THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1616

A family coat of arms was granted to Thomas Alcocke,1 made up of the device “three cocks emblematic of watchfulness,” and the motto “Semper vigilans”2 — which is an interesting aside on Thoreau’s use of Chanticleer in the epigraph for WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, and his original desire to use a drawing of a rooster on the title page rather than a drawing of the cabin, for Amos Bronson Alcox would among others be a descendant of this Alcocke family and as the text makes clear, this older man had been a frequent visitor at the cabin and during this period had been a great influence upon Henry Thoreau. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Here’s something I am currently finding amusing — for what it’s worth. The leaves of Thoreau’s initial WALDEN manuscript, from which he would lecture, would employ the 19th-Century polite term “rooster”; however, in 1849 while he would still be going around to the lyceums of various New England towns giving readings from what would become the various earlier chapters, at some point he would line out “rooster” and substitute the 19th-Century rude terms “cock” and “cockerel.” Thoreau would leave his manuscript that way, and when after its 8 drafts and 11 years of gestation his book would finally get published in 1854, the polite word “rooster” would still have been replaced by the impolite “cock” and “cockerel.” This in the America in which the young Amos Bronson Alcox had seen fit to change his family name to Alcott because of the “all- cocks” jokes he had been having to put up with. Isn’t it interesting, that Thoreau would flaunt his “cock” in the face of this contemporary usage? Background on these 19th-Century usages and polite conventions can come to us from pages 38-43 of Peter Fryer’s MRS. GRUNDY: STUDIES IN ENGLISH PRUDERY (1963), from 1. Doctor George Alcock, a physician who would settle in Roxbury, with his brother Thomas, would come over in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630. Dr. Alcock would represent at the first court on May 14, 1634. Francis Alcock would come over in the Bevis in 1638 at the age of 26. Samuel Alcock, who would settle in Kittery in 1652 and become a freeman of Massachusetts. 2. “Arms—Gules a fesse between three cocks’ heads erased argent, braked and crested or.” “Crest—A cock ermine braked and membered or.” “Motto—Vigilate.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

which I will here quote at length: The commonest demotic words for the male sex organ, prick (from Old English prica, “point” or “dot”) and cock (from Old English cocc) date back in written sources to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries respectively. The former has been a vulgarism since the eighteenth century, the latter since about 1830 (somewhat earlier in the USA). Both words were suggested punningly by Shakespeare. “The bawdy hand of the dial is now upon the prick of noon”, says Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet [circa 1595]; “Pistol’s cock is up, / And flashing fire will I follow, says Pistol in King Henry V [circa 1599]. Florio, in his Italian- English dictionary, A Worlde of Wordes (1598), renders coglinto as “one that hath a good prick.” “The main Spring’s weaken’d that holds up his cock,” says a servant to Sulpitia, Mistress of the Male Stewes about a Dane exhausted in her service, in Fletcher and Massinger’s play The Custom of the Country (composed between 1619 and 1622). The word cock seems to have had a specially strong aura in America, where, as the polite term for a male domestic fowl, rooster (1772) became cock of the walk early in the nineteenth century; it has remained so to this day. Bache protested energetically, but unavailingly: Why ... should we substitute rooster for cock? Does not the hen of the same species roost also? We say woodcock, peacock, weathercock,—although some persons object to these,—why, then, should we not use the distinctive name from which the compounds are derived? ... Or shall we read, where Peter denies the Master— “the rooster crew”? The word rooster is an Americanism, which, the sooner we forget, the better. De Vere quotes an anonymous Englishman who professed to have heard a rooster and ox (i.e., cock and bull) story in the United States. But even rooster was considered somewhat advanced; one New York boarding-house keeper preferred barn-door he-biddy, and gamechicken (1846) and crower (1891) were quite frequent. Roaches started to oust American cockroaches in the 1820s; haystacks began to replace haycocks in the same decade; by 1859 cockchafers were being called chafers; and a young woman tells Judge Haliburton’s Sam Slick (1838) that her brother is a rooster swain in the navy! It is, on the whole, surprising that the USA was the home of a drink called a cocktail (one colloquial English meaning of which is “whore”). But these changes were not all. What Bartlett in 1877 called the “mock modesty of the Western States” required that a male turkey should be called—a gentleman turkey. In comparison with the plain words prick and cock, such expressions as member (circa 1290), privy member (1297), genitals (1390), privy parts (1556), pudenda (1634), penis (1693), arbor vitae (1732), tree of life (1732), means of generation (1791), genitalia (1876), private parts (1885), (male) organ, and sex sound distinctly emasculate. So do the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

more literary euphemisms—catso (the 17th Century and the early 18th; from the Italian cazzo), gadso (late 17th Century to mid- l8th; cf. catso; used in Dickens as an interjection), cyprian sceptre, mentule, priap, and thyrsus—and also the colloquial (but still respectable) ones: thing (Century 17), (matrimonial) peacemaker (mid-18th Century), private property (the 19th Century), affair (the 19th Century), it (the 19th Century), concern (circa 1840), Athenaeum or the A (before 1903), thingummy (the 20th Century), contrivance, privates, and privities. Less so, perhaps, Rochester’s rector of the females, or champion of women’s rights, or nakedness, or phallus. But the feebleness, or archness, of most of these terms is more than compensated for by a wealth of popular synonyms —THE SLANG OF VENERY lists about 600— both euphemistic and dysphemistic, which reflect the unquenchable verbal inventiveness, sexual vigour and pride (and, to a certain extent, cynicism) of Englishmen over several centuries. These synonyms fall into five main groups. First, there are words —colloquialisms or slang terms— which refer to the bodily position, appearance, or shape of the relaxed or tumescent penis. The majority of words in this group seem euphemistic — though we must bear in mind that both euphemism and dysphemism are relative terms, depending on the context and on the degree of social acceptability, in a specific milieu, of the plain word which the chosen synonym is replacing. The position of the penis is indicated by such terms as middle finger (the 19th Century), middle leg (the 19th Century), middle stump (the 20th Century) and middle; best leg of three (the 19th Century); down-leg; and foreman. For the organ in detumescence there are tail (mid- Century 14; Standard English until the 18th Century) and such compounds as tail-pipe and tail-tree; flip-flap (circa 1650); flap-doodle (late 17th Century); lobcock (mid-18th Century); flapper (the 19th Century); dingle-dangle (circa 1895), and a nursery term, worm. Two other nineteenth-century euphemisms of this kind are dropping member (especially if gonorrhoea’d) and hanging Johnny (especially if impotent or diseased). Little finger (the 20th Century) is a female euphemism. There is a series of expressions likening the penis to a tool or machine- part or domestic article of some kind: tool itself (mid-Century 16; Standard English until the 18th Century), master-tool, and instrument; pen and pencil (late 19th Century); pin (the 17th Century; used by Burns), tail-pin and needle (Standard English in the 18th Century); pump(-handle) (the 18th Century); horn (the 18th Century); key (the 18th Century); rod (the 18th Century), rod of love and Aaron’s rod; copper-stick (the 19th Century); pendulum (the 19th Century); pole (the 19th Century); button (the 19th Century; baby’s); spout (the 19th Century); pestle (the 19th Century); machine (the 19th Century); (k)nob (late 19th Century), broom-handle, broomstick, busk, candle, clothes-prop, cork, golden rivet, peg, spigot, sponge, and spindle. Other names come from the kitchen or the sweet shop: poperine-pear (late 16th Century to mid-17th; used by HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Shakespeare); pudding (the 17th Century) and roly-poly (the 19th Century); sugar-stick (late 18th Century) and lollipop (the 19th Century); bone (mid-19th Century; Cockneys’), gristle (circa 1850) and marrowbone (the 19th Century); banana, potato inger, radish, and (live) sausage. Others again, from the animal kingdom: nag (circa 1670-1750), cuckoo (the 19th Century; schoolboys’), mole (the 19th Century), mouse (the 19th Century), goose’s neck (circa 1872), winkle (late 19th Century; nursery and schoolboys’), bird, goat, live rabbit, lobster, pony, snake, and trouser-snake. The penis is also euphemized into a prickle (circa 1550; Standard English), a pilgrim’s staff (the 18th Century), a star-gazer (the 18th Century), a flute (the 18th Century), living, one-holed, and silent flute (the latter, late 18th Century-mid-19th) and a whistle, a pointer, a root (the 19th Century) and an Irish root (circa 1830-1914), fiddle-bow (circa 1830), a stick, fiddle-stick (the 19th Century), a drumstick and a night stick, a sceptre (of authority), a tent- peg, and a yard. Among sailors it becomes a stern-post (mid-19th Century) or a rudder; in the countryside a handstaff (circa 1850). A whole armoury is drawn on: weapon itself (late 19th Century); dirk (the 18th Century; Scots); pikestaff (the 18th Century), pike of pleasure, and tail-pike; bow and (love’s) arrow; bayonet, cutlass, (murton) dagger, dart, nature’s scythe, sabre, spear, and spike; club (the 19th Century) and bludgeon; pistol (late 19th Century), fowling-piece, gun, and cutty-gun (Scots). Of the few dysphemisms in this group, three emphasize the phenomenon of erection: bit of hard (the 19th Century), hard-lit, and bit of stiff (the 19th Century). The other is hairy wheel (circa 1870). In the second group, euphemisms are heavily outnumbered; this group contains words which refer, sometimes with gusto or with crudity, to the sexual or reproductive or excretory functions of the male sex organ. The euphemisms are lullaby (mid-19th Century), badge (or label) of manhood, Cupid’s torch, bed- fellow, carnal part, guest, little lover, lodger, loveflesh, mark of the man, master of the ceremonies, object of enjoyment, ploughshare, sex’s pride, thorn in the flesh, and unruly member; cuckoldmaker (circa 1610); baby-maker (late 19th Century), child-getter, brat-getter, and life-preserver (circa 1840); pee-wee (the 19th Century; nursery), P-maker (mid-19th Century), waterworks (mid-19th Century), water-engine (late 19th Century), and make-water. Many of the dysphemisms introduce into the name of the male sex organ a more or less direct allusion to the female sex organ: trap-stick (1670-1900); plum-tree shaker (the 17th and 18th Centuries); tickle-tail (the 17th Century); tickletoby (? the 17th to 19th Centuries), plug-tail (mid- 18th Century-mid-19th), tail-trimmer, and tenant-in-tail (punning upon the legal meaning of tail); quim-wedge (the 19th Century), wedge, quim-stake (the 19th Century), crack-h(a)unter (the 19th Century), hunter, cracksman, cranny-h(a)unter, cunny- catcher, gap-stopper (the 19th Century), gullyraker, chink- stopper, and touch-trap; rump-splitter (circa 1560-1800), arse- HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

opener, arse-wedge, bum-tickler, and claw-buttock; beard- splitter (the 18th Century-19), hair-splitter (circa 1810), hair-divider (circa 1850), splitter (1876), quiff-splitter, bush-beater, and bush-whacker; leather-stretcher (the 18th Century) and leather-dresser, sky-scraper (circa 1840), button- hole worker (the 19th Century), holy iron (circa 1860; punning), gardener (the 19th Century) and garden-engine, (bald-headed) hermit (late 19th Century), bung-starter, dilator, distender, and vestryman; split-mutton (the 17th to 19th Centuries), kidney-wiper (the 20th Century; used in “The Highland Tinker”) and kidney-scraper, gut-stick, liver-turner, meat-skewer, spike-faggot, trouble-guts, and womb-brush. Others make a fairly direct allusion to the movement of the penis in the act of copulation: knocker (circa 1650) and knock (the 18th Century), wriggling pole (late 17th Century or early 18th), jigger (the 19th Century) and jiggling-bone (Irish), gaying instrument (the 19th Century), fornicating-engine, -member, and -tool (the 19th Century), grinding-tool (the 19th Century), pile-driver (the 19th Century), tickler (the 19th Century), poker (circa 18?0) and holy poker (circa 1860), ram-rod (mid-19th Century) and rammer (mid-19th Century), gooser (circa 1871); piston(-rod) (the 20th Century), sexing-piece (circa 1925), connecting rod, coupling pin, plunger, and shove-devil. Elsewhere the allusion to copulation is metaphorical, but the reference is plain and the effect dysphemistic: angler and fishing-rod, butcher and chopper, and floater. The penis is named as a provider of semen- cream-stick (the 18th Century), gravy-giver (the 19th Century), butter-knife, and Old Slimy-and of urine: pisser (the 19th Century). Its temperature at certain times is alluded to: red- hot poker (the 19th Century; female), bonfire, burning rod, and firebrand. It is seen as a source of sexual pleasure: ladies’ lollipop (the 19th Century), sweetmeat (mid-19th Century), merry-maker (mid-19th Century) and merry man, joy-stick (late 19th Century), joy-prong and love-prong, giggle-stick (the 20th Century), shaft of delight, delight of women, plaything, toy, and yam-yam. And there are names that appear to reflect the popular belief that the tumescent organ is not unduly troubled by pangs of conscience: (belly-)ruffian (? 17th to 19th Centuries), ranger (the 18th Century; from range, “to be inconstant”), girl-catcher (circa 1870), and girlometer (circa 1870). The third group of synonyms, of great interest, consists of personifications of the penis; almost all are euphemistic. The Bible makes a large contribution: Nimrod (the 19th Century; “a mighty hunter”), the old Adam (the 19th Century), Jacob (the 19th Century), Nebuchadnezzar (circa 1860-1915), Abraham (late 19th Century), Father Abraham, Jezebel, and Saint Peter (who holds the keys of heaven). Greek myth supplies Polyphemus (the 19th Century); history, Julius Caesar (circa 1840) and Old Rowley (i.e., Charles II); literature, Dr. Johnson (circa 1790- 1880; “perhaps”, suggests Partridge, “because there was no one that Dr. Johnson was not prepared to stand up to”); fable, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS Bluebeard and Master Reynard. The personal names that have been recorded start with Roger (circa 1650) and Jock (before 1790; compare jock-strap) and include Jack, Jack-in-the-box (the 19th Century; also, since circa 1870, as rhyming slang for pox, signifies syphilis) and Jack Robinson, the lately celebrated John Thomas (circa 1840; cf. J.T., before 1923), Thomas (the 19th Century), man Thomas, John Henry, Peter (mid-19th Century), Dick (1860; military), Dick(e)y (circa 1870; schoolboys’), Little Davy (Scots), Billy-my-nag, Bob-my-nag, and two nursery terms: Timothy(-tool) and the hypocoristic Willie, in use before 1847 and before 1905 respectively. She, a twentieth-century Londoners’ term, is “partly euphemistic, partly proleptic.” His Majesty in Purple Cap, a one-eyed man, an old man (the 19th Century?, a bishop (late 19th Century), the boy (late 19th Century), and two anonymous kinsmen, a little brother (mid-19th Century) and an uncle, complete the roll. The fourth group is made up of literary synonyms coined or used by English writers; a few have passed into the spoken language for a time. George Gascoigne gave us Robin; Shakespeare, bauble; Sir Thomas Urquhart, aspersing-tool, bracmard, coral-branch, Don Cypriano, Don Orsino, gentle-tittler, Master John Goodiellow, Master John Thurslay, nilnisistando, and nudinuddo; Denham, wand and ware; Dorset, tarse; Rochester, angle; Cleland, animated ivory, beloved guest, blind favourite, centre of sense, dear morsel, engine of love, (piece of) furniture, grand movement, handle, instrument of pleasure, man machine, master- member, mutinous rogue, nipple of love, picklock, playfellow, pleasure pivot, plenipotentiary instrument, sceptre member, sensitive plant, shaft, and standard of distinction; Sterne, sausage; Burns, dearest member; Ann Radcliffe, pego (from the Greek pEgE, “spring,” “fountain”). Whitman has man-root, pond- snipe, and thumb of love. All these may be classed as euphemisms; but up to the death of Smollett, English writers were also in the habit of coining or using names intended to draw attention to the sexual function of the penis. Shakespeare has pike; Ebsworth, Captain Standish; Urquhart, cunny-burrow ferret, crimson chitterling, generating- (or generation-) tool, intercrural pudding, jolly-member, live sausage, nervous cane, nine-inch knocker, placket-rackel, shove-straight, Sir Martin Wagstff, split-rump, touch-her-home, and trouble-giblets; Rochester, quickening-peg and whore-pipe; D’Urfey, what Harry gave Doll; Cleland, oattering-piece and -ram, conduit pipe, gristle, and sensitive truncheon; Burns, plug. Lastly, there is a group of synonyms for the penis and testicles together. There was a plain word, gear, first used in the sixteenth century and Standard English until the nineteenth. Euphemisms include the Netherlands (the 18th Century), place (the 18th Century), rule of three (the 18th Century), barber’s sign (late 18th Century-19), kit (the 19th Century) and kit of tools, bag of tricks (mid-19th Century), fancy work (the 20th Century; a female euphemism for the male genitals, including the pubic hair), pencil and tassel (the 20th Century; nursery), twig and berries (the 20th Century; nursery) wedding kit (circa 1918; mostly army and air force), Adam’s arsenal, ladyware, luggage, other parts, parts, parts below, parts more dear, parts of shame, and watch and seals. Dysphemisms include meat (Century HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

16), raw meat, (mid-18th Century) and meat and two veg. (the 20th Century), beef (the 19th Century), marrowbone and cleaver (the 19th Century), oil can, and tail tackle. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1659

John Evelyn published several Royalist pamphlets, such as a witty piece on the “Character of England,” a critique of sloppy habits during the Interregnum.3 He also put out the first English translation of THE GOLDEN BOOK OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, on the proper education of children.4 This latter effort was his memorial to his son Richard who had died at age 5 in 1658, so the bereaved father added an Epistle packed with quotes from a small section of the CONFESSIONS OF AUGUSTINE and extracting freely from a secondary source for the letters of Jerome. However, this author had not yet begun to lard his prose with Latin quotes.

A SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF A YOUNG MAN TOWARDS THE LAND OF PEACE, TO LIVE THEREIN ESSENTIALLY IN GOD, WHO MET IN HIS JOURNEY WITH THREE SORTS OF DISPUTES ... ALSO, A SPIRITUAL DIALOGUE, WHEREUNTO IS ANNEXED A ROUND OR CHORUS-DANCE, WHEREUNTO THE VAIN HEATHENISH LUSTS ... DANCING HAND IN HAND, SKIP AND JUMP TO HELL. Translated out of Dutch, in London, in this year (since a copy of this would be inventoried in Bronson Alcott’s library at the point of his death, it is very possible that Henry Thoreau at some point was able to consult it). THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Samuel Pepys went along with Montagu on a voyage to the Sound. In this year he secured a clerkship of £50 per annum in the office of George Downing, one of the tellers of the Exchequer (the teller after whom Downing Street would later be named). It would be while clerking in Downing’s office, and living in a small house in Axe Yard, that at the start of the following year he would begin his famous diary.

3. A CHARACTER OF ENGLAND: AS IT WAS LATELY PRESENTED IN A LETTER TO A NOBLE MAN OF FRANCE. Londons [i.e. London]: Printed for Jo. Crooke..., 1659. 4. THE GOLDEN BOOK OF ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM, CONCERNING THE EDUCATION OF CHILDREN / TRANSLATED OUT OF THE GREEK BY J.E., ESQ. London: Printed by D.M. for G. Bedel and T. Collins.... (Saint John Chrysostom had deceased as of 407CE. He is famous for something.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1688

In Concord, John Flint continued to be the Town Clerk.

In Concord, Nathaniel Ball, Sr. deeded to his son, Nathaniel Ball, Jr., the unimproved half of a “house lott,” the other half to go to Nathaniel, Jr. on the death of the father. (This property eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside.”) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1717

In Concord, Caleb Ball, son of Nathaniel Ball, Jr., sold his house and barn with 3 3/4 acres, plus other farming land, to Samuel Fletcher, a “glazer.” (This property would be owned and occupied by Samuel Fletcher, Jr., Nathaniel Colburn, and John Breede until 1769, but eventually it would become first the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and then the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside.”) OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1769

Since 1717, the house that eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” in Concord had been owned and occupied by Samuel Fletcher, Jr., Nathaniel Colburn, and John Breede. From this year into 1776, it would be owned and occupied by Samuel Whitney (who would be the Muster Master for the Concord Minutemen at the start of the American Revolution). OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1776

Samuel Whitney was no longer occupying the house that eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside.” During the nine months that Concord hosted Harvard College, it was occupied by the eminent natural philosopher John Winthrop. The house would in 1778 be purchased as their residence by Daniel Hoar, Sr. and his son, Daniel, Jr. OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1778

The Concord house that eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” would be owned and occupied by Daniel Hoar, Sr. and by his son, Daniel, Jr., until the latter’s death in 1823. Daniel, Jr.’s heirs, some of them occupying the house between 1823 and 1827, would then sell it to Darius Merriam. OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1798

Miguel de Molinos’s A SPIRITUAL GUIDE, WHICH LEADS BY THE INWARD WAY THROUGH THE VEIL TO PERFECT CONTEMPLATION AND TO THE RICH TREASURE OF INTERNAL PEACE was printed in Dublin (since a copy of this would be inventoried in Bronson Alcott’s library at the point of his death, it is very possible that Henry Thoreau at some point had accessed it). THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1799

November 29: Amos Bronson Alcox or Alcocke (after about 1823: A. Bronson Alcott) was born in Wolcott, Connecticut.5 (The Alcocke family coat of arms, granted to Thomas Alcocke in 1616, was made up of the device three cocks emblematic of watchfulness, and the motto Semper vigilans, which is an interesting aside on Thoreau’s use of Chanticleer in the epigraph for WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS, and his original desire to use a drawing of a rooster on the title page rather than a drawing of the cabin.)

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

5. The Alcocke family coat of arms offers an interesting aside on Thoreau’s reference to ChanticleerCHANTICLEER . HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1800

October 8, Wednesday: Abigail (Abigail = “Father’s Joy,” Abby or her “baby name,” Abba) May (Alcott) was born in Boston, daughter of Colonel Joseph May and Dorothy Sewall, just in time for the nation’s 2d census. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

This infant would be baptized at the King’s Chapel.

Ludwig van Beethoven received 200 florins from Prince Franz Joseph von Lobkowitz for the String Quartets op.18/4-6.

During this year a young woman with cancer, named Abigail May, traveled to Ballston Springs, New York to try the mineral water baths there, in search of relief from the pain of her illness. At first she was nervous at the sight of the douche hoses but, making sure she had her laudanum handy, she took the plunge into the soothing waters:

I felt finely for two hours after bathing.

OPIUM

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

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1801

March: In an autobiographical sketch she prepared at the end of her years, Abba Alcott recounted that at some point during this month “At six months, was badly burned on the face and right hand.” In addition to the permanent facial scar, two fingertips were so contracted that she would never be able to play the piano. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

So there was a reason why, when her daughter May Alcott drew pictures for her daughter Louisa May Alcott’s book extrapolating on the family, the mother figure was seated and facing as she was. The facial scarring and the damaged hand were being concealed from the public view.

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 The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1811

John Frank Newton’s THE RETURN TO NATURE, OR, A DEFENCE OF THE VEGETABLE REGIMEN was published in London, 1811 (since a copy of this would be inventoried in Bronson Alcott’s library at the point of his death, it is likely that Henry Thoreau at some point took a look at it). THE ALCOTT FAMILY

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1814

Spring: Bronson Alcott, age 14, got hired at a clock factory a couple of miles from home. He would be working unhappily in this factory for about a year. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

The Alcotts “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1816

October 18, Friday: Louis Spohr performed on the violin in Venice. There he would meet Nicolò Paganini and, although he would not hear him perform, would be astounded at the descriptions various Venetians, laymen and connoisseurs alike, offered about Paganini’s virtuosity. “No instrumental player has ever captivated the Italians as he has....”

Bronson Alcott, at the age of 16, joined the Episcopal Church. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

The Alcotts “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1817

A prisoner was hanged for murder in Boston. This year marked the last use of the public whipping post in the town of Spindle Hill, Connecticut, where Bronson Alcott was at this point 17 years of age.6 THE ALCOTT FAMILY

6. In English law the public whipping of women, which had been happening with decreasing frequency since the 1770s, was brought to a stop during this year. The public whipping of men, however, would continue in England into the 1830s. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The last persons so tortured, a pair of cattle thieves, received seven lashes each across the back, over the wounds from which a quantity of rum was afterward poured.

Things were much more benign in New York State, where a new prison facility at Auburn began in this year to experiment with the scheme generally referred to as “lease prisons.” Since we honest citizens have all these prisoners we are punishing, having nothing productive to do with their wait time, let’s force them to labor for their own upkeep while under detention! (It’s only fair to us! The harder and more unpleasant their labor, the more of a punishment it will be! They’ll learn their lesson and sin no more! Why should we pay a criminal’s HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

bills for him? Does anyone suppose that becoming a criminal gives a person some sort of right to be on the public dole? No way Jose! I mean, get serious! Etc. :-)

Here’s some commentary on the situation which has appeared in the April 1996 issue of Prison Legal News: Sometimes private business entities contracted with states to operate their entire prison system; other times the state would operate the prison and “lease” the prison labor to businesses. Nineteenth-century prisons were essentially forced labor camps. Prisoners were made to produce a wide array of goods, including shoes, furniture, wagons, and stoves. For the sake of profit, they were often housed in squalid conditions, fed spoiled food, and given scant clothing or shoes. Whippings were commonplace, and medical care was nonexistent. LEASED PRISONS According to Jeffrey Weeks’s SEX, POLITICS AND SOCIETY (Longman, 1981), during this year in England a man was sentenced to hang under the sodomy laws for having oral sex with a boy (after being thoroughly frightened, he would be pardoned).

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

The Alcotts “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1822

A prisoner was hanged for murder, and one for highway robbery, in Boston. In about this year, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, brother of Abba Alcott, since he believed it was wrong to kill, refused even to participate in killing to the extent of administering “last rites” to a prisoner being hanged. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1823

Samuel Wilderspin’s ON THE IMPORTANCE OF EDUCATING THE INFANT CHILDREN OF THE POOR (London: T. Goyder, 184 pages).7

A small anonymous volume was produced in London “by a Foreigner, three years resident at Yverdon,” titled HINTS TO PARENTS ON THE CULTIVATION OF CHILDREN, IN THE SPIRIT OF PESTALOZZI’S METHOD.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE

7. This, Brown’s ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND, and books by David George Goyder, William Wilson, and P.L.H. Higgins, were studied by Bronson Alcott in preparation for his infant school. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

(This would be studied by Bronson Alcott, who was in this year changing his name from “Alcocke” or “Alcox” to Alcott,8 and reviewed by him in 1829. Since it has been suggested9 that this small volume was Alcott’s primary source for the ideas of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, we should definitely include it in our “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” project.)

8. Perhaps to distance himself from the jest “All-Cocks.” According to Eric Partridge’s THE PENGUIN DICTIONARY OF HISTORICAL SLANG, roosters everywhere have had to cope with innuendo since the 17th Century. Louisa May Alcocke’s LITTLE WOMEN, anyone? I think Partridge’s ascription of this slang name for the penis to the 17th Century must be late, for we know of a medieval lyric:

I have a gentil cok Croweth me day; He doth me risen erly, My matins for to say. I have a gentil cok, Comen he is of gret; His comb is of red corel His tayel is of jet. I have a gentil cok Comen he is of kinde; His comb is of red corel, His tail is of inde. His legges ben of asor So gentil and so smale; His spores arn of silver white, Into the worte-wale. His eynen are of crystal, Loken all in aumber; And every night he percheth him In min ladyes chaumber. 9. McCuskey, Dorothy. BRONSON ALCOTT, TEACHER. New York: Macmillan, 1940. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

READ ABOUT PESTALOZZI HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

A Commentary on Pestalozzian Methods

HINTS TO PARENTS is little more than an anonymous pamphlet of two parts, yet in it are to be found clearly expressed most of Pestalozzi’s ideas, and specific illustrations of the method. The only clue to the authorship is found in the first London edition, 1823, which bears these words, “By a Foreigner, three years resident at Yverdon.” It is quite evident upon reading the book that it was written by someone who really knew the system, since it is in decided contrast to the more wooden accounts by Americans. There is both external and internal evidence to show that Alcott knew and used this book. In the first place, Alcott’s Journal enables us to identify as his a later review of the book in the American Journal of Education. HINTS TO PARENTS contains a number of direct quotations at the bottom of the pages, chiefly from Pestalozzi. The first sentence of one of them is found correctly copied in the manuscript of Alcott’s account of the Cheshire School: The only solid and true foundation of all morality is found in the first relations of Mother and Child. In a printed account written by Alcott, however, it reappears in a new wording to illustrate Moral Education: The only solid and true foundation of all morality is laid in the first relations of Instructor and Pupil. — Pestalozzi. Since Alcott did not have access to Pestalozzi in the original, it is most probable that HINTS TO PARENTS is the source of the reworded quotation. It is not so easy to draw a direct line of connection between a book like HINTS TO PARENTS which is addressed chiefly to mothers, and a great desire to do something to aid mothers in their proper task of educating their little ones, though the connection is entirely within the realm of possibility. Similarly, Alcott often used the words, “in the spirit of Pestalozzi’s method,” and that note recurs throughout HINTS TO PARENTS. Though small, the book is surprisingly comprehensible, and vivid, and would appear to be the chief source of Alcott’s knowledge of Pestalozzian principles. — McCuskey, Dorothy. BRONSON ALCOTT, TEACHER. New York: Macmillan, 1940, page 36. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1824

September 2, Thursday: The Marquis de Lafayette breakfasted in Newburyport on yet another rainy day, and William Lloyd Garrison was among the hundreds of townspeople who obtained his handshake at the Tracy mansion on State Street (a building which now houses the town’s public library) prior to his departure for Concord.

When the illustrious citoyen reached Concord, Squire Samuel Hoar, on behalf of all, rose to deliver the welcome.

Lafayette, nous sommes ici!

—General “Black Jack” Pershing, arriving with US troops in France at the very end of the WWI trench warfare.

Unfortunately, Squire Hoar did this in a manner which would begin a long and bitter controversy with Lexington over which town’s militia had been the first to fire upon the colonial army in America, by pointing out in his speech of welcome that it had been at the Old North Bridge over the Concord River rather than during the prior slaughter on the green in Lexington town that “the first forcible resistance” had been offered by the militia to the army. Before this visit by the marquis, there had in fact been very little note taken either in Concord or in Lexington of the anniversary of the April 19th dustup between the militia and the army. This invidious discrimination between two outbreaks of smallarms fire would produce a “storm of protest” from indignant Lexingtonians. Major Elias Phinney of Lexington would begin to pull together the depositions of survivors, none of whom had forgotten any details of the “battle” and some of whom were finding that they were able to recall details that hadn’t actually happened.

When Mary Moody Emerson was introduced to the general, she coquettishly told him that since she had been at the time a newborn infant, she also could lay claims to having been “‘in arms’ at the Concord fight.”10

10. I don’t know whether this presentation of Mary Moody Emerson to Lafayette occurred earlier during this day, in Newburyport, or later, in Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

John Shepard Keyes would later preserve a dim memory of having been pulled by a sister out of the way of the horses that drew Lafayette through Concord, and of the pageantry of that very special day.

Elizabeth Hallett Prichard, daughter of Moses Prichard and Jane Tompson Hallet Prichard, would all her long life remember being picked up by this geriatric general and kissed, before she reached her 3d birthday.

Franklin Benjamin Sanborn would later allege that Henry Thoreau had been able to summon a childhood memory of this event, which would have occurred subsequent to his 7th birthday, but Thoreau’s memory of the event would have been rather more like the trace memory of Keynes (John Shepard Keyes) and nothing like Walt Whitman’s — for Walt’s memory much later (a memory produced for the amazement of his friend John Burroughs), was that somehow he had obtained for himself a manly kiss:

On the visit of General Lafayette to this country, in 1824, he came over to Brooklyn in state, and rode through the city. The children of the schools turn’d out to join in the welcome. An edifice for a free public library for youths was just then commencing, and Lafayette consented to stop on his way and lay the corner-stone. Numerous children arriving on the ground, where a huge irregular excavation for the building was already dug, surrounded with heaps of rough stone, several gentlemen assisted in lifting the children to safe or convenient spots to see the ceremony. Among the rest, Lafayette, also helping the children, took up the five-year-old Walt Whitman, and pressing the child a moment to his breast, and giving him a kiss, handed him down to a safe spot in the excavation. — John Burroughs.

Abba Alcott would love to recount, in her old age, how her aunt Dorothy Sewall Quincy met the marquis at the ball held in his honor. We may be able to judge the nature of the reception and ball at which Dorothy Sewall Quincy “met her marquis” –presumably in Boston rather than in Concord where there would not have been an adequate infrastructure of edifices, servants, and the paraphernalia of privilege– by considering that the visit of this distinguished “friend of America,” who had been declared a guest of the nation by President James Monroe and by the federal Congress, was our nation’s chief social excitement of this year.

In Philadelphia, for instance, the celebrations had occupied several days, with the good general Lafayette bowing with grace of manner and greeting each lady and gentleman presented to him with “How do you do?” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

in very careful English, and the following account subsequently appeared in Niles’ Weekly Register:

THE NATION’S GUEST On Monday morning, the 4th inst., about three hundred children of both sexes, from the different schools in Philadelphia, were arranged in the State House yard to receive General La Fayette: the spectacle was most beautiful and highly interesting. In the evening he attended a grand ball at the theatre: the lobby of which was converted into a magnificent saloon, adorned with beautiful rose, orange and lemon trees, in full bearing, and a profusion of shrubbery, pictures, busts, banners with classical inscriptions, etc., all illuminated with a multitude of lamps. For the dancers there were two compartments, the house and the stage; the upper part of the former was hung with scarlet drapery, studded with golden stars, while the great chandelier, with two additional ones, and a row of wax tapers, arranged over the canopy, shed down a blaze of light. The first and second tiers of boxes were crowded with ladies in the richest apparel, as spectators of the dazzling array. Beyond the proscenium the stage division wore the appearance of an Eastern pavilion in a garden, terminating with a view of an extended sea and landscape, irradiated by the setting sun, and meant to typify the Western world. The company began to assemble soon after seven o’clock, and consisted of two thousand or more persons, of whom 600 or 700 were invited strangers. Twenty-two hundred tickets had been issued. No disorder occurred in the streets, with the arrival and departure of the carriages, which formed a line along the adjoining squares. General La Fayette appeared at nine o’clock and was received at the door by the managers of the ball. He was conducted the whole length of the apartments through an avenue formed by the ladies to the bottom of the stage, where Mrs. Morris, Governor Shulze, and the Mayer waited to greet him in form: the full band playing an appropriate air during his progress. As soon as he was seated, the dancers were called, and at least four hundred were immediately on the floor. The dancing did not cease until near five o’clock, though the company began to retire about three. At twelve, one of the managers, from an upper box, proclaimed a toast “to the nation’s guest,” which was hailed with enthusiasm and accompanied by the descent of a banner from the ceiling. Behind this was suddenly displayed a portrait of the general, with allegorical figures.

A short while later, churning this topic, Niles’ Weekly Register offered information about the sexual overtones HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

of toasts which had been offered at a similar upscale bash in Baltimore, and the manner in which such gallantries had been offered and received:

When the music for the dancing ceased, the military band of the first rifle regiment played the most pleasing and fashionable airs.... Just before the ladies of the first tables retired, General La Fayette requested permission to give the following toast, which was received in a manner that reflected credit on the fair objects of it: “The Baltimore ladies — the old gratitude of a young soldier mingles with the respectful sense of new obligation conferred on a veteran.” The ladies rose and saluted the general, and the sensation and effect is not to be described; when he sat down there was a burst of applause from all the gentlemen present.

Need we explore the overtones of this toast? The old French general is relying upon the national stereotypes according to which Frenchmen in tights are “gallant,” and is reminiscing about when he and his fellows were young and horny, traveling around in magnificent uniforms diddling the lovely young colonial maidens. He is saying to these ladies at the banquet “Maybe it was you I swived with when you were much younger, and you will remember but not I, or consider that maybe it was your mama,” and he was saying to their husbands as well, “Maybe it was your wife I swived with when we were so much younger, and she will remember but not I and she will most certainly not tell you about it, or maybe it was your mama, or your wife’s mama.” He remembers youthful delights and is grateful. Lafayette says all this in the most careful innuendo, “and the sensation and effect is not to be described.” What could the American males do but applaud wildly? –They couldn’t very well rush the main table and shove this codger’s head into his soup, could they?

In Newport, Rhode Island Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day Morng - called a little while at Jos Anthonys, then came on board the Packet & got home in about five hours - This little jant [jaunt] to Providence has been attended with depression on account of the inconvenience of leaving home when I have considerable of my own to attend too, & my outward circumstances require my attention - yet I have (I trust) humbly to acknowledge an evidence of divine favour & even an enlargement of my views & exercises which is worth sacrifice & even suffering for & as to my spiritual condition I have returned refreshed & enlivened, with renew’d desires for myself & the society of which I am a member, that I may grow in grace, & there by become increasingly usefull to the latter RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1825

The 3d edition of Samuel Wilderspin’s INFANT EDUCATION (London: W. Simpkin and R. Marshall, 288 pages).11

11. This, Brown’s ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND, and books by David George Goyder, William Wilson, and P.L.H. Higgins, were studied by Bronson Alcott in preparation for his infant school. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1826

David George Goyder’s A TREATISE ON THE MANAGEMENT OF INFANT SCHOOLS (London: Thomas Goyder).

P.L.H. Higgins’s AN EXPOSITION OF THE PRINCIPLES ON WHICH THE INFANT SYSTEM OF EDUCATION IS CONDUCTED (London: Thomas Goyder).12

March: Bronson Alcott’s “On the Education of Children,” in The Churchman’s Magazine IV: 369 f.

12. These two, plus Brown’s ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND, and books by William Wilson, and Samuel Wilderspin, were studied by Bronson Alcott in preparation for his infant school. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1827

The Concord house that eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” was purchased by Darius Merriam, who would live in it most of the time until 1832 and then sell it to Horatio Cogswell. OLD HOUSES

The house on Monument Street built by early settler Humphrey Barrett in the 17th Century was left by a childless descendant to Abel Barrett Heywood. A.B. Heywood would successfully farm the land but eventually succumb to drink. The farm would then be sold to S.A. Hartshorn, and later auctioned to D.G. Lang. Lang would in 1885 build a new house on the property and demolish the old structure in 1886.

The first free school for infants opened in New-York under the direction of Joanne Bethune, adiscipleofJohann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Pestalozzi’s LETTERS ON EARLY EDUCATION, ADDRESSED TO J.P. GREAVES, ESQ., (James Pierrepont Greaves) was published in London by Sherwood, Gilbert, & Piper et al.13 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May: In Brooklyn, Connecticut, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May organized the first ever convention “to improve and bless the Common Schools.”

At this convention attended by over 100 persons he learned of an experiment being conducted in a small town in western Massachusetts about 50 miles (one day’s stagecoach travel) to the north, Cheshire.

13. In the Alcott Manuscript Collection are three bound volumes of miscellaneous printed material:

GREAVES PAPERS: (pamphlets relating to Alcott House, England)

ALCOTT HOUSE JOURNALS: (The Healthian and The New Age)

PAPERS ON EDUCATION: (Pestalozzi’s LETTERS ON EARLY EDUCATION, ADDRESSED TO J.P. GREAVES, ESQ., James Pierrepont Greaves’ “Letters to Campbell,” and many pamphlets relating to Bronson Alcott’s educational work) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The experimental school in Cheshire, Massachusetts was being run by a rural master named Amos Bronson Alcott. The schoolmaster had renamed Primary School #1 as “The Cheshire Pestalozzian School” in honor of the educational theories of the Swiss innovator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and the school’s motto he selected was “Education’s all.”

I shall institute a new order of human culture. Infancy I shall invest with a glory — a spirituality, which the disciples of Jesus, deeply as they entered into his spirit, and caught the life of his mind, have failed to bring forth in their records of his sayings and life.

May learned of this experiment from a not entirely impartial source, Bronson’s cousin William Alcott, who was just in this year graduating in medicine from Yale College. May wrote to Bronson “urgently to visit me.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

July: Responding to the Reverend Samuel Joseph May’s letter of request, Bronson Alcott appeared at the doorstep of his parsonage in Brooklyn, Connecticut after an all-day stagecoach journey.

His Cheshire, Massachusetts experiment in education had failed –due primarily to the conventionality and hostility of the parents of the children, who had used every weapon at their disposal and among other things had hinted that they might be led to accuse Alcott of fondling their little girls– and therefore Alcott, who had purchased a large library for his school, found himself $600.00 in debt. The reverend was out of the house, but the reverend’s vivacious dark14 sister Abba May [Abba Alcott] entertained the unexpected guest. This wasn’t exactly what you’d call proper, but then Abba wasn’t exactly what you’d call proper — for one thing, she was slightly disfigured by a facial burn and slightly disabled by a hand burn, neither of which do anything at all to enhance one’s marketability on the marriage mart.

Some nine years earlier she had been courted, by an older man, Samuel May Frothingham, but this hadn’t worked out, or perhaps negotiations had stalled while Abba had studied history, botany, French, Latin, chemistry, geometry, and astronomy under the scholar Abby Allyn in Duxbury, Massachusetts. And then this

14. May = Maies = Mayes, probably of Portuguese Jewish origin. Louisa May Alcott inherited the dark eyes and hair and swarthy vivacious Mediterranean look of this branch of the family through her mother, who was also dark complected:

Anna is an Alcott. Louisa is a true blue May, or rather brown. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

suitably not-picky elder suitor up and died.15

[ABBA’s JOURNAL] I found ... an intelligent, philosophic modest man, whose reserved deportment authorized my showing many attentions.

[BRONSON’S JOURNAL] There was nothing of artifice, of affectation of manners; all was openness, simplicity, nature herself.

So this time around it was love at first sight. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

August 20, Monday: Bronson Alcott’s “Morris Academy,” The Connecticut Observer.

15. Do you wonder what relation this old Samuel May Frothingham was to the Unitarian Reverend Octavius Brooks Frothingham? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1828

Bronson Alcott’s anonymous “Maternal Instruction,” The Unitarian Advocate I, Boston, pages 304-8.

Thomas Cole painted “View of Monte Video, Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq.” in oil on a 19 1/4 x 26 1/8 inch panel. This painting is currently at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford CT as an 1848 bequest of Daniel Wadsworth:

The painting may assist us in understanding Waldo Emerson’s plan which finances never allowed him to implement, to have Thoreau and Bronson Alcott construct for him a Philosopher’s Tower on Emerson’s Cliff just to the south of Walden Pond, and also Thoreau’s remarks in WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS about having a country seat from which one might be the master of all one surveyed.

WALDEN: Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? –better if a country seat.

Bronson Alcott, arriving in Boston as a poor peddler from Connecticut at the age of 28, formed a very positive attitude of the place, and declared that Boston must be:

the city that is set on high. “It cannot be hid.” It is Boston. The morality of Boston is more pure than that of any other city in America.

More’s the pity, he may have been right — for sure Boston’s plumbing was getting righteous!

(In this year, also, Alcott heard Waldo Emerson preach. It was all exceedingly heady.) THE ALCOTT FAMILY

January/February: Bronson Alcott’s “Primary Education. Account of the Method of Instruction in the Primary School No. 1 of Cheshire, Connecticut,” American Journal of Education III:26-31; III:86-94. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 24, Thursday: Bronson Alcott, age 31, who had been working in the South as a peddler, arrived in Boston. He would soon be selected to be the first headmaster of the first infant school for the children of the poor, in the northern part of Boston, on Salem Street. But, primarily, he had come to Boston to be near Abba May. And she was in Boston, she had come to Boston to be near Bronson. That situation would persist on for a full three months, with each incapable of confiding in the other. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

June-July-November: An anonymous series of articles entitled “Elementary Instruction” began to appear in the American Journal of Education III. These had been submitted by Bronson Alcott and consisted chiefly of part of the Introduction to John M. Keagy’s PESTALOZZIAN PRIMER. Between April 1825, when he had commenced his journal, and January 1827, Alcott had been studying this work by Keagy. JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI

July: Bronson Alcott’s anonymous “Review of Prospectus of Morris Academy, Litchfield, (South Farms), Connecticut,” American Journal of Education III: 420-6.

July/August: Bronson Alcott’s anonymous “Education of Infant Children,” American Journal of Education III: 412-5; III: 454-60.16 16. This consists of extracts from “An Exposition of the Principles on which the System of Infant Education is Conducted,” Philadelphia PA: 2d Philadelphia Edition, 1827, a pamphlet by James Pierrepont Greaves which Matthew Carey had provided to Alcott when he visited Philadelphia in 1828. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

August 2, Saturday: Gianni di Calais, a melodramma semiseria by Gaetano Donizetti to words of Gilardoni after d’Arlincourt, was performed for the initial time, in Teatro del Fondo, Naples to a warm reception by the audience.

Hector Berlioz received the 2d Prix de Rome for his setting of the cantata Herminie.

Finally Abigail May broke the ice, by making an appointment to see Amos Bronson Alcott alone. She told him of her feelings for him. He opened his journal and she read what he had been writing about his feelings for her, some passages “which told me all I wished to know.” The couple began to take long walks together to appreciate the “romantic moral character” of local scenery.

I am not only his lover, his mistress, but his pupil, his companion. I live to promote the happiness of him with whom all my interests are blended, temporal & eternal for not even death can separate us linked by a love so pure. I am perhaps as happy as I can bear to be.

ABBA ALCOTT THE ALCOTT FAMILY

September: Bronson Alcott’s anonymous “Infant School Society in Boston,” American Journal of Education III: 561-8.

