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Home , Edward Carpenter, Henry Stephens Salt

, ESQ.

1851

September 20, Saturday: Henry S. Salt was born in , where his father was serving in the Royal Bengal Artillery.

September 20, Saturday: 3 Pm. to Cliffs via Bear Hill. As I go through the fields endeavoring to recover my tone & sanity–& to perceive things truly & simply again, after having been perambulating the bounds of the town all the week, and dealing with the most common place and worldly minded men, and emphatically trivial things I feel as if I had committed suicide in a sense. I am again forcibly struck with the truth of the fable of Apollo serving king Admetus–its universal applicability. A fatal coarseness is the result of mixing in the trivial affairs of men. Though I have been associating even with the select men of this and the surrounding towns, I feel inexpressibly begrimmed, my pegasus has lost his wings, he has turned a reptile and gone on his belly. Such things are compatible only with a cheap and superficial life The poet must keep himself unstained and aloof. Let him perambulate the bounds of Imagination’s provinces the realms of faery, and not the insignificant boundaries of towns. The excursions of the imagination are so boundless–the limits of towns are so petty. I scare up the great bittern in meadow by the Heywood Brook near the ivy.– he rises buoyantly as he flies against the wind & sweep south over the willow with outstretched neck surveying. The ivy here is reddened. The dogwood or Poison sumack by Hubbard’s meadow is also turned redish. Here are late buttercups & dwarf tree primroses still. Methinks there are not many Golden rods this year. The river is remarkably low. There is a rod wide of bare shore–beneath the Cliff Hill. Last week was the warmest perhaps in the year. On Monday of the present week–water was frozen in a pail under the pump. Yet today I hear the locust sing as in August. This week we have had most glorious autumnal weather–cool & cloudless bright days–filled with the fragrance of ripe grapes–preceeded by frosty mornings All tender herbs are flat in gardens & meadows– The cranberries too are touched. To day it is warmer–& hazier–& there is no doubt some smoke in the air, from the burning of the turf & moss in low lands where the smoke seen at sunset looks like a rising fog. I fear that the autumnal tints will not be brilliant this season the frosts have commenced so early.– & eggs on Fair Haven. The Cleared Plateau beneath the Cliff now covered with sprouts shows red, green & yellow–tints like a rich rug. I see ducks or teal flying silent swift & straight the wild creatures. White pines on Fair Haven hill begin to look particolored with the falling leaves–but not at a distance HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1852

A mother, the wife of an officer in the Bengal artillery, brought an infant named Henry S. Salt back from India to the home of her well-to-do and well-connected parents in Shrewsbury, England.

1875

Henry S. Salt took a First in the Classics Tripos at King’s College, Cambridge, and became an assistant master at his old school, Eton.

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1878

Winter: Henry S. Salt met and was exceedingly impressed.

1879

Henry S. Salt married a young woman who would, unfortunate for him, turn out to be primarily lesbian in her sexual orientation. (Although her affairs aggrieved Salt, and although their marriage would be limited to a companionship, when Kate Salt would die in 1919 her husband would mourn for a decade.)

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1880

Henry S. Salt met and was much impressed.

1883

Thomas Davidson started a group which would mean much to Henry S. Salt, the Fellowship of the New Life. (This group was a predecessor of the .)

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1886

November: Having been made aware of the writings of Henry Thoreau by , Henry S. Salt provided a biographical essay for the Temple Bar.

BIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY This was the beginning of Salt’s long-term work on Thoreau. Soon this Eton classics master would resign his duties and withdraw to a worker’s cottage in in order freely to assert his convictions as a rationalist and humanitarian. Salt would come to believe that to Thoreau, more than any other modern writer, it was appropriate to apply the stanza by Sir Henry Wotton, in the poem “The Character of a Happy Life” in celebration of a higher individualism: This man is free from servile bands Of hope to rise or fear to fall, Lord of himself, though not of lands, And having nothing, yet hath all.

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1888

Henry S. Salt’s LITERARY SKETCHES and PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: A MONOGRAPH.

