to go out of himself, and under certain circumstancesto deny himself, to sacrifice himself, for a good which does notcentre in himself. He who forgets himself, who is disinterestedand heroic, who sacrifices himself for others, is in the eyesof reason, infinitely superior to the man who merely uses othersas the means of promoting his own intellectual and spiritualgrowth. Mr. Emerson’s rule then is defective, inasmuch as itproposes the subordinate as the paramount, and places obligationwhere we feel it is not. For the present, then, instead ofadopting his formula, “obey thyself,” or Carlyle’s formula, “actout thyself,” we must continue to approve the Christian formula,“deny thyself, and love thy neighbor as thyself.”

But passing over this, we cannot understand how it is possiblefor a man to become virtuous by yielding to his instincts. Virtueis voluntary obedience to a moral law, felt to be obligatory.We are aware of the existence of the law, and we act in referenceto it, and intend to obey it. We of course are not passive butactive in the case of virtue. Virtue is always personal. It isour own act. We are in the strictest sense of the word the causeor creator of it. Therefore it is, we judge ourselves worthy ofpraise when we are not virtuous. But in following instinct, weare not active but passive. The causative force at work in ourinstincts, is not our personality, our wills, but an impersonalforce, a force we are not. Now in yielding to our instincts, asMr. Emerson advises us, we abdicate our own personality, andfrom persons become things, as incapable of virtue as the treesof the forest or the stones of the field.

Mr. Emerson, moreover, seems to us to mutilate man, and in hiszeal for the instincts to entirely overlook reflection. Theinstincts are all very well. They give us the force of characterwe need, but they do not make up the whole man. We haveunderstanding as well as instinct, reflection as well asspontaneity. Now to be true to our nature, to the whole man, theunderstanding should have its appropriate exercise. Does Mr.Emerson give it this exercise? Does he not rather hold theunderstanding in light esteem, and labor almost entirely to fixour minds on the fact of the primitive intuition as all-sufficient of itself. We do not ask him to reject the instincts,but we ask him to compel them to give account of themselves. Weare willing to follow them; but we must do it designedly,intentionally, after we have proved our moral right to do it,not before. Here is an error in Mr. Emerson’s system of no smallmagnitude. He does not account for the instincts nor legitimatethem. He does not prove them to be divine forces or safe guides.In practice, therefore, he is merely reviving the oldsentimental systems of morality, systems which may do for theyoung, the dreamy, or the passionate, but never for a sturdyrace of men and women who demand a reason for all they do, for





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what they approve or disapprove.

Nor are we better satisfied with the theology of this discourse.We cannot agree with Mr. Emerson in his account of the religioussentiment. He confounds the religious sentiment with the moral;but the two sentiments are psychologically distinct. Thereligious sentiment is a craving to adore, resulting from thesoul’s intuition of the Holy; the moral sense is a sense ofobligation resulting from the soul’s intuition of a moral law.The moral sentiment leads us up merely to universal order; thereligious sentiment leads us up to God, the Father of universalorder. Religious ideas always carry us into a region far abovethat of moral ideas. Religion gives the law to ethics, not ethicsto religion. Religion is the communion of the soul with God,morality is merely the cultus exterior, the outward worship ofGod, the expression of the life of God in the soul: as James hasit, “pure religion,—external worship, for so should weunderstand the original,—and undefiled before God and the Fatheris this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction,and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”

But even admitting the two sentiments are not two but one,identical, we are still dissatisfied with Mr. Emerson’s accountof the matter. The religious sentiment, according to him, growsout of the soul’s insight of the perfection of its own laws.These laws are in fact the soul itself. They are not somethingdistinct from the soul, but its essence. In neglecting them thesoul is not itself, in finding them it finds itself, and inliving them it is God. This is his doctrine. The soul then incase of the religious sentiment has merely an intuition ofitself. Its craving to adore is not a craving to adore somethingsuperior to itself. In worshipping then, the soul does notworship God, a being above man and independent on him, but itworships itself. We must not then speak of worshipping God, butmerely of worshipping the soul. Now is this a correct accountof the religious sentiment? The religious sentiment is in thebottom of the soul, and it is always a craving of the soul togo out of itself, and fasten itself on an object above itself,free from its own weakness, mutability, and impurity, on a beingall-sufficient, all-sufficing, omnipotent, immutable, and all-holy. It results from the fact that we are conscious of not beingsufficient for ourselves, that the ground of our being is notin ourselves, and from the need we feel of an Almighty arm onwhich to lean, a strength foreign to our own, from which we mayderive support. Let us be God, let us feel that we need go outof ourselves for nothing, and we are no longer in the conditionto be religious; the religious sentiment can no longer find aplace in our souls, and we can no more feel a craving to adorethan God himself. Nothing is more evident to us, than that thereligious sentiment springs, on the one hand, solely from asense of dependence, and on the other hand, from an intuitionof an invisible Power, Father, God, on whom we may depend, towhom we may appeal when oppressed, and who is able and willing





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to succor us. Take away the idea of such a God, declare the soulsufficient for itself, forbid it ever to go out of itself, tolook up to a power above it, and religion is out of the question.

If we rightly comprehend Mr. Emerson’s views of God, he admitsno God but the laws of the soul’s perfection. God is in man, notout of him. He is in the soul as the oak is in the acorn. Whenman fully developes the laws of his nature, realizes the idealof his nature, he is not, as the Christians would say, god-like,but he is God. The ideal of man’s nature is not merely similarin all men, but identical. When all men realize the ideal oftheir nature, that is, attain to the highest perfection admittedby the laws of their being, then do they all become swallowedup in the One Man. There will then no longer be men; alldiversity will be lost in unity, and there will be only One Man,and that one man will be God. But what and where is God now?Before all men have realized the ideal of their nature, andbecome swallowed up in the One Man, is there really and actuallya God? Is there any God but the God Osiris, torn into pieces andscattered up and down through all the earth, which pieces,scattered parts, the weeping Isis must go forth seekingeverywhere, and find not without labor and difficulty? Can webe said to have at present anything more than the disjectedmembers of a God, the mere embryo fragments of a God, one dayto come forth into the light, to be gathered up that nothing belost, and finally moulded into one complete and rounded God? Soit seems to us, and we confess, therefore, that we can affix nodefinite meaning to the religious language which Mr. Emersonuses so freely.

Furthermore, we cannot join Mr. Emerson in his worship to thesoul. We are disposed to go far in our estimate of the soul’sdivine capacities; we believe it was created in the image ofGod, and may bear his moral likeness; but we cannot so exalt itas to call it God. Nor can we take its ideal of its ownperfection as God. The soul’s conception of God is not God, andif there be no God out of the soul, out of the me, to answer thesoul’s conception, then is there no God. God as we conceive himis independent on us, and is in no sense affected by ourconceptions of him. He is in us, but not us. He dwells in thehearts of the humble and contrite ones, and yet the heaven ofheavens cannot contain him. He is the same yesterday, to-day,and forever. He is above all, the cause and sustainer of allthat is, in whom we live and move and have our being. Him weworship, and only him. We dare not worship merely our own soul.Alas, we know our weakness; we feel our sinfulness; we areoppressed with a sense of our unworthiness, and we cannot sosport with the solemnities of religious worship, as to directthem to ourselves, or to anything which does not transcend ourown being.

Yet this worship of the soul is part and parcel of thetranscendental egotism of which we spoke in commenting on Mr.Emerson’s moral doctrines. He and his masters, Carlyle and





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Goethe, make the individual soul everything, the centre of theuniverse, for whom all exists that does exist; and why thenshould it not be the supreme object of their affections? Soul-worship, which is only another name for self-worship, or theworship of self, is the necessary consequence of their system,a system well described by Pope in his Essay on Man:

Ask for what end the heavenly bodies shine, Earth for whose use? Pride answers, “’T is for mine: For me, kind nature wakes her genial power, Suckles each herb, and spreads out every flower; Annual for me, the grape, the rose, renew The juice nectareous, and the balmy dew; For me, the mine a thousand treasures brings; For me, health gushes from a thousand springs: Seas roll to waft me, suns to light me rise; My footstool earth, my canopy the skies.”

To which we may add,

While man exclaims, “See all things for my use!” “See man for mine!” replies a pampered goose: And just as short of reason he must fall Who thinks all made for one, not one for all.

Mr. Emerson has much to say against preaching a traditionalChrist, against preaching what he call historical Christianity.So far as his object in this is to draw men’s mind off from anexclusive attention to the “letter,” and to fix them on “thespirit,” to prevent them from relying for the matter andevidence of their faith on merely historical documents, and toinduce them to reproduce the gospel histories in their ownsouls, he is not only not censurable but praiseworthy. He isdoing a service to the Christian cause. Christianity may befound in the human soul, and reproduced in human experience now,as well as in the days of Jesus. It is in the soul too that wemust find the key to the meaning of the Gospels, and in thesoul’s experience that we must seek the principal evidences oftheir truth.

But if Mr. Emerson means to sever us from the past, and tointimate that the Christianity of the past has ceased to haveany interest for the present generation, and that the knowledgeand belief of it are no longer needed for the soul’s growth, forits redemption and union with God, we must own we cannot go withhim. Christianity results from the development of the laws ofthe human soul, but from a supernatural, not a natural,development; that is, by the aid of a power above the soul. Godhas been to the human race both a father and an educator. By asupernatural, —not an unnatural— influence, he has, as it hasseemed proper to him, called forth our powers, and enabled usto see and comprehend the truths essential to our moralprogress. The records of the aid he has at different agesfurnished us, and of the truths seen and comprehended at theperiod when the faculties of the soul were supernaturally





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exalted, cannot in our judgment be unessential, far lessimproper, to be dwelt upon by the Christian preacher.

Then again, we cannot dispense with Jesus Christ. As much assome may wish to get rid of him, or to change or improve hischaracter, the world needs him, and needs him in precisely thecharacter in which the Gospels present him. His is the only namewhereby men can be saved. He is the father of the modern world,and his is the life we now live, so far as we live any life atall. Shall we then crowd him away with the old bards and seers,and regard him and them merely as we do the authors of some oldballads which charmed our forefathers, but which may not be sungin a modern drawing-room? Has his example lost its power, hislife its quickening influence, his doctrine its truth? Have weoutgrown him as a teacher?

In the Gospels, we find the solution of the great problem ofman’s destiny; and, what is more to our purpose, we find therethe middle term by which the creature is connected with theCreator. Man is at an infinite distance from God; and he cannotby his own strength approach God, and become one with him. Wecannot see God; we cannot know him; no man hath seen the Fatherat any time, and no man knoweth the Father, save the Son, andhe to whom the Son reveals him. We approach God only through amediator; we see and know only the Word, which is the mediatorbetween God and men. Does Mr. Emerson mean that the record wehave of this Word in the BIBLE, of this Word, which was madeflesh, incarnated in the man Jesus, and dwelt among men anddisclosed the grace and truth with which it overflowed, is ofno use now in the church, nay, that it is a let and a hindrance?We want that record, which is to us as the testimony of the race,to corroborate the witness within us. One witness is not enough.We have one witness within us, an important witness, too seldomexamined; but as important as he is, he is not alone sufficient.We must back up his individual testimony with that of the race.In the Gospel records we have the testimony borne by the raceto the great truths it most concerns us to know. That testimony,the testimony of history, in conjunction with our own individualexperience, gives us all the certainty we ask, and furnishes usa solid ground for an unwavering and active faith. As inphilosophy, we demand history as well as psychology, so intheology we ask the historical Christ as well as thepsychological Christ. The church in general has erred by givingus only the historical Christ; but let us not now err, bypreaching only a psychological Christ.

In dismissing this address, we can only say that we have spokenof it freely, but with no improper feeling to its author. Welove bold speculation; we are pleased to find a man who darestell us what and precisely what he thinks, however unpopular hisviews may be. We have no disposition to check his utterance, bygiving his views a bad name, although we deem them unsound. Welove progress, and progress cannot be effected without freedom.Still we wish to see certain sobriety, a certain reserve in all





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speculations, something like timidity about rushing off into anunknown universe, and some little regret in departing from thefaith of our fathers.

Nevertheless, let not the tenor of our remarks be mistaken. Mr.Emerson is the last man in the world we should suspect ofconscious hostility to religion and morality. No one can knowhim or read his productions without feeling a profound respectfor the singular purity and uprightness of his character andmotives. The great object he is laboring to accomplish is onein which he should receive the hearty cooperation of everyAmerican scholar, of every friend of truth, freedom, piety, andvirtue. Whatever may be the character of his speculations,whatever may be the moral, philosophical, or theological systemwhich forms the basis of his speculations, his real object isnot the inculcation of any new theory on man, nature, or God;but to induce men to think for themselves on all subjects, andto speak from their own full hearts and earnest convictions. Hisobject is to make men scorn to be slaves to routine, to custom,to established creeds, to public opinion, to the great names ofthis age, of this country, or of any other. He cannot bear theidea that a man comes into the world to-day with the field oftruth monopolized and foreclosed. To every man lies open thewhole field of truth, in morals, in politics, in science, intheology, in philosophy. The labors of past ages, therevelations of prophets and bards, the discoveries of thescientific and the philosophic, are not to be regarded assuperseding our own exertions and inquiries, as impediments tothe free action of our own minds, but merely as helps, asprovocations to the freest and fullest spiritual action of whichGod has made us capable.

This is the real end he has in view, and it is a good end. Tocall forth the free spirit, to produce the conviction hereimplied, to provoke men to be men, self-moving, self-subsistingmen, not mere puppets, moving but as moved by the reigning mode,the reigning dogma, the reigning school, is a grand andpraiseworthy work, and we should reverence and aid, not abuseand hinder him who gives himself up soul and body to itsaccomplishment. So far as the author of the address before usis true to this object, earnest in executing this work, he hasour hearty sympathy, and all the aid we, in our humble sphere,can give him. In laboring for this object, he proves himselfworthy of his age and his country, true to religion and tomorals. In calling, as he does, upon the literary men of ourcommunity, in the silver tones of his rich and eloquent voice,and above all by the quickening influence of his example, toassert and maintain their independence throughout the wholedomain of thought, against every species of tyranny that wouldencroach upon it, he is doing his duty; he is doing a work theeffects of which will be felt for good far and wide, long aftermen shall have forgotten the puerility of his conceits, theaffectations of his style, and the unphilosophical character of





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his speculations. The doctrines he puts forth, the positiveinstructions, for which he is now censured, will soon be classedwhere they belong: but the influence of his free spirit, andfree utterance, the literature of this country will long feeland hold in grateful remembrance.





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Orestes Augustus Brownson ceased preaching and his Boston Quarterly Review declined in circulation. In his publication, the Reverend asserted that since his aim was to startle, he “made it a point to be as paradoxical and extravagant as he could.”

Although I confess I don’t see this suggestion, myself, as in any sense plausible or useful, Professor Walter Roy Harding has suggested this published comment by the Reverend Brownson to have been a “source” for Henry Thoreau’s WALDEN epigraph.19

1839

19. I do need to confess that regardless of how implausible such a connection seems to me, it was in fact during this same year, in July, that Thoreau copied into his Commonplace Book the portion of “The Nonnes Preestes Tale” by Geoffrey Chaucer dealing with the figure of Chanticleer.

Chan”ti*cleer (?), n. [F. Chanteclair, name of the cock in the Roman duRenart (Reynard the Fox); chanter to chant + clair clear. See Chant, andClear.] A cock, so called from the clearness or loudness of his voice incrowing.

WALDEN: I do not propose to write an ode to dejection, but to bragas lustily as chanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost,if only to wake my neighbors up.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

CHANTICLEER

PEOPLE OFWALDEN




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/WALDEN/PeopleOfWALDEN.pdf


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WALDEN: The present was my next experiment of this kind which Ipurpose to describe more at length; for convenience, putting theexperience of two years into one. As I have said, I do not proposeto write an ode to dejection, but to brag as lustily aschanticleer in the morning, standing on his roost, if only to wakemy neighbors up.

GEOFFREY CHAUCER

CHANTICLEER

PEOPLE OFWALDEN






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June 14, Friday: Recollecting that Waldo Emerson had once attempted to improve upon the voice of the Holy Spirit by the alteration of a line in the sonnet “In Him we live, and move, and have our being,” Jones Very was finally able to overcome his cabin fever. He left his chamber. First he visited Bronson Alcott, attired in his customarily meticulous black suit and frock coat, with large black hat and black walking-stick. While with the Alcotts, the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson happened to drop by, and “They say opposite each other at the table; but were sundered by spaces immeasurable.” Then Very went on to the Emersons in Concord, and would stay three days, arguing with Emerson about which materials to include in the book, in what sequence to place the sonnets, etc. Unfortunately, during this visit, Emerson attempted a humorous treatment of his difficult guest and this treatment came across as the most relentless mockery, with Mrs. Lidian Emerson sympathetically attempting to provide the only emotional resources available to Very in that household. When Very insisted on no changes to the sonnets because “such was the will of God,” Emerson countered with “Cannot the Spirit parse and spell?” and declared that “We cannot permit the Holy Ghost to be careless (and in one instance) to talk bad grammar.” Edwin Gittleman summarizes:

What Waldo wanted, of course, above all else, was a volume which would look good and sell well. Prudent and a good read. What the author wanted, of course, above all else, was to remain utterly faithful to the instructions which he believed he was receiving from above. Emerson won, exhausting Very not only through intransigence but with off-putting sarcasm, and the eventual volume would succeed in de-emphasizing all the prophecy, all the apocalypticism, and all the evangelical enthusiasm which, to its author, were its very core.

He was quick to answer every one of Very’s “speeches,”and later (for the entertainment of mutual friends) herecounted in detail how cleverly he had “dealt” withhim.[p.337]





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Early in the year John Adolphus Etzler had returned from the West Indies to New-York. Undoubtedly to meet and suitably impress other reformers, he would there attend the Fourier Society of New York’s annual celebration of the French philosopher-utopist Charles Fourier’s birthday. There he would make the acquaintance of a Fourierist socialist and humanitarian, C.F. Stollmeyer, also a recent German immigrant, who was at that time readying Albert Brisbane’s THE SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN for publication. Stollmeyer was to become not only the publisher of The New World, but also a primary disciple of Etzler. This SOCIAL DESTINY OF MAN, seconded by the writings and lectures of such men as the Reverend Dana McLean Greeley of Concord, the Reverend William Henry Channing, Horace Greeley, and Parke Godwin would stimulate the rise of several Phalansterian Associations, in the middle and western states, chiefest of which would be the “North American Phalanx” on the north shore of New Jersey.

The Reverend Adin Ballou’s “Practical Christians” began to publish a gazette, the Practical Christian, for the “promulgation of Primitive Christianity.” He would write in HISTORY OF THE HOPEDALE COMMUNITY, FROM ITS INCEPTION TO ITS VIRTUAL SUBMERGENCE IN THE HOPEDALE PARISH that this year would initiate “a decade of American history pre-eminently distinguished for the general humanitarian spirit which seemed to pervade it, as manifested in numerous and widely extended efforts to put away existing evils and better the condition of the masses of mankind; and especially for the wave of communal thought which swept over the country, awakening a very profound interest in different directions in the question of the re-organization of society; — an interest which assumed various forms as it contemplated or projected practical results.” There would be, he pointed out, a considerable number of what were known as Transcendentalists in and about Boston, who, under the leadership of the Reverend George Ripley, a Unitarian clergyman of eminence, would plan and put in operation the Roxbury Community, generally known as the “Brook Farm” Association. A company of radical reformers who had come out from the church on account of its alleged complicity with Slavery and other abominations, and hence called Come-Outers, would institute a sort of family Community near Providence, Rhode Island. Other progressives, with George W. Benson at their head, would found the Northampton Community at the present village of Florence, a suburb of Northampton.

One of the debates of the 18th Century was what human naturemight be, under its crust of civilization, under the varnish ofculture and manners. Jean-Jacques Rousseau had an answer. ThomasJefferson had an answer. One of the most intriguing answers wasthat of Charles Fourier, who was born in Besançon two yearsbefore the Shakers arrived in New York. He grew up to writetwelve sturdy volumes designing a New Harmony for mankind, anexperiment in radical sociology that began to run parallel tothat of the Shakers. Fourierism (Horace Greeley founded the New-York Tribune to promote Fourier’s ideas) was Shakerism forintellectuals. Brook Farm was Fourierist, and such place-namesas Phalanx, New Jersey, and New Harmony, Indiana, attest to the

1840

ASSOCIATION OF INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION

ONEIDA COMMUNITY

MODERN TIMES

UNITARY HOME

BROOK FARM

HOPEDALE




This is on page 57 of Guy Davenport’s _The Hunter Gracchus and other Papers on Literature and Art_, Washington DC: Counterpoint, 1996. Mr. Davenport’s careful research has established once and for all that Thoreau invented raisin bread.




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

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


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movement’s history. Except for one detail, Fourier and MotherAnn Lee were of the same mind; they both saw that humankind mustreturn to the tribe or extended family and that it was to existon a farm. Everyone lived in one enormous dormitory. Everyoneshared all work; everyone agreed, although with constantrevisions and refinements, to a disciplined way of life thatwould be most harmonious for them, and lead to the greatesthappiness. But when, of an evening, the Shakers danced or had“a union” (a conversational party), Fourier’s Harmonians had anorgy of eating, dancing, and sexual high jinks, all planned bya Philosopher of the Passions. There is a strange sense in whichthe Shakers’ total abstinence from the flesh and Fourier’s totalindulgence serve the same purpose. Each creates a psychologicalmedium in which frictionless cooperation reaches a maximumpossibility. It is also wonderfully telling that the modernworld has no place for either.





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According to the dissertation of Maurice A. Crane, “A Textual and Critical Edition of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Blithedale Romance” at the University of Illinois in 1953, various scholars have fingered Zenobia as:

• Mrs. Almira Barlow• Margaret Fuller• Fanny Kemble• Mrs. Sophia Willard Dana Ripley• Caroline Sturgis Tappan

while various other scholars have been fingering Mr. Hollingsworth as:

• Bronson Alcott• Albert Brisbane• Elihu Burritt• Charles A. Dana• Waldo Emerson• Horace Mann, Sr.• William Pike• the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, or maybe• the Reverend William Henry Channing, or maybe• the Reverend Theodore Parker

Hawthorne should really have told us more than Zenobia’s nickname, and should really have awarded Hollingsworth a first name more definitive than “Mr.”? Go figure!

Lest we presume that an association of this William Henry Channing with Hollingsworth is utterly void of content, let us listen, as Marianne Dwight did, to the reverend stand and deliver on the topic of “devotedness to the cause; the necessity of entire self-surrender”:1

He compared our work with … that of the crusaders....He compared us too with the Quakers, who see God onlyin the inner light,... with the Methodists, who seekto be in a state of rapture in their sacred meetings,whereas we should maintain in daily life, in everydeed, on all occasions, a feeling of religious fervor;with the perfectionists, who are, he says, the onlysane religious people, as they believe in perfection,and their aim is one with ours. Why should we, how darewe tolerate ourselves or one another in sin?

1. Reed, Amy L., ed. LETTERS FROM BROOK FARM, 1844-1847, BY MARIANNE DWIGHTPoughkeepsie NY, 1928.





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January: Margaret Fuller placed a review of Jones Very’s book in Orestes Augustus Brownson’s Boston Quarterly Review, as part of her “Chat in Boston Bookstores.” She approached his writing, of course, as if it were mere literary artistry rather than divine illumination.

Our national birthday, Saturday the 4th of July: This was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 36th birthday.

William Johnson of Natchez, a free black man who was himself a slavemaster (!) as well as being a barber and a successful businessman, kept a diary of short entries, hardly missing a day between 1836 and 1851. This diary has seen publication as William Johnson’s NATCHEZ, THE ANTE-BELLUM DIARY OF A FREE NEGRO, ed. William Ransom Hogan and Edwin Adams Davis (1951, 1979, and a Louisiana State UP paperback in 1993). Here is one of a series of Johnson’s 4th-of-July entries: “Business was Quite Dull, this being the 4th of July. I did not Keep open more than half of the Day but walked out into the Pasture to see How the Citizens were Engaging themselves and I found them all in find Humor and in good order.”

At Cherry Valley, New York, on the centennial anniversary of that town’s settlement, William H. Seward delivered an oration.

In the US House of Representatives, Congressman Levi Lincoln of Massachusetts presented a proposal that the House decide on claims by Revolutionary soldiers for their relief.

In Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where a large amphitheater-shaped pavilion collapsed, nearly 1,000 people were thrown down but God allowed no fatalities.

In Providence (Moshasuck), Rhode Island, a “Clam Bake” was held at which 220 bushes of clams were consumed as evidence of patriotic citizenry.

Orestes Augustus Brownson’s provocative essay “The Laboring Classes” was in the current issue of the Boston Quarterly Review to promote the re-election of President Martin Van Buren and to aid the cause of the Democrats against the Whigs and their candidate, William Henry Harrison. The author rang in memories of the economic crisis of 1837, declaring that “No one can observe the signs of the times with much care without perceiving that a crisis as to the relation of wealth and labor is approaching.” The struggle between wealth and labor was inherent in all of America’s social structures, particularly the wage system, and could not be resolved except by a revolutionary alteration of such structures. First among the institutions to be reformed would have to be the Christian church, as symbolized by the attitudes of its clergy. Contrary to Christ’s gospel, which called us to establish justice and God’s kingdom on earth, preaching was turning people’s eyes toward heaven with an elusive promise of eternal happiness. Government needed to limit its own powers, and to virtually eliminate the banking system, in order to protect the workers from the wealthy. Finally, the author called for the abolition of all monopoly and of all privilege, especially the inheritance of property: “as we have abolished hereditary monarchy and hereditary nobility, we must complete the work by abolishing hereditary property.” What the Reverend was responding to, in this manner, was the essay “Self-Culture, “published by the Reverend William Ellery Channing in 1838, in which it had been presumed that the primary focus of our energies should be upon our own rectification rather than on the rectification of society in general — which was an end in itself rather than merely a means to a greater end. Brownson declared that “Self-culture is a good

CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY





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thing, but it cannot abolish inequality, nor restore men to their rights.”20 To Brownson’s dismay, in this balloting the voters went with the Whigs. With the loss of power by the Democrats, he would suddenly be deprived of his politically sponsored stewardship of the United States Marine Hospital in Chelsea MA. Deeply disappointed, he would begin to sift through the socio-political fragments of his shattered religious vision. The election had demonstrated that individual and social reform, he would decide, could not spring from imperfect human nature and inadequate human effort, but only from a power higher than the electorate and the vote. Politically, this would necessitate a constitutional republic rooted in the divine will, but one which in order to protect the rights of minorities would favor states’ rights. Philosophically, this would necessitate his adoption of Plato’s doctrine of ideas and his adjustment of Pierre Leroux’s “doctrine of communion,” which held that humans lived by communion through the medium of institutions with a reality other than their individual selves, “the Not-Me”: individuals communed with nature by way of the institution of property, individuals communed with other individuals by way of the institutions of the family and of government, and individuals communed with God through the institution of the church. Theologically, Brownson would come to believe, as Christ’s organic extension in space and time, the institution of the church constituted the sole medium of God’s saving grace. Human nature could institute nothing higher than itself; hence only a divine power mediated through Christ’s church would be capable of effecting the progress of humankind.

1,200 people came into Concord from Lowell for the big day of the national political campaign. The other two roads into Concord were also jammed with visitors from the surrounding towns of Middlesex County. A log cabin on wheels was drawn into town by a team of 23 horses, while 150 celebrants sat in this rolling cabin chugging hard cider. The delegates from Boston and the eastern vicinity formed a queue that was all of two miles long, with “bands by the dozen.” The main spectacle of the day, however, was an enormous wooden ball, 12 to 13 feet in diameter and painted red, white, and blue, that was being rolled out to Concord from Cambridge on this leg of its journey toward Washington DC. The Tippecanoe Club was sponsoring this ball and the slogans painted on it had to do with the Whig candidates, nominee William Henry Harrison for the President and John Tyler for the Vice-President. On the Lexington Road, Waldo Emerson and his group watched this ball roll past, and some of the group helped to push the ball along.21 The main speeches took place, of course, near the Battle Monument on the south bank of the Concord River. The speeches began only after arrival of a barge from Billerica which, loaded with ladies, had encountered some difficulties in getting over a mud bank below Ball’s Hill. Then there was free barbecue and cider in the largest tent ever set up in Middlesex County, seating 6,000, with 4,000 more being forced to wait outside the tent.22

Horace Rice Hosmer would recollect much later that “The political campaign of 1840 Harrison & Tyler was

20.Refer to Robinson, David. APOSTLE OF CULTURE: EMERSON AS PREACHER AND LECTURER. Philadelphia PA: U of Pennsylvania P, 1982.21. In 1844, in his essay “The Poet,” published in ESSAYS, 2D SERIES, Emerson would use an allusion to this political gimmick used by the campaign supporters of William Henry Harrison, “Keep the ball a-rolling!”

22. This was the election year in which people began singing campaign songs, and in which politics became popular entertainment. For an extended period in the 19th Century in the USA, in fact until the campaign of 1888, voter turnouts of 85% to 95% were not at all unusual. At a political rally, one could count on thousands of people being willing to stand and listen to hour-long political speech after hour-long political speech, in the rain. Voters supported the political association of their choice exactly as sports fans now support the team of their choice. Were we, today, to go back from our present 50% turnout for presidential elections to that sort of political involvement, the result would be a rebirth of our democracy, or its death.

See the great ball which they roll from Baltimore toBunker hill!




This was an allusion to the political gimmick used by the 1840 campaign supporters of William Henry Harrison, "Keep the ball a-rolling!"


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a drunken one, because all drank rum from habit and custom and they drank hard cider to emphasize their political principles, and the result was terrific.” He was “the only Loco Foco” among the students and staff (that is, the only Democrat, everyone else having Whig sympathies). He remembered John Thoreau as “an ardent Whig and his political war-cry was Tippecanoe and Tyler too.”

At that time the great wooden red, white, and blue ball that was the symbol of the party, some 12 feet high, was being kept in the front yard of David Loring’s house on Main Street just to the north of the Concord Academy. When Emerson first delivered his “The Poet” lecture, in Boston in 1841, the Whigs had just used this as a political stunt of the 1840 campaign to demonstrate growing support for their candidate. Little Horace later remembered some of the graffiti on this ball, which must have been most fascinating:

O’er ever ridge we’ll roll the Ball,From Concord Bridge to Faneuil Hall.

Farewell poor Van, To guide our Ship,We’ll try Old Tip.

This Ball must roll, it cannot halt,Benton can’t save himself with salt.

By another account, the graffiti included:

Farewell poor Van,You’r [sic] not the manTo guide our Ship.We’ll try Old Tip.