October: Bronson Alcott’s anonymous “Review of OBSERVATIONS ON THE ESTABLISHMENT AND DIRECTION OF INFANT SCHOOLS, by the Rev. Charles Mayo, London, 1827,” American Journal of Education III: 610-7. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1829

In Bronson Alcott’s manuscript pile there is conclusive evidence that it was he who submitted the anonymous “Pestalozzi’s Principles and Methods of Instruction,” American Journal of Education, IV (March-April, 1829): 97-107. Alcott did not compose this as an article, but rather extracted from, and slightly rearranged, a long series found in Picket’s The Academician I, for the years 1818-1819. JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI

Bronson’s salary at Boston’s Charity Infant School was $500.00 per year, which in this social stratum was considered hardly enough to get married on. He quit to set up a private school for boys.

William Wilson’s A MANUAL OF INSTRUCTION FOR INFANTS’ SCHOOLS (London: George Wilson, 288 pages).17

January: An anonymous review of the 1823 volume HINTS TO PARENTS ON THE CULTIVATION OF CHILDREN, IN THE SPIRIT OF PESTALOZZI’S METHOD appeared in the American Journal of Education IV: 53-58, titled “Maternal Instruction.” This review had been written by Bronson Alcott.18 JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI

March-April: In Bronson Alcott’s manuscript pile there is conclusive evidence that it was he who submitted the anonymous “Pestalozzi’s Principles and Methods of Instruction,” American Journal of Education IV: 97-107.19 JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI

March 6, Friday: According to an almanac of the period, “The United States’ Senate confirm the President’s nomination of Martin Van Buren as Secretary of State, and Samuel D. Ingham as Secretary of the Treasury, “Resolutions in favor of the Catholic Emancipation passed the English House of Commons, by a majority of 188,” and “M. Moreira and four other persons hanged at Lisbon, for an alleged conspiracy against the government of Don Miguel.” CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS

An anonymous article appeared in the Daily Advertiser, by Bronson Alcott, with prefatory remarks by William Russell: “Account of procedure in the Salem Street Infant School.”

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 6th day 6th of 3 M / This Afternoon the case above alluded too 17. This, Brown’s ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE HUMAN MIND, and books by P.L.H. Higgins, William Wilson, and Samuel Wilderspin, were studied by Alcott in preparation for his infant school. 18. This anonymous 1823 volume was included in the quit extensive and expensive Library Collection of Alcott’s Temple School for the Instructor’s use in conducting daily studies, and in addition to this was another anonymous volume entitled EPITOME OF PESTALOZZIAN INSTRUCTION. 19. Alcott was extracting from, and slightly rearranging, a long series found in Picket’s The Academician I for the years 1818-1819. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

came to trial before the Supreme Court & was ably plead to on my part by R K Randolph who I had employed as my attorney & on the part of the widow by Bridgham & Turner - I sat by the whole time & attended to what was said on both sides, & when the case was submitted I felt well satisfied that I had done what was right for me & let the case go as it would I was clear & well satisfied every way - here I left the subject & spent the remainder of the evening in social visits to my friends & rather late retired to bed. - with the subject of my law suit entirely dismissed from my mind tho the presure if any there had been was entirely taken off - In the Night I awoke from a dream on this wise — I thought I was in Lawtons Gulley at Portsmouth - tho’ it seemed to me the Gulley descended east instead of west as it really does - & as I was walking along a rather larger & fuller stream of water appeared to be running that is[?] commonly seen there - on turning my head round I saw Swimming after me a large Snake but it seemed to be of the common garter kind, but sage in appearance, with it was another & smaller snake which it appeard to me to be of a more dangerous kind than the last & seemed as a kind of waiter to the other my first thought was to kill them both & turned round to throw someting at them - but it seemed on a second reflection that my best course was to get out of their way that to come in contact with them I might was more likely to get hurt than to get out of their way so I turned & went on & lost sight of them, [Yet / but] in the same dream I was somehow or another, but now I cannot tell I was transported to Washington Square in Newport, where on the side walk parttg in the opening of Meeting Street I saw this great snake which I had seen in Lawtons Gulley laying quite dead & apparantly cut & destroyed - I just took a stick & moved him a little to see whether there was any life remaining & found he was quite dead & there left him - I awoke soon after & reflected on the dream but soon fell asleep again In the morning I awoke again with this solid impression that it was a significant dream to me & let the Law Suit go as it would my enemy was dead or at least in no situation to hurt me. — At the Opening of Court I attended & heard the Verdict of the Jury in my favour with costs which put an end to the matter as I had succeeded in both Courts. — My mind was humbled under the consideration. - 7th day I attended the Meeting of the Trustees of Eastons Point & dined with them at Sister Rebecca Rodmans. —First day - Attended Meeting in Newport which seemed natural & Old fashioned. — 2nd day [Monday] attended to the settlement of my affairs & visited my friends — 3rd day in the Steam boat returned to Providence & resumed my rounds of Duty with a humble & thankful State of Mind. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1830

Professor Robert Hamilton1 of Marischal College and University’s posthumous THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY analyzed economic principles by tracing their origin and position in the development of social life. TWO OR THREE ROBERT HAMILTONS

The 4th series of Sir Walter Scott’s TALES OF A GRANDFATHER and the 2d volume of his HISTORY OF SCOTLAND. In New-York, his LETTERS ON DEMONOLOGY AND WITCHCRAFT ADDRESSED TO J.G. [JOHN GIBSON] LOCKHART (Illustrated by George Cruikshank; Harper’s Family Library; J. & J. Harper). LETTERS ON DEMON...

In two years the author had paid off nearly £40,000 of his publisher’s debt. He had a fainting fit. By a couple of years after Scott’s death in 1832, nearly £90,000 had been paid off by income including that from a LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT written by his son-in-law Lockhart. The remainder would be paid off by copyright income over the next 14 years. In this year also, his play “The Doom of Devergoil.” ROBERT MICHAEL BALLANTYNE

From the 2nd act of this white delight, a snippet of tribalist tunefulness would eventually be added by Louisa HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May Alcott which would prove useful to young folks tussling on the living-room couch:

“I’d rather stay here, thank you.” “Well, you can’t, there isn’t room. Go and make yourself useful, since you are too big to be ornamental. I thought you hated to be tied to a woman’s apron-string?” retorted Jo, quoting certain rebellious words of his own. “Ah, that depends on who wears the apron!” and Laurie gave an audacious tweak at the tassel. “Are you going?” demanded Jo, diving for the pillow. He fled at once, and the minute it was well ‘Up with the bonnets of bonnie Dundee,’ she slipped away to return no more till the young gentleman departed in high dudgeon.

In New England, Joseph Palmer, a bearded man who later in this chronology will show up as one of the steady mainstays of Fruitlands, spent a year in jail rather than pay a fine a Massachusetts judge had imposed. The

historical record has it that this fine was imposed because, as a bearded man, he had resisted when a group of outraged Massachusetts citizens who had lain in wait for him had begun forcibly to shave him. Palmer was being cursed by many of his contemporaries as “Old Jew.” This could in no way have been a compliment, for there must have been anti-Semitism about despite the fact that there were exceedingly few Jews in New England during this period of its history. The character that Louisa May Alcott would shape on the basis of Palmer (she actually wasn’t born yet, in this year), she would designate as Moses. Joseph Palmer would be buried in Leominster and his monument would bear the legend

Persecuted for Wearing the Beard

Do you believe the historical legend, or do you suspect as I do that there was something involved in Palmer’s harassment in addition to the way he chose to wear his hair, something that caused first a vigilante action by his neighbors and then the legal support of this vigilante action, imprisonment when he was unwilling to submit to the warning he had received? Could Palmer have been a “barbe”?20

20. And, is there any historical relationship between this Joseph Palmer and the Joseph Palmer who would in 1864 publish the book of Harvard alumni obituaries in which Thoreau’s obituary would appear as one entry? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

May 23, Sunday: Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 23rd of 5th M / Both Meetings Silent & Enoch & Lydia Absent at Cumberland. — They however were seasons of some favour for which I was thankful RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS

Abigail May (Abba Alcott) and Amos Bronson Alcott were wed in the chapel in which Abba had been baptized in her infancy, King’s Chapel in Boston,

by her brother the Unitarian minister Samuel Joseph May.

Earlier in this year Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Bronson had met: “She may perhaps aim at being ‘original’ and fail in her attempt by becoming offensively assertive. On the whole there is, we think, too much of the man and too little of the woman in her familiarity and freedom, her affected indifference of manner. Yet, after all, she is interesting.” The Peabody sisters of Salem happened by chance to be in the vicinity and stuck around for the wedding of Abba and Bronson by request in order to swell the little group into something a bit more impressive. Everything went swimmingly and almost immediately Abba would become pregnant:

My husband, hallowed be the name, is all I expected, this is saying a good deal.

Soon the newlyweds received an anonymous bequest of $2,000.00, it is suspected from Abba’s father. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Fall: The Boston firm of Carter and Hendee published Bronson Alcott’s OBSERVATIONS ON THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF INFANT INSTRUCTION as a 27-page pamphlet. This publication would attract the attention of the Quaker financier Reuben Haines of Germantown, a Philadelphia suburb. THE ALCOTT FAMILY Infant happiness should be but another name for infant progress.

December 14, Tuesday: With Abba Alcott six months pregnant, the Alcott family departed toward Germantown, Pennsylvania (where Bronson had been hired to teach school).

Hector Berlioz’s petition of October 28th that he might be allowed to spend his “Prix de Rome” year in Paris was denied by the Minister of the Interior (“Uh, is there maybe a word in ‘Prix de Rome’ that you need to have translated for you?”).

The Best Friend of Charleston, fitted with stronger wheels, was tried out again, this time pulling two coaches made with a double bench running along the middle. Forty factory laborers were commanded to take the seats aboard the coaches for this new experiment. At one point the “engineer” got this “train” up to 20 mph. Here is the ceremonial event, retrospectively illustrated by Theodore West of Darlington in 1885, in which man’s “Best Friend” woke up all creation with a little help from soldiers, a flag, and a field-piece — by tugging along its first passenger cars safely for all of 13 miles: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1831

To support the Alcott family in Germantown near Philadelphia, Bronson Alcott taught school.21

For five years Dr. William Alcott and William Channing Woodbridge would prepare school geographies and maps, and edit American Annals of Education and a weekly for young people, Juvenile Rambles.

21. Thoreau’s bearded Harvard classmate John Weiss, whose grandfather was a German Jew but who became a Unitarian minister, was from Germantown. Had he been taught by Alcott ? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

E. Biber’s HENRY PESTALOZZI, AND HIS PLAN OF EDUCATION; BEING AN ACCOUNT OF HIS LIFE AND WRITINGS; WITH COPIOUS EXTRACTS FROM HIS WORKS, AND EXTENSIVE DETAILS ILLUSTRATIVE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

OF THE PRACTICAL PARTS OF HIS METHOD, 468 pages, published in London by John Souter.22

JOHANN HEINRICH PESTALOZZI HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

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

1st production of Concord playwright John Augustus Stone’s play TANCRED, KING OF SICILY; OR,THE ARCHIVES OF PALERMO,23 at the Park Theater in New-York, with the author in the cast.

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

22. A volume still in the Bronson Alcott Library. READ ABOUT PESTALOZZI 23. Note that this is a completely different play than 1827’s TANCRED; OR, THE SIEGE OF ANTIOCH, which never was performed. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

August: Dr. William Alcott’s 66-page “Essay on the Construction of School-Houses” won the prize offered by the American Institute of Instruction. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

October: Dr. William Alcott’s “History of a Common School,” Annals of Education I: 468-72. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1832

Nathaniel Hawthorne’s story “Roger Malvin’s Burial” relied on tales of a famous, or infamous, interracial dustup that had occurred in what would become Maine on May 9, 1725. THE BATTLE OF PEQUAKET

The house that eventually would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” was purchased by Horatio Cogswell, who would make it his home during some of the time until 1845. (In 1836, however, the house would be occupied by Albert Lawrence Bull, brother of Ephraim Wales Bull.) OLD HOUSES [Anonymous, by Bronson Alcott], “Principles and Methods of Intellectual Instruction Exhibited in the Exercises of Young Children,” Annals of Education, II (January, 1832), 52-56; II (November, 1832), 565-570; III (May 1833), 219-223. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

In this year Dr. William Andrus Alcott relocated to Boston, where his 66-page ESSAY ON THE CONSTRUCTION OF SCHOOL-HOUSES: TO WHICH WAS AWARDED THE PRIZE OFFERED BY THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF INSTRUCTION, AUGUST, 1831 was published in Boston by Hilliard, Gray, Little, and Wilkins, and Richardson, Lord and Holbrook.

DR. WILLIAM A. ALCOTT

November 29, Thursday: Adolf von Henselt made his official public debut in München, to great success.

Francisco Cea Bermudez replaced Jose Cafranga Costilla as First Secretary of State of Spain.

The 2d Alcott daughter, Louisa May Alcott, was born to Abba Alcott in the Germantown suburb of Philadelphia, on her father Bronson Alcott’s birthday.

NOTE: May = Maies = Mayes, probably of Portuguese Jewish origin. This infant inherited the dark eyes and hair, and swarthy vivacious Mediterranean look, of this branch of the family through her mother, who was also HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

dark complected:

Anna is an Alcott. Louisa is a true blue May, or rather brown.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

At some point during this month, the father wrote into his journal some remarks on family: From the great experience of domestic life which has been mine, I have derived much enjoyment, finding in the ties thus originated the necessary connexions with sympathetic existence from which my abstract habits incline me too strongly, perhaps, to escape. A family, while it turns the mind toward the tangible and practical, supplies at the same time fresh stimulus for the social and spiritual principle; it brings around the soul those elements from whose presence and influence it is fitted to advance its onward progress, and opens within the sweetest affection and purest purposes. The human being isolates itself from the supplies of Providence for the happiness and renovation of its like, unless those ties which connect it with others are formed. The wants of the Soul become morbid, and all its truth and primal affections are dimmed and perverted. Nature becomes encrusted over with earth and surrounded by monotony and ennui. Few can be happy shut out from the Nursery of the Soul. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1833

April: The Alcott family moved from their Germantown suburb to central Philadelphia.

Lecture Season: The 5th course of lectures offered by the Salem Lyceum is shown on a following screen.

During this winter Abba Alcott became pregnant. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

The Salem Lyceum — 5th Season Edward Everett Agriculture E. Evans Geography, Manners and Customs of various Countries (1st lecture) E. Evans Geography, Manners and Customs of various Countries (2nd lecture) E. Evans Geography, Manners and Customs of various Countries (3rd lecture) E. Evans Geography, Manners and Customs of various Countries (4th lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (1st Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (2nd Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (3rd Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (4th Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (5th Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (6th Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (7th Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (8th Lecture) Dr. Barber Phrenology (9th Lecture) George H. Devereux of Salem Adaptation of Philosophy to the Wants and Condition of Man David Merritt of Salem History of the Jews J.V.C. Smith Mechanism of the Eye Charles G. Page of Salem Pneumatics Charles G. Page of Salem Acoustics Charles A. Andrew of Salem ????????? Stephen P. Webb of Salem History of Turkey Lemuel Willis of Salem Progress of Society HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

December 4, Wednesday: The Calculational Engine project had soaked up to date some £17,000 in tax revenues, a truly enormous sum of money, and there was nothing whatever to show for it. Charles Babbage ordered his contractor Joseph Clement, as preparations for removal of the engine were completed: To move all parts of the engine except the large platform for the calculating end and the large columns; all the drawings, (the 27 still attached to drawing boards were not be taken off them, the contractor was to include cost of the boards if necessary); all the rough sketches, small notebook on contrivances determined upon and the several loose sheets of mechanical notations of the Calculational Engine; and all the patterns from which castings had been made and thus were no longer required. He was to oil and pack all steel parts to avoid rust, and list the parts remaining at his workshop that were the property of the Government (these materials would be removed in 1843 to King’s College, London).

In Philadelphia, a group of black and white male abolitionists organized the American Anti-Slavery Society and Arthur Tappan became its 1st president. The Reverend Samuel Joseph May attended, and William Lloyd Garrison, and also Friend John Greenleaf Whittier, Lewis Tappan and Arthur Tappan, Friends James and Lucretia Mott, etc. Of the about 60 people in attendance only 21 were members of the Religious Society of Friends, because conservative Quakers would have been keeping their distance from all involvement in outside organizations, even those such as this one whose aims they generally greatly respected. The Reverend Daniel Starr Southmayd, not of Concord but “of Lowell, Massachusetts,” was a delegate. On the last day of the meeting, the new society urged that white females should also set up their own auxiliary anti-slavery societies. In that period the claim was being made, that True Womanhood would restrict itself to the home, and this claim was being hotly contested by women who would insist that the True Woman was merely following her natural True Womanly inclination, in seeking to succor the defenseless in such institutions as the Samaritan Asylum for Indigent Colored Children in Boston.

As wives and mothers, as sisters and daughters, we are bound to urge men to cease to do evil. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

There were three blacks present, including a Philadelphia barber and dentist named James McCrummill and the well-to-do Robert Purvis of Philadelphia — who although he appeared white:

was known locally to be actually not a white man at all.24 Purvis signed the Declaration of Sentiments.

24. This would be by way of contrast with Senator Daniel Webster, who was so dark-complected that once he was actually turned away by a commercial establishment that imagined it was dealing with a black American, but who was generally known to be, actually, a white man through and through. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

(Notice that although white men of this period generally feared social contamination by inferior blacks, even an intimate touching, as by a barber, could be permissible, as depicted here in a Virginia barbershop — so long as the relationship was one clearly marked as an intransitive one, between a superior or customer and an inferior or servant.)

There were two or three Unitarians. At one point during the convention a young man at the door was speaking of his desire to dip his hand in Garrison’s blood but the Philadelphia police, rather than take such a person into detention, warned the convention organizers that the path of discretion would be for them to meet only during hours of daylight.

Garrison authored the broadside “Declaration of Sentiments” of the meeting (Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention), which under an image of Samson strangling the lion included a renunciation of “the use of carnal weapons” and a declaration that “doing evil that good may come” represented the antithesis of Christian ethics. At one point Friend Lucretia Mott rose to suggest from the back of the room that in the draft of this resolution, the mention of God be placed before rather than after the mention of the Declaration of Independence. As a woman and a non-delegate she spoke with such diffidence that the chairman had to encourage her. This could very well have been the 1st time that many in the room had heard a woman speak in a public meeting.25

After silence in the Quaker manner, it was time for the actual delegates, that is, the menfolk, to file forward and affix their signatures to the declaration — this would be the signature that Whittier would later say he was more proud of, than of his signature on the title page of any of his books.

The broadside manifesto “Declaration of the Anti-Slavery Convention Assembled in Philadelphia, December 4, 1833,” as so nicely illustrated by Rueben S. Gilbert of Merrihew & Gunn (his work excerpted above), announced the reasons for formation of the society and enumerated its goals:

25. As a woman she would not of course have been officially a delegate to this convention, but a mere spectator accompanying her spouse. Of course no-one thought of the idea of having women as delegates, let alone to solicit the signatures of women, nor is it likely that any of the women even contemplated the possibility of a woman’s adding her own signature Such things were not just unheard-of, in this period, but also, very clearly, they went unthought as well. For a woman to have sported a signature would have been like for a woman to have sported a beard. During this month Abba Alcott, pregnant wife of Bronson Alcott and mother of an infant author-to-be Louisa May Alcott, was helping Lucretia Mott form the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society Whereas the Most High God “hath made of one blood all nations of men to dwell on all the face of the earth,” and hath commanded them to love their neighbors as themselves; and whereas, our National Existence is based upon this principle, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence, “that all mankind are created equal, and that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”; and whereas, after the lapse of nearly sixty years, since the faith and honor of the American people were pledged to this avowal, before Almighty God and the World, nearly one-sixth part of the nation are held in bondage by their fellow-citizens; and whereas, Slavery is contrary to the principles of natural justice, of our republican form of government, and of the Christian religion, and is destructive of the prosperity of the country, while it is endangering the peace, union, and liberties of the States; and whereas, we believe it the duty and interest of the masters immediately to emancipate their slaves, and that no scheme of expatriation, either voluntary or by compulsion, can remove this great and increasing evil; and whereas, we believe that it is practicable, by appeals to the consciences, hearts, and interests of the people, to awaken a public sentiment throughout the nation that will be opposed to the continuance of Slavery in any part of the Republic, and by effecting the speedy abolition of Slavery, prevent a general convulsion; and whereas, we believe we owe it to the oppressed, to our fellow-citizens who hold slaves, to our whole country, to posterity, and to God, to do all that is lawfully in our power to bring about the extinction of Slavery, we do hereby agree, with a prayerful reliance on the Divine aid, to form ourselves into a society, to be governed by the following Constitution: — ARTICLE I. — This Society shall be called the AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. ARTICLE II. — The objects of this Society are the entire abolition of Slavery in the United States. While it admits that each State, in which Slavery exists, has, by the Constitution of the United States, the exclusive right to legislate in regard to its abolition in said State, it shall aim to convince all our fellow-citizens, by arguments addressed to their understandings and consciences, that Slaveholding is a heinous crime in the sight of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interests of all concerned, require its immediate abandonment, without expatriation. The Society will also endeavor, in a constitutional way, to influence Congress to put an end to the domestic Slave trade, and to abolish Slavery in all those portions of our common country which come under its control, especially in the District of Columbia, -- and likewise to prevent the extension of it to any State that may be hereafter admitted to the Union. ARTICLE III. — This Society shall aim to elevate the character and condition of the people of color, by encouraging their intellectual, moral, and religious improvement, and by removing public prejudice, that thus they may, according to their intellectual and moral worth, share an equality with the whites, of civil and religious privileges; HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

but this Society will never, in any way, countenance the oppressed in vindicating their rights by resorting to physical force. ARTICLE IV. — Any person who consents to the principles of this Constitution, who contributes to the funds of this Society, and is not a Slaveholder, may be a member of this Society, and shall be entitled to vote at the meetings.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1834

February: Over the next seven months Bronson Alcott would read Plato,26 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Immanuel Kant, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Thomas Carlyle, and William Wordsworth in the Loganian Library in Philadelphia, and gradually be weaned out of his Lockean empiricism and 18th-Century rationalism into the Platonic idealism which he would maintain for the duration of his long life. The pre-existence of the soul and its inherently good godlikeness were at the core of all his subsequent thought. Plato’s doctrine of the paideutic drawing out of pre-existent, half-forgotten ideas became the basis of his educational efforts, and he began his manuscript OBSERVATIONS ON THE SPIRITUAL NURTURE OF MY CHILDREN. Unfortunately, over these months of study, he became practically estranged for a time from his wife and his little girls, and remained so until Abba Alcott had a miscarriage.

Before the evening was half over, Jo felt so completely désillusionnée, that she sat down in a corner to recover herself. Mr. Bhaer soon joined her, looking rather out of his element, and presently several of the philosophers, each mounted on his hobby, came ambling up to hold an intellectual tournament in the recess. The conversations were miles beyond Jo’s comprehension, but she enjoyed it, though Kant and Hegel were unknown gods, the Subjective and Objective unintelligible terms, and the only thing ‘evolved from her inner consciousness’ was a bad headache after it was all over. It dawned upon her gradually that the world was being picked to pieces, and put together on new and, according to the talkers, on infinitely better principles than before, that religion was in a fair way to be reasoned into nothingness, and intellect was to be the only God. Jo knew nothing about philosophy or metaphysics of any sort, but a curious excitement, half pleasurable, half painful, came over her as she listened with a sense of being turned adrift into time and space, like a young balloon out on a holiday.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

26. Eventually a group of English educators would come to consider Bronson to be “the Concord Plato.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 7, Monday: Felix Mendelssohn’s overture Melusine, or the Mermaid and the Knight was performed for the initial time, in London. It would become known as “Die schone Melusine.”

In this month appeared the 5th of the eight installments of Thomas Carlyle’s SARTOR RESARTUS. The Reverend James Freeman Clarke copied the letter he had received from Waldo Emerson about this strange text and sent it to his cousin Margaret Fuller in Groton. Fuller would be reading the work in Fraser’s Magazine eventually as that magazine came out in bound multiple-issue volumes.27

SARTOR RESARTUS STUDY THIS STRANGENESS

The Boston and Worcester Rail-Road experimented with a run of their locomotive “Meteor” from Boston as far as Davis’s tavern in Newton, a distance of 8½ miles, under the observation of a party of Directors and some 50 or 60 other spectators. Caroline J. Barker of West Newton described the engine as looking like “an old boiler.” A top speed of 20 miles per hour was found to be feasible, and an average speed of 18 miles per hour.28

May 20, Tuesday: Students smashed the furniture of the Greek recitation room at Harvard College, and later that day they stoned dormitory windows.

27. Another Transcendentalist who was reading along serially in SARTOR RESARTUS was Bronson Alcott. 28. I have an attestation that this Boston and Worcester Railroad was later to be using passenger engines named “Nathan Hale” and David Henshaw” (this one with a straight smokestack), but that freight engines had names such as “Elephant,” “Lion,” “Tiger,” “Bison,” “Camel,” “Leopard,” “Mercury,” “Ajax,” “Hercules,” “Vesuvius,” “Aetna,” “Hecla,” “Fury” (had a bad rep for constantly breaking down), and “Comet” (with an old-style funnel-shaped smokestack). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Abba Alcott had a miscarriage and came close to dying. Bronson Alcott moved back in with his family.

Once did I wander a little way from the Kingdom of Heaven, but childhood’s sweet and holy voice hath recalled me, and now I am one with them in this same Kingdom, a child redeemed.

Lafayette died in Paris. At his order, trunkloads of soil he had brought back from Bunker Hill would be used to top off his grave.29 Whence Henry Thoreau’s sarcasm:

WALDEN: Every man is the lord of a realm beside which the earthly PEOPLE OF empire of the Czar is but a petty state, a hummock left by the WALDEN ice. Yet some can be patriotic who have no self-respect, and sacrifice the greater to the less. They love the soil which makes their graves, but have no sympathy with the spirit which may still animate their clay. Patriotism is a maggot in their heads.

LAFAYETTE SAM PATCH

29. Hence the WWI slogan which is sometimes translated as “Lafayette, you are icky.” :-) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

In Bunker Hill Soil HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Americans would learn of their French hero’s death on June 19th: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Where would Henry Thoreau get the idiom “maggot in his head” that he would use in WALDEN in regard to patriotism? He would get it from a bit of doggerel published in this year by Seba Smith about Pawtucket, Rhode Island’s famous “jumper,” Sam Patch: But still a maggot, in his head, Told Sam he was a ninny, To spend his life in twirling thread, Just like a spinning Jenney.

READ THE ENTIRE PIECE OF DOGGEREL

PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN

July: Reading his musings on education and the early life of children, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody became convinced that Bronson Alcott was “like an embodiment of intellectual light,” and rounded up seven students for him to found a school upon. Since he had no qualifications either as a linguist or as a mathematician, he needed an assistant and she was it. In 1834 Elizabeth looked something like this. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

September: The Alcott family moved back to Boston, to 21 Bedford Street around the corner from the Tremont Temple where Bronson set up his School for Human Culture:

This spacious edifice stands opposite the Tremont House, Tremont Street. Of a rich and warm brown tint, produced by a coating of mastic, it presents a peculiarly substantial and elegant frontage. It is seventy-five feet in height, and, with the exception of ten feet by sixty-eight which is left open on the north side for light, the building covers an area of thirteen thousand feet. Passing through the great central doorway, we find ourselves in the spacious entrance hall. On the first floor we observe on our right and left hand two ticket offices, and a broad flight of stairs also on either hand, each of which at their summit terminates in a landing, from whence to right and left diverge two flights of similar staircases, one landing you in the centre of the main hall, and the other to the rear part and the gallery. The MAIN HALL is a magnificent apartment. The utter absence of gilding and coloring on its walls renders it far more imposing and grand in appearance than if it had been elaborately ornamented with auriferous and chromatic splendors. It is one hundred and twenty- four feet long, seventy-two feet wide, and fifty feet high. Around the sides of it runs a gallery supported on trusses, so that no pillars intervene between the spectators and the platform, to obstruct the view. The front of this gallery is balustraded, and by this means a very neat and uniform effect is secured. The side galleries project over the seats below about seven feet. They are fitted with rows of nicely-cushioned and comfortable seats, and are not so high as to render the ascent to them wearisome in the least degree. The front gallery, though it projects into the hall only ten feet, extends back far enough to give it more than three times that depth. Directly opposite this gallery is the platform, with its gracefully- panelled, semicircular front. This platform, covered with a neat oil cloth, communicates with the side galleries by a few steps, for-the convenience of large choirs. There are also several avenues of communication from the platform to the apartments, dressing rooms, &c., behind, which are exceedingly convenient, and are far superior to the places of exit and entrance from and to any other place of the kind that we have ever seen. From the front of the platform the floor of the hall gradually rises so as to afford every person in the hall a full and unobstructed view of the speakers or vocalists, as the case may be. The seats in the galleries rise in like manner. The seats on the hall floor are admirably arranged in a semicircular form from the front of the platform, so that every face is directed towards the speaker or singer. They are each one numbered, have iron ends, are capped with mahogany, and are completely cushioned with a drab-colored material. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

material. Each slip is capable of containing ten or twelve persons, with an aisle at each extremity, and open from end to end. The side walls of the hall are very beautifully ornamented in panels, arched and decorated with circular ornaments, which would be difficult properly to describe without the aid of accompanying drawings; but as views of the interior of the Temple will soon be common enough, the omission here will be of little consequence. As was intimated, there is no fancy coloring; it is a decorated and relieved surface of dead white, and the effect, lighted as it is from above by large panes of rough plate glass, is beautifully chaste. The only color observable in the hall is the purple screen behind the diamond open work at the back of the platform, and which forms a screen in front of the organ. The ceiling is very finely designed in squares, at all intersections of which are twenty-eight gas burners, with strong reflectors, and a chandelier over the orchestra, shedding a mellow but ample light over the hall. By this arrangement the air heated by innumerable jets of gas is got rid of, and the lights themselves act as most, efficient ventilators. The eyes are likewise protected from glare; and should an escape of gas take place, from its levity it passes up through shafts to the outside, and does not contaminate the atmosphere below. Under the galleries are common burners. There are for day illumination twelve immense plates of glass, ten feet long, four feet wide, placed in the ceiling, in the spring of the arch, and open directly to the outer light, and by sixteen smaller ones under the galleries. The whole of the flooring of the hall, in the galleries, the body of it, and of the platform, consists of two layers of boards, with the interstices between them filled by a thick bed of mortar. The advantages of this in an acoustical point of view must be obvious to all. Another advantage is, that the applause made by the audience in this great hall does not disturb the people who may at the same time be holding a meeting in the other hall below –— a very important consideration. There are eight flights of stairs leading from the floors of the main hall, and four from the galleries, the aggregate width of which is over fifty feet. The Boston Young Men’s Christian Association occupy several beautiful rooms up one flight of stairs, which are admirably adapted for their present uses and occupants, and are rented by the Association for twelve hundred dollars per annum, though it is estimated that they are worth at least fifteen hundred dollars; but the Temple is owned by a church who were very desirous that a religious association should occupy them. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The great organ, built by the Messrs. Hook, is one of the finest instruments ever constructed in this country. Its bellows is worked by steam. The Tremont Temple, besides the great hall, contains a lesser one, called THE MEIONAON, the main entrance to which is through the northerly passage way, opposite the doors of the Tremont House; this avenue is about seven feet wide. The southerly passage way serves as an outlet from this lesser temple. Perhaps the reader, who may not have been initiated into the mysteries of Greek literature, may thank us a definition of this strange-looking word, “Meionaon.” It is so called from two Greek words —— meion, signifying less, smaller, and naon, temple —— Lesser Temple. It is pronounced Mi-o-na-on. This lesser temple is situated back from the street, and directly under the great hall. It is seventy-two feet long by fifty-two feet wide, and about twenty-five and a half feet high. Not so elaborately adorned as its neighbor overhead, this hall is remarkably chastely and beautifully fitted up, and within its walls the religious society of Tremont Street Baptist Church worship. Its walls are relieved by pilasters supporting arches. The seats are similarly arranged to those in the hall above and are equally comfortable and commodious in all respects. At one end is a platform, on which, on Sabbath days, stands a beautiful little pulpit, of dark walnut, and cushioned with crimson velvet. At the other extremity of the hall is a gallery for a choir; back of it stands a neat little organ. The place is beautifully adapted for sound, and competent judges say from their own experience that it is a remarkably easy place to speak in. From the hall to the outer door the way is through a broad passage way covered with Manilla matting let into the floor, so that little dirt can be brought in from the street; and as the doors swing on noiseless hinges, no interruption from scuffling of feet or slammings can ever occur. THE CUPOLA.—In making our way thither we travel over the ceiling of the great hall, dropping our heads as we pass beneath roof and rafter, to save our hat and skull, and beholding beneath our feet a great network of gas- piping connected with the burners of the hall under us. In long rows are square ventilators, which discharge their streams of vitiated air on the outside. The cupola forms a spacious observatory, glazed all round, and from every window is obtained a charming view, the whole forming one of the most superb panoramas that we ever witnessed. From this elevated spot may be seen the adjacent villages and towns, the harbor and its islands, the city institutions, churches, houses, and shipping. In short, the whole city and vicinity lies at our feet. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1835

Waldo Emerson’s “The Snow-Storm,” a blank-verse rendition of William Howitt’s vignette on January in his THE BOOK OF THE SEASONS, which had been published in 1831.

Toward the end of his short book NATURE, Emerson had referred to “a certain poet” who had sung to him “some traditions of man and nature” which might be “both history and prophecy.” That person was Bronson Alcott. Emerson followed this reference with a series of aphorisms, in quotation marks. According to the flattered Alcott, these aphorisms had been derived from his unpublished PSYCHE, which he had loaned to Emerson in manuscript:

Mr. Emerson adverts, indirectly, to my Psyche now in his hands, in the work.

The nature of Alcott’s writing was such that it could only be improved by such an extraction of its pith:

Infancy is the perpetual Messiah, which comes into the arms of fallen men and pleads with them to return to paradise.

Unfortunately, Emerson, in reviewing Alcott’s musings, gave some incredibly obtuse, wrongheaded advice. The only thing that made Alcott’s orphic thoughts at all tolerable to a reader was that, occasionally, the reader could pick out some concrete particular, that would give some hint, what the hey Alcott was talking about. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Emerson advised Alcott, however, rigorously to prune away all such concrete particulars:

take the things out, leaving the rest.

Alcott responded to this wrongheadedness, as one might expect, by adding even more indigestible musing, even more flights of otiose fancy. It seems clear that the source of Emerson’s bad advice cannot have been simple maliciousness. He clearly was trying to assist Alcott, not destroy him. What, then, can account for this poor judgment? (That’s a rhetorical question but I’m not suggesting any answer.) THE ALCOTT FAMILY

This offers an interesting point of comparison because TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST would instance the black cook of the Pilgrim to have been a married man whose family lived in Robinson’s Lane in Boston’s North End between Hanover and Unity Streets. Might this be the same married black cook from Boston who had been met earlier by Nathaniel Ames? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST: After landing our hides, we next sent ashore all our spare spars and rigging; all the stores which we did not want to use in the course of one trip to windward; and, in fact, everything which we could spare, so as to make room for hides: among other things, the pig-sty, and with it “old Bess.” This was an old sow that we had brought from Boston, and which lived to get around Cape Horn, where all the other pigs died from cold and wet. Report said that she had been a Canton voyage before. She had been the pet of the cook during the whole passage, and he had fed her with the best of everything, and taught her to know his voice, and to do a number of strange tricks for his amusement. COMMENT Tom Cringle says that no one can fathom a negro’s affection for a pig; and I believe he is right, for it almost broke our poor darky’s heart when he heard that Bess was to be taken ashore, and that he was to have the care of her no more during the whole voyage. He had depended upon her as a solace, during the long trips up and down the coast. “Obey orders, if you break owners!” said he. “Break hearts,” he meant to have said; and lent a hand to get her over the side, trying to make it as easy for her as possible. We got a whip up on the main-yard, and hooking it to a strap around her body, swayed away; and giving a wink to one another, ran her chock up to the yard. “’Vast there! ’vast!” said the mate; “none of your skylarking! Lower away!” But he evidently enjoyed the joke. The pig squealed like the “crack of doom,” and tears stood in the poor darky’s eyes; and he muttered something about having no pity on a dumb beast. “Dumb beast!” said Jack; “if she’s what you call a dumb beast, then my eyes a’n’t mates.” This produced a laugh from all but the cook. He was too intent upon seeing her safe in the boat. He watched her all the way ashore, where, upon her landing, she was received by a whole troop of her kind, who had been sent ashore from the other vessels, and had multiplied and formed a large commonwealth. From the door of his galley, the cook used to watch them in their manoeuvres, setting up a shout and clapping his hands whenever Bess came off victorious in the struggles for pieces of raw hide and half-picked bones which were lying about the beach. During the day, he saved all the nice things, and made a bucket of swill, and asked us to take it ashore in the gig, and looked quite disconcerted when the mate told him that he would pitch the ’I overboard, and him after it, if he saw any of it go into the boats. We told him that he thought more about the pig than he did about his wife, who lived down in Robinson’s Alley; and, indeed, he could hardly have been more attentive, for he actually, on several nights, after dark, when he thought he would not be seen, sculled COMMENT himself ashore in a boat with a bucket of nice swill, and returned like Leander from crossing the Hellespont. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

We must not attempt to evade what Harvard Man Dana is suggesting here. In the Greek myth, every night Leander was swimming across the Hellespont from Abydos in order to have sexual congress with the priestess of Aphrodite at Sestus. To put this in the Queen’s English, in TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST Dana is describing the old black married cook of his vessel, the Pilgrim on the California coast under Captain Edward H. Faucon, as a pig fucker. The purpose of the bucket of swill with which the old black man is described as furtively rowing ashore in the dark in the 4th week of February 1835 is to keep the sow preoccupied while it is being sexually used. This is a semi-concealed “just between us good-ol’-boys” joke worthy to be retailed at your next Ku Klux Klan rally. This sort of insinuation must have made Dana most exquisitely popular among

the Harvard College BMOCs when he returned as Mr. Sailorboy in tight pants to complete his studies in Cambridge in 1837. In fact Dana has set this story up in such a manner that anyone who has the stomach to do so is able to fathom “our poor darky’s” strange nighttime “affection for a pig.”

The author would come to describe his best-seller as a “boy’s story.” Actually, this part of it is a good ol’ boy’s HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

story of the sort you might hear at your local KKK meeting out in the shack behind the town lumberyard.

For a comparison pig story in which it is not a black man, but the Devil, who is husbanding the sow, follow this arrow:

The pig story works at a number of levels. It works at the level of racism, of course, because it is being told by a certified white boy about the one black man on the ship. It works at the level of speciesism because there is something of a barnyard hierarchy at work, with the fact that the animal in question is the ship’s sow, rather than a horse or cow or chicken, in effect further intensifying the already utterly inflammatory nature of the tale. Notice that the story works also at the level of ageism, for the man being accused by one of the younger men on the ship just happens to be the oldest, and that the story works also as a homosexual animadversion against the person who just happens to be the only married man before the mast. In fact there just isn’t any level at HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

which Richard Henry Dana, Jr.’s “boy’s story” derogation might be further intensified — without, of course, the addition of the sort of crude drawing which one could find inscribed on the wall of a 19th-Century jake. And, it would be not TWO YEARS BEFORE THE MAST but HUCKLEBERRY FINN that would be banned (possibly at the insistence of Louisa May Alcott among others) in 1885 from the Concord Free Public Library!

If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.

— From Nat Hentoff’s FREE SPEECH FOR ME – BUT NOT FOR THEE: HOW THE AMERICAN LEFT AND RIGHT RELENTLESSLY CENSOR EACH OTHER (HarperCollins/Harry Asher Books)

October 17, Saturday: Penny Magazine:

http://www.history.rochester.edu/pennymag/227.htm

Bronson Alcott came to visit Waldo Emerson at his new home “Bush” in Concord, staying through Sunday. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

October 21, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson made a note in his journal about an initial visit to his home in Concord by Bronson Alcott:

Last Saturday night came hither Mr Alcott & spent the Sabbath with me. A wise man, simple, superior to display. & drops the best things as quietly as the least. Every man, he said, is a Revelation, & ought to write his Record. But few with the pen.

That night, just back in Boston from his visit to Emerson in Concord, Alcott would be visiting William Lloyd Garrison in the jail on Leverett Street. (What was Garrison doing in the Boston lockup? –Read on.)

Having met with brickbats in Concord, New Hampshire and garbage, raw eggs, and rocks in Lowell MA, and having been seriously injured by being hit in the face with a rock in Ohio, and having been denounced by President Andrew Jackson in a message to Congress, the English anti-slavery reformer George Thompson had been reduced to making his return plans in secret because of concern that pro-slavery activists would attempt to kidnap him (presumably to tar and feather him).30 He had fled Boston Harbor in a rowboat in order to board a British ship leaving for New Brunswick.

30. Safely back in England, George Thompson would be elected to Parliament. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Back ashore, in what would come to be known as the “Gentlemen’s Riot” carried out by a downtown Boston group of swells associated with State Street and Milk Street which sometimes referred to itself as “the broadcloth mob,” what had been planned as a protest against a scheduled lecture by Thompson on behalf of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society transformed itself into a mob of several thousand persons which stormed the meeting while the women prayed for the protection of God. They came uncomfortably close to tarring and feathering the substitute speaker.31

STATE STREET, BOSTON

This substitute, Garrison, was saved only by the intervention of Boston’s mayor, who –despite the fact that there was a mayoral election coming up in December– dealt personally with this proslavery mob.

To the people who were engaging in the antislavery struggle, this year of 1835 would become known as “the mob year.” The riot against Garrison in Boston was far from the only one. The North was having what Grimsted refers to as a “riot conversation” with the South, in an attempt to reassure it that its institution of human enslavement would be tolerated, and that opposition to this institution would not be allowed to interfere with the flow of business. There was therefore also an assault on this day upon Henry B. Stanton in Newport, and an assault upon Samuel May in Montpelier. No great personal injury or property damage resulted, as that was not the point: PAGE 27 GRIMSTED: The day’s riotous work was the North’s final offering of works to prove the sincerity of its stream of words against abolition ... few in the South noted how little damage to property and none to people these careful mobs perpetrated.

