Reverend George Gilfillan

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

About August 29, 1849 in Emerson’s journal:

Love is the bright foreigner, the foreign self. [The Reverend Theodore] Parker thinks, that, to know Plato, you must read Plato thoroughly, & his commentators, &, I think, Parker would require a good drill in Greek history too. I have no objection to hear this urged on any but a Platonist. But when erudition is insisted on to Herbert or Henry More, I hear it as if to know the tree you should make me eat all the apples. It is not granted to one man to express himself adequately more than a few times: and I believe fully, in spite of sneers, in interpreting the French Revolution by anecdotes, though not every diner out can do it. To know the flavor of tanzy, must I eat all the tanzy that grows by the Wall? When I asked Mr Thom in Liverpool — who is Gilfillan? & who is Mac-Candlish? he began at the settlement of the Scotch Kirk in 1300 ? & came down with the history to 1848, that I might understand what was Gilfillan, or what was Edin. Review &c &c. But if a man cannot answer me in ten words, he is not wise.”

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project George Gilfillan HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1733

In this oil on canvas at the National Gallery in London on the popular topic “Time Unveiling Truth,” the winged naked old guy in the sky with a scythe is personifying TIME, and what he is doing is, he is exposing the nipplicious charms of a sweet young thing personifying TRUTH as she likewise reaches out and unmasks a fat old woman personifying FRAUD. Bing bang bong. Meanwhile, personifications of the Four Cardinal Virtues are kneeling in tribute. Of these four FORTITUDE is calmly caressing a lion emblematic of her courage, JUSTICE is clutching a sword and a scales emblematic of her power and impartiality, and TEMPERANCE is posing with a pitcher of water symbolic of her abstinence and moderation, while PRUDENCE is accessorized with a snake symbolic of her wisdom. The globe that TRUTH has her foot on ISIS happens to be the planet Earth (on which, if you inspect carefully, are inscribed the name of the artist, Jean François de Troy, and the date of this painting, 1733). La de da!

Meanwhile, establishment of the church in Scotland as an “Established Church” meant in effect that it would be the central government of the nation, rather than each local religious congregation, that would control the mechanisms of church governance. According to the legislature’s “Patronage Act,” local landowners had been calling the shots during the selection of a minister for a congregation. In this year Time must have Unveiled Truth, however, for a counter-movement led by the Reverend Ebenezer Erskine achieved the creation of an Associated Congregation of Original Seceders or “Secession Church” in which in the future each congregation would be in control its own choice of minister (there would of course be further such splittings or realignments or Unveilings of Truth in 1761, 1820, 1847, 1843, and 1900). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1813

January 30, Saturday: George Gilfillan was born at Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland, where the Reverend Samuel “Leumas” Gilfillan, his father, had been for many years the minister of a Secession congregation (his father would die during his early childhood). SCOTLAND

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

George Gilfillan “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1836

March: Having been educated at the University of Glasgow, the “probationer” George Gilfillan was ordained as pastor of the School Wynd congregation, a Secession congregation in Dundee, Scotland. His stipend would be a not inconsiderable £220, plus of course a manse.

SCOTLAND

November 23, Wednesday: At Dundee, the Reverend George Gilfillan got married with local girl Margaret Vallentine (the marriage would be childless). SCOTLAND

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 George Gilfillan HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1839

Toward the end of this year, the Reverend George Gilfillan prepared a volume containing five of his discourses.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project George Gilfillan HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1840

The Reverend George Gilfillan began to contribute a rather regular series of sketches of celebrated contemporary authors to the Dumfries Herald, which was being edited by his friend Thomas Aird.

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project George Gilfillan HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1842

October 2, Sunday: The Reverend George Gilfillan preached on the subject of “Hades, or the Unseen” (the Unseen State of the soul after separation from the body), and would soon publish that sermon, causing himself to come to be popularly known as “Gilfillan the Hades Minister.” This contained such novel thoughts before their time as to bring him under the scrutiny of his co-presbyters — and ultimately it would need to be withdrawn from circulation as having been somewhat too adventurous (Thomas Carlyle would comment “How he contrives to hold such notions, and be a Burgher Minister, one cannot well say”).

