ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT PRATT

• Mr. Amos Bronson Alcott born November 29, 1799 as Amos Bronson Alcox in Wolcott, Connecticut married May 23, 1830 in to Abigail May, daughter of Colonel Joseph May died March 4, 1888 in Boston

• Mrs. Abigail (May) “Abba” Alcott born October 8, 1800 in Boston, died November 25, 1877 in Concord, Massachusetts

• Miss Anna Bronson Alcott born March 16, 1831 in Germantown, Pennsylvania married May 23, 1860 in Concord to John Bridge Pratt of Concord, Massachusetts died July 17, 1893 in Concord

• Miss born November 29, 1832 in Germantown, Pennsylvania died March 6, 1888 in Roxbury, Massachusetts

• Miss born June 24, 1835 in Boston, Massachusetts died March 14, 1858 in Concord, Massachusetts

• Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), born July 26, 1840 in Concord, married March 22, 1878 in London, England to Ernest Niericker, died December 29, 1879 in Paris

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Anna Bronson Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1829

By this point Minot Pratt was at work as a printer in Boston. He and his bride were married by the Reverend Waldo Emerson at his 2d Unitarian Church on Hanover Street in the North End — quite possibly this was the first couple which Emerson united in matrimony.1

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

1. They would have three sons, one of whom, John Bridge Pratt, would become an insurance man and marry an Alcott daughter, Anna Bronson Alcott. Their two grandsons by John and Anna, or “Meg,” were thus the of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE MEN, named “John Brooke” and “Thomas Bangs” in the book [need to verify this] and Frederick Alcott Pratt and John Sewall Pratt in real life. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1831

March 16, Wednesday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 16th of 3rd M 1831 / Silent but pretty good meeting at the Institution — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Victor Hugo’s NÔTRE-DAME DE PARIS (THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME) appeared in print. One of its chapters had been misplaced and left out of this initial printing.

1st production of Concord playwright John Augustus Stone’s play TANCRED, KING OF SICILY; OR,THE 2 ARCHIVES OF PALERMO, at the Park Theater in New-York, with the author in the cast.

After 36 hours of labor, Anna Bronson Alcott was born to Abba Alcott. For days after the birth, the husband and father Bronson Alcott never left the room. He was hunched over the table writing HISTORY OF AN INFANT:OBSERVATIONS ON THE PHENOMENA OF LIFE AS DEVELOPED IN THE PROGRESSIVE HISTORY OF AN INFANT DURING THE FIRST YEAR OF ITS EXISTENCE (although this, and Bronson’s observations of his other children, would amount to some 2,500 pages). Although it is arguably the first work of child psychology done in the United States of America, the manuscript has of course never been published. Bronson carefully recorded such things as the onset of the vowel sounds, and noted at what point the consonants f, g, k, j, and l could be distinguished. (Does this remind you of the “melting bank” section, in WALDEN? –It should.) To keep the family going, the Alcotts asked Abba’s father for a loan of an additional $300.00. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE

2. Note that this is a completely different play than 1827’s TANCRED; OR, THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCH, which never was performed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT April 1, Wednesday: The Liberty Party met in Albany to nominate James Gillespie Birney of New York and Thomas Earle of Pennsylvania for president and vice-president. Rochester’s Myron Holley was one of the party’s organizers.

With the encouragement of Waldo Emerson and with him at least initially paying the rent for them, the Alcotts moved into an unoccupied tenant cottage on the estate of Edmund Hosmer in Concord, in order to have the company of the Emersons and to try if they could not “dig Bread from the bosom of the earth” while Bronson Alcott went around offering his dollar evening conversations.

Dove Cottage was brown, was a warren of tiny rooms, one story in front and two in the rear, surrounded by sheds and barns (since this was before 1853, it would be #66 at G9 on the Gleason map, at the end of the green HDT WHAT? INDEX

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arrow below):

3 It came with 1 /4 acres of land, enough for a large garden to feed a 9-year-old girl, Anna Alcott, a 7-year-old girl, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and an almost 5-year-old girl, Louisa May Alcott, and give them plenty of things to do even while their father was being too good for this world. The cottage would get even tighter when, in 1842, the two English mystics, Henry Gardiner Wright and Charles Lane, would move in, with Charles Lane’s son. This April 1st, Abba Alcott was five months pregnant and it was still winter:

The trees, encrusted with ice wore a most fantastic and fairy-like appearance; nothing has escaped their notice and admiration. the river, everything is an occasion of joy.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Abby May Alcott would be born there on July 26th. For the first time the girls would be attending a school not taught by their own father, for Bronson was working long days putting in a garden and otherwise fixing up this old tenant structure.

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 Anna Bronson Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

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April 1, Wednesday: For the first time the Alcott girls began to attend a school not taught by their own father. Anna Alcott was a student, probably a scholarship student, of John Thoreau, Jr. and at Concord Academy, while Elizabeth Sewall Alcott and Louisa May Alcott were at the kinder-school run by Mary Russell in the Emerson home. We have a record of this period from a 10-year-old new student that summer who was John Junior’s student rather than Henry’s, Horace Rice Hosmer. Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson described Horace as a child who “craved affection.” As a grown-up, Horace would inform Dr. Emerson that

Henry was not loved in the school. He had his scholars upstairs. I was with John only. John was the more human, loving; understood and thought of others. Henry thought more about himself. He was a conscientious teacher, but rigid. He would not take a man’s money for nothing: if a boy were sent to him, he could make him do all he could. No, he was not disagreeable. I learned to understand him later. I think that he was then in the green-apple stage.