Friend Stephen Wanton Gould recorded in his journal: 4th day 21 of 10 M / We rode to Portsmouth to attend the Select Meeting - After which we went to Aunt Stantons & spent the Afternoon with her in sympathy with her lonely situation

31. This mob was witnessed by William Cooper Nell, who, being himself a person of color, of course was unable to interfere. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

At this annual meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society at the Anti-Slavery Hall, the women were trapped in rooms on the 3d floor as the mob roamed the corridors of the building. The mayor of Boston belatedly arrived with a group of policemen and got the women to disperse, but Garrison was in his office and was left alone in the building with the mob. When he crawled through the back window and jumped down into the street, someone saw him and the mob gave chase. He was cornered in a 2d-floor room above a carpenter’s shop into which he had dodged, whereupon there was a wrestling match to see whether he would be flung from the window, or into a tar kettle that had been prepared. The police jailed for the night for his own safety, in the jail on Leverett Street, and he inscribed on the wall there that his offense was “preaching the abominable and dangerous doctrine that all men have been created equal.” Here is a fuller account of the action: It was in the midst of such intense and widespread excitement that Boston called its meeting to abolish the Abolitionists. It was the month of August, and the heat of men’s passions was as great as the heat of the August sun. The moral atmosphere of the city was so charged with inflammable gases that the slightest spark would have sufficed to produce an explosion. The Abolitionists felt this and carried themselves the while with unusual circumspection. They deemed it prudent to publish an address to neutralize the falsehoods with which they were assailed by their enemies. The address drawn up by Garrison for the purpose was thought “too fiery for the present time,” by his more cautious followers and was rejected. The Liberator office had already been threatened in consequence of a fiery article by the editor, denouncing the use of Faneuil Hall for the approaching pro-slavery meeting. It seemed to the unawed and indignant champion of liberty that it were “better that the winds should scatter it in fragments over the whole earth — better that an earthquake should engulf it — than that it should be used for so unhallowed and detestable a purpose!” The anti- abolition feeling of the town had become so bitter and intense that Henry E. Benson, then clerk in the anti-slavery office, writing on the 19th of the month, believed that there were persons in Boston, who would assassinate George Thompson in broad daylight, and doubted whether Garrison or Samuel J. May would be safe in Faneuil Hall on the day of the meeting, and what seemed still more significant of the inflamed state of the public mind, was the confidence with which he predicted that a mob would follow the meeting. The wild-cat-like spirit was in the air — in the seething heart of the populace. The meeting was held August 21st, in the old cradle of liberty. To its call alone fifteen hundred names were appended. It was a Boston audience both as to character and numbers, an altogether imposing affair, over whom the mayor of the city presided and before whom two of the most consummate orators of the commonwealth fulmined against the Abolitionists. One of their hearers, a young attorney of twenty-four, who listened to Peleg Sprague and Harrison Gray Otis that day, described sixteen years afterward the latter and the effects produced by him on that audience. Our young attorney vividly recalled how “‘Abolitionist’ was linked with contempt, in the silver tones of Otis, and all the charms that a divine eloquence and most felicitous diction could throw around a bad cause were given it; HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

the excited multitude seemed actually ready to leap up beneath the magic of his speech. It would be something, if one must die, to die by such a hand — a hand somewhat worthy and able to stifle anti-slavery, if it could be stifled. The orator was worthy of the gigantic task attempted; and thousands crowded before him, every one of their hearts melted by that eloquence, beneath which Massachusetts had bowed, not unworthily, for more than thirty years.” Here is a specimen of the sort of goading which the wild-cat-like spirit of the city got from the orators. It is taken from the speech of Peleg Sprague. The orator is paying his respects to George Thompson, “an avowed emissary” “a professed agitator,” who “comes here from the dark and corrupt institutions of Europe to enlighten us upon the rights of man and the moral duties of our own condition. Received by our hospitality, he stands here upon our soil, protected by our laws, and hurls firebrands, arrows, and death into the habitations of our neighbors and friends, and brothers; and when he shall have kindled a conflagration which is sweeping in desolation over our land, he has only to embark for his own country, and there look serenely back with indifference or exultation upon the widespread ruin by which our cities are wrapt in flames, and our garments rolled in blood.” The great meeting was soon a thing of the past but not so its effects. The echoes of Otis and Sprague did not cease at its close. They thrilled in the air, they thrilled long afterward in the blood of the people. When the multitude dispersed Mischief went out into the streets of the city with them. Wherever afterward they gathered Mischief made one in their midst. Mischief was let loose, Mischief was afoot in the town. The old town was no place for the foreign emissary, neither was it a safe place for the arch-agitator. On the day after the meeting, Garrison and his young wife accordingly retreated to her father’s home at Brooklyn, Conn., where the husband needed not to be jostling elbows with Mistress Mischief, and her pals. Garrison’s answer to the speeches of Otis and Sprague was in his sternest vein. He is sure after reading them that, “there is more guilt attaching to the people of the free States from the continuance of slavery, than those in the slave States.” At least he is ready to affirm upon the authority of Orator Sprague, “that New England is as really a slave-holding section of the republic as Georgia or South Carolina.” Sprague, he finds, “in amicable companionship and popular repute with thieves and adulterers; with slaveholders, slavedealers, and slave-destroyers; ... with the disturbers of the public peace; with the robbers of the public mail; with ruffians who insult, pollute, and lacerate helpless women; and with conspirators against the lives and liberties of New England citizens.” To Otis who was then nearly seventy years of age Garrison addressed his rebuke in tones of singular solemnity. It seemed to him that the aged statesman had transgressed against liberty “under circumstances of peculiar criminality.” “Yet at this solemn period,” the reprobation of the prophet ran, “you have not scrupled, nay, you have been HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

ambitious, to lead and address an excited multitude, in vindication of all imaginable wickedness, embodied in one great system of crime and blood — to pander to the lusts and desires of the robbers of God and his poor — to consign over to the tender mercies of cruel taskmasters, multitudes of guiltless men, women, and children — and to denounce as an ‘unlawful and dangerous association’ a society whose only object is to bring this nation to repentance, through the truth as it is in Jesus.” These audacious and iconoclastic performances of the reformer were not exactly adapted to turn from him the wrath of the idol worshipers. They more likely added fuel to the hot anger burning in Boston against him. Three weeks passed after his departure from the city, and his friends did not deem it safe for him to return. Toward the end of the fourth week of his enforced absence, against which he was chafing not a little, an incident happened in Boston which warned him to let patience have its perfect work. It was on the night of September 17th that the dispositions of the city toward him found grim expression in a gallows erected in front of his house at 23 Brighton street. This ghastly reminder that the fellow-citizens of the editor of the Liberator continued to take a lively interest in him, “was made in real workmanship style, of maple joist five inches through, eight or nine feet high, for the accommodation of two persons.” Garrison and Thompson were the two persons for whom these brave accommodations were prepared. But as neither they nor their friends were in a mood to have trial made of them, the intended occupants consented to give Boston a wide berth, and to be somewhat particular that they did not turn in with her while the homicidal fit lasted. This editing his paper at long range, and this thought of life and safety Garrison did not at all relish. They grew more and more irksome to his fearless and earnest spirit. For his was a “pine-and-fagot” Abolitionism that knew not the fear of men or their wrath. But now he must needs have a care for the peace of mind of his young wife, who was, within a few months, to give birth to a child. And her anxiety for him was very great. Neither was the anxiety of devoted friends and followers to be lightly disregarded. All of which detained the leader in Brooklyn until the 25th of the month, when the danger signals seemed to have disappeared. Whereupon he set out immediately for his post in Boston to be at the head of his forces. He found the city in one of those strange pauses of popular excitement, which might signify the ebb of the tide or only the retreat of the billows. He was not inclined to let the anti-Abolition agitation subside so soon, before it had carried on its flood Abolition principles to wider fields and more abundant harvests in the republic. Anxious lest the cat- like temper of the populace was falling into indifference and apathy, he and his disciples took occasion to prod it into renewed wakefulness and activity. The instruments used for this purpose were anti-slavery meetings and the sharp goad of his Liberator editorials. The city was possessed with the demon of slavery, and its foaming at the mouth was the best of all signs HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

that the Abolition exorcism was working effectively. So, in between the glittering teeth and the terrible paws was thrust the maddening goad, and up sprang the mighty beast horrible to behold. One of these meetings was the anniversary of the formation of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society which fell on October 14th. The ladies issued their notice, engaged a hall, and invited George Thompson to address them. Now the foreign emissary was particularly exasperating to Boston sensibility on the subject of slavery. He was the veritable red rag to the pro- slavery bull. The public announcement, therefore, that he was to speak in the city threw the public mind into violent agitation. The Gazette and the Courier augmented the excitement by the recklessness with which they denounced the proposed meeting, the former promising to Thompson a lynching, while the latter endeavored to involve his associates who were to the “manner born” in the popular outbreak, which was confidently predicted in case the “foreign vagrant” wagged his tongue at the time appointed. Notwithstanding the rage of press and people the meeting was postponed through no willingness on the part of the ladies, but because of the panic of the owners of the hall lest their property should be damaged or destroyed in case of a riot. The ladies, thereupon, appointed three o’clock in the afternoon of October 21st as the time, and the hall adjoining the Anti- Slavery Office, at 46 Washington street, as the place where they would hold their adjourned meeting. This time they made no mention of Mr. Thompson’s addressing them, merely announcing several addresses. In fact, an address from Mr. Thompson, in view of the squally outlook, was not deemed expedient. To provide against accidents and disasters, he left the city on the day before the meeting. But this his enemies did not know. They confidently expected that he was to be one of the speakers. An inflammatory handbill distributed on the streets at noon of the 21st seemed to leave no doubt of this circumstance in the pro- slavery portion of the city. The handbill referred to ran as follows: THOMPSON, THE ABOLITIONIST! That infamous foreign scoundrel, THOMPSON, will hold forth this afternoon at the Liberator office. No. 48 Washington street. The present is a fair opportunity for the friends of the Union to snake Thompson out! It will be a contest between the Abolitionists and the friends of the Union. A purse of $100 has been raised by a number of patriotic citizens to reward the individual who shall first lay violent hands on Thompson, so that he may be brought to the tar-kettle before dark. Friends of the Union, be vigilant! Boston, Wednesday, 12 o’clock. That Wednesday forenoon Garrison spent at the anti-slavery office, little dreaming of the peril which was to overtake him in that very spot in the afternoon. He went home to an early dinner, since his wife was a member of the society, and he HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

himself was set down for an address. As he wended his way homeward, Mischief and her gang were afoot distributing the aforesaid handbills “in the insurance offices, the reading- rooms, all along State street, in the hotels, bar-rooms, etc.,” and scattering it “among mechanics at the North End, who were mightily taken with it.” Garrison returned about a half hour before the time appointed for the meeting. He found a small crowd of about a hundred individuals collected in front of the building where the hall was situated, and on ascending to the hall more of the same sort, mostly young men, choking the access to it. They were noisy, and Garrison pushed his way through them with difficulty. As he entered the place of meeting and took his seat among the ladies, twenty had already arrived, the gang of young rowdies recognized him and evinced this by the exclamation: “That’s Garrison!” The full significance of the crowd just without the hall did not seem to have occurred to the man whom they had identified. He did not know that they were the foam blown from the mouth of a great mob at the moment filling the streets in the neighborhood of the building where he sat with such serenity of spirit. His wife who had followed him from their home saw what Garrison did not see. The crowd of a hundred had swelled to thousands. It lay in a huge irregular cross, jammed in between the buildings on Washington street, the head lowering in front of the anti-slavery office, the foot reaching to the site where stood Joy building, now occupied by the Rogers, the right arm stretching along Court street to the Court House, and the left encircling the old State House, City Hall and Post- office then, in a gigantic embrace. All hope of urging her way through that dense mass was abandoned by Mrs. Garrison, and a friend, Mr. John E. Fuller, escorted her to his home, where she passed the night. Meantime the atmosphere upstairs at the hall began to betoken a fast approaching storm. The noises ominously increased on the landing just outside. The door of the hall was swung wide open and the entrance filled with rioters. Garrison, all unconscious of danger, walked over to these persons and remonstrated in his grave way with them in regard to the disturbance which they were producing, winding up with a characteristic bit of pleasantry: “Gentlemen,” said he, “perhaps you are not aware that this is a meeting of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, called and intended exclusively for ladies, and those only who have been invited to address them. Understanding this fact you will not be so rude and indecorous as to thrust your presence upon this meeting.” But he added, “If, gentlemen, any of you are ladies in disguise — why only apprise me of the fact, give me your names, and I will introduce you to the rest of your sex, and you can take seats among them accordingly.” The power of benignity over malignity lasted a few moments after this little speech, when the situation changed rapidly from bad to worse. “The tumult continually increased,” says an eye-witness, “with horrible execrations, howling, stamping, and finally shrieking with rage. They seemed not to dare to enter, notwithstanding their fury, but mounted on each HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

other’s shoulders, so that a row of hostile heads appeared over the slight partition, of half the height of the wall which divides the society’s rooms from the landing place. We requested them to allow the door to be shut; but they could not decide as to whether the request should be granted, and the door was opened and shut with violence, till it hung useless from its hinges.” Garrison thinking that his absence might quiet these perturbed spirits and so enable the ladies to hold their meeting without further molestation volunteered at this juncture to the president of the society to retire from the hall unless she desired him to remain. She did not wish him to stay but urged him to go at once not only for the peace of the meeting but for his own safety. Garrison thereupon left the hall meaning at the time to leave the building as well, but egress by the way of the landing and the stairs, he directly perceived was impossible, and did what seemed the next best thing, entered the anti- slavery office, separated from the hall by a board partition. Charles C. Burleigh accompanied him within this retreat. The door between the hall and the office was securely locked, and Garrison with that marvelous serenity of mind, which was a part of him, busied himself immediately with writing to a friend an account of the scenes which were enacting in the next room. The tempest had begun in the streets also. The mob from its five thousand throats were howling “Thompson! Thompson!” The mayor of the city, Theodore Lyman, appeared upon the scene, and announced to the gentlemen of property and standing, who were thus exercising their vocal organs, that Mr. Thompson was not at the meeting, was not in the city. But the mayor was a modern Canute before the sea of human passion, which was rushing in over law and authority. He besought the rioters to disperse, but he might as well have besought the waves breaking on Nastasket Beach to disperse. Higher, higher rose the voices; fiercer, fiercer waxed the multitude; more and more frightful became the uproar. The long-pent-up excitement of the city and its hatred of Abolitionists had broken loose at last and the deluge had come. The mayor tossed upon the human inundation as a twig on a mountain stream, and with him for the nonce struggled helplessly the police power of the town also. Upstairs in the hall the society and its president are quite as powerless as the mayor and the police below. Miss Mary S. Parker, the president, is struggling with the customary opening exercises. She has called the meeting to order, read to the ladies some passages from the Bible, and has lifted up her voice in prayer to the All Wise and Merciful One “for direction and succor, and the forgiveness of enemies and revilers.” It is a wonderful scene, a marvelous example of Christian heroism, for in the midst of the hisses and threats and curses of the rioters, the prayer of the brave woman rose clear and untremulous. But now the rioters have thrown themselves against the partition between the landing-place and the hall. They are trying to break it down; now, they have partially succeeded. In another moment they have thrown themselves against the door of the office where Garrison is HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

locked. The lower panel is dashed in. Through the opening they have caught sight of their object, Garrison, serenely writing at his desk. “There he is! That’s Garrison! Out with the scoundrel!” and other such words of recognition and execration, burst from one and another of the mob. The shattering of the partition, the noise of splitting and ripping boards, the sharp crash caused by the shivering of the office door, the loud and angry outcries of the rioters warn the serene occupant of the office that his position has become one of extreme peril. But he does not become excited. His composure does not forsake him. Instead of attempting to escape, he simply turns to his friend, Burleigh, with the words, “You may as well open the door, and let them come in and do their worst.” But fortunately, Burleigh was in no such extremely non-resistant mood. The advent of the mayor and the constables upon the scene at this point rescued Garrison from immediately falling into the hands of the mob, who were cleared out of the hall and from the stairway. Now the voice of the mayor was heard urging the ladies to go home as it was dangerous to remain; and now the voice of Maria Weston Chapman, replying: “If this is the last bulwark of freedom, we may as well die here as anywhere.” The ladies finally decided to retire, and their exit diverted, while the operation lasted, the attention of the huge, cat-like creature from their object in the anti-slavery office. When the passing of the ladies had ceased, the old fury of the mob against Garrison returned. “Out with him!” “Lynch him!” rose in wild uproar from thousands in the streets. But again the attention of the huge, cat-like creature was diverted from its object in the second story of the building before which it was lashing itself into frenzy. This time it was the anti-slavery sign which hung from the rooms of the society over the sidewalk. The mob had caught sight of it, and directly set up a yell for it. The sensation of utter helplessness in the presence of the multitude seemed at this juncture to return to the chief magistrate of the city. It was impossible to control the cataract-like passions of the rioters. He heard their awful roar for the sign. The din had risen to terrific proportions. The thought of what might happen next appalled him. The mob might begin to bombard the sign with brickbats, and from the sign pass to the building, and from the building to the constables, and then — but the mayor glanced not beyond, for he had determined to appease the fury of the mob by throwing down to it the hateful sign. A constable detached it, and hurled it down to the rioters in the street. But by the act the mayor had signified that the rule of law had collapsed, and the rule of the mob had really begun. When the rioters had wreaked their wrath upon the emblem of freedom, they were in the mood for more violence. The appetite for destruction, it was seen, had not been glutted; only whetted. Garrison’s situation was now extremely critical. He could no longer remain where he was, for the mob would invade the building and hunt him like hounds from cellar to garret. He must leave the building without delay. To escape from the front was out of the question. A way HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

of escape must, therefore, be found in the rear. All of these considerations the mayor and Garrison’s friends urged upon him. The good man fell in with this counsel, and, with a faithful friend, proceeded to the rear of the building, where from a window he dropped to a shed, but in doing so was very nearly precipitated to the ground. After picking himself up he passed into a carpenter’s shop, meaning to let himself down into Wilson’s Lane, now Devonshire street, but the myriad-eyed mob, which was searching every portion of the building for their game, espied him at this point, and with that set up a great shout. The workmen came to the aid of the fugitive by closing the door of the carpenter’s shop in the face of his pursuers. The situation seemed desperate. Retreat from the front was cut off; escape from the rear anticipated and foiled. Garrison perceived the futility of any further attempts to elude the mob, and proposed in his calm way to deliver himself up to them. But his faithful Achates, John Reid Campbell, advised him that it was his duty to avoid the mob as long as it was possible to do so. Garrison thereupon made a final effort to get away. He retreated up stairs, where his friend and a lad got him into a corner of the room and tried to conceal his whereabouts by piling some boards in front of him. But, by that time, the rioters had entered the building, and within a few moments had broken into the room where Garrison was in hiding. They found Mr. Reid, and demanded of him where Garrison was. But Reid firmly refused to tell. They then led him to a window, and exhibited him to the mob in the Lane, advising them that it was not Garrison, but Garrison’s and Thompson’s friend, who knows where Garrison is, but refuses to tell. A shout of fierce exultation from below greeted this announcement. Almost immediately afterward, Garrison was discovered and dragged furiously to the window, with the intention of hurling him thence to the pavement. Some of the rioters were for doing this, while others were for milder measures. “Don’t let us kill him outright!” they begged. So his persecutors relented, coiled a rope around his body instead, and bade him descend to the street. The great man was never greater than at that moment. With extraordinary meekness and benignity he saluted his enemies in the street. From the window he bowed to the multitude who were thirsting for his destruction, requesting them to wait patiently, for he was coming to them. Then he stepped intrepidly down the ladder raised for the purpose, and into the seething sea of human passion. Garrison must now have been speedily torn to pieces had he not been quickly seized by two or three powerful men, who were determined to save him from falling into the hands of the mob. They were men of great muscular strength, but the muscular strength of two or three giants would have proven utterly unequal to the rescue, and this Mr. Garrison’s deliverers evidently appreciated. For while they employed their powerful arms, they also employed stratagem as well to effect their purpose. They shouted anon as they fought their way through the excited throng, “He is an American! He shan’t be hurt!” and other such words which divided HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

the mind of the mob, arousing among some sympathy for the good man. By this means he was with difficulty got out of Wilson’s lane into State street, in the rear of the old State House. The champion was now on historic ground, ground consecrated by the blood of Crispus Attucks and his fellow-martyrs sixty-five years before. His hat was lost, much of his clothing was stripped from his body, he was without his customary glasses, and was therefore practically blind. He could hear the awful clamor, the mighty uproar of the mob, but he could not distinguish them one from another, friend from foe. Nevertheless he “walked with head erect, calm countenance flashing eyes like a martyr going to the stake, full of faith and manly hope” according to the testimony of an eye-witness. Garrison himself has thrown light on the state of his mind during the ordeal. “The promises of God,” he afterward remembered, sustained his soul, “so that it was not only divested of fear, but ready to sing aloud for joy.” The news now reached the ears of the mayor that Garrison was in the hands of the mob. Thereupon the feeble but kindly magistrate began to act afresh the role of the twig in the mountain stream. He and his constables struggled helplessly in the human current rushing and raging around City Hall, the head and seat of municipal law and authority. Without the aid of private citizens Garrison must inevitably have perished in the commotions which presently reached their climax in violence and terror. He was in the rear of City Hall when the mayor caught up to him and his would-be rescuers. The mayor perceived the extremity of the situation, and said to the Faneuil Hall giants who had hold of Garrison, “Take him into my office,” which was altogether more easily said than done. For the rioters have raised the cry “to the Frog Pond with him!” Which order will be carried out, that of the magistrate or that of the mob? These were horrible moments while the two hung trembling in the balance. But other private citizens coming to the assistance of the mayor struck the scales for the moment in his favor, and Garrison was finally hustled, and thrust by main force into the south door of the City Hall and carried up to the mayor’s room. But the mob had immediately effected an entrance into the building through the north door and filled the lower hall. The mayor now addressed the pack, strove manfully in his feeble way to prevail upon the human wolves to observe order, to sustain the law and the honor of the city, he even intimated to them that he was ready to lay down his life on the spot to maintain the law and preserve order. Then he got out on the ledge over the south door and spoke in a similar strain to the mob on the street. But alas! he knew not the secret for reversing the Circean spell by which gentlemen of property and standing in the community had been suddenly transformed into a wolfish rabble. The increasing tumult without soon warned the authorities that what advantage the mayor may have obtained in the contest with the mob was only temporary and that their position was momentarily becoming more perilous and less tenable. It was impossible to say to what extreme of violence a multitude so infuriated would not go to get their HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

prey. It seemed to the now thoroughly alarmed mayor that the mob might in their frenzy attack the City Hall to effect their purpose. There was one building in the city, which the guardians of the law evidently agreed could resist the rage of the populace, and that building was the jail. To this last stronghold of Puritan civilization the authorities and the powers that were, fell back as a dernier resort to save Garrison’s life. But even in this utmost pitch and extremity, when law was trampled in the streets, when authority was a reed shaken in a storm, when anarchy had drowned order in the bosom of the town, the Anglo-Saxon passion for legal forms asserted itself. The good man, hunted for his life, must forsooth be got into the only refuge which promised him security from his pursuers by a regular judicial commitment as a disturber of the peace. Is there anything at once so pathetic and farcical in the Universal history of mobs? Pathetic and farcical to be sure, but it was also well meant, and therefore we will not stop to quarrel with men who were equal to the perpetration of a legal fiction so full of the comedy and tragedy of civilized society. But enough — the municipal wiseacres having put their heads together and evolved the brilliant plan of committing the prophet as a disturber of the peace, immediately set about its execution, which developed in the sequence into a bird of altogether another color. For a more perilous and desperate device to preserve Garrison’s life could not well have been hit upon. How was he ever to be got out of the building and through that sea of ferocious faces surging and foaming around it. First then by disguising his identity by sundry changes in his apparel. He obtained a pair of trousers from one kindly soul, another gave him a coat, a third lent him a stock, a fourth furnished him a cap. A hack was summoned and stationed at the south door, a posse of constables drew up and made an open way from the door to it. Another hack was placed in readiness at the north door. The hack at the south door was only a ruse to throw the mob off the scent of their prey, while he was got out of the north door and smuggled into the other hack. Up to this point, the plan worked well, but the instant after Garrison had been smuggled into the hack he was identified by the mob, and then ensued a scene which defies description; no writer however skillful, may hope to reproduce it. The rioters rushed madly upon the vehicle with the cry: “Cut the traces! Cut the reins!” They flung themselves upon the horses, hung upon the wheels, dashed open the doors, the driver the while belaboring their heads right and left with a powerful whip, which he also laid vigorously on the backs of his horses. For a moment it looked as if a catastrophe was unavoidable, but the next saw the startled horses plunging at break-neck speed with the hack up Court street and the mob pursuing it with yells of baffled rage. Then began a thrilling, a tremendous race for life and Leverett street jail. The vehicle flew along Court street to Bodoin square, but the rioters, with fell purpose flew hardly less swiftly in its track. Indeed the pursuit of the pack was so close that the hackman did not dare HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

to drive directly to the jail but reached it by a detour through Cambridge and Blossom streets. Even then the mob pressed upon the heels of the horses as they drew up before the portals of the old prison, which shut not an instant too soon upon the editor of the Liberator, who was saved from a frightful fate to use a Biblical phrase but by the skin of his teeth. Here the reformer safe from the wrath of his foes, was locked in a cell; and here, during the evening, with no abatement of his customary cheerfulness and serenity of spirit, he received several of his anxious friends, Whittier among them, whom through the grated bars he playfully accosted thus: “You see my accommodations are so limited, that I cannot ask you to spend the night with me.” That night in his prison cell, and on his rude prison bed, he slept the sleep of the just man, sweet and long: “When peace within the bosom reigns, And conscience gives th’ approving voice; Though bound the human form in chains. Yet can the soul aloud rejoice. “’Tis true, my footsteps are confined — I cannot range beyond this cell — But what can circumscribe my mind, To chain the winds attempt as well!” The above stanzas he wrote the next morning on the walls of his cell. Besides this one he made two other inscriptions there, to stand as memorabilia of the black drama enacted in Boston on the afternoon of October 21, 1835. After being put through the solemn farce of an examination in a court, extemporized in the jail, Garrison was discharged from arrest as a disturber of the peace! But the authorities, dreading a repetition of the scenes of the day before, prayed him to leave the city for a few days, which he did, a deputy sheriff driving him to Canton, where he boarded the train from Boston to Providence, containing his wife, and together they went thence to her father’s at Brooklyn, Conn. The apprehensions of the authorities in respect of the danger of a fresh attack upon him were unquestionably well founded, inasmuch as diligent search was made for him in all of the outgoing stages and cars from the city that morning. In this wise did pro-slavery, patriotic Boston translate into works her sympathy for the South. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1836

Albert Lawrence Bull, brother of Ephraim Wales Bull, would for this year be the occupant of the house in Concord that would become the Alcott family’s “Hillside” and then the Hawthornes’ “The Wayside.” OLD HOUSES

Fall: In the 2d year of Alcott’s Temple School, the schoolmaster began to pioneer in what was, actually, the first sex education ever offered in America. And he began to do this by investigating with the children, of all sensitive topics, the bodily origins of Jesus Christ within the womb of Mary. I mean, this guy Bronson Alcott, who had such a wonderful and fully sensual relationship with his wife Abba Alcott, who wrote gloriously in his journals about his erections and ejaculations, who had such a wonderful time with his little girls as they played with each other naked in the bathtub, whose school in Cheshire, Connecticut had failed when he was accused by the parents of fondling the children, “especially the females” — was the sort of angel who simply could not be restrained from rushing in where fools would dare to tread. If you get my drift, he was a heresy looking for a place to happen. “Hey, All-Cocks, couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” Poor, sweet man. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

September 19, Monday: Formation of “Hedge’s Club” centering around the visits of the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge to Boston from Bangor, Maine.32 In September 1836, on the day of the second centennial anniversary of Harvard College, Mr. Emerson, George Ripley, and myself [Frederic Henry Hedge], with one other [who was this fourth person: would it have been an unnamed woman, an unnamed wife, specifically Sophia Ripley??], chanced to confer together on the state of current opinion in theology and philosophy, which we agreed in thinking was very unsatisfactory. Could anything be done in the way of protest and introduction of deeper and broader views? What we strongly felt was dissatisfaction with the reigning sensuous philosophy, dating from John Locke, on which our Christian theology was based. The writings of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, recently edited by Marsh [Henry Nelson Coleridge had only at this point initiated publication of THE LITERARY REMAINS OF SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE], and some of Thomas Carlyle’s earlier essays, especially the “Characteristics” and “SIGNS OF THE TIMES,” had created a ferment in the minds of some of the young clergy of that day. There was a promise in the air of a new era of intellectual life. We four concluded to call a few like-minded seekers together in the following week. Some dozen of us met in Boston, in the house, I believe, of Mr. Ripley. Among them I recall the name of Orestes Augustus Brownson (not yet turned Romanist), Cyrus Augustus Bartol, Theodore Parker, and Charles Stearns Wheeler and Robert Bartlett, tutors in Harvard College. There was some discussion, but no conclusion reached, on the question whether it were best to start a new journal as the organ of our views, or to work through those already existing. The next meeting, in the same month, was held by invitation of Emerson, at his house in Concord. A large number assembled; besides some of those who met at Boston, I remember Mr. Alcott, [Bronson Alcott] John Sullivan Dwight, Ephraim Peabody, Dr. Convers Francis, Mrs. Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Margaret Fuller, Caleb Stetson, James Freeman Clarke. These were the earliest of a series of meetings held from time to time, as occasion prompted, for seven or eight years. Jones Very was one of those who occasionally attended; H.D. Thoreau another. There was no club, properly speaking; no organization, no presiding officer, no vote ever taken. How the name “Transcendental,” given to these gatherings and the set of persons who took part in them, originated, I cannot say. It certainly was never assumed by the persons so called. I suppose I was the only one who had any first-hand acquaintance with German transcendental philosophy, at the start. THE DIAL was the product of the movement, and in some sort its organ.

CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF ENGLISH AND AMERICAN LITERATURE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1837

March: Dr. William Andrus Alcott’s review of RECORD OF CONVERSATIONS ON THE GOSPELS, VOLUME I, Annals of Education VII: 143. In this as in all his mentions of Bronson Alcott’s school, William manages the difficult stunt of condemning his cousin’s religious attitudes while commending his cousin’s principle of elevating the spiritual nature of the pupil by development from within. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

March 31, Friday: John Constable died.

David Henry Thoreau’s essay on his Harvard College assignment “Examine this theory [that various dreadful natural phenomena derive their dread sublimity from Death].” In the course of this essay he made reference not only to the aesthetic theory found in Edmund Burke’s A PHILOſOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF THE SUBLIME AND BEAUTIFUL. ... WITH ſEVERAL OTHER ADDITIONS 7TH EDITION, OF 1773

(London, Printed for J. Dodsley, in Pall-mall. 1770, 6th edition) but also to the Rev. Archibald Alison’s ESSAYS ON THE NATURE AND PRINCIPLES OF TASTE. REV. ARCHIBALD ALISON

Here, then, is what Thoreau turned in for satisfaction of this class assignment: “The thunder’s roar, the Lightning’s flash, the billows’ roar, the earthquake’s shock, all derive their dread sublimity from Death.”

“The Inheritance,” chapter 56. 32. This would become the Transcendental Club. It was at this first regular meeting that the Reverend Convers Francis first met Bronson Alcott. Francis would also be present for the second meeting, in Alcott’s home in Boston. As the eldest member of the Club, it would become the lot of the Reverend Francis to announce the principal topic for conversation, and to preside. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Examine this theory.

“Whatever,” says Burke, “is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime.” — “Indeed, terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the Sublime.” Hence Obscurity, Solitude, Power, and the like, in so far as they are fitted to excite terror, are sources of the sublime. This is a theory far more satisfactory than that which we are about to examine. He does not make death the source of terror, but rather pain, using the word in its broadest sense. Death itself is sublime. It has all the attributes of sublimity — Mystery, Power, Silence — a sublimity which no one can resist; which may be heightened, but cannot be equalled, by the thunder’s roar, or the cannon’s peal. But yet, though incomparably more awful, this is the same sublimity that we ascribe to the tumult of the troubled ocean, the same in kind, though different in degree, depending for its effect upon the same principles of our nature, though affecting us more powerfully and universally. To attribute the two to different principles, is not only unphilosophical, but manifestly unnecessary. We shrink with horror from attributing emotions so exalted and unearthly, and withal so flattering to our nature, to an abject fear of death. We would fain believe that the immortals, who know no fear, nor ever taste of death, can sympathize with us poor worldlings in our reverence for the sublime, — that they listen to the thunder’s roar, and behold the lightning’s flash, with emotions similar to our own. We do believe it; we have so represented it. The sublimity of the conflict on the plains of Heaven, between the rebel angels and the Almighty’s loyal bands, as described by Milton, was not lost upon the spirits engaged in it. Raphaël, who recounts the particulars of the fight to our forefather Adam, describes the Messiah as riding sublime “on the wings of cherub,”

“On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron’d, Illustrious far and wide;” —

Nor could he have been entirely unconscious of the emotion in question, when he compared the combat between Satan and Michael, to the meeting of two planets. “As if”, to use his own expression,

“Among the constellations war were sprung, “Two planets, rushing from aspect malign “Of fiercest opposition, in mid sky “Should combat, and their jarring spheres confound.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

—Who can contemplate the hour of his birth, or reflect on the obscurity and darkness from which he then emerged into a still more mysterious existence, without being powerfully impressed with the idea of sublimity? Shall we derive this sublimity from death? Nay, further, can anything be conceived more sublime than that second birth, the resurrection? It is a subject which we approach with a kind of reverential awe. It has inspired the sublimest efforts of the poet and the painter. The trump which shall awake the dead is the creation of poetry; but to follow out the idea, will its sound excite in us no emotion, or will the blessed, whom it shall summon to forsake the mouldering relics of mortality, and wing their way to brighter and happier worlds, listen with terror, or indifference? Shall he who is acknowledged while on earth to have a soul for the sublime and beautiful in nature, hereafter, when be shall be all soul, lose this divine privilege? Shall we be indebted to the body for emotions which would adorn heaven? And yet there are some who will refer you to the casting off of this “mortal coil”, as the origin, and, I may add, the consummation of all this. We can hardly say that fear is a source of the sublime; it may be indispensable, it is true, that a certain degree of awe should enter into the admiration with which we listen to the billow’s roar, or the howling of the storm. We do not tremble with fright, but the calm which comes over the soul, is like that which precedes the earthquake. It is a pleasure of the highest kind, to behold a mighty river, rolling impetuously, and, as it were, blindly onward to the edge of the precipice, where, for successive ages, it plunges headlong to the bottom, roaring and foaming in its mad career, and shaking the solid earth by its fall, but it is not joy that we experience, it is pleasure, mingled with reverence, and tempered with humility. Burke has said that “terror is in all cases whatsoever, either more openly or latently, the ruling principle of the sublime.” Alison says as much, and Stewart advances a very different theory. The first would trace the emotion in question to the influence of pain, and terror, which is but an apprehension of pain. I would make an inherent respect, or reverence, which certain objects are fitted to demand, that ruling principle; which reverence, as it is altogether distinct from, so shall it outlive, that terror to which he refers, and operate to exalt and distinguish us, when fear shall be no more. Whatever is grand, wonderful, or mysterious, may be a source of the sublime. Terror inevitably injures, and if excessive, may entirely destroy its object. To the coward, the cannon’s peal, the din and confusion of the fight, are not sublime, but rather terrible, the calm and self-collected alone, are conscious of their sublimity. Hence, indeed, are they inspired with courage to sustain the conflict. To fear is mortal, angels may reverence. The child manifests respect ere it had experienced terror. The Deity would be reverenced, not feared. Hence it is, that the emotion in question is so often attended by a consciousness of our own littleness; we are accustomed to HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

admire what seemeth difficult or beyond our attainment. But to feel conscious of our own weakness is not positively unpleasant, unless we compare ourselves with what is incapable of commanding our respect or reverence and consequently is not a source of the sublime. Grandeur, of some kind or other, must ever enter into our idea of the sublime. Niagara would still retain her sublimity, though her fall should be reduced many feet, but the puny mountain stream must make up in depth of fall, for what it lacks in volume. What is more grand than mystery? The darker it is, the grander it grows. We habitually call it great. Burke has well remarked that divisibility of matter is sublime, its very infinity makes it so. Infinity is the essence of sublimity. Whatever demands our admiration or respect is, in a degree, sublime. It is true, nothing could originally demand our respect, which was not, at the same time, capable, in a greater or less degree, of exciting our fear, but this does not prove fear to be the source of that respect. Nothing, on the other hand, of which we stand in awe, is an object of our contempt; yet the source of our contempt is not, surely, indifference, or a feeling of security. It will be enough, merely to advert to the immense influence which the association of ideas exerts. Burke’s theory would extend those emotions which the sublime excites, to the brute creation. They suffer pain — they experience terror — they possess the faculty of memory, and philosophers have ascribed to them imagination and judgment. Why may not, then, the brute hearken with rapture to the thunder’s peal, or, in the deep of the forest, enjoy the grandeur of the storm? Man’s pride will not admit it. It savors of Immortality. But the brute knows not that peculiar reverence for what is grand, whether in nature, or in art, or in thought, or in action, which is the exclusive birthright of the lord of creation. There is an infinity in the mystery, the power, and grandeur, which concur in the sublime, the abstract nature of which is barely recognized, though not comprehended, by the human mind itself. Philosophers, it is true, have ascribed to brutes “devotion, or respect for superiors”, but, so to speak, this is a respect grounded on experience, it is practical or habitual, not the fruit of abstract reflection, nor does it amount to the recognition of any moral superiority. But to some it may appear, that this reverence for the grand, if I may so style it, is not an original principle of our nature, — that it originates in fear. I answer, if this is not, neither is fear. Nay more, the former is a principle more universal in its operation, more exalting and ennobling in its influence, and is, besides, so superior to, and at variance with fear, that we cannot for a moment derive it from the latter. The philosopher sees cause for wonder and astonishment in everything, in himself, and in all around him, he has only to reflect, that he may admire. Terror avoids reflection, though reflection alone can restore to calmness and equanimity. How regard, respect, reverence, can grow out of fear, is, I must HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

confess, incomprehensible. We reverence greatness, moral and intellectual, the giant intellect is no sooner recognized, than it demands our homage. Moral greatness calls for the admiration of the depraved even. The emotion excited by the sublime is the most unearthly and godlike we mortals experience. It depends for the peculiar strength with which it takes hold on and occupies the mind, upon a principle which lies at the foundation of that worship which we pay to the Creator himself. And is fear the foundation of that worship? is fear the ruling principle of our religion? Is it not, rather, the mother of superstition? Yes, that principle which prompts to pay an involuntary homage to the infinite, the incomprehensible, the sublime, forms the very basis of our religion. It is a principle implanted in us by our Maker, a part of our very selves, we cannot eradicate it, we cannot resist it; fear may be overcome, death may be despised, but the infinite, the sublime, seize upon the soul and disarm it. We may overlook them, or, rather, fall short of them, we may pass them by, but so sure as we meet them face to face, we yield.

April (?): Two months after the publication of Bronson Alcott’s CONVERSATIONS, Harriet Martineau’s book SOCIETY IN AMERICA appeared in America: “There is fear of vulgarity, fear of responsibility; and above all, fear of singularity.”

“There is a school in Boston (a large one, when I left the city,) conducted on this principle [the principle of Platonic idealism, that the spirit precedes the body rather than vice versa, that in general it is ideals or ideas that create their own manifestations in the realm of sense rather than vice versa]. The master presupposes his little pupils possessed of all truth in philosophy and morals, and that his business is to bring it out into expression, to help the outward life to conform to the inner light; and especially to learn of these enlightened babes, with all humility. Large exposures might be made of the mischief this gentleman is doing to his pupils by relaxing their bodies, pampering their imaginations, over-stimulating the consciences of some, and hardening those of others; and by his extraordinary management, offering them inducements to falsehood and HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

hypocrisy.”

Many years later Abba Alcott would comment succinctly on the above paragraph: “Thus Harriet Martineau took the bread from the mouths of my family.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY Harriet Martineau, reporting to her British readers about the state of America, complained of the moral cowardice of the conservative Unitarian leadership, with a handful of exceptions. The schism that divided Unitarians into a conservative institution versus a more radical opposition in the 1820s was epitomized in Emerson’s resignation from the ministry in 1832 and his famous dissatisfaction with the doctrine’s “corpse- cold” institutionalization. The Reverend Charles Follen, a German professor and political radical who arrived in Boston in 1825 and managed to impress both Boston’s conservative-Unitarian establishment and its breakaway intellectuals with his firsthand familiarity with the new ideas and practices in his native land, was also one of Martineau’s exceptions, as he was active in both in Unitarianism and in abolitionism. According to Edmund Spevack’s CHARLES FOLLEN’S SEARCH FOR NATIONALITY AND FREEDOM (Harvard UP, 1997, pages 138ff, 284-85 notes 63 and 65), he became America’s first Germanist, and apparently sat in on some early sessions of Hedge’s transcendental “club.” Here is the matter as expressed by Martineau in her Part IV, Chapter 3, “Administration of Religion.” ...On one side is the oppressor, struggling to keep his power for the sake of his gold; and with him the mercenary, the faithlessly timid, the ambitious, and the weak. On the other side are the friends of the slave; and with them those who, without possibility of recompense, are sacrificing their HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

reputations, their fortunes, their quiet, and risking their lives, for the principle of freedom. What are the Unitarian clergy doing amidst this war which admits of neither peace nor truce, but which must end the subjugation of the principle of freedom, or of oppression? I believe Mr. [Samuel] May had the honour of being the first Unitarian pastor who sided with the right. Whether he has sacrificed to his intrepidity one christian grace; whether he has lost one charm of his piety, gentleness, and charity, amidst the trials of insult which he has had to undergo, I dare appeal to his worst enemy. Instead of this, his devotion to a most difficult duty has called forth in him a force of character, a strength of reason, of which his best friends were before unaware. It filled me with awe for the weakness of men, in their noblest offices, to hear the insolent compassion with which some of his priestly brethren spoke of a man whom they have not light and courage enough to follow through the thickets and deserts of duty, and upon whom they therefore bestow their scornful pity from out of their shady bowers of complacency. —Dr. Follen came next: and there is nothing in his power that he has not done and sacrificed in identifying himself with the cause of emancipation. I heard him, in a perilous time, pray in church for the “miserable, degraded, insulted slave; in chains of iron, and chains of gold.” This is not the place in which to exhibit what his sacrifices have really been. —Dr. Channing’s later services are well known. I know of two more of the Unitarian clergy who have made an open and dangerous avowal of the right: and of one or two who have in private resisted wrong in the cause. But this is all. As a body they must, though disapproving slavery, be ranked as the enemies of the abolitionists. Some have pleaded to me that it is a distasteful subject. Some think it sufficient that they can see faults in individual abolitionists. Some say that their pulpits are the property of their people, who are not therefore to have their minds disturbed by what they hear thence. Some say that the question is no business of theirs. Some urge that they should be turned out of their pulpits before the next Sunday, if they touched upon Human Rights. Some think the subject not spiritual enough. The greater number excuse themselves on the ground of a doctrine which, I cannot but think, has grown out of the circumstances; that the duty of the clergy is to decide on how much truth the people can bear, and to administer it accordingly. —So, while society is going through the greatest of moral revolutions, casting out its most vicious anomaly, and bringing its Christianity into its politics and its social conduct, the clergy, even the Unitarian clergy, are some pitying and some ridiculing the apostles of the revolution; preaching spiritualism, learning, speculation; advocating third and fourth-rate objects of human exertion and amelioration, and leaving it to the laity to carry out the first and pressing moral reform of the age. They are blind to their noble mission of enlightening and guiding the moral sentiment of society in its HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

greatest crisis. They not only decline aiding the cause in weekdays by deed or pen, or spoken words; but they agree in private to avoid the subject of Human Rights in the pulpit till the crisis be past. No one asks them to harrow the feelings of their hearers by sermons on slavery: but they avoid offering those christian principles of faith and liberty with which slavery cannot co-exist.

May: Dr. William Andrus Alcott’s “School for Moral Culture,” Annals of Education VII: 233. Bronson Alcott’s plan of studies was used to show the extent of intellectual instruction in his school, but without commendation of the school as a whole. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May: Dr. William Andrus Alcott, in “Story Telling in Schools,” Annals of Education VII: 217-19, offered the teaching techniques of Bronson Alcott in illustration of the possibilities of storytelling as a natural and rational method of instructing the mind and heart. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May: Bronson Alcott visited the Emersons in Concord. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

The first locomotive for the Rochester & Tonawanda Railroad Company arrived by boat on the Erie Canal.

September: Dr. William Andrus Alcott’s “Moral Education and Instruction,” Annals of Education VII: 392-8. This article refers to the necessity for “moral” or rather sex education of parents and children, as opposed to the policy of “concealment.” Bronson Alcott’s CONVERSATIONS ON THE GOSPELS, apart from the religious opinions, are commended as attempts to cultivate the spiritual rather than the animal nature. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

September 6, Wednesday-September 16, Saturday: The Reverend Hersey B. Goodwin had died, Edward Jarvis had become a physician and left Concord, and Lemuel Shattuck had also left town, moving to Cambridge and becoming a Boston public official. The attempt made by these three educators to put the educational principles of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi into practice at the Town School was a thing of the past. The School Committee had fallen into the hands of the Reverend Barzillai Frost (chair), Nehemiah Ball (secretary), and Sherman Barrett, conservatives who seemed much more interested in their own local internecine political struggles than in the welfare of the students. Ball had a decided interest in the public school system of Concord because of his 7 children, 4 were at the time enrolled:

13 Caroline

11 Augusta

9 Angelina

8 Ephraim

(The 7th child, Nehemiah Ball, Jr. –the one who really could have benefitted from some disciplining– was at this point still in the Ball home, a rugrat.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

However, it is clear that this father and school board member didn’t have a clue as to how best to represent his interest. Perhaps he had paid too much attention to the Reverend Ripley’s sermon on the discipline of children. The cream of the college crop was being skimmed by the private Concord Academy, leaving in the public system the children of the poor, the dullards, and the discipline problems. Money for the school was being raised by a town tax, supplemented by small donations and by some state aid. The budget this year would be $2,132.55, of which the Centre District, the section of the system which occupied the brick building at the town center and three other more remotely located buildings, would receive $1,119.59. The head of the prudential committee of the Centre District was the owner of the local grocery store, Charles B. Davis, and it would be he who would hire as the new teacher replacing Eliezer J. Marsh a recent local college graduate, Henry Thoreau. Hiring a recent local graduate of Harvard College has been pretty much the tradition since 1700. Davis would agree to pay Thoreau $500 a year, which, although it would render him by far the highest paid of the more than sixteen teachers employed in the system, was $100 less than had been paid in the previous year to Marsh. After Thoreau resigned the school would close for three days and re-open under Thoreau’s classmate William Allen. Here is what happened as it would be reconstructed (or very likely, invented) by Ellery Channing in his THOREAU THE POET-NATURALIST effort of 1873: Another school experience was the town school in Concord, which he took after leaving college, announcing that he should not flog, but would talk morals as punishment instead. A fortnight sped glibly along, when a knowing deacon, one of the school committee, [Nehemiah Ball] walked in and told Mr. Thoreau that he must flog and use the ferule, or the school would spoil. So he did, ferruling six of his pupils after school, one of whom was the maid-servant in his own house [13-year-old Eliza Jane Durant]. But it did not suit well with his conscience, and he reported to the committee that he should no longer keep their school, as they interfered with his arrangements; and they could keep it.

So this is the context in which Thoreau “Kept town school a fortnight.”33 Upon having attained an enviable new status as College Graduate, in a society in which fewer than one in a thousand were college graduates as opposed to more than fifty in a thousand today, Thoreau had taken up a $500/year teaching position at Concord’s Central Grammar School. He was to supervise two male teachers making $100/year and two female teachers making $40/year as well as teach 100 boys in this public school of over 300 students a third of whom were absent on any given day. He was to be not merely teacher but chief teacher, that is, master of the school. Less than two weeks later he walked after his confrontation with Ball: when his teaching style of seeking out the enthusiasms of his students and building upon them was summarily disapproved by this trustee after a monitoring of Thoreau’s class, and he was evidently instructed that he would be expected to beat his students for discipline, he deliberately misconstrued the order and caned a number of the students at random, including the Thoreau’s own servant girl.34 One can imagine him saying to himself “If there must be innocent victims of this system in which vicious grown-ups have all the power, at least they will know that they are innocent, and victims.”35

Jonathan Messerli has commented, in exactly the only and solitary reference to Thoreau in his biography of

33. It is to be noted that this schoolhouse was not equipped with any sort of cowhide whip. The only disciplinary device in the building would have been the schoolmaster’s “ferule” or pointer. 34. Would this Ball family have been residing on a farm in the vicinity of Ball’s Hill (Gleason D9)? Would Nehemiah Ball be the father or the grandfather of Benjamin West Ball, whom Waldo Emerson evidently would take on as his neophyte after the “Pick- brained” Thoreau had been palmed off on his brother, Judge William Emerson, in Staten Island? 35. I wonder what was the relationship between Thoreau’s action here and Bronson Alcott’s theory of education, and how much this incident had to do with Alcott’s later becoming a leader in the Concord public school system. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Horace Mann, Sr., that

At the very time when Mann was poring over pedagogical writings in Boston, twenty miles to the west in Concord, the young Henry Thoreau, fresh from Harvard, was finding that conditions in his classroom made it impossible to try out his educational ideas. After a two-week trial, he gave up. Believing that “cowhide was a non-conductor,” he refused to whip his charges even though parents expected him to lay it on. Meanwhile at the other end of the state in a country school outside Pittsfield, Herman Melville stuck it out for the winter season, then left, thoroughly disgusted. Clearly, the few able persons who did teach often left the schools, impelled like pawns by an educational version of Gresham’s Law in which the good were replaced by the bad.