The Reverend William Ellery Channing died at sundown in Old Bennington, Vermont. When news of the event was circulated, the Unitarian churches of course all tolled their funeral bells, but every other Protestant church was very noticeably silent. On this occasion, in Boston, only the bells of the Catholic cathedral chimed in with the bells of the Unitarians. Although his statue stands today at the Arlington Street and Boylston Street entrance to the Public Garden, the gravestone which bears his name is behind the Old First Church that fronts on the green in Old Bennington. It happens to be one of the few gravestones ever to refer to the hour of a person’s death: “In this Quiet Village Among the Hills William Ellery Channing Apostle of Faith and Freedom Died at Sunset October 2, 1842” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1844

January: At the Watt Institution and School of Arts in Adam Square, Edinburgh, the Reverend George Gilfillan made a bold stab at reconciling geology with Scripture (or, Scripture with geology).

SCOTLAND

Francis Galton needed to accept a “pass” standing in his class, with no honors, in order to be allowed to graduate from Trinity College of Cambridge University (which presumably might explain a whole lot about the subsequent trajectory of his thoughts on the topic of inborn merit).

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

George Gilfillan “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

February: At the Watt Institution and School of Arts in Adam Square, Edinburgh, the Reverend George Gilfillan made a bold stab at reconciling astronomy with Scripture (or, Scripture with astronomy).

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

George Gilfillan “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1845

Prosper Merimee’s novel about CARMEN, a feisty Gypsy girl in an Andalusian cigarette factory.

Mary Godwin Wollstonecraft Shelley was invalided by what would eventually be discovered to be a tumor in her brain.

John Quincy Adams wrote to the Reverend Samuel H. Cox: “In my early youth I was addicted to the use of tobacco in two of its mysteries, smoking and chewing. I was warned by a medical friend of the pernicious operation of this habit upon the stomach and the nerves.”

Thomas De Quincey’s “Coleridge and Opium-Eating” and “Suspiria de Profundis” appeared in Blackwood’s Magazine. His “On Wordsworth’s Poetry” and “Notes on Gilfillan’s Gallery of Literary Portraits: Godwin, Foster, Hazlitt, Shelley, Keats” (which would run until 1846) appeared in Tait’s Edinburgh Magazine. SUSPIRA DE PROFUNDIS

Perry Davis’s patent vegetable painkiller consisted of opiates and ethanol and –as is evident in the globe map on its label– originated from that known center of “Joy to the World” sensory satisfaction, Providence, Rhode Island:

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

Winter: We have an indication in Henry Thoreau’s journal that in this season he was reading in the Reverend George Gilfillan’s new GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: James Hogg).

EMINENT LITERARY MALES

George Gilfillan “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

Winter 1845/1846 before February 22d: Then in dark winter mornings in short winter afternoons the pack of hounds –threading all woods with hounding cry & yelp unable to resist the instinct of the chace –and note of hunting horn at intervals showing that man too is in the rear– And the woods ring again and yet no fox bursts forth onto the open level of the pond and no following pack after their actaeon. But this small village –germ of something more –why did it fail while Concord grows apace– No natural advantages –no water privilege –only the Walden pond and Bristow’s spring privileges alas all unimproved by those men but to dilute their glass– Might not the basket making –broom mat-making corn parching –potters business have thrived here making the wilderness to blossom as the rose? Now all too late for commerce –this waste depopulated district has its rail road too. And transmitted the names of Bristows Catoes Hildas Zilphas to a remote and grateful posterity – Again nature will try –with me for a first settler –and my house to be the oldest in the settlement. The sterile soil would have been proof against any lowland degeneracy. Farmers far and near call it the Paradise of beans And here too on winter days while yet is cold January and snow and ice lie thick comes the prudent foreseeing HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

