Joseph Blanco White People Mentioned in Walden

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

THE SHADOWS OF POVERTY AND MEANNESS GATHER AROUND US,

“AND LO! CREATION WIDENS TO OUR VIEW.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

WALDEN: However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not PEOPLE OF shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find WALDEN faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring. I do not see but a quiet mind may live as contentedly there, and have as cheering thoughts, as in a palace. The town’s poor seem to me often to live the most independent of lives of any. May be they are simply great enough to receive without misgiving. Most think that they are above being supported by the town; but it oftener happens that they are not above supporting themselves by dishonest means, which should be more disreputable. Cultivate property like garden herb, like sage. Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends. Turn the old; return to them. Things do not change; we change. Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. God will see that you do not want society. If I were confined to a corner of a garret all my days, like a spider, the world would be just as large to me while I had my thoughts about me. The philosopher said: “From an army of three divisions one can take away its general, and put it in disorder; from the man the most abject and vulgar one cannot take away his thought.” Do not seek so anxiously to be developed, to subject yourself to many influences to be played on; it is all dissipation. Humility like darkness reveals the heavenly lights. The shadows of poverty and meanness gather around us, “and lo! creation widens to our view.” We are often reminded that if there were bestowed on us the wealth of Crœsus, our aims must still be the same, and our means essentially the same. Moreover, if you are restricted in your range by poverty, if you cannot buy books and newspapers, for instance, you are but confined to the most significant and vital experiences; you are compelled to deal with the material which yields the most sugar and the most starch. It is life near the bone where it is sweetest. You are defended from being a trifler. No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher. Superfluous wealth can buy superfluities only. Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul.

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1775

July 11, Tuesday: William Bartram arrived at Yuch Town on the Chattahoochee River.

Birth of José María Blanco y Crespo, who would become a theological poet known in England as “Joseph Blanco White” and be quoted by Henry Thoreau, in Seville, Spain, in an Irish Catholic family that had there settled, and married with an Andalusian lady of noble descent and small property. At first he would be put in training for a mercantile career in his uncle Philip Nangle’s counting house, but would prefer playing his violin.

IT IS A PROBLEM, FOR A “PHILOSOPHER OF HISTORY” SUCH AS MYSELF (AUSTIN MEREDITH), THAT PEOPLE WHO HAVE HEARD THAT THERE IS SUCH A THING AS “HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY” –PEOPLE WHO MAY EVEN HAVE GONE TO THE LENGTHS OF CONSULTING ONE OR ANOTHER “HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY” SUCH AS THAT CREATED BY UEBERWEG IN THE 19TH CENTURY– HAVE NEVER SO MUCH AS CONTEMPLATED THAT THERE MIGHT BE SUCH A THING AS ALTERNATIVE PHILOSOPHIES OF HISTORY BASED ON DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDINGS OF THE NATURE OF TIME. THE GIST OF MY PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY, BASED ON MY OWN UNDERSTANDING OF THE NATURE OF TIME, IS AS FOLLOWS: OUR SO- CALLED HISTORIANS ARE DOING IT EXACTLY WRONG. IN THEIR FABRICATIONS ABOUT HISTORY, THEY ARE CHRONIC ANTICIPATORS. THEY PERPETUALLY OFFER TO THEIR UNSUSPECTING AUDIENCES THAT ACCOUNTS THEY HAVE PATCHED TOGETHER IN THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS ILLUMINATE OUR PRESENT CONDITION. THEIR CONSTRUCTED PASTS BECOME OUR PREAMBLE FOR OUR PRESENT AGENDAS. THESE ACADEMIC PSEUDO-HISTORIANS WHO ENGAGE IN THIS ANTICIPATION AGENDA ARE WELL PAID BUT THEY OFFEND AGAINST REALITY. ANY HISTORY CONSTRUCTED IN THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS CAN AMOUNT TO NOTHING MORE THAN SPURIOUS MAKE-MAKE-BELIEVE, SPECIAL PLEADING. The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN THE WARNING OF THE HIPPIE WAS “NEVER TRUST ANYONE OVER 30!” THE WARNING I PROFFER IS: “DON’T CREDIT ANY HISTORY THAT IS CREDIBLE. WHEN ANY OF THIS BEGINS TO MAKE ANY SENSE, DOUBLE-BEWARE!” TO BE SPECIFIC, THIS KOUROO DATABASE IS JUST CHOCK-FULL OF HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGIES. IF ANY OF THESE PROFFERED HISTORICAL CHRONOLOGIES ARE MORE THAN MERELY ACCURATE, IF ANY OF THEM OVER AND ABOVE THEIR ACCURACY BEGIN TO APPEAR TO YOU TO PROVIDE ANY PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATIONS OF OUR PRESENT CONDITION, THAT SHOULD BE ENOUGH TO MAKE YOUR SUSPICION- ANTENNAE BEGIN TO VIBRATE AND HUM. BIGTIME! I AM NOT CREATING THESE ACCURATE CHRONOLOGIES TO HELP YOU GROK YOUR PRESENT CONDITION. I AM CREATING THESE ACCURATE CHRONOLOGIES TO HELP YOU NON-GROK YOUR PRESENT CONDITION. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1781

The preacher at the final auto-da-fé in Seville was a Father Vega. This Father Vega would become one of the directors of a Catholic retreat attended by the young José María Blanco y Crespo (in later life in England, when he would attempt to write a history of the Spanish Inquisition, he would discover that the topic was too nerve- wracking and he would need to drop this project).

THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, APRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO “INSTANT” HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1787

When, at the age of 12, José María Blanco y Crespo, desiring to escape from the drudgery of a career in the family counting-house, declared his intent to become a Roman Catholic priest, his mother induced his father to consent.

BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1789

In Spain, at the age of 14, José María Blanco y Crespo, took the “four minor orders” and began studies in philosophy at a Dominican college.

FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1790

October: José María Blanco y Crespo chanced upon the writings of Friar Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro, who had attacked the scholastic philosophy dominant in Spanish Catholic colleges. He was induced to revolt against the repulsive teaching of his masters. Nevertheless, he would be allowed to enter the university.

HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS, FOR INSTANCE, THAT A PARTICULAR INFANT WOULD INVENT THE SEWING MACHINE, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE HISTORIAN IS SETTING CHRONOLOGY TO “SHUFFLE,” WHICH IS NOT A PERMISSIBLE OPTION BECAUSE IN THE REAL WORLD SUCH SHUFFLE IS IMPOSSIBLE. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET. THERE IS NO SUCH “BIRD’S EYE VIEW” AS THIS IN THE REAL WORLD, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD NO REAL BIRD HAS EVER GLIMPSED AN ACTUAL HISTORICAL SEQUENCE.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1796

At the age of 21 José María Blanco y Crespo took subdeacon’s orders in the church of Spain — although he would be heard to complain at the length of the services which he was thus obligated to attend. He was shocked at such “cloying and mawkish devotion,” and considered the Roman Catholic imagery that accompanied such devotions to be distasteful. While a subdeacon he would be elected fellow of the college of Maria à Jesu at Seville, a position that brought him some small salary rewards, in addition to social advancement.

William Newcome’s AN ATTEMPT TOWARD REVISING OUR ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF THE GREEK SCRIPTURES, OR THE NEW COVENANT OF JESUS CHRIST; AND TOWARD ILLUSTRATING THE SENSE BY PHILOLOGICAL AND EXPLANATORY NOTES (2 Vols. London: for J. Johnson; Dublin: John Exshaw). A revision of the KJV by Archbishop Newcome, based on the text of Griesbach 1774. This was the first English version to represent Griesbach’s new critical text. HISTORY OF THE BIBLE

YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1800

December 25, Thursday: The Armistice of Steyr was signed by France and Austria.

Ordination as a priest of the Catholic Church in Spain of José María Blanco y Crespo.

ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT. (TO THE WILLING MANY THINGS CAN BE EXPLAINED, THAT FOR THE UNWILLING WILL REMAIN FOREVER MYSTERIOUS.)

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1802

Anne Catherine Emmerich entered the Augustinian convent at Agnetenberg, Dulmen. CATHOLICISM

In Seville, Spain, where José María Blanco y Crespo was appointed to a chaplaincy in the Chapel Royal of St. Ferdinand, there were difficulties occasioned by his religious doubts. He would need to relocate to Madrid, obtaining work there as a “religious instructor” in a new Pestalozzian school.

I do not have a date for Chaplain Blanco’s A Sermon on the Evidences of Christianity, preached in the Royal Chapel, Seville (in his biography by the Unitarian Reverend John Hamilton Thom, this is in Volume I, on page 113). Nor do I have a date for his Sermon on the Slave Trade (in his biography by the Reverend Thom, this is in Volume III, on pages 174 and 180). LIFE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT IT IS MORTALS WHO CONSUME OUR HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, FOR WHAT WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO IS EVADE THE RESTRICTIONS OF THE HUMAN LIFESPAN. (IMMORTALS, WITH NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, TAKE NO HEED OF OUR STORIES.)

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1808

In France, Napoléon Bonaparte was establishing consistories to organize the religion and practice of the Jews. JUDAISM

Don Josef María Blanco’s ODA À LA INSTALACIÓN DE LA JUNTA CENTRAL DE ESPAÑA (Con Superior Permiso. Por Gómez Fuentenebro y Compañía). During this period the French were entering Spain and ousting the Bourbon monarchy, causing this priest to anticipate that Joseph Bonaparte would take power in Madrid and bring an end not only to the Inquisition but also to the Catholic religious orders. He advocated that the Cortes (Spanish parliament) recognize those juntas in Spanish America that had remained loyal to the Spanish monarchy. Eventually, however, yielding to patriotic impulses, he would return to Seville to serve as co-editor with Professor Isidoro de Antillón y Marzo, at a weekly journal established by the central junta, Semanario Patriótico. When the advance of French forces obliged the junta to leave Seville, he seized upon this as an opportunity to escape the nation and its suffocating priesthood. He fled with friends to Cadiz only to encounter there patriots who suspected his group of fugitives of treason. The cover story that he chose during his interrogation was that he was not a Spaniard at all, but a British subject trying to return home, and he managed to satisfy his interrogators by discharging the contemporary English idiomatic exclamation “Damn your eyes!” They allowed him to board an English packet that would arrive in 1810 at the safety of the port of Falmouth.

CONTINGENCY ALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES. “THIS IS THE ONLY WAY, WE SAY, BUT THERE ARE AS MANY WAYS AS THERE CAN BE DRAWN RADII FROM ONE CENTRE.”

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1810

March 3, Saturday: France annexed Dalmatia and attached the Tyrol to the Kingdom of Italy.

The religious doubts of the Spanish Catholic priest José María Blanco y Crespo had led him to pretend to be a British subject rather than a Spaniard, and sail on a packet from Spain to Falmouth, England. A son of the painter John Hoppner had been carrying dispatches on this boat, and brought him to London. He had thought of securing an income with his violin, but some Englishmen who had traveled in Spain, especially Henry Richard Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, John George Children, and Lord John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, received him enthusiastically, and he was enabled to apply to Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley for employment at the British foreign office. Eventually a salary of £15 a month was arranged and he would on behalf of the foreign office put out a monthly Spanish magazine, El Español, until 1814, that favored the independence of Spanish America. It was at this point that he added White to his name, becoming in England Joseph Blanco White rather than merely Joseph Blanco. This magazine was in favor not merely of the closed Spanish system of comercio libre by which ports in Spain had free trade with ports within Spanish America, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN but of free trade in general, and this would cause him to run afoul of some special interests.