In his “autobiography,” John Shepard Keyes would later reminisce about the events of the celebration in Concord this year, and would mention having been present at a wedding reception for Reuben Nathan “R.N.” Rice and his bride Mary Harriet Hurd (daughter of Colonel Isaac Hurd, Jr. and granddaughter of Dr. Isaac Hurd), who had gotten married on July 1st:

Interestingly, this reception had been hosted at the Thoreau house (we may well note how characteristic it is, that Henry made no mention of such matters as the hosting of a wedding reception, in his journal):

This excitement was soon followed by the celebration of theFourth of July by the greatest political gathering ever held inConcord, of the Harrison and Tyler campaign The tippecanoe clubsfrom every town came with banners and flags with log cabins andhard cider, and in teams on horseback in canal boats and on foot





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filled the streets to overflowing. The preparations were on agrand scale, a speakers stand, and booth of immense proportionswas set up on the lot southwest of the present Sleepy HollowCemetery and a procession formed in the square that extended tothe monument at the battleground, around which they marched withbands and escort flags and devices including the big ball, ahuge affair a dozen feet in diameter made of a frame coveredwith cloth and inscribed with mottoes of all the political byewords songs and phrazes in letters that could be read as itrolled on drawn by ropes in the hands of earnest sturdy yeomen.The charm of such an occasion drew me home days before, and Iwas busier in its work than in my studies, cutting for itrecitations and exercises, and even such examinations as we hadthen which amounted to next to nothing — The great day came andfine weather and entire success greeted it. The Democrats gotup a rival affair at Lexington but it was so tame and poor thatit only added zest to ours, and it went off with a wild hurrah.I witnessed the gathering and march of the four or five thousandmen from the cupola of the Court House, where with a bevy ofgirls of my own selection, we enjoyed the grand pageant to theutmost. Then escorting them to the booth we listened to thestirring speeches partook of the crackers and hard cider soliberally provided for the multitude and saw many of the greatleaders of the old Wig party and heard their eloquence for thefirst time. Especially I recall that several of the speakerswere guests at our house and that one of then Hon Myron Lawrenceof Belchertown whose great size and powerful voice made him aprominent figure in that campaign had the night before aterrible attack of asthma, that frightened me out of my sleepby his horrible breathing and who I expected would certainly dieof choking before morning, but who rallied, recovered his voice,and filled the whole audience and the entire valley with hisstertorous tones at the dinner tables. Henry Wilson made hisfirst appearance then, and excited much interest as the Natickcobbler The day ended with R.N. Rices wedding and reception atthe Thoreau house on the square opposite my fathers, where wehad a jolly time winding up the festivities with a champagnesuper—

July 4, 1840: 4 o’clock A.M. The Townsend Light Infantry encamped last night in my neighbor’sinclosure.The night still breathes slumberously over field and wood, when a few soldiers gather about one tent in thetwilight, and their band plays an old Scotch air, with bugle and drum and fife attempered to the season. It seemslike the morning hymn of creation. The first sounds of the awakening camp, mingled with the chastened strainswhich so sweetly salute the dawn, impress me as the morning prayer of an army.23

And now the morning gun fires. The soldier awakening to creation and awakening it. I am sure none are cowardsnow. These strains are the roving dreams which steal from tent to tent, and break forth into distinct melody. They

23. Also, written in pencil on a fly-leaf of the journal, we find “I have heard a strain of music issuing from a soldiers’ camp in the dawn, which sounded like the morning hymn of creation. The birches rustling in the breeze and the slumberous breathing of the crickets seemed to hush their murmuring to attend to it.”

J.S. KEYES AUTOBIOGRAPHY




Whenever and wherever you see this little pencil icon in the pages of this Kouroo Contexture, it is marking an extract from the journal of Henry David Thoreau. OK?

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


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are the soldier’s morning thought. Each man awakes himself with lofty emotions, and would do some heroicdeed. You need preach no homily to him; he is the stuff they are made of.The whole course of our lives should be analogous to one day of the soldier’s. His Genius seems to whisper inhis ear what demeanor is befitting, and in his bravery and his march he yields a blind and partial obedience.

The fresher breeze which accompanies the dawn rustles the oaks and birches, and the earth respires calmly withthe creaking of crickets. Some hazel leaf stirs gently, as if anxious not to awake the day too abruptly, while thetime is hastening to the distinct line between darkness and light. And soldiers issue from their dewy tents, andas if in answer to expectant nature, sing a sweet and far-echoing hymn.

We may well neglect many things, provided we overlook them.

When to-day I saw the “Great Ball” rolled majestically along, it seemed a shame that man could not move likeit. All dignity and grandeur has something of the undulatoriness of the sphere. It is the secret of majesty in therolling gait of the elephant, and of all grace in action and in art. The line of beauty is a curve. Each man seemsstriving to imitate its gait, and keep pace with it, but it moves on regardless and conquers the multitude with itsmajesty. What shame that our lives, which should be the source of planetary motion and sanction the order ofthe spheres, are full of abruptness and angularity, so as not to roll, nor move majestically.

September 19, Saturday: John Quincy Adams declared himself unalterably opposed to the “vipers” Waldo Emerson and Orestes Augustus Brownson, “enemies of meaningful religion in America.” The Reverend Brownson was particularly “odious,” in that while he was the beneficiary of a patronage position at the Boston Custom House, he was biting the hand that was feeding him, not only by spreading “self-delusive atheism” but by attempting to generate the sort of mass social upheaval which could eventuate only in “indiscriminate butchery,” as in another French Reign of Terror.24

24. Writers who are known to have supplemented their authorial income by serving in addition as revenue agents: the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, Robert Burns, Geoffrey Chaucer, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Herman Melville. (Not to mention, according to MATTHEW 9:9, the author of the gospel according to Matthew.)





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Orestes Augustus Brownson resorted to lecturing to supplement his meager income. It was during a lecture tour through New-York that he would get better acquainted with a disturbed young seeker whom he had already met,25 Isaac Hecker, who would become his lifelong co-conspirator and institutional religionist. In this year, also, in Europe, a proto-Marxist scholar, Ludwig Feuerbach, was alleging in THE ESSENCE OF CHRISTIANITY that our discourse of a supernatural realm is merely a projection, in which what we are actually talking about is our relationships with one another — so, presumably, these theological ruminations of this pair of seekers, Brownson and Hecker, wouldn’t they actually have been from Feuerbach’s point of view a mere polishing of their relationship?

1841

25. Vincent Holden has sponsored the idea that the first time any of the Hecker brothers met Brownson was during his first lecture visit to New-York in early March of 1841, and the idea that Isaac Hecker was not intimately acquainted with him before the close of 1841. The letter of November 14th displays a formality implying that “Hecker and Br[o]th[er]” were not on intimate terms with its addressee “Mr. Brownson.” According to Henry F. Brownson (the son who although wounded managed to survive the Civil War), however, the relationship began in the summer of 1837 with the Boston Reverend and the Reverend William Henry Channing of New-York exchanging pulpits. The Reverend Channing did issue an invitation to do this, and Major Brownson has supposed that the Reverend accepted the invitation and that the Heckers were present in the congregation. Joseph F. Gower and Richard M. Leliaert, however, who consider this to be an issue of considerable importance, have been able to uncover no conclusive evidence to confirm these attitudes, and have pointed out that they do not match what Hecker himself remembered about this initial encounter, when he wrote about it in the year before he died. Father Thomas’s recollection was that Brownson had first come to Manhattan “somewhere about 1834” while he was a member of the Workingmen’s Party. Gower and Leliaert point to Letter 173 of January 30, 1872, in which Hecker spoke to Brownson of “the high esteem and sincere friendship which I have borne for you now nearly forty years.…” Nearly forty years from 1872 would be, of course, more consistent with 1834 than with 1841, which would of course have been more accurately described by the use of some phrase such as “over thirty years” or “more than three decades.” Father Thomas also confirmed this in 1876, when he stated that his friendship with Brownson had endured for forty years, as forty years prior to 1876 would be at least 1836 and definitely not 1837. However, Gower and Leliaert concur that the two men did not correspond before November 14, 1841 and that it was sometime during the year 1841, when the minister was 37 and the baker 21, that these lifelong friends and collaborators first became well acquainted.





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January: Early in this month Orestes Augustus Brownson addressed the Suffrage Association in Providence, Rhode Island in favor of an extension of suffrage. At the time Brownson was approving of the conduct of Thomas Wilson Dorr in seeking to amend a charter which allowed of no amendment, not because he supposed his activities to be legitimate, but because they were not any more illegitimate than the activities of his opposition in likewise seeking to amend that charter — and because it was generally good for America that suffrage be extended.

(After Mr. Dorr’s failure with the cannon at the arsenal, Brownson would discover to his considerable chagrin that the limitation of suffrage to a freehold qualification had been no provision of the colonial charter, but had been instead an act of the legislature, and so he would change sides, and disapprove of Dorr’s conduct — not because Dorr had become a loser, oh no, but due to a technicality: “this changed the whole aspect of the case.” He would have “no apology to offer” for shifting to the side of the triumphant Law and Order Party, because “our principles have undergone no change.” “The suffrage men may have meant well, and they may have incurred no great share of moral guilt; for to moral guilt there must be a guilty moral intent, or, what is the





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same thing, a culpable ignorance. But they were politically rebels, and could be treated only as such by a government that respected itself, and resolved to discharge its legal functions.”)

March 4, Thursday: Myron Holley died in Rochester, New York.

General William Henry “Party Hardy” Harrison arrived in Washington DC on the Baltimore & Ohio train in cold and stormy weather, registered at Gadsby’s hotel, refused the offer of a hat and coat, rode in triumph on a white horse down the avenue to the White House, and on the East Portico of the Capitol was sworn in as President of the United States of America by Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney.

This former general of the Indian campaigns, known as “Old Tippecanoe,” then spoke determinedly and purposefully for an hour and forty-five minutes into the snowstorm. His inaugural address set a record for length that is unlikely ever to be exceeded. He thus achieved the dual distinction among our Presidents of talking the longest and serving the shortest term of office, for this 68-year-old after standing outdoors for the entire proceeding went on to greet crowds of well-wishers at the White House, pressing the flesh as he went about his new duties, and that evening made an appearance at not one but several celebrations — and barely one month later would expire of the pneumonia which he was contracting.

On the accession of General Harrison to the Presidency, Daniel Webster was called to the office of Secretary of State, in which, after this President’s untimely death, he would continue under President Tyler for about two years. The relations of America with Great Britain would be in a very critical position. The most important and difficult subject which would engage the attention of the government while Webster would be serving in that capacity would be the negotiation of a treaty with Great Britain, which would be signed at Washington on August 9, 1842. The other members of President Harrison’s Cabinet would resign their places during Fall 1841 and there would be discontent that Webster would be invited to remain. However, President Tyler would continue Mr. Webster’s administration of foreign policy due to the great importance of pursuing a steady line in the nation’s foreign affairs, and in hope of an honorable settlement of the difficulties we were having with England.

READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT




Steel engraving made of the Capitol building in Washington DC, from a drawing by William Henry Bartlett in 1839 or 1840

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/02/1902RI_EdwardField_Dorr.pdf


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Isaac Hecker had been attending the sermons of the Reverend Orville Dewey at the Unitarian Church of the Messiah

in New-York, until the reformer Orestes Augustus Brownson came down from Boston to lecture at the Stuyvesant Institute on “The Democracy of Christ.”

March 4. Ben Jonson says in his epigrams, —

“He makes himself a thorough-fare of Vice.”

This is true, for by vice the substance of a man is not changed, but all his pores, and cavities, and avenues areprophaned by being made the thoroughfares of vice. He is the highway of his vice. The searching devil coursesthrough and through him. His flesh and blood and bones are cheapened. He is all trivial, a place where threehighways of sin meet. So is another the thoroughfare of virtue, and virtue circulates through all his aisles like awind, and he is hallowed.

We reprove each other unconsciously by our own behavior. Our very carriage and demeanor in the streetsshould be a reprimand that will go to the conscience of every beholder. An infusion of love from a great soulgives a color to our faults, which will discover them, as lunar caustic detects impurities in water.

The best will not seem to go contrary to others, but, as if they could afford to travel the same way, they go aparallel but higher course, a sort of upper road. Jonson says, —

“That to the vulgar canst thyself apply, Treading a better path not contrary.”

ON GUT

ON GUT




http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/ongut.htm

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/jonson/ongut.htm


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Their way is a mountain slope, a river valley's course, a tide which mingles a myriad lesser currents.

March 5, Friday: Orestes Augustus Brownson addressed “The Reform Spirit of the Age” in New-York’s Clinton Hall. Again Isaac Hecker was present, and he was so impressed by this lecturer that even into his dotage he would be able to recall the substance of the material which he had heard, which, basically, was your portmanteau something-for-everybody stuff about Christianity being the appropriate tool not only for the reform of society but also for the progress of civilization:

Our national birthday, Sunday the 4th of July: Charles Haswell made a sad note of the vanishing of the booths, with their “six miles of roast pig”: “June 29, a vote was taken in the Board of Aldermen on the resolution of a committee to abolish the permits for the erection of booths around City Hall Park on the afternoon preceding the Fourth of July, which was negatived, and the erection of booths continued for a few years afterward. The existence of them, the peculiar character of their proprietors, and of the refreshments furnished, with the crowds that visited them, elicited the general remark upon their cessation, ‘The Fourth of July passed away when the booths around City Hall Park were taken away.’”

In New-York harbor, the steamship Fulton was anchored off the Battery, displaying fireworks and “glittering lamps” in honor of the day.

Volunteering to act as Orestes Augustus Brownson’s agents for future lectures in New-York, the brothers of Isaac Hecker had arranged for this Boston lecturer to deliver the 4th-of-July oration at Washington Hall. He did not disappoint their Christian expectations, for he firmly tied the can of American nationalism to the tail

The life and teachings of our Saviour Jesus Christ were broughtinto use and the upshot of the lecturer’s thesis was that Christwas the big Democrat and the Gospel was the true Democraticplatform.

CELEBRATING OUR B-DAY





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of American Christendom:26

Down in Natchez, William Johnson, a free black man who was himself a slavemaster (!) as well as being a barber and a successful businessman, kept a diary of short entries, hardly missing a day between 1836 and 1851. This diary has seen publication as William Johnson’s NATCHEZ, THE ANTE-BELLUM DIARY OF A FREE NEGRO, ed. William Ransom Hogan and Edwin Adams Davis (1951, 1979, and a Louisiana State UP paperback in 1993). Here is one of a series of Johnson’s 4th-of-July entries: “Greate many persons are Frollicing to day, tho to morrow is the set day for the Celebration, and a Large parade is Expected, Good many of Our Citizens have gone over the River to take a Frollic. I’ve since herd that it broke up without affording much pleasure to the Company ...”

November 14, Sunday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson for the very first time (of many, many times). The Hecker brothers of New-York had attempted to arrange for a full series of four Brownson lectures on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress” but had been rebuffed by the Lyceum. They determined to sponsor the series on their own, and hired a hall and produced the public notices. During the series the lecturer was to be the guest of the Hecker family at their home on Rutgers Street.

26. This was Nathaniel Hawthorne’s 37th birthday.

The principles involved in the American Revolution were but theapplication of those political associations involved in theprinciples taught by Jesus Christ.




Gower, Joseph F. and Richard M. Leliaert. THE BROWNSON-HECKER CORRESPONDENCE. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979.


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In New-York, the Hecker bakery had returned sufficient capital for the elder brothers John and George of Isaac Hecker to expand from baking into milling.27 They named their company the Croton Flour Mill. The youngest of the brothers, Isaac, began to avidly consume the theoretical speculations in the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s Boston Quarterly Review. Brownson was aware that Hecker spoke German at home, and recommended Immanuel Kant, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, and G.W.F. Hegel. The young man, ill prepared for this sort of reading, became confused and fell into skepticism. At the time Brownson was having his own problems of confusion and skepticism in regard to issues of pantheism and of epistemological subjectivism, and was taking an ill considered resource in the synthetic philosophy of Leroux’s L’HUMANITE, which offered to him that the problems of human society could only be approached by hoping for particular Divine interventions in the course of history, and really was not of much help to Hecker. Basically, Brownson’s problems were social and intellectual, Hecker’s personal and emotional, or rather, Brownson’s problems were problems of positioning, Hecker’s of survival. —Which is not to say that Brownson was not also suffering from clinical depression, or from physical illness. Before the Reverend’s conversion to Catholicism, he had been taking a view of New England history and its role similar to that of the historian George Bancroft, although with what one of the commentators has referred to as “a proto-Marxist twist.” His conversion experience of this year would quite invert that earlier structure, and the rise to liberalism in religion would come to be viewed by him as a lapse into divisiveness and impiety.

January 17, Monday: The 1st Orestes Augustus Brownson lecture in the series of four sponsored by the brothers of Isaac Hecker on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress,” in New-York.

Joseph Smith, Jr. “got married with” Mary Elizabeth Rollins.

1842

27. This firm would pioneer a new type of product, self-raising flour, pending introduction of single-acting baking powder (a combination of baking soda and cream of tartar) as a separate commodity. (What we know today as “double-acting” baking powder would not be readily available as a substitute for yeast until midcentury.)





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January 19, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass spoke at the annual meeting of the Norfolk County Anti-Slavery Society, in Dedham. [ANOTHER SOURCE DOES NOT RECORD THIS ON HIS SCHEDULE, DOES NOT HAVE HIM GOING TO DEDHAM UNTIL APRIL 2]

In New-York, the 2d Orestes Augustus Brownson lecture in the series of four sponsored by the brothers of Isaac Hecker on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress.”

An advertisement for a new “Beethoven-Album” for piano by the Vienna music publisher Pietro Mechetti appeared in the Wiener Zeitung. To raise money for a monument in Bonn, Mechetti secured contributions from many of the most important living composers: Nocturne in Eb op.647 by Carl Czerny, L’echo! Scherzo brillant by Frédéric Kalkbrenner, 17 Variations sérieuses op.54 by Felix Mendelssohn, Prélude in C# minor op.45 by Frédéric François Chopin, Marche funèbre de la Symphonie héroique by Franz Liszt, Romance sans paroles op.41/1 by Sigismund Thalberg, Wiegenlied op.13/1 by Adolf von Henselt, and music by Theodor Döhler, Ignaz Moscheles, and Wilhelm Taubert.




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

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


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January 25, Tuesday: Representative Gilmer of Virginia and Representative Marshall of Kentucky presented resolutions censuring Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts for his preoccupation with ending the institution of human enslavement in the United States of America. In response, Representative Adams in great good humor had the Clerk of the House of Representatives read out for the benefit of his colleagues the first paragraph of the Declaration of Independence.

In New-York, meanwhile, the 3d Orestes Augustus Brownson lecture in the series of four sponsored by the brothers of Isaac Hecker on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress” (Brownson was in favor of it).

In the St. George’s Chapel of Windsor Castle, the infant known as “Bertie” to his family throughout his life was christened “Albert Edward” after his father Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his maternal grandfather Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn.

February 2, Wednesday: Representative John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts began a long speech defending himself in the US House of Representatives against the charge that had been made, that he was overpreoccupied with the dismantling of the institution of human enslavement in the United States of America.

The 4th Orestes Augustus Brownson lecture in the series of four sponsored by the brothers of Isaac Hecker on the topic “Civilization and Human Progress,” in New-York. The gist of the series of lectures was that when one took into consideration the full sweep of human history, one understood that progress occurs in human society only when there has been an “extrinsic influence,” that is to say, only on one or another occasion when some specific revelation from God has been channeled to humankind through one or another “providential man.” Human society must be ordered in such a manner that when one of these “providential men” receives such “extrinsic influences,” human society will heed this man and obey him as if he were God Almighty.





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June: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, who was at this time attending the sermons of the Reverend William Henry Channing, composed his famous “open letter” to the Reverend William Ellery Channing, entitled THE MEDIATORIAL LIFE OF JESUS, in which he alleges that Jesus Christ is the sole mediator between God and humankind. It was this which initiated Brownson’s institutionalism, his concern to discover and sponsor that institution which was perpetuating, in human history, Christ’s mediatorial activity.

September:In Cambridge, Massachusetts, while printing the circular advertising the Association of Industry and Education, the printer James D. Atkins became persuaded to bring himself and his family into that association. In a sense, the Northampton enterprise could be conceived to have originated in an attempt to reform capitalism from within, by using the model of the joint stock company to construct, within an economy based on wage labor and private profit, a new and real form of cooperative community of work.28 By way of contrast, the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, in his famous 1840 essay “The Laboring Classes,” had opinioned that the inequity and instability produced by the American confrontation between labor and capital would have to be resolved in a class warfare, that is, by revolution.

“The commercial capitalism of the eighteenth centurydeveloped the wealth of Europe by means of slavery andmonopoly. But in so doing it helped to create theindustrial capitalism of the nineteenth century, whichturned round and destroyed the power of commercialcapitalism, slavery, and all its works. Without a graspof these economic changes the history of the period ismeaningless.”

— Eric Williams, CAPITALISM AND SLAVERY. Chapel Hill:U of North Carolina P, 1944, page 210

November 28, Monday: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

28. While this James D. Atkins was the association’s silk dyer, work in that department would sometimes be slack because of lack of supplies. On Mondays he would occasionally go down and help Sojourner Truth wring out the laundry. Doesn’t this make an interesting picture for the period? –Where else would one have been able to witness an adult white male helping a black person accomplish a woman’s chore? –And grok this, voluntarily!

COMMUNITARIANISM




This is Jesus according to the BBC. (They were merely trying to figure out what a typical Galilean peasant of the period might likely have looked like at the age of Jesus’s public ministry. :-)


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November 29, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau was written to from Boston by Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Trouble was brewing in the Alcott home. Abba Alcott was being pushed much too hard and rewarded much too little:

Early December: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson had been lecturing in New-York, and Isaac Hecker, in despair and confusion, had appealed to him. Brownson invited Hecker to visit him, his wife, and their six children at his Mt. Bellington home in Chelsea, a suburb of Boston. Brownson then suggested a sojourn at the Reverend George Ripley’s Brook Farmers. Hecker would be away from his home in New-York for some eight months.

John Adolphus Etzler and his wife arrived in England, scheduled to demonstrate for the utopian community at Harmony Hall in Hampshire, before Robert Dale Owen’s Universal Community Society of Rational Religionists (1839-1845), his promising mechanical system for ridding the world of its most onerous labor — only to discover that no arrangements whatever had been made to provide the money needed to construct the mechanism in question, or even to reimburse travel expenses for the inventor’s family.29

December 19, Monday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

29. SARCASM ALERT: Gosh, it was like somehow they had overlooked the fact that the whole point of all this “futurism,” in Etzler’s life, was that people needed to show him the money!

Circumstances most cruelly drive me from the enjoymentof my domestic life. I am prone to indulge inoccasional hilarity, but I seem frowned down into stiffquiet and peace-less order. I am almost suffocated inthis atmosphere of restriction and form.... A desireto stop short and rest, recognizing no care but myselfseems to be my duty....





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January: Brook Farm recruited some new members:

In addition, Isaac Hecker came to stay at this Roxbury community, in the role of a partial boarder who would help out as a baker. His agenda at the time was to learn some Latin and some French while studying theoretical issues. It would be the Brook Farmer George William Curtis who would come up with very appropriate nickname “Ernest the Seeker.” At the Brook Farm, besides attending the Reverend George Ripley’s lectures on Kant and Spinoza, Hecker read Goethe, Schlegel and Jean-Paul Richter. The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s son Orestes was at that time a student-in-residence at Brook Farm, and occasionally the father would visit and there would be a chance for Hecker to talk with him, but usually Hecker had to walk in to visit Brownson in his home. At the time Brownson’s series of articles on “The Mission of Jesus,” applying his version of the doctrine of communion to Christianity, was appearing in The Christian World. Hecker even accompanied Brownson to and from his Sunday preaching services, discussing theology and Brownson’s proposal for a Christian unity movement — a “Catholicity without the papacy.” Earnest the Seeker was attempting to understand the Catholic Tubingen theologian Johann-Adam Mohler’s SYMBOLIK. News and rumors about the Tractarians of the Oxford Movement in England were a hot topic.

1843

Name Birthplace Birthdate Occupation

Amelia Russell Dunkirk, France 1798 teacher

Lewis Ryckman New-York NY 1796 shoemaker

Jane Ryckman New-York NY 1799 wife of shoemaker

Mary Brown ? ? wife of a farmer





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January 7, Saturday: One of Isaac Hecker’s older brothers (he was the baby of the family) wrote to Mr. Orestes Augustus Brownson about Isaac’s precarious mental condition, which was causing the family not to dare to





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suggest that he do any of their bakery work because of the unpleasant reaction the very thought evoked in him:





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I received your letter last week. It gave me a greatdeal of satisfaction to hear you had taken such aninterest in my brother’s afflictions. They are such Ithink you will be able to give him that advice andencouragement which he needs. He has since he hasbecome acquainted with you always thought more of whatyou said than any one of his family. His disease Ialways have thought arose from to much exercise of mindand in my telling him so doing my best to check thattendency it has made him keep all his feelings andthoughts to himself. Therefor I think you will be ableto do us a favour if it is not asking to much. You canget out of him more of his feelings than we can. In hislast letter he asks us to give him our advice. He sayshe wants to go to Brook Farm and study one or twoLanguages. If I had not already felt that his diseasewas brought on him by to much study I would gladly givehim that advice. I should like to hear from you inregard to it. The letter we received from him when wereceived yours would have given us a great deal ofuneasiness if we had not received at the same time onefrom you explaining the condition he was in when hewrote it. I shall feel ever thankful to you for it. Thelast letter we received from him we found a decidedimprovement which I fear if he follows out his owndesires will call those nervous spells to return morefrequently. In the whole course of his sickness he hashad much his own way he was always better when he wasexpecting something or was about to undertake a journeyany thing like Physical labour mentioned to him had avery disagreable effect upon him. When he got whatexpected or finished what he undertook he would getsuch spells of despair that he would make us all feelbad for his sake. Anything he undertook we found itnecessary not to cross him but give him encouragementhoping for the better thinking some unknowncircumstances would restore him to us as he once was.The Physician he had, thought if he could have his mindemployed in some Physical employment where the mentalcould be united he would get better. I have thought soto, but to get him to feel so and do it we could not.He says himself he thinks it would do him good. I hopeyou will be able to discover some better remedy or curefor him being you can get a better explanation from himthan we can. Mother thinks he is under a severereligious change or under peculiar convictions whichshe thinks all persons must have before they areChristians in a more or less degree. The only thing shethinks he is looking for or wants is a giving up of hiswhole mind to Christ and then he would be relieved. Ifany such thing should exist, I think he must havealready explained to you. [continued]






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[continued] If so we would be glad to hear. She oftensays she hopes Mr Brownson will be a spiritual guideor Father to him. If my Brother wants anything I knowyou will assist him and if it lays in our power to repayyou, it shall not be wanting on our part. He may letyou know more of his pecuniary wants than he would us.If so be so kind and let us know. There is no person Icould have selected for him to stay with sooner thanyourself and if you think it would do him no harm tostay at Brook Farm and study, I will be satisfied andI will do for him what is necessary. I am sorry to haveto trouble you so much with our Family affairs but ithas in this case been necessary.

I have been this last week to hear Bishop Hugheslecture in the Tabernacle. His subject was oncivilization. He gave a very interesting lecture.[this was “The Influence of Christianity uponCivilization,” given on January 5, 1843 before theCatholic Library Society.] spoke two hours long andinterested his audience the whole time and now and thenhe received bursts of applause. He undertook to showthat it was Christianity alone advanced civilization.He showed it in so plain a manner that it was veryinteresting. The Incidents he hit upon where sodescriptive of the Brotherhood of the race and thePerfection of the Idea of Humanity I thought sometimesI was hearing you. The house was crowded to overflowingso that many had to leave with out hearing him. I havewritten this letter while my wife is to Church. I havehad to rock the child and if you find in some placesnot much connection you must look over it.






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June 23, Friday-25, Sunday: Frederick Douglass was attending an Anti-Slavery Convention in Atheneum Hall in Nantucket.

On the 23rd, Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

I have returned this afternoon from Alcott’s and am as much pleased with the people and spirit there as I anticipated.… I do not know but that my mind will lead me to make at least a trial at Fruitland as they call their place. Mr Alcott seemed very desirous that I should come and perhaps may. I made a visit to the Shakers while there and a lesson of Self-denial I did receive from them. I had an intimate and interesting conversation with them. I go to Brook Farm this afternoon.






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July: Despite opposition from the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, his spiritual cravings unsatisfied by the intellectualism of Brook Farm, Isaac Hecker moved over to Bronson Alcott’s and Charles Lane’s little community at Harvard Village MA, dedicated to the interior transformation of the individual through self-denial and mortification and newly named “Fruitlands.” He was there for fifteen days before accepting Brownson’s advice about such Fourierist “humbug” and giving up and going home to New York City. In the meantime John Hecker had joined the Episcopal Church, and Hecker and Brownson contemplated that Isaac might also join that church. (Evidently the ideal of Christian catholicity these two people were sharing at this time had little to do with any particular preexisting church structure, such as Roman Catholicism.) The Hecker brothers were sponsoring the candidacy of John C. Calhoun in the 1844 presidential race, because the old “Rump” faction of the Loco-Focos regarded Calhoun as a candidate better disposed than Martin Van Buren toward the American working class. Brownson had for some time been a key player in the Calhoun campaign in the North, and was captivated by Calhoun’s doctrine of “concurrent majorities.” It would turn out, of course, that both Calhoun and Van Buren would be defeated by the Democrat James K. Polk at the polls.





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August 20, Sunday: Isaac Hecker’s older brother wrote to Mr. Orestes Augustus Brownson a second time, about politics and about Isaac’s improved condition, in which he was actually contemplating assuming his share





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of the family’s work in their bakery:





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I have mentioned to a few of my friends that you would bewilling to write an address for a meeting [September 25,1845] to be called by the citizens of New York in favourof John C Calhoun for President of the United States. Wehave concluded that is many of the friends of John CCalhoun to call a meeting in the Park as soon as possible.Our Legislature in the close of the last Sessionrecommended a convention of the state to be held atSyracuse for to take in consideration or to adopt theprimary action for the delegates to the BaltimoreConvention in the different Wards of our city they didnot seem to understand the object or reason for thisconvention but it was explained before we got through atthese meetings it showed there had been a design to forceby surprise upon us none but Van Buren men. When this wasunderstood by us to force Martin Van Buren as candidatefor President we objected and run a Calhoun ticket and inall the Wards where they was any one to take lead forCalhoun which I believe was five Wards the Calhoun ticketwas elected. To have so many Wards without any concertedaction surprised all the Calhoun men themselves thereforewe think a movement like this will have great effect uponthat question and be the means of calling us together fora better disciplining of our forces. I must relate acircumstance of our Ward of the unwillingness of the VanBurenites to allow the voice of the people to be heardthat after they found we had elected Calhoun delegates tothe convention, being late and great many had left themeeting they passed resolutions instructing the delegatesto go for Van Buren which was one of the old tricks ofthe agency of Van Buren by which they expect to effecthis nomination. It was recommended by both Parties byresolution to adopt the district system but we think ifthe Van Buren delegates in the convention are in themajority they will not allow it. If they should I thinkwe may send Calhoun delegates to the Baltimore Conventionfrom this City. We intend to call this meeting before thisconvention meets that is the 15th of this next month. Ifyou feel like writing it we would like to hear from youas soon as possible. In the mean time they say if you cando justice to the address and make it short it will pleasehis friends here.

My Brother Isaac has arrived home and feels like takinghold of business again. His health is somewhat improvedbut I think your Boston Transcendentalists have had tomuch influence on his mind which I am in hopes will wearoff. I want you to write him if you find time to disabusehis mind of these errors. He intends to write you soon.You must except this imperfect letter from one who don’twrite often.






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From this date into the 1st of September, Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond would be conducting anti-slavery meetings in Buffalo and Rochester NY.

August 30, Wednesday: According to one account, on this day and the following one Frederick Douglass was lecturing in Green Plain, in Clark County in Ohio, but according to another account, he was still in New York state, in the Buffalo/Rochester area, lecturing in conjunction with Charles Lenox Remond.

Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

September 2, Saturday: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

September 6, Wednesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

September 11, Monday: Frederick Douglass, George Bradburn, and William A. White were lecturing on this day and the following one in Cambridge, Indiana.

The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

On this night in Concord, Massachusetts, the first frost.

September 14, Thursday: Dr. Elisha Kent Kane became an Assistant Surgeon in the US Navy.