Now, there are a number of things wrong here and the first of them is that this is the only consideration given to any Thoreau in a treatment which to be barely adequate should have made repeated mention of the interactions between the Thoreau and the Mann families. I will mention a couple more of the things that are wrong here, and then let it pass. There were no “parents” involved in the Concord episode, which entirely consisted of Thoreau and his young charges versus the authorities, who were older, virtually elderly, men. Thoreau did not cease trying out his educational ideas but merely moved into a private venue where he would not be prevented from implementing these ideas. Most importantly, and directly contrary to what Messerli asserts, Thoreau did not refuse to whip his charges. What he refused to do was pretend that such whipping amounted to “punishment” or “correction” rather than amounting to precisely what it was, a customary torture of the helpless by those in authority over them. When ordered by a member of the school committee to effect this pretense, he instead lined up a number of his pupils, pupils who were not only innocent but also were not even so much as being accused of any wrongdoing –including the maid who worked in his own home– and lashed them all equally and indiscriminately. That his students did not understand why he did this to them, even after they had grown up, even after they had had years to think about it, can be understood and forgiven of them. That the school board did not comprehend why it was that he conducted this little demonstration of the minuscule yet relevant difference between torture and correction can be attributed to the obtuseness of the members of the school board. That a historian is incapable of understanding something like this, I am overcome, I will be forced to allow to pass without comment.

In regard to the failure of the American dream of progress through progressive education and reform, Messerli offers that “so dazzling was the prospect, that Mann and his countless co-workers could not conceive of the possibility that those who would follow in their footsteps might actually build a suffocating and sometimes mind-numbing establishmentarian bureaucracy.” My response to this is that Messerli is here giving Mann far HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

too much credit. He is here giving Mann credit for having implemented a situation which Mann merely helped to legitimate and perpetuate. Mann did not create conditions for the emergence of a new mind-numbing establishmentarian bureaucracy in public education, for that mind-numbing establishmentarian bureaucracy already existed long before our great Mann came along. What Horace Mann, Sr. did was merely provide this entrenched bureaucracy with a new lease on life by providing it with a new legitimating ideology of faith in the American dream and faith in progress through the reduction of ignorance. He was not an innovator but a running dog, not a creator but a pitchman. Why is something that is so obvious as this not obvious to our historians?

Are they victims of a Great Mann school of historicism?

“Chaos was the law of nature; Order was the dream of man.” — Henry Adams, THE EDUCATION OF HENRY ADAMS

[Later thoughts: One of the prime ways we can insolently sabotage inane instructions that we do not want to obey, is to carry them out quite literally, in a manner that demonstrates how inane we perceive them to be. For instance: if someone were told to clean up their room by emptying their trash can, and felt badly about the manner in which the instruction had been given, they might empty their trash can — onto the floor. That would be obeying the instruction as given, without achieving its intent. It’s called sending a message. That’s what Henry did. When told that he was expected to enforce discipline by applying the cowhide, what he did was apply the cowhide precisely in a manner that would destroy, rather than produce, discipline. Instead of punishing discriminately, by punishing specific wrongdoers for specific faults, he punished indiscriminately, irregardless of fault, entirely at random. It’s called sending a message. One thing that causes me to wonder is, that schoolteachers in his era actually had two instruments of punishment, the hickory ferrule and the cowhide lash. There was not one but two levels of punishment. The hickory ferrule was used by the schoolmaster to beat the palm of a student who was not learning quickly enough, or was not paying attention, or was tardy, or did not stack his firearm by the door of the classroom — something slight. The cowhide was used to lash the legs of a student guilty of a more major infraction, such as sassing his teacher, fighting, being obstreperous, threatening the teacher with his gun or his knife, etc. In the story we hear about Thoreau, we find ourselves concerned only with the cowhide lash, with no mention being made of the hickory ferrule. I’ve always wondered why there is, in this story, no mention of the schoolmaster’s ferrule, which he also used as a pointer. Might it be that Henry had no objection to the application of this ferrule, objecting only to the application of the whip? Or, is it possible, might it be that this story originated at a later point in time, after the people who were telling the story, and the people to whom this story was being told, had quite forgotten that way back in 1837 and 1838, when this incident was allegedly taking place, there had been two discrete instruments of corporal punishment in the public school classroom? Incidentally, it appears that this is a story that did in fact originate at a later point in time. It is not a story which we first have record of, being first told as of 1837 or 1838, contemporaneous with the supposed actual event, but a story which we first have record of, being recounted at a later date. Such stories are always to some degree suspect.]36

36. We may well note that it would not be until 1841 that Thoreau would consult THE LAWS OF MENU and there discover that it was allowed that “a wife, a son, a slave, a pupil, ... who have committed faults, may be beaten with ropes or split bamboo, but on the back part of the body only, never on noble parts.” We may well note also that in his selections from that ancient treatise, he would refrain from excerpting any such materials. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1838

Louisa May Alcott, about age 5, who had already while a toddler almost drowned in the Boston frogpond, wandered away from home and was found late in the evening by a town crier, huddled on a doorstep in Bedford Street. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Middle of May: The Transcendental Club met at the home of the Reverend Caleb Stetson in Medford, Massachusetts.

Present were the Reverends Frederic Henry Hedge, George Ripley, and Theodore Parker, John Sullivan Dwight, Bronson Alcott, Cyrus Bartol, and Jones Very. The topic for the evening was “The Question of Mysticism.”

Fall: The Alcotts moved to Number 6, Beach Street in Boston and gave up renting the basement of the Masonic Temple for their schoolroom. The few remaining pupils, which of course included the Alcott girls, would now be educated in their home. There were still nearly 20 students, but they were paying only $6.00 to $12.00 per quarter. The family income had dropped to less than $500.00 per year. Abba Alcott was pregnant for the seventh time, with the baby due in the summertime. Bronson Alcott began to supplement his income by giving evening “conversations,” often for less than $1.00 per evening. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Winter: Two months after the Alcott family had been forced to move to Boston’s South End, Abba Alcott, pregnant for the 6th time, had a 2d miscarriage. She was so near death that her doctor resided at the Alcott home for two weeks. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1839

Dr. William Andrus Alcott’s CONFESSIONS OF A SCHOOL MASTER. Andover, NY: Gould, Newman and Saxton, 316 pages (Illustrative of William’s early career as a teacher, and of general conditions as well.)

April 4: Drifting in a sultry day on the sluggish waters of the pond, I almost cease to live — and begin to be. A boat-man stretched on the deck of his craft, and dallying with the noon, would be as apt an emblem of eternity for me, as the serpent with his tail in his mouth. I am never so prone to lose my identity. I am dissolved in the haze. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

April 6, Saturday: Abba Alcott gave birth to a “fine boy, full grown, perfectly formed” who lived only a few minutes. The anniversary of April 6th would become, for the next two decades, a sad gray-tinged day with a “draught of bitterness to taste, yes to drink from death’s bitterest beaker.... Ah Me! My Boy!” Bronson Alcott always wanted a boy, and Abba always wanted to give him one, but it would never be. Senile old Joseph May asked to accompany Bronson to the May family vault in the Old Granary burying ground on that Sunday, because, as Bronson was laying down the body of the baby, Joseph desired to look at his wife’s remains. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Advertisement for the Concord Academy under Preceptor John Thoreau, Jr.:

April 7, Sunday: The little bundle, the “fine boy, fully grown, perfectly formed” who had lived only a few minutes, had been laid down in the crypt at the Old Granary burying grounds in Boston. Senile old Joseph May had gotten his peek at his wife’s remains. Back at his journal, Bronson Alcott wrote:

The tombs are dank with fetor; doubt sharpens the teeth of decay; corruption feeds his greedy gorge. Let me tread the sweet plots of Hope and breathe the incense of her flowering glories. There is no past in all her borders. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1840

Ephraim Merriam was again chosen representative for Concord to the General Court of Massachusetts.

In the 1840s, the population of Concord approximated 1,800 persons, not counting musquash. A young man named Ralph Waldo Emerson with a penchant not only for the obscure but also for the obvious took time from his expounding of his new doctrine of Transcendentalism to point out that

Without navigable waters, without mineral riches, without any considerable mill privileges, the natural increase of her population is drained by the constant emigration of her youth.

John Quincy Adams instanced that:

A young man named Ralph Waldo Emerson, a son of my once-loved friend William Emerson ... after failing in the avocations of a Unitarian preacher and school- master, starts a new doctrine of Transcendentalism, declares all the old revelations superannuated and worn out, and announces the approach of new revelations.

In this year the Alcott family moved to Concord in order to be able to live near this Emerson fellow. The national census was conducted in Concord, albeit not very accurately:

Concord People

Year Total 1765 1,569 1790 1,590 1800 1,678 1810 1,633 1820 1,788 1830 2,017 1840 1,784 1850 2,240 1860 2,246 1870 2,412 1875 2,676 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

According to Dr. Edward Jarvis’s TRADITIONS AND REMINISCENCES OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS 1779- 1878, page 203, Concord was in 1840 radically undercounted due to incompetence on the part of the man who had been placed in charge of that district: The National Census of 1840 gives only 1784 as the population of that year. This is a falling off of 233 from the numbers in 1830. But with the [obliterated] it necessitates an apparent increase of 456 or 26% in the population from 1840 to 1850. I was familiar with the town during all this period, from 1830 to 1850, and for years previous I neither saw nor did I hear of any evidence of any such decrease in the period, 1830 to 1840, nor of such increase in the succeeding ten years to 1850. There was no perceptible change in any business of the people, no suspension of any factory or manufacturing operations. There were no more houses left vacant in the springs of the first decennial period nor any noticeable increase of business or of dwellings, from 1840 to 1850, more than in any preceding decennial period. The population of the town had a very slow and gradual growth hardly perceptible in all of the first half of this century and no greater in the ten years from 1840 than before. The marshall who took the census in 1840 was not a man of accurate habits or of mental discipline. It was extremely probable that he omitted families and hence comes the apparent decrease. According to Dr. Jarvis’s TRADITIONS AND REMINISCENCES OF CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS 1779-1878, page 190:37 [T]he farm now owned and cultivated by Mr. Joseph Derby and Cyrus Jarvis was formerly owned by the late Col. John Buttrick [a fifer at the North Bridge on April 19, 1775] and inherited by him from his ancestors. They had occupied it through several generations. Col. Buttrick, [who was born, lived and died in the same house] sixty to [obliterated] years ago, kept horses, a yoke of oxen, and four or five cows and one or two hogs. He raised fifty bushels of corn yearly and a little more hay than his animals consumed. He and his three sons did all the work. He had a few apple trees on which he had as many russets as the family wanted, and cider apples enough to make the cider they drank. He sold some hay and corn, a few potatoes, and butter and cheese. This is all the farm seemed to require for cultivation and all it would do for the cultivator. My father, the late Deacon Francis Jarvis, bought it of heirs of Col. Buttrick in [the] winter of 1831-32 and took possession in March following. In 1840 my father died and left the farm to my brother Francis, who died in 1875 and left it to his children, Cyrus H. Jarvis and Mrs. Joseph Derby.

37. Cyrus H. Jarvis went to New Orleans, which at that time was the 4th-largest city in the United States of America, to work for his uncles Stephen and Nathan (brothers of Edward), who were in the drug trade. In 1847 he returned to Concord to work on the farm. Blinded in a rock-blasting accident, Cyrus would nevertheless learn to care for the cows, help with the haying, and weed the vegetable garden. He would die in 1880. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

James Pierrepont Greaves wrote to Bronson Alcott from England. Harriet Martineau had taken Miss Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s RECORD OF MR. ALCOTT’S SCHOOL38 back to London with her, and had been showing it around as an example of the bad things she had found in America, and Greaves had seen this book

RECORD OF A SCHOOL

and instead of being dismayed by it — was fascinated. In this era of hopelessly high postage rates, when people were writing on tissue paper and were over-writing their left-to-right lines with bottom-to-top lines in order to save on postage weight, the intercontinental letter which Greaves would post to Alcott would be all of 30 pages long. Greaves was translating the works of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi into English and had for a time been associated with Robert Dale Owen in the Infant School Society. He believed that the world was midway on a journey toward what he termed Love Spirit, and that this unfolding spirit could manifest itself in lives only through people’s being, never their mere doing.

Spirit alone can whole.

Note that these English love-enthusiasts, although it appeared they were on the same road as Alcott, were in actuality going in the opposite direction. For Alcott, the world was good and life in the world was to be appreciated as a gift. For these people, the world was evil, propagation was evil, and life itself was to be regarded as an insult and an injury. Nevertheless, Alcott House in England was doing well, and the people there, who had come to think of Bronson as “the Concord Plato,” were even suggesting to Alcott in Concord that he should come and be their Director. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Waldo Emerson’s “Thoughts on Modern Literature” in THE DIAL praised Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi

38. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. RECORD OF MR. ALCOTT’S SCHOOL, EXEMPLIFYING THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF MORAL CULTURE. Boston, New-York, Philadelphia: James Munroe and Company, 1835, 208 pages (2d edition 1836, Boston, New-York: Russell, Shattuck and Company, 198 pages; 3d edition 1874, Boston: Roberts Brothers) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

(see boldface) as a change agent:

The favorable side of this research and love of facts is the bold and systematic criticism, which has appeared in every department of literature. From Wolf’s attack upon the authenticity of the Homeric Poems, dates a new epoch in learning. Ancient history has been found to be not yet settled. It is to be subjected to common sense. It is to be cross examined. It is to be seen, whether its traditions will consist not with universal belief, but with universal experience. Niebuhr has sifted Roman history by the like methods. Heeren has made good essays towards ascertaining the necessary facts in the Grecian, Persian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Ethiopic, Carthaginian nations. English history has been analyzed by Turner, Hallam, Brodie, Lingard, Palgrave. Goethe has gone the circuit of human knowledge, as Lord Bacon did before him, writing True or False on every article. Bentham has attempted the same scrutiny in reference to Civil Law. Pestalozzi out of a deep love undertook the reform of education. The ambition of Coleridge in England embraced the whole problem of philosophy; to find, that is, a foundation in thought for everything that existed in fact. The German philosophers, Schelling, Kant, Fichte, have applied their analysis to nature and thought with an antique boldness. There can be no honest inquiry, which is not better than acquiescence. Inquiries, which once looked grave and vital no doubt, change their appearance very fast, and come to look frivolous beside the later queries to which they gave occasion.

March: The Alcott family moved out of Boston after the collapse of Bronson Alcott’s Temple School, and Louisa May Alcott was enrolled in the Concord Academy of the Thoreau brothers. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

arrow below):

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

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

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May 8, Friday: Waldo Emerson was making arrangements for the Transcendental Club, the “club of clubs,” to meet at his home on the succeeding Wednesday. He asked Margaret Fuller to let Mr. Ripley39 bring her, “& see me & inspire our reptile wits.” He informed her that he had invited other females, Mrs. Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley and Sarah Freeman Clarke, not to mention of course his Mrs., the lady of the house, Lydian Emerson, and in addition the Reverends Frederic Henry Hedge and Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott, and Henry Thoreau would be there.

On the previous day at 1PM while all had been at peace and most of the population had been at the dining table, a tornado had burst upon the city of Natchez, Mississippi. On this day the surviving citizens were looking around them at devastation. The local Courier would report that a Mrs. Alexander had been pulled “from the ruins of the Steamboat Hotel; she was found greatly injured, with two children in her arms, and they both dead!”

May 13, Wednesday: The Transcendental Club met at the Emerson home. Among the attenders were Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Bronson Alcott, the Reverend Cyrus Augustus Bartol, Robert Bartlett, Margaret Fuller, the Reverends Frederic Henry Hedge and Caleb Stetson, and Jones Very. They discussed the topic “The Inspiration of the Prophet and Bard, the Nature of Poetry, and the Causes of the Sterility of Poetic Inspiration in Our Age and Country.” (Strangely, with such a topic, Very did not seem to have anything insightful to offer. He was still issuing his declarative pronouncements but his sources for his inspiration did not seem to be helping him come up with interesting things to say.)

July 26, Sunday: Abby May Alcott was born to Abba Alcott, almost 41 years old. Bronson Alcott attempted to reconcile himself to the fact that he would not get a son:

Providence, it seems, decrees that we shall provide selectest ministries alone, and so sends us successive daughters of love to quicken the Sons of Light. We joyfully acquiesce in the divine behest and are content to rear women for the future world.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

39. George Ripley? Christopher Gore Ripley? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1841

Lecture40

DATE PLACE TOPIC

April 11, Wednesday, 1838, at 7PM Concord; Masonic Hall “Society” January 27, Wednesday, 1841, at 7PM Concord; Masonic Hall “Is It Ever Proper to Offer Forcible Resistance?” February 8, Wednesday, 1843, at 7:30PM Concord; Masonic Hall “The Life and Character of Sir Walter Raleigh”

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Having no speaker for its meeting of 13 January 1841, the Concord Lyceum passed the evening by debating the propriety of forcible resistance. The evening’s record, kept by secretary John C. Nourse, states: “The Curators having been unable to procure a lecturer, the following question was discussed. Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance? Rev B. Frost Hon S. Hoar in the affirmative; Mr. A. B. Alcott in the negative. On motion, voted that Mr. Alcott be admitted a member of the Lyceum without the payment of the usual fee. The question was postponed for farther consideration until some evening when we should be unprovided with a lecture; and the Lyceum adjourned” (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 155).

The following week, on 20 January, the Reverend John Russell of Chelmsford MA (later to become Henry Thoreau’s friend and an eminent botanist) lectured “On the Science of Geology in Its Economical and Topographical Characters” (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 155), but on 27 January 1841, apparently once again lacking a speaker, the debate over forcible resistance was resumed, with both Thoreau brothers arguing in the affirmative against Bronson Alcott’s negative. This was the seventh in a course of thirteen Lyceum meetings that season (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, pages 155-56). Secretary Nourse reported: “The Lyceum, having been called to order by the President [Timothy Prescott], proceeded to the discussion of the following question: Is it ever proper to offer forcible resistance? Mr. J. Thoreau Jr. and Mr D.H. Thoreau in the affirmative; Mr A.B. Alcott in the negative. On motion of Mr J. Thoreau Jr, Ordered, that this question lie over for farther discussion till some evening when the Lyceum is unprovided with a lecturer. Adjourned” (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 155). The next day, 28 January, Thoreau wrote in his journal, “Resistance is a very wholesome and delicious morsel at times” (JOURNAL 1, 1837-1844, ed. Elizabeth Hall Witherell et al. [1981], page 233). In the days following the debate he added several journal comments about resistance, often employing martial images. He remarked as well about the hurt feelings of friends and about dispensing with apologies — indications, presumably, that the debate with Alcott had touched nerves (JOURNAL 1, pages 233ff).

A week later, on 5 February, the continuing debate over forcible resistance ended, apparently without an audience vote to determine the question. On this occasion there was also a speaker, and a most appropriate one. The Reverend Adin Ballou was for many years the principal propagandist for — and may even have begun — the non-resistance movement in the United States. John Nourse reported on the evening’s activities: “The Lyceum was called to order by the President. On motion of Mr. [John?] Thoreau — Voted — that, after the lecture, the Lyceum discuss the question of Non-Resistance. A lecture was then delivered by Rev. Mr. Ballou of Mendon on Non-Resistance. This question was then discussed by Mr. Ballou, Mr. S. Hoar, Mr. Alcott, Mr. Jenkins & the President. The Lyceum adjourned, without taking the question” (THE MASSACHUSETTS LYCEUM DURING THE AMERICAN RENAISSANCE, page 155). The next day Thoreau wrote in his journal a comment on the daunting responsibility of rising to perform in public, a comment that, even if a response to Ballou’s lecture, perhaps suggests both the significance Thoreau attached to lecturing and the self-conscious trepidation he experienced upon mounting the lecture platform: “In a public performer, the simplest actions — which at other times are left to unconscious nature — as the ascending a few steps in front of an audience — acquire a fatal importance — and become arduous deeds” (JOURNAL 1, page 253). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1 00 February: Abba Alcott’s father died, and the Alcott family inherited an exact /7th of his estate, $2,100. plus a silver teapot. It seems that the Alcotts had been expecting Abba’s father to be less exact in his will, in light of their need which was greater than the need of his other heirs. No matter, for all this money was immediately claimed by the creditors of the School of Human Culture to whom Bronson Alcott still owed some $6,000.00, and went into an escrow account rather than being disbursed to them.

Family straits. This is the winter of my discontent.

The silver teapot was quickly disposed of, by sending it to Boston to be sold. The situation had gotten so bad that Abba was refusing to get into bed with Bronson. At one point, under this pressure, Bronson even made the announcement that he intended to chop wood for his neighbors. But, as Waldo Emerson noted,41

He had no vocation to labor. It depressed his spirits even to tears.

41. Reminds me somewhat of my own father Benjamin Bearl Smith, another supersalesman type who lived only to impress people and lived exclusively by impressing people. However, in the case of my father, he could not only not work, he also could not drive his polished new Buick past a person who was doing work –in particular any farmer in any field– and let slide the opportunity to sneer, make a face, curl his lip, and comment about the fools of the world who lived only to be taken advantage of by smart persons like himself. And I cannot suspect the Bronson Alcott of this record, who likewise lived only to impress people, and only by impressing people, of harboring any such attitude of contempt toward the people who found him impressing and were willing to attempt to help him and his family. I cannot suspect that he was as hard a case as my father. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

June: Friend John Greenleaf Whittier was on tour with an Englishman, Friend Joseph Sturge, who was going to the various meetings on the Atlantic seaboard to speak of his experiences in the freeing of the slaves of Jamaica.

When they reached the New England Yearly Meeting held at Newport, they were informed that they would not be allowed to use the Great Meetinghouse for any such antislavery discussion. The two young men were considered by this Quaker group to represent the practice of arriving at decisions “by majorities, frequently after excited discussions,” when what was needed was silence, compassion, unanimity, and a gradualist approach. Rather than whip up opposition to the evil white people of the South by lecturing among the good white people of the North, the Rhode Island Friends felt it would be better to appeal directly to the consciences of the good white people in the South who were most directly involved in this evil. “In order for his peaceful release, the hearts of those who now control him [the slave] must be touched and softened.” After such a HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

rebuff, Friend Whittier for several years would refuse to attend his yearly meeting.

Here are the reactions of Friend Joseph upon touring a slave trading emporium near Washington DC at some point during this month: In the afternoon I proceeded by a steam packet, with one of my friends, to Alexandria, about six miles distant, on the other side of the Potomac. A merchant, to whom I had an introduction, kindly accompanied us to a slave-trading establishment there, which is considered the principal one in the district. The proprietor was absent; but the person in charge, a stout, middle aged man, with a good-natured countenance, which little indicated his employment, readily consented to show us over the establishment. On passing behind the house, we looked through a grated iron door, into a square court or yard, with very high walls, in which were about fifty slaves. Some of the younger ones were dancing to a fiddle, an affecting proof, in their situation, of the degradation caused by slavery. There were, on the other hand, others who seemed a prey to silent dejection. Among these was a woman, who had run away from her master twelve years ago, and had married and lived ever since as a free person. She was at last discovered, taken and sold, along with her child, and would shortly be shipped to New Orleans, unless her husband could raise the means of her redemption, which we understood he was endeavouring to do. If he failed, they are lost to him for ever. Another melancholy looking woman was here with her nine children, the whole family having been sold away from their husband and father, to this slave-dealer, for two thousand two HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

hundred and fifty dollars. This unfeeling separation is but the beginning of their sorrows. They will, in all probability, be re-sold at New Orleans, scattered and divided, until not perhaps two of them are left together. The most able-bodied negro I saw, cost the slave-dealer six hundred and eighty-five dollars.

Our guide told us that they sometimes sent from this house from fifteen hundred to two thousand slaves to the south in a year, and that they occasionally had three hundred to four hundred at once in their possession. That the trade was not now so brisk, but that prices were rising. The return and profits of this traffic appear to be entirely regulated by the fluctuations in the value of the cotton. Women are worth one-third less than men. But one instance of complete escape ever occurred from these premises, though some of the slaves were occasionally trusted out into the fields. He showed us the substantial clothing, shoes, &c., with which the slaves were supplied when sent to the south; a practice, I fear, enforced more by the cupidity of the buyers, than the humanity of the seller. Our informant stated, in answer to enquiries, that by the general testimony of the slaves purchased, they were treated better by the planters than was the case ten years ago. He also admitted the evils of the system, and said, with apparent sincerity, he wished it was put an end to. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1842

January 27, Thursday: Wallie Emerson, Waldo Jr., died at 8:15PM of scarlet fever.

When one of the girls of the Alcott family came to the door to ask how little Wallie was doing, his father faced her there.

Child, he is dead. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

The next day Waldo Emerson entered in his journal:

Yesterday night at 15 minutes after eight my little Waldo ended his life.

On Sunday I carried him to see the new church & organ. & on Sunday we shall lay his sweet body in the ground. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

And thus from the pages of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN:

… It was late when she came back, and no one saw her creep upstairs and shut herself into her mother’s room. Half an hour after, Jo went to ‘Mother’s closet’ for something, and there found little Beth sitting on the medicine chest, looking very grave, with red eyes and a camphor bottle in her hand. “Christopher Columbus! What’s the matter?” cried Jo, as Beth put out her hand as if to warn her off, and asked quickly,— “You’ve had scarlet fever, haven’t you?” “Years ago, when Meg did. Why?”

WALLIE “Then I’ll tell you — oh, Jo, the baby’s dead!”

It had been just prior to this difficult month of January 1842 that Emerson had read his lecture “THE TRANSCENDENTALIST” at the Masonic Hall in Boston: “The Transcendentalist”

Mind is the only reality, of which men and all other natures are better or worse reflectors.

Approaching a lamentable 20th anniversary that would fall due on January 17, 1862, Waldo Emerson would reminisce about a bluebird box that had been put up on his barn by John Thoreau, Jr. [Eastern Bluebird Sialia sialis], and a Daguerreotype that had been made of his son who would so soon be deceased:

Long ago I wrote of “Gifts,” & neglected a capital example. John Thoreau Jr. one day put up a bluebird’s box on my barn fifteen years ago, it must be — and there it is still with every summer a melodious family in it, adorning the place, & singing his praises. There’s a gift for you which cost the giver no money, but nothing he could have bought would be so good. I think of another quite inestimable. John Thoreau, Junior, knew how much I should value a head of little Waldo, then five years old. He came to me, & offered to carry him to a daguerreotypist who was then in town, & he, Thoreau, would see it well done. He did it, & brought me the daguerre which I thankfully paid for. In a few months after, my boy died, and I have ever since had deeply to thank John Thoreau for that wise & gentle piece of friendship. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May 6, Friday: Frederick Douglass spoke in Southbridge, Massachusetts.

George G. Pratt was born to Lucy Jenkins Alley Pratt and the Reverend Enoch Pratt.

An attempt was made on the life of Lilburn W. Boggs, the man who had while governor of Missouri issued Executive Order 44 for the extermination of the Mormons. Fired upon through a window while reading the newspaper in his study, he sustained two large buckshot balls to the skull, one to the neck, and one to the throat (which he swallowed). Orrin Porter Rockwell, former Danite and later a member of the Council of Fifty, was suspected.

Having arranged for his brother Junius Alcott to stay at Dove Cottage with Abba Alcott and their daughters in his absence, Bronson Alcott left Concord at noon, bound for Boston Harbor to embark there for England aboard the Rosalind. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

August 2, Tuesday: Bronson Alcott wrote Abba Alcott that on a 3rd visit to Thomas Carlyle, they had quarrelled outright.

I shall not see him again.

Carlyle wrote Waldo Emerson about the encounter, describing Alcott’s “long, lean face and figure, with his gray worn temples and mild radiant eyes,” speaking of him as genial, innocent, simple-hearted, good, venerable, but declaring him a Don Quixote “bent on saving the world by a return to acorns and the golden age,”42 a man “whom nobody can even laugh at without loving” but nevertheless a “bottomless imbecile.”

He warned Emerson against allowing his public reputation in England to become entangled with that of such a person. Emerson, frightened for his reputation, wrote to Alcott in England, warning that while his English friends could trust his “theories” they could not trust his “statement of facts.” And Emerson ordered Alcott to show this letter to his English friends, and Alcott did this. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

42. Since Don Quijote was un hombre exageradamente grave y serio o puntilloso, this was a fine and accurate description of Concord’s own knight of the woebegone countenance. This is what John Brown looked like in 1842, as a failed businessman,

but the above description would also be a fine description, later, of a more mature John Brown: If Bronson Alcott could be said to have been a Quijote whose favorite reading was the New Testament, it could be said of Brown that he was a Quijote whose favorite reading was the Old. For Miguel de Cervantes put into the mouth of his antihero the following words:

These saints and knights were of the same profession as myself, which is the calling of arms. Only there is this difference between them and me, that they were saints, and fought with divine weapons, and I am a sinner and fight with human ones. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

October 21, Friday: Frederick Douglass lectured at Rome, New York.

Commodore Thomas Jones USN learned that in fact war has not broken out between Mexico and the United States of America, lowered his flag, and sailed out of the harbor of Monterrey, California. The United States of America would need to apologize to Mexico.

Bronson Alcott, Henry Gardiner Wright43, Charles Lane, and Lane’s son William Lane arrived at Dove Cottage in Concord, bringing with them from England many invaluably impressive volumes of metaphysical

43. This Henry Gardiner Wright was an English companion of Charles Lane. (The American ex-reverend, Henry C. Wright, was at this point on an extended tour of Europe.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

speculation.

…And speaking of sentiment brings us very naturally to the ‘Dovecote.’ That was the name of the little brown house which Mr. Brooke had prepared for Meg’s first home. Laurie had christened it, saying it was highly appropriate to the gentle lovers who ‘went on together like a pair of turtle- doves, with first a bill and then a coo.’ It was a tiny house, with a little garden behind and a lawn about as big as a pocket-handkerchief in the front. Here Meg meant to have a fountain, shrubbery, and a profusion of lovely flowers, though just at present the fountain was represented by a weather-beaten urn, very like a dilapidated slop-bowl, the shrubbery consisted of several young larches, who looked undecided whether to live or die, and the profusion of flowers was merely hinted by regiments of sticks to show where seeds were planted. But inside, it was altogether charming, and the happy bride saw no fault from garret to cellar. To be sure, the hall was so narrow it was fortunate that they had no piano, for one never could have been got in whole, the dining-room was so small that six people were a tight fit, and the kitchen stairs seemed built for the express purpose of precipitating both servants and china pell-mell into the coal-bin. But once get used to these slight blemishes and nothing could be more complete, for good sense and good taste had presided over the furnishing, and the result was highly satisfactory. There were no marble-topped tables, long mirrors, or lace curtains in the little parlor, but simple furniture, plenty of books, a fine picture or two, a stand of flowers in the bay-window, and, scattered all about, the pretty gifts which came from friendly hands and were the fairer for the loving messages they brought.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

October 21st 42 The atmosphere is so dry and transparent, and as it were inflammable at this season — that a candle in the grass shines white and dazzling, and purer and brighter the farther off it is. Its heat seems to have been extracted and only its harmless refulgent light left. It is a star dropt down. The ancients were more than poetically true when they called fire Vulcan’s flower. Light is somewhat almost moral– The most intense — as the fixed stars and our own sun — has an unquestionable preeminence among the elements. At a certain stage in the generation of all life, no doubt, light as well as heat is developed– It guides to the first rudiments of life. There is a vitality in heat and light {One-third page blank} I never tire of the beauty of certain epithets which the ages have slowly bestowed, as the — Hunters moon and the Harvest moon. There is something pleasing in the fact that the irregularity in the rising of these two moons, and their continuing to rise nearly at the same time for several nights should have been observed by the husbandman before it attracted the attention of Science. All great laws are really known to the necessities men, before they become the subject of study to the intellect. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

November 10, Thursday: Waldo Emerson sponsored an evening meeting in regard to Bronson Alcott’s scheme for an utopian community, “Fruitlands.” Nathaniel Hawthorne, Robert Bartlett, the Reverend George Ripley, and “all Brook Farm” came to hear Alcott and his English friends lay out their plans. Charles Lane began to form the impression that they should purchase a farm at some distance from Concord, in order to protect Alcott from the influence of Emerson.44

Reverend George Ripley of Brook Farm

ABSTINENCE: We are learning to hold our peace and to keep our hands from each other’s bodies.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

44. Waldo Emerson, finding himself being pestered by Bronson Alcott to be established and endowed and protected by being granted what amounted to a freebie estate, pleading for nothing less worthy of him “a farm of a hundred acres in excellent condition with good buildings, a good orchard, and grounds which admitted of being laid out with great beauty” to be “purchased and given them in the first place” and offering that since he already had a wife and kiddies to support he simply could not be expected to so provide for himself, finally commented to Alcott that he would feel strengthened and instructed by someone who “there where he is, unaided, in the midst of poverty, toil, and traffic, extricates himself from the corruptions of the same and builds on his land a house of peace and benefit, good customs and free thoughts.” When Alcott took exception to this on grounds of impossibility, Emerson gave him short shrift. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

THE SCARLET LETTER: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; BROOK FARM after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the WALDO EMERSON Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau ELLERY CHANNING about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that LONGFELLOW I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. BRONSON ALCOTT Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change.

Baron Joseph-Marie de Gérando died in Paris. Joseph-Marie de Gérando (1772-1842), blessé lors du siège de Lyon, condamné à mort, réussit à s’échapper en Suisse, puis en Italie. Rentré en France après l’amnistie du 4 brumaire an IV, il doit de nouveau s’exiler avec Camille Jordan après le coup d’Etat anti-royaliste du 18 fructidor. Il s’engage ensuite dans un régiment de chasseurs, et envoie à l’Institut un mémoire en réponse au sujet mis au concours par la classe des Sciences Morales et Politiques sur «l’influence des signes sur le langage». Il remporte le prix, et exempté de son service, est nommé secrétaire du Bureau consultatif des arts et du commerce. Introduit dans la société d’Auteuil par les juges du concours, il est nommé en 1804 secrétaire général du ministre de l’Intérieur de Champagny. Après une mission en Italie avec Napoléon, celui-ci le nomme en 1808 au Conseil d’Etat, poste dans lequel Louis XVIII le confirmera à la Restauration. De Gérando, auteur d’une «Histoire des systèmes philosophiques» a été sévèrement jugé plus tard par Sainte-Beuve: «Il y a des esprits essentiellement mous comme Degérando...: ils traversent des époques diverses en se modifiant avec facilité et même avec talent; mais ne demandez ni à leurs œuvres, ni à leurs souvenirs aucune originalité.... L’image n’est pas belle, mais ces sortes d’esprit ne sont pas seulement mous, ils sont filants comme du macaroni, et ont la faculté de s’allonger indéfiniment sans rompre». Mignet, dans sa Notice historique sur Gérando est comme HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

il faut s’y attendre bien plus élogieux: «Avec une méthode qu’il porta des études philosophiques dans les matières administratives, et une sagesse qui lui inspirait la bienveillance dans la justice, M. de Gérando, dressant des projets, rédigeant des rapports, instruisant les affaires à fond, les décidant bien, les expédiant vite, évitant de son mieux l’arbitraire, tempérant, autant qu’il était en lui, l’autorité, sut tout à la fois bien mériter de l’Etat et des particuliers, surtout des employés du gouvernement, au profit desquels il fonda les premières caisses de retraites pour les vieux employés qui ne pouvaient plus rendre à l’administration de services actifs. C’était un homme comme il en fallait sous l’Empire, où tout était à faire. Il donnait ses jours et quelquefois ses nuits au travail».

November 29, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau was written to from Boston by Orestes Augustus Brownson.

Trouble was brewing in the Alcott home. Abba Alcott was being pushed much too hard and rewarded much too little:

Circumstances most cruelly drive me from the enjoyment of my domestic life. I am prone to indulge in occasional hilarity, but I seem frowned down into stiff quiet and peace-less order. I am almost suffocated in this atmosphere of restriction and form.... A desire to stop short and rest, recognizing no care but myself seems to be my duty.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

November 30, Wednesday: William Cooper Nell presented resolutions at the Great Massachusetts Meeting of Colored Citizens of Boston in protest against the treatment of George Latimer. He and hairdresser John T. Hilton would raise funds for Latimer’s defense against the charge that he was 1/8th black and had run away from his owner.

From the bosom of the Alcott family, Charles Lane diagnosed the situation with Abba Alcott:

In all respects we are living or trying to live as we should in a larger community. Mrs. A. has passed from the ladylike to the industrious order but she has much inward experience to realize. her pride is not yet eradicated and her peculiar maternal love blinds her to all else....

Waldo Emerson lectured at the Concord Lyceum in Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1843

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

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

Benjamin Robert Haydon’s “Curtius Leaping into the Gulf” depiction of the self-sacrifice of Marcus Curtius,45 “Uriel and Satan,” and “Meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society” (now in the National Portrait Gallery).

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

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

January 1, Sunday: Bronson Alcott, who was at the time trying to get the Emersons to enlist in the Alcott family’s experiment in communal living with the two Brits Charles Lane and Henry Gardiner Wright –or at least to get Waldo Emerson to agree to become the financial angel for the experiment–46 remonstrated with his absent wife Abba Alcott:

I sincerely believe that you are in the arms of a benignant Providence, who shall do for yourself and us more than we can conceive or ask. Let him guide. Relinquish all self-willfullness. Be willing to be used as he shall direct. I am in the hands of a divine Destiny that shall make me be, and do, better and wiser than I can do for myself.

46. In his journal, Emerson referred to these Brits as “two cockerels.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

January 17, Tuesday: In Concord, Bronson Alcott was almost jailed47 by Sheriff Sam Staples for refusal to pay his

$1.50 poll tax but Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar paid it for him over his protest. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Said Sheriff Sam of Quixotic Alcott:

I vum, I believe it was nothing but principle, for I never heard a man talk honester.

Charles Lane immediately wrote this up for The Liberator as “State Slavery — Imprisonment of A. Bronson Alcott — Dawn of Liberty.”48

47. Perry asserts on page 87 that Bronson Alcott actually did get put in jail. His citation is to The Liberator of January 27, 1843, page 4 (Charles Lane’s article?), and should be checked out! (He does not allege how long Alcott was in the jail.) 48. Charles Lane would later make use of this incident as the basis for a string of articles on anarchism under the title “AVoluntary Political Government.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

May 20, Saturday: Bronson Alcott and Charles Lane hiked 14 miles to Harvard, Massachusetts to look at a farm consisting of 90 acres of orchard and woodland –the Wyman farm– attached to an old house and old barn which were at the end of no existing road but which were situated on Prospect Hill overlooking the Nashua valley across which could be seen Mount Monadnock and Mount Wachusett,

in the district then known politely as “Still River North” and impolitely as “Hog Street.” This farm which had a view but no fruit trees would do for Fruitlands (102 Prospect Hill Road, Harvard MA 01451 as marked by the red star at the left edge of the map below).

They made this journey despite the fact that a very suitable place was available in the vicinity of Concord – HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

the 16 acres of orchard known as the Hollowell Farm (Gleason 64/H5) above a large woodland across the

Sudbury River From Bear Garden Hill, to near which Abba Alcott and Junius Alcott had rowed the children in the Water Sprite for that birthday pic nic about a year earlier.

Why? –Because Charles Lane, disregarding Abba’s preferences, had vetoed the idea of being close to Concord and its ambient moral influences.

The asking price at Harvard was $2,700.00 but they bargained it down to $1,800.00 for the land alone, with the right to use the buildings for one year. Sam May agreed to act as trustee for the Consociate Family and signed a supplemental note for $300.00 to be paid in two installments of $150.00 within the year. The remaining $300.00 of the funds that Lane had brought from England would go to pay off Alcott’s creditors in Concord.

As planned, they renamed the Wyman farm on Hog Street “Fruitlands.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 23, Thursday: In Hancock County Circuit Court, Illinois, William Law, editor of the Nauvoo Expositor, filed a formal complaint charging that Joseph Smith, Jr. was living “in an open state of adultery” with his foster daughter Maria Lawrence, a teenaged orphan in the Smith household (Joseph had gotten married with Maria Lawrence, age 19, and her sister Sarah Lawrence, age 17, on May 11, 1843, and was serving as executor of their $8,000 estate). Joseph excommunicated William Law and had himself appointed as legal guardian over the Lawrence sisters.

A letter informed Abba Alcott that her father Colonel May’s estate had, after four years of negotiation, been settled, with the creditors of the Temple School agreeing to accept roughly 33 cents on the dollar, paying out about $2,000.00 and leaving net funds of about $4,000.00 that would be held in trust for her by her brother the Reverend Samuel Joseph May and her attorney cousin Samuel Eliot Sewall. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

Go East, 46-year-old black woman, go East: Isabella49 experienced a command to “go east” and testify, adopted the monicker Sojourner Truth, and departed New-York with but an hour’s notice, with two York shillings in her pocket, carrying her worldly belongings in a pillowcase, to move on foot through Long Island and Connecticut, testifying to whatever audiences she was able to attract. –It is the life of a wandering evangelist, is mine. In the course of attending Millerite meetings to testify, she would accommodate to a number of the apocalyptic tenets of that group.

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

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

The Consociate Family of Bronson Alcott was on its way from Concord to “Fruitlands” on Prospect Hill in Harvard, Massachusetts, in the district then known politely as “Still River North” and impolitely as “Hog Street,” with its prospect of Wachusett and Mount Monadnock and its prospect of “ideals without feet or

hands” (an apt phrase said to have been created by Waldo Emerson,50 who himself, if anyone ever metaphorically lacked them, metaphorically lacked feet and hands and other essential body parts), ideals such as “a family in harmony with the primitive instincts of man.” In her fictional account of the journey, Louisa May Alcott invented an additional child and placed it on her father’s knee, obviously where she would have wanted to be, and made it a “serene” child, what she never was but longed to be. The bust of Socrates actually rode between the father Bronson, who was holding the reins, and Charles Lane, on the wagon’s bench. There was no room in this wagon for William Lane or for Anna Alcott, who for all 14 miles of the journey had to

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

walk alongside it.

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

COMMUNITARIANISM Membership

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

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

Railroad service to Concord began. Preliminary earthmoving crews, and then crossties and rails crews, had reached Concord at the rate of 33 feet per day, filling in Walden Pond’s south-west arm to give it its present HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

shape. 1,000 Irishmen were earning $0.50 or $0.60 for bonebreaking 16-hour days of labor. Waldo Emerson was elated because he much preferred riding in the railroad coach to riding in the stage coach which offered a “ludicrous pathetic tragical picture” (his comment from April 15, 1834; I don’t know whether he meant that he felt that he presented a ludicrous pathetic tragical appearance while riding on the stage coach or that the view from the stage coach window presented him with a ludicrous pathetic tragical perspective). He found, however, that when a philosopher rides the railroad “Ideal Philosophy takes place at once” as “men & trees & barns whiz by you as fast as the leaves of a dictionary” and this helps in grasping the real impermanence of matter: “hitherto esteemed symbols of stability do absolutely dance by you” and we experience “the sensations of a swallow who skims by trees & bushes with about the same speed” (June 10, 1834). By this time, with the railroad actually in Concord, Emerson had decided that “Machinery & Transcendentalism agree well.”51

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

June 9, Friday: Henry Thoreau was written to from Cambridge by Charles Lane:

DEAR FRIEND, — The receipt of two acceptable numbers of the “Pathfinder” reminds me that I am not altogether forgotten by one who, if not in the busy world, is at least much nearer to it externally than I am. Bust indeed we all are, since our removal here; but so re- cluse is our position, that with the world at large we have heard that, after all our efforts during the spring had failed to place us in con- nection with the earth, and Mr. Alcott’s journey to Oriskany and 51. EMERSON’S JOURNALS AND MISCELLANEOUS NOTEBOOKS 4: 277, 4:296, 8:397. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Vermont had turned out a blank, — one afternoon in the latter part of May, Providence sent to us the legal owner of a slice of the planet in this township (Harvard), with whom we have been enabled to conclude for the concession of his rights. It is very remotely placed, nearly three miles beyond the village, without a road, surrounded by a beautiful green landscape of fields and woods, with the distance filled up by some of the loftiest mountains in the State. The views are, indeed, most poetic and inspiring. You have no doubt seen the neighborhood; but from these very fields, where you may at once be at home and out, there is enough to love and revel in for sympathetic souls like yours. On the estate are about fourteen acres of wood, part of it extremely pleasant, as a retreat, a very sylvan realization, which only wants a Thoreau’s mind to elevate it to classic beauty. I have some imagination that you are not so happy and so well housed in your present position as you would be here amongst us; although at present there is much hard manual labor, — so much that, as you perceive, my usual handwriting is very greatly suspend- ed. We have only two associates in addition to our own families; our house accommodations are poor and scanty; but the greatest want is of good female aid. Far too much labor devolves on Mrs. Alcott. If you should light on any such assistance, it would be charitable to give it a direction this way. We may, perhaps, be rather particular about the quality; but the conditions will pretty well determine the acceptability of the parties without a direct adjudication on our part. For though to me our mode of life is luxurious in the highest degree, yet generally it seems to be thought that the setting aside of all im- pure diet, dirty habits, idle thoughts, and selfish feelings, is a course of self-denial, scarcely to be encountered or even thought of in such an alluring world as this in which we dwell. Besides the busy occupations of each succeeding day, we form, in this ample theatre of hope, many forthcoming scenes. The nearer lit- tle copse is designed as the site of the cottages. Fountains can be made to descend from their granite sources on the hill-slope to every apartment if required. Gardens are to displace the warm grazing glades on the south, and numerous human beings, in- stead of cattle, shall here enjoy existence. The farther wood offers to the naturalist and the poet an exhaustless haunt; and a short cleaning of the brook would connect our boat with the Nashua. Such are the designs which Mr. Alcott and I have just sketched, as, resting from planting, we walked round this reserve. In your intercourse with the dwellers in the great city, have you alighted on Mr. Edward Palmer, who studies with Dr. Beach, the Herbalist? He will, I think, from his previous nature-love, and his affirmations HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

to Mr. Alcott, be animated on learning of this actual wooing and winning of Nature’s regards. We should be most happy to see him with us. Having become so far actual, from the real, we might fairly enter into the typical, if he could help us in any way to types of the true metal. We have not passed away from home, to see or hear of the world’s doings, but the report has reached us of Mr. W. H. Chan- ning’s fellowship with the Phalansterians, and of his eloquent speeches in their behalf. Their progress will be much aided by his accession. To both these worthy men be pleased to suggest our humanest sentiments. While they stand amongst men, it is well to find them acting out the truest possible at the moment. Just before we heard of this place, Mr. Alcott had projected a settle- ment at the Cliffs on the Concord River, cutting down wood and building a cottage; but so many more facilities were presented here that we quitted the old classic town for one which is to be not less renowned. As far as I could judge, our absence promised little pleasure to our old Concord friends; but at signs of progress I presume they rejoiced with, dear friend, Yours faithfully, “CHARLES LANE.”