Another pupil was Thomas Hosmer of Bedford, who would grow up to be a dentist in Boston, but who at the time was walking to Concord for classes with another Bedford boy, B.W. Lee, who would later relocate to Newport, Vermont. Thomas Hosmer wrote Dr. Emerson to relate of Thoreau that:

I have seen children catch him by the hand, as he was going home from school, to walk with him and hear more.

One of the outings the class had this spring was a walk to Fairhaven Hill, where they did a survey of the hill and the adjacent shoreline of the river. A student’s comment on this field-work with surveying instruments was that of the brothers, Henry was the more active during the surveying.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Anna Bronson Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1847 HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Lecture 113

DATE PLACE TOPIC

February 10, Wednesday, 1847, at 7PM Concord; Unitarian Church, Vestry “A History of Myself” (I) February 17, Wednesday, 1847, at 7PM Concord; Unitarian Church, Vestry “A History of Myself” (II) January 3, Monday, 1848, at 7PM Concord; Unitarian Church, Vestry “An Excursion to Ktaadn”

3. From Bradley P. Dean and Ronald Wesley Hoag’s THOREAU’S LECTURES BEFORE WALDEN: AN ANNOTATED CALENDAR. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Narrative of Event: The records of the Concord Lyceum state, “Concord Feb 17 1847 A lecture was delivered by Henry D Thoreau of Concord. Subject — Same as last week. A. G. Fay Sec[retary]”4 The lecture was the twelfth of the season’s sixteen offerings.

TIMELINE OF WALDEN Advertisements, Reviews, and Responses: See lecture 10 for a discussion of Miss Prudence Ward’s favorable comments on this lecture, which she reported, perhaps erroneously, to be a repetition of Thoreau’s lecture of the previous week. Lyceums very rarely allowed repeat performances, and at this time Henry Thoreau almost certainly had a draft of the 2d of his 3 early WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS lectures. But whether Prudence was right or wrong about the duplication, this second lecture attracted “a very full audience,” as Ward reported (quoted in Walter Roy Harding’s THE DAYS OF HENRY THOREAU, page 187), and was well received.

Two other letters, one by Waldo Emerson and one by Bronson Alcott, ambiguously refer to one or another of these lecture performances, with a slight favoring of the 17 February possibility. In a 28 February 1847 letter to , Emerson comments, “Mrs Ripley [Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley] & other members of the opposition came down the other night to hear Henry’s Account of his housekeeping at Walden Pond, which he

4.Cameron, Kenneth Walter. THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE. Hartford CT: Transcendental Books, 1969, page 162. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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read as a lecture, and were charmed with the witty wisdom which ran through it all.”5 The Alcott letter, to his daughter Anna Alcott, was penned on a “Wednesday Night” in February 1847, the day of one of the two lectures. In a response to Anna’s query about how she might help her mother and father through the family’s present difficult circumstances, Alcott assures her that self-improvement guided by her own conscience is the path to follow. He concludes with a tantalizingly cryptic endorsement of the lecture she would hear that evening. His apparent familiarity with what Thoreau will say suggests that he either had had private access to the material or had already heard it delivered, either as a private reading or a public lecture. If the latter, his opportunities would have been in Lincoln on 19 January, assuming that Thoreau gave his “History of Myself” lecture then, or in Concord on 10 February, assuming the unusual: that Thoreau did deliver the same lecture on both the 10th and 17th. Alcott’s letter to Anna reads in part:6 Your Note was the first thing I saw this morning, when I came in to make my study fire: and I was glad to find, all I knew, of your earnest desire to help us in these times of trial, confirmed in your own handwriting. You wish me to tell you what you can do to lighten your mother’s cares, and give your father a still deeper enjoyment in yourself, and your sisters .... Life is a lesson we best learn and almost solely too, by living. The Conscience within is the best, and, in the end, the only Counseller .... Tis that first of all duties[,] Self-improvement, to which end life, and the world, and your friends are all given. I think I speak truly when I say that you wish this most of all things .... As for me, and my thoughts — Great is my Peace, if in going at night to my Pillow, I have the sense of having earned my faculties, or limbs even, by thinking One Thought, speaking one word, doing one deed, that my task master approves, or the nearest or remotest Person or Time shall adopt, repeat, or enjoy. — Dear Anna, this from your thoughtful, yet careful-minded Father. For the rest, our friend Henry shall answer and explain in the Lecture you hear this evening.

Description of Topic: Very likely the 2d of Thoreau’s two earliest “Walden; or, Life in the Woods” lectures, the text of this lecture is, for the most part, the second fifty-odd pages (paged “1” through “53” using Thoreau’s pagination on the manuscript leaves) of “the text of the first version” of WALDEN recovered by J. Lyndon Shanley.7 The following sentence suggests the sense of immediacy the lecture likely created among Thoreau’s auditors: “I trust that none of my hearers will be so uncharitable as to look into my house now — after hearing this, at the end of an unusually dirty winter, with critical housewife’s eyes, for I intend to celebrate the first bright & unquestionable spring morning by scrubbing my house with sand until it is as white as a lily — or, at any rate, as the washer-woman said of her clothes, as white as a ‘wiolet.’”8 As with the first of his two lectures, Thoreau continued to revise this text and published it seven-and-a-half years later as the second chapter of WALDEN, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For,” although several paragraphs of the lecture text consist of passages published in the “Reading” and “Sounds” chapters.