Henry Thoreau wrote to Waldo Emerson from Staten Island, recounting that although he had been reduced to attempting to sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door since “Literature comes to a poor market here, and even the little that I write is more than will sell,” John L. O’Sullivan had accepted his article “The Landlord” for publication in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review:

Staten-Island Sep. 14th

Dear Friend, Miss Fuller will tell you thenews from these parts, so I willonly devote these few moments to what she does not know as well. I was absent only one day and night from the Island, the family expecting me back immediately. I was to earn a certain sum before winter, and thought it worth the while to try

O’Sullivan is printing the Manuscript I sent him some time ago[,]having objec[ted] only to my want of sympathy with the[C]ommunities.—





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various experiments. I carried the Agriculturist about the city, and up as far as Manhattanville, and called at the Croton Reservoir, where [indeed] they did not want any Agriculturists, but paid well enough in their way. Literature comes to a poor markethere, and even the little that I write is more than will sell. I have triedthe Dem. Review — The New Mirror & [Brother] Jonathan[.] The last two as well as the New-World, areoverwhelmed with contributions[,] which

Page 2cost nothing, and are worth no more. The Knickerbocker is toopoor, and only the Ladies Companion pays. O’Sullivan is printingthe Manuscript I sent him some time ago[,] having objec[ted] only to my want of sympathy with the [C]ommunities. — I doubt if you have made more corrections in my manuscript than I should have done ere this, though they may be better, but I am glad that you have taken any pains with it. — I have not prepared any translations for the Dial, supposing there would be no room — though it is the only place for them. I have been seeing [men] during these days, and trying experiments upon trees; have inserted 3 or 4 hundred buds — Quitea Buddhist, one might say — Books I have access to through your brother and Mr Mackean — and have read a good deal — Quarle’s “Divine Poems” as well as Emblems are quite a discovery.

Page 3I am sorry that Mrs[.] Emerson





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is so sick. Remember me to her andto your [M]other. I like to think of [your] living on the banks of the [M]ill-brook, in the midst of the garden with all its weeds, for what arebotanical distinctions at this distance? Your friendHenry D. Thoreau

Page 4Return address: H. D. Thoreau <RWE>Sept. 1843Address: R. Waldo EmersonConcordMass.

Meanwhile, Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

Frederick Douglass, George Bradburn, and William A. White arrived in Pendleton, Indiana for a three-day series of lectures.

Alcott and Lane have been here 5 days; they started for home yesterday morning. They occupied their time in visiting various individuals and holding conversations. They held three while they were here, one at Wm Channing’s place and there was present Channing, Margaret Fuller, Vethake, and Alcott, and Lane. How they took, I know not, for if they are the “newness” to a Boston transcendental audience what must they be to a New York one? They made our place their home while they were here.

BRONSON ALCOTT

MARGARET FULLER






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September 18, Monday: With publication of his UNIVERSITY SERMONS, finding that he had begun to question the true catholicity of the Church of England, the Anglican Reverend John Henry Newman resigned from his vicarage of St. Mary’s, Oxford.





Gower, Joseph F. and Richard M. Leliaert. THE BROWNSON-HECKER CORRESPONDENCE. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1979


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Frederick Douglass, his shattered right hand wrapped up in a bandage, lectured in Noblesville, Indiana.

October 3, Tuesday: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

October 16, Monday: The New York State Lunatic Asylum (later to be referred to as the Utica State Hospital), which had been authorized by the legislature on March 30, 1836, opened its doors for patients under superintendent Amariah Brigham. A printing shop would be established for the purpose of occupational therapy and, in 1844, with Dr. Brigham serving as editor, this institution would put out the initial issue of the American Journal of Insanity, the world’s 1st journal devoted to mental illness.30


Henry Thoreau wrote to Mrs. Lidian Emerson from Staten Island, expressing his distrust of the sort of Fourierist economism of efficiency-worship and critical-size-worship which was for the moment the “sadly in earnest” Reverend William Henry Channing’s entire stock in trade. During this month he would be sketching out in his journal one of the passages which he would later revise for WALDEN, that “If anything ails a man

30. Street, W.R. A CHRONOLOGY OF NOTEWORTHY EVENTS IN AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGY. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 1994

PSYCHOLOGY






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that he does not perform his functions –especially if his digestion be poor– though he has considerable nervous strength still— What does he do? why he sets about reforming the world.” In a couple of days he would be writing his sister Helen that “My objection to Channing and all that fraternity is that they need and deserve sympathy themselves rather than are able to render it to others. They want faith and mistake their private ail for an infected atmosphere, but let any one of them recover hope for a moment, and right his particular grievance, and he will no longer train in that company. To speak or do any thing that show concern mankind, one must speak and act as if well, or from that grain of health which he has left.— This Present book indeed is blue, but the hue of its thoughts is yellow.— I say these things with less hesitation because I have the jaundice myself, but I also know what it is to be well.” It is clear that our historians have underappreciated this disaffection with American Fourierism (with the single exception of Linck C. Johnson):

Staten Island Oct 16th

My Dear Friend, I promised you some thoughtslong ago[,] but it would be hard to tell whether these are the ones. I suppose that the great questions of Fate, Freewill, Foreknowledge absolute, which usedto be discussed in Concord are still un- settled. And here comes Channing[,] with his [“Present,”] to vex the world again — a rather galvanic movement[,] I think. However[,] I like the man all the better[,] though his schemes the less. I am sorry for his confessions. Faith never makes a confession. Have you had the annual berrying party, or sat on the Cliffs a whole day this summer? I suppose the flowers have fared quite as well since I was not there to scoff at them[,] and the hens without doubt keep up their reputation. I have been reading lately what ofQuarles[’s] poetry I could get. He was a contemporary of Herbert[,] and a kindred spirit. I think you would like him.It is rare to find one who was so muchof a poet and so little of an artist. He wrote long poems, almost epics for length, about Jonah, Esther, Job, Samson & Solomon, interspersed with meditations after a quite original plan —





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Shepherds Oracles, Comedies, Romances, Fancies and Meditations — the Quintessence of Meditation[,] — and Enchiridions ofMeditation all divine[,] — and what he calls his Morning Muse[;] besides prose works as curious as the rest. He was an unwearied Christian and a reformer of some old school withal. Hopelessly quaint[,] as if he lived all alone and knew nobody but his wife — who appears to have reverenced him. He never doubts his genius[;] — it is only he and his God in all the world. He uses[as] language sometimes as greatly as Shakspeare, and though there is not much straight grain in him, there is plenty of tough crooked timber. In an age when Herbert is revived, Quarles surely ought not to be forgotten. I will copy a few such sentences as I should read to you if there. Mrs Brown too may find some nutriment in them.Mrs Emerson must have been sicker than I was aware of, to befor confined so long, [though] they will not say that she is convalescent yet — thoughthe Dr pronounces her lungs unaffected. How does the Saxon Edith do? Can you tell yet to which school of philosophy she belongs — whether she will be a fair[s]aint of some christian order, or a follower of Plato and the heathen? Bid Ellen a good night or a good morning from me, and see if she will remember where it comes [from.] And remember me to Mrs Brown and your [m]other and Elizabeth Hoar.

Yr friend

Henry.Address: Mrs. Lidian Emerson





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ConcordMass.

November 8, Thursday: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

December 14, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Jane Webb Loudon had prepared BOTANY FOR LADIES and was preparing a 2nd volume of THE LADIES ORNAMENTAL FLOWER GARDEN while her husband John Claudius Loudon was becoming more and more seriously ill with lung cancer. On this day he died. His SELF INSTRUCTIONS FOR YOUNG GARDENERS would be published posthumously. The widow was impoverished, having merely a £100/year pension from the Civil List, but had a 10-year-old daughter, Agnes, to rear. She would prepare TALES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, a book of animal stories.






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Richard Hildreth’s THEORY OF MORALS attempted to explain how it could be that various human cultures differ in their moral codes. Our moral attitudes derive from a desire to help others, especially to spare them pain. The “sentiment of benevolence” was a universal in human nature, though different individuals and cultures might utilize different acts to embody this. “My idea of God is, the Cause of ... those distinctions which we call moral distinctions, and which may indeed in this sense be called the laws of God — just as the laws of chemistry may be called so.” He considered the most important part of the book to be an analysis of why sometimes we fail, while suffering from hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease, to act in accordance with our sentiment of benevolence. “While men are tormented ... it is absurd to expect them to grow virtuous.” “To make men better, we must begin by making them happier.”

Because he was locating the source of morality in “the constitution of man” rather than in Sacred Scripture, this work would cause Hildreth to be condemned for licentiousness and for atheism. The review which would most distress him would be by the Reverend Professor Francis Bowen, a conservative Unitarian who had taught philosophy and political economy at Harvard College and had in 1842 published his own philosophical treatise, CRITICAL ESSAYS. He would comment that “There are indeed among the Unitarians, two parties, the Channing party, and the Norton, or Cambridge party.” “It is utterly impossible for a person gifted with the smallest power of thought ... long to remain a Cambridge Unitarian. He must go backward, or go forward.”

Hildreth’s A JOINT LETTER TO ORESTES A. BROWNSON AND THE EDITOR OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW. His WHAT CAN I DO FOR THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY?

In Boston, the author got married with the portrait painter Caroline Gould Negus (1814-1867). At one point the bride had been a director of the Boston branch of the American Union of Associationists. For the following eight years she would support the family by means of her portrait painting while he would be free to research and write.

January: An event of which Henry Thoreau was surely aware was that the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, the Unitarian minister with whom Thoreau had resided, and studied the German language, who had sort of made a career of being converted from one thing to another, made one final conversion, to Roman Catholicism, and revived his Boston Quarterly Review under the title Brownson’s Quarterly Review (published until 1875, the year before his death, with a gap during the years 1865-1872 due evidently to depression).31

January 21, Sunday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

1844

31. Notice that there is a possible linkage here with proslavery, which needs to be carefully investigated — since there was in fact only one antebellum American Catholic leader who was clearly sympathetic with the antislavery cause (Bishop John Purcell of Cincinnati) whereas there were very many who were very clearly sympathetic with the proslavery cause.





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March 9, Saturday: Advertisements appeared in the Boston Courier and the Post for Henry Thoreau’s lecture “Reformers,” to be delivered in Boston’s Amory Hall during the morning and the evening of the following Sunday — this was, obviously because of the times, being offered as an alternative to conventional church worship.


March 11, Monday: Frederick Douglass lectured in Medford, Massachusetts.







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March 15, Friday: Documentation of the international slave trade, per W.E. Burghardt Du Bois: “Report: “The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the petition of ... John Hanes, ... praying an adjustment of his accounts for the maintenance of certain captured African slaves, ask leave to report,” etc.” –SENATE DOCUMENT, 28 Cong. 1 sess. IV. No. 194.

In regard to the bursting of the experimental cannon aboard the steam warship USS Princeton, above under the date of February 28, and in regard to the national pomp and ceremony of the funeral arrangements which followed, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers published the article on the following page in Concord NH’s anti-slavery paper Herald of Freedom.

Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson in regard to the Reverend William Henry Channing:

March 28, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

There is some talk of Channing’s giving up his efforts here and going on to Brook Farm this spring. Last sunday morning the text of his sermon was first seek the Kingdom of Heaven and then all things will be added there with. His sermon was first seek all outward things and the Kingdom of Heaven will come. Fourierism.






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BURSTING OF THE PAIXHAN GUN.The reader has heard, by this time, of the terrible catastrophe on board thenation’s War-Steamer, Princeton — where five of our governmental chieftainswere stricken down at once by the exploded fragments of a great death-engine— intended by them for the destruction of others. They were practising withit, and amusing themselves with exhibitions of its hideous power.Five chieftains, and a slave killed, John Tyler’s slave. The bursting of thePaixhan gun has emancipated him — and left his owner behind. How busy deathhas been on every side of that owner, since he was thrown up into power by thefermentation of 1840! Above him and below him, in place, “the insatiatearcher,” (as poetry has called a dull genius, that never shot an arrow inhis life,) has brought down the tall men, and left him standing, likean ungleaned stalk, in a harvested corn-field. He seems to have been thesubject of a passover. I saw account of the burial of those slaughteredpoliticians. The hearses passed along, of Upshur, Gilmer, Kennon, Maxcy,and Gardner, —but the dead slave, who fell in company with them —on the deckof the Princeton, was not there. He was held their equal by the impartial gun-burst, but not allowed by the bereaved nation, a share in the funeral.The five chiefs were borne pompously to the grave, under palls attendedby rival expectants of the places they filled before they fell, (not those theynow fill) but the poor slave was left by the nation to find his way thitheras he might, —or to tarry above ground. Out upon their funeral — and upon thepaltry procession that went in its train. Why didn’t they inquire for the bodyof the other man who fell on that deck! And why hasn’t the nation inquired —and its press? I saw account of the scene, in a barbarian print called theBoston Atlas — and it was dumb on the absence of that body — as if no such manhad fallen. Why, I demand in the name of human nature, was that sixth man ofthe game brought down by that great shot — left unburied and above ground? —for there is no account yet, that his body has been allowed the rites ofsepulture. What ailed him, that he was not buried? Wasn’t he dead? Wasn’t hekilled as dead as Upshur and Gilmer? And didn’t the same explosion kill him?And won’t his corse decay, like theirs? Don’t it want burying as much?Did they throw it overboard from the deck of the steamer, —to feed the fishes?What have they done with it! Six men were slain by the bursting of that gun —and but five were borne along in that funeral train. Where have they left thesixth? Could they remember their miserable color-phobia, at an hour like this?Did the corses of those mangled and slaughtered secretaries revoltat the companionship of their fellow-slain, and demur at being seen goingwith him to the grave? If not, what ailed the black man, I ask again, who diedon the deck of the steamer with Abel Upshur and Thomas Gilmer, that he couldn’tbe buried? Are they cannibals, at that government seat, and have they otherwisedisposed of that corse? For what would not they do to a lifeless body —who would enslave it, when alive? I will not entertain the hideous conjecture— though they did enslave him in his life-time. But they didn’t bury him, evenas a slave. They didn’t assign him a jim-crow place in that solemn procession,that he might follow, to wait upon his enslavers in the land of spirits.They have gone there without slaves, or waiters. Possibly John Tyler may havehad a hole dug somewhere in the ground, to tumble in his emancipated slave.Possibly not. Nobody knows, probably — nobody cares. They mentioned his deathamong the statistics of that deck, and that is the last we hear of the slave.His tyrants and enslavers are borne to their long home, with pomp andcircumstance, and their mangled clay honored and lamented by a pious people.The poor black man — they enslaved and imbruted him all his life-time,and now he is dead, they have, for aught appears, left him to decayand waste above ground. Let the civilized world take note of the circumstance.




Pages 375-7 in A COLLECTION FROM THE MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF NATHANIEL PEABODY ROGERS, Manchester NH (William H. Fisk) and Boston MA (Benj. B. Mussey & Co.), 1849.


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April 6, Saturday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson in reference to the Reverend George Ripley of Brook Farm’s election to be president, and Charles A. Dana of Brook Farm’s election to be vice-president, of the National Convention of Associationists held in New-York’s Clinton Hall from April 4th through April 6th:

The Fourier Convention I have attended its two days deliberations which doubtless have been the same in substance except a smaller audience and less enthusiasm than the one held lately in Boston. Those who did not assume it as the basis of their remarks laid it down as their fundamental basis that the evil in the world is not the result of inward depravity but the result of the outward arrangement of things — this was affirmed from Ripley downwards. The doctrine of unity and diversity of action in the industrial world as held out by these men what is it but Catholicity in the industrial world? So it strikes me and I am not a little astonished to see the effects these views have had upon them. It has rid them of their transcendentalism of their protestantism and most of their pernicious results. It seems to me I have greater hopes of Mr Ripley than I ever had. He is now laboring on the results which the Catholic Church of Christ is destined to realize in time not on the cause which only can do this. Not that I believe in the innumerable speculations of Fourier or that these men in their present movement will effect much by their plans tho I do firmly believe it will be the means of opening their eyes to those Catholic principles developed in the history of the Church. I am daily more and more firmly convinced of the opinion you expressed in your letter that only in the Church can we possibly benefit the age in the highest degree. Ripley has spoken once or twice with an earnestness and enthusiasm very great. This is his apprenticeship for the priesthood.... To-night they are to have a dinner in commemoration of the birth of Fourier.

FOURIERISM

FOURIERISM






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April 9, Tuesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson in reference to the Reverend William Henry Channing:

April 12, Friday: Texas Treaty of Annexation.


It astonishes me repeatedly to hear from the best speakers such sound fundamental catholic views on some points mixed up with the most contradictory and irreconcilable statements. I have never heard from any one man’s lips such heterogenous and opposite views with out any unity or harmony in principle or arrangement as I have and do constantly hear from the lips of Mr Channing in his preaching. One moment it is catholic the next ultra protestant then human depravity then the integral harmony of the passions then the immediate communion with God again the opposite and so through all modern theories and philosophies without any reconciliation or unity in result.






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April 15, Monday: In Boston, Charles Bulfinch died. The body would be interred in the burial ground adjacent to King’s Chapel:

Waldo Emerson paid the Concord PO8 Ellery Channing $7.50 for chopping 15 cords of wood. After one year of renting the red farmhouse next to the Emersons for $55.00, the Channings were moving to a larger house, on the Lexington Road, that was available for the same rent.

At about this point Isaac Hecker was returning from New-York to the Boston area. First of course he visited the family of Orestes Augustus Brownson. Then he stopped off at Brook Farm and the Shaker Village, before taking up residence in the Concord boardinghouse of the Thoreau family. When he arrived in Concord, Emerson suggested that he solicit the schoolmaster George Partridge Bradford to tutor him in classic languages, and Bradford agreed to do this during his noon hours of freedom. Bradford and Hecker went off to find Hecker a rooming house, and the first house they found asked too much, $75.00 per year, but then they chanced on Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau and found that at the Thoreau rooming house Hecker would have to pay only $0.75 per week, light included — although Cynthia stipulated that Hecker would have to purchase his own firewood if he wanted to use the fireplace in his room. Hecker’s plan was to spend his days learning Greek and Latin from Schoolmaster Bradford and his evenings meditating over literary and theological works, including THE CATECHISM OF THE COUNCIL OF TRENT, but as it turned out his spirit was so disturbed that he was unable to make headway in his studies.





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May 13, Monday: Having by this point met Henry Thoreau, Isaac Hecker wrote his mother that had he known

We should note, however, that there was already the bug working in Hecker’s brain that would gnaw its way out, for he had been put up to studying the classic languages by the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, and the Reverend was already, at that point, scheming an intellectual pathway to extricate himself from the far left liberal Protestant clergy and immerse himself in the most doctrinaire Catholic mode of theologizing. And this was not anything that Thoreau was ever going to have much respect for, either in the Reverend or in Father Hecker.

Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet wrote Horace Mann, Sr. to warn him that it was wrong for him to be forcing deaf children to attempt to lip-read rather than sign.

May 16, Thursday: Charles Francis Adams, Sr. again aboard a steamer, the Hibernian from Nauvoo to Davenport:

Quincy did not tell me of his discovery of the cockroachesassembled on the coverlet of our bed, drawn out probably by thefire, which was lighted to warm us. So I slept in happy ignoranceupon the outside, expecting the call of the steamer everymoment. It was in fact five o’clock in the morning before theHibernian came along. We hastened to get on board for the sakeof dressing a little more comfortably — this being the firsttime such a change has ever been deemed by me an improvement....

Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson describing the difficulty he was having in studying religion while staying at the Thoreau boardinghouse in Concord, standing “alone in the pitiless storm of the world” during the May-June period:

that Henry Thoreau had been taught the Greek and Latinlanguages, I should have selected him instead ofMr. Bradford.... Mr. Thoreau has a better knowledge of languages, hasmore leisure, takes a delight in languages ...

I thought before I came here that I should be interested in Xt. history, especially of the Church, and the languages, and such like studies, but such is not the case, all my life is within, and as it were in constant conversation and communion within an unseen world; and all attempts at study are fruitless. To make effort against this would be to throw me on the bed less than three days, notwithstanding the desire I have to learn the languages. You see my position, and my only course is to be quiet and wait peacefully until a change of some kind takes place.… There is no half way house between the Church and atheism, that Germany has clearly demonstrated.






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May 25, Saturday: Waldo Emerson’s 41st birthday.

The 1st news dispatch was sent by telegraph, to the Baltimore Patriot.

Isaac Hecker went into Boston to see his spiritual adviser Orestes Augustus Brownson but was unable to get with him because this was in conflict with an appointment Brownson had made with the Catholic bishop of Boston, Benedict Fenwick, for the purpose of discussing his acceptance into the Roman Catholic Church.

May 29, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass spoke again in Boston’s Marlboro Chapel at the annual meeting of the New England Anti-Slavery Society.

Isaac Hecker returned from Brook Farm outside Boston to the Thoreau boardinghouse on Main Street in Concord to prepare for his move to New-York.

At some point at the end of this month of May, Orestes Augustus Brownson was finalizing his determination to convert to Catholicism, making his declaration, and being entrusted to Bishop Bernard Fitzpatrick for instruction in the faith.





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June 4, Tuesday: The last two documented individuals of the Great Auk Pinguinis impennis, a flightless seabird, were clubbed near Iceland, to be sold to a taxidermist. This bird has been being hunted aggressively for years, its feathers selling primarily in Europe (first, but not last, North American native species to fall victim to the European intrusion).

Weavers in Silesia revolted against the Prussian authorities in protest of very bad economic conditions, unemployment, and hunger.

Antonio López de Santa Anna y Pérez de Lebrón replaced José Valentín Raimundo Canalizo Bocadillo as President of Mexico.

Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

On wednesday afternoon I returned [from Boston] to this retired and quiet spot now called my home.... Here my time is occupied in reading a little, studying less, and thinking and contemplating the remainder part of the time, which is the most.... Man rules his destiny only by perfect submission to God; or by perfect cooperation with His will ... never have I been conscious of living such an earnest deep effectual life as I am now conscious of living. My very existence seems to be one perpetual act.... My sense of nothingness increases upon me, and I trust Abraham’s hand will not be said as of old.






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June 6, Thursday: In London, a dozen young men led by George Williams, an employee at and eventually the head of a drapery house, were forming a club for the “improvement of the spiritual condition of young men in the drapery and other trades.” Similar clubs would be spreading rapidly in the United Kingdom and would reach Australia in 1850, and the such first clubs in North America would be founded in Montreal and Boston in 1851.

This effort would come to be known as the Young Men’s Christian Association, the YMCA.

The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote his disciple Isaac Hecker that the Holy Roman Catholic Church was “the appointed medium of salvation”:

Why was it that his beloved guide was failing so utterly to recognize that his condition was that of a profound spiritual thirst, and failing so utterly to recognize that this thirst was leading him likewise toward a consumption of the institutional product? The pejorative remark about Hecker’s “mystical” nature greatly disturbed Hecker in his precarious condition.

June 24, Monday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Joseph Smith, Jr. arranged with Major-General Jonathan Dunham of the Nauvoo Legion that he was to be rescued from the jail, and surrendered to civil authorities to stand trial for riot and treason. He would be kept in the debtors’ room upstairs at the Carthage, Illinois jail.

You cannot be an Anglican, you must be a Catholic, or a mystic.





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July: Orestes Augustus Brownson went public with his own convincement:

Actual acceptance into the Holy Roman Catholic Church, however, would not occur until October 20th. During the intervening months Brownson would need to be studying theology under Bishop Fitzpatrick, a prelate who was most strongly suspicious of Brownson’s original doctrine of life and communion and who would insist upon careful tutoring of this particular hot potato in the traditional Scholastic apologetic.

While much of this was going down Henry David Thoreau wasn’t in the vicinity. He was hiking to Mount

Monadnock and Mount Greylock (Saddleback), where by prearrangement he would join up with Ellery

We have no wish to disguise the fact, nor could we, if we would— that our ecclesiastical, theological, and philosophicalstudies have brought us to the full conclusion, that, either theChurch in communion with the See of Rome is the one holy catholicapostolic church, or the one holy catholic does not exist.





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Channing, and then they would go on to the Hudson River, take a boat, and visit the Catskills.32

He wouldn’t be back in Concord until August.

July 15, Monday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

32. I have seen a report out of The Thoreau Society that he met, in Catskill, New York, the painters Thomas Cole and Frederick Church – but this is something I have been unable to verify.





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August 2, Friday: Isaac Hecker wrote to inform the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson that he was being baptized into the Roman Catholic faith in old St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Mott Street:

After Hecker’s dishonest plan to con Henry Thoreau into accompanying him on a disguised pilgrimage to Rome would fall through, he would enroll at the Cornelius Institute, a school designed to prepare candidates for the Christian ministry, and there recommence study of the classical languages.

August 17, Saturday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

September 5, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

It was reported in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Morning Post that:

Sidney Rigdon, who claimed the leadership of the church,

This morning I go to the [old St. Patrick’s] Cathedral to receive the Sacrament of baptism [from Bishop McCloskey]; tomorrow to confession, after that [May 18th, 1845] receive confirmation.... I have an idea of a project which I think would be more than one way beneficial to me. It is to make a penitential journey to Europe, even as far as Rome. To work my passage over the sea and to work walk and beg whatever distance I may go. A better penance I cannot think of. It is better much better than being a recluse either here or in a cloister. Do you think so? This project is only in thought in imagination. I have my eye upon one person who can live on bread and water and sleep upon the earth, who can walk his share; if he should consent to go I might go. It is Henry Thoreau I mean. We see not why pilgrimages may not be made now as well as they were in the Ages of Faith. If this thought becomes more serious with me I shall inform you, if so.... My time has been chiefly employed in reading books concerning the sacraments disciplines and ceremonies of the Church. Our feelings increase with the knowledge of the Catholic Church. (We feel an inward constraint to use the plural pronoun, we not why.)

My project of going to Europe has so far failed. Henry Thoreau is not disposed to go and under present circumstances I am not inclined to go on such a tour alone. This has thrown me back on the languages which may be of much more permanent good to me than the monk tour.






http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85054565/

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



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on the ground of his being the only survivor of theFir[s]t Presidency, and also, on the ground of hishaving been named by Joe [Joseph Smith] at one time, ashis successor, has had his claims rejected by theTwelve, who have decided not to have any man for leader,but that the church shall be governed by themcollectively.







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September 24, Tuesday: Robert Jamieson died.

The Reverend Charles Henry Appleton Dall got married with Caroline Wells Healey, whom he had first met during his stay at Divinity school and who had been serving as Vice-Principal of Miss English’s School for Young Ladies in Georgetown, District of Columbia.

They would evangelize together and the wife would briefly carry on alone after the husband again fell ill, in Boston.

The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker about his excellent adventure at Brook Farm, leading Mrs. Sophia Dana Ripley, the Reverend George Ripley’s first wife, and her niece Sarah F. Stearns in the direction of the Catholic Church:

(It has been alleged that of the Brook Farmers, William J. Davis, Buckley Hastings, George C. Leach, Charles King Newcomb, and Arthur Sumner also eventually converted to Catholicism.)

I have made slow progress, though a few of the preliminary steps have been taken, and I am in the hands of my confessor [Father John Bernard Fitzpatrick, 1812-1866], and follow his directions.… I was at Brook Farm last Sunday, & prepared a discourse to them. Two or three will become Catholics. Mr. [George] Ripley, I fear is worse than an infidel. The atmosphere of the place is horrible. Have no faith in such associations. They will be only gatherings of all that is vile, to fester and breed corruption.