land lord or housekeeper from the village to get ice –to cool his summer-drink –a grateful beverage if he should live, if time should endure so long– How few so wise so industrious to lay up treasures which neither rust nor melt –“to cool their summer drink” one day And cart off the solid pond the element and air of fishes held fast with chain & stake like corded wood –all through winter air to wintery cellar.– to underlie the summer there. And cut and saw the cream of the pond – unroof the house of fishes. And in early mornings come men with fishing reels and slender lunch –men of real faith and let down their fine lines & live minnows through the snowy field to hook the pickerel & perch. With buried well stones & strawberries raspberries thimbleberries growing there –some pitchy pine or gnarled oak in the chimney nook or the sweet scented black birch where the hearth was. Breeds –history must not yet tell the tragedies enacted there –let time intervene to assuage –and lend an azure tint to them. There is something pathetic in the sedentary life of men who have travelled. They must naturally die when they leave the road. From Gilfillan’s Sketches of Eminent Literary Men” I learn that Carlyle “was born at Ecclefechan, Anandale of parents who were “good farmer people” father of “strong native sense” Father dead mother still lives. “Intimate with Ed. Irving” from previous to his college life till the former’s death. At college had to “support himself” partly by “private tuition, translations, for the bookseller” &c. – corresponded with Goethe till the latter’s death. – Destined for the church. –– “Taught an academy in Dysart, at the same time that Irving was teaching in Kirkaldy” after marriage “resided partly at Comely Bank Edinburg; and for a year or two at Craigenputtock, a wild and solitary farm house in the upper part of Dumfriesshire” among barren heather-clad hills. here visited by our Countryman Emerson who passed one day with him. His conversation “coming to its climaxes, ever and anon, in long, deep, chest-shaking bursts of laughter” “An amicable centre for men of the most opposite opinions”. “Smoking his perpetual pipe” “listened to as an oracle” —— “come to see our Scholmaster, who had also been his” The poet Stirling his only intimate acquaintance latterly in England. {One leaf missing} up the soil –or that there is a “Brest Shipping” that now at length only after some years of this revolution there should be some falling off in the importation of sugar– I am strangely surprised– Perhaps I had thought they sweetened their coffee? their water? with Revolution still. We want one or two chapters out of some English or German Almanac at least –headed “work for the month”– Including Revolution work of course– Altitude of the sun” –“State of the Crops” “State of the markets” “Meteorological observations” “Attractive Industry” “Day labor” just to remind the reader that the French peasantry –did something beside go without breeches –burning chateaus, or getting ready knotted cords – embrace & throttle one another ie we want not only a back ground and a fore ground to a picture –but literally HANGING a ground [written in over the line and not canceled: an underground] under the feet also.1 An omission common to most epics –a want of epic integrity What seems so fair and poetic in antiquity –almost fabulous –is realized too in Concord life– As poets and historians brought their work to the Grecian games –and genius wrestled there as well as strength of body –so have we seen works of kindred genius read at our Concord games –by their author in this our Concord Amphitheatre It is virtually repeated by all ages and nations. Moles nesting in your cellar & nibbling every third potatoe –a whole rabbit warren only separated from you by the flooring– To be saluted when you stir in the dawn by the hasty departure of Monsieur –thump thump thump striking his head against the floor timbers Squirrels & field mice that hold to a community of property in your stock of chestnuts. The blue jays suffered few chestnuts to reach the ground –resorting to your single tree in flocks in the early morning, and picking them out of the burs –at a great advantage The crop of blackberries small & vines not yet grown –ground nuts not dug. One wonders how so much after all was expressed in the old way – –so much here depends upon the emphasis –tone –pronunciation –style & spirit of the reading – No writer uses so profusely all the aids to intelligibility which the printers art affords – You wonder how others had contrived to write so many pages without emphatic Italicised words –they are so expressive so natural & indispensible here. As if none had ever used the demonstrative pronoun –demonstratively. 1. In 1847 this gallows humor would be inserted into the essay “Thomas Carlyle and His Works.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