June 14, Wednesday: Frederick Douglass, Charles Lenox Remond, and Cyrus M. Burleigh lectured at the Worcester County North Division Anti-Slavery Society meeting in Lunenburg, Massachusetts.

After Charles Lane paid Bronson Alcott’s Concord debts of about $300.00 the Alcotts and Lane moved to the Harvard farm. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

July: Waldo Emerson’s “Ethnical Scriptures … from the DESATIR,” his “Gifts,” his poem “To Rhea,” his review of Thomas Carlyle’s PAST AND PRESENT, and five other of his reviews, were presented in this issue of THE DIAL. PAST AND PRESENT

Also in these pages was to be found, however, a noteworthy landmark in feminism: Margaret Fuller’s “The 52 Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men; Woman versus Women,” which amounts to a first version of WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.

FEMINISM

THE DIAL, JULY 1843

In this essay Fuller insisted that as of 1843 the idea Man, however imperfectly realized, had been far more realized than the idea Woman, and that therefore the best way practically to aid the reformation of the sons of the age would be to improve the daughters of the age. While it is true that not all men have been given a fair chance, she pointed out, not one woman had been given a fair chance.

Fuller had seen, at the Allston Gallery in Boston in 1839, the statue of Orpheus that had been sculpted in Rome by Thomas Crawford. When the July issue of THE DIAL was read, it was notable that she had connected this

52. In 1844, when she republished this in expanded form as WOMAN IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, she explained that by “Man” in this title she had meant both human males and human females, intending to “lay no especial stress on the welfare of either” because “the development of the one cannot be effected without that of the other.” That is, she intended the same distinction, between “Man” and “Men,” that Neil Armstrong intended between “man” and “mankind” when he stepped on the surface of the moon and went “That’s a small step for [a] man, an giant leap for mankind.” Boy-type human beings and girl-type human beings were regarded by her not as opposites, nor as natural antagonists in the mode of the “man-hating” early years of the feminist movement, but as, in a luminous metaphor, “twins,” or “minds, partners in work and in life, sharing together on equal terms, public and private interests,” who “work together for a common purpose, and, in all these instances, with the same implement, the pen.” In other words, unlike certain later generation of feminists, Fuller was not sexist. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

with Bronson Alcott’s “Orphic Sayings,” from the first issue of the journal in 1840, as “lessons in reverence.”

Orpheus was a lawgiver by theocratic commission. He understood nature, and made all her forms move to his music. He told her secrets in the form of hymns, nature as seen in the mind of God. Then it is the prediction, that to learn and to do, all men must be lovers, and Orpheus was, in a high sense, a lover. His soul went forth towards all beings, yet could remain sternly faithful to a chosen type of excellence. Seeking what he loved, he feared not death nor hell, neither could any presence daunt his faith in the power of the celestial harmony that filled his soul.

Referring to the statue’s posture, of shading its eyes with its hand and staring forward, she penned a sonnet which began:

Each Orpheus must to the depths descend; For only thus the Poet can be wise.

and which concluded with the following couplet:

If he already sees what he must do, Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view.

August 1, Tuesday: Henry Thoreau wrote to John L. O’Sullivan from Staten Island as the August issue of his magazine was making its rounds: US MAG & DEM. REV.

Staten Island Aug. 1st Dear Sir, I have not got Mr. Etzlers book nor can I tell where it is to be found — the copy which I used in the spring was sent from England to Mr R W Emerson by Mr Alcott But you must not think too seriously of it– — I believe my extracts are rather too favorable, beside being improved by the liberties I have taken. I dont wonder that you find much to object to in the remarks I sent you If I remember them they content me perhaps as little as they do yourself yet for the general tenor of them I suppose I should not alter it. If I should find any notes on nature in my Journal which I think will suit you I will send them.– I am at present Reading Greek Poetry— Would a translation–(in the manner of Prometheus Bound in the Dial which you may have seen of some old drama– be suited to your Review–? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Please send the Mss. to Wall st as soon as convenient. I expect to remain in this vicinity for some time and shall be glad to meet you in New York– BRONSON ALCOTT JOHN ADOLPHUS ETZLER HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

A large assembly in Northampton welcomed the 10th anniversary of the emancipation of the slaves of the British West Indies. Would it have been this occasion that spurred a correspondent of Lewis Tappan’s Journal of Commerce to write criticizing the sort of “Wild, insane, brutal” white men who could see their way clear to escort white “refined ladies” to “meet and associate with the vulgar unionists of all colors that make up these Associations.” This correspondent noted that he himself had observed, at a community dining hall, “one of the accomplished and lovely daughters” of a member of the Association of Industry and Education, seated directly across the table from “a large male negro!!”

In New Bedford, Massachusetts, the first large-scale gala featuring a picnic and a parade seems to have taken place in this year, under the auspices of the Friends of Liberty.

Frederick Douglass completed his lecturing in Syracuse, New York and moved on toward Rochester. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Abraham Lincoln’s 1st child, Robert Todd Lincoln, was born. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

August 25, Friday-September 3, Sunday: Sometime between these two dates Waldo Emerson made the following comment in his journal, about Nathaniel Hawthorne and the Brook Farm experiment:

Hawthorne boasts that he lived at Brook Farm during its heroic age: then all were intimate and each knew well the other’s work: priest and cook conversed at night of the day’s work. Now they complain that they are separated and such intimacy cannot be; there are a hundred souls.

During this period Hawthorne was doing a certain amount of chumming around and kibitzing with Emerson at their Concord homes and in the surrounding woodlands:

THE SCARLET LETTER: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; BROOK FARM after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the WALDO EMERSON Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau ELLERY CHANNING about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that LONGFELLOW I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. BRONSON ALCOTT Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change.

Emerson placed an article in the September issue of the Democratic Review on “Mr. Channing’s Poems.” Henry Thoreau would comment on this article in his journal.

August 25, Friday: He who is not touched by the poetry of Channing — Very — Emerson and the best pieces of Bryant may be sure he has not drunk deep of the Pierian spring. Channing’s might very properly as has been suggested be called poetry for the poets — it is so fine a vein that it floats in the common air and is not perceived. It is a richer and deeper tone than Tennyson’s with its own melody — but the melody of the language will be sought in vain without the melody of the thought for a guide. We read marlowe as so much poetical pablum — it is food for poets it is water from the Castalian spring. some of the atmosphere of Parnassus raw and crude indeed and at times breezy but pure, / and bracing. Quarles has a sturdy fibre — a true poet though not polished — an austere and savage Eremite. He did stand cheek by jowl with nature and reality — and sturdily lived a man’s life — fighting the devil and his angels. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Spenser was not an actual poet. He is not sublime — or morally grand and inspired — but led a life of imagination above the vulgar. His are not words for a dying man to hear, but to be sung in a summer bower — sweet, and graceful, and full of hope. one should not read the whole of Marvell who wishes to enjoy a part He will be disappointed to find him so frivolous and mean — at times.

September 14, Thursday: Dr. Elisha Kent Kane became an Assistant Surgeon in the US Navy.

Henry Thoreau wrote to Waldo Emerson from Staten Island, recounting that although he had been reduced to attempting to sell magazine subscriptions door-to-door since “Literature comes to a poor market here, and even the little that I write is more than will sell,” John L. O’Sullivan had accepted his article “The Landlord” for publication in The United States Magazine and Democratic Review:

O’Sullivan is printing the Manuscript I sent him some time ago[,] having objec[ted] only to my want of sympathy with the [C]ommunities.—

Staten-Island Sep. 14th Dear Friend, Miss Fuller will tell you the news from these parts, so I will only devote these few moments to what she does not know as well. I was absent only one day and night from the Island, the family expecting me back immediately. I was to earn a certain sum before winter, and thought it worth the while to try various experiments. I carried the Agriculturist about the city, and up as far as Manhattanville, and called at the Croton Reservoir, where [indeed] they did not want any Agriculturists, but paid well enough in their way. Literature comes to a poor market here, and even the little that I write is more than will sell. I have tried the Dem. Review — The New Mirror & [Brother] Jonathan[.] The last two as well as the New-World, are overwhelmed with contributions[,] which

Page 2 cost nothing, and are worth no more. The Knickerbocker is too HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

poor, and only the Ladies Companion pays. O’Sullivan is printing the Manuscript I sent him some time ago[,] having objec[ted] only to my want of sympathy with the [C]ommunities. — I doubt if you have made more corrections in my manuscript than I should have done ere this, though they may be better, but I am glad that you have taken any pains with it. — I have not pre- pared any translations for the Dial, supposing there would be no room — though it is the only place for them. I have been seeing [men] during these days, and trying experiments upon trees; have inserted 3 or 4 hundred buds — Quite a Buddhist, one might say — Books I have access to through your brother and Mr Mackean — and have read a good deal — Quarle’s “Divine Poems” as well as Emblems are quite a discovery.

Page 3 I am sorry that Mrs[.] Emerson is so sick. Remember me to her and to your [M]other. I like to think of [your] living on the banks of the [M]ill- brook, in the midst of the garden with all its weeds, for what are botanical distinctions at this distance? Your friend Henry D. Thoreau

Page 4 Return address: H. D. Thoreau Sept. 1843 Address: R. Waldo Emerson Concord Mass. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Meanwhile, Isaac Hecker wrote to the Reverend Orestes Augustus Brownson:

Alcott and Lane have been here 5 days; they started for home yesterday morning. They occupied their time in visiting various individuals and holding conversations. They held three while they were here, one at Wm Channing’s place and there was present Channing, Margaret Fuller, Vethake, and Alcott, and Lane. How they took, I know not, for if they are the “newness” to a Boston transcendental audience what must they be to a New York one? They made our place their home while they were here.

BRONSON ALCOTT MARGARET FULLER Frederick Douglass, George Bradburn, and William A. White arrived in Pendleton, Indiana for a three-day series of lectures. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

September 28, Monday: Frederick Douglass lectured in Richmond, Indiana.

In a ceremony in Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph Smith, Jr. and his wife of many years Emma Hale Smith were the recipients of a 2d anointing, in which each was “anointed & ordained to the highest & holiest order of the priesthood.”

During the harvest time, before September 29th, although Bronson Alcott had recovered from his dysentery and fainting, he was still exhibiting mental symptoms of excitedness and restlessness. He and Charles Lane had left in the middle of the harvest work on yet another trip of visiting and lecturing and attempting to garner the new recruitments and the renewed funding that was essential if this “pyramid scheme” of a community was not to collapse. They had lectured in Providence, Rhode Island, and in New-York, and in New Haven and Waterbury in Connecticut, stopping off in Alcott’s old home town, Spindle Hill. When they came stopped off at Fruitlands, it was only to leave immediately for New Hampshire, and then for Concord, Massachusetts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

During this period Waldo Emerson recorded a visit in his journal:

Alcott came, the magnificent dreamer, brooding as ever on the renewal or reedification of the social fabric after ideal law, heedless that he had been uniformly rejected by every class to whom he has addressed himself and just as sanguine & vast as ever; the most cogent example of the drop too much which nature adds of each man’s peculiarity. To himself he seems the only realist, & whilst I & other men wish to deck the dulness of the months with here & there a fine action or hope, he would weave the whole a new texture of truth & beauty. Now he spoke of marriage & the fury that would assail him who should lay his hand on that institution, for reform: and spoke of the secret doctrines of Fourier. I replied, as usual — that, I thought no man could be trusted with it; the formation of new alliances is so delicious to the imagination, that St Paul & St John would be riotous; and that we cannot spare the coarsest muniment of virtue. Very pathetic it is to see this wandering emperor from year to year making his round of visits from house to house of such as do not exclude him, seeking a companion, tired of pupils.

At about this period Anne Page, Abba Alcott’s servant, was caught eating fish at a neighbor’s table, and then a chunk of cheese was discovered inside her trunk. For thus exploiting the lives of animals, she was terminated by the Consociate Family of Fruitlands. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

In his journal, Henry Thoreau mentioned “Thomas the Rhymer” out of THE COMPLETE WORKS OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, by Conner & Cooke in New-York in 1833.

Thursday, September 28. We have never conceived how many natural phenomena would be revealed to a simpler and more natural life. Rain, wind, sunshine, day and night, would be very different to experience if we were always true. We cannot deceive the ground under our feet. We never try. But we do not treat each other with the same sincerity. How much more wretched would the life of man be if there was the same formality and reserve between him and his intercourse with Nature that there is in human society! It is a strange world we live in, with this incessant dream of friendship and love; where is any? Genius cannot do without these; it pines and withers. I believe that the office of music is to remind us continually of the reality and necessity of the fine elements of love and friendship. One mood always forgets another, and till we have loved we have not imagined the heights of love. Love is an incessant inspiration. By the dews of love the arid desert of life is made as fragrant and blooming as a paradise. The world waits yet to see man act greatly and divinely upon man. What are social influences as yet? The poor human flower would hold up its drooping head at once, if this sun should shine on it. That is the dyspepsia with which all men ail. In purer, more intellectual moods we translate our gross experiences into fine moralities. Sometimes we would fain see events as merely material, — wooden, rigid, dead; but again we are reminded that we actually inform them with better life, by which they live; that they are the slaves and creatures of our conduct. When dull and HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

sensual, I believe they are corn-stalks good for cattle, — neither more nor less. The laws of Nature are science; but, in an enlightened moment, they are morality and modes of divine life. In a medium intellectual state they are aesthetics. What makes us think that time has lapsed is that we have relapsed. Strictly speaking, there can be no criticism of poetry other than a separating of that which is poetry from that which is not, — a detecting of falsehood. From the remotest antiquity we detect in the Literature of all nations, here and there, words of a loftier tone and purport than are required to transact the daily business of life. As Scott says, they float down the sea of time like the fragments of a parted wreck, — sounds which echo up among the stars rather than through the valleys of earth; and yet are heard plainly enough, to remind men of other spheres of life and activity. Perhaps I may say that I have never had a deeper and more memorable experience of life in its great serenity, than when listening to the trill of a tree sparrow among the huckleberry bushes after a shower. It is a communication to which a man must attend in solitude and silence, and may never be able to tell to his brother. The least sensual life is that experienced through pure senses. We sometimes hear, and the dignity of that sense is asserted.

Late in the year: Late in this year Bronson Alcott was helping his English friends Wright and Charles Lane look for a farm in the vicinity of Boston that they could purchase and equip as an experiment in their sort of pure life. Lane virtually ran the Alcott household in Concord and then at Fruitlands, and was so strict and so unreasonable that Wright left, and Abba Alcott had to get away from the scene by visiting friends in Boston over the pre-Christmas holiday season. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

November 5, Sunday: Becoming ill at dinner, Joseph Smith, Jr. accused his pregnant wife of many years Emma Hale Smith of slipping poison into his coffee (in the prayer circle, Brigham Young interpreted Emma’s silence as proof of her guilt; however, Joseph would so quickly recover that this had more probably been an attack of ulcers).

There was an insurrection on the island of Haiti. Blacks and mulattos killed six white men, women, and children in an effort to drive whites off the island.

When was it that Henry Thoreau commented that Mrs. Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley had “spent one whole season studying the lichens on a stick of wood they were about to put on the fire”? [JOURNAL 5:38] We should compare and contrast this with Waldo Emerson’s mean-spirited remark in a letter to Elizabeth Sherman Hoar in Liverpool on August 3,1859 while she was on the European grand tour, that “Henry T. occupies himself with the history of the river, measures it, weighs it, and strains it through a colander to all eternity.” It would have to be before November 5, 1843, because on that date Mrs. Ripley mentioned this stick in a letter HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

to the Reverend George F. Simmons:

You recollect that stick with the Graphia Hebraica so beautifully sketched upon it, that I laboured with my hand and you with my penknife to procure, alas, some vandal has given it to the flames. I have not met with another specimen before or since.

The primary intent of Emerson’s remark to Miss Hoar touring in Europe, I would suggest, was to remind her that for a personage of the stature of Emerson to “occupy himself” with such activities and concerns would be infra dig, and that therefore there was a class difference which needed to be pointed to, with he and the touring Miss Hoar on the near side of this class divide, as gentle folk, and with our good “Henry T.,” despite an education having been attempted upon him, decidedly beyond the pale as a mere crafts person without any really good money-earning craft. I find such a remark not humorous, nor in good humour, but quite offensively condescending and demeaning. Is this just me? I wonder what Elizabeth, knowing Henry as well as she knew Waldo, thought of this letter when she opened it in Europe. Presumably “Boys need to go after each other.” So the question I am raising here is, might Thoreau’s remark about Mrs. Ripley’s preoccupation with the Graphia Hebraica on the stick of firewood be likewise interpretable as not humorous, nor in good humour, but quite offensively condescending and demeaning? (Do I have a blind spot of affection for Thoreau which I quite lack for Emerson? –Well, probably I do.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

After having thought about this for some time, I am unable to construe Thoreau’s remark about spending one whole season studying the stick of firewood as condescending or demeaning. The one invidious thing that Thoreau might have been suggestion would have been “Look, it’s just a woman, what can you expect from a botanist that’s just a woman?” And I haven’t been able to grok sexism in the relationship between Thoreau and Mrs. Ripley.

There had been early snows, and all the recruits had deserted Fruitlands and its thin linen clothing and its vegetarian diet, leaving the Alcott family and the Charles Lanes to endure the harsh winter alone. It was shaping up to be the coldest winter of the decade. Between this day and Thursday the 8th, Waldo Emerson rather unsympathetically wrote in his journal:

The Reformers wrote very ill. They made it a rule not to bolt their flour & unfortunately neglected also to sift their thoughts.... Alcott & Lane want feet; they are always feeling of their shoulders to find if their wings are sprouting; but next best to wings are cowhide boots, which society is always advising them to put on. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

December: On a visit to Concord, Charles Lane was jailed by Sheriff Sam Staples for refusal to pay his $1.50 poll tax

but Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar paid for him.

Upon release, he went directly to the Waldo Emerson home to arrange to take over from the Reverend Samuel J. May, Jr. as financial agent for Fruitlands, and to complain about Abba Alcott’s destructive attitude, and to complain in general about defects which he had discovered to exist in the instinct of Maternity. (It seemed that the instinct which mothers exhibit toward their children was a selfish and particular one, that is to say, was an extension of self-regard rather than an altruism, and was therefore quite antagonistic to the unselfish and indiscriminant spirit of Universal Love! Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, it seemed to him, had been quite mistaken, for rather than mother love being any sort of solution for the general problem of selfishness — it figured, as near as Lane was able to decipher this, as a central part of that problem!) THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

December 10, Sunday: The Alcott family had some discussions in the absence of Charles Lane (“and we were glad” he was away, per Louisa May) which indicated that Bronson Alcott was on the verge of walking away from all this struggling for existence at Fruitlands, and evidently from his wife and kiddies as well.

A church building was consecrated in Georgia for the state’s Episcopal congregation, through the efforts of Bishop Stephen Elliott, Jr.53

53. This is not the Professor Stephen Elliott of South Carolina whose botany textbook Henry Thoreau consulted, but his son. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Christmas Eve: Charles Lane was back at Fruitlands with the Alcott family, and Bronson Alcott was in Boston taking part in a convention on “Association.”

We can tell from an entry that Joseph Kidder of Manchester, New Hampshire made in his diary that at this point an important transition was taking place in New England religiosity. The tactic of a negative injunction against any Christmas celebrations was changing into a positive requirement that one attend a special church service to celebrate the birth of Christ: It is a growing custom among several of the religious denominations in this country to celebrate the birth of the Saviour with appropriate religious observances. The practice I think highly commendable.... The Universalists of this place held a public meeting this evening.... The number of the persons present was uncommonly large.... The singing was remarkably good and the sermon ... was appropriate and interesting.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Waldo Emerson to his journal, same date:

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1844

January 1, Monday: For $14,000, the North American Phalanx purchased 673 acres in Monmouth, New Jersey from Hendrick Longstreet and Daniel Holmes. Settlement of its men would begin over 6 months, with women and children to follow during Spring 1845. COMMUNITARIANISM

Bronson Alcott returned to Fruitlands from a convention in Boston. Abba Alcott confided to her journal that she had “Concluded to go to Mr. Lovejoy’s,” a neighboring farm, to get away from all this struggling for existence. Her journal does not indicate whether this included her husband, although clearly it did not include the formidable Charles Lane. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

January 6, Thursday: Charles Lane and his son William Lane, very much aware that they would be unable to survive in the unheated Fruitlands farmhouse once it was “without furniture,” went across the river to sojourn at the Shaker community.

After January 7: Yesterday I skaited [skated] after a fox over the ice. It was like a slight trait of Scythia — to vary our modern town life. I am always cheered by the sight of any such phenomenon — any piece of wild nature. He sat on his haunches and 54barked at me like a young wolf. It made Me think of the bear and her cubs on the ice as related by Capt. Parry I think –especially when the perplexed brute would turn in its retreat and stretching its neck –bark anxiously at me. He carries methinks but a duller sunlight in his tawny hide. All brutes I should say have a genius for mystery –an oriental aptitude for symbols and the language of signs– The fox manifested an almost human suspicion of mystery– While I skalted [skated] directly after him he cantered at the top of his speed but when I paused and stood stock still though his fear was not abated some strange but inflexible law of his nature caused him to stop also and sit again on his haunches. While I still stood motionless he would go slowly a rod to one side then sit and bark then a rod to the other side and sit and bark again –but did not retreat –as if spell bound. When however I commenced the pursuit again he found himself released from his durance. Plainly the fox belongs to a different order of things than that which reigns in the village– Our courts though they offer a bounty on his hide –our pulpits though they draw many a moral from his proverbial cunning –are in few senses contemporary with his free forest life. Writing may be either the record of a deed or a deed. It is nobler when it is a deed though it is noble and rare when it is fine and clear memory impartial — distinct. Its productions are then works of art. And stand like monuments of history– To the poet as artist his words must be as the relation of his remotest and finest memory. And older and simpler antiquity– Contemporary with the moon and grasshoppers.

January 8, Saturday: At The Manse, “Nathaniel blasphemed superbly whenever he looked at the thermometer,” this being the coldest January in a century. After interminable talk and too little work, “the chickens had come home to roost” at Fruitlands. It was midwinter and there was nothing in the pantry, nothing in the root cellar. Charles Lane and his son William Lane had gone across the river to the Shaker community. After a period in which Bronson Alcott attempted to atone by starving himself to death, the Alcott family found temporary accommodations in nearby Still River (3 rooms in the Lovejoy home). 54.William Edward Parry. THREE VOYAGES FOR THE DISCOVERY OF A NORTHWEST PASSAGE. New York: Harper’s Family Library, 1841, II:49. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

January 10, Sunday: In this exceedingly cold and biting winter, an exceedingly cold and biting law went into effect in the District of Columbia. The burden of proof was shifted entirely onto the shoulders of any Negro taken under arrest, to demonstrate to the satisfaction of the white authorities that he had in fact been born free.

At Fruitlands, during this exceedingly cold and biting winter, after interminable talk and too little work, “the chickens had come home to roost.” It was still midwinter and already there was nothing whatever in the pantry, nothing whatever in the root cellar, nothing whatever in the woodshed. Bronson Alcott had been attempting to atone by starving himself to death, but, as Louisa May Alcott put his spiritual situation in her autobiographical TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS,

When all other sentiments had faded into dimness, all other hopes died utterly; when the bitterness of death was nearly over, when body was past any pang of hunger or thirst, and soul stood ready to depart, the love that outlives all else refused to die.

Abba Alcott wrote her brother, the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, that

having ate our last bit and burnt our last chip, we sent for Mr. Lovejoy to come and get us out — which he did.... All Mr. Lane’s efforts have been to disunite us. But Mr. Alcott’s conjugal and paternal instincts were too strong for him.

Bronson has destroyed his journal of the last months at Fruitlands. It appears he also went through his daughter Anna’s diary, ripping out numerous pages. Eight pages of Louisa’s diary of that period have turned up, behind a partition in one of the houses the Alcott family subsequently inhabited, so it is remotely possible that more pages may someday appear. Of course, we do have her TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS, but it would be nice to have something less thoroughly sanitized by afterthoughts. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Richard Wagner wrote Felix Mendelssohn about their new relationship. “If I have come a little closer to you, that is the nicest thing about my whole Berlin expedition.”

Waldo Emerson lectured at the lyceum in Salem, likely on “The New England Man.” He would receive $20.

Sunday, January 10, 1844. I believe that no law of mechanics, which is observed and obeyed from day to day, is better established in the experience of men than this, —that love never fails to be repaid in its own coin; that just as high as the waters rise in one vessel just so high they will rise in every other into which there is communication, either direct or under ground or from above the stars. Our love is, besides, some such independent fluid element in respect to HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

our vessels, which still obeys only its own, and not our laws, by any means, without regard to the narrow limits to which we would confine it. Nor is the least object too small for the greatest love to be bestowed upon.

January 11, Monday: The Alcott family was in temporary accommodations in three rooms of the Lovejoy home in the nearby village of Harvard MA. Their assets were $32.00 in cash and four daughters from age 4 to age 13. The assets of the Consociate Family at Fruitlands were assumed by Joseph Palmer “in consideration of seventeen hundred dollars” additional investment, and his assumption of a $300.00 mortgage still held by Godfrey Sparrow.

May 23, Thursday: In Hancock County Circuit Court, Illinois, William Law, editor of the Nauvoo Expositor, filed a formal complaint charging that Joseph Smith, Jr. was living “in an open state of adultery” with his foster daughter Maria Lawrence, a teenaged orphan in the Smith household (Joseph had gotten married with Maria Lawrence, age 19, and her sister Sarah Lawrence, age 17, on May 11, 1843, and was serving as executor of their $8,000 estate). Joseph excommunicated William Law and had himself appointed as legal guardian over the Lawrence sisters.

A letter informed Abba Alcott that her father Colonel May’s estate had, after four years of negotiation, been settled, with the creditors of the Temple School agreeing to accept roughly 33 cents on the dollar, paying out about $2,000.00 and leaving net funds of about $4,000.00 that would be held in trust for her by her brother the Reverend Samuel Joseph May and her attorney cousin Samuel Eliot Sewall. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

June 15, Saturday: At the Temperance Hall in Jersey, Friend Joseph John Gurney made a presentation opposing the ingestion of alcoholic beverages the gist of which would soon be printed up as an 8-page tract, WATER IS BEST.

THE TEMPERANCE MOVEMENT

Thomas Campbell died at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France. The body would be interred in Westminster Abbey. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Waldo Emerson and Isaac Hecker went to Harvard, Massachusetts for a weekend with the Alcott family in their three rooms in the Lovejoy home (Fruitlands was no more) and with Charles Lane, and to tour the Shaker community. Emerson commented in his journal:

A second visit to the Shakers with Mr Hecker. Their family worship was a painful spectacle. I could remember nothing but the Spedale dei Pazzi at Palermo; this shaking of their hands like the paws of dogs before them as they shuffled in this dunce- dance seemed the last deliration. If there was anything of heart & life in this it did not appear to me: and as Swedenborg said that the angels never look at the back of the head so I felt that I saw nothing else. My fellow men could hardly appear to less advantage before me than in this senseless jumping. The music seemed to me dragged down nearly to the same bottom. And when you come to talk with them on their topic, which they are very ready to do, you find such exaggeration of the virtue of celibacy, that you might think you had come into a hospital-ward of invalids afflicted with priapism. Yet the women were well dressed and appeared with dignity as honoured persons. And I judge the whole society to be cleanly & industrious but stupid people. And these poor countrymen with their nasty religion fancy themselves the Church of the world and are as arrogant as the poor negroes on the Gambia river. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Fall: After suggesting that the Alcott family build themselves a home on one of the tracts of land which he owned on Walden Pond, and after giving up on that idea as entirely impractical, Waldo Emerson, along with Abba Alcott’s brother the Reverend Samuel Joseph May, agreed to purchase the Horatio Cogswell place on

Lexington Road from the wheelwright of Concord, for $850.00, for the use of the Alcott family. The house and plot were to be held in the name of the May family in order that creditors of Bronson Alcott would not be able to attach it. Emerson agreed to the purchase of eight acres of the Concord meadow, across the road from this house, for an additional $500.00, so the Alcott family would be able to raise vegetables to feed themselves. The Alcotts would rename the place “Hillside” in honor of the grand estate of Benjamin Marston Watson, one of Alcott’s benefactors, in Plymouth MA, and would be living in this home for three years.

The basic house was one of those sound old structures built around a huge central chimney, with hand-hewn beams and wide floorboards.55 HILLSIDE THE WAYSIDE OLD HOUSES

55. This house had been erected in 1775 by one of the few families in Concord who had been rich enough to be able to afford slaves, but had fallen into considerable disrepair and may have been a real mess — a previous owner had been penning pigs in the ten-foot strip between house and road that passed for a front yard. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1845

The housesitting Nathaniel Hawthornes were obliged to leave the Manse when its owner, Samuel Ripley the son of Ezra Ripley, decided to move his family back to Concord — despite the fact that Hawthorne had a book in press about the house, MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE [Per Lawrence Buell’s THE ENVIRONMENTAL IMAGINATION, pages 323-4]: The emotional fact of the matter, if not the literal truth, is that from the very start of the transcendentalist movement Concord was poised to become a spot to which literary pilgrims might repair in the sense of having forsaken the profane metropolis for the sacred grove; the attraction of Thoreau’s haunts as a magnet for pilgrims was an intensification of a liminoid structure extant from the time Margaret Fuller started visiting the Emersons in the 1830s, long before Thoreau became famous. Thoreau, indeed, can be said to have realized the Emersonian vision and gone beyond it. The first canonical work outside the transcendentalist ranks that celebrated Concord as a place of notable bucolic philosophers and literati was the title essay of Hawthorne’s MOSSES FROM AN OLD MANSE (1845), which renders in a a droller and more ruminative way the epistolary lyricism expressed, especially by Sophia Hawthorne, during the Hawthornes’ honeymoon period in the house where Waldo Emerson composed NATURE. In “Mosses,” too, we see the start of the tradition of urbanite self-consciousness about entering this liminal world and falling under its spell. Hawthorne achieves a certain distance from it by poking fun at the mystics as well as at his own self-rustication during this interval of lotus-eating. In time, the Hawthornian formula of mythic pastoralism made more earthy [??] or plausible through a bemused detachment became the well-worn formula of popular journalistic reports of Concord visits.

When Nathaniel Hawthorne left Concord for Salem, he gave Ellery Channing the blue frock coat he had worn while at Brook Farm. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

(At that point Hawthorne had gone to law in an attempt to recover the investment of $1,500.00 he had made HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

upon joining this commune.)

AGENDA OF BROOK FARM: “In order more effectually to promote the great purposes of human culture; to establish the external relations of life on a basis of wisdom and purity; to apply the principles of justice and love to our social organization in accordance with the laws of Divine Providence; to substitute a system of brotherly coöperation for one of selfish competition; to secure to our children, and to those who may be entrusted to our care, the benefits of the highest, physical, intellectual, and moral education in the present state of human knowledge, the resources at our command will permit....”

AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM

Here is what he would have to say about this transition in his life, later, in THE SCARLET LETTER

THE SCARLET LETTER: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; BROOK FARM after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the WALDO EMERSON Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau ELLERY CHANNING about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that LONGFELLOW I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. BRONSON ALCOTT Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The following is from Hawthorne’s 1852 THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE and describes the situation at the communitarian experiment during this period:

The [“Blithedale”] Community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. One of our purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we called it, after Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in my remembrance) where the great and general family should have its abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or in the sheltered nook of some little valley, according as their taste might lean towards snugness or the picturesque. Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil, beneath our feet, had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded bride. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

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

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

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

Unfortunately, this new school would succeed in attracting only a few additional children, not enough to make it a going concern, and Bronson’s application to teach at the Concord elementary school would be rejected by the local school board on or prior to September 17, 1848 on account of his not attending a church, and his attempt to speak at the state convention of the Teachers Institute would be intercepted and forbidden by Horace Mann, Sr., the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education.56 It was during the period at “Hillside” that Louisa would be beginning to write in earnest. She had a room of her own. Her oeuvre was poems, plays, short stories, and journal, although unfortunately what remains for us of her detailed journal has been twice “edited,” first by herself and then by her sister Anna Alcott in conjunction with Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney, her first biographer.

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Early January: After suggesting that the Bronson Alcott / Abba Alcott family build a home on a tract of land which he owned on Walden Pond, and giving up that idea as impractical, Waldo Emerson and the Reverend Samuel Joseph May completed, early in January, their purchase in the name of the May family of the Cogswell place

on Lexington Road. This house would be renamed the Hillside in honor of Benjamin Marston Watson, one of Alcott’s benefactors, who had a much grander estate of that name in Plymouth MA, and would be for the use of the Alcott family. They paid $850.00.57 Emerson purchased eight acres of meadow across the road from this house for an additional $500.00 so the family could raise their own vegetables. The house and plot were registered in such manner that Alcott’s creditors would not be able to attach it. Bronson immediately added wings to the structure, and the family would live in this home for three years. Bronson would draw the sketch below after he had added wings. This is the home which the Alcotts would eventually be selling to the

57. The place was in considerable disrepair and may have been a real mess for a previous owner had kept pigs in the 10-foot strip between house and road that passed for a front yard — although the man from whom the house had been purchased, Horatio Cogswell, was a wheelwright by trade. However, the basic house was one of those sound old structures built around a huge central chimney, with hand-hewn beams and wide floorboards. (It had been erected in 1775 by one of the few families in Concord who had been rich enough to be able to afford slaves.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Hawthornes, who would rename it again, as “Wayside,” and add porches and a writerly tower:

THE WAYSIDE NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Association of Masters of the Boston Public Schools released their counter-counter-counterpublication to Horace Mann, Sr.’s counter-counterpublication, titled REJOINDER TO THE “REPLY” OF THE HON. HORACE MAN; SECRETARY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS BOARD OF EDUCATION, TO THE “REMARKS” OF THE ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON MASTERS, UPON HIS SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT, in more than 200 pages. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

March: Near the end of this month, having cut a deal with Waldo Emerson for the use of his woodlot property, Henry Thoreau carried an ax, probably Amos Bronson Alcott’s ax, about a mile and a half down the railroad bed,

through the Deep Cut and on up to where the Irish laborers had had their shanties, and began to clear a site at the Walden Pond lake-front access of the woodlot.

WALDEN: Near the end of March, 1845, I borrowed an axe and went down to the woods by Walden Pond, nearest to where I intended to build my house, and began to cut down some tall arrowy white pines, still in their youth, for timber. It is difficult to begin without borrowing, but perhaps it is the most generous course thus to permit your fellow-men to have an interest in your enterprise. The owner of the axe, as he released his hold on it, said that it was the apple of his eye; but I returned it sharper than I received it. It was a pleasant hillside where I worked, covered with pine woods, through which I looked out on the pond, and a small open field in the woods where pines and hickories were springing up. The ice in the pond was not yet dissolved, though there were some open spaces, and it was all dark colored and saturated with water. There were some slight flurries of snow during the days that I worked there; but for the most part when I came out on to the railroad, on my way home, its yellow sand heap stretched away gleaming in the hazy atmosphere, and the rails shone in the spring sun, and I heard the lark and pewee and other birds already come to commence another year with us. They were pleasant spring days, in which the winter of man’s discontent was thawing as well as the earth, and the life that had lain torpid began to stretch itself.

KING RICHARD III WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

HOUSE FRAMING THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

After considering merely sleeping in a railroad toolbox58 like Diogenes of Sinope in his barrel or a corpse in its “last and narrow house,” Thoreau bought the materials of a summer shanty from a railroad construction laborer, as the laborer’s family trudged off down the right-of-way toward Boston with their personal effects on their backs. (The Thoreau family had already bought one or two of these shanties from the railroad authorities, as materials for the shed behind their house that they used for the pencil business.)

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

At some point, presumably, although he does not speak of this, he portaged Red Rover, second of the three boats the brothers had built, down the Lincoln turnpike and along the cart path and down the steep slope to the Emersons’ cove on the pond. In July he would begin spending nights in the rough frame of his own home, 59 which must have been a great relief to his family. Beginning in the middle of that summer he would be living there, mostly, walking up the track to Concord for occasional meals with his family, and walking up the turnpike past the poorhouse farm to eat Lydia’s and Lidian’s Sunday dinners, for two years, two months, and two days with a few minor gaps (there was some problem in getting the shanty plastered and weather-tight

58. “... a large box by the railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the workmen [“laborers,” in WALDEN] locked up their tools at night…. I should not be in so bad a box as many a man is in now” (a phrase inserted into the manuscript in 1852). 59. If you’ve not yourself had experience with small town justice, and don’t know that when property loss occurs, further property loss is likely, don’t bother to challenge this inference. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

before the first blasts of winter, so he slept elsewhere for part of the first winter, and then he was of course spending that one night in jail, and making all sorts of canoeing, hiking, huckleberrying and hunting trips),

until September 1847 when Mrs. Lidian Emerson would request that he spend the winter with her, to help manage the house and take care of her children, and build a summerhouse in the Emerson back yard, while HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

“R.W.E.” was in England for a lecture tour:

During this period Waldo Emerson would be adding 41 more acres to his holdings on the pond, with the idea that he could hire Thoreau, Amos Bronson Alcott, or somebody to construct for him a tower on the other side HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

of the pond,

looking out to Monadnock & other New Hampshire Mountains … to go with book & pen when good hours come.

Why did Thoreau go to Walden Pond, beginning regular residency as of July the 4th? In WALDEN he plays cozy with us, speaking only of going there “to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles.”

WALDEN: Finding that my fellow-citizens were not likely to offer me any room in the court house, or any curacy or living any where else, but I must shift for myself, I turned my face more exclusively than ever to the woods, where I was better known. I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got. My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles; to be hindered from accomplishing which for want of a little common sense, a little enterprise and business talent, appeared not so sad as foolish. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

I propose very simply that we take him at his word in this regard. I am offering that this private business was private because it had to do with one of the most forbidden of the boundary transgressions, an “amalgamating” liaison with a person of another complexion that was utterly forbidden, unthinkable, in that society — because it was on culturally forbidden conditions of parity. Parity with Frederick Douglass. That, of course, is a thesis which will require the most careful documentation and the closest of reasoning:

Who Wrote Douglass’s ARRATIV N ? E

After March 11: … While there remains a fragment on which a man can stand –and dare not tell his name”– referring to the case of Frederick , to our disgrace we know not what to call him, unless Scotland will lend us one of her hero Douglasses out of history or fiction for a season –till we be trustworthy and hospitable enough to hear his proper name.– A fugitive slave, in one more sense than we — who has proved himself a possessor of a White intellect, and has won a colorless reputation among us — who we trust will prove himself as superior to temptation from the sympathies of freedom, as he has done to the degradation of slavery. When he communicated his purpose said Mr. Philips the other day to a New Bedford audience of writing his life and telling his name and the name of his master and the place he ran from– This murmur ran round the room, and was timidly whispered by the sons of the Pilgrims “he had better not” –and it was echoed under the shadow of Concord monument– “he had better not.” But he is going to England where this revelation will be safe. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 1, Tuesday: The Alcott family’s “Hillside” that eventually would become the Hawthorne family’s “The Wayside” had in January come to be owned by trustees for Mrs. Amos Bronson Alcott (until 1852). At this point the family moved in, and the house would provide a home for Mr. and Mrs. Alcott and their four daughters until, on November 17, 1848, they would relocate by train to a basement apartment on Dedham Street in the South End of Boston. OLD HOUSES

Bronson Alcott immediately proceeded to cut Horatio Cogswell’s wheelwright shop into two halves and tack these onto the main house as wings. He also combined several small rooms into a larger kitchen, built new stairs, cleaned out the well and installed a new pump, and constructed a shower stall apparatus in which buckets of water were raised overhead with pulleys and counterweights and dumped mechanically over the bather.

It rained and melted the remaining ice on Walden Pond, which had been dark-colored and saturated with water.

WALDEN: In 1845 Walden was first completely open on the 1st of April; in ’46, the 25th of March; in ’47, the 8th of April; in ’51, the 28th of March; in ’52, the 18th of April; in ’53, the 23rd of March; in ’54, about the 7th of April. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Early in the day it was very foggy, and as Henry Thoreau chopped young pines into studs for his shanty, using his borrowed axe, he heard a stray goose groping about over the pond and cackling as if lost, or like the spirit of the fog. (In the famous 1962 John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance advertisement illustration by Tom Covell, however, he is listening to the distant drumming of a Ruffed Grouse Bonasa umbellus in the forest.) TIMELINE OF WALDEN

Incidentally, in case one wonders why Thoreau was not utilizing the construction technique known as balloon framing in the construction of his shanty, Professor Walter Roy Harding has asserted that the reason was that actually balloon framing is used only for houses of more than one story. This is inaccurate, and one wonders who might have told Harding such a fabulation. Houses of one story, and split-levels, equally with houses of multiple stories, get conventionally framed and braced in the balloon manner.

Early May: Henry Thoreau hired a horse and pulled stumps in Waldo Emerson’s 11-acre plot, for firewood as well as to clear it, and then plowed 21/2 acres to plant in Phaseolus vulgaris var. humilis common small navy pea bush white beans.60 This clearing of the exhausted farmland beyond the Concord Alms House and Poor Farm, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

which had been timbered some time before and had lain fallow for some seventeen years partly restoring its fertility, was Thoreau’s deal with Emerson by which he would be allowed to build a cabin for his occupancy in Emerson’s woodlot where it touched on Walden Pond. Thoreau then bought the shanty of a departing family

of impoverished Irish immigrants, the James Collinses who were moving on at the completion of work on the railway, standing near the new tracks, for its materials, tore it apart, and hauled the recovered boards some rods

60. Brad Dean has calculated that to plant seven miles of rows, each row fifteen rods in length, spaced three feet apart, the dimensions of the beanfield would have been 247.5 by 447 feet or 110,632.5 square feet, and that this amounts to 2.534 acres or slightly over one hectare.

These are beans that ripen prior to harvest and are threshed dry from the pods. Only the ripe seeds reach market. Four main types are grown as follows: (1) the Pea or Navy which Henry was growing; (2) Medium type, which includes Pinto, Great Northern, Sutter, Pink Bayo, and Small Red or Mexican Red; (3) Kidney; and (4) Marrow. Seeds vary in size from about 1/3-inch long in Thoreau’s pea or navy bean to 3/4-inch in the Kidney. All these plants are of bush type. They are usually cut or pulled when most pods are ripe, and then vines and pods are allowed to dry before threshing. This is a bean thought to have originated in Central America from southern Mexico to Guatemala and Honduras. Evidence of the common bean has been found in two widely separated places. Large seeded common beans were found at Callejon de Hualylas in Peru, and small seeded common beans were found in the Tehuacan Valley in Mexico, with both finds carbon-dating as earlier than 5,000 BCE. This crop is associated with the maize and squash culture which predominated in pre-Columbian tropical America. In our post-Columbian era this bean has come to be grown in all areas of the world.