After the final expulsion of the French from Spain, Joseph Blanco White would be rewarded by the foreign office with a life pension of £250 a year.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 7 day 3 of 3 Mo// This Afternoon rode to Portsmouth with brother D Rodman on our way to Tiverton to attend the funeral of Our good old friend James Bringhurst — We lodged at Benjamin Freeborns, & were very comfortably & agreeably entertain’d in the evening by conversation with our friends Benjm is a man of experience & value - In the Morning after breakfast we rode to Tiverton & crossed the new Stone Bridge at Howlands ferry which is the first time I have been there since its compleation — We went to Thos Barkers at the time appointed for the funeral & saw HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN the corpse of the good old man which looked natural & pleasant considering how long it had been kept - I serv’d as a bearer & soon Moved to the Meeting house after a pretty length of Silence Our frd Wm Almy rose up & preached the truth to the people, & as soon as he concluded Our friend D Buffum was up on his feet & spoke with much life & Power for a considerable time — After a considerable pause in which the Minds of many present appeard to be dipt into much feeling, the Meeting concluded & we took the corpse from the Meeting house to the grave on Shoulders where after a suitable pause it was decently interr’d We returnd & dined at Thos Barkers, & after going into the chamber to see my beloved Susanna who is mostly confind by sickness We returnd homeward stopping on our Way at Benjm Freeborns to get what we left there the night before - We got safe home a little before sundown & found our wifes & little ones Well — I can say with repect to myself that it has been a very favor’d visit to me a time I hope not soon to forget. — ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

TRALFAMADORIANS EXPERIENCE REALITY IN 4 DIMENSIONS RATHER THAN 3 AND HAVE SIMULTANEOUS ACCESS TO PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. THEY ARE ABLE TO SEE ALONG THE TIMELINE OF THE UNIVERSE TO THE EXACT TIME AND PLACE AT WHICH AS THE RESULT OF A TRALFAMADORIAN EXPERIMENT, THE UNIVERSE IS ANNIHILATED. BILLY PILGRIM, WHILE CAGED IN A TRALFAMADORIAN ZOO, ACQUIRES THEIR ATTITUDE TOWARD TIME, AND SO WHEN HE RETURNS TO EARTH, HE BECOMES A HISTORIAN VERY LIKE ALL OUR OTHER HISTORIANS: ALTHOUGH HE CANNOT HIMSELF SEE INTO THE FUTURE THE WAY THE TRALFAMADORIANS DO, LIKE ALL OUR OTHER HUMAN HISTORIANS DO HE PRETENDS TO BE ABLE TO SEE ALL PERIODS OF OUR PAST TRAJECTORY NOT WITH THE EYES OF THE PEOPLE WHO WERE LIVING DURING THOSE PERIODS, BUT WITH THE OVERARCHING EYE OF GOD. THIS ENABLES HIM TO PRETEND TO BE VERY VERY WISE AND TO SOUND VERY VERY IMPRESSIVE!

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1812

Father Francis Xavier Brosius came from Philadelphia, to teach in Boston beginning in the fall. In a few years he would be residing in Cambridge and tutoring Harvard College students in mathematics. He would earn $10 per quarter per student.

Joseph Blanco White, persuaded that Anglicanism had avoided the excesses of Roman Catholicism, took the sacrament in his parish church.

THE PROBLEM IS THAT THE HISTORIAN TYPICALLY SUPPOSES NOW TO BE THE WHY OF THEN. THE REALITY IS VERY MUCH TO THE CONTRARY, FOR NOW IS NOT THE WHY OF THEN: INSTEAD, THEN WAS THE HOW OF NOW. ANOTHER WAY TO SAY THIS IS THAT HISTORIANS WHO ANTICIPATE OFFEND AGAINST REALITY. A HISTORY WRITTEN IN THE LIGHT OF SUBSEQUENT EVENTS AMOUNTS TO SPURIOUS MAKE- BELIEVE. TO DO A GOOD JOB OF RECORDING HISTORY, ONE MUST BECOME IGNORANT (OR FEIGN IGNORANCE) OF EVERYTHING THAT WE NOW KNOW TO HAVE FOLLOWED.

The People of WALDEN: “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1814

August 10, Wednesday: His religious enthusiasms on the rebound, Joseph Blanco White signed the “39 Articles” that would qualify him to act as an English clergyman. He gave up the editorship in London of El Español, his monthly Spanish magazine sponsoring the independence of Spanish America, began to receive a reward for his loyal service to the crown in the form of a civil list pension of £250 from the English government, and would settle at Oxford University to pursue his studies. While there he would read prayers HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN occasionally at St. Mary’s.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 10th of 8 M / Raymond Perry Burdick a young man of my acquaintance, has just left my shop expecting this Afternoon to set out for Lake Erie to join the Squadron there. — I had much conversation with him & put into his Pocket “Christianity a System of Peace” by T Parsons. - his heart was very heavy as was mine at the reflection that we were about to part & very probably HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN never to meet again in this life. — Alass for the state of things. Many precious souls precipitated into eternity to gratify the ambition of wicked, very wicked Men. & great in my opinion will be their responsibility in the day of acct that is hastening on all flesh. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

IS HISTORY A SCIENCE? ASTRONOMY IS A SCIENCE, FOR IT IS A STUDY OF REAL OBJECTS CALLED “STARS” (AND SUCHLIKE) SITUATED AT VARIOUS REAL LOCATIONS IN THE DIMENSIONS OF SPACE. WERE HISTORY A SCIENCE LIKE ASTRONOMY, IT WOULD NEED TO BE A SCIENCE OF EVENTS (AND SUCHLIKE) AT VARIOUS REAL SITUATIONS IN THE DIMENSION OF TIME. HOWEVER, IT WOULD NEED TO PROVIDE AN OVERVIEW OF ALL SUCH EVENTS, NOT ONLY THOSE AT VARIOUS REAL SITUATIONS IN THE PAST PORTION OF TIME, BUT ALSO THOSE AT VARIOUS REAL SITUATIONS IN THE FUTURE PORTION OF TIME. AND NOTHING IN THE FUTURE NOW EXISTS, WHICH IS WHY WE REFER TO IT AS “FUTURE.” IT IS FUTURE NOT MERELY BECAUSE WE DON’T KNOW ABOUT IT YET, BUT BECAUSE IT IS INDEFINITE AND UNDEFINED. GOD HAS NOT YET CREATED IT, PROVIDING IT WITH ITS “DEFINITUDE.” THEREFORE THIS WOULD BE A SPURIOUS METAPHOR: IN THE SENSE IN WHICH ASTRONOMY IS SCIENCE, HISTORY IS NOT. WHEN HISTORIANS PRETEND TO BE DOING SCIENCE, THEY ARE ATTEMPTING TO REMOVE REALITY FROM THE LAP OF GOD. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1815

By the time Archbishop John Carroll of Baltimore, the 1st such Roman Catholic prelate in the USA, had died during this year, he had manumitted each of his black slaves.