In anothers sentences the thought though immortal is as it were embalmed and does not strike you –but here it is so freshly living –not purified by the ordeal of death –that it stirs in the very extremities –the smallest particles & pronouns are all alive with it– You must not say it –but it It is not simple it –your it –or mine, but it His books are solid workmanlike –like all that England does –they tell of endless labor –done –well done and all the rubbish swept away –like this bright cutlery in the windows while the coak & ashes –turnings –filings borings dust –lie far away at Birmingham unheard of. The words did not come at the command of grammar but –of an inexorable meaning not like the standing soldiers by vote of parliament –but any able bodied man pressed into the service It is no China war –but a revolution This style is worth attending to as one of the most important features of the man that we at this distance know. What are the men of N.E. about? I have travelled some in New England –especially in Concord –and I found that no enterprise was on foot which it would not disgrace a man to take part in. They seemed to be employed everywhere in shops and offices & fields– They seemed like the brahmins of the east to be doing penance in a thousand curious unheard of ways –their endurance surpassing anything I had ever seen or heard of –Simeon Stylites –Brahmen looking in the face of the sun –standing on one leg –dwelling at the roots of trees –nothing to it Any of the twelve labors of Hercules to be matched– The Nemaean Lion –Lernaean hydra –OEnoean stag –Erymathian boar –Augean stables –Stymphalian birds –Cretan bull –Diomedes’ mares –Amazonian girdle – monster Geryon –Hesperian apples –three headed Cerberus – Nothing at all in comparison –being only twelve and having an end– For I could never see that these men ever slew or captured any of their monsters –or finished any of their labors– They have no “friend Iolas to burn, with a hot iron, the root” of the Hydra’s head.– for as soon as one head is beaten, two spring up. Men labor under a mistake –they are laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt & thieves break through & steal– Northern slavery –or the slavery which includes the southern eastern western and all others. It is hard to have a southern over-seer it is worse to have a northern one but worst of all when you are yourself the slave driver. Look at the lonely teamster on the highway –wending to market by day –or night –is he a son the the morning –with somewhat of divinity in him –fearless because immortal –going to receive his birth-right –greeting the sun as his fellow bounding with youthful gigantic strength over his mother earth– See how he cowers & sneaks –how vaguely indefinitely all the day he fears –not being immortal not divine– The slave and prisoner of his own opinion of himself –fame which he has earned by his own deeds – Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with private opinion– What I think of myself –that determines my fate. I see young men my equals –who have inherited from their spiritual father a soul –broad fertile uncultivated – from their earthly father –a farm –with cattle and barns and farming tools –the implements of the picklock –& the counterfeiter– Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf –or perhaps cradled in a manger –that they might have seen with clear eye what was the field they were called to labor in. The young man has got to live a man’s life then in this world pushing all these things before him and get on as well as he can– how many a poor immortal soul I have met well nigh crushed and smothered –creeping slowly down the road of life –pushing before him a barn 75 –by 40 feet and 100 acres of land tillage –pasture woodlot– This dull opaque garment of the flesh is load enough –for the strongest spirit –but with such an earthly garment superadded –the spiritual life is soon ploughed into the soil with compost. Its a fool’s life as they will all find when they get to the end of it. The man that goes on accumulating property when the bare necessaries of life are cared for is a fool –and knows better. There is a stronger desire to be respectable to one’s neighbors than to ones self – However such distinctions as Poet Philosopher –Literary man –&c do not much assist our final estimate– We do not lay much stress on them –’a man’s a man for a’ that-– Any man who interests us much is all and more than these – It is not simple dictionary it – Talent at making books –solid workman-like graceful –which may be read. Some Idyllic chapter or chapters are needed In the French Revolution are (Mirabeau –king of men) –(Danton –Titan of the Revolution) –(Camille Desmoulins –poetic Editor) –(Roland –heroic woman) –(Dumouriez –first efficient general) –on the other side (Marat friend of the people) (Robespierre) ( –Tinville Infernal judge) St. Just. &c &c Nutting & Le Gros –by the wall side– The Stratten house & Barn where the orchard covered all the slope of Brister’s hill –now killed out by the pines – Brister Freeman a handy negro –(slave once of Squire Cummings? and Fenda his hospitable pleasant wife) – large –round black –who told fortunes – Zilpha’s little house where ‘she was spinning linen” Making the walden woods ring with her shrill singing –a loud shrill remarkable voice –when once she was away to town –set on fire by English soldiers on parole in the last war –and cat and dog and hens all burned up. And Cato the Ginea negro –his house a little patch among the walnuts –who let the trees grow up till he should be old –& Richardson got them Where Breeds house stood –tradition says a tavern once stood, the well the same and all a swamp between the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

woods & town & and road made on logs {Five leaves missing} It makes a dull man’s dreams Bread I made pretty well for awhile while I remembered the rules –for I studied this art methodically –going clear back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind –and coming gradually down through that lucky accidental souring of the dough which taught men the leavening process –and all the various fermentations thereafter –till you get to “good sweet wholesome bread” the staff of life. I went on very well mixing ry & flour & Indian meal & potatoe with success till one morning I had forgotten the rules –and thereafter scalded the yeast –killed it out –and so after the lapse of a month was glad after all to learn that such palatable staff of life could be made out of the dead and scalt creature and risings that lay flat. I have hardly met with the housewife who has gone so far into this mystery– For all the farmers wives pause at yeast –give this and they can make bread –it is the axiom of their argument –what it is –where it came from –in what era bestowed on man –is wrapped in mystery– It is preserved religiously like the vestal fire –and its virtue is not yet run out –some precious bottle full first brought over in the May Flower –did the business for America –and its Influence is still rising –swelling –spreading like Atlantic billows over the land– The soul of bread –the spiritus –occupying its cellular tissue. The way to compare men is to compare their respective ideals– The actual man is too complex to deal with. Carlyle is an earnest honest heroic worker as Literary man –and sympathising brother of his race. Idealize a man and your notion takes distinctness at once. Carlyle’s talent is perhaps quite equal to his genius – Striving to live in reality –not a general critic –philosopher or poet – Wordsworth with very feeble talent has not so great and admirable as persevering genius heroism –heroism –is his word –his thing. He would realize a brave & adequate human life. & die hopefully at last. —— HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1846

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s series of sketches of celebrated contemporary authors for the Dumfries Herald had been recycled into book form as GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: James Hogg).