5.THE LETTERS OF , 9 volumes to date, ed. Ralph L. Rusk and Eleanor M. Tilton (New York: Columbia University Press, 1939; 1990), 3:377-78. 6.THE LETTERS OF A. BRONSON ALCOTT, pages 128-29. 7.Shanley, THE MAKING OF WALDEN, WITH THE TEXT OF THE FIRST VERSION, pages 137-57. 8.Shanley, THE MAKING OF WALDEN, page 153. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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October 12, Tuesday: The combined British detachment that had ventured out from the relative safety of the metropolis, Cabul, Afghanistan, by this morning had become large enough to transit the pass of Khoord-Cabul, and this was effected with some loss due to long range sniper fire down from the rocks at the sides of the defile. The force then set up a defensive camp perimeter on the far side of the defile at Khoord-Cabul and the 13th light infantry again subjected itself to losses due to its exposure to this unrelenting rifle fire, by returning through the pass to its defensive camp perimeter at Bootkhak. For some nights the camps would repel attacks, “that on the 35th native infantry being peculiarly disastrous, from the treachery of the Affghan horse, who admitted the enemy within their lines, by which our troops were exposed to a fire from the least suspected quarter. Many of our gallant sepoys, and Lieutenant Jenkins, thus met their death.”9

Frederick Douglass addressed the Middlesex County Anti-Slavery Society at the Universalist meetinghouse in Concord.

We very much need to know who was in town at the time, and who did and who did not attend this meeting: • Bronson Alcott ? • Abba Alcott ? • Anna Bronson Alcott ? • Louisa May Alcott (8 years old)? 9. Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). THE MILITARY OPERATIONS AT CABUL: WHICH ENDED IN THE RETREAT AND DESTRUCTION OF THE BRITISH ARMY, JANUARY 1842, WITH A JOURNAL OF IMPRISONMENT IN AFFGHANISTAN. Philadelphia PA: Carey and Hart, 1843; London: J. Murray, 1843 (three editions); Lieut. V. Eyre (Sir Vincent Eyre, 1811-1881). PRISON SKETCHES: COMPRISING PORTRAITS OF THE CABUL PRISONERS AND OTHER SUBJECTS; ADAPTED FOR BINDING UP WITH THE JOURNALS OF LIEUT. V. EYRE, AND LADY SALE; LITHOGRAPHED BY LOWES DICKINSON. London: Dickinson and Son, [1843?] HDT WHAT? INDEX

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• Phineas Allen ? • Perez Blood ? • Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks ? • Squire Nathan Brooks ? • Caroline Downes Brooks ? • George Merrick Brooks ? • Deacon Simon Brown ? •Mrs. Lidian Emerson ? • Waldo Emerson ? • Reverend Barzillai Frost ? • Margaret Fuller ? • William Lloyd Garrison ? • ? • Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar ? • Edward Sherman Hoar ? • Senator George Frisbie Hoar ? • Elizabeth Sherman Hoar ? • Squire Samuel Hoar ? •Dr. Edward Jarvis ? • Deacon Francis Jarvis ? • John Shepard Keyes, Judge John Shepard Keyes ? • John M. Keyes ? • Reverend George Ripley ? • Mrs. Sophia Dana Ripley ? • Reverend Samuel Ripley ? • Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley ? • Lemuel Shattuck ? • Daniel Shattuck ? • Sheriff Sam Staples ? • Henry David Thoreau ? • John Thoreau, Senior ? • Cynthia Dunbar Thoreau ? • John Thoreau, Jr. ? • Helen Louisa Thoreau ? • Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau ? • Aunt Maria Thoreau ? • Aunt Jane Thoreau ? • Alek Therien ? • Miss Prudence Ward ?

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Anna Bronson Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1843

Volume I of John Ruskin’s MODERN PAINTERS defended the paintings of J.M.W. Turner (Thoreau would not read Ruskin’s MODERN PAINTERS until October 1857).

J.M.W. Turner’s “Approach to Venice” appeared.

Benjamin Robert Haydon’s “Curtius Leaping into the Gulf” depiction of the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius,10 “Uriel and Satan,” and “Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society” (now in the National Portrait Gallery).

Thomas Cole’s second version of his “Voyage of Life” series of paintings depicting life as a journey through space was placed on display in Boston, in New-York, and in Philadelphia. (It would then be purchased by George K. Shoenberger of Cincinnati, Ohio. After his mansion would be converted into a sanitarium and become part of Bethesda Hospital, this series of paintings would be rediscovered hanging in the chapel of the hospital and would, in 1971, be transferred to the National Gallery of Art.)

The board game “The Mansion of Happiness” was developed by S.B. Ives of Salem, Massachusetts: landing on a space designated for “Charity,” “Industry,” or other desirable traits would speed players up a spiral track toward eternal happiness while landing on the spaces marked for vices such as “Sloth,” “Cruelty,” and ingratitude would send them tumbling backward.

This would be played by the girls of the Alcott family.

10. According to Titus Livius, in 362 BCE a chasm opened in Rome. After attempting to deal with this through the offering of various sort of votive sacrifices, the people came to suspect that the chasm would close only if they put into it their “most precious thing of all.” Marcus Curtius, a young eques, understanding correctly that this most precious thing could only be the courage and strength of the Roman soldier, mounted his horse and, wearing all his weapons, rode into the chasm — which obediently closed upon him. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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June 1 (Pentecost Thursday): Joseph Smith, Jr. “got married with” Elvira Anie Cowles.

Go East, 46-year-old black woman, go East: Isabella11 experienced a command to “go east” and testify, adopted the monicker Sojourner Truth, and departed New-York with but an hour’s notice, with two York shillings in her pocket, carrying her worldly belongings in a pillowcase, to move on foot through Long Island and Connecticut, testifying to whatever audiences she was able to attract. –It is the life of a wandering evangelist, is mine. In the course of attending Millerite meetings to testify, she would accommodate to a number of the apocalyptic tenets of that group.