LITERARY SKETCHES PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

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1890

1 Henry S. Salt brought forward the 1st edition of his THE LIFE OF (London: Bentley). H.D. THOREAU PAPERS

This biography included on its page 118 a defensive and perceptive comment by Edward Sherman Hoar: If he had any affectation in his sincere and aspiring nature, it was a sort of inherited petulance, that covered a sensitive and affectionate nature, easily wounded by the scornful criticism which his new departure sometimes brought upon him.

On pages 144-6, some memories were supplied by H.G.O. Blake: I was introduced to him first by Mr. Emerson more than forty years ago, though I had known him by sight before at college. I recall nothing of that first interview unless it be some remarks upon astronomy, and his want of interest in the study as compared with studies relating more directly to this world — remarks such as he made here and there in his writings. My first real introduction was from the reading of an article of his in the Dial on “Aulus Persius Flaccus” which appears now in the WEEK. That led to my first writing to him, and to his reply, which is published in the volume of letters. Our correspondence continued for more than twelve years, and we visited each other at times, he coming here to Worcester, commonly to read something in

1. 2d Edition London: Walter Scott, 1896; reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 1-4179-7028-6 “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project 7 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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public, or being on his way to read somewhere else. As to the outward incidents of our intercourse, I think of little or nothing that it seems worth while to write. Our conversation, or rather his talking, when we were together, was in the strain of his letters and of his books. Our relation, as I look back on it, seems almost an impersonal one, and illustrates well his remark that “our thoughts are the epochs in our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here”; His personal appearance did not interest me particularly, except as the associate of his spirit, though I felt no discord between them. When together, we had little inclination to talk of personal matters. His aim was directed so steadily and earnestly towards what is essential in our experience, that beyond all others of whom I have known, he made but a single impression on me. Geniality, versatility, personal familiarity are, of course, agreeable in those about us, and seem necessary in human intercourse, but I did not miss them in Thoreau, who was, while living, and is still in my recollection and in what he has left to us, such an effectual witness to what is highest and most precious in life. As I re-read his letters from time to time, which I never tire of doing, I am apt to find new significance in them, am still warned and instructed by them, with more force occasionally than ever before; so that in a sense they are still in the mail, have not altogether reached me yet, and will not probably before I die. They may well be regarded as addressed to those who can read them best. This biography also included some memories supplied by Ellery Channing:

Page 344: He said to me once, standing at the window,— “I cannot see on the outside at all. We thought ourselves great philosophers in those wet days when we used to go out and sit

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down by the wall-sides.” This was absolutely all he was ever heard to say of that outward world during his illness; neither could a stranger in the least infer that he had ever a friend in wood or field. Page 353: Henry was fond of making an ado, a wonder, a surprise, of all facts that took place out of doors; but a picture, a piece of music, a novel, did not affect him in that fashion. This trait of exaggeration was as pleasing as possible to his companions. Nothing was more delightful than the enormous curiosity, the effervescing wonder, of this child of Nature — glad of everything its mother said or did. This joy in Nature is something we can get over, like love. And yet love,— that is a hard toy to smash and fling under the grate, for good. But Henry made no account at all of love, apparently; he had notions about friendship. AMENDED 2D EDITION

He also edited a volume of Thoreau’s ANTI-SLAVERY AND REFORM PAPERS. ANTI-SLAVERY, REFORM

July 12: Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, in London, had lunch with Henry S. Salt.

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July 18: Mr. and Mrs. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, in London, had afternoon tea with Henry S. Salt.

1892

Henry S. Salt’s ANIMALS’ RIGHTS: CONSIDERED IN RELATION TO SOCIAL PROGRESS and QUOTES & EXCERPTS FROM HENRY SALT’S ANIMALS’ RIGHTS. (This would be reprinted in 1980 with a preface by for the Society for of Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania.)

1895

Henry S. Salt’s SELECTIONS FROM THOREAU, ED. WITH AN INTR. BY H.S. SALT.