EMINENT LITERARY MALES The 2d of the two volumes included an essay on Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was “a married abstemious man, who lives and labours upon a farm of his own, and whose sole luxury is tea.... The key to Emerson’s entire nature and philosophy is love.... ‘All men shall yet be lovers, and then shall every calamity be dissolved in the universal sunshine.’ ...Our final and fearless verdict on Emerson is, that no mind in the present generation lies more abandoned to the spirit-breath of Eternal Nature. ... Note. — A second series of Essays has recently issued from Emerson’s pen, which, instead of showing in him spiritual progress, denote the very reverse, and have mortified all his British friends. He seems staring himself blind at the sun of absolute truth.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

January: Bronson Alcott wrote Charles Lane in New-York, mentioning that Henry Thoreau had prepared a lecture on Thomas Carlyle to deliver before the Concord Lyceum.

Frederick Douglass sailed from Ireland to Scotland. Until May he would be touring Scotland, on an unsuccessful campaign to persuade the Free Church of Scotland not to accept any funds from enslavers in the American South. (After this he would be putting in seven months of similar effort in England proper.) Guess what? The anti-slavery society of which he was an agent sent a white man along with him to handle the money. –They might be anti-slavery, but they weren’t fools, they knew one couldn’t trust a black man with one’s money. I don’t know how Douglass reacted to this unstudied insult.

The Town Council of Concord confirmed that

the public good does not require the licensing of any person as a retailer to sell distilled spirits of any kind in this town except for medicinal purposes and the arts.

Samuel Kneeland, Jr.’s On the contagiousness of puerperal fever” was published in the American Journal of the Medical Sciences (11: 45-63), pointing out that puerperal fever could be produced by the inoculation of a woman with fluid from a sick woman or from the body of one who had died after labor, as well as from air vitiated by sick persons, especially when several women were together in a hospital ward, ill with puerperal fever. He asserted that this contagion could be carried by the physician, clothes, and everything that had been in contact with a woman already infected. This is said to have received the Harvard Medical School’s Boylston Prize of $50 or a gold medal of that value in 1843; however, I have been unable to verify this to be accurate HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

— and the following advertisement would seem to indicate that it is inaccurate.

This information, that “puerperal fever could be produced by the inoculation of a woman with fluid from a sick woman or from the body of one who had died after labor,” indicates to me that Dr. Kneeland was not a physician, but a murderer. It indicates to me that in the case of at least one healthy mother with healthy infant –a charity patient no doubt at the downtown Boston medical facility of Harvard College, expecting and needing nothing more than sanitation and respect– under the guise of “treatment” and under the guise of “care” fluids had been drawn with malice aforethought from the corpse of a mother who had just dies of the puerperal fever, and injected into her without her knowledge or consent, in order to demonstrate the accuracy of her physician’s prediction, that she would be killed and her infant left motherless.

We are not informed of the name of this mother who had been murdered, or of this infant who had been left motherless by this heartless monster of a medical practitioner, Dr. Samuel Kneeland, Jr. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

March: During this month Henry Thoreau would be turning his lecture notes on the works of Thomas Carlyle into an essay.

His information on the person of Carlyle had been abstracted from the biographical material provided by the Reverend George Gilfillan in his new GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: James Hogg, 1845).

EMINENT LITERARY MALES

“Thomas Carlyle is a Scotchman, born about fifty years ago, ‘at Ecclefechan, Annandale,’ according to one authority” [that authority being, of course, the Reverend Gilfillan]. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1847

January: This month’s issue of the Literary World indicated that an “elaborate” paper on Thomas Carlyle and his works, in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine, had been “attracting considerable attention,” and that its author Henry Thoreau “has also completed a new work of which reports speak highly” which “will probably be soon given to the public.” The article concluded: “Truly, our greatest blessings are very cheap. To have our sunlight without paying for it, without any duty levied, —to have our poet there in England, to furnish us entertainment, and what is better, provocation, from year to year, all our lives long, to make the world seem richer for us, the age more respectable, and live better worth the living, — all without expense of acknowledgment even, but silently accepted out of the east, like morning light as a matter of course.” Waldo Emerson owed $450.00 to the Concord Bank but agreed to pay $500.00 for three acres adjoining his property on the east side, payment to be made by April 1.