As Louisa May Alcott has reported in later life, on this same day quite another journey was taking place:

On the first day of June, 1843, a large wagon, drawn by a small horse and containing a motley load, went lumbering over certain New England hills, with the pleasing accompaniments of wind, rain and hail. A serene man with a serene child upon his knee was driving, or rather being driven, for the small horse had it all his own way. Behind a small boy, embracing a bust of Socrates, was an energetic looking woman, with a benevolent brow, satirical mouth and eyes full of hope and courage. A baby reposed upon her lap, a mirror leaned against her knee, a basket of provisions danced about her feet, and she struggled with a large, unruly umbrella, with which she tried to cover every one but herself. Twilight began to fall, and the rain came down in a despondent drizzle, but the calm man gazed as tranquilly into the fog as if he beheld a radiant bow of promise spanning the gray sky.

The Consociate Family of Bronson Alcott was on its way from Concord to “Fruitlands” on Prospect Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts, in the district then known politely as “Still River North” and impolitely as “Hog

11. Isabella Bomefree van Wagenen, “Bomefree” being the name of her first husband which by virtue of enslavement she had been denied, and “van Wagenen” being the name of the white family which she assumed and used for a number of years. (“Wagener” was a consistent misspelling perpetrated by the printer of the first version of her NARRATIVE in 1850.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

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Street,” with its prospect of Wachusett and Mount Monadnock and its prospect of “ideals without feet or

hands” (an apt phrase said to have been created by Waldo Emerson,12 who himself, if anyone ever metaphorically lacked them, metaphorically lacked feet and hands and other essential body parts), ideals such as “a family in harmony with the primitive instincts of man.” In her fictional account of the journey, Louisa May Alcott invented an additional child and placed it on her father’s knee, obviously where she would have wanted to be, and made it a “serene” child, what she never was but longed to be. The bust of Socrates actually rode between the father Bronson, who was holding the reins, and Charles Lane, on the wagon’s bench. There was no room in this wagon for William Lane or for Anna Alcott, who for all 14 miles of the journey had to walk alongside it.

At this point the Association of Industry and Education had 113 members, a large proportion of whom were children:

12. But we may note that in Bronson Alcott’s journal for Week 45 in November 1837, Alcott had himself termed himself “an Idea without hands.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COMMUNITARIANISM Membership

April 1842 41 May 1842 65 End of 1842 83 June 1843 113 Winter 1844 120 Spring 1845 120

Having had enough after less than two months of attempting to teach almost entirely without teaching supplies and without adequate classroom space, Sophia Foord threatened to resign as teacher at the Association. (Promises would be made that would keep her teaching while efforts were made to convert a barn into classrooms, but the problem eventually would be resolved by the need of the community to use its children as a cheap source of incessant factory labor. After Miss Foord left Northampton, she became tutor to the children of the Chase family (Elizabeth Buffum Chace) of Valley Falls, Rhode Island; “she taught botany; she walked with the children over the fields … and made her pupils observe the geographical features of the pond and its banks, and carefully taught them to estimate distances by sight.”)

Railroad service to Concord began. Preliminary earthmoving crews, and then crossties and rails crews, had reached Concord at the rate of 33 feet per day, filling in Walden Pond’s south-west arm to give it its present shape. 1,000 Irishmen were earning $0.50 or $0.60 for bonebreaking 16-hour days of labor. Waldo Emerson was elated because he much preferred riding in the railroad coach to riding in the stage coach which offered a “ludicrous pathetic tragical picture” (his comment from April 15, 1834; I don’t know whether he meant that he felt that he presented a ludicrous pathetic tragical appearance while riding on the stage coach or that the view from the stage coach window presented him with a ludicrous pathetic tragical perspective). He found, however, that when a philosopher rides the railroad “Ideal Philosophy takes place at once” as “men & trees & barns whiz by you as fast as the leaves of a dictionary” and this helps in grasping the real impermanence of matter: “hitherto esteemed symbols of stability do absolutely dance by you” and we experience “the sensations of a swallow who skims by trees & bushes with about the same speed” (June 10, 1834). By this time, with the railroad actually in Concord, Emerson had decided that “Machinery & agree well.”13

“[The railroad will] only encourage the common people to move about needlessly.” — Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

13. EMERSON’S JOURNALS AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS 4: 277, 4:296, 8:397. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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

Anna Bronson Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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CHRISTMAS 1843

December 25, Monday: Benjamin Wiley, Jr. got married with Hannah P. Tufts.

This was the Christmas season on which Charles Dickens’s A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN PROSE became available for purchase, at least in England.

http://www.stormfax.com/dickens.htm HDT WHAT? INDEX

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According to the author, this was the boil-down of typical Christmas holiday festivities of the period: “Such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman’s-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissing-in of new ones never too places in these parts before.... I broke out like a madman.” The Bronson Alcott /Abba Alcott family was among the 1st of New England families to celebrate the Christmas holiday in the “secular” manner, that is, by an exchange of presents — but we should not take that to mean that the father was present in the home at Fruitlands:

“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled Jo, lying on the rug. “It’s so dreadful to be poor!” sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress. “I don’t think it’s fair for some girls to have lots of pretty things, and other girls nothing at all,” added little Amy, with an injured sniff. “We’ve got father and mother and each other, anyhow,” said Beth contentedly, from her corner.

Jo Marsh = Louisa May Alcott, portrayed by Katherine Hepburn in the magnificent 1933 movie of George Cukor titled .

Meg March = Anna Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Frances Dee, who married John Brook (=John Bridge Pratt), portrayed by John Davis Lodge.

Amy March = Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), portrayed by Joan Bennett.