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October: The following article about Thomas Wilson Dorr and his “Dorr War” in Rhode Island appeared in Orestes Augustus Brownson’s Brownson’s Quarterly Review:

The Suffrage Party in Rhode IslandIt is no pleasant task to us to review this work, a professedhistory of the proceedings of the late suffrage party in RhodeIsland. It is a work written with intense feeling, and veryconsiderable ability, by one for whom we entertain, and alwaysmust entertain, a very high personal regard. We find in it thespirit of a very high-toned woman, a woman’s deep sympathies,just sense of humanity, and, we may add, a woman’s reasoning,more perplexing than convincing, and better adapted to touch theheart than to satisfy the understanding. Moreover, we onceventured to call the individual principally concerned in theseproceedings our personal friend. We esteemed him as a man of nomean intellectual ability, of firm principles, of ardentdevotion to popular rights, a true-hearted patriot, and anhonest man. And of him, personally, we have seen no cause tochange our opinion. We have delighted to meet him, and feltourselves honored by his friendship. We should regard hisfriendship, which unhappily we do not retain, no less now heoccupies a prisoner’s cell, than formerly. We believe he actedfrom his convictions of right, that he was sincere in what heattempted, and that his only motive was to benefit the mass ofthe people of his native state.And yet we have never for one moment approved the proceedingsof the suffrage party. We, in common with the great body of theAmerican people, wished to see the elective franchise extendedto the great mass of those who could not be electors under theold established freehold qualification. Though not by any meansaccustomed to rate the elective franchise so high as do themembers generally of the political party with which we areassociated, and though very far from believing the acquisitionof universal suffrage equivalent to the acquisition of liberty,or that universal suffrage affords any considerable guaranty,in a country where inequality of property obtains, of wise orjust government,- we have yet believed it essential to theperfection of the political system adopted in this country, andhave therefore always advocated its general adoption.Accordingly, we were among those who encouraged the formationof the suffrage association, believing, as we did, that its onlydesign was to act on public opinion, and by the force of opinion,to compel the charter government to take measures for theformation and adoption of a more liberal constitution. Wewillingly accepted an invitation to address the association, inProvidence, early in January, 1841, in favor of an extension ofsuffrage. We watched the progress of the movement up to the timeof calling the suffrage convention, when, becoming engrossedwith other matters, we paid no more attention to the subject,till about the time when the new government under the people’sconstitution was preparing to organize itself. We regarded thewhole proceedings under that constitution as illegal and





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revolutionary; but we were not disposed to condemn them withmuch severity, because we could not perceive how any amendmentcould be legally introduced, or the evils complained of legallyredressed. We supposed the restriction on suffrage was aprovision of the charter, and, if so, it could not be alteredby any legal authority in the state, as the charter did notprovide for its own amendment.Taking this view of the question, we argued, that, let themeasures for the extension of suffrage, or the formation of anew constitution emanate from what source they might, from thesuffrage association or from the general assembly, since notauthorized by the charter from which existing authorities derivetheir existence and power, they must needs be, in fact, illegaland revolutionary. The people’s constitution is, we said,confessedly illegal in its origin; but so also must be aconstitution framed by a convention called by the generalassembly, for the general assembly has no authority from thecharter to call a convention. Since, then, the suffrageassociation have called a convention, since that convention hasframed a constitution, and since a majority of the people ofRhode Island, as it is alleged, have voted for it, it isdecidedly best to let it go peaceably into operation. It is not,it is true, a good constitution; it contains several veryobjectionable features; but as it provides for its ownamendment, it may hereafter be amended; and, bad as it is, itis better than the old charter. Presuming, from the informationwe received, that an immense majority of the people weresatisfied with it, we concluded that nothing was wanted but alittle firmness on the part of Mr. Dorr and his friends in itsdefense, to induce the charter party to yield, and suffer thenew government to go quietly into operation; and being also alittle indignant at what we regarded the unwarrantableinterference of the federal executive, we wrote to Mr. Dorr aletter, which he has since done us the honor to publish, andwhich we must have received a day or two before his attack onthe arsenal, detailing the conversation we had with a Whigmember of the Massachusetts legislature, and urging him tofirmness in asserting the constitution under which he waselected. That the letter may be construed into the expressionof approbation of Mr. Dorr’s principle of proceeding is verypossible, for it was hastily written for a special purpose; butit was not intended to express any approbation of any thing buthis cause, to wit, extension of suffrage; for that was all inhis proceedings we approved.But, after Mr. Dorr’s failure, it came out that the limitationof suffrage to a freehold qualification was not a provision of thecharter, but an act of the legislature. This changed the whole aspect of thecase; for now it could no longer be pretended that there was nolegal authority in the state competent to extend the electivefranchise to all to whom it could be advisable to extend it. Wesaw that we had reasoned from false premises, and had thereforecome to false conclusions. And when we met with a very able





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pamphlet on the subject by Mr. Elisha R. Potter, at present amember of congress from Rhode Island, we found that we couldnot, without belying our own cherished convictions, any longercountenance, in any form or manner, the proceedings of thesuffrage party. Since then, we have expressed, on variousoccasions, our dissent from them, and in some essays on theOrigin and Ground of Government, we discussed the whole doctrineinvolved in them with as much thoroughness as seemed to usnecessary.We have made these personal explanations, because our course inregard to the suffrage movement in Rhode Island has been muchmisrepresented, and adduced as another instance of ourfickleness and frequent changes of doctrine and position; andbecause it has been made the occasion of bringing us, to noinconsiderable extent, under the ban of our own party. We haveno apology to offer, and nothing of which to accuse ourselves,but that of relying on the representations made of the charterby our suffrage friends, instead of consulting the charteritself. Had we taken the proper pains to inform ourselves of itsreal character, in the first instance, we should have never fora moment seemed to occupy any other position in regard to thesuffrage movement than we do now; for our principles haveundergone no change, and we had expressed, had even written outand published, the some doctrines as applicable to the casebefore, that we have since, as any one may satisfy himself byconsulting Mr. Potter’s pamphlet to which we have alreadyalluded.On one point, however, the controversy growing out of the RhodeIsland suffrage movement has led us to reflect more than we hadpreviously done, and on which our views, if not changed, haveat least become clearer and more definite. We refer to what iscalled the sacred right of revolution. We believe the politicalsovereignty, under the spiritual sovereignty of Christ, whichhas always a visible embodiment and organ on earth, resides in thebody of the nation. We say nation instead of people, because the termis less ambiguous. The term nation conveys always the idea of acorporation, an organic body; while the word people may mean onlya numerical collection of individuals. A nation never existswithout a legal constitution of some sort, written or unwritten,and some legal forms or modes for collecting the national sense.Now, since the nation has a corporate existence by virtue of thefact that it is a nation, it possesses in itself the supremepolitical power, which commissions all the officers ofgovernment, and to which they are responsible. When theseofficers, or what is called the government, betray their trust,break the fundamental laws of the nation, whether those laws arewritten on parchment, or in the customs of the people existingfrom time immemorial, the nation, acting in accordance withthese laws and customs, may unmake the administrators of thegovernment, commission new ones, and institute new guarantiesagainst abuses, and even by force of arms, if necessary. So faras this is a right of revolution, we are advocates of that right,





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but no further. But so long as the legitimate administrators ofthe government observe the national laws, and administer thegovernment in accordance with them, honestly, and with a singleeye to the maintenance of justice, we hold all resistance to thecivil authority to be criminal. A revolution, for the merepurpose of changing the form of government, of substituting oneform of government for another, as monarchy for aristocracy, ordemocracy for monarchy, or vice versa, we hold to be neverjustifiable. The authorities must themselves transgress thenational laws, and put themselves thus out of the protection ofthe law, before the citizen or subject can have the right toresist them. We may resist tyrants and usurpers, but never thelawful magistrate in the lawful discharge of his officialfunctions.The principles here laid down will justify the colonists intheir separation from Great Britain, but not Mr. Dorr in hisattempted revolution in Rhode Island. Our fathers took up armsto resist an aggression on their constitutional and charteredrights. They contended, not that the British government hadinvaded or failed to secure certain assumed abstract rights ofman, but their rights as recognized by the British constitutionand the colonial charters. It is against George III as a tyrant,as violating the national laws, that they profess to take uparms; not against the king in the legal exercise of hisconstitutional prerogative. But the suffrage party plantedthemselves on no national law of Rhode Island, written orunwritten, they alleged, and could allege, no transgression, onthe part of the charter government, of any public law, nousurpation, no act of tyranny. They simply alleged that thecharter government did not correspond to their notions of thebest possible form of government, did not secure what theyregarded as the abstract rights of man; and they took up arms,not to expel a tyrant or usurper, but to establish a new formof government, more conformable to their notions of abstracttruth and justice.Here is a broad difference between the suffrage men and thepatriots of the revolution, which the author of the work beforeus has failed to recognize, and which would have prevented her,had she recognized it, from placing the heroes of Federal Hilland Chepachet on the same line with the heroes of Saratoga andYorktown. The former were, view them in what light you will,rebels against legitimate authority; but the latter wereresisting aggression, and vindicating the violated majesty ofthe laws. The suffrage men may have meant well, and they mayhave incurred no great share of moral guilt; for to moral guiltthere must be a guilty moral intent, or, what is the same thing,a culpable ignorance. But they were politically rebels, andcould be treated only as such by a government that respecteditself, and resolved to discharge its legal functions.We regard this question as one of vital importance in ourcountry. The laws have, with us, their chief support in publicopinion. Let that opinion become unsound or corrupt, and the





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laws lose their force, and we are without protection. If thedoctrine once obtain among us, that legal authority may be setaside for the purpose of making the government conform to ourabstract theories of human rights, there is no foreseeing thelawlessness and anarchy which will ensue. The symptoms arealready threatening; and recent riots and mobs, and, worse ofall, the delay and hesitancy of authority in using force fortheir suppression, and the very extensive doubts which obtainas to the rightfulness of resorting to force at all, are to usreally not a little alarming. We are, we own, sensitive on thissubject; when we reflect that we have recently come to entertaina faith extremely odious to the great majority of ourcountrymen, and when we see associations formed expressly forits suppression, its adherents shot down by an armed mob in thestreets, and its consecrated churches in flames, while therabble, not composed altogether of those commonly meant by thelower classes, look on and shout, we feel more and more thenecessity of rebuking the mobocratic spirit, in whatever formit may manifest itself, and more and more the necessity ofinculcating a reverence for law, and strict obedience to thelawful magistrate in the discharge of his lawful duties. Wecannot afford, in this country, to insist on “the sacred rightof insurrection,” for we shall, if we do, have bands ofinsurgents in every town, village, and hamlet, in the land.Whatever we may think of Mr. Dorr and his friends personally,we cannot approve their measures, or defend their doctrines,without a terrible hazard to the country, to all security ofpeace, life, property, and conscience.As to the proceedings of the law and order party in Rhode Island,we are far from believing that they are in all cases defensible.We are glad that that party has succeeded; but it is evident nowthat it magnified the real danger, and was less calm andcollected than it might have been. We think the friends of thegovernment suffered themselves to be exasperated beyond measure,and to practice, in some instances, cruelties which were ascowardly as they were uncalled for. But we must say for thepeople of Rhode Island of both parties, that in general theycame as near making war on Christian principles as could beexpected. They seem to have had a generous disposition to do aslittle harm as possible to their friends and neighbors. Still,we wish the friends of the government had shown a little moreconsideration to the prisoners taken at Chepachet after the warwas over, and, as they had shown much tenderness of heart duringthe battle, that they had continued to show the some in the flushof victory. They must have known that the suffrage men, women,and children, however mistaken or deluded, were not reallycriminally disposed, and would not have espoused the cause theydid, had they felt that it was morally wrong.But making all abatements for the panic and the momentarycruelty, we doubt whether, upon the whole, we ought not to saythat the Algerines, as they are called, conducted with singularmoderation and leniency, under the circumstances. We cannot





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wholly approve of their doings, but we do not think that theyare deserving any great severity of censure. It seems to us,that, since the panic subsided,- perhaps not an unreasonablepanic,- they have been disposed to let off the offenders aseasily as possible. The convictions and punishments have beenvery few; and we believe that there has been no one, chargedonly with a political offense, but could have escaped allpunishment by taking an oath of allegiance to the existinggovernment, and giving moderate bonds to keep the peace. We aresure no government was ever more moderate in its demands, orshowed itself more ready to forgive and forget the past.The case of Mr. Dorr is, we own, one of considerable hardship.Mr. Dorr had, we believe, no private ambition to gratify; weknow, personally, that he very reluctantly became involved inthe proceedings of the suffrage party, and we have no doubt thathe himself believed that he was engaged in a great and holycause, and perfectly justifiable in the course he took. It maybe said that he ought to have known better, lawyer as he was,and this cannot be denied; but when we find such men as Mr. VanBuren, Senators Benton and Allen, Governors Hubbard and Morton,and Messrs. Bancroft, M’Neil, Rantoul, and Hallett, supportinghim, and maintaining the strict justice and legality of hisproceedings, we may, perhaps, find some palliation of hisoffence. We can easily believe him free from moral guilt. Hisparty is so completely prostrated, and public opinion,notwithstanding appearances, is so decidedly against hisproceedings, that we do not believe that considerations ofpublic safety require his incarceration. Personally he has beenat least sufficiently punished. The government of Rhode Islandis as firmly established as that of any other state in the Union.Let it permit one, whose good intentions it has no reason todistrust, to tell it that it is strong enough to be generous.We own, the insane proceedings of individuals out of the statemust be offensive, and that no government that respects itselfcan yield to their demands. They are wrong. They are cruel toMr. Dorr, whose friends they pretend they are. They are reallyhis worst enemies. And yet the government can disregard them,and be generous without fear of misconstruction. An act ofclemency is sometimes worth more to a government than theinfliction of a merited punishment. The government has doneitself honor by imposing the heaviest penalty on the chiefinstead of the subalterns. It has vindicated the majesty of thelaw; it has shown its justice; now let it show its mercy, andblot out the memory of its past.We have been assured that the authorities of Rhode Island areready to liberate Mr. Dorr the moment he testifies hiswillingness to submit to the existing government, and to takethe oath of allegiance. That he should be reluctant to do thisis not strange. He holds that he has committed no offence; thatthe acts for which he is punished were done by him as therightful governor of the state, in the conscientious dischargeof his constitutional functions. His failure to maintain his





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authority before superior force did not and could not vitiatehis title, or render his acts criminal. Shall he now yield,acknowledge himself guilty, and sue for pardon? No; better dieon the scaffold, or rot in the dungeon. This is the view whichhe takes.We hope we are able to reverence the martyr spirit wherever wesee it displayed; and we frankly own, that, if we took Mr. Dorr’sown view of his case, we should look upon him as a sublimeexample of moral heroism. But he himself must be aware that thereis something to be said on the other side. Even his acceptanceof the office of governor under the people’s constitution wastreason by the law of the state. Of this he cannot doubt. Thenhe was not the rightful governor of the state; and if not therightful governor of the state, there can be no question thatthe acts that he performed rendered him guilty of treason. Theact of the general assembly, April 6, 1842, entitled “An act inrelation to offences against the sovereign power of the state,”declared his attempt to exercise the office of governor to betreason; and that law was valid, because the general assemblywas still in the full exercise of all its legislative functions,had been superseded by no law paramount to its own, and was, infact, the only known legislative authority in Rhode Island. Itis idle to pretend, that, on the 6th of April, 1842, the generalassembly had ceased to exist, or in any sense been superseded.An association, unrecognized by any public law or any publicauthority, had, it is true, framed an instrument which wascalled a constitution, had sent it out, and a number of personsin Rhode Island, said to be a majority of all the adult malesin the state, recorded their names in its favor, and certainindividuals, equally unknown to all existing public authority,declared it to be the paramount law of the land. But this couldnot make it so. Everybody knows that it was not the paramountlaw of the land de facto. Was it the paramount law de jure? Itsadvocates say now, indeed, that it was, because a majority ofthe people of Rhode Island had voted for it. But to this we mayreply, 1, That the fact, that a majority did vote for it, hasnever been legally ascertained, and is more than questionable;2. That it is well known that the intent of large numbers whodid vote for it was, not to establish it as the constitution ofthe state, but simply to record their opinion in favor of anextension of suffrage; and 3. That, even if a majority had votedfor it with the intent to adopt it as a constitution, it wouldnot have been the paramount law of the land, because there wasno law in Rhode Island, written or unwritten, which declared thewill of the majority of the adult male population the supremelaw. Furthermore, the existing public authorities ignored it, andits warmest and most influential friends did not hesitate toacknowledge the legality of the existing authorities, by holdingseats in the general assembly, and participating in its doings.Mr. Atwill, a legal gentleman of respectable attainments, andsubsequently Mr. Dorr’s attorney general, when the question came





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up in the assembly, was unwilling to give it as his opinion thatthe people’s constitution was the paramount law of the land, andeven expressed a doubt to the contrary. The whole conduct of thesuffrage party at the time shows that they entertained the somedoubt. The propositions made respectively by Messrs. Burgess andKeech, two of Mr. Dorr’s friends, to the assembly,- propositionsto abandon, on certain conditions, the people’s constitution,-showed that it was not regarded by them as having any legalforce; for, if they had so regarded it, they could not have madepropositions for setting it aside, for they would have regardedsuch propositions as treasonable.But if this constitution was not at that time the paramount lawof the land, as it was not, either in fact or in right, or evenin the estimation of its friends, the general assembly was infull force as the supreme legislative authority of the state.Consequently, its legal acts were binding on all the citizensof the state. They were, then, binding on Mr. Dorr, and, by doingwhat it declared to be treason, he incurred the political guiltof treason, and therefore became obnoxious to the penaltyannexed. Now, since nothing can be clearer than that he is guiltyof treason according to the laws of his state, there can be noreal self-abasement or want of manliness, in admitting the fact,by submitting to the existing authorities, and consenting toreceive a pardon.We say further, that, setting all this reasoning aside, Mr. Dorris bound by his own principles to submit to the existinggovernment, and to take the oath of allegiance. Mr. Dorrcontends that the majority of the people have the inherent rightto rule. This, with him, is a natural right, as least recognizedas such by the American system of government. We, of course, donot admit this; but he does, and that is enough for him. Thewill of the majority, therefore, however expressed, is thesupreme law. The people’s constitution was adopted by themajority of the people; therefore it was the supreme law. He waselected governor under that constitution, and therefore he waslegally elected, and therefore was the rightful governor of thestate. Be it so. But, subsequently to the adoption of thepeople’s constitution, a majority of the people of Rhode Islandadopted another constitution. This subsequent constitutionnecessarily overrides the preceding one. Now, if the will of themajority has a right to rule, it has the right to rule throughthis subsequent constitution; for this is the latest expressionof their will. Consequently, Mr. Dorr is bound by his ownprinciples to recognize it as the legitimate government, and maytherefore take the oath of allegiance without abandoning in theleast the principles for which he has contended. We aresurprised that he did not see this, and avail himself of thisargument, before his trial; for we presume, that, if he had doneso, and taken the oath, he would not have been brought to a trialat all.But we have no room to extend our remarks. We have merely wished,while expressing our sympathy with Mr. Dorr, and our earnest





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desire for his liberation and restoration to his social andcivil rights, to say a word in defence of the authorities ofRhode Island. We believe the government of Rhode Island is muchcalumniated, and that, if the American people fairly understoodthe case, they would by no means tolerate the abuse so liberallyheaped upon it. For ourselves, we believe that the interest ofhumanity and social progress are fully as likely to be promotedby siding with the public authorities in the legal discharge oftheir legal functions, as with those who resist them. It is notthe part of good citizens to take it for granted that thegovernment is always in the wrong, and that they who resist arealways in the right. As a general rule, the interests of socialand individual progress and well-being require us to sustain theconstituted authorities, and always when these authorities keepwithin the sphere of their constitutional powers.For the book which we have introduced, we have not much to say.It is ably, in some passages eloquently, and even powerfully,written. It is not always correct in its details, and is veryfar from possessing the true character of an historical work.The most we can say of it is, that it is an able, an eloquent,apology for Mr. Dorr and his friends,- as able as any thing wehave written on the subject. But it is so erroneous in itspremises, so false in its conclusions, so dangerous in itsdoctrines, so well calculated to mislead, and to undermine thefoundations of all proper respect for authority, for law, thatwe dare not recommend it to our readers.

READ EDWARD FIELD TEXT




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/02/1902RI_EdwardField_Dorr.pdf


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October 20, Sunday: Frederick Douglass spoke again at Liberty Hall in New Bedford, before the Bristol County Anti-Slavery Society.

Orestes Augustus Brownson was formally accepted by the Catholics.

October 29, Tuesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

November 26, Tuesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Frederick Douglass lectured in the Town Hall of Cambridgeport, Massachusetts for the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society.

After my union with the Church was fully completed I asked myself what now is my next step? What can I do? The idea of a pilgramage siezed me with much force and had I succeeded in getting a comrade in all probability I should not now be here. I did not, and the project is delayed probably to die forever at least in that form.





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By this point Orestes Augustus Brownson had abandoned the particular theological speculations which had originally brought him to the Roman Catholic Church. Abandoning, for instance, his doctrine of communion, he embraced a far less original and far more conventional historical approach, an apologetics that continued along the general lines since the Counter-Reformation, by offering the Catholic Church as (necessary) witness to Revelation, and its (infallible) interpreter.33 As a theory of the development of doctrine was more and more elaborated by Brownson’s contemporary, the English convert John Henry Newman, Brownson took detailed exception to his ideas. When the revolutionary troubles began in Europe, Brownson reacted as any authoritarian institutionalist would have reacted.

January 14, Tuesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

1845

33. For details, see the various pieces from the period collected in the book ESSAYS AND REVIEWS, and see in particular the article from Brownson’s Quarterly Review entitled “The Church against No-Church,” in which Orestes Augustus Brownson argues not only that the Catholic Church is essential for salvation but also that outside the Church there is only “no-churchism.”





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January 15, Wednesday: On this day this letter from somebody in Boston to the postmaster of Pemberton, Massachusetts was traveling cross-state on the Boston & Worcester & Western RR:


Brigham Young “got married with” Mary Ann Clark.





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May 8, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Captain Edward H. Faucon (sketched below by a Chinese artist during this year) sailed the Frolic out of Bombay Harbor and headed for Macau anchorage.

To demonstrate her worthiness, he arranged to race against the Anodyne, a 275-ton brig formerly of the Royal Yacht Squadron but at that point in the possession of the merchant empire of Jardine, Matheson & Co. of Hong Kong.

The near-shipload of opium which had been rounded up for this new ship from various sources had cost the owners more than $400,000, although it was not monopoly opium produced in Patna and exported through Calcutta by the British East India Company, but opium of considerably lower grade produced independently in the Malwa uplands and exported through Bombay by Parsee (Indian Zoroastrian) and Hindu merchant trading houses. It was necessary to keep very close tabs on the quality of such bootleg drug, as it frequently had been “extended” by the addition of inert ingredients such as cowshit, fruit juices, clay, etc., a process which could be repeated a number of times by a number of different middlemen.

May 18, Sunday: Isaac Hecker was confirmed as a member of the Roman Catholic Church by Bishop McCloskey of Boston, adopting the confirmation name of Thomas in memory of St. Thomas of Aquino.34 Bishop McCloskey knew a Jesuit when one bit him, even from the cradle, and was shoving Hecker in that direction, while Bishop Fitzpatrick was touting the Dominicans, Prelate John Joseph Hughes of New-York was touting the secular clergy — and Orestes Augustus Brownson was touting, now get this, the Carthusians.35

34. His brother George, who had also converted, would also be confirmed in this month in the Catholic faith. 35. As the one about the young sultan who received the gift of a 14-girl harem on his 14th birthday goes,

“I know what to do, but where do I start?”

merchantprinces:

INDIA




This pencil sketch was made by a Chinese artist in 1845.


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June 25, Wednesday: On this day and also the following one, Frederick Douglass would be lecturing at the Quarterly meeting of the Worcester County South Division Anti-Slavery Society, in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.


July 23, Wednesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Waldo Emerson delivered “Discourse” at Middlebury College in Vermont. On the following Sunday the local minister would pray to God that his congregation of faithful be delivered from evil:

July 24, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

July 25, Friday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

July 29, Tuesday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

July 31, Thursday: The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Isaac Hecker.

September 18, Thursday: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

September 25, Thursday: One of Isaac Hecker’s relatives wrote to Mr. Orestes Augustus Brownson:

We beseech Thee, O Lord, to deliver us from everhearing any more such transcendental nonsense as wehave just listened to.

We received a letter from Isaac yesterday and he wishedme to write to you that he had arrived in very goodhealth in 25 days he had a very pleasant passage andhe would write to you when he arrived at St Trond whichwould be a few days. He feels that it is the goal thathe has for years secretly wished for. I hope you willwrite as often as you can for I think the advice youwould give him would be of great benefit to him.

His leaving has come very severe upon mother she canhardly overcome it. If you have any Catholic news ifit will not be asking too much would you be so kind asto send them on to me I shall be grateful to you for it.




Popularly, at the time, "transcendental" was a synonym for "intuitive."



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Spring: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 1:

Before completing his seminary studies and while not yet 20 years of age, Emmanuel-Henri-Dieudonné Domenech journeyed from France to America in response to an urgent appeal for missionaries to sponsor Catholicism among white immigrants arriving in Texas. He would be spending an initial two years in St. Louis completing his theological course, studying English and German, and otherwise preparing himself for missionary labors.

Summer: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 2:

1846

I. Faith not possible without the church

II. National Greatness

III. “Dangers of Jesuit Instruction,” a sermon preached at SecondPresbyterian Church in St. Louis, Sept. 25, 1845.

IV. Methodist Quarterly Review

V. The Roman Church and Modern Society [translated from French byProfessor Quinet]

VI. Literary Criticisms

MAGAZINES

ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON

I. Christian Ethics

1. Concerning Matrimony

2. Concerning Justice and Law

3. Compendium of Moral Theology of St. Alphonsus

4. Moral Theology of Bishop Kenrick, Philadelphia

II. “The Church a Historical Fact,” by Robert Manning

III. Influence of the Jesuits on Religion and Civilization

IV. The Presbyterian Confession of Faith

V. Schiller’s Aesthetic Theory

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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September 13: Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Fall: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 3:

November 1, Sunday: Isaac Hecker wrote from the Redemptorist house of studies in Wittem, Holland attempting to express his mystical experiences to Orestes Augustus Brownson, his fellow pilgrim in faith. He would be sent on from this house to Clapham, London where he would complete the necessary priestly formation in order to receive his ordination.

Winter: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 4:

I. “Liberalism and Catholicity” [A letter from a Protestant minister,with a reply]

II. The Confessional

III. Newman’s Development of Christian Doctrine

IV. Protestantism Ends in Transcendentalism

V. Literary Notices and Criticisms


CATHOLICISM

I. Transcendentalism – Concluded

II. Presbyterianism and the Holy Scriptures

III. New Versions and the Vulgate

1. A version of the Four Gospels, with notes. By a Catholic.

2. The Four Gospels, translated From the Greekby George Campbell, D.D.

IV. Fletcher Webster on War and Loyalty [An oration delivered beforethe authorities of Boston in the Tremont Temple, July 4, 1846.By Fletcher Webster.

V. The Late Bishop of Boston – Joseph Fenwick, second bishop ofBoston.

VI. Thornberry Abbey: A Tale of the Times


CATHOLICISM





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December 31, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson’s POEMS was published by James Munroe. (It had been James Munroe and Company which had issued Alcott’s disastrous self-published CONVERSATIONS WITH CHILDREN ON THE GOSPEL.) Emerson’s little gift volume was bound in a white cover.36 The Boston Courier described it as “one of the most peculiar and original volumes of poetry ever published in the United States.”37 The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, repenting his earlier involvement with Transcendentalism, was more specific in The Massachusetts Quarterly Review: these were not poems, in this little gift volume bound in a white cover, they were “hymns to the devil.”

Clearly, in this winter period Henry Thoreau was perusing this new volume, for in his journal we discover two snippets from Waldo’s poems that eventually would find their way into A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

And of late the victor whom all our Pindars praised — has won another palm. contending with“Olympian bards who sungDivine Ideas below,Which always find us young,And always keep us so.”

Aspiring to guide that chariot which coursed olympia’s sky. — What will the Delphians say & Eleusinian priests— where will the Immortals hide their secrets now — which earth or Sea — mountain or stream — or Musesspring or grove — is safe from his all searching eye — who drives off apollo’s beaten track — visits unwontedzones — & makes the serpent writhe {MS blotted} a nile-like river of our day flow back — and hide its head.Spite of the eternal law, from his

“lips of cunning fellThe thrilling Delphic oracle.”

I have seen some impudent connecticut or Down east man in his crack coaster with tort sail, standing beside hisgalley with his dog with folded arms while his cock crowed aboard — scud through the surf by some fastanchored Staten Island farm — but just outside the line where the astonished Dutchman digs his clams, or halfploughs his cabbage garden with unbroken steeds & ropy harness. — while his squat bantam whose faint voicethe lusty shore wind drownd responded feebly there for all reply

I have awakened in the morning with the impression that some question had been put to me which I had beenstruggling to answer in my sleep — but there was dawning nature, in whom all creatures live — looking in atthe window, with serene & satisfied face and no question on her lips.

Men are not commonly greatly serviceable to one another — because they are not serviceable to themselves —Their lives are devoted to trivial ends, and they invite only to an intercourse which degrades one another. Someare too weakly sensitive by a defect of their constitution, magnifying what{Twenty-eight pages missing}

36. Bear in mind that New Englanders in that era were exchanging gifts at the New Year’s holiday rather than at Christmas. Emerson’s little book bound in a white cover was intended for that market — a holiday, and a market, that was being associated at that time in that place with irreligious downtown carousing rather than with any form of religiosity.37. A copy of this volume has indeed been found in the personal library of Henry Thoreau, presumably his source not only for these snippets from “Ode to Beauty” and “The Problem” in the “Sunday” chapter of A WEEK, but also for references to the Emerson poems “Concord Hymn,” “Musketaquid,” “Woodnotes,” and “The Humble-Bee.”

EMERSON’S POEMS




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/80S/86/1886_EmersonPOEMS.pdf


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A WEEK: But, above all, in our native port, did we not frequentthe peaceful games of the Lyceum, from which a new era will bedated to New England, as from the games of Greece. For ifHerodotus carried his history to Olympia to read, after the cestusand the race, have we not heard such histories recited there,which since our countrymen have read, as made Greece sometimes tobe forgotten? — Philosophy, too, has there her grove and portico,not wholly unfrequented in these days. Lately the victor, whomall Pindars praised, has won another palm, contending with

“Olympian bards who sung Divine ideas below, Which always find us young, And always keep us so.”

What earth or sea, mountain or stream, or Muses’ spring or grove,is safe from his all-searching ardent eye, who drives off Phoebus’beaten track, visits unwonted zones, makes the gelid Hyperboreansglow, and the old polar serpent writhe, and many a Nile flow backand hide his head!

That Phaeton of our day,Who’d make another milky way, And burn the world up with his ray;

By us an undisputed seer, —Who’d drive his flaming car so near Unto our shuddering mortal sphere,

Disgracing all our slender worth,And scorching up the living earth, To prove his heavenly birth.

The silver spokes, the golden tire,Are glowing with unwonted fire, And ever nigher roll and nigher;

The pins and axle melted are,The silver radii fly afar, Ah, he will spoil his Father’s car!

Who let him have the steeds he cannot steer?Henceforth the sun will not shine for a year; And we shall Ethiops all appear.

From his

“lips of cunning fell The thrilling Delphic oracle.”

And yet, sometimes,We should not mind if on our ear there fell Some less of cunning, more of oracle.

HERODOTUS





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MusketaquidBecause I was content with these poor fields, Low, open meads, slender and sluggish streams, And found a home in haunts which others scorned, The partial wood-gods overpaid my love, And granted me the freedom of their state, And in their secret senate have prevailed With the dear, dangerous lords that rule our life, Made moon and planets parties to their bond, And through my rock-like, solitary wont Shot million rays of thought and tenderness.For me, in showers, insweeping showers, the Spring Visits the valley; — break away the clouds,—I bathe in the morn’s soft and silvered air, And loiter willing by yon loitering stream. Sparrows far off, and nearer, April’s bird, Blue-coated, flying before from tree to tree, Courageous sing a delicate overture To lead the tardy concert of the year. Onward and nearer rides the sun of May; And wide around, the marriage of the plants Is sweetly solemnized. Then flows amain The surge of summer’s beauty; dell and crag, Hollow and lake, hillside and pine arcade, Are touched with genius. Yonder ragged cliff Has thousand faces in a thousand hours.

Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Through which at will our Indian rivulet Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here in pine houses built of new-fallen trees, Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell. Traveller, to thee, perchance, a tedious road, Or, it may be, a picture; to these men, The landscape is an armory of powers, Which, one by one, they know to draw and use. They harness beast, bird, insect, to their work; They prove the virtues of each bed of rock, And, like the chemist ’mid his loaded jars Draw from each stratum its adapted use To drug their crops or weapon their arts withal.They turn the frost upon their chemic heap, They set the wind to winnow pulse and grain, They thank the spring-flood for its fertile slime, And, on cheap summit-levels of the snow, Slide with the sledge to inaccessible woods O’er meadows bottomless. So, year by year, They fight the elements with elements (That one would say, meadow and forest walked. Transmuted in these men to rule their like), And by the order in the field disclose The order regnant in the yeoman’s brain.

What these strong masters wrote at large in miles, I followed in small copy in my acre; For there’s no rood has not a star above it; The cordial quality of pear or plum Ascends as gladly in a single tree As in broad orchards resonant with bees; And every atom poises for itself,





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And for the whole. The gentle deities Showed me the lore of colors and of sounds, The innumerable tenements of beauty, The miracle of generative force, Far-reaching concords of astronomy Felt in the plants and in the punctual birds; Better, the linked purpose of the whole, And, chiefest prize, found I true liberty In the glad home plain-dealing Nature gave.The polite found me impolite; the great Would mortify me, but in vain; for still I am a willow of the wilderness, Loving the wind that bent me. All my hurts My garden spade can heal. A woodland walk, A quest of river-grapes, a mocking thrush, A wild-rose, or rock-loving columbine, Salve my worst wounds. For thus the wood-gods murmured in my ear: ’Dost love our manners? Canst thou silent lie? Canst thou, thy pride forgot, like Nature pass Into the winter night’s extinguished mood? Canst thou shine now, then darkle, And being latent, feel thyself no less? As, when the all-worshipped moon attracts the eye, The river, hill, stems, foliage are obscure, Yet envies none, none are unenviable.

Thoreau would also extract from Emerson’s poem “Woodnotes”:

A WEEK:

Beneath low hills, in the broad interval Through which at will our Indian rivulet Winds mindful still of sannup and of squaw, Whose pipe and arrow oft the plough unburies, Here, in pine houses, built of new-fallen trees,Supplanters of the tribe, the farmers dwell.

— EMERSON.






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The Humble-BeeBurly dozing humblebee!Where thou art is clime for me.Let them sail for Porto Rique,Far-off heats through seas to seek,I will follow thee alone,Thou animated torrid zone!Zig-zag steerer, desert-cheerer,Let me chase thy waving lines,Keep me nearer, me thy hearer,Singing over shrubs and vines.

Insect lover of the sun,Joy of thy dominion!Sailor of the atmosphere,Swimmer through the waves of air,Voyager of light and noon,Epicurean of June,Wait I prithee, till I comeWithin ear-shot of thy hum,—All without is martyrdom.

When the south wind, in May days,With a net of shining haze,Silvers the horizon wall,And, with softness touching all,Tints the human countenanceWith a color of romance,And, infusing subtle heats,Turns the sod to violets,Thou in sunny solitudes,Rover of the underwoods,The green silence dost displace,With thy mellow breezy bass.

Hot midsummer’s petted crone,Sweet to me thy drowsy tune,Telling of countless sunny hours,Long days, and solid banks of flowers,Of gulfs of sweetness without boundIn Indian wildernesses found,

A WEEK:

“He trode the unplanted forest floor, whereon The all-seeing sun for ages hath not shone, Where feeds the moose, and walks the surly bear, And up the tall mast runs the woodpecker.

. . . . . . . . .Where darkness found him he lay glad at night; There the red morning touched him with its light.

. . . . . . . . .Go where he will, the wise man is at home, His hearth the earth, — his hall the azure dome; Where his clear spirit leads him, there’s his road, By God’s own light illumined and foreshowed.”