However, that’s only the literal bean, not the metaphorical or literary bean, and once upon a time in Europe, there had been a form of commercial counting in use very much like the abacus of the East, in which beans were used. In those days to “know how many beans make up five” was to be commercially numerate. –Sort of like today knowing how to count one’s change. It might be suggested therefore that Thoreau’s determination to know beans was a play upon this archaic usage in which not knowing one’s beans amounted to innumeracy, and in addition a play upon the common accusation “You don’t know beans about xxxxx!” It might also be suggested that this is scatological humor similar to Shakespeare’s — the following is from his “Comedy of Errors”: A man may break a word with you sir; and words are but wind; Ay, and break it in your face, so he break it not behind. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

along the hilltop and down to Walden Pond on a hand-cart of some sort, to dry in the sun:

A 19th-Century Irish shanty in the Merrimack Valley TIMELINE OF WALDEN THE BEANFIELD HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

WALDEN: At length, in the beginning of May, with the help of some PEOPLE OF of my acquaintances, rather to improve so good an occasion for WALDEN neighborliness than from any necessity, I set up the frame of my house. No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I. They are destined, I trust, to assist at the raising of loftier structures one day. I began to occupy my house on the 4th of July, as soon as it was boarded and roofed, for the boards were carefully feather-edged and lapped, so that it was perfectly impervious to rain; but before boarding I laid the foundation of a chimney at one end, bringing two cartloads of stones up the hill from the pond in my arms. I built the chimney after my hoeing in the fall, before a fire became necessary for warmth, doing my cooking in the mean while out of doors on the ground, early in the morning; which mode I still think is in some respects more convenient and agreeable than the usual one. When it stormed before my bread was baked, I fixed a few boards over the fire, and sat under them to watch my loaf, and passed some pleasant hours in that way. In those days, when my hands were much employed, I read but little, but the least scraps of paper which lay on the ground, my holder, or tablecloth, afforded me as much entertainment, in fact answered the same purpose as the Iliad.

BRONSON ALCOTT ELLERY CHANNING WALDO EMERSON EDMUND HOSMER EDMUND HOSMER, JR. JOHN HOSMER ANDREW HOSMER JAMES BURRILL CURTIS GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

The “acquaintances” who participated in this rustic “raising”61 ceremony on the Walden Pond shore were: • Bronson Alcott • Ellery Channing • Waldo Emerson • Edmund Hosmer • Hosmer’s three sons Edmund Hosmer, Jr., John Hosmer, and Andrew Hosmer HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

• the brothers George William Curtis and James Burrill Curtis

Emerson of course resided in the Coolidge mansion just on the other side of the poorhouse farm (Gleason F7) and was the owner of the woodlot in which this shanty was being erected, and would be the owner of that shanty, and the Curtis brothers, having come from Brook Farm to Ponkawtasset Hill (Gleason D7) a year earlier, and the Alcotts, having only recently returned to Concord from their Fruitlands near Harvard, Massachusetts to reside near the Edmund Hosmer home on a road leading toward Lincoln (Gleason G9/66), were of course quite conveniently situated to come over to the pond for this neighborly little ceremony. Index to the Text

Index to the Subtext

61.“No man was ever more honored in the character of his raisers than I.” I would maintain that WALDEN is chock-full of references to the gallows, references that nowadays we don’t “get” simply because we no longer live in the sort of culture, in which public execution is an unchallenged holiday convention. For instance, I would maintain that this particular paragraph, apparently so innocent, includes an implicit reference to being hanged. While the raisers of a house frame are the friends and neighbors who push with poles and pull with ropes as a frame is being lifted from its temporary horizontal position to its permanent vertical position, the raisers of a person may by extension be the outraged citizens who are pulling on the rope that elevates a criminal by the neck toward the extending horizontal branch of a tree. This is not the sort of gallows humor which would have gone unnoticed in the first half of the 19th Century, not in America it wouldn’t. This is an implicit reference to Thoreau’s Huguenot ancestors of honored memory, who rather than tugging together upon the indecent public end of that hanging rope, in la belle France, had sometimes found themselves tugging alone upon the noose at the decent end. But there is more on this topic at:

GALLOWS HUMOR HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

WALDEN: It was a singular experience that long acquaintance which I cultivated with beans, what with planting, and hoeing, and harvesting, and threshing, and picking over, and selling them, –the last was the hardest of all,– I might add eating, for I did taste. I was determined to know beans. When they were growing, I used to hoe from five o’clock in the morning till noon, and commonly spent the rest of the day about other affairs. Consider the intimate and curious acquaintance one makes with various kinds of weeds, –it will bear some iteration in the account, for there was no little iteration in the labor,– disturbing their delicate organizations so ruthlessly, and making such invidious distinctions with his hoe, levelling whole ranks of one species, and sedulously cultivating another. That’s Roman wormwood, –that’s pigweed, –that’s sorrel, –that’s piper-grass, –have at him, chop him up, turn his roots upward to the sun, don’t let him have a fibre in the shade, if you do he’ll turn himself t’other side up and be as green as a leek in two days. A long war, not with cranes, but with weeds, those Trojans who had sun and rain and dews on their side. Daily the beans saw me come to their rescue armed with a hoe, and thin the ranks of their enemies, filling up the trenches with weedy dead. Many a lusty crest-waving Hector, that towered a whole foot above his crowding comrades, fell before my weapon and rolled in the dust. Those summer days which some of my contemporaries devoted to the fine arts in Boston or Rome, and others to contemplation in India, and others to trade in London or New York, I thus, with the other farmers of New England, devoted to husbandry. Not that I wanted beans to eat, for I am by nature a Pythagorean, so as far as beans are concerned, whether they mean porridge or voting, and exchanged them for rice; but, perchance, as some must work in fields if only for the sake of tropes and expression, to serve a parable-maker one day. It was on the whole a rare amusement, which, continued too long, might have become a dissipation. Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all once, I hoed them unusually well as far as I went, and was paid for it in the end, “there being in truth,” as Evelyn says, “no compost or lætation whatsoever comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the spade.” “The earth,” he adds elsewhere, “especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.” Moreover, this being one of those “worn-out and exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath,” had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted “vital spirits” from the air. I harvested twelve bushels of beans. But to be more particular; for it is complained that Mr. Colman has reported chiefly the expensive experiments of gentlemen farmers; my outgoes were,– For a hoe, ...... $0 54 Ploughing, harrowing, and furrowing, ...7 50,Too much. 1 Beans for seed, ...... 3 12 /2 Potatoes “ ...... 1 33 Peas “ ...... 0 40 Turnip seed, ...... 0 06 White line for crow fence, ...... 0 02 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Horse cultivator and boy three hours, ...1 00 Horse and cart to get crop, ...... 0 75 ------1 In all, ...... $14 72 /2 My income was, (patrem familias vendacem, non emacem esse oportet,) from Nine bushels and twelve quarts of beans sold,$16 94 Five “ large potatoes, ...... 2 50 Nine “ small “ ...... 2 25 Grass, ...... 1 00 Stalks, ...... 0 75 ------In all, ...... $23 44 1 Leaving a pecuniary profit, as I have elsewhere said, of $8 71 /2. This is the result of my experience in raising beans. Plant the common small white bush bean about the first of June, in rows three feet by eighteen inches apart, being careful to select fresh round and unmixed seed. First look out for worms, and supply vacancies by planting anew. Then look out for woodchucks, if it is an exposed place, for they will nibble off the earliest tender leaves almost clean as they go; and again, when the young tendrils make their appearance, they have notice of it, and will shear them off with both buds and young pods, sitting erect like a squirrel. but above all harvest as early as possible, if you would escape frosts and have a fair and saleable crop; you may save much loss by this means. This further experience also I gained. I said to myself, I will not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such seeds, if the seed is not lost, as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like, and see if they will not grow in this soil, even with less toil and manurance, and sustain me, for surely it has not been exhausted for these crops. Alas! I said this to myself; but now another summer is gone, and another, and another, and I am obliged to say to you, Reader, that the seeds which I planted, if indeed they were the seeds of those virtues, were wormeaten or had lost their vitality, and so did not come up. Commonly men will only be brave as their fathers were brave, or timid. This generation is very sure to plant corn and beans each new year precisely as the Indians did centuries ago and taught the first settlers to do, as if there were a fate in it. I saw an old man the other day, to my astonishment, making the holes with a hoe for the seventieth time at least, and not for himself to lie down in! But why should not the New Englander try new adventures, and not lay so much stress on his grain, his potato and grass crop, and his orchards? –raise other crops than these? Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men? We should really be fed and cheered if when we met a man we were sure to see that some of the qualities which I have named, which we all prize more than those other productions, but which are for the most part broadcast and floating in the air, had taken root and grown in him. Here comes such a subtile and ineffable quality, for instance, as truth or justice, though the slightest amount or new variety of it, along the road. Our ambassadors should be instructed to send home such seeds as these, and Congress help to distribute them over all the land. We should never stand upon ceremony with sincerity. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness. We should not meet thus in haste. Most men I do not meet at all, for they seem not to have time; they are busy about their beans. We would not deal with a man thus plodding ever, leaning on a hoe or a spade as a staff between his work, not as a mushroom, but partially risen out of the earth, something more than erect, like swallows alighted and walking on the ground.– “And as he spake, his wings would now and then Spread, as he meant to fly, then close again,” so that we should suspect that we might be conversing with an angel. Bread may not always nourish us; but it always does us good, it even takes stiffness out of our joints, and makes us supple and buoyant, when we knew not what ailed us, to recognize any generosity in man or Nature, to share any unmixed and heroic joy. Ancient poetry and mythology suggest, at least, that husbandry was once a sacred art; but it is pursued with irreverent haste and heedlessness by us, our object being to have large farms and large crops merely. We have no festival, nor procession, nor ceremony, not excepting our Cattle-shows and so called Thanksgivings, by which the farmer expresses a sense of the sacredness of his calling, or is reminded of its sacred origin. It is the premium and the feast which tempt him. He sacrifices not to Ceres and the Terrestrial Jove, but to the infernal Plutus rather. By avarice and selfishness, and a grovelling habit, from which none of us is free, of regarding the soil as property, or the means of acquiring property chiefly, the landscape is deformed, husbandry is degraded with us, and the farmer leads the meanest of lives. He knows Nature but as a robber. Cato says that the profits of agriculture are particularly pious or just, (maximeque pius quæstus,) and according to Varro the old Romans “called the same earth Mother and Ceres, and thought that they who cultivated it led a pious and useful life, and that they alone were left of the race of King Saturn.” We are wont to forget that the sun looks on our cultivated fields and on the prairies and forests without distinction. They all reflect and absorb his rays alike, and the former make but a small part of the glorious picture which he beholds in his daily course. In his view the earth is all equally cultivated like a garden. Therefore we should receive the benefit of his light and heat with a corresponding trust and magnanimity. What though I value the seed of these beans, and harvest that in the fall of the year? This broad field which I have looked at so long looks not to me as the principal cultivator, but away from me to influences more genial to it, which water and make it green. These beans have results which are not harvested by me. Do they not grow for woodchucks partly? The ear of wheat, (in Latin spica,” obsoletely speca, from spe, hope,) should not be the only hope of the husbandman; its kernel or grain (granum, from gerendo, bearing,) is not all that it bears. How, then, can our harvest fail? Shall I not rejoice also at the abundance of the weeds whose seeds are the granary of the birds? It matters little comparatively whether the fields fill the farmer’s barns. The true husbandman will cease from anxiety, as the squirrels manifest no concern whether the woods will bear chestnuts this year or not, and finish his labor with every day, relinquishing all claim to the produce of his fields, and sacrificing in his mind not only his first but his last fruits also. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Summer: Charles Lane visited Hillside for several weeks in an attempt to restore the influence he had had over the

Alcott family at Fruitlands, but Abba Alcott had won and knew she had won and she was both intractable and

intransigent. If she had seen this first usage of the phrase “manifest destiny” in regard to our nation’s future, she might have applied it quite readily to that fact that the future was going to be a future of Abba and not Charles having influence over Bronson Alcott. Lane went away to visit with the Shakers muttering about how it was Bronson’s job in the family to keep the garden “free of weeds” and Abba’s job in the family to keep the house “clear of all intruders.” He left his son William Lane with the Shakers and went down to the socialist community of the North American Phalanx near Raritan, New Jersey, and then on to New-York, floating “on the placid bosom of the Stream of Love.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY MOTHER ANN LEE AND THE “SHAKERS” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

September 8, Monday: Giles Waldo’s letter from the Hawaiian Islands to his distant —in two senses— relative Waldo Emerson would obviously take months to reach Concord. This long letter is now in the Emerson papers at the Houghton Library, and has been quoted in part in Martin Doudna’s 1987 article “An Emersonian in the Sandwich Islands: The Career of Giles Waldo” (The Hawaiian Journal of History 21:46): This is certainly the spot to establish a colony of fruit-eaters & perhaps Mr. Alcott & Thoreau may be disposed to come here. If so, I should be happy to enter into negociation [sic] with this government to procure them land. HENRY THOREAU BRONSON ALCOTT

Fall: At some point during this period Henry Thoreau was written to by Waldo Emerson. Dear Sir, Mrs Brown wishes very much to see you at her house tomorrow (Saturday) Evening to meet Mr Alcott. If you have any leisure for the [u]seful arts, L.E. is very de sirous of your aid. Do not come at any risk of the Fine. R.W.E.

When Bronson Alcott learned from his brother Ambrose Alcott that their brother Junius Alcott was deranged, Charles Lane politely suggested that Alcott’s own troubles might be the result of a family insanity. (Franklin Benjamin Sanborn would later insist that though Alcott’s daughter Louisa had to contend against certain infirmities of temper, her father was free from these.)

In straited circumstances, the Hawthornes conceived a second child, probably unintentionally as the proud father did not inform his mother or sisters. Later, when Nathaniel Hawthorne would see in a letter from his wife to his mother that she had confessed her pregnancy, he was so irritated that he threw the letter down the stairs. In his notes he referred to this letter as “a most interesting communication.”

Richard E. Webb of Dublin printed 2,000 more copies of the NARRATIVE in late September (122 pages in this edition) and estimated that they would yield Frederick Douglass and his family some £180. In May last the present Narrative was published in Boston, U.S., and when I sailed for England in September, about 4,500 copies had been sold. The rapid sale may be accounted for by the fact HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

of my being a fugitive slave.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

(When Thoreau was going for walks in this autumn, did he see what Cindy Kassab saw?) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1846

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

— 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 PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May 3, Sunday: The Mexican army surrounded a fort in Texas.

Governor Colonel Hamelin Trelawney, who established “The Market” on the bridge in Jamestown, St. Helena, died in office.

Waldo Emerson and Bronson Alcott sauntered to Walden Pond and stood on the higher hill on the opposite side of the pond from Henry Thoreau’s shanty, at the site which Emerson had set aside for his writerly tower, their magisterial gaze thus encompassing not only that little home but also Mount Monadnock and Mount Wachusett.

Monte Video, Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq.

“HUCKLEBERRIES”: Botanists, on the look out for what they thought a respectable descent, have long been inclined to trace this family backward to Mount Ida. Tourneforte does not hesitate to give it the ancient name of Vine of Mount Ida. The common English Raspberry also is called Rubus Idaea or the Mount Ida bramble — from the old Greek name. The truth of it seems to be that blueberries and raspberries flourish best in cool and airy situations, on hills and mountains, and I can easily believe that something like these at least grows on Mount Ida. But Mount Monadnoc is as good as Mount Ida, and probably better for blueberries, though its name is said to mean Bad Rock. But the worst rocks are the best for poets’ uses. Let us then exchange that oriental uncertainty for this western certainty. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

At this point Giles Waldo, in the Hawaiian Islands, was negotiating with the King of the Sandwich Islands for a land grant to be awarded to Bronson Alcott, which –if such a deal had gone down– would have radically altered the context in which we now peruse Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN and its many sequels.

Sunday May 3d, 1856: I heard the whippoorwill last night for the first time. THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle’s books are not to be studied but ready with a swift satisfaction –rather– Their flavor & charm –their HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

gust is like the froth of wine which can only be tasted once & that hastily. On a review I never can find the pages I had read– The book has done its work when once I have reached the conclusion, and will never inspire me again. They are calculated to make one strong and lively impression –and entertain us for the while more entirely than any –but that is the last we shall know of them They have not that stereotyped success & accomplishment which we name classic– It is an easy and inexpensive entertainment –and we are not pained by the author’s straining & impoverishing himself to feed his readers. It is plain that the reviewers and politicians do not know how to dispose of him– They take it too easily & must try again a loftier pitch– They speak of him within the passing hour as if he too were one other ephemeral man of letters about town who lives under Mr. Somebody’s administration. Who will not vex the world after burial– But he does not depend on the favor of reviewers –nor the honesty of booksellers –nor on popularity– He has more to impart than to receive from his generation He is a strong & finished journeyman in his craft –& reminds us oftener of Samuel Johnsson than of any other. So few writers are respectable –ever get out of their apprenticeship– As the man said that as for composition it killed him he did’nt know which thought to put down first –that his hand writing was not a very good one –& then there was spelling to be attended to– So if our able stock writer can take care of his periods & spelling –and keep within the limits of a few proprieties –he forgets that there is still originality & wisdom to be attended to, and these would kill him. There is always a more impressive and simpler statement possible than consists with any victorious comparisons. We prize the good faith & valor of soberness & gravity when we are to have dealings with a man If this is his playful mood we desire so much the more to be admitted to his serious mood. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

July 23, Thursday or 24, Friday: Henry Thoreau provoked Sheriff Sam Staples, who was under contract as the

Concord tax farmer, into taking him illegally to the Middlesex County Prison62and spent the night there, for having for several years (up to perhaps 9), following the example of Bronson Alcott, refused to pay certain taxes as useful for the perpetuation of domestic slavery and foreign wars.63

“RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT”: It was formerly the custom in our village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour —for the horse was soon tackled— was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen. This is the whole history of “My Prisons.” I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax- bill that I refuse to pay it.

62. The usual penalty for failure to pay the Massachusetts poll tax was property seizure and auction upon failure to display a stamped tax receipt, and was most certainly never imprisonment, but young Thoreau possessed few auctionable items and probably did not use a bank account. 63. During the one year 1845, in Massachusetts, the “poll tax” had been being reckoned as if it were a state tax, although in all other years it had been and would be reckoned as a municipality or county tax. As a town tax, and as a county tax, of course, it could hardly be considered to be in support of slavecatching or of foreign wars, since neither the Massachusetts towns nor the Massachusetts counties engaged in either slavecatching or the raising of armies. Also, even in the one year 1845, while this tax was being considered as a state tax, under the law no part of this revenue was to be used for the catching of fugitive slaves, and no foreign war was going on at the moment (the march upon Mexico had not yet fairly begun). Thoreau, therefore, in declining to pay voluntarily this tax bill, actually was not refusing to acknowledge slavery, as alleged, or a war effort, as alleged, but was refusing to recognize any political organization whatever. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

(I find it fascinating that Thoreau did not ever, in reminiscing about his famous night in the lockup, make any easy reference to the snippet of poetry that was quite as familiar to him as it is to all of us, from Richard Lovelace’s “To Althea from Prison.” –Thoreau wasn’t going for a hole-in-one!)

Walter Harding has tracked down what may well be the origin of the often-told but utterly spurious story, that Waldo Emerson came to visit Thoreau in his prison cell and expressed concern: he found a “Bringing Up Father” cartoon strip in the newspaper, in which Paddy was in jail for drunkenness, and when Jiggs asks him how come he was in jail Paddy retorts “How come you’re not?” Alcott has reported that Emerson’s reaction to the news of this was to find Thoreau’s stand to have been “mean and skulking, and in bad taste.” Therefore, is this not the point at which we can profitably ask, was Thoreau merely running away from his social responsibilities, as has been so often alleged, when he went out to live at Walden Pond? Let’s attach the humorous title “DECAMPING TO WALDEN POND: A GENDER 64 ANALYSIS BY MARTHA SAXTON” to the following quotation:

It seems, from exaggerated nineteenth-century sex definitions, that Victorians were afraid men and women might not be able to distinguish gender. So women were trussed, corseted, and bustled into immobility while men posed in musclebound attitudes of emotionless strength. this suppression of tenderness, warmth, and most expressions of feelings produced the male equivalent of the vapors. Louisa [May Alcott]’s teacher and secret love, Henry David Thoreau, decamped to Walden Pond rather than confront social demands that he be conventionally “male.”

64. On page 226 of her LOUISA MAY: A MODERN BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Saxton accused Thoreau of “unrelenting misogyny” as her way of elaborating on Bronson Alcott’s remark of November 5, 1858 that Thoreau was “better poised and more nearly self-sufficient than other men.” This caused me to look back to her title page and inspect the date of publication and say to myself, “Yeah, this thing was published back in 1977, the bad old days when we thought we had to combat male sexism by nurturing prejudice against anyone with a penis.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Another member of the Thoreau family, we don’t know who, paid the tax for him, as the tax had previously been paid by Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar when Alcott had almost been jailed on January 17, 1843. Although Emerson was irritated no end by such unseemly conduct, on the part of an associate, as failure to pay one’s share of the general tax burden, to his credit he did continue to press for publication of Thoreau’s A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS manuscript. However, at that time Thoreau was still preparing additions to the second draft.65

65. Lawrence, Jerome (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994), THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL: A PLAY. NY: Hill and Wang, 1971, Spotlight Dramabook #1223, c1970, c1972 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

I should make reference here to a snide remark that Albert J. von Frank has included at page 202 of his 1 AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. The sentence is as follows, in its entirety: “Henry Thoreau expressed his own anti-politics a month later by spending a night in jail for tax evasion, an act that drew Emerson’s quick disapproval, thought the principles behind the act, as Thoreau explained in ‘Civil Disobedience,’ had more in common with Emerson’s own position than he then suspected.” Now here are the things that I suppose to be quite wrongheaded about von Frank’s assertion, which would seem on its face simply to be praising Thoreau against Emerson: •“anti-politics” Thoreau’s act was not an act of anti-politics but an act of politics. To privilege assent over dissent in such a manner constitutes an unconscionable expression of mere partisanship. •“tax evasion” Thoreau’s act was not the act of a tax evader. A tax evader is a cheater, who is trying through secrecy or deception to get away with something. Thoreau’s act was the deliberate public act of a man who would rather be imprisoned than assist in ongoing killing, and thus is in an entirely separate category from such cheating. To conflate two such separate categories, one of self-service and the other of self-abnegation, into a single category, in such manner, is, again, an unconscionable expression of prejudicial politics. •“had more in common” The implication here is that Emerson’s attitudes constitute the baseline for evaluation of Thoreau’s attitudes, so that Thoreau may be condescendingly praised for imitating Emerson whenever the two thinkers can be made to seem in agreement, while preserving the option of condemning him as a resistor or worse whenever these contemporaries seem at loggerheads. –But this is unconscionable.

Albert J. von Frank. AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. NY: G.K. Hall & Co. and Toronto: Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Emerson to his journal:

These rabble at Washington are really better than the snivelling opposition. They have a sort of genius of a bold & manly cast, though Satanic. They see, against the unanimous expression of the people, how much a little well directed effrontery can achieve, how much crime the people will bear, & they proceed from step to step & it seems they have calculated but too justly upon your Excellency, O Governor Briggs. Mr Webster told them how much the war cost, that was his protest, but voted the war, & sends his son to it. They calculated rightly on Mr Webster. My friend Mr Thoreau has gone to jail rather than pay his tax. On him they could not calculate. The abolitionists denounce the war & give much time to it, but they pay the tax. The State is a poor good beast who means the best: it means friendly. A poor cow who does well by you — do not grudge it its hay. It cannot eat bread as you can, let it have without grudge a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield you milk from its teat. You who are a man walking cleanly on two feet will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful of clover & welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat.

DANIEL WEBSTER We now understand that Sheriff Sam was considerably twisting the law under which he confined Thoreau for nonpayment of that $5 or $6 arrears of poll tax, and for his own convenience. For what the law of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts required him to do in regard to such a tax resistor, prior to debt imprisonment, was to attempt to seize and sell some of Thoreau’s assets, such as the books he had in storage in his parents’ boardinghouse in Concord. Sheriff Staples hadn’t been inclined to do this and at this point didn’t have time because he was leaving office — and the sad fact of the matter is that, since he was merely under contract as a “tax farmer,” had he vacated his position without collecting this money from the Thoreau family, Massachusetts would simply have deducted the sum from his final paycheck (bottom line, The Man always takes his cut). For here is that law, and it simply offers no support whatever for what Sheriff Staples did to put pressure on Thoreau: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Section 7. If any person shall refuse or neglect to pay his [poll] tax, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of his goods, excepting the good following, namely: • The tools or implements necessary for his trade or occupation; • beasts of the plow necessary for the cultivation of his improved lands; • military arms, utensils for house keeping necessary for upholding life, and bedding and apparel necessary for himself and family. Section 8. The collector shall keep the goods distrained, at the expense of the owner, for the space of four days, at the least, and shall, within seven days after the seizure, sell the same by public auction, for the payment of the tax and the charges of keeping and of the sale, having given notice of such sale, by posting up a notification thereof, in some public place in the town, forty eight hours at least before the sale. Section 11. If the collector cannot find sufficient goods, upon which it may be levied, he may take the body of such person and commit him to prison, there to remain, until he shall pay the tax and charges of commitment and imprisonment, or shall be discharged by order of law.

TIMELINE OF WALDEN

After July 24: In my short experience of human life I have found that the outward obstacles which stood in my way were not living men –but dead institutions It has been unspeakably grateful & refreshing to make my way through the crowd of this latest generation honest & dishonest virtuous & vicious as through the dewy grass –men are as innocent as the morning to the early riser –and unsuspicious pilgrim and many an early traveller which he met on his way v poetry –but the institutions as church –state –the school property &c are grim and ghostly phantoms like Moloch & Juggernaut because of the blind reverence paid to them. When I have indulged a poets dream of a terrestrial paradise I have not foreseen that any cossack or Chipeway –would disturb it –but some monster institution would swallow it– The only highway man I ever met was the state itself– When I have refused to pay the tax which it demanded for that protection I did not want itself has robbed me– When I have asserted the freedom it declared it has imprisoned me. I love mankind I hate the institutions of their forefathers– What are the sermons of the church but the Dudleian lectures –against long extinct perhaps always imaginary evils, which he dead generations have willed and so the bell still tolls to call us to the funeral service which a generation can rightly demand but once. It is singular that not the Devil himself –has been in my way but these cobwebs –which tradition says were originally spun to obstruct the fiend. If I will not fight –if I will not pray –if I will not be taxed –if I will not bury the unsettled prairie –my neighbor will still tolerate me nd sometimes even sustains me –but not the state. And should our piety derive its origin still from that exploit of pius Aenaeus who bore his father Anchises on his shoulders from the ruins of Troy Not thieves & highwaymen but Constables & judges –not sinners but priests –not the ignorant but pedants & pedagogues –not foreign foes but standing armies –not pirates but men of war. Not free malevolence –but organized benevolence. For instance the jailer or constable as a mere man and neighbor –with life in him intended for this particular 3 score years & ten –may be a right worthy man with a thought in the brain of him –but as the officer & tool of the state he has no more understanding or heart than his prison key or his staff– This is what is saddest that men HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

should voluntarily assume the character & office of brute nature.– Certainly there are modes enough by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion & neighbor. There are stones enough in the path of the traveller with out a man’s adding his own body to the number. There probably never were worse crimes committed since time began than in the present Mexican war –to take a single instance– And yet I have not yet learned the name or residence and probably never should of the reckless vilain who should father them– all concerned –from the political contriver to the latest recruit possess an average share of virtue & of vice the vilainy is in the readiness with which men, doing outrage to their proper natures –lend themselves to perform the office of inferior & brutal ones. The stern command is –move or ye shall be moved –be the master of your own action –or you shall unawares become the tool of the meanest slave. Any can command him who doth not command himself. Let men be men & stones be stones and we shall see if majorities do rule. Countless reforms are called for because society is not animated or instinct enough with life, but like snakes I have seen in early spring –with alternate portions torpid & flexible –so that they could wriggle neither way. All men more or less are buried partially in the grave of custom, and of some we see only a few hairs upon the crown above ground. Better are the physically dead for they more lively rot. Those who have stolen estate to be defended slaves to be kept in service –who would pause with the last inspiration & perpetuate it –require the aid of institutions –the stereotyped and petrified will of the past But they who are something to defend –who are not to be enslaved themselves – –who are up with their time – ask no such hinderance THOMAS CARLYLE Carlyle’s is not the most lasting words nor the loftiest wisdom –but for his genius it was reserved at last to furnish expression for the thoughts that were throbbing in a million breasts– It has plucked the ripest fruit in the public garden– But this fruit now least concerned the tree that bore it –which was rather perfecting the bud at the foot of the leaf stalk. Carlyle is wonderfully true to the impressions on his own mind, but not to the simple facts themselves. He portrays the former so freshly and vividly –that his words reawaken and appeal to our whole Experience But when reinforced by this terrible critic we return to his page his words are found not to be coincident with the thing and inadequate and there is no host worthy to entertain the guest he has invited. On this remote shore we adventurously landed unknown to any of the human inhabitants to this day – But we still remember well the gnarled and hospitable oaks, which were not strangers to us, the lone horse in his pasture and the patient ruminating herd whose path to the river so judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulty of the ascent we followed and disturbed their repose in the shade. And the cool free aspect of the wild apple trees, generously proffering their fruit to the wayfarers though still green and crude. The hard round glossy fruit which if not ripe –still is not poison but New English –brought hither its ancestor by our ancestors once. And up the rocky channel of a brook we scrambled which had long served nature for the sluice in these parts leaping from rock –through tangled woods at the bottom of a ravine, darker and darker it grew and more hoarse, the murmur of the stream –until we reached the ruins of a mill where now the ivy grew and the trout glanced through the raceway and the flume. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

And the dreams and speculations of some early settler was our theme

But now “no war nor battle’s sound” Invades this peaceful battle ground but waves of Concord murmuring by With sweetly fluent harmony. But since we sailed, some things have failed And many a dream gone down the stream Here then a venerable shepherd dwellt ...... The Reverend Ezra Ripley Who to his flock his substance dealt And ruled them with a vigorous crook By precept of the sacred Book. But he the pierless bridge passed o’er And now the solitary shore Knoweth his trembling steps no more. Anon a youthful pastor came ...... Nathaniel Hawthorne Whose crook was not unknown to fame His lambs he viewed with gentle glance Dispersed o’er a wide expanse, And fed with “mosses from the Manse” We view the rocky shore where late With soothed and patient ear we sat Under our Hawthorne in the dale And listened to his Twice told Tale. It comes on murmuring to itself by the base of stately and retired mountains –through dark primitive woods – whose juices it receives and where the bear still drinks it– Where the cabins of settlers are still fresh and far between, and there are few that cross its stream. Enjoying still its cascades unknown to fame perhaps unseen as yet by man –alone by itself –by the long ranges of the mountains of Sandwich and of Squam with sometimes MT. KEARSARGE the peak of Moose hillock the Haystack & Kearsarge reflected in its waters. Where the maple and the raspberry that lover of the mountains flourish amid temperate dews. Flowing as long and mysterious and untranslateable as its name Pemigewasset. By many a pastured Pielion and Ossa where unnamed muses haunt, and receiving the tribute of many an untasted Helicon Not all these hills does it lave but I have experienced that to see the sun set behind them avails as much as to have travelled to them. From where the old Man of the Mountain overlooks one of its head waters –in the Franconia Notch, taking the basin and the Flume in its way –washing the sites of future villages –not impatient. For every mountain stream is more than Helicon, tended by oreads dryads Naiads, and such a pure and fresh inspirit draught gift of the gods as it will take a newer than this New England to know the flavor of.

Such water do the gods distill And pour down hill For their new England men. A draught of this wild water bring And I will never taste the spring Of Helicon again. But yesterday in dew it fell This morn its streams began to swell And with the sun it downward flowed So fresh it hardly knew its road. Falling all the way, not discouraged by the lowest fall –for it intends to rise again. There are earth air fire & water –very well, this is water. down it comes that is the way with it. It was already water of Squam and Newfound lake and Winnipiseogee, and White mountain snow dissolved on which we were floating –and Smith’s and Bakers and Mad rivers and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag –and Suncook & Soucook & Contoocook –mingled in incalculable proportions –still fluid yellowish restless all with an inclination seaward but boyant. Here then we will leave them to saw and grind and spin for a season, and I fear there will be no vacation at low water for they are said to have Squam and Newfound lake and Winipiseogee for their mill ponds. By the law of its birth never to become stagnant for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of precipices worn in the flood through beaver dams broke loose not splitting but splicing and mending itself until it found a breatheing plaace in this lowland– No danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

before it reach the sea for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with every eve We wandered on by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains –& through notches which the stream had made –looking down one sunday morning over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabitants –like crusaders strolled out from the camp in Palestine–66 And looking in to learning’s little tenement by the way –where some literate swain earns his ten dollars by the month –after the harvest –with rows of slates and well cut benches round –as well cut as farther south –not noticing the herd of swine which had poured in at the open door, and made a congregation– So we went on over hill and dale through the stumpy rocky –woody –bepastured country –until we crossed a rude wooden bridge over the Amonnoosuck and breathed the free air of the Unappropriated Land. Now we were in a country where inns begin– And we too now began to have our ins and outs– Some sweet retired house whose sign only availed to creak but bore no Phoenix nor golden eagle but such as the sun and rain had painted there – –a demi public demi private house –where each apartment seems too private for your use –too public for your hosts. One I remember where Landlord and lady hung painted as if retired from active life –upon the wall –remarkable one might almost say –if he knew not the allowed degrees of consanguinity for a family likeness –a singular deflexion of the nose turned each to each –so that the total variation could not have been better represented than in the picture. –But here at any rate the cream rose thick upon the milk –and there was refreshment One “Tilton’s Inn” tooo sheltered us which it were well worth remembering, in Thornton it was where towns begin to serve as gores only to hold the world together –reached late in the evening and left before the sun rose. But the remembrance of an entertainment still remains and among publicans Tiltons name still stands conspicuous in our diary. But where we took our ease was not Canterbury street, no Four corners nor Five points –no trivial place where 3 roads meet but hardly one road held together– A dank forest path –more like an otter’s or a marten’s trail or where a beaver had dragged his trap than where the wheels of travel ever raised a dust. The pigeon sat secure above our heads high on the dead limbs of the pine reduced to robins size– The very yard of our hostelries was inclined upon the skirts of mountains and as we passed we looked up at angle at the stems of maples waving in the clouds –and late at evening we heard the drear bleating of innumerable flocks upon the mountains sides seeming to hold unequal parley with the bears Shuddered through the Franconia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved into mountain waves from Agiocochook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs in the sun– And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adroscoggin “take up their mountain march– Went on our way silent & humble through the Notch –heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains late at night –looked back on Conway peak –threaded the woods of Norway pine –and saw the Great Spirit smile in Winnipiseogee67 Varro advises to plant in Quincunx order in order not to “obstruct the beneficial effects of the sun and moon and air,” and adds “nuts, when they are whole, which you might comprize in one modius, because nature confines the kernels in their proper places, when they are broken, can hardly be held in a measure of a modius and a half.” Vines thus planted produce more fruit “more must and oil, and of greater value”. I read in Varro that “Caesar Vopiscus AEdilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that the grounds of Rosea were the gardens [(sedes)] of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on account of the growth of the herbage.” This soil was not remarkably fertile yet I was so well contented with myself it may be & with my entertainment –that I was really remind of this anecdote. In speaking of “the dignity of the herd” Varro suggests that the object of the Argonautic expedition was a ram’s fleece the gold apples of the Hesperides were by the ambiguity of language [] goats and sheep which 66. We wandered on (by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains — & through notches which the stream had with awe made — looking down ^one sunday morn- ing over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabi- where every house seemd to us a holy sepulchre tants — like crusaders strolled out from Richards as if we were the camp in Palestine — (T 74) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Hercules imported –the stars and signs bear their names the AEgean sea has its name from the goat and mountains and straits have hence their names –sic. The Bosphorus Piso makes Italy to be from Vitulis– The Romans were shepherds “Does not the fine [mulcta, a mulgendo] that was by ancient custom paid in kind refer to this?” The oldest coins bore the figures of cattle and the Roman names Porcius –Ovinus Caprilius & the surnames Equitius, Taurus, Capra Vitulus. Vide Cato “Of purchasing an Estate –” “How an estate is to be planted –” &c in Lat & Eng.

I will insert here some commentary on this early draft of material that would wind up in the “Monday” chapter of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:

A WEEK: If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still tolerates him, that is he who is living near him, sometimes even sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man, may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.

The following is, if I recall correctly and can trust my notes, from William Bronk’s THE BROTHER IN ELYSIUM: IDEAS OF FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES (1980), pages 104-106: The crux of the matter is that Thoreau believed that all evil did come in through the opening formed when any man might so betray his own nature as to lend himself to perform an inhuman office. While it might be contended that good and evil are something to be done at will and according to will, without reference to our own constitutions, — that we are of indifferent 67. our way Shuddered ^through that Fran- conia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved into mountain waves from Agioco- chook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs in the sun — And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adros- coggin “take up their mountain march — Went on our way ^silent & humble through the Notch ^— heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains holding unequal parley with the wolves & bears late at night — ^looked back on Conway peak — threaded the woods of Norway pine — and saw the Great Spirit smile ^in Winnipiseogee (T 76-77) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

or irrelevant moral quality ourselves, and are able to choose between a good act and an evil one and so determine by the excess of one kind of action over the other our own moral quality and the moral quality of the world, yet it was Thoreau’s contention that the process by which good and evil came into being was more exacting and natural, less arbitrary than this. He believed that it was always necessary to make the choice between good and evil whenever such a choice was presented, but he also believed that in most cases, the choice was not presented, and that evil resulted in some mysterious way without anyone’s willing it, or being aware of it, and even to everyone’s surprise and chagrin. Thoreau accounted for this phenomenon by saying that being is more important and more effective than doing. Anything therefore might happen to us which was consistent with the nature we took for ourselves, even though the process by which the happening came about was so subtle or so complicated that we missed the apprehension of it, even after its end. If. as Thoreau said, we do outrage to our proper nature, — if we take our identity from the state, then we become liable to the evils of the state, and have no defense against war and slavery, since it has none. It is only by refusing to do the office of inferior and brutal natures that we can hope to escape, on our own part, treatment which in its brutality is suited to inferior natures. We must be treated according to the nature which we determine shall be ours. We can win or lose, or act in any other way, only in accordance with terms we set for ourselves. The identity which Thoreau wished us to find, which left no opening for the evil we claimed to deplore, was most certainly not to be found in the state; and neither was it to be found in any other external form, for its essence was personal. It was to be found only through that steady communion with one’s deepest desires and insights, which was called silence. He found no evil and little that was ambiguous in silence. It is easier to see now, of course, why Thoreau rejected philanthropy and reform, since to find one’s identity, to become personal, was truly to ennoble one’s being; it was to enjoy those moments of serene and self-confident life which were better than whole campaigns of daring; it was to combat evil directly by leaving no opening by which it could enter. Philanthropy’s method was less direct. It offered the goodness of actions as an excuse and substitute for being. Reform was an attempt to avoid a change in true form by changing the surface only. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1847

April 14, Wednesday: Waldo Emerson invited 13 of his friends to his home to discuss the possibility of a successor journal to THE DIAL, a new quarterly review to address the major political, theological, and literary topics of the era. Bronson Alcott, Alfred W. Arrington of Texas, George Partridge Bradford, James Elliot Cabot, the Reverend William Henry Channing, the Reverend John Weiss, the Reverend James Freeman Clarke, the Reverend John Sullivan Dwight, the Reverend Theodore Parker, the Reverend Caleb Stetson, Thomas T. Stone, Charles Sumner, and Henry Thoreau were on the list. The Reverend Parker stated that his concept of this journal was that it was to be “the DIAL with a beard.” Although Thoreau wanted it explained to him why the large number of existing journals was inadequate so that they had to create yet another one, Emerson agreed to write the address to the public to be included in the 1st issue, and the Reverend Parker would start the Massachusetts Quarterly Review and put out three volumes.68

68. The Reverend Theodore Parker made a triage list in which he pre-evaluated his potential contributors: Certain and Valuable Valuable but not Certain Certain but not Valuable

He placed Thoreau’s name in the unfortunate category, “Certain but not Valuable,” but it appears the Reverend was in error for we don’t know Thoreau ever offered a manuscript to such a man — despite the fact that Waldo tried to coax him to give the Reverend Parker some help. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

69 July: Friend Lucretia Mott spoke in Worcester.

Frederick Llewellyn Hovey Willis would belatedly lay claim, in 1915, to be able to remember having visited Henry Thoreau with the Alcott family during this month, on pages 91-94 of his ALCOTT MEMOIRS (Boston MA: Badger). When this “keen recollection” of his, of St. Francis Thoreau and the animules, allegedly was formed, he was at the age of 17 or 18, which is definitely enough to know better! Also, it would be nice to know, was this lad Freddy Willis the son of the J. Willis who lived over on Barrett’s Pond? And, it would be nice to know, was this lad Freddy Willis related to a Quaker born in about 1818, Sarah L. Willis? –Or to the essayist N. Parker Willis who was writing so many excellent articles for magazines during Thoreau’s lifetime? I have a keen recollection of the first time I met Henry David Thoreau. It was upon a beautiful day in July, 1847, that Mrs. Alcott told us we were to visit Walden. We started merrily a party of seven, Mr. and Mrs. Alcott, the four girls and myself, for the woods of oak and pine that encircled the picturesque little lake called Walden Pond. We found Thoreau in his cabin, a plain little house of one room containing a wood stove. He gave us gracious welcome, asking us within. For a time he talked with Mr. Alcott in a voice and with a manner in which, boy as I was, I detected a something akin with Emerson. He was a tall and rugged-looking man, straight as a pine tree. His nose was strong, dominating his face, and his eyes as keen as an eagle’s. He seemed to speak with them, to take in all about him in one vigorous glance. His brows were shaggy as in people who observe rather than see. He was talking to Mr. Alcott of the wild flowers in Walden woods when, suddenly stopping, he said: “Keep very still and I will show you my family.” Stepping quickly outside the cabin door, he gave a low and curious whistle; immediately a woodchuck came running towards him from a nearby burrow. With varying note, yet still low and strange, a pair of gray squirrels were summoned and approached him fearlessly. With still another note several birds, in two crows, flew towards him, one of the crows nestling upon his shoulder. I remember it was the crow resting close to his head that made the most vivid impression upon me, knowing 69. Bear in mind that in America at that time, under the frightening rubric “female greatness,” every attempt was made to prevent women from having a public voice. Quakerism was the sole exception. One of the tactics typically used when it was known that a woman intended to address a reforming society –but only one of them, there were other tactics as well for employment prior to such an encounter, and then there were tactics for use afterward such as light cartooning– was for male members to arrive early and bolt the doors from the inside. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

how fearful of man this bird is. He fed them all from his hand, taking food from his pocket, and petted them gently before our delighted gaze; and then dismissed them by different whistling, always strange and low and short, each little wild thing departing instantly at hearing its special signal. Then he took us five children upon the pond in his boat, ceasing his oars after a little distance from the shore and playing the flute he had brought with him, its music echoing over the still and beautifully clear water. He suddenly laid the flute down and told us stories of the Indians that “long ago” had lived about Walden and Concord; delighting us with simple, clear explanations of the wonders of Walden woods. Again he interrupted himself suddenly, speaking of the various kinds of lilies growing about Walden and calling the wood lilies, stately wild things. It was pond lily time and from the boat we gathered quantities of their pure white flowers and buds; upon our return to the shore he helped us gather other flowers and laden with many sweet blossoms, we wended our way homewards rejoicingly. As we were going he said to me: “Boy, you look tired and sleepy; remember, sleep is half a dinner.” I saw him afterwards very many times in the company of his most intimate friends, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Alcott. He often came to our home; indeed, aside from visits to his father, mother, sisters, and Mr. Emerson, he visited no one else. Upon some of these occasions I remember him saying “that he had a great deal of company in the morning when nobody called;” and “I have never found the companion who is so companionable as solitude.” I also remember, “in Walden Woods I hunt with a glass; for a gun gives you but the body while a glass gives you the bird.” He possessed to an uncanny degree a knowledge of flowers, plants, and trees. He kept a careful calendar of the shrubs and flora about Walden and showed it me in explanation many times. The land upon which his cabin was built had been given him by Emerson; the cabin he built himself at a cost of less than thirty dollars and for the first nine months of his life in it his expenses amounted to sixty-two dollars. He thus proved that most of us waste our time and substance upon superficialities, that one hundred dollars per year will suffice for one’s living expenses, and that, best of all, one could really live and still have two-thirds of one’s time to one’s self.... This is but a record of youthful memory; its aim is to compass nothing else. During the nearly sixty years since Thoreau’s death I have read, I think, all that has been said about him. But among it nothing has, nor do I believe ever will, be better said than a paragraph from Emerson’s funeral tribute to his dead friend: “He has in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.” I do not remember ever seeing him laugh outright, but he was ever ready to smile at anything that pleased him; and I never knew him to betray any tender emotion except on one occasion, when he was narrating to me the death of his only brother, John HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Thoreau, from lockjaw, strong symptoms of which, from his sympathy with the sufferer, he himself experienced. At this time his voice was choked, and he shed tears, and went to the door for air. The subject was of course dropped, and never recurred to again. [his friend Daniel Ricketson, quoted in Harding, THOREAU AS SEEN, page 103] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1848

Daniel Wadsworth died,70 and made a bequest of the painting that he had commissioned in 1828, of his estate outside Hartford CT, “View of Monte Video, Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq.” This painting is currently on display at the Wadsworth Atheneum:

The painting may assist us in understanding Emerson’s plan which finances never allowed him to implement, to have Henry Thoreau and Bronson Alcott construct for him a Philosopher’s Tower on Emerson’s Cliff just to the south of Walden Pond, and also Thoreau’s remarks in WALDEN about having a country seat from which one might be the master of all one surveyed. THe view in this painting is from the base of the 55-foot hexagonal wooden Waddsworth Tower, atop Talcott Mountain in Farmington (now Avon) CT, looking toward the south.

WALDEN: Wherever I sat, there I might live, and the landscape radiated from me accordingly. What is a house but a sedes, a seat? –better if a country seat.