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1896

Henry S. Salt’s PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY: POET AND PIONEER plus a 2nd edition, revised, of THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU.

READ SALT’S BIOGRAPHY

1908

Henry S. Salt’s CAMBRIAN AND CUMBRIAN HILLS: PILGRIMAGES TO SNOWDON AND SCAFELL. In addition during this year he was offering the manuscript of a 3d edition of his THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU to various publishers — without anyone displaying the slightest interest. Thus, as we have seen, the most vigorous protest ever raised against that artificiality in life and literature which is one of the chief dangers of our complex civilization, proceeded not from some sleepy old-world province, which might have been expected to be unable to keep pace with a progressive age, but from the heart of the busiest and most advanced nation on the globe — it is to Yankeeland that we owe the example and the teaching of the “Bachelor of Nature.” The personality of Thoreau is so singular and so unique that it seems useless to attempt, as some have done, to draw out any elaborate parallel between his character and that of other reformers, who have protested against some prevalent tendency in the age in which they lived. Those who are interested in seeking for literary prototypes may perhaps, in this case, find one in Abraham Cowley, a member of that school of gnomic poets with which Thoreau was so familiar, and moreover a zealous lover of the peace and solitude of nature. He lived in close retirement during the later years of his life, and his death, like Thoreau’s, was due to a cold caught while he was botanizing, is attributed by his biographer to “his very delight in the country and the fields, which he had long fancied above all other pleasures.” Some of Cowley’s remarks in his essays on solitude are conceived in a spirit very similar to that of Thoreau. “The First Minister of State,” he says, “has not so much business in public as a wise man in private; if the one has little leisure to be alone, the other has less leisure to be in company; the one has but part of the affairs of one

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nation, the other all the works of God and nature under his consideration;” and elsewhere he expresses the wish that men could “unravel all they have woven, that we might have our woods and our innocence again, instead of our castles and our policies.” But these parallels, between two men of widely different periods and purposes, can contain nothing more than slight and superficial resemblances. Nor, except for his general connection with Emerson and the transcendentalists, is it more easy to match Thoreau with any ethical writer of his own generation. * * * As a “poet-naturalist,”... Thoreau is distinctly akin to and other writers of that school. Jefferies’ character was richer and more sensuous than Thoreau’s, but they had the same mystic temperament, the same impatience of tradition and conventionality, the same passionate love of woods and fields and streams, and the same gift of brilliant language in which to record their observations. It is curious to compare these modern devotees of country life with the old-fashioned naturalists of whom Izaak Walton and Gilbert White are the most illustrious examples. While the honest old angler prattles on contentedly, like the babbling streams by which he spent his days, with here and there a pious reflection on the beneficence of Providence and the adaptation of means to ends, and while the kindly naturalist of Selborne devotes himself absolutely and unreservedly to the work of chronicling the fauna and flora of the district about which he writes, these later authors have brought to the treatment of similar subjects a far deeper insight into the beauty and pathos of nature, and a power of poetical description which was not dreamed of by their simple yet not less devoted predecessors. It is mainly to Thoreau in America, and to Jefferies in England, that we owe the recognition and study of what may be called the poetry of natural history — a style of thought and writing which is peculiar to the last thirty or forty years. The study of nature has, of course, been from time immemorial one of the great subjects of poetry, but, so far, it was nature in its more general aspects; it was not till comparatively recent years that there was discovered to be poetry also in accurate and patient observation of natural phenomena. We have now learnt that natural history, which was formerly regarded as a grave and meritorious study of a distinctly prosaic kind, may be made to yield material for the most imaginative and poetical reflections. When Thoreau died in 1862, Richard Jefferies was a boy of fourteen, busily engaged among his native Wiltshire Downs in laying the foundation of his wonderful knowledge of outdoor life. There is no mention of Thoreau in his writings, nor any indication that he had read him; yet one is often struck by suggestive resemblances in their manner of thought. Take, for instance, that half-serious, half-whimsical contention of Thoreau’s, which has probably been more misunderstood than any other of his sayings — that Concord, in its natural features, contains all the phenomena that travelers have noted elsewhere

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— and compare it with the following opinion expressed by Jefferies:— “It has long been one of my fancies that this country is an epitome of the natural world, and that if any one has come really into contact with its productions, and is familiar with them, and what they mean and represent, then he has a knowledge of all that exists on the earth.” In reading these words, one has a difficulty in remembering that they were not written by Thoreau.