Joseph Blanco White left Oxford University to become tutor to Lord Holland’s son at the opulent Holland House in London. The Hollands would be personally congenial and would tolerate his preference to lead a more ascetic life, but nevertheless he would find his duties as tutor to be irksome. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1817

The works of the Reverend Joseph Priestley were published, inclusive of his A COMPARISON OF THE INSTITUTIONS OF MOSES WITH THOSE OF THE HINDOOS which had been one of the 1st studies in comparative religion to appear in the United States. Summarizing, Priestley found differences much more intriguing than similarities.

The Reverend Joseph Blanco White’s PREPARATORY OBSERVATIONS ON THE STUDY OF RELIGION: IN 8 LECTURES, BY A CLERGYMAN OF THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND.

June: George Gordon, Lord Byron, in Venice, began writing Canto IV of CHILDE HAROLD’S PILGRIMAGE.

The Reverend Joseph Blanco White had been leading an ascetic existence at the opulent Holland House in London. The Hollands had been considerate with him but he found duties as a tutor irksome and at this point resigned from that position. His health was poor. For a time he would reside with his friend James Christie in London, and then he would reside for a couple of years with a Mr. Carleton at Little Gaddesden, Hertfordshire before returning to again be with Christie in London. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1820

The Reverend Joseph Blanco White’s health had been improving, and he was invited by the poet Thomas Campbell, then editor of The New Monthly Magazine, to contribute articles. He would provide “The Earlier Letters of Doblado, — with various Articles and Translations connected with Spanish Literature.” The 1st part of his book DOBLADO’S LETTERS appeared in New Monthly and made him generally known. He wrote the article “Spain” in the supplement to the ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA.

4 sisters of the Catholic Ursuline teaching order came to inhabit a convent set up near the Boston cathedral. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1821

In London, Haymarket Theatre was rebuilt and reopened.

In London, the building of the Bank of England was completed.

In London, a 3rd Census was taken.

Pierce Egan’s LIFE IN LONDON.

When John Rennie died, the work on the new London Bridge continued under George Rennie and John Rennie Jr.

The Reverend Joseph Blanco White returned to London from Little Gaddesden in Hertfordshire, where he had been residing with a Mr. Carleton, to reside near his friend James Christie. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1822

François-Auguste-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand served as ambassador to the Kingdom of Great Britain. As plenipotentiary to the Congress of Verona (October to December), despite opposition from the Duke of Wellington he decided in favor of the Quintuple Alliance intervention in Spain during the Trienio liberal.

Joseph Blanco White’s LETTERS FROM SPAIN, BY DON LEUCADIO DOBLADO (“Don Leucado Doblado” was a pseudonym), which he had written in part while at Holland House in London. (This was not only issued as a book, but also partly published in The New Monthly Magazine.)

December: After an arduous voyage, either during this month or during January 1823, Giacomo Costantino Beltrami disembarked at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (he probably landed on December 20th but for some reason he would assert in his writings that he had landed on January 23d).

James Geddes recommended 5 routes for Ohio canals to the state’s legislature.

At the end of this year the Reverend Lemuel Capen took up again his ministerial calling, while at the same time (his “day job,” so to speak) supporting his large and growing family by teaching in the Hawes School of South Boston for a salary of some $500 per year.

Also at the end of this year, the Reverend Joseph Blanco White was engaged as editor at a salary of £300 per year by Rudolph Ackermann to write the chief part of a journal intended for Spanish America, Variedades, a Quarterly Journal, literary and moral, for the Hispano-Americans (he would continue in this until October 1825). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1823

Gambling on the probability that the new war between France and Spain would interfere with ocean trade, speculators in Europe bought up Brazilian coffee beans at ever-escalating prices. The war wouldn’t amount to that much, so they would lose on these investments.

Joseph Blanco White provided an article “Quin’s Visit to Spain” to the Quarterly Review. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1824

Joseph Blanco White translated M. Charles Cottu’s recent treatise ON THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE CRIMINAL CODE, IN ENGLAND, AND THE SPIRIT OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT into Spanish as DE LA AMINISTRACION DE LA JUSTICIA CRIMINAL EN INGLATERRA.

John Bowring’s BATAVIAN ANTHOLOGY, PETER SCHLEMIHL; A GERMAN STORY, and ANCIENT POETRY AND ROMANCES OF SPAIN.

He anonymously published a piece in the London Magazine on “German Epigrams” — that, eventually, Henry Thoreau would consult. GERMAN EPIGRAMS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1825

Charles Butler’s BOOK OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. Also, his THE LIFE OF ERASMUS; WITH HISTORICAL REMARKS ON THE STATE OF LITERATURE BETWEEN THE 10TH AND 16TH CENTURIES (London: J. Murray).

(This LIFE would be consulted by David Henry Thoreau in 1833.) LIFE OF ERASMUS

Joseph Blanco White’s THE POOR MAN’S PRESERVATIVE AGAINST POPERY: ADDRESSED TO THE LOWER CLASSES OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND (London: Printed for C. & J. Rivington, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, and Waterloo-Place, Pall-Mall; there would be several later editions and a final one in 1834). Also, his PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE AGAINST CATHOLICISM, WITH OCCASIONAL STRICTURES ON MR. BUTLER’S “BOOK OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH.” Also, a 2d edition of his LETTERS FROM SPAIN, BY DON LEUCADIO DOBLADO (the original edition had been in 1822). Also, he provided the articles “Spanish Novels” and “Don Estaban” to the Quarterly Review.

Publication in London, also, of the four volumes of David Henry’s required textbooks, that would eventually be found in his personal library, Horace’s QUINTI HORATII FLACCI OPERA OMNIA EX EDITIONE J C ZEUNII CUM NOTIS ET INTERPRETATIONE IN USUM DELPHINI VARIIS LECTIONIBUS NOTIS VARIORUM RECENSU EDITIONUM ET CODICUM ET INDICE LOCUPLETISSIMO ACCURATE RECENSITI. This variorum edition contains all the then-known variants of the texts, with notes by Johann Carl Zeune (1736-1788). It had been part of a large series of Latin HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN classics prepared originally for Louis, le Grand Dauphin, in the 17th century, and was republished in London by Abraham John Valpy (1787-1854). HORACE’S OPERA HORACE’S OPERA HORACE’S OPERA HORACE’S OPERA

It was in epistle 6 in book 1 of EPISTLES that Horace wrote “To marvel at nothing, Numicius, is almost the one and only thing that can make and keep men happy. There are some people who moved by no awe watch this sun, the stars, and the seasons that follow one another in definite times.” [Nil admirari prope res est una, Numici, / Solaque quae possit facere et servare beatum. / Hunc solem et stellas et decedentia certis / Tempora momentis, sunt qui formidine nulla / Imbuti spectent....] Thoreau would hold this in tension against the sock- it-to-me romanticism to which Edmund Burke gave voice in A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL — the higher realms of literature, like the realms of astronomy, are above such Sturm und Drang.