— EMERSON.





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Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure,Firmest cheer and bird-like pleasure.

Aught unsavory or unclean,Hath my insect never seen,But violets and bilberry bells,Maple sap and daffodels,Grass with green flag half-mast high,Succory to match the sky,Columbine with horn of honey,Scented fern, and agrimony,Clover, catch fly, adders-tongue,And brier-roses dwelt among;All beside was unknown waste,All was picture as he passed.

Wiser far than human seer,Yellow-breeched philosopher!Seeing only what is fair,Sipping only what is sweet,Thou dost mock at fate and care,Leave the chaff and take the wheat,When the fierce north-western blastCools sea and land so far and fast,Thou already slumberest deep,—Woe and want thou canst out-sleep,—Want and woe which torture us,Thy sleep makes ridiculous.

A WEEK: This noontide was a fit occasion to make some pleasantharbor, and there read the journal of some voyageur likeourselves, not too moral nor inquisitive, and which would notdisturb the noon; or else some old classic, the very flower ofall reading, which we had postponed to such a season

“Of Syrian peace, immortal leisure.”

But, alas, our chest, like the cabin of a coaster, contained onlyits well-thumbed “Navigator” for all literature, and we wereobliged to draw on our memory for these things.





HDT WHAT? INDEX

Spring: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 1

Summer: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 2

1847

I. The Two Brothers; or, Why are you a Protestant?

II. Newman’s Theory of Christian Doctrine

III. Madness of Antichristians [By M. Michelet.translated by G.H. Smith]

IV. Natural and Supernatural

V. Religious Novels

VI. Literary and Miscellaneous Notices

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Two Brothers; or, Why are you a Protestant? (Continued)

II. Protestant Dissensions

1. Religious Dissensions: their cause and cure.

2. The Catastrophe of the Presbyterian Church in 1837

III. The Presbyterian Confession of Faith. Election and Reprobation.

IV. Recent Publications

1. The Chapel of the Forest, and Christmas Eve

2. Lorenzo; or The Empire of Religion

3. The Elder’s House, or the Three Converts

4. Pauline Seward; a Tale of Real Life. By John D. Bryant

V. Papal Encyclical of Pope Pius IX

VI. R.W. Emerson’s Poems

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





HDT WHAT? INDEX

Fall: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 3

Winter: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 4

I. The Two Brothers; or, Why are you a Protestant? (Continued)

II. The Jesuits

III. Slavery and the Mexican War [Speech of the Hon. R.B. Rhett, ofSouth Carolina, on the Oregon Territory Bill, excluding slavery fromthat territory. Delivered in the House of Rep., Jan. 14, 1847]

IV. Spanish America

V. American Literature

VI. Literary Notices and Criticisms

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Great Question [The Exercise of Faith is impossible except inthe Catholic Church]

II. De Maistre on Political Constitutions

III. The Dublin Review on Developments

IV. St. Stanislaus Kotska [The Life of St. Stanislaus Kotska, of theSociety of Jesus, Patron of Novices]

V. The Presbyterian Confession of Faith


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





HDT WHAT? INDEX



1848

I. Admonitions to Protestants

II. Dr. Jarvis’s Reply to Dr. Milner [Concerning the churches of theEnglish communion]

III. Novel-Writing and Novel-Reading

IV. Briancourt on Labor and Association [by Matthew Briancourt,translated By Francis George Shaw]

V. The Two Brothers; or, Why are you a Protestant? (Continued)

VI. Pius the Ninth

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Admonitions to Protestants, No. II

II. Catholicity and Political Liberty

III. Monastery of La Cava

IV. Thornwell’s Answer to Dr. Lynch [Concerning the Apocryphalbooks of the O.T.]

V. The Social Effects of Protestantism

VI. Padre Ventura’s Funeral Oration

VII. The Dublin Review and Ourselves

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





HDT WHAT? INDEX



I. Thornwell on Inspiration and Infallibility

II. Admonitions to Protestants. No. III

III. The Church, as it was, is, and Ought to Be.

IV. Influence of Catholic Prayer on Civilization [translated From Italian]

V. Recent European Events

1. The French Revolution of 1848

2. The Falcon Family, or Young Ireland


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Thornwell against Infallibility

II. Conservatism and Radicalism

III. Grantley Manor, or Popular Literature

IV. The Pentateuch

V. Doctrinal Developments [The Dublin Review. No. XLVI. Art. VI]

VI. St. Dominic and the Albigenses

VII. Literary Notices and Criticisms

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





HDT WHAT? INDEX


1849

I. The Catholic Press

II. Hawkstone, or Oxfordism [Hawkstone: a Tale of and for England]

III. Shandy M’Guire: or Irish Liberty

IV. Socialism and the Church



CATHOLICISM





HDT WHAT? INDEX

May 30, Wednesday: As the last Wednesday in May, this was Election Day.

James Munroe and Co. published Henry Thoreau’s A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS with the notice in its endpapers, “Will soon be published, WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. By Henry D. Thoreau.”

The author had included comments on the captivity narrative of Hannah Emerson Duston in the “Thursday” chapter,38 recycling some material about the validity of historicizing which he had originally created while contemplating the captivity narrative of Mistress Mary Rowlandson of Lancaster after hiking past the rocky terrain on which Rowlandson had been ransomed and which he had previously incorporated into “A Walk to Wachusett”:

Bob Pepperman Taylor has, in his monograph on the political content of Thoreau’s ideas AMERICA’S BACHELOR UNCLE: THOREAU AND THE AMERICAN POLITY. (Lawrence KA: UP of Kansas, 1996), provided a most interesting analysis of Thoreau’s accessing of the Hannah Emerson Duston story. The author starts his chapter “Founding” by offering three Waldo Emerson sound bytes by way of providing us with a typically

38. The version of the Reverend Cotton Mather, the version of Friend John Greenleaf Whittier, the Nathaniel Hawthorne version, and the Thoreau version of the Hannah Emerson Duston captivity narrative may now best be contrasted in Richard Bosman’s CAPTIVITY NARRATIVE OF HANNAH DUSTON RELATED BY COTTON MATHER, JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE AND HENRY DAVID THOREAU, FOUR VERSIONS OF EVENTS IN 1697, INTERSPERCED WITH THIRTY-FIVE WOOD-BLOCK PRINTS BY RICHARD BOSMAN (San Francisco CA: Arion Press, 1987). Also see Arner, Robert. “The Story of Hannah Duston: Cotton Mather to Thoreau.” American Transcendental Quarterly 18 (1973):19-23.

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

On beholding a picture of a New England village as itthen appeared, with a fair open prospect, and a lighton trees and river, as if it were broad noon, we findwe had not thought the sun shone in those days, or thatmen lived in broad daylight then. We do not imagine thesun shining on hill and valley during Philip’s war, noron the war-path of Paugus, or Standish, or Church, orLovell, with serene summer weather, but a dim twilightor night did those events transpire in. They must havefought in the shade of their own dusky deeds.

CAPTIVITY AND RESTAURATION





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trivial Emersonian take on the concepts of nature and freedom:

Bob Pepperman Taylor points up in his monograph how tempted Emerson scholars have been, to presume that Thoreau would have shared such a perspective on nature and freedom, and offers C. Roland Wagner as a type case for those who have fallen victim to such an easy identification of the two thinkers. Here is Wagner as he presented him, at full crank:

Thoreau’s uncompromising moral idealism, despite its occasionalembodiment in sentences of supreme literary power, created anessentially child’s view of political and social reality.Because his moral principles were little more than expressionsof his quest for purity and of hostility to any civilizedinterference with the absolute attainment of his wishes, he wasunable to discriminate between better and worse in the realworld.

Taylor’s comment on this sort of writing is that

if Thoreau holds an understanding of nature and freedom similarto that found in Emerson’s writings, we cannot expect a socialand political commentary of any real sophisticationor significance. In this event, it is easy to think that Thoreauis little more than a self-absorbed egoist. There are goodreasons to believe, however, that Thoreau’s views aresignificantly different than Emerson’s on these matters. Infact, these differences can be dramatically illustratedby looking at Thoreau’s first book, A WEEK ON THE CONCORD ANDMERRIMACK RIVERS. In this work Thoreau immerses himself inAmerican colonial history, specifically investigating therelationship between Indian and European settler. Far from

“The old is for slaves.”

“Do not believe the past. I give you the universe a virgin today.”

“Build, therefore, your own world.”





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encouraging us to escape our past, to cut ourselves off from oursocial legacies and the determinative facts of our collectivelives, Thoreau provides us with a tough, revealing look at thehistorical events and conditions and struggles that have givenbirth to contemporary American society ... what is thought ofas a painfully personal and apolitical book is actually asophisticated meditation on the realities and consequences ofthe American founding.

In other words, Taylor is going to offer to us the idea that Emerson was not, and Thoreau was, a profound political thinker. He goes on in this chapter “Founding” to further elaborations upon the overlooked sophistication of the political analysis offered by Thoreau in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

Thoreau begins his book with the following sentence:“The Musketaquid, or Grass-ground River, though probably as oldas the Nile or Euphrates, did not begin to have a place incivilized history, until the fame of its grassy meadows and itsfish attracted settlers out of England in 1635, when it receivedthe other but kindred name of Concord form the first plantationson its banks, which appears to have been commenced in a spiritof peace and harmony.” Out of respect for historical chronology,Thoreau presents the Indian before the English name for theriver. The river itself and, by implication, the nativeinhabitants are of ancient lineage, while “Concord” and thepeople responsible for this name are relative newcomers. In thesecond sentence of text, Thoreau explains that the Indian nameis actually superior to the English, since it will remaindescriptively accurate as long as “grass grows and water runshere,” while Concord is accurate only “while men lead peacablelives on its banks” -- something obviously much less permanentthan the grass and flowing water. In fact, the third sentenceindicates that “Concord” has already failed to live up to itsname, since the Indians are now an “extinct race.” Thoreauwastes no time in pointing out that regardless of the “spiritof peace and harmony” that first moved the whites to establisha plantation on this river, relations between the natives andthe settlers soon exhibited very little concord indeed. In theseopening sentences Thoreau presents us with an indication of aprimary problem motivating his trip down the Concord andMerrimack Rivers: he hopes to probe the nature of therelationship between Indian and white societies and to considerthe importance of this relationship for understanding ourAmerica. Joan Burbick, one of the few to recognize the primacyof the political theme underlying Thoreau’s voyage, writes thatin this book Thoreau “tries to forge the uncivil history ofAmerica.” We know the end of the story already: one “race”annihilates the other. Part of Thoreau’s intention is to not letus forget this critical truth about our society, to remind usthat our founding is as bloody and unjust as any, try as we mayto put this fact out of sight and tell alternative stories aboutour past. As the story progresses throughout the book, however,we see that another intention is to explain the complexity and





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ambiguity of the historical processes that led to and beyondthis bloody founding. The history Thoreau presents is “uncivil”in two senses: first, and most obviously, it is about violent,brutal, uncivil acts; second, it is not the official or commonself-understanding that the nation wants to hold. Thoreau’sjourney is not only aimed at personal self-discovery, despitethe obvious importance of that theme for the book. On thecontrary, the opening sentences and the problems they posesuggest that Thoreau is first and foremost interested in aproject of discovery for the nation as a whole, the success ofwhich will depend upon looking carefully at the relationshipbetween settler and native. The project of self-discovery is tobe accomplished within the context of this larger socialhistory. Thoreau’s personal and more private ruminations are setquite literally between ongoing discussions of events from thecolonial life of New England. We are never allowed to forget forvery long that our contemporary private lives are bounded by,in some crucial sense defined within, the possibilities createdby this earlier drama of Indian and colonist.Duston is taken from childbed by attacking Indians, sees “herinfant’s brain dashed out against an apple-tree,” and is heldcaptive with her nurse, Mary Neff, and an English boy, SamuelLennardson. She is told that she and her nurse will be taken toan Indian settlement where they will be forced to “run thegauntlet naked.” To avoid this fate, Duston instructs the boyto ask one of the men how to best kill an enemy and take a scalp.The man obliges, and that night Duston, Neff, and Lennardson usethis information to kill all the Indians, except a “favoriteboy, and one squaw who fled wounded with him to the woods” --the victims are two men, two women, and six children. They thenscuttle all the canoes except the one needed for their escape.They flee, only to return soon thereafter to scalp the dead asproof of the ordeal. They then manage to paddle the sixty or somiles to John Lovewell’s house and are rescued. The Generalcourt pays them fifty pounds as bounty for the ten scalps, andDuston is reunited with her family, all of whom, except theinfant, have survived the attack. Thoreau ends the story bytelling us that “there have been many who in later times havelived to say that they had eaten of the fruit of that appletree,” the tree upon which Duston’s child was murdered. Strikingas it is, many of the themes of this story are repetitive ofwhat has come before, a powerful return to the material from theopening chapters, primarily the violence in “Monday.” Thus,Thoreau starkly conveys the grotesque violence on both sides ofthe conflict, and he concludes here, as he did earlier, that weare the beneficiaries, even the products, of these terribleevents -- it is we, of course, who have “eaten of the fruit ofthat apple-tree.” But this story is different too. Mostobviously, it is a story in which women and children,traditional noncombatants, play a crucial role. The brutalityin the Lovewell campaigns is between men who voluntarily assumethe roles of warrior and soldier. The brutality in the Duston





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story is aimed primarily at those who are most innocent,children. And this brutality, like that among male combatants,is not confined to one side. The Indians murder Duston’s infant,but she, in turn, methodically kills six children and attemptsto kill the seventh (the “favorite boy” was a favorite withinhis family, not to Duston). In addition, this murder of childrenis conducted not only by men but by women and children as well.The violence and hostility between Indian and settler havereached a point at which all traditional restraints havevanished, where the weakest are fair game and all members of thecommunity are combatants. Here, not in the Revolution, is theclimax of the American founding. In this climax all colonistsand Indians, even women and children, are implicated, and theentire family of Indians, not just the male warriors, issystematically killed off. This frenzy of violence, ofescalating atrocity and counteratrocity, of total war, is thenatural culmination of the processes Thoreau has been describingthroughout the book. The Duston story represents the victory ofthe colonists and the final destruction of the Indians. Thoreauis returning down the river to his own home, as Duston had tohers 142 years earlier. His investigation into the nature of theAmerican founding, his “uncivil history,” is mainly complete.Consider Thoreau’s use of the Hannah Emerson Duston story as theclimax of a historical process set in motion by the collisionof incompatible societies. He is appalled by the events, but healso understands that they are the culmination of huge politicalconflicts that are greater than the individual players.

Bob Pepperman Taylor goes on in this chapter “Founding” about the political content of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS to consider each drama of Indian and colonist recounted there by Thoreau, culminating in the last and perhaps most powerful of these major tales, that of the Hannah Emerson Duston odyssey in “Thursday”:

It is instructive to contrast this analysis with Cotton Mather’ssimple praise of Duston as a colonial heroine and withHawthorne’s shrieking condemnation of her when he calls her“this awful woman,” “a raging tigress,” and “a bloody old hag”on account of her victims being primarily children. Thoreau’sanalysis is considerably more shrewd than either Mather’s orHawthorne’s, and Thoreau resists the temptation of either ofthese simpler and much less satisfactory moral responses.Thoreau’s conclusion about our political interconnectedness isbuilt upon a hard-boiled and realistic political analysiscombined with a notable moral subtlety. As we have seen, Thoreaubelieves that the forms of life represented by Indianand colonist are simply and irrevocably incompatible; thestructure of each requires a mode of production and a socialorganization that makes it impossible to accommodate the other.This argument is compelling ... the Hannah Emerson Duston storyin A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS represented for Thoreauthe final destruction of the Indians at the hands of the whitesettlers.





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Joan Burbick, one of the few to recognize the primacy of the political theme underlying Thoreau’s story of a riverine quest, points up the fact that in his A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS Thoreau was attempting to “forge the uncivil history of America.” Here is our narrative as it is supposed to get itself narrated, within a basic-rate Western Union telegraph message of eleven words:

Thoreau is not going to allow his readers to indulge in any foundation myth that can serve as a legitimation scenario, but instead he is going to remind us that our founding as been quite as vicious, quite as bloody as any other.

When the Reverend George Ripley would review A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, he would profess to be disturbed at what he took to be Thoreau’s irreverent stance:39

Thoreau inscribed a copy of his book for the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson, writing on the front free endpaper: “Rev O.A. Brownson with the Regards of the author.” This copy is now in the rare book collection of the University of Detroit and it is to be noted that after page 272 the text is unopened. Brownson had not read past that point:

39. In 1853 or 1854, in the creation of Draft F of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, Henry Thoreau would tack in what would be in effect a response to the Reverend George Ripley’s reaction to A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

(Well, OK, what he would insert would not be so specific as this, actually he would distance the remark through the deployment of cartoon characters: instead of “the Reverend Ripley” he wrote “John or Jonathan.”)

1 One2 race3 must4 snuff5 the6 others7 White8 to9 play10 and11 win

...he asserts that he considers the Sacred Books of the Brahminsin nothing inferior to the Christian Bible ... calculated toshock and pain many readers, not to speak of those who will beutterly repelled by them.

I do not say that the Reverend Ripley will realizeall this; but such is the character of that morrowwhich mere lapse of time can never make to dawn. Thelight which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Onlythat day dawns to which we are awake. There is moreday to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.





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I. Authority and Liberty

II. Girard College

III. The Republic of the United States

IV. Mount of St. Mary’s College

V. Channing on the Church and Social Reform

VI. The Saints and Servants of God

1.The Lives of the Companions of St. Philip Neri

2. The Life of the Venerable Fr. Claver, S. J.

VII. Waterworth’s Council of Trent

VIII. The Vision of Sir Launfal

IX. Literary Notices and Criticisms


CATHOLICISM

MAGAZINES

I. Civil and Religious Toleration

II. H.M. Field’s Letter From Rome

III. The Church in the Dark Ages

IV. Catholic Secular Literature

V. The College of the Holy Cross



CATHOLICISM

MAGAZINES





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I. Protestantism in a Nutshell

II. Channing on Christendom and Socialism

III. Naomi: or Boston Two Hundred Years Ago

IV. Bushnellism: or Orthodoxy and Heresy Identical

1. God in Christ. By Horace Bushnell

2. Ten Discourses on Orthodoxy.

V. The Licentiousness of the Press



CATHOLICISM

MAGAZINES





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1850

I. An A Priori Autobiography

II. Guevara in the Veneration of Images

III. Longfellow’s Evangeline and Kavanagh

IV. Conversations of an Old Man

V. Religion in Society


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Bishop England’s Works [The works of Bishop England, first bishopof Charlestown]

II. Morell’s Philosophy of Religion

III. Reply to the Mercesburg Review

IV. Conversations of an Old Man, No. II

V. The Presidential Veto


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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I. St. Peter and Mahomet [Popes protecting Christendomfrom Mahometanism]

II. The Christian Examiner’s Defence

III. Capes’s Four Years Experience

IV. The Mercesburg Theology

V. Conversations of an Old Man, No. III


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Vincenzo Gioberti

II. The Confessional

III. Dana’s Poems and Prose Writings

IV. The Cuban Expedition

V. Conversations of an Old Man


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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March 22, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker, C.SS.R. wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

At the Harvard Observatory, George Phillips Bond succeeded in making a series of Daguerreotype exposures of Jupiter which seemed to him to include a faint suggestion of the planet’s belts as visible by the eye directly through the telescope lens. The planet seemed, despite its great distance, to be of approximately the same brightness as the moon — an early indication of a difference in albedo among the various heavenly bodies.

March 28, Friday: The ice on Walden Pond was completely melted:

Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to the Reverend I. Th. Hecker (Isaac Hecker).

1851

ASTRONOMY

WALDEN: In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st ofApril; in ’46, the 25th of March; in ’47, the 8th of April;in ’51, the 28th of March; in ’52, the 18th of April; in ’53,the 23rd of March; in ’54, about the 7th of April.





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April 13, Sunday: On or about this day, Father Isaac Hecker, CSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

May 15, Thursday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

In approximately this timeframe, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne were returning to Concord.

Samuel George Morton died in Philadelphia.

June 27, Friday: Father Isaac Hecker, C.SS.R. wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

I. Bushnell on the Trinity

II. The Hungarian Rebellion

1.The Village Notary; a Romance of Hungarian Life,by Otto Wenckstern

2. Memoirs of a Hungarian Lady, by Theresa Pulszky

3. The Hungarian Revolution, by Johann Pragay

4. Parallels between the Hungarian and British Constitutions,by J. Toulmin Smith

5. The Christian Examiner, for May, 1850, Art. VIII

III. The Canon of the Scripture

IV. The Higher Law [Conscience and the Constitution, with remarks ona recent speech by Hon. Daniel Webster in the Senate of the UnitedStates on the subject of Slavery.]

V. The Decline of Protestantism


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Summer: The friends Orestes Augustus Brownson and Isaac Hecker were able to get together again, for the first time since they had gone off on their respective excellent adventures in 1845. By this time Brownson was not only an essayist and a publisher, but also a welcome lecturer who made regular tours of paying Catholic audiences in New-York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, at times venturing on through the major cities of the Midwest and the South, and even as far as Montréal. Among the favorite hobby-horses about which he was lecturing were “The Compatibility between Democracy and Catholicism” in which to be an American Catholic was to be a member of the Democratic Party whether or not one was officially enrolled and vice versa, “Catholicity and Civilization” in which to be in favor of civilization was to be in favor of the Holy Roman Catholic Church whether or not one recognized that fact and vice versa, and “Civil and Religious Liberty” in which one had true civil liberty if and only if one had true religious liberty and true religious liberty amounted to freedom to know the truth and the truth was what Orestes Brownson speaking on behalf of the True Church said that it was. (How he was getting away with this is anybody’s guess. Presumably the Church in America was pulling together under the real external threat of Protestant viciousness and narrow-mindedness, represented by among other antiRomanist organizations a party whose members described themselves as “Know-Nothings,” and in this siege mentality Brownson had to be countenanced. But the man had genius, in positioning himself so that as a paid lecturer to the faithful he was able to put himself across to his audiences as Defender of the Faith.)


July 29, Tuesday: Father Isaac Hecker, C.SS.R. wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

July 29, Tuesday: A NE wind with rain –but the sea is the wilder for it. I heard the surf roar on theGurnet the night –which as uncle Ned & Freeman said showed that the wind would work round east and weshould have rainy weather– It was the wave reaching the shore before the wind. The ocean was heaped upsomewhere to the eastward and this roar was occasioned by its effort to preserve its equilibrium. The rut of thesea In the afternoon I sailed to Plymouth 3 miles notwithstanding the drizzling rain or “drisk” as Uncle Nedcalled it. We passed round the head of Plymouth beach which is 3 miles long– I did not know till afterward thatI had landed where the Pilgrims did & passed over the rock on Hedges Wharf– Returning we had more wind& tacking to do. Saw many seals together on a flat. Singular that these strange animals should be so abundanthere & yet the man who lives a few miles inland never hear of them. To him there is no report of the sea –though he may read the Plymouth paper. The Boston papers do not tell us that they have seals in the Harbor.The inhabitants of Plymouth do not seem to be aware of it– I always think of seals in connexion withEsquimaux or some other outlandish people –not in connexion with those who live on the shores of Boston& Plymouth harbors.– Yet from their windows they may daily see a family seals –the seal phoca vitulinus –collected on a flat or sporting in the waves I saw one dashing through the waves just ahead of our boat goingto join his companions on the bar –as strange to me as the merman. No less wild essentially than when the

I. Bushnell on the Incarnation

II. The Hungarian Rebellion

III. Webster’s Answer to Hülsemann [Daniel Webster concerningAustria]

IV. Savonarola



CATHOLICISM

PLYMOUTH ROCK






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Pilgrims came is this Harbor. It being low tide we landed on a flat which makes out from Clark’s Island to whileaway the time –(not being able to get quite up yet– I found numerous large holes of the sea clam in this sand –(no small clams) and dug them out easily & rapidly with my hands –could have got a large quantity in a shorttime. but here they do not eat them –think they will make you sick. They were not so deep in the sand not morethan 4 or 5 inches I saw where one had squirted full ten feet before the wind. as appeared by the marks of thedrops on the sand– Some small ones I found not more than 1/4 inch in length– (Le Barron brought me roundclam or qua-hog alive with a very thick shell & not so nearly an isosceles triangle as the Sea clam –more likethis with a protuberance on the back –the sea clam –A small narrow clam whichthey called the bank clam

–also crab cases handsomely spotted –small crabs always in a cockle shell if not in a case of his own.– A cockleas large as my fist –muscles small ones empty shells, an extensive bank where they had died –occasionally alarge deep sea muscles which some kelp had brought-up. We caught some sand eels 7 or eight inches long–Ammodytes tobianus according to Storer & not the A. lancea of Yarrell though the size of the last comes

nearer. They were in the shallow pools left on the sand (the flat was here pure naked yellowish sand) & quicklyburied them selves when pursued.– They are used as bait for basse. Found some sand circles or sand paper –like top of a stone jug cut off with a large nose.– said to be made by the foot of the large cockle which has someglutinous matter on it. The nidus of the animal of natica cells with eggs in sand. A circle of sand about as thickas thick pasteboard It reminded me of the cadisworm cases. Scate-barrows &c &c. I observed the shell of a sea-clam one valve of which was filled exactly even full with sand –evenly as if it had been heaped & then scrapedoff as when men measure by the peck– This was a fresher one of the myriad sand clams –& it suggested to mehow the stone clams which I had seen on Cape Cod might have been formed– Perchance a clam shell was themould in which they were cast –& a slight hardening of the level surface –before the whole is turned to stonecauses them to split in two. The sand was full of stone clams in the mould. I saw the kelp attached to stones halfas big as my head which it had transported. I do not think I ever saw the kelp in situ –also attached to a deep-sea muscle. The kelp is like a broad ruffled belt– The middle portion is thicker & flat –the edges for 2 or 3inches thinner & fuller so that it is frilled or ruffled –as if the edges had been hammered. The extremity isgenerally worn & ragged from the lashing of the waves. It is the prototype of a fringed belt. Uncle Ned said thatthe cows ate it. We saw in the shallow water a long round green grass 6 or 8 feet long clogging up the channel.Round grass I think they called it. We caught a lobster as you might catch a mud turtle in the country –in theshallow water –pushing him ashore with the paddle– Taking hold of his tail to avoid being bitten. They areobliged to put wooden plugs or wedges beside their claws to prevent their tearing each other to pieces. All weedsare bleached on the beach. This sailing on salt water was something new to me. The boat is such a livingcreature– Even this clumsy one sailing within 5 points of the wind. The sail boat is an admirable invention bywhich you compel the wind to transport you even against itself– It is easier to guide than a horse –the slightestpressure on the tiller suffices. I think the inventor must have been greatly surprised as well as delighted at thesuccess of his experiment. It is so contrary to expectation –as if the elements were disposed to favor you. Thisdeep unfordable sea –but this wind ever blowing over it to transport you. At 10 PM –it was perfectly fair &bright starlight.

September 5, Friday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

Henry Thoreau was reading Peter Kalm and James Wilkinson.40

September 5, Friday: No doubt like plants we are fed through the atmosphere & the varyingatmospheres of various seasons of the year feed us variously. How often we are sensible of being thus fed &invigorated! And all nature contributes to this aerial diet its food of finest quality. Methinks that in the fragranceof the fruits I get a finer flavor and in beauty (which is appreciated by sight–the taste & smell of the eye–) afiner still. As Wilkinson says “The physical man himself is the builded aroma of the world. This, then, at least,is the office of the lungs–to drink the atmosphere with the planet dissolved in it.” – – “what is the import ofchange of air, and how each pair of lungs has a native air under some one dome of the sky.”Wilkinson’s book to some extent realizes what I have dreamed of a reeturn to the primitive analogical &derivative senses of words– His ability to trace analogies often leads him to a truer word than more remarkable





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writers have found.– As when in his chapter on the human skin he describes the papillary cutis as“an encampment of small conical tents coextensive with the surface of the body”– The faith he puts in old& current expressions as having sprung from an instinct wiser than science–& safely to be trusted if they canbe interpreted. The man of science discovers no world for the mind of man with all its faculties to inhabit–Wilkinson finds a home for the imagination–& it is no longer out cast & homeless. All perception of truth isthe detection of an analogy.– we reason from our hands to our head.41

It is remarkable that Kalm says in 1748 (being in Philadelphia)–“Coals have not yet been found in Pensylvania;but people pretend to have seen them higher up in the country among the natives. Many people however agreethat they are met with in great quantity more to the north, near Cape Breton” As we grow old we live morecoarsely–we relax a little in our disciplines–and cease to obey our finest instincts. We are more careless aboutour diet & our chastity. But we should be fastidious to the extreme of Sanity. All wisdom is the reward ofa discipline conscious or unconscious.42

By Moonlight at Potters field toward Bear Garden Hill 8 PM.43 The Whippoorwills sing. [Whip-poor-willCaprimulgus vociferus] Cultivate reverence It is as if you were so much more respectable yourself. By the quality of a man’s writing–by the elevation of its tone you may measure his self-respect.How shall a man continue his culture after manhood?44

Moonlight on Fair Haven Pond seen from the Cliffs. A sheeny lake in the midst of a boundless forest–The windy surf sounding freshly & wildly in the single pine behind you– The silence of hushed wolves in the

40. James Wilkinson (1812-1899). THE HUMAN BODY AND ITS CONNECTION WITH MAN, ILLUSTRATED BY THE PRINCIPAL ORGANS. BY JAMES JOHN GARTH WILKINSON, MEMBER OF THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND (Philadelphia PA: Lippincott, Grambo and Co., 1851).

When he read James Wilkinson’s book THE HUMAN BODY in 1851,Thoreau was impressed. “Wilkinson’s book,” he wrote in hisjournal, “to some extent realizes what I have dreamed of, — areturn to the primitive analogical and derivative sense ofwords. His ability to trace analogies often leads to a truerword than more remarkable writers have found.... The faith heputs in old and current expressions as having sprung from aninstinct wiser than science, and safely to be trusted if theycan be interpreted.... Wilkinson finds a ‘home’ for theimagination.... All perception of truth is the detection of ananalogy; we reason from our hands to our heads.” Understandingthis was both a key and a confirmation of what he was trying todo in WALDEN (Jeffrey Cramer’s WALDEN: A FULLY ANNOTATED EDITION,page xxiii).

This treatise was dedicated to Henry James, Sr.41. The poet W.H. Auden has in 1962 brought forward a snippet from this day’s entry as:

THE VIKING BOOK OF APHORISMS, A PERSONAL SELECTION BY W.H. AUDEN...

Pg Topic Aphorism Selected by Auden out of Thoreau

324 Truth and Error All perception of truth is a perception of an analogy; we reason from our hands to our heads.




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/WALDEN/WALDEN.html


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wilderness & as you fancy moose looking off from the shore of the lake. The stars of poetry & history–

& unexplored nature looking down on the scene. This is my world now–with a dull whitish mark curvingnorthward through the forest marking the outlet to the lake. Fair Haven by moonlight lies there like a lake inthe Maine Wilderness in the midst of a primitive forest untrodden by man. This light & this hour takes thecivilization all out of the landscape– Even in villages dogs bay the moon, in forests like this we listen to hearwolves howl to Cynthia.Even at this hour in the evening–the crickets chirp the small birds peep–the wind roars in the wood–as if it werejust before dawn– The moonlight seems to linger as if it were giving way to the light of coming day.The landscape seen from the slightest elevation by moonlight–is seen remotely & flattened as it were into merelight & shade open field & forest–like the surface of the earrth seen from the top of a mountain.How much excited we are how much recruited by a great many particular fragrances– A field of ripening cornnow at night–that has been topped with the stalks stacked up to dry–an inexpressibly dry rich sweet ripeningscent. I feel as if I were an ear of ripening corn myself. Is not the whole air then a compound of such odors

42. This thought would be put into Henry Thoreau’s early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

43. The moon would be full on the night of the 9th. Here is the moon of this night:

44. These thoughts would be put into Henry Thoreau’s early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

[Paragraph 93] As we grow old, we live more coarsely—we relax a little inour disciplines, and to some extent cease to obey our finest instincts. We aremore careless about our diet and our chastity. But we should be fastidious tothe extreme of sanity. All wisdom is the reward of a discipline conscious orunconscious.