THE 2D EDITION

1917

Henry S. Salt’s HENRY DAVID THOREAU: A CENTENARY ESSAY.

1921

Henry S. Salt’s SEVENTY YEARS AMONG SAVAGES.

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1922

Henry S. Salt’s CALL OF THE WILDFLOWER.

1923

Henry S. Salt’s THE STORY OF MY COUSINS.

1928

Henry S. Salt’s OUR VANISHING WILDFLOWERS and MEMORIES OF BYGONE ETON.

1929

The manuscript of a third edition of Henry S. Salt’s THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU was read by Houghton Mifflin, which took a long time and then turned it down.

THE 2D EDITION Salt, however, provided a copy to Professor Raymond Adams, who was considering writing a new biography of Thoreau.

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September 10: Henry S. Salt wrote Professor Raymond Adams that “I am going to write to to ask him if he was influenced by Thoreau.” MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

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September 18: Henry S. Salt wrote to Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi asking whether he had been influenced by

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Henry Thoreau.

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October 12: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi responded to Henry S. Salt’s letter that: I was agreeably surprised to receive your letter. Yes, indeed your book which was the first English book I came across on was of immense help to me in steadying my faith in vegetarianism. My first introduction to Thoreau’s writings was, I think, in 1907, or late[r], when I was in the thick of passive resistance struggle. A friend sent me Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience. It left a deep impression on me. I translated a portion of that essay for the readers of in South Africa which I was then editing, and I made copious extracts from that essay for that paper. That essay seemed to be so convincing and truthful that I felt the need of knowing more about Thoreau, and I came across your Life of him, his “Walden” and other short essays, all of which I read with great pleasure and equal profit.

RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT

1930

Henry S. Salt’s COMPANY I HAVE KEPT.

1931

Henry S. Salt’s CUM GRANO.

1935

Henry S. Salt’s THE CREED OF KINSHIP.

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January 1: At age 83, Henry S. Salt wrote Professor Raymond Adams that:

I have lately been re-reading my own biography of Thoreau, of which, it seemed to me, no further edition will ever be required, as your fuller work will be forthcoming. Much, too, has happened in the forty or fifty years since I wrote; and I should now say that the chief fault of my book was the extreme deference paid in it to the authority of Emerson, as “the seer of Concord,” &c. The great value of his friendship to the youthful Thoreau is of course not questioned; but I feel that the time has come when the hard fact has got to be faced, without respect to persons, that the author of “Walden” was (in the long run) the greater man of the two. It seems unfortunate that Emerson, surviving Thoreau, as he did, should, with the kindest intentions (as his Memoir and editing of the Letters) have contributed to the common belief that Thoreau was one of the lesser lights.

1939

April 19: Henry S. Salt died: I shall die, as I have lived, rationalist, socialist, pacifist, and humanitarian.

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1993

The manuscript of the 3rd edition, further revised, of Henry S. Salt’s THE LIFE OF HENRY DAVID THOREAU, was retrieved from the papers of Raymond Adams, edited by George Hendrick, Willene Hendrick, and Fritz Oehlschlaeger, and for the first time published. (It is now available for $14.95 in paperback from the U of Illinois P. Walter Roy Harding once characterized this effort as “Of all the biographers of Thoreau, Henry Salt best captures Thoreau’s spirit.”)

COMPARE IT WITH 2D ED.

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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 2013. 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: June 5, 2013

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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, upon someone’s request we have pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining. To respond to such a request for information, we merely push a button.

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Commonly, the first output of the program has obvious deficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and do a recompile of the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process which 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.

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