FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Friend Bernard Barton HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1784
January 31, Saturday: At the Providence, Rhode Island town meeting, the vote was 108 over 58 in favor of Friend Moses Brown’s bill for the abolition of slavery.
Bernard Barton was born at Carlisle, England, a “birthright Friend.” After being educated at a Quaker school in Ipswich he would be apprenticed to a shopkeeper in Suffolk. Then he would work nearly all his life as a clerk in a bank at the coastal town of Woodbridge in Suffolk. In his free time he would create ten volumes of poetry, some of his creations becoming hymns with titles such as: • “Lamp of our feet, whereby we trace” • “Walk in the light, so shalt thou know” • “Fear not, Zion’s sons and daughters” • “Hath the invitation ended?” • “See we not beyond the portal?” • “Those who live in love shall know”
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
Friend Bernard Barton “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1806
After his apprenticeship to a shopkeeper in Suffolk, England, Friend Bernard Barton had relocated to Liverpool, but in this year he returned to Suffolk, to the coastal town of Woodbridge where he and his brother began a firm that would make a market in the commodities coal and corn. Bernard got married with Friend Lucy Jesup but within the year she died in giving birth to their only child, a daughter named Lucy Barton.
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.
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Friend Bernard Barton HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1809
Friend Bernard Barton took a clerical position in Messrs. Alexander’s Bank in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England which he would hold for the rest of his life.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
Friend Bernard Barton “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1812
Friend Bernard Barton’s METRICAL EFFUSIONS put him in contact with Robert Southey. Soon he would also make the acquaintance of James Hogg. He would be able to publish volume after volume of his poetry, until 1828.
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Friend Bernard Barton “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1818
Friend Bernard Barton’s THE CONVICT’S APPEAL, against the severity of the British criminal code.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Friend Bernard Barton HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1823
Charles Lamb’s articles signed “Elia” in the London Magazine, when recycled in this year into a book titled ELIA. ESSAYS WHICH HAVE APPEARED UNDER THAT SIGNATURE IN THE LONDON MAGAZINE (printed for Taylor and Hessey, Fleet-street), provoked Friend Bernard Barton to reprove the manner in which they had been dealing with Quakerism (this remonstrance was handled well and would create an abiding friendship).
ELIA (FIRST SERIES, 1823) Here enters a child, Emma Isola. She was the motherless daughter of an acquaintance of Charles and Mary HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
Anne Lamb’s –a shy don at Cambridge University– and this father had just died. They adopted Emma and relocated from the city to Bay Cottage on Church Street in Edmonton.1
Henry Thoreau would refer, in a letter on August 5, 1836, to an article “Distant Correspondents” included in this year’s initial volume of ELIA articles.
1. Edmonton has by now been absorbed into the Borough of Enfield in the northern portion of London. HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1824
2 Friend Bernard Barton’s POETIC VIGILS (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, Paternoster Row).
“THE QUAKER POET”
2. In about 1841, Henry Thoreau would copy from this Quaker poet into his Literary Notebook. HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1836
Friends Bernard Barton and Lucy Barton co-authored a book, THE RELIQUARY. HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1841
It would have been at about this point that Henry Thoreau copied some of the poems of Friend Bernard Barton into his Literary Notebook.
“THE QUAKER POET”
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Friend Bernard Barton HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1845
Friend Bernard Barton’s HOUSEHOLD VERSES. This volume would be brought to the attention of Sir Robert Peel, who would arrange a Civil List pension of £100 a year (£1,200 having already been raised for his support among members of the Religious Society of Friends). HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1847
January 4, Sunday: Joseph John Gurney died where he had been born, at Earlham Hall near Norwich, England. In this year Friend Bertrand Barton would prepare a little volume in his memory.
JOSEPH JOHN GURNEY In the High Sierra, the Donner Party disaster continued on this day and the following days. Mrs. Reed, her daughter Virginia, Milt Elliott, and Eliza Williams set out to cross the mountains, leaving the smaller Reed children with others. First Eliza, then the others, gave up and returned to the cabins. The Reeds took refuge with the Breens, Eliza with the Graveses. HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1849
February 19, Monday: Henry Thoreau was written to by Nathaniel Hawthorne in Salem. My dear Thoreau, The managers request that you will lecture before the Salem Lyceum on Wednesday evening after next — that is to say, on the 28th inst. May we depend on you? Please to answer immediately, if conve- nient. Mr Alcott delighted my wife and me, the other evening, by announc- ing that you had a book in press. I rejoice at it, and nothing doubt of such success as will be worth having. Should your manuscripts all be in the printers' hands, I suppose you can reclaim one of them, for a single evening's use, to be returned the next morning; — or per- haps that Indian lecture, which you mentioned to me, is in a state of forwardness. Either that, or a continuation of the Walden experi- ment (or, indeed, anything else,) will be acceptable. We shall expect you at 14, Mall-street. Very truly Yours, Nathl Hawthorne.
19 of 2 mo 1849: Bernard Barton died. Lucy Barton allied with Edward J. Fitzgerald to produce a selection of her father’s materials, POEMS AND LETTERS OF BERNARD BARTON, SELECTED BY LUCY BARTON, WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE BY EDWARD FITZGERALD (this was long before Fitzgerald had even so much as heard of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam). “THE QUAKER POET” HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1856
November: Friend Bernard Barton’s daughter Lucy Barton got married with Edward J. Fitzgerald (this was a lousy idea and the couple would soon separate).
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Friend Bernard Barton “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
1857
August: Friend Bernard Barton’s daughter Lucy Barton and her husband of nine months, Edward J. Fitzgerald, separated.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Friend Bernard Barton HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: May 7, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, someone has requested that we pull it out of the hat of a pirate who has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (as above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture (this is data mining). To respond to such a request for information we merely push a button. HDT WHAT? INDEX
FRIEND BERNARD BARTON FRIEND BERNARD BARTON
Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need 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 this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with