A WEEK: I know of no studies so composing as those of the classical PEOPLE OF scholar. When we have sat down to them, life seems as still and A WEEK serene as if it were very far off, and I believe it is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature. In serene hours we contemplate the tour of the Greek and Latin authors with more pleasure than the traveller does the fairest scenery of Greece or Italy. Where shall we find a more refined society? That highway down from Homer and Hesiod to Horace and Juvenal is more attractive than the Appian. Reading the classics, or conversing with those old Greeks and Latins in their surviving works, is like walking amid the stars and constellations, a high and by way serene to travel. Indeed, the true scholar will be not a little of an astronomer in his habits. Distracting cares will not be allowed to obstruct the field of his vision, for the higher regions of literature, like astronomy, are above storm and darkness.

HOMER HESIOD HORACE JUVENAL HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN October: Waldo Emerson began to teach 30 to 40 boys in a Classical School at Chelmsford, about 10 miles from Concord, but the enrollment dropped to about 20. In addition to this, he would need to tutor private students.

During this month and the following Josiah Stowell or Stoal employed Joseph Smith, Sr. and Joseph Smith, Jr. to help him dig for buried treasure near Harmony, Pennsylvania. While the son was boarding with Isaac Hale he met daughter Emma Hale (these youngsters would elope in 1827).

Joseph Blanco White gave up the editorship of the journal Variedades, a Quarterly Journal, literary and moral, for the Hispano-Americans to devote himself full time to the controversy between Southey and Charles Butler upon the merits of the Roman Catholic and Anglican churches, as a champion of Protestantism. The result would be EVIDENCES AGAINST CATHOLICISM, which would be warmly praised by his friend Southey. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1826

Having studied theology at Oxford University, and having there made the friendship of the Reverend Thomas Arnold, the Reverend John Henry Newman, and the Reverend Richard Whately, Joseph Blanco White took the M.A. and became a priest of the Church of England. He was settled as a member of Oriel College of Oxford University. In this year, his A LETTER TO CHARLES BUTLER, ESQ: ON HIS NOTICE OF THE “PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE AGAINST CATHOLICISM” (London: John Murray ... Rivingtons ... Hatchards).

ORIEL COLLEGE

The Reverend F.C. Husenbeth, Missionary Apostolic’s DEFENCE OF THE CREED AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, AGAINST THE REV. J. BLANCO WHITE’S “POOR MAN’S PRESERVATIVE AGAINST POPERY:” WITH NOTICE OF EVERY THING IMPORTANT IN THE SAME WRITER’S “PRACTICAL AND INTERNAL EVIDENCE AGAINST CATHOLICISM” (London: Published by Keating and Brown, Duke-street, Grosvenor-square, and Paternoster-row).

John Nelson Darby was elevated to the priesthood in the Church of England and assigned a curacy in remote County Wicklow, Ireland. There, by Darby’s own account, due to the effectiveness of his ministrations, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Catholic peasants would be “becoming protestants at the rate of 600 to 800 a week.”

What a fisherman this guy was! –I bet he could sell iceboxes to Eskimos! THE RAPTURE

October: The Reverend Joseph Blanco White settled at Oxford University as a member of Oriel College, intending to pursue his studies. He was made a member of the Oriel common-room and was welcomed by the men who were soon afterwards to be leaders of the “Oxford movement.” The Reverend John Henry Newman (who played the violin with him), the Reverend Edward Bouverie Pusey, the Reverend Richard Hurrell Froude, and others were on very friendly terms; but his closest friendship was with the Reverend Richard Whately.

Per the journal of Albert Gallatin’s son James as recorded in THE DIARY OF JAMES GALLATIN: We have now returned here [London] and are seriously at work, and plenty of it.1

1. James Gallatin went to America in 1826 and returned to London in March 1827. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1827

Father Robert D. Woodley was sent to Providence, Rhode Island by Benedict Fenwick, Bishop of New England, and began to conduct Catholic services in Mechanics’ Hall. (His congregation would not rise higher than about 200, and he would be succeeded after about 3 years by Father John Corry. They would move their worship services from Mechanics’ Hall to the “Old Town House,” and would erect SS. Peter and Paul Church in 1837. The Right Reverend T.F. Hendricken would be consecrated as the 1st bishop of Providence on April 28, 1872.)

Joseph Blanco White’s A LETTER TO PROTESTANTS CONVERTED FROM ROMANISM (Oxford, printed by W. Baxter, for J. Parker). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1828

In England at this point, the “levelers” and “nonconformists” and “dissenters” and “disestablishmentarians” and “latitudinarians,” non-Catholic groupings such as the Quakers and the Unitarians and the Baptists and the Methodists who were refusing to conform to the strictures of the Church of England, were beginning to be allowed to perform minor governmental functions — at least at the borough level. (They would not be able, however, to obtain an Oxford or Cambridge degree until the 1850s, and even into the 1860s they would be being forced to pay local church “rates” in support of the local Church of England’s parish parson.)

The Reverend Richard Whately and his friend Nassau William Senior and other of the “Oriel Noetics” were interested in a new quarterly, the London Review. Joseph Blanco White was appointed editor, and the Reverend John Henry Newman was one of his contributors. The quarterly would prove to be too ponderous, and after two numbers would be discontinued. Meanwhile White’s background in Roman Catholicism made him interesting to the rising party. He was officiating as a clergyman, and preached to the university. He explained the use of the breviary to Pusey and Froude. His knowledge of the scholastic philosophy, then hardly known at Oxford, interested his friends.