From this month through March, Emerson would be lecturing a total of seventeen times but netting only $12.00 per lecture. Fortunately, his brother William was able to repay almost $1,000.00 of the money he had borrowed, before Waldo was forced into default on his promises. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

February 5, Friday: A letter to Henry Thoreau from Horace Greeley in New-York indicated that “Carlyle and His Works” was being presented in Graham’s Magazine as its lead article:

Feb. 5th, 1847. New York, Jan My dear Thoreau:

Although your letter only came to hand to-day, I attended to its subject yesterday, when I was in Philadelphia on my way home from Washington. Your article is this moment in type, and will appear about the 20th inst. as the leading article in Graham’s Mag. for next month. Now don’t object to this, nor be unreasonably sensitive at the delay. It is immensely more important to you that the article should appear thus (that is, if you have any literary aspirations,) than it is that you should make a few dollars by issuing it in some other [way]. As to lecturing, you have been at perfect liberty to deliver it as a lecture a hundred times if you had chosen — the more the better. It is really a good thing, and I will see that Graham pays you fairly for it. But its appearance there is worth far more to you than money. I know there has been too much delay, and have done my best to obviate it. But I could not. A Magazine that pays, and which it is desirable to be known as a contributor to, is always crowded with articles, and has to postpone some for others of even less merit. I do this myself with good things that I am not required to pay for. Thoreau, do not think of hard of Graham. Do not try to stop the publication of your article. It is best as it is. But just set down and write a like article about Emerson, which I will give you $25 for if you cannot do better with it; then one about Hawthorne at your leisure, &c. &c. I will pay you the money for each of these articles on delivery, publish them when and how I please, leaving to you the copyright expressly. In a year or two, if you take care not to write faster than you think, you will have the material of a volume worth publishing, and then we will see what can be done. There is a text somewhere in St. Paul — my Scriptural reading is getting rusty which says “Look not back to the things which are behind, but rather to [those] which are before,” &c. Commending this to your thoughtful appreciation, I am,

Yours, &c.

Horace Greeley.

Regards to Mr. and Mrs. Emerson. HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

Postmark: U.S. EXPRESS MAIL N. YORK FEB 5 N.Y. Postage: 5 Address: Henry D. Thoreau, Esq. care of R. W. Emerson, Esq. Concord, Massachusetts

February 27, Saturday: Waldo Emerson wrote Thomas Carlyle and mentioned that Henry Thoreau had put an essay about him in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine. He indicated that Thoreau was intending to post a copy to England as soon as the second part of the essay had appeared in the next issue of that magazine.2 He mentioned also that Thoreau had written “a good American book”3 and that he was saying that it was shortly to be printed.

March-April: After much exchange of correspondence and much intercession by Horace Greeley, “Thomas Carlyle and his Works,” which had been submitted for paid publication before August 16, 1846,4 appeared as the leading article in Graham’s American Monthly Magazine 30, Issue #3, pages 145-52 and was completed in Issue #4, pages 238-245.5

In the course of this essay Thoreau makes a critical remark about Sir Archibald Alison’s MODERN HISTORY OF EUROPE FROM THE FRENCH REVOLUTION TO THE FALL OF NAPOLEON: One improvement we could suggest in this last, as indeed in most epics — that he should let in the sun oftener upon his picture. It does not often enough appear, but it is all revolution, the old way of human life turned simply bottom upward, so that when at length we are inadvertently reminded of the “Brest Shipping,” a St. Domingo colony, and that anybody thinks of owning plantations, and simply turning up the soil there, and that now at length, after some years of this revolution, there is a falling off in the importation of sugar, we feel a queer surprise. Had they not sweetened their water with revolution then? It would be well if there were several chapters headed 2. Issues #3, pages 145-52 and #4, pages 238-245. 3. Titled at that point AN EXCURSION ON THE CONCORD & MERRIMACK RIVERS. 4. See early draft of this reference by Thoreau to hanging, written during Winter 1845-1846 before February 22d. Thoreau would undertake much more correspondence before finally receiving payment from that magazine. In fact Thomas Carlyle would obtain a copy, in England, and would peruse it “with due entertainment and recognition,” before Thoreau would receive $50.00 on May 17, 1848. 5. For the manner in which this gallows humor which had originated in the journal during the winter before February 22, 1846 would be inserted into the essay “Thomas Carlyle and His Works,” see:

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“Work for the Month,” — Revolution-work inclusive, of course — “Altitude of the Sun,” “State of the Crops and Markets,” “Meteorological Observations,” “Attractive Industry,” “Day Labor,” etc., just to remind the reader that the French peasantry did something beside go without breeches, burn châteaus, get ready knotted cords, and embrace and throttle one another by turns. These things are sometimes hinted at, but they deserve a notice more in proportion to their importance. We want not only a background to the picture, but a ground under the feet also. We remark, too, occasionally, an unphilosophical habit, common enough elsewhere, in Alison’s History of Modern Europe, for instance, of saying, undoubtedly with effect, that if a straw had not fallen this way or that, why then — but, of course, it is as easy in philosophy to make kingdoms rise and fall as straws. READ THE FULL TEXT

“a ground under the feet also”: This, like the previous knotted cords (garotte) and the previous throttling of one another by turns, is an obvious reference to hanging, since the important life support of which a hanging person has been deprived would be the ground underfoot. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1848

February 10: Waldo Emerson delivered “Natural Aristocracy” at Edinburgh.6 SCOTLAND

Bet you can’t guess who has been credited with inventing this term “celebrity” which has by now become so descriptive of the manner in which power circulates in a society dominated by one-way publicity: it is being credited as having been coined just at this point, at the start of the newspaper phenomenon, by our Waldo! He was presenting his tainted topic of a “natural” aristocracy in Edinburgh to, among other personages, Robert Chambers the six-fingered author of one of the earliest treatises on what we now denominate “Social Darwinism,” and is credited with coining the term on the basis of the French expression cause célèbre, as a

nonce expression to point toward the sort of person who without redeeming characteristics is famous merely for being famous. Within a decade people would be referring to the author of this “celebrity” trope himself —without any awareness that it was he himself who had just created it or in what an invidious racist context— as “Concord’s celebrity.”

[But did the Concord celebrity actually create the trope? Nope, it’s a mistake: celebrity.]

6. The Reverend George Gilfillan would be inspired to write about this traveling lecturer in Tait’s Magazine. Eventually it would be being alleged that (and I quote): He induced Ralph Waldo Emerson –a kindred spirit from the Far West– to make some of his great orations. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

1849

William Edmondstoune Aytoun’s LAYS OF THE SCOTTISH CAVALIERS AND OTHER POEMS.

Margaret Oliphant Oliphant’s PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF MRS. MARGARET MAITLAND.

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s SECOND GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: James Hogg).

August 29, Wednesday: On about this day Waldo Emerson recorded in his JOURNAL:

On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s birth, the final section of Robert Schumann’s “Scenes from Goethe’s Faust” was performed publicly for the initial time, simultaneously in Dresden, Weimar, and Leipzig. The composer himself conducted in Dresden.

At a meeting of the School Committee of Boston Charles Theodore Russell submitted the REPORT OF THE MINORITY OF THE COMMITTEE UPON THE PETITIONS OF JOHN T. HILTON AND OTHERS, COLORED CITIZENS OF BOSTON, PRAYING FOR THE ABOLITION OF THE SMITH SCHOOL, AND THAT COLORED CHILDREN MAY BE PERMITTED TO ATTEND THE OTHER SCHOOLS OF THE CITY (Printed by order of the School Committee; Boston: J.H. Eastburn...... City Printer). ABOLITION OF SMITH SCHOOL HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1850

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s BARDS OF THE BIBLE (Edinburgh: James Hogg). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN Waldo Emerson published the lecture series that he had called “REPRESENTATIVE MAN” and during May and June made his first long lecture tour through the West, going down the Ohio River and up the Mississippi River to St. Louis, returning by stage and rail — offering copies for sale at the back of every hall.