Mr. March = Bronson Alcott, portrayed by Samuel S. Hinds.

Marmee March = “Abba” Abigail May Alcott, portrayed by Spring Byington.

Beth March = “Lizzie” Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, the eldest daughter, portrayed by Jean Parker. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Waldo Emerson to his journal, same date:

At the performing of Handel’s Messiah I heard some delicious strains & understood a very little of all that was told me.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Anna Bronson Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1845

During this year and the following two years, into 1847, Bronson Alcott would be terracing the wooded slope behind “Hillside” into a “shapely neatness” and constructing a “bower” or “conservatory” or “arbour” of twisted pine branches, osier, and clumps of hazel reed, carried up from the woods, at the top of the ridge behind their home in Concord. It had Gothic columns hung with moss and a thatch roof, and Nathaniel Hawthorne referred to it, hung with flowers and evergreen, as “a work of magic.”

Miss Sophia Foord collaborated with Bronson in the creation of a school for Concord children including his own girls. Here are a couple of jottings from Louisa May Alcott’s diary of the period:

—Read the “heart of Mid-Lothian,” and had a very happy day. Miss Ford gave us a botany lesson in the woods. I am always good there. In the evening Miss Ford told us about the bones in our bodies, and how they get out of order. I must be careful of mine, I climb and jump and run so much....

Concord, Thursday: I had an early run in the woods before the dew was off the grass. The moss was like velvet, and as I ran under the arches of yellow and red leaves I sang for joy, my heart was so bright and the world so beautiful. I stopped at the end of the walk and saw the sunshine out over the wide “Virginia meadows.” It seemed like going through a dark life or grave into heaven beyond. A very strange and solemn feeling came over me as I stood there, with no sound but the rustle of the pines, no one near me, and the sun so glorious, as for me alone. It seemed as if I felt God as I never did before, and I prayed in my heart that I might keep that happy sense of nearness all my life..

Unfortunately, this new school would succeed in attracting only a few additional children, not enough to make it a going concern, and Bronson’s application to teach at the Concord elementary school would be rejected by the local school board on or prior to September 17, 1848 on account of his not attending a church, and his attempt to speak at the state convention of the Teachers Institute would be intercepted and forbidden by Horace Mann, Sr., the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.14 It was during the period at “Hillside” that Louisa would be beginning to write in earnest. She had a room of her own. Her oeuvre was poems, plays, short stories, and journal, although unfortunately what remains for us of her detailed journal has been twice “edited,” first by herself and then by her sister Anna Alcott in conjunction with Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, her first biographer.

14. Horace Mann, Sr., an institutionalist and authoritarian, was ever zealous to protect the rights of the state against the importunities of the individual citizen, and had not failed to notice that Bronson’s opinions were, as he succinctly put the matter, “hostile to the existence of the State.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1848

Christmas: While Louisa May Alcott was about 16, living at 12 West Street in Boston, she was writing tragedies which were being staged by her and her sisters. One of these was “Norna; or, The Witches’ Curse.” would come to consider this piece to be her sister’s “masterpiece” in the “lurid drama” genre. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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On Christmas night, a dozen girls piled onto the bed which was the dress circle, and sat before the blue and yellow chintz curtains in a most flattering state of expectancy. There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy, who was apt to get hysterical in the excitement of the moment. Presently a bell sounded, the curtains flew apart, and the OPERATIC TRAGEDY began. “A gloomy wood,” according to the one playbill, was represented by a few shrubs in pots, green baize on the floor, and a cave in the distance. This cave was made with a clothes horse for a roof, bureaus for walls, and in it was a small furnace in full blast, with a black pot on it and an old witch bending over it. The stage was dark and the glow of the furnace had a fine effect, especially as real steam issued from the kettle when the witch took off the cover. A moment was allowed for the first thrill to subside, then Hugo, the villain, stalked in with a clanking sword at his side, a slouching hat, black beard, mysterious cloak, and the boots. After pacing to and fro in much agitation, he struck his forehead, and burst out in a wild strain, singing of his hatred for Roderigo, his love for Zara, and his pleasing resolution to kill the one and win the other. The gruff tones of Hugo’s voice, with an occasional shout when his feelings overcame him, were very impressive, and the audience applauded the moment he paused for breath. Bowing with the air of one accustomed to public praise, he stole to the cavern and ordered Hagar to come forth with a commanding, “What ho, minion! I need thee!” Out came Meg, with gray horsehair hanging about her face, a red and black robe, a staff, and cabalistic signs upon her cloak. Hugo demanded a potion to make Zara adore him, and one to destroy Roderigo. Hagar, in a fine dramatic melody, promised both, and proceeded to call up the spirit who would bring the love philter: — “Hither, hither, from thy home, Airy sprite, I bid thee come! Born of roses, fed on dew, Charms and potions canst thou brew? Bring me here, with elfin speed, The fragrant philter which I need. Make it sweet and swift and strong, Spirit, answer now my song!” A soft strain of music sounded, and then at the back of the cave appeared a little figure in cloudy white, with glittering wings, golden hair, and a garland of roses on its head. Waving a wand, it sang — “Hither I come, From my airy home, Afar in the silver moon. Take the magic spell, And use it well, Or its power will vanish soon!”

THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

And dropping a small, gilded bottle at the witch’s feet, the spirit vanished. Another chant from Hagar produced another apparition, not a lovely one, for with a bang an ugly black imp appeared and, having croaked a reply, tossed a dark bottle at Hugo and disappeared with a mocking laugh. Having warbled his thanks and put the potions in his boots, Hugo departed, and Hagar informed the audience that as he had killed a few of her friends in times past, she had cursed him, and intends to thwart his plans, and be revenged on him. Then the curtain fell, and the audience reposed and ate candy while discussing the merits of the play. A good deal of hammering went on before the curtain rose again, but when it became evident what a masterpiece of stage carpentering had been got up, no one murmured at the delay. It was truly superb. A tower rose to the ceiling, halfway up appeared a window with a lamp burning in it, and behind the white curtain appeared Zara in a lovely blue and silver dress, waiting for Roderigo. He came in gorgeous array, with plumed cap, red cloak, chestnut love-locks, a guitar, and the boots, of course. Kneeling at the foot of the tower, he sang a serenade in melting tones. Zara replied and, after a musical dialogue, consented to fly. Then came the grand effect of the play. Roderigo produced a rope ladder, with five steps to it, threw up one end, and invited Zara to descend. Timidly she crept from her lattice, put her hand on Roderigo’s shoulder, and was about to leap gracefully down when “alas! alas for Zara!” she forgot her train. It caught in the window, the tower tottered, leaned forward, fell with a crash, and buried the unhappy lovers in the ruins. A universal shriek arose as the russet boots waved wildly from the wreck and a golden head emerged, exclaiming, “I told you so! I told you so!” With wonderful presence of mind, Don Pedro, the cruel sire, rushed in, dragged out his daughter, with a hasty aside — “Don’t laugh! Act as if it was all right!” and, ordering Roderigo up, banished him from the kingdom with wrath and scorn. Though decidedly shaken by the fall of the tower upon him, Roderigo defied the old gentleman and refused to stir. This dauntless example fired Zara. She also defied her sire, and he ordered them both to the deepest dungeons of the castle. A stout little retainer came in with chains and led them away, looking very much frightened and evidently forgetting the speech he ought to have made. Act third was the castle hall, and here Hagar appeared, having come to free the lovers and finish Hugo. She hears him coming and hides, sees him put the potions into two cups of wine and bid the timid little servant, “Bear them to the captives in their cells, and tell them I shall come anon.” The servant takes Hugo aside to tell him something, and Hagar changes the cups for two others which are harmless. Ferdinando, the ‘minion,’ carries them away, and Hagar puts back the cup which holds the poison meant for Roderigo. Hugo, getting thirsty after a long warble, drinks it, loses his wits, and after a good deal of clutching and stamping, falls flat and dies, while Hagar informs him what she has done in a song of exquisite power and melody. This was a truly thrilling scene; though some persons might have thought that the sudden tumbling down of a quantity of long red hair rather marred the effect of the villain’s death. He was called before the curtain, and with great propriety appeared, leading Hagar, whose singing was considered more wonderful than all the rest of the performance put together. HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

Act fourth displayed the despairing Roderigo on the point of stabbing himself because he has been told that Zara has deserted him. Just as the dagger is at his heart, a lovely song is sung under his window, informing him that Zara is true but in danger, and he can save her if he will. A key is thrown in, which unlocks the door, and in a spasm of rapture he tears off his chains and rushes away to find and rescue his lady love. Act fifth opened with a stormy scene between Zara and Don Pedro. He wishes her to go into a convent, but she won’t hear of it, and after a touching appeal, is about to faint when Roderigo dashes in and demands her hand. Don Pedro refuses, because he is not rich. They shout and gesticulate tremendously but cannot agree, and Rodrigo is about to bear away the exhausted Zara, when the timid servant enters with a letter and a bag from Hagar, who has mysteriously disappeared. The latter informs the party that she bequeaths untold wealth to the young pair and an awful doom to Don Pedro, if he doesn’t make them happy. The bag is opened, and several quarts of tin money shower down upon the stage till it is quite glorified with the glitter. This entirely softens the stern sire. He consents without a murmur, all join in a joyful chorus, and the curtain falls upon the lovers kneeling to receive Don Pedro’s blessing in attitudes of the most romantic grace. Tumultuous applause followed but received an unexpected check, for the cot-bed, on which the dress circle was built, suddenly shut up and extinguished the enthusiastic audience. Roderigo and Don Pedro flew to the rescue, and all were taken out unhurt, though many were speechless with laughter.

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

Anna Bronson Alcott “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

1849

December 4, Tuesday: The popular Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer came to Concord on the train in a snowstorm to visit Waldo Emerson the fellow author. She was more impressed with Lidian Emerson, the author’s wife.

No one spoke of the great trouble, — not even Mrs. March, — for all had learned by experience that when Jo was in that mood words were wasted, and the wisest course was to wait till some little accident, or her own generous nature, softened Jo’s resentment and healed the breach. It was not a happy evening, for though they sewed as usual, while their mother read aloud from Bremer, Scott, or Edgeworth, something was wanting, and the sweet home- peace was disturbed. They felt this most when singing-time came, for Beth could only play, Jo stood dumb as a stone, and Amy broke down, so Meg and Mother sang alone. But in spite of their efforts to be as cheery as larks, the flutelike voices did not seem to chord as well as usual, and all felt out of tune.

Bremer had been highly regarded by Abba Alcott but, when Anna Bronson Alcott and Louisa May Alcott met her, they were immensely disappointed and “went into the closet and cried.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

President Zachary Taylor sent a message to the US Congress. Guess what, we’re such a nation of go-getters that to some significant degree we’re doing this to ourselves! “Your attention is earnestly invited to an amendment of our existing laws relating to the African slave-trade, with a view to the effectual suppression of that barbarous traffic. It is not to be denied that this trade is still, in part, carried on by means of vessels built in the United States, and owned or navigated by some of our citizens.” HOUSE EXECUTIVE DOCUMENT, 31st Congress, 1st session, III. No. 5, pages 7-8.