A sonnet by Joseph Blanco White published in this year without his prior approval in an annual entitled The Bijou published by Pickering, dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge who had provided it for this publication, is sometimes given the title “To Night” and sometimes the title “Night and Death.” The author would later modify the poem several times. The line which Henry Thoreau would extract from the posthumously published autobiography of White for use in WALDEN is shown in red boldface below: Mysterious night, when the first man but knew Thee by report, unseen, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus, with the host of heaven, came, And lo! creation widen’d on his view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun? Or who could find, Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal’d, That to such endless orbs thou mad’st us blind! Weak man! Why to shun death this anxious strife? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1829

Joseph Blanco White was so keenly annoyed by the attacks of the protestant party that he voted for Sir Robert Peel in the election of this year. Publication of a letter from him to William Jordan. He provided the articles “Pollok’s Course of Time” and “Spanish Poetry and Language” to the London Review.

The English Parliament enacted the emancipation of the Roman Catholics of Britain. Upon the passage of this act the King of England dispatched to the conveyancer Charles Butler a special message of congratulations. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Soon he would be elevated to the dignity of King’s Counsel! At this point a drawing of him was created: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1830

Spain increased Cuban tax rates, imposing arbitrary rules for its own benefit and completely alienating the Creoles (native-born Cubans who at this point were generally of mixed ancestry) by denying them any voice in government.

Joseph Blanco White provided the articles “Guizot’s History of Civilization” and “Inglis’s Spain” to the Dublin University Review. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1831

Joseph Blanco White was generally of a suspicion that others at Oriel College, better situated in the English social context, were sidelining him as a foreigner and outsider. Not being himself a fellow, he was only in the Oriel common-room on their sufferance. He sensed that the servants were being impertinent and that fellows junior to him were taking precedence. Even civilities had to him the sour taste of charity. The final straw came by chance when John Allen, master of Dulwich College, procured for him a nomination as a fellow — the final decision was by lot and it was he who drew the blank. When his friend the Reverend Richard Whately left Oxford on becoming archbishop of Dublin, his position at Oriel became intolerable to him. However, Whately soon offered him a new home. He was to live as one of their family and act as tutor to two lads, sons of Whately himself and of their common friend Nassau William Senior (while in this position White would embrace Unitarian views). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1832

The first Redemptorists landed in the USA, primarily to care for the needs of German Catholic immigrants.

When the Reverend Renn Dickson Hampden preached the Bampton Lecture at the University of Oxford for this year, one entitled THE SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY CONSIDERED IN ITS RELATION TO CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY upon the topic of the corruptions of the true faith introduced by the schoolmen, he was presumed to have been perversely inspired by the influence of the unpopular Reverend Joseph Blanco White. The Reverend Henry Parry Liddon would suggest that the “germ” of it is to be found in Blanco White’s FACTS AND INFERENCES (an early version of his HERESY AND ORTHODOXY). The Reverend Thomas Mozley would say the same in his REMINISCENCES CHIEFLY OF ORIEL COLLEGE AND THE OXFORD MOVEMENT. It might possibly be that Blanco White somehow had drawn Hampden’s attention in a particular direction, but that would not be of any particular importance, as these people could think for themselves. The fact of the matter is that Blanco White’s later trajectory would be such as to make Hampden’s opponents desire to taint him by association. “Hey, look, he’s got Blanco White’s cooties!”

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.

Joseph Blanco White left Oxford, England to live with his friend who had become the Archbishop of Dublin, the Reverend Richard Whately. He would reside on the most friendly terms with Whately and his wife and begin to write a history of the inquisition (he would find the subject to be too painful to be continued). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1833

The Reverend Joseph Blanco White provided a response to Thomas “Anacreon” Moore’s TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION. WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, BY THE EDITOR OF “CAPTAIN ROCK’S MEMOIRS,” issued in April of this year, in a 2-volume work entitled SECOND TRAVELS OF AN IRISH GENTLEMAN IN SEARCH OF A RELIGION, WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, NOT BY THE EDITOR OF “CAPTAIN ROCK’S MEMOIRS” (Dublin: Richard Milliken and Son, Booksellers to the University; B. Fellowes, Ludgate- Street, London).

The notes made by Klemens Brentano of the testimony of Sister Anne Catherine Emmerich appeared as THE DOLOROUS PASSION OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST ACCORDING TO THE MEDITATIONS OF ANNE CATHERINE EMMERICH (never mind that this writing seemed Antisemitic).

CATHOLICISM ANTISEMITISM HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1834

Joseph Blanco White’s THE LAW OF ANTI-RELIGIOUS LIBEL RECONSIDERED IN A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OF THE “CHRISTIAN EXAMINER,” BY J. SEARCH (Dublin). Also, his AN ANSWER TO SOME FRIENDLY REMARKS ON “THE LAW OF ANTI-RELIGIOUS LIBEL RE-CONSIDERED.” WITH AN APPENDIX ON THE TRUE MEANING OF AN EPIGRAM OF MARTIAL, SUPPOSED TO RELATE TO CHRISTIAN MARTYRS.

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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 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:

So far as Transcendentalism is understood to be the recognition in man of the capacity of knowing truth intuitively, or of attaining to a scientific knowledge of an order of existence transcending the reach of the senses, and of which we can have no sensible experience, we are 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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1835

Rebecca Reed, a nun who had escaped from the Ursuline Convent in 1832, left little to the imagination when she described her SIX MONTHS IN A CONVENT. SURVEY OF AMERICAN ANTI-CATHOLICISM

What sort of person would be impressed by this sort of literature? Well, for one thing, a person who had helped burn down this convent in Charlestown, Massachusetts would be impressed, very impressed. “Hey, we did the right thing!”

To Henry C. Wright, of course, Rebecca Read’s SIX MONTHS IN A CONVENT bore “the impress of Truth.” Damn those Catholics anyway. ANTI-CATHOLICISM

Joseph Blanco White’s OBSERVATIONS ON HERESY AND ORTHODOXY (London: John Mardon, 19, St. Martin’s Le Grand). He fled, on account of his disbelief in the Trinity and in the endowment of doctrines or Articles of the church, to the fellowship of Liverpool’s Unitarians.