[Paragraph 94] How shall a man continue his culture after manhood?[Paragraph 95] Cultivate reverence. It is as if you were so much morerespectable yourself.




This image of the moon on the night of September 5, 1851 has been supplied by the US Naval Observatory at http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/vphase.html.


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undistinguishable? Drying corn stalks in a field what an herb-garden–


October 27, Monday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal about how hard it was to believe that the present is as rich as other times, and his phraseology, the matter-of-fact manner in which he uses this superficial talk, about the richness or poverty of the present, is so utterly un-Thoreauvian as to almost pre-empt this terminology from use in the manner in which Henry Thoreau needs to deploy these terms. This is the sort of thing which leads me to believe that Emerson was never able to grasp what Thoreau was about, that Thoreau’s mysticism was utterly opaque to him:

I. Cooper’s Ways of the Hour

II. Nature and Faith [Essays on the Errors of Romanismhaving their origin in Human Nature.]

III. Bushnell on the Mystery of the Redemption

IV. The French Republic

V. The Fugitive Slave Law


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

It would be hard to recall the rambles of last night’s talk with H.T. But we stated over again, to sadness, almost, the Eternal loneliness.... how insular & pathetically solitary, are all the people we know! Nor dare we tell what we think of each other, when we bow in the street. ’Tis mighty fine for us to taunt men of the world with superficial & treacherous courtesies. I saw yesterday, Sunday, whilst at dinner my neighbor Hosmer creeping into my barn. At once it occurred, “Well, men are lonely, to be sure, & here is this able, social, intellectual farmer under this grim day, as grimly, sidling into my barn, in the hope of some talk with me, showing me how to husband my cornstalks. Forlorn enough!” It is hard to believe that all times are alike & that the present is also rich. When this annual project of a Journal returns, & I cast about to think who are to be contributors, I am struck with a feeling of great poverty; my bareness! my bareness! seems America to say.

EDMUND HOSMER





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October 27, Monday: This morning I wake and find it snowing & the ground covered with snow–quite unexpectedly–for last night it was rainy but not cold.The obstacles which the heart meets with are like granite blocks which one alone can not move. She who wasas the morning light to me, is now neither the morning star nor the evening star. We meet but to find each otherfurther asunder, and the oftener we meet the more rapid our divergence. So a star of the first magnitude palesin the heavens, not from any fault in the observers eye nor from any fault in it self perchance, but because itsprogress in its own system has put a greater distance betweenThe night is oracular– What have been the intimations of the night? I ask. How have you passed the night? Goodnight!My friend will be bold to conjecture, he will guess bravely at the significance of my words.The cold numbs my fingers this morning. The strong northwest wind blows the damp snow along almosthorizontally. The birds fly about as if seeking shelterPerhaps it was the young of the purple finch that I saw sliding down the grass stems some weeks ago–or was itthe white-throated finch? Winter with its inwardness is upon us. A man is constrained to sit down, and to think.The ardea minor still with us– Saw a woodcock feeding probing the mud with its long bill under the RR bridgewithin 2 feet of me for a long time could not scare it far away– What a disproportionate length of bill.– It is asort of badge they wear as a punishment for greedines in a former state.The highest arch of the stone bridge is 6 feet 8 inches above the present surface of the water which I shouldthink was more than a foot higher than it has been this summer–and is 4 inches below the long stone in the eastabutment.

VENUS





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November 6, Thursday: The first issue of the journal of the Oneida Community, The Circular:

Captain Jonathan Walker rejected “bowie knives, dirks, revolvers” in favor of “all physical and moral means





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that can be sanctioned by sound morality and reasonable philosophy.”

Charles Henry Dow, who would found Dow Jones & Company, was born.

On approximately this day Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

November 6, Thursday: {4/5 page missing} … I had on my “bad-weather clothes” at Quebec likeOlaf Tryggvesson the Northman when he went to Thing in England


I. Newman on the True Basis of Theology

II. Saint-Bonnet on Social Restoration

III. The Hungarian Nation

IV. The Edinburgh Review on Ultramontane Doubts

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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The Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson’s ESSAYS AND REVIEWS: CHIEFLY ON THEOLOGY, POLITICS, AND SOCIALISM.

January 6, Tuesday: It has been presumed that on this date Henry Thoreau was lecturing again on AN EXCURSION TO CANADA in Lincoln and that that would be why he made no entry in his journal. In fact however this has been an entire misunderstanding. He had walked to Lincoln this time not to deliver a lecture but to hear a lecture delivered by the Reverend Woodbury of Acton on the subject of the character of the Puritans.45

Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.


1852

45. It is the next day’s misleading entry “Last evening walked to Lincoln to lecture in a driving snow storm” that caused several earlier commentators mistakenly to assume he lectured again. For the corrective, see Lecture 33 in Bradley P. Dean’s and Ronald Wesley Hoag’s “THOREAU’S LECTURES BEFORE WALDEN: An Annotated Calendar.”

TIMELINE OF CANADA

I. Christianity and Heathenism

II. Willitoft, or Protestant Persecution [Willitoft, or the Days of Jamesthe First]

III. Piratical Expeditions against Cuba

IV. Continental Prospects

V. Sick Calls [from the diaries of a missionary priest]


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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June 2, Wednesday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

The Boston Medical Surgical Journal (46:359-360) announced, in regard to the controversy over the discovery of Anæsthesia, that the members of the French Academy had, on the representation of Charles Thomas Jackson’s friend Elie de Beaumont, awarded to him one of the Mouthyon prizes, involving a Gold Medal of Merit (it seems they had made no inquiry whatever into the validity of his claims and were unaware of the existence of a dispute). Here is Jackson proudly sporting his French award:





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June 5, Saturday: Evelina E. Vannevar Slack wrote to Charles Wesley Slack about family matters.

Henry Thoreau made an entry in his journal that he was later to copy into his early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

He also made an entry in his journal in regard to lupines which indicates some familiarity, picked up somewhere in some context of his life not yet documented, with the BOOK OF JOB:

At about this point Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to Father Isaac Hecker.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s UNCLE TOM’S CABIN.

June 5. The medcoia has blossomed in a tumbler. I seem to perceive a pleasant fugacious fragrancefrom its rather delicate but inconspicuous green flower. Its whorls of leaves of two stages are the mostremarkable. I do not perceive the smell of the cucumber in its root.To Harrington’s, P.M. The silver cinquefoil (Potentilla argentea) now, a delicate spring-yellow, sunny-yellow(before the dog-days) flower; none of the fire of autumnal yellows in it. Its silvery leaf is as good as a flower.Whiteweed.The constant inquiry which nature puts is: “Are you virtuous? Then you can behold me.” Beauty, fragrance,music, sweetness, and joy of all kinds are for the virtuous. That I thought when I heard the telegraph harp to-day.Raspberry some days since. The leaves of young oaks are full-grown. The Viburnum lentago, if that edgedpetiole marks it enough. The Veratrum viride, with its green and yellowish flower. Umbelled thesium, whichhas shown its buds so long. The Viola lanceolata now, instead of the V. blanda. In some places the leaves of thelast are grown quite large. The sidesaddle-flowers. The Thalictrum anemonoides still. The dwarf cornel byHarrington’s road looks like large snowflakes on the hillside, it is so thick. It is a neat, geometrical flower, of apure white, sometimes greenish, or green. The white spruce cones are an inch and a half long. The larch conesappear not so red yet as they will be. Can it be that. earliest potentilla that now stands up so high in open pinewoods and wood-paths, -a foot high? The simplex variety? There is now froth on the white and pitch pines, at

DOG[Paragraph 82] Pray let us live without being drawn by dogs —Esquimauxfashion— a scrambling pack tearing over hill and vale —— & biting eachother’s ears. What a despicable mode of progressing to be drawn by apack of dogs —Why not by a flock of mice?

The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more important because itoccurs in such extensive patches even an acre or more together — andof such a pleasing variety of colors, purple — pink or lilac — and white— especially with the sun on it, when the transparency of the flowermakes its color changeable. It paints a whole hill side with its blue— making such a field — (if not meadow) as Proserpine might havewandered in. Its leaf was made to be covered with dew drops— I am quiteexcited by this prospect of blue flowers in clumps with narrowintervals— Such a profusion of the heavenly — the elysian color — asif these were the elysian fields. They say the seeds look like babies’faces and hence the flower is so named. No other flowers exhibit somuch blue. That is the value of the lupine The earth is blued withthem. Yet a third of a mile distant I do not detect their color on thehill side— Perchance because it is the color of the air. It is notdistinct enough. You passed along here perchance a fortnight ago & thehill-side was comparatively barren — but now you come & these gloriousredeemers appear to have flashed out here all at once. Who planted theseeds of lupines in the barren soil? Who watereth the lupines in thefields?

AEOLIAN HARP




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8ThB4uCYp4


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the base of the new shoots, which are from three to six inches long. Some meadows are quite white with thecotton-grass. White clover now. Some rye-fields are almost fully grown, where it appears to have sown itself.It is commonly two feet high. Those great roots belong to the yellow lily. Some poet must sing in praise of thebulbous arethusa.The lupine is now in its glory. It is the more important because it occurs in such extensive patches, even an acreor more together, and of such a pleasing variety of colors, -purple, pink, or lilac, and white, - especially with thesun on it, when the transparency of the flower makes its color changeable. It paints a whole hillside with itsblue, making such a field (if not meadow) as Proserpine might have wandered in. Its leaf was made to becovered with dewdrops. I am quite excited by this prospect of blue flowers in clumps with narrow intervals.Such a profusion of the heavenly, the elysian, color, as if these were the Elysian Fields. They say the seeds looklike babies’ faces, and hence the flower is so earned. No other flowers exhibit so much blue. That is the valueof the lupine. The earth is blued with them. Yet a third of a mile distant I do not detect their color on the hillside.Perchance because it is the color of the air. It is not distinct enough. You passed along here, perchance, afortnight ago, and the hillside was comparatively barren, but now you come and these glorious redeemersappear to have flashed out here all at once. Who planted the seeds of lupines in the barren soil? Who watereththe lupines in the fields?Distinguished the Geum rivale, water avens, in James P. Brown’s meadow, a drooping, half-closed, purplish-brown flower, with a strawberry-looking fruit. The Erigeron bellidifolius, robin’s-plantain (may it be the E.Philadelphicus?), that rather rose-purple flower which looks like an early aster. A rather delicate and interestingflower, flesh-colored.Pray let us live without. being drawn by dogs, Esquimaux-fashion, a scrambling pack tearing over hill and valeand biting each other’s ears. What a despicable mode of progressing, to be drawn by a pack of clogs! Why notby a flock of mice?De Kay, of the New York Report, says the bream “is of no value as an article of food, but is often caught foramusement!” I think it is the sweetest fish in our river.Richardson says that white bears and arctic foxes frequent the most northern land discovered.


DOG

JAMES ELLSWORTH DE KAY

I. The Existence of God

II. The Two Worlds, Catholic and Gentile

III. Austria and Hungary

IV. Paganism in Education

V. Reason and Revelation

VI. Protestantism and Government


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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July 16, Friday: According to Frederick Karl’s biography of George Eliot, Marian Evans wrote to Herbert Spencer basically saying that she couldn’t live without him. –He would sluff her off, introducing her to a friend of his, pretending to others that her nose was simply too long for his exacting tastes (it is probable that they were never intimate, and even that he died still a virgin).

Father Isaac Hecker, C.SS.R. wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

July l6, Friday: Chenopodium album(?) Pigweed. The common form of the arrow head with largerclear white flowers. Also another arrowhead with a leaf shaped not –not in flower. Xyris — — — yellow eyed grass –with 3 pretty yellow petals atop. The forget me not is still abundant. Thereis sport in the boys watermill which grinds no corn & saws no logs –& yields no money –but not in the man’s.Pyrus arbutifolia melanocarpa –fruit begins to be black. Cephalanthus occidentalis button-bush– The bass onConantum is a very rich sight now –though the flowers are somewhat stale –a solid mass of verdure & of flowerswith its massed & rounded outline– Its twigs are drooping weighed down with pendulous flowers –so that whenyou stand directly under it & look up you see one mass of flowers –a flowery canopy– Its conspicuous leaflikebracts too have the effect of flowers. The tree resounds with the hum of bees –bumble bees & honey bees –rosebugs & butterflies also are here— — a perfect susurrus –a sound as C says unlike any other in nature –not likethe wind as that is like the sea. The bees abound on the flowers of the smooth sumac now. The branches of thistree touch the ground –and it has somewhat the appearance of being weighed down with flowers. The air is fullof sweetness. The tree is full of poetry. I observe the yellow butterflies everywhere in the fields and on thepontederias –which now give a faint blue tinge to the sides of the rivers.– I hear the link link fall like note ofthe bobolink (?) in the meadows –he has lost the bobo off. Is it the Goldfinch that goes twittering over but whichI cannot see? This is a still thoughtful day –the air full of vapors which shade the earth preparing rain for themorrow. The sarsaparilla berries are black. The weeds begin to be high in low grounds & low wood paths –theEupatorium purpureum & Golden rods &c suggesting a certain fecundity & vigor in nature –so that we love towade through their ranks. The Rhixia Virginica the meadow beauty high colored, more beautiful than youremembered. The stachys aspera or hedge nettles looking like a white prunella with a long spike in themeadows. The platanthera lacera ragged Orchis –an unpainted flower. Is that delicate rose purple flower in theMiles swamp with a long slender pannicle & large leaves in a sort of whorl with long petioles the Desmodiumacuminatum –pointed leaved tick-trefoil or hedysarum? The lechea major larger pin weed everywhere in dryfields– Is it open?





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November 20, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker, C.SS.R. wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

Waldo Emerson gave a literary dinner for Arthur Hugh Clough in Boston.


I. Morris on the Incarnation

II. “The Reformation” in Ireland

III. The Works of Daniel Webster

IV. Gury’s Moral Theology


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Bancroft’s History of the United States

II. The Christian Register’s Objections

III. Politics and Political Parties

IV. Rights and Duties


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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May 6, Friday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

May 30, Monday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, Esq.

Dr. Elisha Kent Kane made a final call to assure his fiancée Maggie Fox that all would be well, in preparation for sailing for the Arctic on the following day. He asked Cornelius Grinnell to act as Maggie’s guardian during his absence, keeping her supplied her with funds and information about the expedition. In a final letter written as he left Newfoundland, Kane would imagine his beloved under the shade of a drooping chestnut, startling the birds with her “tokens of the spirit-world.” He advised her to study German and asked that she “write naughty letters” to him in that “noble language.” He promised to be true to his promises and asked her only to “exercise often, laugh when you can, grow as fat as you please; and when I return-God granting me that distant blessing-... let me have at least the rewarding consciousness of having done my duty.”

1853

I. The Worship of Mary

II. The Two Orders, Spiritual and Temporal

III. Father Gury’s Moral Theology

IV. Protestantism Not a Religion

V. Catholics of England and Ireland


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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July 19, Tuesday: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, LL.D.

At dawn an employee of the Cataract House, while trudging to work at the tourist hotel, had heard a cry for help. It was Joseph Avery on his rock out in the rapids about 500 feet above the lip of the Niagara Falls. An alarm was raised and hundreds gathered on the bank. They obtained some cordage from a nearby construction site, the Hydraulic Canal project, and local merchants hurried their stocks of rope to the shore. When a long enough rope was assembled, they let out an empty skiff on a line from the Goat Island Bridge in the direction of the clinging man, but their makeshift line failed and the empty skiff vanished over the curling edge. In a 2d rescue effort, casting about for materials, a raft was put together of poles and planks and empty barrels lashed together with rope, and a heavier length of line was put together, and this raft was let out downstream, and Avery did manage to get onto it and tie himself down. Pulling the raft back toward the bridge, there were a number of scary incidents as the raft caught on rocks. Once Avery nearly drowned when the edge of the raft caught under a ledge.

Meanwhile a telegram had gone out to Buffalo, New York, and a boat made of sheet iron had been dispatched toward the falls on a railroad car, so the rescuers secured a bedsheet to use as a poster, and painted upon it:

THE LIFE BOAT IS COMING

I. The Spiritual Not for the Temporal

II. Life of Mrs. Eliza A. Seton

III. A Consistent Protestant

IV. The Love of Mary

V. Dangers which Threaten Catholics

VI. Ethics of Controversy


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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and hung this over the rail of the bridge so that Avery could read it. This sheet iron boat was rushed to the scene and lowered into the river secured with two hawsers. It filled with water and, when one of its restraining hawsers snapped, it rammed into the makeshift raft. Then the other hawser snapped and it and rammed the raft to which Avery was lashed. When the other restraining line parted, the life boat vanished over the curling edge.

The rescuers let out a flat-bottomed scow from the bridge. Avery unlashed himself from the raft and rolled into this scow. Stripping off one of his boots, he began to bail water out of its bottom. As the scow was being hauled back toward the bridge, however, a tackle jammed and the haulers were forced to let out the rope in order to clear this jam. The scow wedged itself behind the raft and its ropes got caught on rocks. There are Daguerreotypes in which Avery can be seen at this point as a tiny black figure in the midst of rushing waters — the river, because of length of exposure, of course appeared as white. At this point Avery had been fighting for his life for more than 20 hours.

A ferry arrived at the scene at about 5PM and was let out from the bridge. Avery unlashed himself and, at about 6PM, made a lunge for its gunwale, but the boat lurched and smashed into his chest and he plunged into the water. As he was swept rapidly downstream he could be seen to be aiming himself toward a tiny island at the brink. As he went over the edge he was waving his arms in the air and screaming.

In 1871 William Dean Howells would perpetrate the following:

Avery. 1853

I.

All night long they heard in the houses beside the shore,Heard, or seemed to hear, through the multitudinous roar,Out of the hell of the rapids as ’t were a lost soul’s cries, —Heard and could not believe; and the morning mocked their eyes,Showing where wildest and fiercest the waters leaped and ranRaving round him and past, the visage of a manClinging, or seeming to cling, to the trunk of a tree that, caughtFast in the rocks below, scarce out of the surges raught.Was it a life, could it be, to yon slender hope that clung?Shrill, above all the tumult, the answering terror rung.

II.

Under the weltering rapids a boat from the bridge is drowned,Over the rocks the line of another are tangled and wound;And the long, fateful hours of the morning have wasted soon,As it had been in some blessed trance, and now it is noon.Hurry, now with the raft! But O, build it strong and staunch,And to the lines and treacherous rocks look well as you launch!Over the foamy tops of the waves, and their foam-sprent sides,Over hidden reefs, and through the embattled tides,Onward rushes the raft, with many a lurch and leap, —Lord! if it strike him loose, from the hold he scarce can keep!No! through all peril unharmed, it reaches him harmless at last,And to its proven strength he lashes his weakness fast.Now, for the shore? But steady, steady, my men and slow;Taut, now, the quivering lines; now slack; and so, let her go!Thronging the shores around stand the pitying multitude;Wan as his own are their looks, and a nightmare seems to broodHeavy upon them, and heavy the silence hangs on all,Save for the rapids’ plunge, and the thunder of the fall.But on a sudden thrills from the people still and pale,Chorusing his unheard despair, a desperate wail:





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Caught on a lurking point of rock, it sways and swings,Sport of the pitiless waters, the raft to which he clings.

III.

All the long afternoon it idly swings and sways:And on the shore the crowd lifts up its hands and prays:Lifts to Heaven and wrings the hands so helpless to save,Prays for the mercy of God on him whom the rock and the waveBattle for, fettered betwixt them, and who, amid their strife,Struggles to help his helpers, and fights so hard for his life, —Tugging at rope and at reef, while men weep and women swoon.Priceless second by second, so wastes the afternoon,And it is sunset now; and another boat and the lastDown to him from the bridge through the rapids has safely passed.

IV.

Wild through the crowd comes flying a man that nothing can stay,Maddening against the gate that is locked athwart his way.“No! we keep the bridge for them that can help him. You,Tell us, who are you?” “His brother!” “God help you both! Pass through.”Wild, with wide arms of imploring, he calls aloud to him,Unto the face of his brother, scarce seen in the distance dim;But in the roar of the rapids his fluttering words are lostAs in a wind of autumn the leaves of autumn are tossed.And from the bridge he sees his brother sever the ropeHolding him to the raft, and rise secure in his hope;Sees all as in a dream the terrible pageantry, —Populous shores, the woods, the sky, the birds flying free;Sees, then, the form — that, spent with effort and fasting and fear,Flings itself feebly and fails of the boat that is lying so near —Caught in the long-baffled clutch of the rapids, and rolled and hurledHeadlong on the cataract’s brink and out of the world.


I. The Spiritual Order Supreme

II Mother Seton and St. Joseph’s

III. Philosophical Studies on Christianity

IV. Wallis’s Spain

V. The Fathers of the Desert


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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I. The Eclipse of Faith

II. Garneau’s History of Canada

III. “Errors of the Church of Rome”

IV. J. V. H. On Brownson’s Review

V. Cardinal Wiseman’s Essays


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Orestes Augustus Brownson’s THE SPIRIT-RAPPER: AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.



1854

I. Uncle Jack and His Nephew

II. Schools of Philosophy

III. The Case of Martin Koszta

IV. “You go Too Far” [The Power of the Pope during the Middle Ages]

V. Hillard’s Six Months in Italy


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM


II. Protestantism Developed

III. Temporal Power of the Popes

IV. Where is Italy?

V. The Mercesburg Hypothesis


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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September 14, Thursday: At 6 AM Henry Thoreau went to Nawshawtuct or Lee’s Hill (Gleason F6), and at 8 AM he and Ellery Channing went by boat to opposite Pelham’s Pond. On their return they stopped at Fair Haven Hill (Gleason H7). In the course of the day they had rowed some 25 miles. The allied armies of Britain, France, and Turkey invaded the Crimea.

In a letter to Orestes Augustus Brownson, the budding apologist, Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, summarized the contents of his new book of apologetics, QUESTIONS OF THE SOUL, an irenic treatise on the basic drives of the human emotional system which attempted to make itself attractive not only to the general run of non-Catholics inclined to mysticism and asceticism but also to New England Unitarians and Transcendentalists and others who had given up on Puritanism:

This treatise, although non-traditional, was careful to portray Roman Catholicism as the only conceivable answer:

Father Thomas depicted the inner exigencies of the human soul as naturally oriented to receive an incarnational and historical revelation; humankind turns toward God as naturally as a field of flowers turn toward the sun. But a clear channel for these communication is mandatory; the sacramental channels of divine grace must be kept open by the necessary dredges of the Church, one of which is its infallible teaching authority.

I take an occasion to break a lance with [Ralph Waldo] Emerson [William Ellery] Channing, etc whenever I meet them. There will be no want of boldness & aspiration in it.

WALDO EMERSON

My object in view is to bring minds similarlyconstituted as my own to similar convictions &results, by the same process as I passed through.

The leading idea is to expose the wants of the heartand demand their proper objects, rather than a logicaldefense of the Church.







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September 23, Saturday: In the afternoon Henry Thoreau went to Gowing’s Swamp (Gleason F9) and then Great Meadows (Gleason D8).

WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS was reviewed in the Daily Alta California, 5:264.

Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Arthur Martineau Alger was born at Roxbury. (He would study for the law at Boston University, and then in the office of the Honorable N.B. Bryant.)


Walden; or Life in the Wood. By Henry D. Thoreau.Boston: Ticknor & Fields.This is a very strange book, the history of aphilosopher living in the woods, a sort of RobinsonCrusoe life. It shows the simplicity with which lifecan be conducted, stripped of some of itsconventionalities, and the whole narrative is imbuedwith a deep philosophic spirit. All together besidesbeing beautifully written, it has an air of originalitywhich is quite taking. We commend it to our reader.

TIMELINE OF WALDEN


II. The Roman Revolution

III. Native Americanism

IV. Schools and Education

V. The Turkish War


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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October 1, Sunday: In Syracuse NY, the 3d annual “Jerry Celebration” sponsored by the Unitarian congregation of the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, honoring the freeing of Jerry McHenry from the federal marshals who had been seeking to “return” him to his “owner” on October 1, 1851.


Scheduling difficulties had forced the postponement of Henry Thoreau’s lecture in Plymouth MA by one week. He responded to Friend Daniel Ricketson’s letter of August 12th, talking about visiting Middleboro Ponds and recommending William Gilpin’s books on nature, which he was just then reading.

Concord Mass, Oct 1st ’54

RESISTING THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW





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Dear Sir,I had duly received your very kind and frank letter, but delayed to answer it thus long because I have little skill as a correspondent, and wished to send you something more than my thanks. I was gratified by your prompt and hearty acceptance of my book. Yours is the only word of greeting I am likely to receive from a dwell-er in the woods like myself, from where the whippoorwill and cuckoo are heard, and there are better than moral clouds drifting over, and real breezes blow. Your account excites in me a desire to see the Middleboro Ponds, of which I had already heard somewhat; as also of some very beautiful ponds on the Cape, in Harwich I think, near which I once passed. I have sometimes also thought of visiting that remnant of our Indians still living near you.— But then, you know there is nothing like ones native fields and lakes. The best news you send me is, not that Nature with you is so fair and genial, but that there is one there who likes her so well. That proves all that was asserted.Homer, of course, you include in your list of lovers of nature – and, by the way, let me mention here, – for this is “my thunder” lately – Wm Gilpin’s long series of books on the Picturesque, with their illus-trations. If it chances that you have not met with these, I cannot just now frame a better wish than that you may one day derive as much pleasure from the inspection of them as I have.Much as you have told me of yourself, you have still I think a little the advantage of me in this correspondence, for I have told you still more in my book. You have therefore the broadest mark to fire at.A young English author, Thomas Cholmondeley, is just now waiting for me to take a walk with him – therefore excuse this very barren note fromYrs, hastily at last,Henry D. Thoreau





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October 29, Sunday: Moncure Daniel Conway was elected to be the minister of the Unitarian church in Washington DC.46

Henry Thoreau seems to have decided, by this point in late October, that he was going to write a lecture of the “reformatory Character” on “Art of Life” that had been requested by Asa Fairbanks in the letter he received on October 18th. (This would begin as “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” and continued through “LIFE MISSPENT” to become what we know as “LIFE WITHOUT PRINCIPLE”.)

Also, in late October, in Worcester, a heavy-set man registered at the American Temperance House Hotel at the intersection of Main Street and Foster Street.47

He was a lawman, he was the US Marshall Asa O. Butman who had arrested the young presser Anthony Burns in Boston in May, and he was back from escorting Burns to the custody of his owner in Virginia. What was such a man up to in Worcester, and what was to be done about it? As a nonresistant, Stephen

46. While a minister in Washington DC, Conway would become special friends with Helen Fiske, who after two husbands, as Helen Hunt Jackson, would relocate to Southern California and plead in a novel titled RAMONA for the rights of Native Americans.47. President Martin Van Buren had stayed a night at this hotel in 1845 and another night in 1848. At various times General Sam Houston of Texas and John Greenleaf Whittier were also guests of this famous hotel.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/04/1904_MoncureDanielConwayI.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/19/00DECADE/04/1904_MoncureDanielConwayII.pdf


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Symonds Foster had of course not become a member of the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s

“Worcester Vigilance Committee,” so, while that vigilance committee was going around passing out its LOOK OUT FOR KIDNAPPERS handbills and trying to drum up a mob so they could throw a “tar and feathers party” in Butman’s honor, Foster and some fifty of his nonresistant friends, white and black, took direct action. They assembled in front of the American House and kept ringing the doorbell and arguing with the landlord, long into the night, until finally Butman appeared in the doorway with pistol in hand and threatened them. They promptly swore out a complaint and had the marshal arrested. The next morning, at Butman’s arraignment, the courtroom and surrounding streets were jammed with spectators. At a brief adjournment in the proceedings, about six black men got into the room with Butman, and commenced beating on him. Although the city marshal did manage to arrest one of the assailants, there were too many common citizens present and clearly the forces of law and order –which flourish best in the dark– were not in charge of that day and that place. There was a conference between community leaders and city officials, and, as a result of this negotiation, Butman, Higginson, Foster, and some others left the courthouse in a tight group. The promise that had been made was that Butman could have safe passage out of Worcester if he would agree never to return there. The tight group managed to get Butman to the downtown train station more or less intact, at the expense of his having received in transit from the members of the crowd one blow of the fist, one thrown egg, and miscellaneous kicks, but the train had just left. So Butman was unceremoniously locked in the depot privy for an hour while the members of the escort committee made speeches to the crowd and waited nervously for the arrival of a hack that could get the man safely back to Boston.

When the entire affair was over and Butman was safe, Foster, his friend Joseph Howland, and some other nonresistants and some black men who had allegedly beat on Butman were placed under arrest on the charge





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of inciting to riot. Foster refused to post bail and demanded that his wife Abby Kelley Foster be permitted to act as his lawyer. Which was unheard of, no female had ever appeared in court as a lawyer in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts! At the end of it the grand jury indicted the black defendants for assaulting Butman, but acquitted the nonresistants.

Thoreau received a written request from Mary Moody Emerson, asking that he repeat his Plymouth lectures of February 22, 1852 and October 8, 1854 for the benefit of his neighbors.

Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson, noting how easy it was for him to see right through the pretensions of his friend the author, Henry Thoreau:

Under his seeming trustfulness and frankness ... he conceals an immense amount of pride, pretension and infidelity.






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About WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, he commented that he had not read “all his book through” but doubted that “anyone else will except as a feat.” All in all Henry Thoreau’s literary accomplishment he depicted as inferior to his own as-yet-unfinished, as-yet-untitled production. Although he here suggested that Brownson take a shot at this new book by Thoreau in Brownson’s Quarterly Review, Brownson would not in






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fact ever venture so to do:

Do give in yr next Review a notice of “Thoreau’s Life in the woods”. He places himself fairly before the public and is a fair object of criticism. I have not read all his book through, and I don’t think any one will except as a feat. I read enough in it to see that under his seeming truthfulness & frankness he conceals an immense amount of pride, pretention & infidelity. This tendency to solitude & asceticism means something, and there is a certain degree of truthfulness & even bravery in his attempts to find out what this something is; but his results are increased pride, pretention & infidelity, instead of humility, simplicity, & piety. He makes a great ado about the cheapness of his house, and gives us a list of his articles of diet as something to be looked at & admired; but why a house at all? Why this long list of luxuries? The Hermit Fathers did without all these. They dwelt in holes & caves & lived on roots & water. Thoreau lives a couple of years in the midst of [Walden Woods] — with the help of his friends, and lo he sets to crowing to wake up his neighbors. The Hermit Fathers lived 60 100 years & upwards in perfect solitude & silence & when discovered plunge deeper into the desert, and die as they lived in solitude & silence. The poor man Thoreau does not know what cheap stuff his heroism is made of. He wants waking up. He brags of not having committed himself in not having purchased a farm, he forgets that he takes a deed for his book in the shape of a copy right. His recontre with the Catholic Canadian shows according to his own account to every other mind except his own, that of the two, the Canadian was the truer, braver, & greater man. You can give him a good notice, for he was a young friend of yours. What has all his efforts & struggling done for him? What would these efforts not do inside & under the divine influence of the H Church. The time is coming when our young, earnest, and enterprising American youth will find that it is the Church of God they seek — and they will find in her bosom the sphere for their activities & the true objects of their search & aspirations.... I put into the hands of Appleton to-day or to-morrow the first 12 chapters of my book. Including “The Model Man” & “The Model Life” two chapters which I have written since I saw you. I think I have been successful in doing what I intended these two chapters which I considered the most difficult task from the begginning.