At about the middle of this year Louisa May Alcott wrote to her older sister Anna Bronson Alcott about the stories which she had created while she was doing babysitting at the age of 16, for the amusement of little Ellen Emerson, the little volume which eventually would be entitled : I’ve shed my quart [of tears] ... over the book not coming out, for that was a sad blow, and I waited so long it was dreadful when my castle in the air came tumbling about my ears. Pride made me laugh in public, but I wailed in private, and no one knew it. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

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December 19, Saturday: Friend Daniel Ricketson in Concord, to his journal:

PARKER PILLSBURY Clear and colder; accompanied Thoreau on a survey of WALDO EMERSON woodland near Walden Pond this forenoon, dined with him ABBA ALCOTT at his father’s, afternoon at my lodgings with Thoreau and Parker Pillsbury. R.W. Emerson also joined us at LOUISA MAY ALCOTT the close of the P.M. Took tea with Mr. Emerson, called on Mrs. Alcott and her daughters, whom I found very ELIZABETH ALCOTT agreeable and intelligent people; one daughter I did MAY ALCOTT not see, being quite ill, probably not to recover. Mr. Sanborn called there, with whom I returned to my room, he occupied with a sister Channing’s house. ELLERY CHANNING

March 12, Friday: Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, age 23, died of the aftereffects of scarlet fever.

The girls never forgot that night, for no sleep came to them as they kept their watch, with that dreadful sense of powerlessness which comes to us in hours like those. “If God spares Beth, I never will complain again,” whispered Meg earnestly. “If God spares Beth, I’ll try to love and serve Him all my life,” answered Jo, with equal fervor. “I wish I had no heart, it aches so,” sighed Meg, after a pause. “If life is often as hard as this, I don’t see how we ever shall get through it,” added her sister despondently. Here the clock struck twelve, and both forgot themselves in watching Beth, for they fancied a change passed over her wan face. The house was still as death, and nothing but the wailing of the wind broke the deep hush. Weary Hannah slept on, and no one but the sisters saw the pale shadow which seemed to fall upon the little bed. An hour went by, and nothing happened except Laurie’s quiet departure for the station. Another hour, — still no one came; and anxious fears of delay in the storm, or accidents by the way, or, worst of all, a great grief at Washington, haunted the girls. It was past two, when Jo, who stood at the window thinking how dreary the world looked in its winding-sheet of snow, heard a movement by the bed, and turning quickly, saw Meg kneeling before their mother’s easy-chair with her face hidden. A dreadful fear passed coldly over Jo, as she thought, “Beth is dead, and Meg is afraid to tell me.” She was back at her post in an instant, and to her excited eyes a great change seemed to have taken place. The fever flush and the look of pain were gone, and the beloved little face looked so pale and peaceful in its utter repose that Jo felt no desire to weep or to lament. Leaning low over this dearest of her sisters, she kissed the damp forehead with her heart on her lips, and softly whispered, “Good-by, my Beth. Good-by!” HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

1859

November 23, Wednesday: In Friend Daniel Ricketson’s journal:

Walked after breakfast to Edmund Hosmer’s farm, spent EDMUND HOSMER an hour with him and his youngest daughter, an BRONSON ALCOTT intelligent and well educated young woman. Called at Mr. Alcott’s and dined with him in his library on LOUISA MAY ALCOTT boiled rice, grated cheese, cider, and apples. Walked ABBY MAY ALCOTT this P.M. with Thoreau to the Hallowell farm; returned ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT to Thoreau’s room; plain talk, perhaps too much so. Called at Mr. Alcott’s this evening; he was at Mr. Emerson’s. Sat till nearly 9 with the two young ladies; introduced to Mr. Pratt, engaged to Miss Anna Alcott, who was also in the room a short time. Spent the night at the Middlesex House, kept by a Mr. Newton, formerly a stage-driver between Taunton and Boston. Retired at 10. Talk in the barroom with several persons.

William H. Bonney (Billy the Kid) was born.

Henry Thoreau responded to the Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway’s letter of November 19th, that he was already fully committed but did hope for the success of the new Cincinnati reincarnation of THE DIAL.

[NO ENTRIES IN THOREAU’S JOURNAL FOR 23 NOVEMBER] HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

May 23, Wednesday: It was a bright, warm day and Henry Thoreau received an invitation from Mrs. Abba Alcott, to attend her daughter Anna Bronson Alcott’s (Meg’s) wedding at the (known before 1857 as the Moore house). The Emersons also attended. The date had deliberately been set as the anniversary of the date of the wedding of the bride’s parents Abba and Bronson in 1830 in King’s Chapel!

The ceremony of Anna “Meg” Alcott to John Bridge Pratt took place at 11AM with the uncle, the Reverend , having the honor of again officiating as he had officiated before on behalf of the parents. Out in the yard afterward, the guests danced around the couple, and Waldo kissed the bride but Henry did not, perhaps because he had not been alerted in time for him to produce a wedding present. (The newlyweds would settle in Chelsea, Massachusetts.) A lovely day, the house full of sunshine, flowers, friends, and happiness. Uncle S.J. May married them, with no fuss, but much love, and we all stood round her. She in her silver-gray silk, with lilies of the valley (John’s flower) in her bosom and hair. We have had a little feast ... then the old folks danced round the bridal pair making a pretty picture to remember, under our Revolutionary elm. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

My dear friend Mr Thoreau Will you join us for [one] hour (11 [oclock] to 12.) at our home this day to celebrate of the marriage our ^ dear Anna and John Yrs affectionately Abby Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