70. In this year the artist Thomas Cole also died. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

From this year into 1850 Waldo Emerson would be crafting his essay on “Religion,” that in 1856 he would publish as part of his ENGLISH TRAITS: England felt the full heat of the Christianity which fermented Europe, and drew, like the chemistry of fire, a firm line between barbarism and culture. The power of the religious sentiment put an end to human sacrifices, checked appetite, inspired the crusades, inspired resistance to tyrants, inspired self-respect, set bounds to serfdom and slavery, founded liberty, created the religious architecture, –York, Newstead, Westminster, Fountains Abbey, Ripon, Beverley, and Dundee,– works to which the key is lost, with the sentiment which created them; inspired the English Bible, the liturgy, the monkish histories, the chronicle of Richard of Devizes. The priest translated the Vulgate, and translated the sanctities of old hagiology into English virtues on English ground. It was a certain affirmative or aggressive state of the Caucasian races. Man awoke refreshed by the sleep of ages. The violence of the northern savages exasperated Christianity into power. It lived by the love of the people. Bishop Wilfrid manumitted two hundred and fifty serfs, whom he found attached to the soil. The clergy obtained respite from labor for the boor on the Sabbath, and on church festivals. “The lord who compelled his boor to labor between sunset on Saturday and sunset on Sunday, forfeited him altogether.” The priest came out of the people, and sympathized with his class. The church was the mediator, check, and democratic principle, in Europe. Latimer, Wicliffe, Arundel, Cobham, Antony Parsons, Sir Harry Vane, George Fox, William Penn, Bunyan are the democrats, as well as the saints of their times. The Catholic church, thrown on this toiling, serious people, has made in fourteen centuries a massive system, close fitted to the manners and genius of the country, at once domestical and stately. In the long time, it has blended with every thing in heaven above and the earth beneath. It moves through a zodiac of feasts and fasts, names every day of the year, every town and market and headland and monument, and has coupled itself with the almanac, that no court can be held, no field ploughed, no horse shod, without some leave from the church. All maxims of prudence or shop or farm are fixed and dated by the church. Hence, its strength in the agricultural districts. The distribution of land into parishes enforces a church sanction to every civil privilege; and the gradation of the clergy,– prelates for the rich, and curates for the poor,– with the fact that a classical education has been secured to the clergyman, makes them “the link which unites the sequestered peasantry with the intellectual advancement of the age” [Wordsworth].

According to one account (that of a tertiary historian named Daniel J. Boorstin, a personage not to be confused with the fine Thoreau scholar Daniel J. Bernstein), it was Waldo who, in constructing the phrase “the celebrities of wealth and fashion” upon the basis of the French import “Causes Célèbres” in his lecture “Natural Aristocracy” in this year, managed to originate our supremely functional modern concept of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

“celebrity”:71 Our age has produced a new kind of eminence. This is as characteristic of our culture and our century as was the divinity of Greek gods in the sixth century B.C. or the chivalry of knights and courtly lovers in the middle ages. It has not yet driven heroism, sainthood, or martyrdom completely out of our consciousness. But with every decade it overshadows them more. All older forms of greatness now survive only in the shadow of this new form. This new kind of eminence is “celebrity.” The word “celebrity” (from the latin celebritas for “multitude” or “fame” and celeber meaning “frequented,” “populous,” or “famous”) originally meant not a person but a condition — as the Oxford English Dictionary says, “the condition of being much talked about; famousness, notoriety.” In this sense its use dates from at least the early seventeenth century. Even then it had a weaker meaning than “fame” or “renown.” Matthew Arnold, for example, remarked in the nineteenth century that while the philosopher Spinoza’s followers had “celebrity,” Spinoza himself had “fame.” For us, however, “celebrity” means primarily a person — “a person of celebrity.” This usage of the world significantly dates from the early years of the Graphic Revolution, the first example being about 1850. Emerson spoke of “the celebrities of wealth and fashion” (1848). Now American dictionaries define a celebrity as “a famous or well-publicized person.” The celebrity in the distinctive modern sense could not have existed in any earlier age, or in America before the Graphic Revolution. The celebrity is a person who is known for his well- knownness. His qualities –or rather his lack of qualities– illustrate our peculiar problems. He is neither good nor bad, great nor petty. He is the human pseudo-event. He has been fabricated on purpose to satisfy our exaggerated expectations of human greatness. He is morally neutral. The product of no conspiracy, of no group promoting vice or emptiness, he is made by honest, industrious men of high professional ethics doing their job, “informing” and educating us. He is made by all of us who willingly read about him, who like to see him on television, who buy recordings of his voice, and talk about him to our friends. His relation to morality and even to reality is highly ambiguous. He is like the woman in an Elinor Glyn novel who describes another by saying, “She is like a figure in an Elinor Glyn novel.”

71.This entry is being constructed on October 3, 1995, the day that we are all learning that OJ has been unjustly accused. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

This Emerson lecture would be published as the chapter “Aristocracy” in ENGLISH TRAITS in 1856: Under the present reign, the perfect decorum of the Court is thought to have put a check on the gross vices of the aristocracy; [page 871] yet gaming, racing, drinking, and mistresses, bring them down, and the democrat can still gather scandals, if he will. Dismal anecdotes abound, verifying the gossip of the last generation of dukes served by bailiffs, with all their plate in pawn; of great lords living by the showing of their houses; and of an old man wheeled in his chair from room to room, whilst his chambers are exhibited to the visitor for money; of ruined dukes and earls living in exile for debt. The historic names of the Buckinghams, Beauforts, Marlboroughs, and Hertfords, have gained no new lustre, and now and then darker scandals break out, ominous as the new chapters added under the Orleans dynasty to the “Causes Célèbres” in France. Even peers, who are men of worth and public spirit, are over-taken and embarrassed by their vast expense. The respectable Duke of Devonshire, willing to be the Mecaenas and Lucullus of his island, is reported to have said, that he cannot live at Chatsworth but one month in the year. Their many houses eat them up. They cannot sell them, because they are entailed. They will not let them, for pride’s sake, but keep them empty, aired, and the grounds mown and dressed, at a cost of four or five thousand pounds a year. The spending is for a great part in servants, in many houses exceeding a hundred. Most of them are only chargeable with idleness, which, because it squanders such vast power of benefit, has the mischief of crime. “They might be little Providences on earth,” said my friend, “and they are, for the most part, jockeys and fops.” Campbell says, “acquaintance with the nobility, I could never keep up. It requires a life of idleness, dressing, and attendance on their parties.” I suppose, too, that a feeling of self-respect is driving cultivated men out of this society, as if the noble were slow to receive the lessons of the times, and had not learned to disguise his pride of place. A man of wit, who is also one of the celebrities of wealth and fashion, confessed to his friend, that he could not enter their houses without being made to feel that they were great lords, and he a low plebeian. With the tribe of artistes, including the musical tribe, the patrician morgue keeps no terms, but excludes them. When Julia Grisi and Mario sang at the houses of the Duke of Wellington and other grandees, a cord was stretched between the singer and the company. [page 872]

Of course this is all contingent upon Boorstin’s rereading of citations in the OED, a rereading which ignores not only Miss Mulock’s use of the term as of some date in 1849 as coming months too late but also Hooker’s prior use (as of 1600), Johnson’s prior use (as of 1751), and Arnold’s prior use (as of 1838) as pertaining not to status of personages so much as to conditions of being.72

But even before Emerson would have this usage generally distributed as of 1856 this helpful little trope had entered the general lexicon, as in the following 1851 title: N. Parker Willis, HURRY-GRAPHS; OR, SKETCHES OF SCENERY, CELEBRITIES AND SOCIETY, TAKEN FROM LIFE (NT: Charles Scribner). In fact, by the year 1855 Emerson himself would be being rated as a celebrity (without credit being offered that it was he himself who HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

had allegedly originated this usage), as witness the review of WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS by Evart A. and George L. Duyckinck titled “Henry David Thoreau,” in their CYCLOPAEDIA OF AMERICAN

72.Here, per the OED, are these other uses: 1600: “The dignity and celebrity of mother cities should be respected” (condition rather than person). 1751: “I did not find myself yet enriched in proportion to my celebrity” (condition rather than person). 1838: “Recommended to public notice by the celebrity of their family” (condition rather than person). 1849: “Did you see any of those ‘celebrities,’ as you call them?” (person rather than condition — but published some months subsequent to the Emerson lecture in Edinburgh in November 1848). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

LITERATURE (NY: Scribner, 1855), Volume II, pages 653-56:

Two of the most noticeable books in American literature on the score of a certain quaint study of natural history and scenery, are Mr. Thoreau’s volumes on the Concord and Merrimack rivers, and Life in the Woods. The author is a humorist in the old English sense of the word, a man of humors, of Concord, Mass., where, in the neighborhood of Emerson and Hawthorne, and in the enjoyment of their society, he leads, if we may take his books as the interpreter of his career, a meditative philosophic life. We find his name on the Harvard list of graduates of 1837. In 1849, having previously been a contributor to the Dial, and occupied himself in school-keeping and trade in an experimental way, he published A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. … His next book was published with equal deliberation. It is the story of a humor of the author, which occupied him a term of two years and two months, commencing in March, 1845. Walden, or Life in the Woods, was published in Boston in 1854. The oddity of its record attracted universal attention. A gentleman and scholar retires one morning from the world, strips himself of all superfluities, and with a borrowed axe and minimum of pecuniary capital, settles himself as a squatter in the wood, on the edge of a New England pond near Concord. He did not own the land, but was permitted to enjoy it. He felled a few pines, hewed timbers, and for boards bought out the shanty of James Collins, an Irish laborer on the adjacent Fitchburg railroad, for the sum of four dollars twenty-five cents. He was assisted in the raising by Emerson, George W. Curtis, and other celebrities of Concord, whose presence gave the rafters an artistic flavor. Starting early in the spring, he secured long before winter by the labor of his hands “a tight shingled and plastered house, ten feet wide by fifteen long, and eight feet posts, with a garret and a closet, a large window on each side, two trap-doors, one door at the end, and a brick fire-place opposite.” The exact cost of the house is given:— [Reprints “Economy,” page 49.3-25.]

The rest of the account from Mr. Thoreau’s ledger is curious, and will show “upon what meats this same Caesar fed,” that he came to interest the public so greatly in his housekeeping:— [Reprints “Economy,” pages 58.34-60.31.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

He had nothing further to do after his “family baking,” which, the family consisting of a unit, could not have been large or have come round very often, than to read, think, and observe. Homer appears to have been his favorite book. The thinking was unlimited, and the observation that of a man with an instinctive tact for the wonders of natural history. He sees and describes insects, birds, such “small deer” as approached him, with a felicity which would have gained him the heart of Izaak Walton and Alexander Wilson. A topographical and hydrographical survey of Walden Pond is as faithful, exact, and labored, as if it had employed a government or admiralty commission. As in the author’s previous work, the immediate incident is frequently only the introduction to higher themes. The realities around him are occasionally veiled by a hazy atmosphere of transcendental speculation, through which the essayist sometimes stumbles into abysmal depths of the bathetic. We have more pleasure, however, in dwelling upon the shrewd humors of this modern contemplative Jacques of the forest, and his fresh, nice observation of books and men, which has occasionally something of a poetic vein. He who would acquire a new sensation of the world about him, would do well to retire from cities to the banks of Walden pond; and he who would open his eyes to the opportunities of country life, in its associations of fields and men, may loiter with profit along the author’s journey on the Merrimack, where natural history, local antiquities, records, and tradition, are exhausted in vitalizing the scene. A CHARACTER—FROM WALDEN. [Reprints “Visitors,” pages 144.13-145.36.] A BATTLE OF ANTS—FROM WALDEN. [Reprints “Brute Neighbors,” pages 228.26-232.11.] HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

In 1869 Louisa May Alcott would make use of this “Emersonian” trope in Part II of LITTLE WOMEN: … a select symposium, held in honor of several celebrities. Jo went prepared to bow down and adore the mighty ones whom she had worshiped with youthful enthusiasm afar off. But her reverence for genius received a severe shock that night, and it took her some time to recover from the discovery that the great creatures were only men and women after all. Imagine her dismay, on stealing a glance of timid admiration at the poet whose lines suggested an ethereal being fed on ‘spirit, fire, and dew,’ to behold him devouring his supper with an ardor which flushed his intellectual countenance. Turning as from a fallen idol, she made other discoveries which rapidly dispelled her romantic illusions. The great novelist vibrated between two decanters with the regularity of a pendulum; the famous divine flirted openly with one of the Madame de Staëls of the age, who looked daggers at another Corinne, who was amiably satirizing her, after outmaneuvering her in efforts to absorb the profound philosopher, who imbibed tea Johnsonianly and appeared to slumber, the loquacity of the lady rendering speech impossible. The scientific celebrities, forgetting their mollusks and glacial periods, gossiped about art, while devoting themselves to oysters and ices with characteristic energy; the young musician, who was charming the city like a second Orpheus, talked horses; and the specimen of the British nobility present happened to be the most ordinary man of the party.

And by 1882 Walt Whitman would be treating the new term celebrity for the new phenomenon of the public HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

personality as a natural and intrinsic part of the English language: Besides Fulton ferry, off and on for years, I knew and frequented Broadway — that noted avenue of New York’s crowded and mixed humanity, and of so many notables. Here I saw, during those times, Andrew Jackson, Webster, Clay, William Henry Seward, Martin Van Buren, filibuster Walker, Kossuth, Fitz Greene Halleck, William Cullen Bryant, the Prince of Wales, Charles Dickens, the first Japanese ambassadors, and lots of other celebrities of the time. Always something novel or inspiriting; yet mostly to me the hurrying and vast amplitude of those never-ending human currents. I remember seeing James Fenimore Cooper in a court-room in Chambers street, back of the city hall, where he was carrying on a law case — (I think it was a charge of libel he had brought against some one.) I also remember seeing Edgar A. Poe, and having a short interview with him, (it must have been in 1845 or ’6,) in his office, second story of a corner building, (Duane or Pearl street.) He was editor and owner or part owner of “the Broadway Journal.” [Page 702] The visit was about a piece of mine he had publish’d. Poe was very cordial, in a quiet way, appear’d well in person, dress, &c. I have a distinct and pleasing remembrance of his looks, voice, manner and matter; very kindly and human, but subdued, perhaps a little jaded. For another of my reminiscences, here on the west side, just below Houston street, I once saw (it must have been about 1832, of a sharp, bright January day) a bent, feeble but stout-built very old man, bearded, swathed in rich furs, with a great ermine cap on his head, led and assisted, almost carried, down the steps of his high front stoop (a dozen friends and servants, emulous, carefully holding, guiding him) and then lifted and tuck’d in a gorgeous sleigh, envelop’d in other furs, for a ride. The sleigh was drawn by as fine a team of horses as I ever saw. (You needn’t think all the best animals are brought up nowadays; never was such horseflesh as fifty years ago on Long Island, or south, or in New York city; folks look’d for spirit and mettle in a nag, not tame speed merely.) Well, I, a boy of perhaps thirteen or fourteen, stopp’d and gazed long at the spectacle of that fur-swathed old man, surrounded by friends and servants, and the careful seating of him in the sleigh. I remember the spirited, champing horses, the driver with his whip, and a fellow-driver by his side, for extra prudence. The old man, the subject of so much attention, I can almost see now. It was John Jacob Astor.

In his novel OAK OPENINGS, James Fenimore Cooper inserted a character to spout the 10-lost-tribes-of-Israel doctrine of American Exceptionalism. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

At 12 West Street in Boston, Bronson Alcott’s “Conversations” were usually given in a series of seven, once a week, at a charge of $2.00 per series. Here is a sample, a sleeper on Silence:73

Bronson Alcott: “As God alone is the sleepless, so is he the only silent one. Silence is ever grand and beautiful — but from its loss comes noise and hubbub — and we live in wrangling— We speak because we know not how to be silent. Is it not so with the morning call— How is it with the priests. Do they know how to be silent?” Ellery Channing: “I think we talk small talk — that the silence may be uttered. It is not what we speak but what is unsaid that is valuable.” Mrs. Channing: “It is a test of perfect communion that we can keep silence.” Miss Parsons: “A friend is one with whom we may be silent.” Ednah Dow Littlehale: “Is not silence the background of all speech, as the Earth was silent for thousands of years?” Bronson Alcott: “All music is best in proportion as it partakes of silence, as it is resolved again into silence…. Silence is soundless. Is it not soundless only as light as colorless because it is the union of all sound?…”

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

A young lady, 24 years of age, who had been one of Margaret Fuller’s pupils, Ednah Dow Littlehale, began to attend Alcott’s series of Conversations on “Man — His History, Resources and Expectations.” After a while she would begin to act as his amanuensis and transcribe these Conversations, as above.

In this year Pennsylvania declared it illegal for children under the age of 12 to work in its cotton, woolen, and silk mills.

The 16-year-old Louisa May Alcott began a school in the barn of her family’s “Hillside” home in Concord, for her younger sisters and for other neighborhood children such as 9-year-old Ellen Emerson. From the tales she told these children would eventually develop a set of handmade volumes she presented to Ellen, such as “The Frost King” in a green notebook, and “The Fairy Dell” inside gray marbled covers tied together with pink ribbons. These then would become the basis for her FLOWER FABLES publication of 1855, after she had found in Miss Wealthy Stevens of Boston a patron willing to subsidize the publication expenses.

Later in this year the Alcott family would move from their “Hillside” in Concord to Pinckney Street in Boston, where Abba Alcott would be able to support the family as a visitor to the poor. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

73. And you just might want to compare and contrast this with the essay on silence that Thoreau positioned at the end of WEEK. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

April 15, Saturday: According to the journal of Bronson Alcott, Waldo Emerson’s shanty that Henry Thoreau had built on the land on which he had squatted at Walden Pond had already at this point in time been relocated from its position on “Bay Henry” to a new spot in the former beanfield “nearer to the highway.”

REPLICA OF SHANTY

EMERSON’S SHANTY (According to the journal of Daniel Brooks Clark, he and James Clark had been the ones who had moved what remained of the not-yet-famous shanty up to the top of the hill on behalf of Emerson’s drunken Scotch-Irish gardener Hugh Whelan.74

October: Thomas Mayne Reid, Jr.’s “Love’s Martyr” played for five nights at the Walnut Street Theater in New-York.

November 17, Friday: William Jackman and Jenett Nelson Scott Jackman produced a son William Thomas Jackman in Yates, New York.

That morning the Alcotts departed “Hillside” and Concord on the train, with their household articles to follow on the same day — by evening they would be in their new quarters, a three-rooms-and-a-kitchen basement apartment on Dedham Street in the South End of Boston, where Bronson Alcott would hopefully be able to offer his “conversations” for pay (you shouldn’t hold your breath).

74. First the shanty was pulled up to the top of the slope in an unsuccessful attempt to enlarge it and turn it into a suitable home for Emerson’s gardener Hugh Whelan’s family, and then, when the man had dug the cellar hole too deep and the hole had collapsed into itself, and when this man had become dispirited and the spirit of the bottle had gotten to be too much for him, and he had run away eventually to turn up in Sterling, the structure would be sold in 1849 to James Clark, one of the sons at the Brooks Clark Farm on the Old Carlisle Road (now Estabrook Road), who considered himself to be a second Thoreau and on September 3, 1849 with the help of his brother Daniel moved it out to their family farm. In the process, the plaster cracked. “Finally, the poor fellow became insane and was placed in an asylum,” Edward Bacon would note in 1897 in his WALKS AND RIDES AROUND BOSTON. James died five years after moving the shanty. Eventually what remained of the structure would be in use as a corncrib or something on that Concord farm. Eventually parts of the corncrib would wind up patching the side of somebody’s barn, and so there’s now a piece of the original wood and some of the nails at the Jacob Baker Farm media center in Lincoln. It’s not exactly as impressive as a piece of the True Cross on display in a quartz and gold jar in a cathedral in Europe, although presumably somewhat more reliably provenanced. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

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

THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1849

During this year Louisa May Alcott was hired out to an elderly lawyer of Dedham, James Richardson, to be a companion for his sister and his father. Later, when she wrote the story “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that Richardson’s reading his poetry to her amounted to a solicitation of sex. During this year, possibly as this companion in the home of this lawyer, Louisa was writing on her manuscript THE INHERITANCE. In 1950 this ms must still have been among the collections at the Orchard House in Concord MA because Madeleine B. Stern in her biography of Alcott does make a brief mention of that work. But then there would not be any further mentions. When the collections would be transferred to the Houghton Library at Harvard University, this unpublished 150-page manuscript would apparently be miscatalogued. Sometime in the late

1980s or in 1990, Daniel Shealy and Joel Myerson would be going through these materials in the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Houghton Library when “We looked at each other, and we said, have you heard of this? And each of us looked at the other and said no, and I think we smiled.” This THE INHERITANCE had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN and is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time. When the New York Times would make the announcement of this upon the occasion of the ms being turned over to a literary agent in early 1996, they would act like the discovery had just been made and hold to an inner page and to a side comment the fact that the discovery had actually occurred years earlier. To add to this up-to-the-minute egregiousness, the newsies twice in their one brief article would refer to Louisa’s father as having been one “Branson” Alcott. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

January 17, Wednesday: While Bronson Alcott was offering daily lessons and Conversations in a room on West Street in Boston, Abba Alcott had a salary of $30.00 per month75 contractually guaranteed by a group of 21 wealthy Bostonians, for her to act as an early form of social case worker –perhaps the first female professional salaried social case worker ever– on their behalf, as a “Missionary to the Poor” charged to make house calls “investigating their wants and their merits.”

75. To get a sense of what that amounted to in today’s money, consult HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May 2, Wednesday: At the business meeting of the Town and Country Club, Waldo Emerson declared as in favor of a general gender bar to membership but as opposed to a general color bar. He suggested that they leave the door open, at least a crack, just in case some man of color might someday distinguish himself as “clubable”:76

He was one of those who thought it desirable to have the Club consist entirely of men. “With regard to color,” he continued, “I am of the opinion that there should be no exclusion. Certainly, if any distinction be made, let it be in the colored man’s favor. if there be a black who is superior for his acquirements in letters or science, or for his clubable qualities, let him be elected. [But] it seems to me so essential a change –though I am still in the night a little– to make the Club a saloon for ladies, that I really hope the proposed amendment will not pass.

The new club immediately achieved over 100 members despite Amos Bronson Alcott’s failure to secure the admission of females. Such a question couldn’t have arisen for Henry Thoreau, for he wasn’t a member. The story that is told is that he was unable to cope with the haze of cigar smoke — but we may wonder how complete, or how completely self-exculpatory, such a proffered explanation is. This event occurred as the courts were deciding that Boston’s policy of racial segregation of its schools was quite within the discretion of the public officials and not inherently discriminatory. At some point during this summer James Russell Lowell would be unable to persuade Emerson to allow Frederick Douglass to join their “T & C” or “Saturday” Club — a club which they had claimed to have founded to enable

better acquaintance between men of science, literary, and philanthropic pursuits

76. An indignant letter-writer to the New York Times pointed out, in the September 21, 2008 Sunday issue, that the frequently retailed account of Emerson’s having “blackballed” Frederick Douglass goes too far. Although Douglass did submit an application for membership, and Emerson did object to his membership, and the application was rejected, Emerson also commented at the time that of course no-one was ever to be blackballed simply for the unfortunate circumstance of being born black, since that sort of blackballing would be unfair to such a victim of birth circumstances, and such invidious racial discrimination would speak poorly of any white man who exhibited it. Since the matter did not come to a vote there could not be said to have been a blackball (the letter-writer seems not to grasp that the blackball functions by preventing such a vote). Therefore –the author of this indignant letter indignantly concluded– Emerson cannot accurately be said to have “blackballed” Douglass’s application for membership! (A similar situation was described in an OP-ED opinion piece in that same edition of the newspaper. Nicholas D. Kristof described the attitude of certain Democratic voters he had interviewed in rural Oregon, who would not even dream of voting against Barack Hossein Obama for President on the basis of the color of his skin — no, they were going to vote against him because they have heard rumors that he might possibly, conceivably, perhaps, maybe have at one early moment been a Moslem rather that what he now claims to be, a Christian. They will vote against him not because of his race but because of a suspicion as to his religion. As good non-racist Christians they would rather vote for John McCain, who although he is a Republican, has honestly stayed as far away from church as is humanly possible: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/21/opinion/21kristof.html) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The plain fact of the matter is that, although it is true that “One of the barriers that Emerson … wanted most to transcend was that which separated life from the merely literary,” etc., it is also true that another of the barriers, one that Emerson most assuredly did not want to see transcended, was the barrier between the worthy and the unworthy –and Emerson as a white man of the right sort was, inherently, not only tall and benevolent but high, and blacks were, effectually all of them regardless of altitude, inherently, low, and associating with them made him feel uncomfortable– and so in protest, the biographer McFeely alleges, Lowell resigned from this club.77 At this first meeting, over and above the indicated busyness with business, Emerson delivered his “Books.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

An anonymous article about the recent Thoreau lecture appeared in the Worcester Palladium: Lake Philosophy The “Walden Pond” philosopher, (Mr. Thoreau, of Concord,) delivered his second lecture at Brinley Hall Friday evening. It was a continuation of his history of two years of “life in the woods;” a mingled web of sage conclusions and puerility—wit and egotistical effusions—bright scintillations and narrow criticisms and low comparisons. He has a natural poetic temperament, with a more than ordinary sensibility to the myriad of nature’s manifestations. But there is apparent a constant struggle for eccentricity. It is only when the lecturer seems to forget himself, that the listener forgets that there is in the neighborhood of “Walden Pond” another philosopher [Emerson] whose light Thoreau reflects; the same service which the moon performs for the sun. Yet the lecturer says many things that not only amuse the hour, but will not be easily 77. We might be tempted to categorize this as the only indecent thing Emerson ever did and the only decent thing Lowell ever did — but this de facto exclusion of Frederick Douglass was never brought to a formal vote and so Lowell never needed to make good on his empty threat. Here is the story as it has been told more carefully and fully in Duberman’s JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL:

James Russell Lowell, who had hoped Frederick Douglass’ presence would help rid “many worthy persons of a very unworthy prejudice,” had intended to pay his entrance fee. But opposition developed to Douglass’ admittance, and Lowell was astonished at the quarter from which it came. For it was Waldo Emerson, at least so Lowell believed, who would have blackballed Douglass had the matter been put to a vote, which it was not (Thomas Wentworth Higginson claimed that Emerson “always confessed to a mild instinctive colorphobia”). Angered at this failure to take in a man “cast in so large a mould,” Lowell declared that he, for one, was “an unfit companion for people too good to associate” with Douglass. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

forgotten. He is truly one of nature’s oddities; and would make a very respectable Diogenes, if the world were going to live its life over again, and that distinguished citizen of antiquity should not care to appear again upon the stage.

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

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

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

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1850

March 16, Saturday: An issue of Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal: CHAMBERS’ EDINBURGH JOURNAL ISSUE OF MARCH 16

Waldo Emerson delivered “The Superlative in Literature, Manners, and Races.”

According to page 79 of Larry J. Reynolds’s influence study EUROPEAN REVOLUTIONS AND THE AMERICAN LITERARY RENAISSANCE (New Haven CT: Yale UP, 1988), there are distinct markings of sexist politics to be discerned within the novel published on this day by Ticknor and Fields, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, THE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

SCARLET LETTER; OR,THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS OF A DECAPITATED SURVEYOR:78

theabsorbingcontemplationofthescarletletterthestoryentitled“THESCARLET LETTER”taleof“TheScarletLetter”thescarletletterandeventoucheditwithher fingerthewearerofthescarletlettertakethescarletletteroffthescarletletterthre waluridwearerofthescarletletterfingeronthescarletletterthescarletletterflam ingonherbreastthescarletletteronherbreastornamentthescarletletterwhichitwas herdoomtowearthescarletletterthescarletletterthescarletletteronHester’sbos omgazemightneveroncebefixeduponthescarletlettertouchedthescarletletterthe scarletletterthescarletletterendowedwithlifethescarletletterthewomanofthe scarletletterthelikenessofthescarletletterthescarletletterthewearerofthesca rletletterherchildandthescarletletterlinesofthescarletletterthatdecoratedthem aternalbosomthescarletletteronherbosomthescarletletteronherbreastherfingero nthescarletletterlookuponthescarletletterasthetokenthescarletletterThesca rletletterhadnotdoneitsofficeThescarletletterburnedonHesterPrynne’sbosom“Ih avelefttheetothescarletletter”Iwhomthescarletletterhasdisciplinedtotruthunder thetortureofthescarletletterasforthescarletletter“Mother”saidshe“whatdoesthe scarletlettermean?”investigationsaboutthescarletletterthescarletletterHema deastepnigheranddiscoveredthescarletletterthescarletletterthescarletletterT hescarletletterwasherpassportthescarletletterthescarletletteragainthescarl etletterbrought“Lookyourlastonthescarletletteranditswearer!”thescarletletter thescarletletterenvelopeditsfatedwearer“Thymotherisyonderwomanwiththesca rletletter”hadoftenheardofthescarletletterthescarletletterinthemarketplaceHe againextendedhishandtothewomanofthescarletletterLothescarletletterthesca rletletterthemiddaysunshineonthescarletletterwearerofthescarletletterThesto ryofthescarletlettergrewintoalegendrecluseofthescarletlettertheabsorbi

HEADCHOPPING

78. A claim of copyright has been made for THE SCARLET LETTER in 1962, for FANSHAWE and THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE in 1964, for THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES in 1965, and for THE MARBLE FAUN in 1968, by Ohio State UP. (We presume that those ostensibly appropriative and global copyright claims could actually have covered not more than whatever value was added to the works by that press at that time, such as their reformatting and pagination and suchlike.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Near the end of THE SCARLET LETTER, Hawthorne in a summary tells us about Hester’s eventual change of heart, about how she at last forsook radicalism and recognized that the woman who would lead the reform movements of the future and establish women’s rights must be less “stained with sin,” less “bowed down with shame” than she. This woman must be “lofty, pure, and beautiful, and wise, moreover, not through dusky grief, but the ethereal medium of joy.” More than one reader has correctly surmised that this ending to the novel constitutes a veiled complement to Hawthorne’s little Dove, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, and a veiled criticism of Margaret Fuller — radical, advocate of women’s rights, and subject of gossip because of her child and questionable marriage. Hawthorne’s ambivalent feelings toward Fuller indeed informed this and other parts of the novel, and although a number of women have been discussed as models for Hester, including Anne Hutchinson, Ebe Hawthorne, and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Fuller seems to have served in this capacity most provokingly. As Francis E. Kearns has pointed out, a number of parallels exist between Fuller and Hester: both had the problem of facing a Puritan society encumbered by a child of questionable legitimacy; both were concerned with social reform and the role of woman in society; both functioned as counselor and comforter to women; and both had children entitled to use the armorial seals of a non-English noble family. A more important parallel, which Kearns does not mention, is that for Hawthorne both women were linked to the figures of Liberty and Eve, that is, to the ideas of revolution and temptation, which lie at the heart of the novel. For certain sure the benevolent Boston presence of George Stillman Hillard and the benign influence of Waldo HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Emerson, among other notables, had been immortalized in Hawthorne’s preamble “The Custom-House”:

THE SCARLET LETTER: Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; BROOK FARM after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the WALDO EMERSON Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Thoreau ELLERY CHANNING about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that LONGFELLOW I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. BRONSON ALCOTT Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change.

[INSERT COMMENTARY ABOUT DECAPITATION HERE]

This “psychological bondage” book offered its appreciative audience a heroine who learns, finally, after much anguish, that as a woman her best game plan is to accept the cards society has dealt her, suffer passively, endure numbly, and wait, wait and hope for a better day, and that anything else she might try always makes her lot less bearable. To be silent and no bother, and maintain sexual purity, that constitutes female courage. Had slaves formed a reading market in that era, the author could easily have authored a companion volume about a black man who learns, finally, after much anguish, that as a slave his best game plan is to accept the cards society has dealt him, suffer passively, endure numbly, and wait, wait and hope for a better day, and that anything else he might try always makes his lot less bearable. To be silent and no bother, and polish shoes, that constitutes slave courage. Then, of course, the author could have created a grand synthesis, in a tale of a female slave who learns, finally, that her role as female and her role as slave quite reinforce one another.... To use a 19th-Century phrase, “women and Negroes.” Do you get the idea I actively dislike this romance? No, I HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

actively dislike the mentality of its author Hawthorne. The best thing I have seen on this subject was written by Jean Fagan Yellin:

Where Hiram Powers had distanced an enchained white woman in space and called her a Greek Slave, Nathaniel Hawthorne distanced an enchained white woman in time and called her Hester Prynne.

Clearly, anyone who is bonded to (or in bondage to — it’s much the same, isn’t it?) such a person has a tough row to hoe (you note I cast this suggestion in the present tense — it’s still the case). In particular Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, who had witnessed slavery while living for an extended period in her youth on a sugar plantation in Cuba, had a tough attitudinal row to hoe, being married to such an author-tarian. Sophia could have hardly become an active abolitionist like her sisters Mary and Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. Her solution? –Sophia went for denial, and refused to give credence to various unsettling reports such as that some slave women had to strip to the buff on the auction block (“which I am sure is an exaggeration for I have read of these auctions often and even the worst facts are never so bad as absolute nudity”). Then she also capable of ignoring the BOOK OF JOB in her BIBLE long enough to suppose that a good and benevolent God providentially “makes up to every being the measure of happiness which he loses thro’ the instrumentality of others” — so that it really is of no consequence how we treat each other. And then she could attempt to “lose myself in other subjects of thought,” embracing a sophisticated version of the Emersonian HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

trick of resignation. She makes herself sound like a Minnesotan!79

Such were some of the people with whom I now found myself connected. I took it in good part, at the hands of Providence, that I was thrown into a position so little akin to my past habits; and set myself seriously to gather from it whatever profit was to be had. After my fellowship of toil and impracticable schemes with the dreamy brethren of Brook Farm; after living for three years within the subtle influence of an intellect like Waldo Emerson’s; after those wild, free days on the Assabeth, indulging fantastic speculations, beside our fire of fallen boughs, with Ellery Channing; after talking with Henry Thoreau about pine-trees and Indian relics in his hermitage at Walden; after growing fastidious by sympathy with the classic refinement of George Stillman Hillard’s culture; after becoming imbued with poetic sentiment at Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s hearthstone – it was time, at length, that I should exercise other faculties of my nature, and nourish myself with food for which I had hitherto had little appetite. Even the old Inspector was desirable, as a change of diet, to a man who had known Bronson Alcott. I looked upon it as an evidence, in some measure, of a system naturally well balanced, and lacking no essential part of a thorough organization, that, with such associates to remember, I could mingle at once with men of altogether different qualities, and never murmur at the change.

As of mid-century, with the publication of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER, it is clear that the

79. We may well note that although Henry Thoreau would have a copy of Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER in his personal library, he would cross out the reference to that item — indicating that the volume was no longer present (we infer that either the volume was lost, or given away). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

figure of Uncle Sam had become a fixture of our American imagination:

THE SCARLET LETTER: In my native town of Salem, at the head of what, half a century ago, in the days of old King Derby, was a bustling wharf – but which is now burdened with decayed wooden warehouses, and exhibits few or no symptoms of commercial life; except, perhaps, a bark or brig, half-way down its melancholy length, discharging hides; or, nearer at hand, a Nova Scotia schooner, pitching out her cargo of firewood – at the head, I say, of this dilapidated wharf, which the tide often overflows, and along which, at the base and in the rear of the row of buildings, the track of many languid years is seen in a border of unthrifty grass – here, with a view from its front windows adown this not very enlivening prospect, and thence across the harbour, stands a spacious edifice of brick. From the loftiest point of its roof, during precisely three and a half hours of each forenoon, floats or droops, in breeze or calm, the banner of the republic; but with the thirteen stripes turned vertically, instead of horizontally, and thus indicating that a civil, and not a military, post of Uncle Sam’s government, is here established. Its front is ornamented with a portico of half-a-dozen wooden pillars, supporting a balcony, beneath which a flight of wide granite steps descends towards the street. Over the entrance hovers an enormous specimen of the American eagle, with outspread wings, a shield before her breast, and, if I recollect aright, a bunch of intermingled thunderbolts and barbed arrows in each claw. With the customary infirmity of temper that characterizes this unhappy fowl, she appears by the fierceness of her beak and eye, and the general truculency of her attitude, to threaten mischief to the inoffensive community; and especially to warn all citizens careful of their safety against intruding on the premises which she overshadows with her wings. Nevertheless, vixenly as she looks, many people are seeking at this very moment to shelter themselves under the wing of the federal eagle; imagining, I presume, that her bosom has all the softness and snugness of an eiderdown pillow. But she has no great tenderness even in her best of moods, and, sooner or later – oftener soon than late – is apt to fling off her nestlings with a scratch of her claw, a dab of her beak, or a rankling wound from her barbed arrows. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

July: There was an epidemic of the small pox in Boston, and Bronson Alcott, who probably alone in the Alcott family had never been vaccinated, had it last and experienced it in its worst form. For three weeks he was very gravely ill while he battled this “hideous” and “obscene” enemy which had inflicted upon him a “leprosy” that rendered his unshaven, variola-laden face “frightful to behold.”

Amos Baker died at the age of 94 (his remains are presumed to be in the Baker tomb in Concord’s Town Hill Cemetery, behind Bemis Hall).

Fall: The Alcott family moved from Atkinson Street in Boston to 50 High Street on the edge in between the highfalutin’ neighborhoods of the family’s rich supporters and the utter slums of Fort Hill. During this period Bronson’s mother, Anna Alcox, stayed with them for several months and, although she was very intimate with rural poverty, was horrified at this urban squalor: “…you are so good to wate on them that neade.” Abba was musing in her journal:

It is more respectable to be in my family —than a Servant of the Public in any capacity— and to be used by it is ignoble.

At that time in Boston, for a family of four, unless you had an income of at least $550.00 per year, you would probably wind up being badly victimized by one or another of the “bottom-feeders” who abounded in the slums, and yet, for the years 1851, 1852, and 1853, Abba Alcott’s income varied, usually somewhere between $0.05 to $1.00 per day while Bronson Alcott brought in hardly anything at all, perhaps a dollar very occasionally.80 Meanwhile, however, Abba was organizing a petition that women should be allowed to vote on proposed amendments to the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that were to be offered at the forthcoming Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention. According to Harriet Robinson’s MASSACHUSETTS IN THE WOMAN SUFFERAGE MOVEMENT,81 this petition was signed not only by persons such as A. Bronson Alcott but also by the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, the Reverend Theodore Parker, Samuel Eliot Sewall, William Lloyd Garrison, Lucy Stone, Wendell Phillips, and the Reverend Samuel Joseph May. The motion to allow women to vote on these proposed amendments to the state constitution, however, failed badly, 14 male delegates for to 108 male delegates against.

80. According to Leone Levi’s WAGES AND EARNINGS OF THE WORKING CLASSES - REPORT TO SIR ARTHUR BASS (London: John Murray, 1885), the population of England was at this point divided into a laboring class of 19,300,000 persons, a lower middle class of 6,900,000, and an upper class of 1,500,000 “taxpayers” (we don’t know what tax is referred to here). In the laboring classes, spinners (in cotton factories) earned about £1 a week, which amounted to perhaps £50 a year. Skilled labourers were lucky to earn more than £1.25 a week, say £65 a year. Agricultural workers earned around half these amounts, though they usually received in addition their accommodation and some food. The average sort of earnings in 1851 for the English laboring class was £52 a year, and for the lower middle class £80 per year. To receive such wages people often worked 60 hours a week or more. The lower middle class were people like teachers who earned between £75 and £100 a year. What were regarded as “the middle classes” had family incomes of between £150 and £500 per annum -- there were just over 90,000 English households in that category. What were considered “the higher middles classes” had incomes between £500 and £3000, and in this category were situated 18,300 families. The “higher class” English, of which there were 1,889, had annual incomes of between £3000 and £50,000. (In GREAT EXPECTATIONS, therefore, Pip, since he had acquired a newfound income of £500 a year, was being described by Charles Dickens as having been propelled straight up all the way from having been the apprentice to a blacksmith, lowest of the low, into the higher end of the middle classes — with an income approximately one order of magnitude greater than Joe the blacksmith’s accompanied by no responsibilities whatever.) 81. Boston: Roberts, 1881, page 91 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1851

A Catskill farmer, Mark Carr, brought two ox-sleds of evergreen trees into New-York and managed to vend them all.

The Reverend Heinrich Christian Schwan, a recent immigrant from Hanover, Germany to Cleveland, Ohio (by way of Brazil in South America), set up a lighted and decorated Christmas tree in his Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church. When someone denounced this as heathen idolatry he took it down (in the Christmas season of 1852 his church would be able to erect a similar display without serious objection).

Escapism was obviously going to do well. The books of escapist reading were going to just fly off the bookstore shelves. Therefore Susan B. Warner published a first fiction entitled THE WIDE WIDE WORLD, using the nom de plume “Elizabeth Wetherell” so as not to interfere with her haute social standing. This American novel would be exceeded in popularity during its time only by UNCLE TOM’S CABIN, which was being issued concurrently. The following commentary is from Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY, issued in 1868:

Jo spent the morning on the river with Laurie and the afternoon reading and crying over THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD, up in the apple tree.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

In this novel, we may well note, a copy of “Parson” Mason Locke Weems’s LIFE AND MEMORABLE ACTIONS OF GEORGE WASHINGTON is given as a Christmas present. GEORGE WASHINGTON HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Table of Altitudes

Yoda 2 ' 0 '' Lavinia Warren 2 ' 8 '' Tom Thumb, Jr. 3 ' 4 '' Lucy (Australopithecus Afarensis) 3 ' 8 '' Hervé Villechaize (“Fantasy Island”) 3 ' 11'' Charles Proteus Steinmetz 4 ' 0 '' Mary Moody Emerson per FBS (1) 4 ' 3 '' Alexander Pope 4 ' 6 '' Benjamin Lay 4 ' 7 '' Dr. Ruth Westheimer 4 ' 7 '' Gary Coleman (“Arnold Jackson”) 4 ' 8 '' Edith Piaf 4 ' 8 '' Queen Victoria with osteoporosis 4 ' 8 '' Linda Hunt 4 ' 9 '' Queen Victoria as adult 4 ' 10 '' Mother Teresa 4 ' 10 '' Margaret Mitchell 4 ' 10 '' length of newer military musket 4 ' 10'' Charlotte Brontë 4 ' 10-11'' Tammy Faye Bakker 4 ' 11'' Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut 4 ' 11'' jockey Willie Shoemaker 4 ' 11'' Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec 4 ' 11'' Joan of Arc 4 ' 11'' Bonnie Parker of “Bonnie & Clyde” 4 ' 11'' Harriet Beecher Stowe 4 ' 11'' Laura Ingalls Wilder 4 ' 11'' a rather tall adult Pygmy male 4 ' 11'' Gloria Swanson 4 ' 11''1/2 Clara Barton 5 ' 0 '' Isambard Kingdom Brunel 5 ' 0 '' Andrew Carnegie 5 ' 0 '' Thomas de Quincey 5 ' 0 '' Stephen A. Douglas 5 ' 0 '' Danny DeVito 5 ' 0 '' Immanuel Kant 5 ' 0 '' William Wilberforce 5 ' 0 '' HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

July: The treaty of Traverse des Sioux, by which Dakota headmen ceded all their lands in Iowa, and some in Minnesota, to the US federal government. MINNESOTA

Herman Melville purchased Burton’s ANATOMY OF MELANCHOLY in a used bookstore in Pittsfield MA — only to discover on the flyleaf that his father had owned that very volume in 1816.

The chip doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Bronson Alcott was marveling at how his shriveled “heart” was becoming engorged under the ministrations of the attractive and pleasant young lady, Ednah Dow Littlehale. They were walking together each dawn on HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

the Boston Common:

She came — the maiden and passed the morning: a long and lavish morning with me, and left me the principal owner of a heart green with youthful regards, of sweet regard for herself the friend and stimulus to Genius.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY Here is a description of this well-endowed daughter of the well-to-do Boston merchant Sargeant Smith HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Littlehale, by the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson:

She was a brunette, had a great deal of rich, black hair with large dark eyes, and was talking eagerly between intervals with some male companion.... Not equalling the ablest of early women leaders, like Margaret Fuller and Elizabeth Peabody, in extent of early training, she was equalled by no other in a certain clearness of mind and equilibrium of judgement....

ELIZABETH PALMER PEABODY

November: Bronson Alcott, attending a party at which Waldo Emerson, Charles Sumner, the Reverend Theodore Parker, and Seth Wells Cheney were present, felt awkward.

A circus elephant named Columbus weighing some five tons, perhaps the largest animal then on exhibit to size-worshiping Americans, fell through a South Adams bridge and severely injure itself. Columbus then died or, presumably, was slaughtered, in Lenox. In the modern era there has arisen a piece of urban folklore, that “an elephant lies buried somewhere in Concord,” but this event when it occurred had nothing whatever to do with the town of Concord. Also, although I have no information as to what happened to Columbus’s body, it is probably not to be found buried in Lenox. There is little likelihood that in antebellum America the owner of such a pile of meat, from the body of a vegetarian animal that had died of an injury rather than of an illness, would have gone to the additional expense of burying it — rather than recovering what could be recovered from the situation by selling it to the Lenox slaughterhouse.

Henry Stephens Randall ran again for Secretary of State for New York on the Democratic ticket, this time successfully. He would serve from 1852 to 1853.

Samuel Ringgold Ward had removed from Cortland to Syracuse, New York, but in consequence of his having participated on October 1st in the “Jerry rescue case,” it was necessary for him to abandon his interest in his newspapers, during this month, and for the Ward family to take refuge in Canada: From Cortland we removed to Syracuse in 1851, whence, on account of my participating in the “Jerry rescue case,” on the first day of October in that year, it became quite expedient to remove in some haste to Canada, in November. During the last few years of my residence in the United States I was editor and proprietor of two newspapers, both of which I survive, and in both of which HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

I sunk every shred of my property. While at this business, it seemed necessary that I should know something of law. For this purpose, I commenced the reading of it....