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December 2, Saturday: Since ice had formed about Henry Thoreau’s boat, he had to take it out of the water and house it for the winter.


The report by David Page, a disgruntled ex-employee, again appeared in the newspapers. It was not clear that he could be believed, that Robert Chambers was the secret author of VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION.


II. The Know-Nothings

III. Sumner on Fugitive Slaves

IV. Works of Fisher Ames

V. Church and State


VII. End of the Eleventh Volume


CATHOLICISM

KNOW-NOTHINGS




http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/44/1844_VESTIGES_ed1.pdf

http://www.kouroo.info/kouroo/transclusions/18/44/1844_VESTIGES_ed1.pdf


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March 12, Monday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

In the morning Henry Thoreau went to Andromeda or Cassandra Ponds,

and in the afternoon to Great Meadows (Gleason D8).

Thoreau wrote to Charles Sumner .

Concord Mar. 121855Dear SirAllow me to thank you for the Comp’d’m of the U.S. census, which has come safely to hand. It looks as full of facts as a chestnut of meat. I expect to nibble at it for many years.I read with pleasure your pertinent Address before the Merc. Lib. Association, sent me long ago.Yrs trulyHenry D. ThoreauCharles Sumner.

March 12. 6.30 A. M. — To Andromeda Ponds. Lesser redpolls still [Vide forward.]. Elbridge Hayden

1855

CHARLES SUMNER





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and Poland affirm that they saw a brown thrasher sitting on the top of an apple tree by the road near Hubbard’sand singing after his fashion on the 5th. I suggested the shrike, which they do not know, but they say it was abrown bird. Hayden saw a bluebird yesterday.P. M. — To Great Meadows. Comes out pleasant after a raw forenoon with a flurry of snow, already gone. Twoducks in river, good size, white beneath with black heads, as they go over [Sheldrakes?]. They first rise somedistance down-stream, and fly by on high, reconnoitring me, and I first see them on wing; then settle a quarterof a mile above by a long slanting flight, at last opposite the swimming-elm below Flint’s. I come on up thebank with the sun in my face; start them again. Again they fly down-stream by me on high, turn and come roundback by me again with outstretched heads, and go up to the Battle-Ground before they alight. Thus the river isno sooner fairly open than they are back again, — before I have got my boat launched, and long before the riverhas worn through Fair Haven Pond. I think I heard a quack or two. Audubon and Bachman say that Forster andHarlan refer the Mus leucopus “to Mus sylvaticus of Europe,” — wrongly, for they differ in many respects.“They may always be distinguished from each other at a glance by the following mark: in more than twentyspecimens we examined of Mus sylvaticus [in Europe] [The brackets are Thoreau’s.] we have always found ayellowish line edged with dark-brown, on the breast. In many hundred specimens of Mus leucopus we havewithout a single exception found this yellow line entirely wanting, all of them being pure white on the breast,as well as on the whole under surface. We have no hesitation in pronouncing the species distinct.” Now I findthat I had described my specimen of February 20th, before I had read Audubon and Bachman or heard of theMus sylvaticus, as having “a very slight and delicate tinge of yellowish beneath, between the fore legs,” thoughEmmons does not mention this color. The other differences they mention certainly are not of much importance,and probably equally great ones are to be found between different specimens of Mus leucopus.

March 27, Tuesday: His first treatise a huge success, Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR set out to write a second treatise, ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE, demonstrating, by recourse to human reason alone, the true value of the True Church. His intended audience was those persons who had fallen back on simple nature, and his starting point was the Transcendentalist principle that human nature naturally aspires to God. To Orestes Augustus Brownson, he wrote that he would demonstrate “how the dogmas of the Church answer in a way, to the demands of the intellect, as the sacraments do to the wants of the heart.” But this second treatise which Father Thomas was here outlining would not appear until 1857.

At 6 AM Henry Thoreau went to Island (Gleason 73/F6) below Nawshawtuct Hill. In the afternoon he went to Hubbard’s Close (Gleason G8) and down Mill Brook (Gleason F7).

March 27. 6.30 A. M. — To Island. The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which doesnot freeze, and there may be found early in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which ispermanently covered. Snow last evening, about one inch deep, and now it [is] fair and somewhat warmer. AgainI see the tracks of rabbits, squirrels, etc. It would be a good time this forenoon to examine the tracks ofwoodchucks and see what they are about.P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and down brook. Measured a black oak just sawed down. Twenty-three inches indiameter on the ground, and fifty-four rings. It had grown twice as much on the east side as on the west. TheFringilla linaria still here. Saw a wood tortoise in the brook. Am surprised to see the cowslip so forward,showing so much green, in E. Hubbard’s Swamp, in the brook, where it is sheltered from the winds. The alreadyexpanded leaves rise above the water. If this is a spring growth [Yes.], it is the most forward herb I have seen,as forward as the celandine.Saw my frog hawk. (C. saw it about a week ago.) Probably Falco fuscus, or sharp-shinned, though not welldescribed by Wilson. Slate-colored; beating the bush; black tips to wings and white rump. [No, it is the hen-harrier (i.e. marsh hawk), male.]

The ducks sleep these nights in the shallowest water which does not freeze, and there may be foundearly in the morning. I think that they prefer that part of the shore which is permanently covered.

AUDUBON





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April 7, Saturday: On about this day, the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson was writing to the Reverend George Luther Stearns to the effect that the cost of the revenue cutter to return Anthony Burns to his “owner” in the South, and the troops to escort him through the streets of Boston, and the cleanup after the crowd, in total adding up to certainly more than $100,000, easily made this man “the most expensive slave in the history of mankind.” (In fact the irony of the situation had not been wasted on Burns himself: “There was a lot of folks to see a colored man walk through the streets.”)


Henry Thoreau went to Conantum (Gleason J6).

April 7 [1855]. In my walk in the afternoon of to-day, I saw from Conantum, say fifty rods distant, twosheldrakes [Common Merganser Mergus merganser], male and probably female, sailing on A. Wheeler’scranberry meadow. I saw only the white of the male at first, but my glass revealed the female. The male is easilyseen a great distance on the water, being a large white mark. But they will let you come only within some sixtyrods ordinarily. I observed that they were uneasy at sight of me and began to sail away in different directions.I could plainly see that vermillion bill of the male and his orange legs when he flew (but he appeared all whiteabove), and the reddish brown or sorrel of the neck of the female, and, when she lifted herself in the water, asit were preparatory to flight, her white breast and belly. She had a grayish look on the sides. Soon theyapproached each other again and seemed to be conferring, and then they rose and went off, at first low,downstream, soon upstream a hundred feet over the pond, the female leading, the male following close behind,

I. Gratry on the Knowledge of God

II. Ritter’s History of Philosophy

III. Radowitz’s Fragments

IV. Luther and the Reformation

V. Russia and the Western Powers

VI. The Know-Nothings



CATHOLICISM





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the black at the end of his curved wings very conspicuous. I suspect that about all the conspicuous white ducksI see are goosanders.I skinned my duck yesterday and stuffed it to-day. It is wonderful that a man, having undertaken such anenterprise, ever persevered in it to the end, and equally wonderful that he succeeded. To skin a bird, drawingbackward, wrong side out, over the legs and wings down to the base of the mandibles! Who would expect tosee a smooth feather again? This skin was very tender on the breast. I should have done better had I stuffed itat once or turned it back before the skin became stiff. Look out not to cut the ear and eyelid.But what a pot-bellied thing is a stuffed bird compared even with the fresh dead one I found! It looks no longerlike an otter, like a swift diver, but a mere waddling duck. How perfectly the vent of a bird is covered! There isno mark externally.At six this morn to Clamshell. The skunk-cabbage open yesterday, — the earliest flower this season. I suspectthat the spathes do not push up in the spring. This is but three inches high. I see them as high and higher in thefall, and they seem only to acquire color now and gape open. I see but one out, and that sheds pollen abundantly.See thirty or forty goldfinches [American Goldfinch Carduleis tristis] in a dashing flock, in all respects(notes and all) like lesser redpolls, on the trees by Wood’s Causeway and on the railroad-bank. There is a generaltwittering and an occasional mew. Then they alight on the ground to feed, along with F. hyemalis and fox-colored sparrows. They are merely olivaceous above, dark about the base of the bill, but bright lemon-yellowin a semicircle on the breast; black wings and tails, with white bar on wings and white vanes to tail. I never sawthem here so early before; or probably one or two olivaceous birds I have seen and heard of other years werethis.Clear, but a cold air.What is [the] cockroach(?)-like black beetle with a colored edge (blue?) on pebbles, like cicindelas?48

P. M. — To Hubbard’s Close and Lee’s Cliff.A mouse-nest of grass, in Stow’s meadow east of railroad, on the surface. Just like those seen in the rye-fieldsome weeks ago, but this in lower ground has a distinct gallery running from it, and I think is the nest of themeadow mouse. The pool at Hubbard’s Close, which was full of ice, unbroken gray ice, the 27th of March, isnow warm-looking water, with the slime-covered callitriche standing a foot high in it; and already a narrowgrass, the lake grass, has sprung up and lies bent nine or ten inches flat on the water. This is very early as wellas sudden. In ten days there has been this change. How much had that grass grown under the ice? I see manysmall skaters (?) in it. Saw a trout as long as my finger, in the ditch dug from Brister’s Spring, which, havingno hole [or] overhanging bank where it could hide, plunged into the mud like a frog and was concealed.The female flowers of the hazel are just beginning to peep out.At Lee’s Cliff I find the radical leaves of the early saxifrage, columbine, and the tower mustard, etc., much eatenapparently by partridges and perhaps rabbits. They must have their greens in the spring, and earlier than we.Below the rocks, the most obviously forward radical leaves are the columbine, tower mustard (lanceolate andpetioled and remotely toothed), and catnep, and mullein. Early crowfoot, the buttercup (bulbosa), is a peculiarlysappy, dark pickle-green, decided spring, and none of your sapless evergreens. The little thyme-leaved arenaria,

48. David Spooner has remarked about how Thoreau lingered over cicindelas, those sap-green, glittering, iridescent, lively darlings of the sandbanks near Newbury, Massachusetts.





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I believe it is, which is evergreen, and some other minute leaves, also, already green the ground. The saxifrageon the rocks will apparently open in two days: it shows some white. The grass is now conspicuously green aboutopen springs in dense tufts. The frozen sod, partly thawed in low grounds, sinks under me as I walk.

April 16, Monday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

At 5 AM Henry Thoreau went to Nawshawtuct or Lee’s Hill (Gleason F6):

April 16. 5 A.M. — To Hill.Clear and cool. A frost whitens the ground; yet a mist hangs over the village. There is a thin ice, reaching a footfrom the water’s edge, which the earliest sun rays will melt. I scare up several snipes [CommonSnipe Gallinago gallinago] feeding on the meadow’s edge. It is remarkable how they conceal themselveswhen they alight on a bare spit of the meadow. I look with my glass to where one alighted four rods off, and atlength detect its head rising amid the cranberry vines and withered grass blades, –which last it closely resemblesin color,– with its eye steadily fixed on me. The robins, etc., blackbirds, song sparrows sing now on all handsjust before sunrise, perhaps quite as generally as at any season. Going up the hill, I examined the tree-tops forhawks. What is that little hawk about as big as a turtle dove on the top of one of the white oaks on top of thehill? It appears to have a reddish breast. Now it flies to the bare top of a dead tree. Now some crows join, andit pursues one, diving at it repeatedly from above, down a rod or more, as far as I can see toward the hemlocks.Returning that way, I came unexpectedly close to this hawk perched near the top of a large aspen by the riverright over my head. He seemed neither to see nor hear me. At first I thought it a new woodpecker. I had a fairview of all its back and tail within forty feet with my glass. Its back was, I should say, a rather dark ash, spotted,and so barred, wings and back, with large white spots, woodpecker-like (not well described in hooks), probablyon the inner vanes of the feathers, both secondaries and primaries, and probably coverts. The tail conspicuouslybarred with black, three times beyond the covering and feathers and once at least under there. Beneath and undertail, mainly a dirty white with long and conspicuous femoral feathers, unlike sparrow hawk. Head darker andbill dark. It was busily pruning itself, and suddenly pitched off downward. What I call a pigeon hawk. [Probablysharp-shinned. Vide May 4th.] In the meanwhile heard the quivet through the wood, and, looking, saw throughan opening a small compact flock of pigeons [American Passenger Pigeons Ectopistes migratorius]flying low about.From the Hill-top looked to the Great Meadows with glass. They were very smooth, with a slight mist overthem, but I could see very clearly the pale salmon of the eastern horizon reflected there and contrasting with anintermediate streak of skim-milk blue, — now, just after sunrise.

P. M. — To Flint’s Pond.A perfectly clear and very warm day, a little warmer than the 31st of March or any yet, and I have not got farbefore, for the first time, I regret that I wore my greatcoat. Noticed the first wasp, and many cicindelæ on a sandyplace. Have probably seen the latter before in the air, but this warmth brings them out in numbers.The gray of Hubbard’s oaks looks drier and more like summer, and it is now drier walking, the frost in mostplaces wholly out. I got so near a grass-bird [Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus] as to see the narrowcircle of white round the eye. The spots on the Emys guttata, in a still, warm leafy-paved ditch which dries up,are exceedingly bright now. Does it last? At Callitriche Pool (I see no flowers on it), I see what looks likeminnows an inch long, with a remarkably forked tail-fin, probably larvæ of dragon-flies. The eyed headconspicuous, and something like a large dorsal fin. They dart about in this warm pool and rest at different angleswith the horizon. The water ranunculus was very forward here.This pool dries up in summer. The very pools, the receptacles of all kinds of rubbish, now, soon after the ice hasmelted, so transparent and of glassy smoothness and full of animal and vegetable life, are interesting andbeautiful objects. Stow’s cold pond-hole is still full of ice though partly submerged, -the only pool in this statethat I see. The orange-copper vanessa, middle-sized, is out, and a great many of the large buff-edged arefluttering over the leaves in wood-paths this warm afternoon. I am obliged to carry my greatcoat on my arm.A striped snake rustles down a dry open hillside where the withered grass is long.I could not dig to the nest of the deer mouse in Britton’s hollow, because of the frost about six inches beneath





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the surface. (Yet, though I have seen no plowing in fields, the surveyors plowed in the road on the 14th.) As faras I dug, their galleries appeared at first to be lined with a sort of membrane, which I found was the bark or skinof roots of the right size, their galleries taking the place of the decayed wood. An oak stump.At Flint’s, sitting on the rock, we see a great many ducks, mostly sheldrakes, on the pond, which will hardly nbide us within half a mile. With the glass I see by their reddish heads that all of one party –the main body– arefemales [Common Merganser Mergus merganser]. You see little more than their heads at a distance andnot much white but on their throats, perchance. When they fly, they look black and white, but not so large norwith that brilliant contrast of blade and white which the male exhibits. In another direction is a male by himself,conspicuous, perhaps several. Anon alights near us a flock of golden-eyes — surely, with their great black(looking) heads mid a white patch on the side: short stumpy bills (after looking at the mergansers); much clearblack, contrasting with much clear white. Their heads and bills look ludicrously short and parrot-like after theothers. Our presence and a boat party on the pond at last drove nearly all the ducks into the deep easterly cove.We stole down on them carefully through the woods, at last crawling on our bellies, with great patience, till atlast we found ourselves within seven or eight rods -as I measured afterward -of the great body of them, andwatched them for twenty or thirty minutes with the glass through a screen of cat-briar, alders, etc. There weretwelve female sheldrakes close together, and, nearest us, within two rods of the shore, where it was veryshallow, two or more constantly moving about within about the diameter of a rod and keeping watch while therest were trying to sleep, — to catch a nap with their heads in their backs; but from time to time one would wakeup enough to plume himself. It seemed as if they must have been broken of their sleep and were trying to makeit up, having an arduous journey before them, for we had seen them all disturbed and on the wing within halfan hour. They were headed various ways. Now and then they seemed to see or hear or smell us, and uttered alow note of alarm, something like the note of a tree-toad, but very faint, or perhaps a little more wiry and likethat of pigeons, but the sleepers hardly lifted their heads for it. How fit that this note of alarm should be madeto resemble the croaking of a frog and so not betray them to the gunners! They appeared to sink about midwayin the water, and their heads were all a rich reddish brown, their throats white. Now and then one of thewatchmen \would lift his head and turn his bill directly upward, showing his white throat.There were some black or dusky clucks in company with them at first, apparently about as large as they, butmore alarmed. Their throats looked strawcolored, somewhat like a bittern’s, and I saw their shovel bills. Thesesoon sailed further off.At last we arose and rushed to the shore within three rods of them, and they rose up with a din, — twenty-sixmergansers (I think all females), ten black ducks, — and five golden-eyes from a little further off, also anotherstill more distant flock of one of these kinds. The black ducks alone uttered a sound, their usual hoarse quack.They all flew in loose array, but the three kinds in separate flocks. We were surprised to find ourselves lookingon a company of birds devoted to slumber after the alarm and activity we had just witnessed.Returning, at Goose Pond, which many water-bugs (gyrinus) were now dimpling, we scared up two blackducks. The shore was strewn with much fresh eel-grass and the fine, now short eriocaulon with its white roots,apparently all pulled up by them and drifted in.The spearer’s light to-night, and, after dark, the sound of geese honking all together very low over the housesand apparently about to settle on the Lee meadow.Have not noticed fox-colored sparrows since April 13th.I am startled sometimes these mornings to hear the sound of doves [Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura]alighting on the roof just over my head; they come down so hard upon it, as if one had thrown a heavy stick onto it, and I wonder it does not injure their organizations. Their legs must be cushioned in their sockets to savethem from the shock?49

When we reached Britton’s clearing on our return this afternoon, at sunset, the mountains, after this our warmestday as yet, had got a peculiar soft mantle of blue haze, pale blue as a blue heron, ushering in the long series ofsummer sunsets, and we were glad that we had stayed out so late and felt no need to go home now in a hurry.

June 1, Friday: On about this day, Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to the Reverend Isaac Hecker S.S.R.

49. Francis H. Allen was persuaded that this has been a mistaken identification — that these could not have been light mourning doves but instead must have been heavy domestic pigeons.





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June 1. A very windy day, the third, drowning the notes of birds, scattering the remaining appleblossoms. Rye, to my surprise, three or four feet high and glaucous. Cloudy and rain, threatening withal.Surveying at Holden wood-lot, I notice the Equisetum hyemale, its black-scaled flowerets now in many casesseparated so as to show the green between, but not yet in open rings or whorls like the limosum.I find the Linnæa borealis growing near the end of the ridge in this lot toward the meadow, near a large whitepine stump recently cut. C. has found the arethusa out at Hubbard’s Close; say two or three days at a venture,there being considerable.

The Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward was able again to made a brief visit to Ireland, but this time not as a mere tourist at leisure but on a scheduled antislavery lecture tour. He embarked upon a steamer at Greenock, at 7PM, down the Clyde headed for Belfast:

A most pleasant trip down the Clyde, on a moonlight night, andacross the placid waters betwixt the Scotch and the Irishcoasts, brought us into Belfast at five the next morning.Breakfasting at the Imperial Hotel, and taking the first morningtrain, I started on my way, having to be in Sligo the next day.I travelled by railway only to Armagh; the remainder of thejourney, seventy or eighty miles — Irish miles, in that briefperiod — had to be made in such conveyances as I could find. AtArmagh I found in the coach a most ladylike fellow passenger,in the person of Mrs. Caldwell, of Clogher. By this kind lady Iwas introduced to Mrs. Maxwell,50 the Secretary of Clogher Anti-Slavery Society. I seemed to Mrs. M. no stranger, as she hadbeen corresponding with my good friend Mr. Armistead, of Leeds,concerning me. Professor Allen was to speak there the followingTuesday, and both Mrs. Caldwell and Mrs. Maxwell kindly andpolitely invited me to attend with him. It was with deep regretthat I found myself unable to do so.I went on to Enniskillen, arriving at about five p.m. I therelearned, to my dismay, that there was no public conveyancethence to Sligo, until the next morning. I had no other way thanto post on twenty-one miles, to Manor Hamilton, which I reachedat eleven o’clock that night.

50. A relative of Lord Cavan, I believe.





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August 7, Tuesday: On Ellen Fuller Channing’s birthday, her brother Eugene Fuller gave her a copy of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS. She commented:

Surely she knew that her estranged husband Ellery figured in this book, with snippets of his poetry quoted and with several passages in which he was semi-disguised as “poet” (but knowing that, she made no comment):


Aug.7. To Tarbell Hill again with the Emersons, a-berrying. Very few berries this year.

August 23, Thursday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

I. Romanism in America

II. Liberalism and Socialism

III. Questions of the Soul

IV. What Human Reason can do.

V. The Papal Conspiracy Exposed


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I really enjoy Thoreau’s book -- it is so thoroughly characteristic, and fresh.

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

PEOPLE OFWALDEN

WALDEN: I took a poet to board for a fortnight about those times,which caused me to be put to it for room. He brought his ownknife, though I had two, and we used to scour them by thrustingthem into the earth. He shared with me the labors of cooking.I was pleased to see my work rising so square and solid bydegrees, and reflected, that, if it proceeded slowly, it wascalculated to endure a long time. The chimney is to some extentan independent structure, standing on the ground and risingthrough the house to the heavens; even after the house is burnedit still stands sometimes, and its importance and independenceare apparent. This was toward the end of summer. It was nowNovember.

ELLERY CHANNING








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August 29, Wednesday: Orestes Augustus Brownson wrote to the Reverend Isaac Hecker.

September 1, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

October 1, Monday: Henry Sabin Chase was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, 1st son of Augustus Sabin Chase and Martha Starkweather Chase. After graduating from Yale College he would get married on April 4, 1889 with Alice Morton.

In Syracuse NY, the 4th annual “Jerry Celebration” sponsored by the Unitarian congregation of the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, honoring the freeing of Jerry McHenry from the federal marshals who had been seeking to “return” him to his “owner” on October 1, 1851.Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

On this date’s journal entry Henry Thoreau blotted his page with an inky thumbprint which we may presume to be his own. We therefore do have a sample of our guy’s print — should any medical or genetic information ever prove through the development of forensic science to be recoverable from such an image.

Oct. 1. Among R.’s books is Bewick’s “Æsop’s Fables.” On a leaf succeeding the title-page isengraved a facsimile of B.’s handwriting to the following effect:

“Newcastle, January, 1824.To Thomas Bewick & Son Dr.

£ s dTo a Demy Copy of Æsop’s Fables “ 18 “

Received the above with thanksThomas Bewick Robert Elliot Bewick.”

Then there was some fine red sea-moss adhering to the page just over the view of a distant church and windmill(probably Newcastle) by moonlight, and at the bottom of the page: —

“No. 809Thomas Bewick

his mark”

It being the impression of his thumb.51

A cloudy, somewhat rainy clay. Mr. R. brought me a snail, apparently Helix albolabris, or possibly thyroidus,which he picked from under a rock where he was having a wall built. It had put its stag- or rather giraffe-likehead and neck out about two inches, the whole length to the point behind being about three, — mainly a neckof a somewhat buffish-white or grayish-buff color or buff-brown, shining with moisture, with a short head, deer-like, and giraffe-like horns or tentacula on its top black at tip, five eighths of an inch long, and apparently twoshort horns on snout. Its neck, etc., flat beneath, by which surface it draws or slides itself along in a chair. It issurprisingly long and large to be contained in that shell, which moves atop of it. It moves at the rate of an inch

ÆSOP

BEWICK

RICKETSON





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or half an inch a minute over a level surface, whether horizontal or perpendicular, and holds quite tight to it, theshell like a whorled dome to a portion of a building. Its foot (?) extends to a point behind. It commonly touchesby an inch of its flat under side, flatting out by as much of its length as it touches. Shell rather darker mottled(?) than body. The tentacula become all dark as they are drawn in, and it can draw them or contract them straightback to naught. No obvious eyes (?) or mouth.P.M. — Rode to New Bedford and called on Mr. Green, a botanist, but had no interview with him. Walkedthrough Mrs. Arnold’s arboretum. Rode to the beach at Clark’s Cove where General Gray landed his fourthousand troops in the Revolution. Found there in abundance Anomia ephippium (?), their irregular golden-colored shells; Modiola plicatula (rayed mussel); Crepidula fornica (?), worn; Pecten concentricus, alive; andone or two more.Returned by the new Point road, four miles long, and R. said eighty feet wide (I should think from recollectionmore), and cost $50,000. A magnificent road, by which New Bedford has appropriated the sea. Passed saltworks still in active operation, windmills going; a series of frames, with layers of bushes one above another toa great height, apparently for filtering. Went into a spermaceti candle and oil factory.Arthur R. has a soapstone pot (Indian), about nine inches long, more than an inch thick, with a kind of handleat the ends, — or protuberances. A. says he uses fresh-water clams for bait for perch, etc., in ponds. I think itwas to-day some one saw geese go over here, so they said.


51. Here, for comparison with Thoreau’s description, is a JPEG of the actual Thomas Bewick thumbprint:

(An inky print, apparently Henry’s own, also appears on this page.)

I. The Temporal Power of the Pope

II. Hume’s Philosophical Works

III. The Know-Nothing Platform

IV. Ventura on Philosophy and Catholicity

V. Wordworth’s Poetical Works

VI. The Irish in America


CATHOLICISM





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December 31, Monday: Waldo Emerson to his journal in Davenport, Iowa, in regard to the 2d bridge to be thrown over the Mississippi River:

Before the close of 1855, Father Isaac Hecker had fallen in with a group of Roman Catholics –among them Father Jeremiah W. Cummings, Father Ambrose Manahan, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, and George Hecker52– that was engaging James McMaster of New York, the fellow he had sailed off toward Belgium with in August 1845 who had dropped out of priest training, to edit a Freeman’s Journal and Catholic Register as a venue for their evangelistic writings. Boston having gotten “too Irish” for a nativist’s tastes, Orestes Augustus Brownson would take this funding opportunity to relocate his family and his journal to Manhattan. During this period the influence of the European liberal Catholicism of the French writer, Count Charles Montalembert, and that of the Italian politician and philosopher, Vincenzo Gioberti, would begin to be readily apparent in Brownson’s writings. Representative of this development is his piece “The Mission of America,” in which he declares the providential destiny of America to be to bring Catholicism to contemporary Western civilization as a variety of social order that is specifically Christian.

52.George Hecker lavished money from the family business upon Catholic causes, including his brother’s ministry, and even made cash presents to financially challenged individuals such as Orestes Augustus Brownson, Henry Hewit, M.D., Father Augustine F. Hewit’s brother who also had converted, and James McMaster.

I have crossed the Mississippi on foot three times.




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nativism_(politics)


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Archbishop John Joseph Hughes, speaking in Baltimore, revealed the statistic that Catholics were leaving the Church in America for Protestantism at more than three times the rate at which American Protestants were being converted to Catholicism.


April 12, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

April 12: There suddenly flits before me and alights on a small apple tree in Mackay’s field, as I go tomy boat, a splendid purple finch [Purple Finch Carpodacus purpureus]. Its glowing redness is revealed when

1856

ISAAC HECKER


I. The Constitution of the Church

II. The “End of Controversy” Controverted

III. Catholicity and Literature

IV. Transcendental Road to Rome

V. Great Britain and the United States

VI. Le Correspondant


CATHOLICISM





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it lifts its wings; as when the ashes is [sic] blown from a coal of fire. Just as the oriole displays its gold.



I. Protestantism in the Sixteenth Century

II. Revival of Letters and the Reformation

III. The Blakes and Flanagans

IV. Army and Navy

V. Montalambert on England

VI. The Day-Star of Freedom


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Church and the Republic

II. The Effects of the Reformation

III. The Unholy Alliance

IV. Reason and Faith

V. Pere Gratry’s Logic


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Lecture Season of ’56/57, at the Odeon in Boston:

I. Mission in America

II. The Council of Trent and its Results

III. The Church and Modern Civilization

IV. E.H. Derby to his Son

V. The Presidential Election

VI. The Church in the United States

VII. Inkerman

VIII. Literary Notices and Criticisms

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

18th Season of The Lowell Institutexxx lectures

xxx lectures

xxx lectures

xxx lectures





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Orestes Augustus Brownson published his religious autobiography, titled (of course — what else?) THE CONVERT. In this work he revisited the doctrine of communion by which he had originally reasoned himself into the Catholic faith, and convinced himself that he had been right all along. The blatant chauvinism of this effort, however, provoked the Irish-born prelate of New-York, by this time an archbishop, John J. Hughes, who had to service an audience of immigrants and marginalized Americans, to a show of public indignation. Brownson’s response to the rage he had provoked was to moved himself, his family, and his journal across the Hudson to Elizabeth, New Jersey, where he would enjoy the relative protection of the more congenial Newark Diocese and of its leader, a fellow convert, Bishop James R. Bayley.

January 31, Saturday: John Henry Kagi was struck on the head with a gold-headed cane by Judge Elmore, a proslavery judge, whereupon he drew his revolver and shot said judge in the groin. Judge Elmore, however, got off three shots, one striking Kagi over the heart, with the bullet being stopped by a memorandum-book. Kagi would return to his family in Ohio to recuperate, and would be long in recovering from these wounds, but upon recovery he would return to “Bleeding Kansas” and join the forces of John Brown. He would be assigned the title of Secretary of War in the provisional government and would be next in command to Captain Brown. He was also considered to be the group’s adjutant.

Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson from Savannah, Georgia.

Jan. 31. Snows fast, turning to rain at last.

1857





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I. Brownson on the Church and the Republic

II. E.H. Derby to his Son

III. Maret on Reason and Revelation

IV. Slavery and the Incoming Administration

V. Archbishop Hughes on the Catholic Press


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal:

August 5, Wednesday: The Atlantic cable.

Believing the journey to be both within the rules and in the best interests of the Redemptorist order despite the opposition of the superior, Isaac Hecker’s brother George gave him some bakery money and Father Thomas sailed for Europe. On this day of departure his mentor, Orestes Augustus Brownson, posted one final letter of encouragement to him. In his luggage he carried a number of letters of recommendation from foremost members of the American hierarchy, and in addition from outstanding laypersons such as Brownson, Dr. Levi Silliman Ives, and Louis B. Binsse. When Father Thomas would present himself in Rome, the church authorities wouldn’t even wait for him to open his mouth. He would be summarily informed that his abandonment of his post in America had amounted to a violation not only of his vow of obedience but also of his vow of poverty, he would be summarily dismissed from the ordered community, and he would be peremptorily instructed in effect “You, outa here!” At this point the only thing the defrocked Hecker would have going for him was the fact that the American continents were classified as missionary territory. He could

I. E.H. Derby to his Son

II. Prayer Books

III. Spiritual Despotism

IV. Ailey Moore

V. The Slavery Question Once More


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

There is certainly a convenience in the money scale in the absence of finer metres. In the South a slave is bluntly but accurately valued at 500 to 1000 dollars, if a good working field hand; if a mechanic, as carpenter or smith, at 12, 15, or 20 hundred. A Mulatto girl, if beautiful, rises at once very naturally to a high estimation. If beautiful & sprightly-witted, one who is a joy when present, a perpetual entertainment to the eye, &, when absent, a happy remembrance, $2500 & upwards of our money.





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appeal to the Cardinal Alessandro Barnabo, the prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Propagation of the Faith whose jurisdiction over missionary territory included the Church in the USA. The secretary in that office, Archbishop Gaetano Bedini, of course sympathized with his plight –which would have been ridiculously extreme even in the days when Christians went to Rome to attend the Circus in the Colosseum– and Hecker would be shown how to prepare the necessary legal brief laying out his basis for a direct appeal to Pope Pius IX. This was obviously gonna take a while, so, to kill time in Rome, Hecker would write for the benefit of Vatican officials about the state of affairs in the New World “missions.” At first he would merely be attempting to put his mentor Brownson’s essay “Mission of America” into the Italian, but he would end up writing a fresh piece, anonymous of course, for Civiltà Cattolica. In this opinion piece he would plump for the problematic notions that a.) a free man tends to be a good Catholic, and that b.) a free nation tends to be the most promising field for apostolic zeal.