ESSAYS, 1ST SERIES In Waldo’s newest book (a copy of which we would discover in the personal library of Henry Thoreau), in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

lecture “Goethe; or, the Writer”: ...The fiery reformer embodies his aspiration in some rite or covenant, and he and his friends cleave to the form, and lose the QUAKERS aspiration. The Quaker has established Quakerism, the Shaker has established his monastery and his dance; and, although each prates of spirit, there is no spirit, but repetition, which is anti- spiritual.... JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE

In this REPRESENTATIVE MEN: SEVEN LECTURES (Boston: Phillips, Sampson, and Company; New York: James C. Derby), Emerson responded to criticism of his characteristic suck-up-to-the-centrists, worship-whatever- powers-there-be attitude by using the analogy of human society to the Pestalozzian school which I have here marked in boldface: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN GEORGE GILFILLAN

…The thoughtful youth laments the superfœtation of nature. “Generous and handsome,” he says, “is your hero; but look at yonder poor Paddy, whose country is his wheelbarrow; look at his whole nation of Paddies.” Why are the masses, from the dawn of history down, food for knives and powder? The idea dignifies a few leaders, who have sentiment, opinion, love, self- devotion; and they make war and death sacred; — but what for the wretches whom they hire and kill? The cheapness of man is every day’s tragedy. It is as real a loss that others should be low, as that we should be low; for we must have society. Is it a reply to these suggestions, to say, society is a Pestalozzian school: all are teachers and pupils in turn. We are equally served by receiving and by imparting. Men who know the same things, are not long the best company for each other. But bring to each an intelligent person of another experience, and it is as if you let off water from a lake, by cutting a lower basin. It seems a mechanical advantage, and great benefit it is to each speaker, as he can now paint out his thought to himself. We pass very fast, in our personal moods, from dignity to dependence. And if any appear never to assume the chair, but always to stand and serve, it is because we do not see the company in a sufficiently long period for the whole rotation of parts to come about. As to what we call the masses, and common men; — there are no common men. All men are at last of a size; and true art is only possible, on the conviction that every talent has its apotheosis somewhere. Fair play, and an open field, and freshest laurels to all who have won them! But heaven reserves an equal scope for every creature. Each is uneasy until he has produced his private ray unto the concave sphere, and beheld his talent also in its last nobility and exaltation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI

The Reverend George Gilfillan reported, in Palladium, on Emerson’s REPRESENTATIVE MEN: SEVEN LECTURES. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1851

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s “Preface to Book of British Poesy.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1852

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s MARTYRS, HEROES, AND BARDS OF THE SCOTTISH COVENANT (Albert Cockshaw). SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1853

The Reverend George Gilfillan whipped out a little religious treatise, THE GRAND DISCOVERY; OR, THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD (Blackader). From this year into 1860 he would be preoccupied with editing a 48-volume LIBRARY EDITION OF THE BRITISH POETS being prepared for the publisher Nichol of Edinburgh. HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1854

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s THIRD GALLERY OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: Hogg).

James George Frazer was born in Glasgow.

Susan Edmonstone Ferrier died.

John Gibson Lockhart died in Abbotsford.

John Wilson died. SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1856

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s partly autobiographical, partly fabulous, THE HISTORY OF A MAN, EDITED BY GEORGE GILFILLAN (Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co.). A 2-volume edition of GALLERIES OF LITERARY PORTRAITS (Edinburgh: James Hogg). HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1857

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s CHRISTIANITY AND OUR ERA (Edinburgh: James Hogg). By this point his attitude toward Thomas Carlyle in England had darkened as considerably as had his attitude toward Waldo Emerson in America, and so he wrote about Carlyle on pages 160-161 that “discontent has darkened into something fiercer than misanthropy — into universal hatred. … His aversion to Christianity … has of late assumed a deeper shade. … His system, always a flower-dressed corpse, is fast becoming putrid.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1860

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s ALPHA AND OMEGA, OR, A SERIES OF SCRIPTURE STUDIES, 2 volumes (Arthur Hall, Virtue & Co.). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1869

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s MODERN CHRISTIAN HEROES, A GALLERY OF PROTESTING AND REFORMING MEN (Elliot Stock). HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

1870

The Reverend George Gilfillan’s LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, BARONET (Oliphant). SCOTLAND HDT WHAT? INDEX

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1878

August 13, Tuesday morning: George Gilfillan died of heart failure at Brechin. SCOTLAND

August 17, Saturday: With appropriate pomp and ceremony, the body of the beloved George Gilfillan was interred at the Balgay Cemetery in Dundee. SCOTLAND

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project George Gilfillan HDT WHAT? INDEX

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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2010. 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: November 9, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

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

GEORGE GILFILLAN THE REVEREND GEORGE GILFILLAN

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.