May 23. 6 A. M.—To Junction. River four and one sixth inches below summer level, having risen about three inches since the morning of the 19th. See hopping along the limbs of a black willow and inspecting its leafets for insects, in all positions, often head downward, the Sylvia striata, black-poll warbler. Black crown or all top of head; a broad white space along side- head and reaching less distinctly over the neck, in a ring; beneath this, from base of mandibles, a streak of black, becoming a stream or streams of black spots along the sides; beneath white; legs yellow; back above slaty- brown, streaked with black; primaries yellowish-dusky, with two white bars or marks; inner tail-feathers more or less white; tail forked; bill black. Not particularly lively. The female is said to be considerably different. This at first glance was a chickadee-like bird. It was rather tame. I distinguish well the red-eye and the yellow-throat vireo at the Island. It would not be easy to distinguish them always by the note, and I may have been mistaken sometimes, and before this year, in speaking of the yellow- throat vireo. The red-eye sings as slightly and feebly here now as the other. You can see these here to advantage now on the sunny side of the woods, the sun just bursting forth in the morning after the rain, for they [are] busily preening themselves, and, though incessantly moving, their heads and bodies, remain in the same spot. Myrtle-bird here still. Notice the first lint from new leafets, evidently washed off by the rain, and covering the water like dust.

P. M.—69. By boat to Ball’s Hill. Say the sweet-scented vernal grass is in its prime. Interrupted fern fruit probably a day or two, and cinnamon, say the same or just after. I see on the white maples, and afterward running along the shore close to the water, at different times, three or four water-thrushes (water wagtails, Turdus Noveboracensis). By its lurking along the waterside it might be mistaken by some at first for the song sparrow. It is considerably like the golden-crowned thrush, but it has a distinct buffish-white line over the eye and the breast and sides distinctly striped with dark. All above uniform olive-brown. It may be distinguished at a distance from a sparrow by its wagging motion, teetering on its perch. It persistently runs along the shore, peetweet-and song-sparrow-like, running like a rail around the tussocks and other obstacles and appearing again at the water’s edge. It was not very shy. We very easily kept along two rods off it, while it was amid the button-bushes. Started up two (probably) Totanus solitarius (?), (possibly small yellow-legs???). They utter a faint yellow-leg note, rather than peetweet note, viz. phe, phe, pheet pheet pheet. Are not shy; stand still [on] or beside a tussock to be looked at. Have peculiarly long, slender, curving wings. Fly like a peetweet, but are considerably larger and apparently uniformly dark-brown above. The belly and vent very bright white; breast (upper part) grayish- brown. When they flew from me saw considerable white, apparently on tail-coverts or sides of tail. Watched one still within three rods, with glass. There was a little speckling of whitish perhaps amid the brown above. I think they were too small for the lesser yellow-legs. Eleocharis pallustris, say three or four days. Critchicrotches some two or three days; now tender to eat. How agreeable and surprising the peculiar fragrance of the sweet flag when bruised! That this plant alone should have extracted this odor surely for so many ages each summer from the moist earth! The pipes in the Great Meadows now show a darker green amid the yellowish of the sedges, like the shadow of a passing cloud. From a hilltop half a mile off you can easily distinguish the limits of the pipes by their dark green. They do not terminate abruptly, but are gradually lost in the sedge. There is very little white maple seed this year, so that I cannot say surely how far advanced it is. What I notice appears to be fully grown, but is on the trees yet, always surprisingly large, like the wings of some lusty moth. Possibly it ripens with mouse-ear. I get sight for a moment of a large warbler on a young oak,—only the under side, which is a clear bright lemon- yellow, all beneath, with a sort of crescent of black spots on the breast. Is it not the Sylvia pardalina? Methinks it was a rather dark brown above. [Vide 28th.] The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green! Now, if you look over our Great Meadow from Ball’s Hill, in a warm, fair day like this, you will receive the same impression as from the English grass fields in the middle of June, the sedges are so much more dense and forward. I mark the large white maples, now conspicuous and pretty densely leaved, stand up over the green sea on this edge of the river, so still, with each a speck of shade at its base, as in the noon of a summer day, and a dark line merely of shadow runs along at the base of the hill on the south of the meadow,—the June shadows beginning here. A green canopy held still above the already waving grass. It reminds you of warm, still noons, high grass, and the whetting of the scythe. Most of the corn is planted. Distinguish plainly a swamp sparrow (two to-day) by the riverside, a peculiarly glossy deep-chestnut crown, ash side-head and throat, and a dark or black line through the eye. HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

I find, in skunk hedge below Flint’s, Carex rosea, not long, say three or four days. I should have thought it C. stellulata, but it is plainly staminate above, fertile below. [Also seen at calamint wall, Annursnack, June 10th.] Also C. gracillima, same place, apparently four or five days. River at 6 P. M. about one and two thirds inches below summer level; risen some two and a half inches since 6 A.M. Notice the flags eaten off, probably by musquash. HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

1885

October 10, Saturday: Bronson Alcott, Anna Alcott Pratt, and her two sons moved from the Yellow House in Concord to Louisa May Alcott’s new digs at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

1888

February 24, Friday: Louisa May Alcott wrote: “Lonely day. Go in to 10 [Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston] & see A[Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt]. Papa very much changed. So old & wasted & weak. A mere wreck of the beautiful old man. Sorry he did not slip away sooner. Hate to have him linger so.” BRONSON ALCOTT ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

1893

July 17, Monday: Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt died in Concord. The body would be interred near the graves of her parents and sisters on Author’s Ridge in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery.

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Anna Bronson Alcott HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

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 2015. 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: April 12, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

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

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT

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 . Arrgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT ANNA BRONSON ALCOTT