The record indicates that Hecker was unable to persuade Il Papa of the advantages of religious freedom. –Quite to the contrary, the head of the Roman Catholic Church would point out to Hecker that already

September 1, Tuesday: Father Isaac Hecker, CSSR, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson from Rome.

September 1, Tuesday: P.M. –To Fair Haven Pond by boat.Landing at Bittern Cliff, I see that fine purple grass; how long? At Baker’s shore, I at length distinguished fairlythe Sagittaria simplex, which I have known so long, the small one with simple leaves. But this year there arevery few of them, being nearly drowned out by the high water.

On the west side of Fair Haven Pond, an abundance of the Utricularia purpurea and of the whorled, etc., whosefinely dissected leaves are a rich sight in the water. Again I observe that the heart-leaf, as it decays, preservesfresh and green for some time within, or in its centre, a finely dissected green leaf, suggesting that it has passedthrough this stage in its development. Immersed leaves often present this form, but [it] seems that even emersedones remember it. High blackberries are still in their prime on Lee’s Cliff, but huckleberries soft and wormy,many of them.I have finally settled for myself the question of the two varieties of Polygonum amphibium. I think there are noteven two varieties. As formerly, I observe again to-day a Polygonum amphibium extending from the shore sixfeet into the water. In the water, of course, the stem is prostrate, rank, and has something serpent-like in itsaspect. From the shore end rise erect flowering branches whose leaves are more or less roughish and prickly onthe midrib beneath. On the water end the leaves are long-petioled, heart-shaped, and perfectly smooth. Vide aspecimen pressed. I have seen this same plant growing erect in the driest soil, by the roadside, and it ranges fromthis quite into the water.

October 24, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson from Rome.

October 24, Saturday: P.M. –To Smith’s chestnut grove.Rain last night, raising the springs a little. To-day and yesterday still, gray days, but not cold. The sugar mapleleaves are now falling fast.I get a couple of quarts of chestnuts by patiently brushing the thick beds of leaves aside with my hand insuccessive concentric circles till I reach the trunk; more than half under one tree. I believe I get more byresolving, where they are reasonably thick, to pick all under one tree first. Begin at the tree and brush the leaves

in the United States there exists a too unrestricted freedom;all the refugees and revolutionists gather there.

BAKER FARM

JAMES BAKER





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with your right hand in toward the stump, while your left holds the basket, and so go round and round it inconcentric circles, each time laying bare about two feet in width, till you get as far as the boughs extend. Youmay presume that you have got about all then. It i.s best to reduce it to a system. Of course you will shake thetree first, if there are any on it. The nuts lie commonly two or three together, as they fell.I find on a chestnut tree, while shaking it, fifteen or twenty feet high, on the bark of the trunk, a singular green

kind of slug nearly half an inch long, of this form, and about three sixteenths high from the paper up, narroweron back, as appears in sketch; a brown mark across middle of back and near tail as drawn (only full). It canelongate itself and also run out its head a little from beneath this soft kind of shell. Beneath, quite flat and fleshy-ribbed. Climbs up glass slowly but easily. Reminds me of a green beechnut, but flat-backed. Would hardlysuspect it to have life at first sight. Sticks very firmly to the bark or glass; hard to be pushed aside.I find one of those small, hard, dark-brown millipede worms partly crawled into a hole in a chestnut.I read of an apple tree in this neighborhood that had blossomed again about a week ago.I find my account in this long-continued monotonous labor of picking chestnuts all the afternoon, brushing theleaves aside without looking up, absorbed in that, and forgetting better things awhile. My eye is educated todiscover anything on the ground, as chestnuts, etc. It is probably wholesomer to look at the ground much thanat the heavens. As I go stooping and brushing the leaves aside by the hour, I am not thinking of chestnuts merely,but I find myself humming a thought of more significance. This occupation affords a certain broad pause andopportunity to start again afterward, –turn over a new leaf.I hear the dull thump of heavy stones against the trees from far through the rustling wood, where boys areranging for nuts.

November/December: In New-York, Isaac Hecker’s ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE was finally achieving publication. This made Hecker hopeful that book sales and favorable reviews –especially a favorable review from Orestes Augustus Brownson, who had an excellent reputation in Rome– would support the Redemptorist order’s struggle against its own superior for permission to create an English-speaking mission house –a position to which he himself had become committed and for which he had sacrificed a great deal indeed– and would substantiate his positive appraisal of the convert apostolate. But Hecker’s faith was misplaced. Instead of defending him in print, Brownson attacked him in print. The allegations made by this author in regard to the spiritual and moral qualities of the American national character were made to seem as egregiously wishful as they actually were. The idea that the philosophical and cultural fringe known as Transcendentalism participated in the mainstream of this nation’s religious history was made to seem as off-the-wall as it actually was. The convert movement was portrayed as tinged by a mood of accommodationism and as motivated covertly by an agenda to reconstruct the Universal Church according to an American plan. The author of this work did not understand about original sin and was making immanentist assumptions about human nature aspiring to God which were contrary to the Catholic understanding. Against the Calvinists and Jansenists, Hecker had attempted to vindicate the rights of human nature and the powers of reason; against the rationalists and naturalists, Hecker had attempted to assert the necessity of grace and revelation. However, while presenting the Catholic position in regard to the basic goodness of human nature, Hecker had interpreted the Council of Trent as teaching that by his transgression Adam had lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted. Hecker attempted to present a popular and imprecise argument whereby these absolutely gratuitous gifts of sanctifying grace and original integrity could not have been part of Adam and Eve’s indebita naturæ, their human nature, for when Adam and Eve sinned, the gifts were forfeit. It is because of this original sin that we are now born into our situation of privation with respect to supernatural justice and integrity, and yet our human nature hasn’t altered, we remains essentially as good as before and we remain in possession of our debita naturæ, our natural abilities and rights. Brownson took advantage of this imprecision by charging





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that Hecker was endorsing the status naturae puræ theory of a “natural state of purity” whereby whatever was natural was inherently good. Of course this is preposterous, Hecker was attempting no such thing, he had merely plunged into a murky pool of theology that was way over his head. But now Hecker the culprit stood in the dock accused of having overestimated the human capacity to do good in our fallen condition without the aid of God’s grace. Such an unnecessary and categorical dismissal raises the question of what Brownson was really up to, in authoring such a review of Hecker’s book. One may suspect this popular editor of in this manner attempting to cut his reputation loose from that of a cleric who happened at that point to be in a whole lot of trouble. One may also suspect, and Hecker did in fact suspect, that Brownson was playing a cheap trick, recycling some charges that had previously been laid at his own door by Archbishop John Joseph Hughes of New York by passing them on to Hecker. Tag, Thomas, you’re it! Brownson’s letter of September 29, 1857, and its significant variant version, bear on this.

November 27, Friday: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson from Rome.

Henry Thoreau visited beautiful downtown Concord:

Standing before Stacy’s large glass windows this morning, I sawthat they were gloriously ground by the frost. I never saw suchbeautiful feather and fir-like frosting. His windows are filledwith fancy articles and toys for Christmas and New Year’spresents, but this delicate and graceful outside frostingsurpassed them all infinitely. I saw countless feathers withvery distinct midribs and fine pinnae. The half of a trunk seemedto rise in each case up along the sash, and these feathersbranched off from it all the way, sometimes nearly horizontally.Other crystals looked like pine plumes the size of life. If glasscould be ground to look like this, how glorious it would be!





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We notice, in this journal entry from Concord in the Year of Our Lord 1857, Thoreau’s above reference to glass grinding: “they were gloriously ground by the frost.” At that point in time, the glass-grinding factories that were producing such large slabs of sheet glass for use in shop windows had been in production for about nine years. Not only patterned plate glass, but transparent plate glass, was for the first time available and reasonably priced in large slabs in commercial quantities. This windows through which Thoreau was staring at John Stacy’s bookstore would have been some of the few such transparencies as yet installed in local shops.

November 27, Friday: Mr. Wesson says that he has seen a striped squirrel eating a white-bellied mouseon a wall –had evidently caught [it]; also that the little dipper is not a coot, –but he appears not to know a coot,and did not recognize the lobed feet when I drew them. Says the little dipper has a bill like a hen, and will notdive at the flash so as to escape, as he has proved.53 Says that a loon can run but little way and very awkwardly,falling on its belly, and cannot rise from the ground. Makes a great noise running on the water before it rises.Standing before Stacy’s large glass windows this morning, I saw that they were gloriously ground by the frost.I never saw such beautiful feather and fir-like frosting. His windows are filled with fancy articles and toys forChristmas and New-Year’s presents, but this delicate and graceful outside frosting

surpassed them all infinitely. I saw countless feathers with very distinct midribs and fine pinnae. The half of atrunk seemed to rise in each case up along the sash, and these feathers branched off from it all the way,sometimes nearly horizontally. Other crystals looked like pine plumes the size of life. If glass could be groundto look like this, how glorious it would be!You can tell which shopman has the hottest fire within by the frost being melted off. I was never so struck bythe gracefulness of the curves in vegetation, and wonder that Ruskin does not refer to frostwork.P.M. –Rode to the kiln and quarry by William Farrar’s, Carlisle, and to gorge behind Melvin’s.The direction of the strata at this quarry is like that of Curly-pate and the Easterbrooks quarries, east-northeastby west-southwest, though the latter are very nearly two miles southeast.Was struck by the appearance of a small hickory near the wall, in the rocky ravine just above the trough. Itstrunk was covered with loose scales unlike the hickories near it and as much as the shagbark; but probably it isa shaggy or scaly-barked variety of Carya glabra. It may be well to observe it next fall. The husk is not thick,like that of the shagbark, but quite thin, and splits into four only part way down. The shell is not white norsharply four-angled like the other, but it is rather like a pignut.The stratification trends there as at Curly-pate, or perhaps more north and south.That trough place on the side of the rocky valley to catch the trickling spring for the sake of the cattle, with along slab cover to the trough that leads to it to fend off the feet of cattle that come to drink, is an agreeable objectand in keeping with the circumstances, amid the hickories and perhaps ash trees. It reminds me of lifesometimes in the pasture, –that other creatures than myself quench their thirst at this hillside.I think that Ruskin is wrong about reflections in his “Elements of Drawing,” page 181. He says the reflectionis merely the substance “reversed” or “topsy-turvy,” and adds, “Whatever you can see from the place in whichyou stand, of the solid objects so reversed under the water, you will see in the reflection, always in the trueperspective of the solid objects so reversed.”

53.Vide December 26, 1857.

GLASS WINDOWS







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Here, in a photograph made sometime between 1865 and 1868, courtesy of Leslie Perrin Wilson of the Concord Free Public Library, is the closest approximation we have to the sort of “plate glass” window through which Thoreau was peering on this day. The shop on the left is 23-25 Main Street, which was John Stacy’s business which his son Albert Stacy had by 1850 taken over. The shop on the right is one that he set up after the Civil War. We note immediately that this type of shop window might more appropriately be referred to as a glass plate window rather than a plate glass window, as it was clearly built up from multiple polished glass plates in a frame rather than, as today, of one solid slab of almost invisible glass entirely filling a window space:





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1858

I. Conversations of our Club

II. England and Naples

III. Common Schools

IV. The Church an Organism

V. Literary Notices


CATHOLICISM

I. Theiner’s ANNALES ECCLESIASTICI

II. Mammonism and the Poor

III. Conversations of our Club

IV. Our Colleges

V. The Princeton Review and the Convert

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Revivals and Retreats

II. Rome and its Ruler

III. Conversations of our Club

IV. Necessity of Divine Revelation

V. Clapp’s Autobiographical Sketches

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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I. Conversations of our Club

II. Catholicity in the Nineteenth Century

III. Alice Sherwin, and the English Schism

IV. An Exposition of the Apocalypse

V. Domestic Education


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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SummerBrownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 14

1859

I. Usury Laws

II. Catholicity and Civilization

III. The Humanists

IV. Primitive Elements of Thought

V. Conversations on Theocracy

VI. Popular Amusements


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Church and the Revolution

II. Politics at Home and Abroad

III. The Mortara Case

IV. Religious Controversy

V. Pere Felix on Progress

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Winter: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 16:

I. The Church and the Revolution

II. Public and Parochial Schools

III. Complete Works of Gerald Griffin

IV. Lamennais and Gregory XVI

V. Napoleonic Ideas


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Immaculate Conception

II. Charlemagne – His Scholarship

III. Ecclesiastical Seminaries

IV. Divorce and Divorce Laws

V. Romanic and Germanic Orders

VI. The Roman Question


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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1860

I. Christianity or Gentilism?

II. The Soul’s Activity

III. Manahan’s Triumph of the Church

IV. The Bible Against Protestants

V. The True Cross

VI. The Yankee in Irelans


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Limits of Religious Thought

II. ETUDES DE THEOLOGIE

III. Ventura on Christian Politics

IV. Burnett’s Path to the Church

V. American College at Rome


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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September 19, Wednesday: Thomas Dartmouth “T.D.” “Daddy” Rice, originator of the stage character “Jim Crow” of the minstrel show, died in near poverty in New-York.

The New-York Herald reported that Dirty Bertie the Prince of Wales seemed to have had a swell time at one of the balls in his honor in Canada:

Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson from New Britain, Connecticut.

September 19, Wednesday: 4 P.M.–River fallen about one foot.

ME HAPPY SO ME SING

Never has the Prince seemed more manly nor in betterspirits. He talked away to his partner.... He whisperedsoft nothings to the ladies as he passed them in thedance, directed them how to go right, & shook hisfinger at those who mixed the figures.... In short wasthe life of the party. During the evening though he andthe Duke of Newcastle enquired for a pretty Americanlady Miss B. of Nachez, whom they met at Niagara Fallsand with whom the Prince wished to dance. His RoyalHighness looks as if he might have a very susceptiblenature, and has already yielded to several twinges inthe region of his midriff.




The New York Herald for September 19, 1860.


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1861

I. The Papal Power

II. Dr. Arnold, and Catholic Education

III. The Tyranny of Progress

IV. Politics at Home


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Rationalism and Traditionalism

II. Ireland

III. Rights of the Temporal

IV. Vocations to the Priesthood


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Ward’s Philosophical Introduction

II. Catholic Education in the United States

III. Separation of Church and State

IV. Seminaries and Seminarians


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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I. Christ the Spirit

II. Pope and Emperor

III. Early Christianity in England

IV. Xavier De’ Ravignan

V. The Monks of the West


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Gioberti’s PHILOSOPHY OF REVELATION

II. Avignon and the Schism

III. Catholic Polemics

IV. The Great Rebellion

V. Sardinia and Rome

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Various Objections Answered

II. The Philosophy of Religion

III. Reading and Study of the Scriptures

IV. Slavery and the War

V. The End of the Volume

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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May 16, Saturday: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

December 25, Christmas: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

In the Boston Herald:

FUNERAL OF REV. ARTHUR B. FULLER.The funeral obsequies over the remains of the late Rev.Arthur B. Fuller were performed this noon, at theChauncy street church. The body was brought to thechurch early this forenoon, enclosed in a rich,ornamented rosewood casket. The latter was decoratedwith the American flag, and a profusion of elegantflowers wrought in bouquets and wreaths, whichencircled a photograph of the deceased, taken severalmonths prior to his death. A plate bore the followinginscription:

REV. ARTHUR BUCKMINSTER FULLER, CHAPLAIN OFTHE 16 REGIMENT MASSACHUSETTS VOLUNTEERS;KILLED AT THE BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG, VA.,11TH DECEMBER 1862. AGED 40 YEARS. “I MUST DOSOMETHING FOR MY COUNTRY.”The church was crowded with a very large audience, andamong them were His Excellency Gov. Andrew and Col. Lee,of his Staff; and Maj. P.A. Ames, of the 1st Division,M.V.M. Also a detachment from the Cadets, in uniform,and the Boston Brigade Band. The services were unusuallyinteresting, solemn and impressive. They consisted of avoluntary by the choir; chant; reading of Scriptures byRev. Rufus B. Ellis; Soldier’s Funeral Hymn, from theArmy Melodies (edited by the deceased and Rev. J.W.Dadmun); addresses by Rev. Rollin H. Neale, D.D., Rev.E.O. Haven, D.D., Rev. E.A. Sears and Rev. James FreemanClark; hymn; prayer and anthem.The remarks of the reverend gentlemen were singularlytouching in feeling and sentiment. Rev. Mr. Neale spokeof his departed brother as a kind, open-hearted,generous, whole-souled man. He was noble in spirit andphilanthropic in nature, and his going into battle wherehe met his death, was characteristic of him — actingwith a noble heroism and a self-sacrificing patriotism.Rev. Mr. Clark had know him from a boy. Many principleswhich he had cherished had been instilled into his mind

1862





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by an order sister, while he was but a youth. Hereceived his education at Cambridge, graduating in thedivinity school in 1847. Soon after, he went to the Westand settled in Northern Illinois, acting both asmissionary and teacher, Since his return to New Englandhe has been settled over various parishes. He alwaysattended to duty, was decided in his opinions, and itwas his nature to be active, kind and useful.In numerous instances the audience were moved to tears,and all were impressed with the conviction that thecommunity had lost a noble and true friend, and a manof exalted character.The pall-bearers were Samuel Smith, C.J.F. Sherman,George P. Richardson, Jr., Henry S. Dalton, Samuel B.Krogman, and O.T. Taylor.The hearse which bore his remains to their last resting-place in Mount Auburn, was draped with the nationalcolors, and trimmed with rosettes of black and white,and drawn by four horses wearing heavy black plumes.A large number of mourners followed the remains to thegrave, and dropped their tears over the sepulchre ofthis fallen patriot and philanthropist.





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In “The Saint of Our Day,” a homily on sanctification, Father Isaac Hecker attempted to suggest to the Congregation of St. Paul in New-York a redefinition of the meaning of Christian Perfection suitable to the needs of the 19th Century. His friend Orestes Augustus Brownson attacked him again, as he had attacked him upon the occasion of the publication of his book ASPIRATIONS OF NATURE in November 1857, for failing to grasp the delusive nature of original sin and how difficult it was for us to get past our own self-delusiveness without the help of the outside perspective on ourselves provided by revelations from God.



1863

I. Faith and Theology

II. The Antiquity of the Faith

III. Conscripts and Volunteers

IV. Mrs. Sadlier’s OLD AND NEW

V. The President’s Message


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Faith and Reason – Revelation and Science

II. Sermons by the Paulists

III. Mr. Conway and the Union

IV. The “Six Days” of GENESIS

V. Reform and Reformers


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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December 4, Friday: Father Isaac Hecker wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

I. Orthodoxy and Unitarianism

II. St. Augustine and Calvinism

III. Walworth’s GENTLE SKEPTIC

IV. Stand by the Government

V. Are Catholics Pro-Slavery and Disloyal?


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Catholics and the Anti-Draft Riots

II. New England Brahminism

III. Visions and Revelations

IV. Return of the Rebellious States


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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January: Orestes Augustus Brownson, accused on the one foot of not having sufficient regarded the this-worldly authority of the Holy Roman Catholic Church for having spoken too lightly of the Pope’s responsibility for the welfare of the theocracy known as the Papal States, and accused on the other foot of not having spoken lightly enough of the Jesuit order, retreated, announcing that in the future his publications would focus upon topics that were “national and secular, devoted to philosophy, science, politics, literature, and the general interests of civilization, especially American civilization,” and would “eschew theology.” Nevertheless he continued to schedule a monthly overnight stay at the rectory of the Paulist Fathers in New-York, and he and Father Isaac Hecker remained in constant contact.

January 11, Monday: Father Isaac Hecker, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Senator John B. Henderson of Missouri submitted a joint resolution of the federal Senate and the federal House of Representatives for a XIIIth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ending the institution of human enslavement in the United States of America.54

January 27, Wednesday: Father Isaac Hecker, wrote to Orestes Augustus Brownson.

There was fighting at Fair Garden.

Waldo Emerson was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

1864

54. The Senate Judiciary Committee, under the chairmanship of Senator Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, would involve itself in merging different proposals for such an Amendment. For instance, this committee would reject the proposal by Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts and Representative Thaddeus Stevens of Pennsylvania for the expansive wording “All persons are equal before the law, so that no person can hold another as a slave; and the Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary and proper to carry this declaration into effect everywhere in the United States” (such wording was of course problematic because there are all sorts of ways in which various persons are most decidedly not equal before the law; for instance, one person might be a citizen and the other a noncitizen, or one a male and the other a female, or one an adult and the other a child, or one a member of the white race and the other not, or one have a criminal record and the other not, et cetera ad infinitum).




This is the land of the brave and the home of the free -- and don’t you forget it!


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I. Our New Programme

II. The Federal Constitution

III. Vincenzo; or; Sunken Rocks

IV. Popular Corruption and Venality

V. The President’s Message and Proclamation[President Lincoln to both Houses on Dec. 9, 1863]

VI. General Halleck’s Report


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Giobertian Philosophy

II. Stevens on Reconstruction

III. Abolition and Negro Equality

IV. The Next President

V. Reade’s VERY HARD CASH

VI. Military Matters and Men


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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October: Throughout the Civil War Isaac Hecker and Orestes Augustus Brownson had been rabid unionists — for only so long as the United States of America remained “one nation indivisible” was it going to be possible for them to achieve their fantasy of making it be not only “one nation under God” but also a unitary nation under the discipline of the One True Church, with the Pope in Rome as America’s actual Commander-in-Chief. After two of his sons, Edward and William, had been killed and one, Henry, wounded, Brownson, depressed, would discontinue his Brownson’s Quarterly Review. To ensure that the Brownsons would not be in want, Father Thomas, with financial assistance from his brothers in the family business and from others, set up an insurance annuity that would sustain that family at $1,000 per year.


After December 8, Thursday: A study of the Syllabus of Errors published with Pope Pius IX’s encyclical Quanta Cura caused Orestes Augustus Brownson to transform himself from a critical liberal in the European intellectual tradition into an uncritical champion of Roman Catholic orthodoxy. He began to limit his contacts with liberal Catholics, and to attack any accommodationism, any gesture which seemed to him to represent an attempt to accommodate the Church to the contemporary Weltgeist. Still, when Octavius Brooks Frothingham had the temerity to criticize Father Isaac Hecker’s Paulist vision of a Catholic America, Brownson would come to his defense in a lengthy pamphlet.

I. Civil and Religious Freedom

II. Giobertian Philosophy

III. Literature, Love, and Marriage

IV. Lincoln or Fremont?

V. General Fitz, John Porter

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Are the United States a Nation?

II. Mr. Lincoln and Congress

III. Liberalism and Progress

IV. Explanations to Catholics

V. Chicago, Baltimore, and Cleveland

VI. Seward’s Speech at Auburn

MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Orestes Augustus Brownson’s THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC argued that government was founded upon ethics, that nations were moral and even theocratic entities, and that therefore there was no requirement that a nation justify itself through any doctrine such as the sovereignty of its people. In this year, also, Brownson discontinued his Brownson’s Quarterly Review (until 1872, when he would start it up again and keep it going until 1875).

1865





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February 26/27: In New-York, there was a national convention to secure the religious amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which Orestes Augustus Brownson may well have attended, which afterward would issue a 94-page PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL CONVENTION TO SECURE THE RELIGIOUS AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES offering an account of the origin and progress of their movement. After citing, among other works in favor of a theocracy, Brownson’s THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC, this text offered that:

If Government be not divine, then it is merely a voluntaryassociation, and may be dissolved like other voluntaryassociations, at the will of those who are thus united; but thistheory would subvert society and lead to anarchy. The experimentof the erratic Thoreau, had it been successful, would have provedhim stronger than Massachusetts, stronger than the United States;would have proved the same as to every other individual under theGovernment, and, of course, would have subverted its veryfoundation. We are born under government — live, act our littlepart, and die under it. We have no choice in the matter. We canno more escape from it than from the blue heavens above us....There is no divine right of kings. There are no providentialrulers supernaturally raised up to govern. there is, however, adivine right of government; it is of God through the people.


1873

I. Introduction to the Last Series

II. The Papacy and the Republic

III. The Dollingerites, Nationalists, and the Papacy

IV. Religious Novels, and Woman Vs. Woman

V. Archbishop Manning’s LECTURES

VI. What is the Need of Revelation

VII. Politics at Home

VIII. European Politics


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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Fall Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 3

I. Synthetic Theology

II. Photographic Views

III. Catholic Popular Literature

IV. The Primeval Man Not a Savage

V. The Democratic Principle

VI. Bismarck and the Church


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Whose is the Child?

II. Science, Philosophy, and Religion

III. Papal Infallibility

IV. Darwin’s DESCENT OF MAN

V. The Church Above the State

VI. True and False Science

VII. Sisters of Mercy



CATHOLICISM

CHARLES DARWIN





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Winter 1873/1874: Brownson’s Quarterly Review, No. 4

I. Refutation of Atheism

II. Protestantism Antichristian

III. Father Thebaud’s Irish Race

IV. The Woman Question

V. The Christophers, or Christ-Bearers

VI. At Home and Abroad

VII. Colonel H. S. Hewit, M. D.


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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1874


II. Education and the Republic

III. Holy Communion – Transubstantiation

IV. The Most Reverend John Hughes, D. D.

V. Evangelical Alliance

VI. Archbishop Spalding

VII. Home and Foreign Politics



CATHOLICISM


II. Religion and Science

III. Constitutional Guaranties

IV. Extra Ecclesiam Nulla Salus

V. Letter from “Sacerdos”

VI. Brother Philip



CATHOLICISM





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I. Count De Montalembert

II. Gallicanism and Ultramontanism

III. Cartesianism

IV. Ontologism and Psychologism

V. Constitutional Law – the Executive Power

VI. Conditional Baptism

VII. Early and Recent Apostates



CATHOLICISM

I. Answer to Objections

II. Controversy with Protestants

III. The Problem of Causality

IV. Authority in Matters of Faith

V. Letter to the Editor

VI. The Outlook at Home and Abroad



CATHOLICISM





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1875

I. Professor Tyndall’s Address

II. The Last of the Napoleons

III. Maria Monk’s daughter

IV. Mary Queen of Scots

V. Papal Infallibility and Civil Allegiance

VI. St. Gregory the Seventh


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. The Conflict of Science and Reason

II. Reforms and Reformers

III. The Prisoners of St. Lazare

IV. St. Gregory the Seventh

V. The Possible Nothing in Itself

VI. Newman’s Reply to Gladstone

VII. Our Colleges

VIII. Father Hill’s Philosophy


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM





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I. The Constitution and the Church

II. On Diocesan Synods

III. The Church and the Civil Power

IV. Women’s Novels

V. Our Lady of Lourdes

VI. The Possible Nothing in Itself


MAGAZINES


CATHOLICISM

I. Protestant Journalism

II. The Family, Christian and Pagan

III. Hill’s ELEMENTS OF PHILOSOPHY

IV. The Public School System

V. Home Politics



CATHOLICISM





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Orestes Augustus Brownson discontinued his Brownson’s Quarterly Review.

April 17, Monday: Orestes Augustus Brownson died in Detroit, Michigan.

Henry F. Brownson began to issue his prolific father Orestes Augustus Brownson’s collected WORKS, in 20 volumes (through 1907).

1876

1882





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June 21, Wednesday: In the Boston Transcript, Amos Perry wrote about the “Old Days at Harvard”:

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 thecompany 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.

A.M. Schlesinger’s ORESTES A. BROWNSON: A PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.

T. Maynard’s ORESTES BROWNSON: YANKEE, RADICAL, CATHOLIC.

1899

1939

1943






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Alvan S. Ryan’s THE BROWNSON READER.

1955





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Gower, Joseph F. and Richard M. Leliaert. THE BROWNSON-HECKER CORRESPONDENCE (Notre Dame IN: U of Notre Dame P).

1979





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December 26, Sunday: At about 8AM one of the strongest earthquakes on record, having a magnitude of at least 9 on the Richter scale, raised the floor of the Indian Ocean approximately 5 meters. At first the sea withdrew somewhat along the surrounding coasts — and then at about 8:14 AM a tsunami wave of 10 to 15 meters height struck the nearest landmass, Sumatra.

The Boston Globe published, in its IDEAS section, “THE EXAMINED LIFE: What would Orestes Brownson do?” by Joshua Glenn (one of their staff writers):

BETWEEN 1836, WHEN he moved to Boston, and his departure for NewYork in 1855, the Vermont-born Unitarian minister, essayist, andphilosopher Orestes Augustus Brownson kept everyone in town ontheir toes. In ORESTES A. BROWNSON: AMERICAN RELIGIOUS WEATHERVANE(Eerdmans), a new biography by Marquette University theologianPatrick W. Carey, we learn that Brownson joined the fledglingTranscendentalist Club, but soon quit the movement. And althoughhis influential 1840 essay “Laboring Classes” called for socialand economic justice, Brownson took sides against such localreformers as Horace Mann and William Lloyd Garrison. After heconverted to Catholicism in 1844 and began criticizing liberalProtestantism, Bostonian elites labeled Brownson a flake andwrote him out of history. In a telephone interview, Careyexplained why that has been our loss.IDEAS: Histories of Transcendentalism suggest that Emerson andhis fellow Bostonians considered Brownson a boorish countrybumpkin. But you argue that the divide was primarilyideological.CAREY: Bostonians had a strong sense of their own local socialidentity, so it’s true that Brownson, who didn’t have theeducation or pedigree of the other Transcendentalists, remainedan outsider — even though he launched the group’s first journal,The Boston Quarterly Review. But he split with the movementbecause he identified with the poor and outcast in society whilethe others, for all their talk of unity and community, did not.His “Laboring Classes” essay –which is as beautifully writtenand important a document of that period as is Emerson’s NATURE–makes it clear that although Brownson too was a philosophicalidealist, he wanted to see the ideal realized in the concrete,in the real world. Instead of communing with the Emersonian“Over-Soul,” he demanded social justice.IDEAS: Brownson was an outspoken critic of aggressive militarycampaigns to further American interests. What might he have saidabout Iraq?CAREY: In the late 1840s, Brownson often wrote and lectured onthe United States’s war with Mexico over Texas and the newsouthwestern territories, and on various private expeditions toinvade and annex Cuba. He was insistent that Americanexpansionism was driven by capitalist concerns. So I think he

2004





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would see the war in Iraq as a manifestation of Americanimperialism. But then, Brownson was unpredictable — that’s whatmakes him interesting!IDEAS: Brownson was at various time a Presbyterian, aUniversalist, a Unitarian, a Transcendentalist, and a Catholic.Was he as flaky as his contemporaries thought?CAREY: Brownson wasn’t merely, as James Russell Lowell put itin an 1848 poem about him, a “weathercock” blowing in the wind.He longed to transcend denominational divisions in Christianity,to unite all Americans in one communion — and if that meantrefusing to maintain what Emerson called a “foolishconsistency,” then so be it.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Orestes Augustus Brownson







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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 2014. 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: May 26, 2014

“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




mailto:[email protected]

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, someone has requested thatwe pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of theshoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What thesechronological lists are: they are research reports compiled byARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term theKouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such arequest for information we merely push a button.





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Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obviousdeficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored inthe contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then weneed to punch that button again and recompile the chronology —but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary“writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of thisoriginating contexture improve, and as the programming improves,and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whateverhas been needed in the creation of this facility, the entireoperation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminishedneed to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expectto achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring roboticresearch librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

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




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Documents

THE REVEREND ORESTES AUGUSTUS BROWNSON ENCOUNTERS THE