He provided the articles “Recent Spanish Literature,” “On Crabbe’s Life and Works,” “Lamb’s Specimens of English Dramatic Poets,” “Guizot’s Lectures on European Civilization,” and “Memoirs of Godoy, Prince of the Peace” to the London Review, and London and Westminster. Beginning in this year with “Thoughts on Baptism,” he would provide articles to Christian Teacher such as “A Fragment of Philosophy,” “The Historians of Germany,” “Germany in 1831,” “The Sonnet,” “Stories of Spanish Life,” “The Pictorial Shakespeare,” “Mental Signs of the Times,” and “On the Christian Rule of Faith.” At some point he would translate the EVIDENCES of Bishop Portaeus and the EVIDENCES of Dr. Paley, the BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER as published by Bagster, and some of the HOMILIES for the Prayer Book and Homily Society, and supervise for the Bible Society an amended edition of Scio’s translation of the BIBLE. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN January: Joseph Blanco White left Dublin for Liverpool. There the reverend would attend the services of the Unitarians and would be especially delighted by the preaching of Professor James Martineau, of whose views he would thoroughly approve. He would find congenial friends at Liverpool, among them one who would become his biographer, an Irish Unitarian minister, the Reverend John Hamilton Thom. The Reverend John Henry Newman, on hearing of his secession, sent him an affectionate letter, which, however, was nothing but “a groan, a sigh, from beginning to end.” The Archbishop of Dublin, the Reverend Richard Whately, although he annoyed him by enormously long letters of severe remonstrance, would continue in friendly relations. He would reside in Liverpool for the rest of his life.

Current quarterly issue of THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, OR CRITICAL JOURNAL: EDINBURGH REVIEW

In this issue there was an article on the frequency of avoidable shipwrecks, or the shocking deficiency of proper government regulation and inspection of sea vessels, and on the underwriting practice of the insurance industry, as systemic and prominent causes of shipwreck and consequent avoidable loss of life and cargo, that is of relevance in reference to remarks Henry Thoreau would make about the spate of local shipwrecks, such as those of the cargo vessel Franklin and the famine hulk St. John, in his CAPE COD. EDINBURGH REVIEW

But we are, notwithstanding, well convinced that more than two- thirds, we believe we might safely say three-fourths, of the total number of shipwrecks are ascribable to entirely different causes; — to the vicious customs and regulations under which the business of sea insurance is conducted, the defective construction of ships resulting therefrom, and the incompetence of the masters. ...ships and goods have been sent to sea in order that they might be cast away, and a profit made at the expense of the insurers. ... The temptation to construct what are called slop-built ships, of the worst construction, is therefore quite irresistible. For a half, or at most two-thirds of what would be required to construct a good and really seaworthy ship, a shipowner gets an inferior vessel, of equal burden, sent to sea; and, owing to the matchless absurdity of the system of classification, the worthless ship is placed in the same rank with the superior — enjoys all the advantages such distinction can give — and is, in the public estimation, deemed quite as good and as deserving of employment as the other. This is a more copious source of shipwreck than all the currents, fogs, and rocks that infest our seas ... the defective classification of ships occasions more shipwrecks than all the other causes of that calamity put together ... we have, at this moment, a letter before us, from a gentleman of undoubted information, and most extensively connected with the business of insurance, in which he states that, in his opinion, nearly half the losses at sea may be ascribed to the ignorance, incapacity, and carelessness of the masters and officers. Perhaps there may be some exaggeration in this; but supposing that only a third part, or that 266 out of the 800 vessels, wrecked in 1833, were lost through the incapacity of the masters, is not that enough not merely to justify government interfering to avert so great an HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN evil, but to make such interference ·a positive duty? ... Mr Ballingall ... has produced many instances of shipwrecks, attended with the most frightful loss of life, that were entirely owing to the defective construction of the vessels; and when, had they been properly constructed, no loss, either of property or life, would have ensued.... Of the 800 shipwrecks that occurred in 1833, we have been well assured that not more than 200, or at most 250, can be fairly ascribed to natural causes. The remaining 650 or 600 shipwrecks are wholly owing to the absurd and vicious classification of our shipping; and to the ignorance, incapacity, and carelessness of the masters.

Here is what James Patrick Brown would have to say, about this systemic problem of marine transport that Thoreau noted was merely being masked by our charitable contributions to its victims, in the pages of The Concord Saunterer for 2009: Meanwhile, in forwarding CAPE COD’s stark criticism of trade and charity from the perspective of an ethical sublime, Thoreau appealed to an audience that was immersed in one of the premier scandals of his generation: the practice of sending unsafe ships to sea, which was allowed by insurance underwriters and capital investors in the shipping trade. The nineteenth-century shipwreck epidemic, with its roots in acquisitive greed, was well known to Thoreau’s middle-class Putnam’s readers, who would have encountered it in the popular press as well as in CAPE COD. An article published in Britain’s Edinburgh Review in 1835 proposing the reform of the insurance underwriting industry summarized for readers on both sides of the Atlantic the shipping practices that Thoreau made central to the social critique in CAPE COD. According to the Edinburgh Review, the underwriting industry encouraged shipping investors to maximize their risks because they could earn greater profits from dangerous ships than from safer vessels. Underwriting “procures security, but at the same time [is] apt to generate carelessness, and occasionally fraud.” Indeed, the Review continued, “it is in fact established by the records of our [England’s] judicial proceedings, and of which there cannot otherwise be the least doubt, that ships and goods have been sent to sea in order that they might be cast away, and a profit made at the expense of insurers” (“On the Frequency” 340, emphasis added). Shipping investors could, and did, intentionally send unsafe ships to sea, packed with passengers and cargo, in order to defraud their insurers. Insurers, in turn, were willing to take high risks because “the premium depends partly on the condition of the ship” (341), with an unsafe ship yielding higher profits. The appropriation of human life in such practices — human life risked so that investors and underwriters could better procure the “facsimile” of specie — underscored for the Review author the need for political regulation. Indeed, in 1858, the incessant shipwrecks along Cape Cod resulting from insurance fraud promoted the residents of Hull, Massachusetts to hold a protest demonstration of the underwriting industry.... For Thoreau, however, the problem HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN struck deeper than the need for regulation alone: it underscored the “immorality of trade” itself, to which he had referred in “Life without Principle.” ... Thoreau rejected charity insofar as he saw it being directly undermined by the means that men used to get their living. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN October: The Reverend Joseph Blanco White seems always to have been in need of more than his pension, despite ascetic habits, in large part because of his inclination to purchase books. He was also attempting to assist an illegitimate son, Ferdinand White, who was patronized by Lord Holland and became a major in the 40th regiment (although we know nothing of the mother, a reference has been preserved that there had been some sort of unhappy clandestine attachment during his last years in Spain). At this point the Reverend Richard Whately sent a gift of £100, and he would repeat such a gift annually (except in 1838 because during that year Blanco White was provided for, through Lord Holland, with £300 from the queen’s bounty). During the Liverpool period the health of the Reverend Blanco White permitted him to do some desultory work, and he contributed to the London and Westminster Review, then under his friend John Stuart Mill. He also corresponded with the Reverend Professor Baden Powell and the American Unitarians the Reverend William Ellery Channing and Professor Andrews Norton. After this his health would rapidly decline and he would suffer great pain. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

This month’s issue of Harvard College’s undergraduate subscription literary magazine, the HARVARDIANA:

HARVARDIANA HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1838

October 16, Tuesday: Waldo Emerson to his journal:

Here came on Sunday Morning (14th) Edward Palmer & departed today, a gentle, faithful, sensible, well-balanced man for an enthusiast. He has renounced since a year ago last April the use of money. When he travels he stops at night at a house & asks if it would give them any satisfaction to lodge a traveller without money or price? If they do not give him a hospitable answer he goes on but generally finds the country people free & willing. When he goes away he gives them his papers or tracts. He has sometimes found it necessary to go 24 hours without food & all night without lodging. Once he found a wagon with a good buffalo under a shed & had a very good nap. By the seashore he finds it difficult to travel as they are inhospitable. He presents his views with great gentleness; & is not troubled if he cannot show the way in which the destruction of money is to be brought about; he feels no responsibility to show or know the details. It is enough for him that he is sure it must fall & that he clears himself of the institution altogether.

Joseph Blanco White modified his sonnet “Night and Death” that in 1828 had been dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Sonnet on Night and Death”: Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the Host of Heaven came, And lo! creation widened in man’s view. Who could have thought such darkness lay conceal’d Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst fly, and leaf, and insect stood reveal’d, That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind! Why do we then shun death, with anxious strife? If light can thus deceive, wherefore not life? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1839

Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s CHURCH AND STATE. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

Percy Bysshe Shelley’s POETICAL WORKS, edited by Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley. Also, his prose works.

Joseph Blanco White’s LAST THOUGHTS ON RELIGION (London: John Mardon, 19, St. Martin’s Le Grand). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1841

February: Due to serious health problems, Joseph Blanco White was taken to Greenbank, the convalescent house that was the legacy of a Quaker turned Unitarian, William Rathbone IV.

David Mason Greene has contended in THE FRAIL DURATION: A KEY TO SYMBOLIC STRUCTUE IN WALDEN (San Diego: San Diego State College Press, 1966) that it was in this month of this year that Henry Thoreau began to be concerned with the nature of space, and then with the nature of time.

May 20, Thursday: Night and death came upon the metaphysical poet Joseph Blanco White, who had for 6 years established a circle of friends among the Unitarians of Liverpool (whom he had found to be fellow disbelievers in such church doctrines as the Trinity). While convalescing at Greenbank, the house of William Rathbone the younger, Creation widened in his view:

Mysterious Night! when our first parent knew Thee from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely frame, This glorious canopy of light and blue? Yet ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting flame, Hesperus with the host of heaven came, And lo! Creation widened in man’s view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst fly and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind! Why do we then shun death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN Henry Thoreau eventually would quote the line shown in boldface above:

JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1845

The Reverend Horatio Alger, Sr. was accepted as the Unitarian minister of West Church in Marlborough. In Marlborough, Horatio Alger, Jr. would attend Gates Academy (until he was 15 in 1847).

We don’t know the exact year of this, and will be forced to put it here temporarily: Out of sheer mischief, in an attempt to get something interesting going, Horatio Alger, Jr. started a bonfire during an abolitionist rally.

LIFE OF THE REV. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, WITH PORTIONS OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE, as edited by the Unitarian Reverend John Hamilton Thom (London, 3 volumes, posthumous). LIFE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1847

In about this year Henry Thoreau copied “Sonnet on Night and Death” into his Literary Notebook. He had obtained this from LIFE OF THE REV. JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF, WITH PORTIONS OF HIS CORRESPONDENCE, as edited by the Unitarian Reverend John Hamilton Thom (London, 3 volumes, posthumous). LIFE WRITTEN BY HIMSELF HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1891

September 12, Saturday: The Academy provided 3 versions of the Reverend Joseph Blanco White’s sonnet “Night and Death” that on its appearance in The Bijou in 1828 had been dedicated to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The final 3d version now appears as follows: Mysterious Night! When our first parent knew Thee, from report divine, and heard thy name, Did he not tremble for this lovely Frame, This glorious canopy of Light and Blue? Yet, ’neath a curtain of translucent dew, Bathed in the rays of the great setting Flame, Hesperus, with the Host of Heaven, came, And lo! Creation widened on Man’s view. Who could have thought such darkness lay concealed Within thy beams, O Sun! or who could find, Whilst flower and leaf and insect stood revealed, That to such countless orbs thou mad’st us blind! Why do we then shun Death with anxious strife? If Light can thus deceive, wherefore not Life? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1899

The retrospective volume THE BEST SHORT POEMS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY: BEING THE TWENTY-FIVE BEST SHORT POEMS AS SELECTED BY BALLOT BY COMPETENT CRITICS included among the short poems selected by its panel of critics as the 25 best of the passing 19th century not only Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Bugle Song,” Robert Browning’s “The Lost Leader,” William Wordsworth’s “She Was a Phantom of Delight,” and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s “A Musical Instrument,” but also Joseph Blanco White’s “Night and Death,” from which Henry Thoreau had quoted the line placed in boldface below, in WALDEN.

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

1989

September 10, Sunday: Martin Murphy’s BLANCO WHITE: SELF-BANISHED SPANIARD (New Haven and London: Yale UP).

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 2017. 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: July 1, 2017 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN 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

THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN: JOSEPH BLANCO WHITE PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

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.