Franklin Benjamin Sanborn entered Exeter Academy. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1852

Spring: Bronson Alcott’s brother Junius Alcott apparently committed suicide by throwing himself into the machinery at the mill. At least we should presume this was suicide, since Junius had just gone to his mother and said good-by and shaken hands with her, explaining that he was going to Boston, but instead of leaving for Boston he had gone unexplainedly to the mill. This apparently threw Bronson into a personal crisis in which he attempted to reassure himself that there was not a hereditary strain of madness in his family. At any rate, Alcott would spend the next several years attempting obsessively to establish by historical investigations and by weird scientific theories of genetics that his family was not the victim if some “dark inheritance.” He would travel all over the Massachusetts and Connecticut area, investigating old tombstones and documenting a possible descent, or, rather, documenting a likely non-descent, from the Lord High Chancellor of England under King Henry VII, one John Alcocke. Eventually his theories began to take the form of a dichotomy between a blond, blue-eyed “angelic man” of fair complexion, possibly Saxon like himself, and a “demonic man.” That this sort of thinking —so typical of the poor white trash of our own era who have something to prove and are looking for a cheap way to prove it— was very dangerous, especially so in those times prior to the Civil War while racism was still utterly in its ascendancy, and especially for a man like himself who had married and had children with a vivacious dark lady probably with a Spanish/Jewish-diaspora background hidden in her family closet. Would he decide that his wife, and therefore his four vivacious dark daughters, were tainted — that he had unknowingly been tricked into polluting his precious Saxon bloodlines?

No,

Intermarriage may modify but cannot blot out quite the fixed family type. In our case, it leaves to us the fair complexion, prominent features and slender form; while the intellectual disposition, though qualified more by intermarriage perhaps, and social position, run still visibly in the family, especially the Puritanism and Protestantism of our ancestors.

This, as you can see, is thin ice.

About the only thing I can say in Alcott’s defense is that he was getting a lot of help, in this angel/demon stuff, from the popular Americanist culture of that time, from, for instance, respected figures such as the Reverend Theodore Parker of downtown Boston and, if the truth be told, probably from Waldo Emerson as well. In that day, a person’s being anti-slavery told nothing whatever about whether or not they were a racist, or were a racist of more savory or of less savory stripe, a racist of the love-filled variety or a racist of the hate-filled variety. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

April 6, Tuesday: When Henry Thoreau appeared to lecture as scheduled at Cochituate Hall in downtown Boston, a heavy snow was falling. He had come from the Boston Society of Natural History where he had checked out John Evelyn’s SYLVA, OR A DISCOURSE OF FOREST-TREES, AND THE PROPAGATION OF TIMBER.... TO WHICH IS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

ANNEXED POMONA.... ALSO KALENDARIUM HORTENSE.... JOHN EVELYN’S SYLVA

(see the following screen)

This lecture date had been set up by the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Due to the snowstorm only 5 or 6 persons showed up, among whom was Doctor Walter Channing, the father of Ellery Channing of Concord. Bronson Alcott got the meeting moved to the Mechanics Apprentices Library next door, in hopes that some of the young men reading there could be persuaded to join the audience, but these young men proved to be hard to interest in a lecture on “Reality.”

WALDEN: According to Evelyn, “the wise Solomon prescribed PEOPLE OF ordinances for the very distances of trees; and the Roman praetors WALDEN have decided how often you may go into your neighbor’s land to gather the acorns which fall on it without trespass, and what share belongs to that neighbor.”

JOHN EVELYN SOLON OF ATHENS

(This was a mistake. Thoreau should not have indicated the by-tradition-wise King Solomon of Judaea, for Evelyn had been referring in SYLVA, OR A DISCOURSE OF FOREST-TREES, to this by-tradition-wise originator HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

of Athenian democracy.)

WALDEN: Though I gave them no manure, and did not hoe them all PEOPLE OF once, I hoed them unusually well as far as I went, and was paid WALDEN for it in the end, “there being in truth,” as Evelyn says, “no compost or lætation whatsoever comparable to this continual motion, repastination, and turning of the mould with the spade.” “The earth,” he adds elsewhere, “especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us; all dungings and other sordid temperings being but the vicars succedaneous to this improvement.” Moreover, this being one of those “worn-out and exhausted lay fields which enjoy their sabbath,” had perchance, as Sir Kenelm Digby thinks likely, attracted “vital spirits” from the air. I harvested twelve bushels of beans.

SIR KENELM DIGBY JOHN EVELYN

TIMELINE OF WALDEN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

One of my most amusing impressions of Thoreau relates to a time when, in the Quixotism of youthful admiration, I had persuaded him to give a lecture in Boston, at my risk. He wrote (April 3, 1852) in a tone of timidity which may surprise those who did not know him, “I certainly do not feel prepared to offer myself as a lecturer to the Boston public, and hardly know whether more to dread a small audience or a large one. Nevertheless I will repress this squeamishness, and propose no alteration in your arrangements.” The scene of the lecture was to be a small hall in a court, now vanished, opening from Tremont street, opposite King’s Chapel, the hall itself being leased by an association of young mechanics, who had a reading-room opening out of it. The appointed day ushered in a furious snow-storm before which the janitor of the building retreated in despair, leaving the court almost blockaded. When Thoreau and I ploughed through, we found a few young mechanics reading newspapers; and when the appointed hour came, there were assembled only Mr. Alcott, Dr. Walter Channing and at most three or four ticket-holders. No one wished to postpone the affair and Mr. Alcott suggested that the thing to be done was to adjourn to the reading-room, where, he doubted not, the young men would be grateful for the new gospel offered; for which he himself undertook to prepare their minds. I can see him now, going from one to another, or collecting them in little groups and expounding to them, with his lofty Socratic mien, the privileges they were to share. “This is his life; this is his book; he is to print it presently; I think we shall all be glad, shall we not, either to read his book or to hear it?” Some laid down their newspapers, more retained them; the lecture proved to be one of the most introspective chapters from “Walden.” A few went to sleep, the rest rustled their papers; and the most vivid impression which I retain from the whole enterprise is the profound gratitude I felt to one auditor (Doctor Walter Channing), who forced upon me a five-dollar bill towards the expenses of the disastrous entertainment.82

April 6, Tuesday: Last night a snow storm & this morning we find the ground covered again 6 or 8 inches deep–& drifted pretty badly beside. The conductor in the cars which have been detained more than an hour–says it is a dry snow up country– Here it is very damp. PHILIP CAFARO ON VIRTUE IN WALDEN83 PAGE 47: [I]n the chapter “The Bean-Field,” Thoreau quotes seventeenth-century horticulturist John Evelyn’s assertion that “the earth ... especially if fresh, has a certain magnetism in it, by which it attracts the salt, power, or virtue (call it either) which gives it life, and is the logic of all the labor and stir we keep about it, to sustain us.” Clearly a field cannot act morally! For Evelyn, as for Thoreau, “virtue” implies power: that force through which a field or a man may flourish and bring forth the proper fruits. Thoreau quotes a similar archaic use

82. The Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson’s “Glimpses of Authors” (Brains I, December 1, 1891, page 105) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

of “virtue” by Cato the Elder. Virtue is thus essentially active for Thoreau; as he had written earlier, “even virtue is no longer such if it be stagnant.” In the modern view, the virtues are valuable largely because they limit our self-assertion and keep us from doing what we should not do. The modest person will not brag about his achievements, the honest person will not lie for personal advantage, the just person will not take more than her fair share. The ancient view instead stresses that actively cultivating the virtues is key to our self-development and happiness. They allow us to do what we should do and become better people. Thoreau echoes this life- affirming view when he writes: “The constant inquiry which Nature puts is Are your virtuous? Then you can behold me. Beauty — fragrance — music — sweetness — & joy of all kinds are for the virtuous.” Thoreau, like the ancients, links his notion of virtue to personal flourishing. In WALDEN, he tries to show how the virtues of simplicity, integrity, and resolutions serve to focus and clarify our lives; how generosity and sympathy may improve our relations with our neighbors; how curiosity, imagination, and reverence help us appreciate the world around us. These connections between virtue and flourishing serve to specify genuine virtues and spell out their proper development and use.

83. Philip Cafaro. THOREAU’S LIVING ETHICS: WALDEN AND THE PURSUIT OF VIRTUE. Athens: U of Georgia P, 2004 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 7, Wednesday: Since Henry Thoreau checked out the Canadian Geological Survey’s REPORT OF PROGRESS FOR 1849-50 (Montreal, Toronto) from the Boston Society of Natural History, my guess is that after his lecture on PERUSE THIS REPORT

“Reality” during the snowstorm of the previous evening he had not attempted a return trip to Concord, but had instead perhaps stayed over at the Alcott home. Of course, it is possible that he was taken into the parsonage of the Reverend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, his sponsor, for this month of April was the month in which the Alcotts were making a large transition. The Hawthorne family, Nathaniel, Sophia, and their three young children Una, Julian, and Rose, desiring to return to Concord, agreed to purchase the rundown Hillside property from the Alcotts and Waldo Emerson for a total of $1,500.00, a down payment of $250.00 of which was to be made to Samuel Eliot Sewall as executor of the Alcott interest and placed in a trust fund for Abba and a payment of $500.00 of which was to be made to the Emersons, who would set it up as a trust fund for Bronson Alcott. (The balance of $750.00 was to be paid into Sam Sewall’s trust fund for Abba within one year.) On this basis the Alcotts were in the process of moving from their slum place on High Street into a rundown 4-story brick house in a good neighborhood on Beacon Hill, 20 Pinkney Street, agreeing to pay a rent of $350.00 per year. By this point in her trajectory, Abba Alcott had had quite had her fill of being a do-gooder and being treated like one,84 and was determined to run this home on Beacon Hill as a private boardinghouse. THE WAYSIDE OLD HOUSES

May 8, Saturday: The Olive Branch was a weekly Methodist newspaper in Boston, edited by the Reverend Thomas

84. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” —C.S. Lewis HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

F. Norris. As Thoreau would report in “Reading”:

WALDEN: We boast that we belong to the nineteenth century and are making the PEOPLE OF most rapid strides of any nation. But consider how little this village does WALDEN for its own culture. I do not wish to flatter my townsmen, nor to be flattered by them, for that will not advance either of us. We need to be provoked, – goaded like oxen, as we are, into a trot. We have a comparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only; but excepting the half-starved Lyceum in the winter, and latterly the puny beginning of a library suggested by the state, no school for ourselves. We spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or ailment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure – if they are indeed so well off-to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives. Shall the world be confined to one Paris or one Oxford forever? Cannot students be boarded here and get a liberal education under the skies of Concord? Can we not hire some Abélard to lecture to us? Alas! what with foddering the cattle and tending the store, we are kept from school too long, and our education is sadly neglected. In this country, the village should in some respects take the place of the nobleman of Europe. It should be the patron of the fine arts. It is rich enough. It wants only the magnanimity and refinement. It can spend money enough on such things as farmers and traders value, but it is thought Utopian to propose spending money for things which more intelligent men know to be of far more worth. This town has spent seventeen thousand dollars on a town-house, thank fortune or politics, but probably it will not spend so much on living wit, the true meat to put into that shell, in a hundred years. The one hundred and twenty-five dollars annually subscribed for a Lyceum in the winter is better spent than any other equal sum raised in the town. If we live in the nineteenth century, why should we not enjoy the advantages which the nineteenth century offers? Why should our life be in any respect provincial? If we will read newspapers, why not skip the gossip of Boston and take the best newspaper in the world at once? –not be sucking the pap of “neutral family” papers, or browsing “Olive-Branches” here in New England. Let the reports of all the learned societies come to us, and we will see if they know any thing. Why should we leave it to Harper & Brothers and Redding & Co. to select our reading? As the nobleman of cultivated taste surrounds himself with whatever conduces to his culture, –genius –learning –wit –books –paintings –statuary –music – philosophical instruments, and the like; so let the village do, –not stop short at a pedagogue, a parson, a sexton, a parish library, and three selectmen, because our pilgrim forefathers got through a cold winter once on a bleak rock with these. To act collectively is according to the spirit of our institutions; and I am confident that, as our circumstances are more flourishing, our means are greater than the nobleman’s. New England can hire all the wise men in the world to come and teach her, and board them round the while, and not be provincial at all. That is the uncommon school we want. Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men. If it is necessary, omit one bridge over the river, go round a little there, and throw one arch at least over the darker gulf of ignorance which surrounds us.

PETER ABÉLARD HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Louisa May Alcott’s 1st publication, “The Rival Painters,” appeared in the Olive Branch for this date, Volume XVII, #19. In Louisa’s journal she remarked “My first story was printed and $5 paid for it. It was written in Concord when I was sixteen. Great rubbish! Read it aloud to sisters, and when they praised it, not knowing the author, I proudly announced her name.” Below is how this real-life episode was represented as part of Jo March’s publication triumph in Chapter 14 of Volume I of LITTLE WOMEN in 1869, complete with a most pertinent and appropriate reference to Miss Fanny Burney’s anonymous novel of manners EVELINA, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

THE HISTORY OF A YOUNG LADY’S ENTRANCE INTO THE WORLD:85

“What’s the name?” asked Beth, wondering why Jo kept her face behind the sheet. “The Rival Painters.” “That sounds well. Read it,” said Meg. With a loud “hem!” and a long breath, Jo began to read very fast. The girls listened with interest, for the tale was romantic, and somewhat pathetic, as most of the characters died in the end. “I like that about the splendid picture,” was Amy’s approving remark, as Jo paused. “I prefer the lovering part. Viola and Angelo are two of our favorite names, isn’t that queer?” said Meg, wiping her eyes, for the ‘lovering part’ was tragical. “Who wrote it?” asked Beth, who had caught a glimpse of Jo’s face. The reader suddenly sat up, cast away the paper, displaying a flushed countenance, and with a funny mixture of solemnity and excitement replied in a loud voice, “Your sister.” “You?” cried Meg, dropping her work. “It’s very good,” said Amy critically. “I knew it! I knew it! oh, my Jo, I am so proud!” And Beth ran to hug her sister and exult over this splendid success. Dear me, how delighted they all were, to be sure! how Meg wouldn’t believe it till she saw the words. “Miss Josephine March,” actually printed in the paper; how graciously Amy criticized the artistic parts of the story, and offered hints for a sequel, which unfortunately couldn’t be carried out, as the hero and heroine were dead; how Beth got excited, and skipped and sang with joy; how Hannah came in to exclaim, “Sakes alive, well I never!” in great astonishment at ‘that Jo’s doin’s’; how proud Mrs. March was when she knew it; how Jo laughed, with tears in her eyes, as she declared she might as well be a peacock and done with it. and how the ‘Spread Eagle’ might be said to flap his wings triumphantly over the House of March, as the paper passed from hand to hand. “Tell us about it.” “When did it come?” “How much did you get for it?” “What will Father say?” “Won’t Laurie laugh?” cried the family, all in one breath as they clustered about Jo, for these foolish, affectionate people made a jubilee of every little household joy. “Stop jabbering, girls, and I’ll tell you everything,” said Jo, wondering if Miss Burney felt any grander over her EVELINA than she did over her ‘Rival Painters.’ Having told how she disposed of her tales, Jo added, — “And when I went to get my answer, the man said he liked them both, but didn’t pay beginners, only let them print in his paper, and noticed the stories. It was good practice, he said, and when the beginners improved, anyone would pay. So I let him have the two stories, and to-day this was sent to me, and Laurie caught me with it and insisted on seeing it, so I let him. And he said it was good, and I shall write more, and he’s going to get the next paid for, and oh — I am so happy, for in time I may be able to support myself and help the girls.” Jo’s breath gave out here, and wrapping her head in the paper, she bedewed her little story with a few natural tears, for to be independent and earn the praise of those she loved were the dearest wishes of her heart, and this seemed to be the first step toward that happy end.

May 8, Saturday: 4.30. –The robin [American Robin Turdus migratorius] and the bluebird [Eastern Bluebird Sialia sialis] have sung for some time. The haziness is now like a sea-turn, through which the sun, shorn of beams, looks claret, and at length, when half an hour high, scarlet. You thought it might become HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

rain. Many swallows flying in flocks high over the river, –the chimney swallow for one. What is the other? They sustain themselves sometimes on quivering wings, making little progress, as if to catch insects.... A singular noise from a jay [Blue Jay Cyanocitta cristata] this morning. Hear the yellow-bird [Yellow Warbler Dendroica petechia], the creeper [Pine Warbler Dendroica pinus or Brown Creeper Certhia americana or Black-and-white Warbler Mniotilta varia], and the myrtle-bird [Yellow-rumped Warbler Dendroica coronata] this morning, all together; they are much alike. The creeper, a faint oven- bird [Seiurus aurocapillus] note; the myrtle-bird, a little more of the s or t in it than the yellowbird and more various. I hear the wit-er-che, Maryland yellow-throat [Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas]. Two gold robins [Northern Oriole Icterus galbula]; they chatter like black-birds: the fire bursts forth on their backs when they lift their wings. A fresh scent blows off from the meadow, the river rapidly going down.... The blackbirds [Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus] have a rich sprayey warble now, sitting on the top [of] a willow or an elm. They possess the river now, flying back and forth across it.... The blackbirds fly in flocks and sing in concert on the willows, –what a lively, chattering concert! a great deal of chattering with many liquid and rich warbling notes and clear whistles, –till now a hawk sails low, beating the bush; and they are silent or off, but soon begin again. Do any other birds sing in such deafening concert?

85. Little known fact of history: Fanny Burney’s novel was published in January 1778 and yet she dared not inform her father that she was the author of this work until June 1778 — after it was known to be a commercial success and, also, after her father had praised it. (Have you come a long way, baby?) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Winter: With the Alcott family moving to a basement apartment in Boston, the Hawthornes transferred to Samuel Eliot Sewall as trustee the agreed $1,500.00 purchase price for the frame home, painted a rusty olive, that the Alcotts had purchased in 1845 after the Consociate Family at Fruitlands near Harvard, Massachusetts had fallen apart, and paid $500.00 to Waldo Emerson, in addition, for eight acres of Concord meadow he had obtained to go with that house, across the road. The Alcotts had named their refuge Hillside because of its being situated at the foot of a glacial sand hill (esker??),86 and the Hawthornes would be renaming it “The Wayside” because, like the “Wayside Inn” tavern of renown, it was directly alongside a main post road, in this case the route through to Lexington. Nathaniel’s pacing back and forth along the top of this hill would soon be creating a distinct path in the thin soil. The family would be living in this house until going abroad in 1853, and then the house would be occupied by the family of Mrs. Hawthorne’s brother, Dr. Nathaniel Peabody. OLD HOUSES

86. As the geologist Jeff Unruh would comment in 1993, “Topography doesn’t happen for nothing.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1853

George William Curtis published an essay about William Makepeace Thackeray. (This would be reprinted in 1895 in Curtis’s LITERARY AND SOCIAL ESSAYS.) During this year and the following one he would author articles on Emerson and on Hawthorne. He became co-editor with Parke Goodwin and Charles F. Brigs of Putnam’s Weekly. Also during this year he issued his THE POTIPHAR PAPERS (a satire on fashionable society) and his HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS; COMPRISING ANECDOTICAL, PERSONAL, AND DESCRIPTIVE SKETCHES, BY VARIOUS WRITERS. ILLUSTRATED WITH VIEWS OF THEIR RESIDENCES FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS, AND A FAC-SIMILE OF THE MANUSCRIPT OF EACH AUTHOR (New-York: G.P. Putnam and Co., HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

10 Park Place. London: Sampson Low, Son & Co.): Once Emerson and Thoreau arrived to pay a call on Hawthorne at the Old Manse. They were shown into the little parlor upon the avenue, and Hawthorne presently entered. Each of the guests sat upright in his chair like a Roman Senator. “To them,” Hawthorne, like a Dacian King. The call went on, but in a most melancholy manner. The host sat perfectly still, or occasionally propounded a question which Thoreau answered accurately, and there the thread broke short off. Emerson delivered sentences that only needed the setting of an essay, to charm the world; but the whole visit was a vague ghost of the Monday evening club at Mr. Emerson’s, — it was a great failure. Had they all been lying idly upon the river bank, or strolling in Thoreau’s blackberry pastures, the result would have been utterly different. But imprisoned in the proprieties of a parlor, each a wild man in his way, with a necessity of talking inherent in the nature of the occasion, there was only a waste of treasure. This was the only “call” in which I ever knew Hawthorne to be involved.

HOMES OF AMERICAN AUTHORS

This “coffee table book” bound in brown cloth, with its gilt top edge and its color illustrations on proof paper glued to the text pages, included a presentation of the summerhouse that a couple of local artisans, named Bronson Alcott and Henry Thoreau, had built for the famous American essayist and lecturer who lived in Concord, Waldo Emerson. Here is the manner in which an image of that summerhouse would appear, HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

in a publication by Alcott:

THE ALCOTT FAMILY Incidentally, the above 1853 coffee table book” bound in brown cloth, with its gilt top edge and its color illustrations on proof paper glued to the text pages, was present for Thoreau’s inspection in the personal library of Alcott (he would copy from it into his Indian Notebook #7) — and stands as the 1st book to make mention of Thoreau’s Walden Pond experiment in voluntary simplicity!

Abba Alcott and others presented a petition for citizens of Massachusetts to endorse, on the sensitive subject of the equal political rights of woman: Fellow-Citizens:—In May next a Convention will assemble to revise the Constitution of the Commonwealth. At such a time it is the right and duty of every one to point out whatever he deems erroneous and imperfect in that instrument, and press its amendment on public attention. We deem the extension to woman of all civil rights, a measure of vital importance to the welfare and progress of the State. On every principle of natural justice, as well as by the nature of our institutions, she is as fully entitled as man to vote, and to be eligible to office. In governments based on force, it might be pretended with some plausibility, that woman being supposed physically weaker than man, should be excluded from the State. But ours is a government professedly resting on the consent of the governed. Woman is surely as competent to give that consent as man. our Revolution claimed that taxation and representation should be co-extensive. While the property and labor of women are subject to taxation, she is entitled to a voice in fixing the amount of taxes, and the use of them when collected, and is entitled to a voice in the laws that regulate punishments. It would be a disgrace to our schools and civil institutions, for any one to argue that a Massachusetts woman who has enjoyed the full advantage of all their culture, is not as competent to form an opinion on civil matters, as the illiterate foreigner landed but a few years HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

before upon our shores—unable to read or write—by no means free from early prejudices, and little acquainted with our institutions. Yet such men are allowed to vote. Woman as wife, mother, daughter, and owner of property, has important rights to be protected. The whole history of legislation so unequal between the sexes, shows that she can not safely trust these to the other sex. Neither have her rights as mother, wife, daughter, laborer, ever received full legislative protection. Besides, our institutions are not based on the idea of one class receiving protection from another; but on the well- recognized rule that each class, or sex, is entitled to such civil rights, as will enable it to protect itself. The exercise of civil rights is one of the best means of education. Interest in great questions, and the discussion of them under momentous responsibility, call forth all the faculties and nerve them to their fullest strength. The grant of these rights on the part of society, would quickly lead to the enjoyment by woman, of a share in the higher grades of professional employment. Indeed, without these, mere book study is often but a waste of time. The learning for which no use is found or anticipated, is too frequently forgotten, almost as soon as acquired. The influence of such a share, on the moral condition of society, is still more important. Crowded now into few employments, women starve each other by close competition; and too often vice borrows overwhelming power of temptation from poverty. Open to women a great variety of employments, and her wages in each will rise; the energy and enterprise of the more highly endowed, will find full scope in honest effort, and the frightful vice of our cities will be stopped at its fountain-head. We hint very briefly at these matters. A circular like this will not allow room for more. Some may think it too soon to expect any action from the Convention. Many facts lead us to think that public opinion is more advanced on this question than is generally supposed. Beside, there can be no time so proper to call public attention to a radical change in our civil polity as now, when the whole framework of our government is to be subjected to examination and discussion. It is never too early to begin the discussion of any desired change. To urge our claim on the Convention, is to bring our question before the proper tribunal, and secure at the same time the immediate attention of the general public. Massachusetts, though she has led the way in most other reforms, has in this fallen behind her rivals, consenting to learn, as to the protection of the property of married women, of many younger States. Let us redeem for her the old pre-eminence, and urge her to set a noble example in this the most important of all civil reforms. To this we ask you to join with us in the accompanying petition to the Constitutional Convention. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Monier Williams translated Kalidasa’s SAKOONTALA, OR THE LOST RING.87 INDIA

The initial academic account of Theravada Buddhism, written with hostility to discount it as not a major religion but a mere error of materialism and agnosticism, the Reverend Robert Spence Hardy’s A MANUAL OF BUDHISM, IN ITS MODERN DEVELOPMENT; TRANSLATED FROM SINGHALESE MSS. BY R. SPENCE HARDY, AUTHOR OF “EASTERN MONACHISM,” “DÉWA-DHARMA-DARPANAYA,” ETC. (London: Partridge and Oakey, 34, Paternoster Row; and 70, Edgware Road. Sold by J. Mason, Paternoster Row and City Road).

Copies of this would be found in the personal libraries of Bronson Alcott and of Henry Thoreau (although it would seem clear that these would be two of the last persons in the world to be tainted by its invidious missionary-position propaganda). A MANUAL OF BUDHISM

A WEEK: It is necessary not to be Christian to appreciate the beauty and significance of the life of Christ. I know that some will have hard thoughts of me, when they hear their Christ named beside my Buddha, yet I am sure that I am willing they should love their Christ more than my Buddha, for the love is the main thing, and I like him too. “God is the letter Ku, as well as Khu.” Why need Christians be still intolerant and superstitious?

87. Thoreau had already been studying this play in 1850, in the 1789 Sir William Jones translation available from the Harvard Library. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May-October: During this period Louisa May Alcott was worked as a domestic in the family of an elderly lawyer of Dedham, Massachusetts, James Richardson, functioning as a companion for his sister and his father, for $2.00/ week plus room and board. It had been in this home in 1849 that Louisa had written her manuscript THE INHERITANCE. This had obviously been her first lengthy literary effort, mentioned nowhere in her corpus. It contains within it not only elements of A LONG FATAL LOVE CHASE but also of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY and is patterned closely on the popular literature of the time.

Presumably she was earning her pay, fending off the sexual advances of Mr. Richardson. Presumably she decided that she could not inform her parents in Concord of the demands being made of her by her employer, which offers us an interesting insight into 19th-Century sensitivities. Later, when she would write the story “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that Richardson’s reading his poetry to her had amounted to a solicitation of sex. At any rate, when she would resign her post in October Richardson would pay her $4.00 as due wages and she would send the $4.00 back to him. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

March: Since he had already been a minister, Moncure Daniel Conway was accepted into the middle class at Harvard Divinity School, and had only one semester of work to complete before he would again be entitled to make money by preaching, and only three semesters of work to complete before he would again be using the title Reverend. He could only have been a charity student, since his Southern slavemaster daddy, the judge, had cut him off without a cent when he had announced that he could no longer be of the Methodist faith (or perhaps the abolitionists, knowing a good thing when they saw it, were fronting this young Southern gentleman his tuition money to make a Unitarian abolitionist out of him?). A group of 15 Harvard students, among them Conway, invited Bronson Alcott to deliver an extracurricular course “Conversations on Modern Life” at the Divinity School. Franklin Benjamin Sanborn was also among these young men, although he was not a divinity student. After the meeting Ednah Dow Littlehale introduced Sanborn to Alcott. Sometime later in the year Sanborn would be invited to a vegetarian dinner with the Alcotts at 20 Pinckney Street in Boston.88 THE ALCOTT FAMILY AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II

May 9, Monday: One of the two children of Alexander William Doniphan, 14-year-old John Thornton Doniphan, was visiting his uncle James Baldwin, and in the middle of the night was bothered by a toothache. He took a dose of what he thought was Epsom salts. Instead of Epsom salts it was corrosive sublimate (mercury chloride) that he had ingested. He died.

Although Henry Thoreau would suggest in WALDEN that this material pertinent to a visit from Bronson Alcott had occurred during the winter of 1846-1847 while he was in residence in his shanty on the pond, in fact part of it, word for word, describes a visit he received from Alcott on this day: [following screen] THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 9. Since I returned from Haverhill, not only I find the ducks are gone, but I no longer hear the chill-lill of the blue snowbird or the sweet strains of the fox-colored sparrow and the tree sparrow. The robin's strain is less remarkable. I have devoted most of my day to Mr. Alcott. He is broad and genial, but indefinite; some would say feeble; forever feeling about vainly in his speech and touching nothing. But this is a very negative account of him, for he thus suggests far more than the sharp and definite practical mind. The feelers of his thought diverge –such is the breadth of their grasp,– not converge; and in his society almost alone I can express at my leisure, with more or less success, my vaguest but most cherished fancy or thought. There are never any obstacles in the way of our meeting. He has no creed. He is not pledged to any institution. The sanest man I ever knew; the fewest crochets, after all, has he. It has occurred to me, while I am thinking with pleasure of our days’ intercourse, “Why should I not think aloud to you?” Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we walk and whittle them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We wade so gently and reverently, or we pull together so smoothly, that the fishes of thought are not scared from the stream, but come and go grandly, like yonder clouds that float peacefully through the western sky....The blue sky is a distant reflection of the azure serenity that looks out from under a human brow. We walk together like the most innocent children, going after wild pinks with case-knives. Most with whom I endeavor to talk soon fetch up against some institution or particular way of viewing things, theirs not being a universal view. They will continually bring their own roofs or-what is not much better-their own narrow skylights between us and the sky, when it is the unobstructed heavens I would view. Get out of the way with your old Jewish cobwebs. Wash your windows. Saw on Mr. Emerson's firs several parti-colored warblers, or finch creepers (Sylvia Americana), a small blue and yellow bird, somewhat like but

88. Eventually Sanborn would be delivering Bronson’s funeral eulogy and writing his biography. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

smaller than the indigo-bird; quite tame, about the buds of the firs, now showing red; often head downward. Heard no note. He says it has been here a day or two. At sundown paddled up the river. The pump-like note of a stake-driver from the fenny place across the Lee meadow. The greenest and rankest grass as yet is that in the water along the sides of the river. The hylodes are peeping. I love to paddle now at evening, when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm. The rich warble of blackbirds about retiring is loud and incessant, not to mention the notes of numerous other birds. The black willow has started, but not yet the button-bush, Again I think I heard the night-warbler. Now, at starlight, that same nighthawk or snipe squeak is heard, but no hovering. The first bat goes suddenly zigzag overhead through the dusky air; comes out of the dusk and disappears into it. That slumbrous, snoring croak, far less ringing and musical than the toad's (which is occasionally heard), now comes up from the meadow's edge. I save a floating plank, which exhales and imparts to my hands the rank scent of the muskrats which have squatted on it. I often see their fresh green excrement on rocks and wood. Already men are fishing for pouts. This has been almost the first warm day; none yet quite so warm. Walking to the Cliffs this afternoon, I noticed, on Fair Haven Hill, a season stillness, as I looked over the distant budding forest and heard the buzzing of a fly.

He made an entry in his journal that he was later to copy into his early lecture “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” as:

[Paragraph 67] I chance to know but two or three intellectual men who are yet so broad and truly liberal—unpledged to any institution or creed—that I can think aloud in their society.1 Most with whom I endeavor to talk, soon come to a stand against some institution in which they appear to hold stock, that is some particular way of viewing things, theirs not being a universal way. They will continually bring their own low roofs, or at least their own narrow sky- lights, between you and the sky—when it is the unobstructed heavens you would view. Get out of the way with your old cobwebs—wash your windows.

1. In the journal source of this paragraph, it is Bronson Alcott who “has no creed” and “is not pledged to any institution.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

In a sheaf of Thoreau’s notes titled “The Moon” extracts from which had been utilized by someone as the basis for the short article “Night and Moonlight” ascribed to Thoreau in The Atlantic Monthly in November 1863, and afterward republished in the EXCURSIONS volume (a sheaf that was delivered to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. along with the 39 ms volumes of Thoreau’s journal) we find some notes from this date, informing us that “At sundown on river, May 9th, ’53. I love to paddle now at evening when the water is smooth and the air begins to be warm. This has been almost the first warm day. The rich warble of blackbirds about retiring is loud and incessant, not to mention the notes of numerous other birds. I hear the pumplike note of a stake-driver from the fens across the river. (Heard the first the 7th ult.) Now at starlight the squeak of snipes is heard over the meadow, but not their hovering sound. The first bat of the season goes suddenly zigzag overhead through the dusky air, and is immediately lost to sight again. [A writer] says of this animal, ‘By day, hanging from the vault of sepulchral grottoes, it imitates the absolute stillness of the dead in his shroud.’ By night it is ‘the skeleton with the scythe sailing through the regions of darkness with silent flight.’ A slumberous snoring croak now comes up from the meadow’s edge, from some species of frog recently awakened. I save a floating plank which exhales and imparts to my hands the rank scent of muskrats which have squatted on it. Already men are fishing for pouts.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

WALDEN: I should not forget that during my last winter at the pond there was another welcome visitor, who at one time came through the village, through snow and rain and darkness, till he saw my lamp through the trees, and shared with me some long winter evenings. One of the last of the philosophers, –Connecticut gave him to the world,– he peddled first her wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains. These he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut its kernel. I think that he must be the man of the most faith of any alive. His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve. He has no venture in the present. But though comparatively disregarded now, when his day comes, laws unsuspected by most will take effect, and masters of families and rulers will come to him for advice.– “How blind that cannot see serenity!” A true friend of man; almost the only friend of human progress. An Old Mortality, say rather an Immortality, with unwearied patience and faith making plain the image engraven in men’s bodies, the God of whom they are but defaced and leaning monuments. With his hospitable intellect he embraces children, beggars, insane, and scholars, and entertains the thought of all, adding to it commonly some breadth and elegance. I think that he should keep a caravansary on the world’s highway, where philosophers of all nations might put up, and on his sign should be printed. “Entertainment for man, but not for his beast. Enter ye that have leisure and a quiet mind, who earnestly seek the right road.” He is perhaps the sanest man and has the fewest crotchets of any I chance to know; the same yesterday and tomorrow. Of yore we had sauntered and talked, and effectually put the world behind us; for he was pledged to no institution in it, freeborn, ingenuus. Whichever way we turned, it seemed that the heavens and the earth had met together, since he enhanced the beauty of the landscape. A blue-robed man, whose fittest roof is the overarching sky which reflects his serenity. I do not see how he can ever die; Nature cannot spare him. Having each some shingles of thought well dried, we sat and whittled them, trying our knives, and admiring the clear yellowish grain of the pumpkin pine. We waded so gently and reverently, or we pulled together so smoothly, that the fishes of though were not scared from the stream, nor feared any angler on the bank, but came and went grandly, like the clouds which float through the western sky, and the mother-o’-pearl flocks which sometimes form and dissolve there. There we worked, revising mythology, rounding a fable here and there, and building castles in the air for which earth offered no worthy foundation. Great Looker! Great Expecter! to converse with whom was a New England Night’s Entertainment. Ah! such discourse we had, hermit and philosopher, and the old settler I have spoken of, –we three,– it expanded and racked my little house; I should not dare to say how many pounds’ weight there was above the atmospheric pressure on every circular inch; it opened its seams so that they had to be calked with much dulness thereafter to stop the consequent leak; –but I had enough of that kind of oakum already picked. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

October: Louisa May Alcott left the employ of the family of James Richardson in Dedham, Massachusetts. Presumably she had earned her $2.00 a week fending off the sexual advances of Mr. Richardson, and presumably she had not found her way clear to inform her parents in Concord of the demands made of her, which offers us an interesting insight into 19th-Century sensitivities. Later, when she would write a story entitled “How I Went out to Service,” she would imply that this elderly lawyer’s reading his poetry to her amounted to a solicitation of sex. At any rate, as she left Richardson paid due wages of $4.00 and she sent that $4.00 back to him. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

It was presumably during this month that Ellery Channing wrote to Henry Thoreau, as follows: Mr Thoreau If you are not engaged to-day I should like to make an excursion with you on the river. If you are [some] other day next week. WEC

the undersigned lend to Michael Flannery the following sums, till the 1st of amounting in all to 50- dollars

November, 1854. so to enable his family him to transport to this county ^ viz—

(We see that Thoreau has subsequently utilized this scrap as scratchpaper for the subscription he was getting together among Concord folk, that would enable local Irish laborer Michael Flannery to bring his wife and children over from Ireland.)

The Reverend Samuel Ringgold Ward, although ill, toured and spoke in Scotland. Many of the most prominent members of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada are natives of Scotland. Knowing the very active part some of the very best of their countrymen took in the emancipation struggle, and knowing as well how warmly the Scottish heart beats for liberty, especially upon its native soil, they kindly gave me letters of introduction to many persons of great eminence there. After I arrived in England, the Committee of the Glasgow New Abolition Society very cordially invited me to visit the North. What I knew of Scotchmen whom I had met, what I had read, and the natural desire to see such a country and such a people, made me but too happy to accept their kind invitation. Accordingly, in October, 1853, I paid my first visit to the land of Bruce and Burns, of Campbell, Gordon, and Scott. I was invited to attend a bazaar, and to speak. Though very ill, I made the attempt. The Rev. Dr. Lorimer was in the chair, sustained by some of the most learned of the Glasgow HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

clergy, and gentlemen of high standing in other professions. The kind and, I am sure, too partial manner, in which the excellent Dr. Roberton, of Manchester, had written and spoken of me, made me the welcome guest of Captain Hamilton,89 of Rutherglen — a fit representative of the Scottish laird and the British officer. William P. Paton, Esq., and Hugh Brown, Esq., laid me under obligations by kindly receiving me at their homes, and by introducing me to some of the most eminent Scottish ministers. It was at the house of the former that I first had the gratification of meeting the Rev. Dr. Urwick, of Dublin, and the Rev. Noble Shepherd, of Sligo. At the house of Mr. Brown I had the pleasure of meeting the Rev. Dr. Arnot. At the hospitable board of the Rev. Dr. Lorimer I was honoured by an introduction to the Rev. Dr. Robson. Through the kindness of another friend, John Bain, Esq., I had the privilege of becoming acquainted with the Rev. Dr. Roxburgh.90 John Smith, Esq., treated me like a brother, and Mrs. Smith sustained him in it. David Smith, Esq., the elder brother of Mr. John Smith, conferred upon me one of the highest favours a Scotchman could confer or a Negro could appreciate — he gave me a copy of Burns’ poems, from his own library. That was almost equal to proffering me the freedom of Glasgow, or making me a Scotchman! Well did I use that volume, while sojourning in the country which gave birth to it and its immortal author! O that I liked oaten cakes, haggis, cockie-leekie, or BAGPIPES, as much as Burns! May my Scotch brethren forgive me for being so incorrigible a creature as to cling to old-fashioned likes and dislikes, acquired before I went to Scotland! ...It was a cold, damp, foggy winter — a winter of such “darkness as may be felt.” I had before heard that “a Scotch mist will wet an Irishman to the skin.” A Scotch fog went through my skin, and gave me a worse congestion of the lungs than I had before suffered from in twenty years. So severe was it, as to compel me to suspend labour, and return to England. I went to the coast of Kent, to recover; and while there, received an invitation from my honoured friend, William Crossfield, Esq., to spend some time at his very pleasant residence, near Liverpool. In the course of a month I was able to resume my labours. Thanks to my kind hostess, Miss Jurdison, of Ramsgate; to the very amiable family of Mr. Crossfield, and other numerous friends in Liverpool, including Rev. Dr. Raffles, J. Cropper, Esq., E. Cropper, Esq., Rev. Chas. Birrell, G. Wright, Esq., the Misses Wraith, and others! Their great kindness did more than medicine towards my restoration. I saw a good deal of Scotland, however, that winter, and became acquainted with some of the very best classes of Scotch gentry. I met, and worshipped with, and preached for, some of the best congregations — as Rev. Mr. Munro’s, of Rutherglen; Rev. Dr. Wardlaw’s, Rev. Dr. Roxburgh and others, in Glasgow; Rev. Mr. 89. Captain Hamilton did me the honour to introduce me to Rev. Mr. Monro, of Rutherglen, whose kind people contributed most liberally to our cause. 90. Dr. Roxburgh invited me to preach for him, and kindly allowed me to plead the cause of the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society in his pulpit. The collection was the largest I ever received, £50. 1s. 4d. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Campbell’s and Rev. Dr. Alexander’s, in Edinburgh; Rev. Mr. Gilfillan’s, Rev. Mr. Lang’s, and Rev. Mr. Borwick’s, of Dundee; Rev. Dr. Brown’s, of Dalkeith; &c. I was in Scotland, alas! too late to see the Rev. Dr. Wardlaw. I had received from him kind, loving messages of sympathy, fraternity, and encouragement. They came like the words of one just entering the world of love — were destitute of stiff formality, and fragrant with the spirit of heaven. On an appointed day, a party of us went to his residence, to see him. The carriage which conveyed me arrived just as others were leaving, and the fatigue of the interview could neither be prolonged nor repeated. Thus I lost the opportunity of seeing on earth one of the men to meet whom will be one of the attractions of heaven. I had been equally unsuccessful in seeing Dr. Collyer, the first day I preached in his chapel. Before I was there again, he and the sainted Wardlaw were with Jesus. I had the melancholy pleasure of mingling my tears with the many who heard Rev. Dr. Alexander preach Dr. Wardlaw’s funeral sermon. I never before heard such a discourse. It was a noble tribute to the learning, piety, attainments and character, of the deceased, by one who intimately knew him and dearly loved him. The oration spoke wonders both for the dead and the living. It showed that the living speaker knew how to appreciate the great and shining qualities of the deceased. The sermon was delivered in the earnest impressive style of Scotch divines, tempered and chastened by the superior refinement of the respected preacher, who is, I think, one of the most finished — if not, indeed, the most finished — pulpit orator I heard in Scotland. The deep sensation felt all through the commercial metropolis of Scotland upon the death of Dr. Wardlaw, the words of praise which every lip gave him, the reverence with which his name was spoken, testified plainly, to the most casual observer, how deep and firm a hold he had upon all hearts while living. The same feeling pervaded all classes in the provinces. In his case was verified the scriptural expression, “The memory of the just is blessed.” Society in Scotland differs from that in England, as does the society of Boston and Massachusetts generally from that of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. I was struck with this while travelling northwards. The northern people are more familiar, more democratic. A Scotchman does not feel under the particular necessity of sitting next you all day in a railway carriage without saying a word, as an Englishman does. Betwixt different classes there is more familiarity, less distance, in Scotland, than in England. The different orders of society seem to approach more nearly to each other, without either losing or forgetting its place. There is less of the feeling, so prevalent in small towns in the South, that merchants and professional men must by all means avoid contact with shopkeepers. The chief order of nobility is the clergy, and all join to pay deference to them; but the general spread of religion, and the very upright HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

and pious habits of the population — the familiarity of the ministers with people, join to produce a brotherly feeling of oneness, which is abundantly apparent in the national character and in the state of society. Besides, I do not think that mere ceremony is half so much studied by the Scotch. They are great believers in realities; they are a substantial people; and what is merely formal, unless it be formal after the Scottish mode, is not commendable to them, and it costs them but little to say, “I canna be fashed wi sic clishmaclaver.” Hence, you get at a Scotchman’s heart at once. He will not profess to be what he is not. When you go to his house, and he extends his hand and says, “Come away,” you may know you are welcome. I like this straightforward way of doing things: it is far more expressive of true generosity than the set courtly phrases of mere conventionalism. A sort of independence of character is far more prevalent and observable in the Scotch peasantry than in either the English, the Irish, or the Welsh. Everybody expects to find it so; if not he will find himself much mistaken. Several anecdotes have been given me illustrative of this; but as I am not at home in telling Scotch tales, I dare not insert any of them. The fact, however, is most palpable. Doubtless the universal diffusion of education has much to do with it. How readily, and how generously, did the Scottish people respond to the claims of the anti-slavery cause! Dr. Pennington found it so, when he was there; so did Mr. Garnet; so did Frederic Douglass. There is far more of active, organized, anti-slavery vitality, among the three millions of Scottish population, than among the seventeen millions of English people. There are classes in England which the anti-slavery cause never reaches — the classes who compose the multitude. It is not so in Scotland, because the whole population, high and low, attend divine service, and they naturally enough acquire the habit of attending the kirk on any subject for which it is open. In England, millions of the working classes (not to mention others) do not attend any place of worship, and therefore never hear, know, or care, about the moral movements of the age. The same result is seen in Ireland. There are multitudes there, to be seen in the streets, who never enter any other than a Roman Catholic place of worship, and who accordingly know literally nothing of what is going on in the great moral field. In Wales, on the other hand, religion is as universal as education is in Scotland. Hence the Welsh, like the Scotch, go en masse to the meetings for religious and benevolent purposes. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1854

February: According to Anita Haya Patterson’s FROM EMERSON TO KING: DEMOCRACY, RACE, AND THE POLITICS OF PROTEST (NY: Oxford UP, 1997, page 132), at about this point Waldo Emerson’s journal indicates the manner HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

in which Emerson was exulting in the eventual victory of the biologically superior race (his own, of course):

The Unitarians, you say, are a poor skeptical egotistic shopping sect. The Calvinists serious, still darkened over by their Hebraistic dream. The Saxon race has never flowered into its own religion, but has been fain to borrow this old Hebraism of the dark race. The Latin races are at last come to a stand, & are declining. Merry England & saucy America striding far ahead. The dark man, the black man declines. The black man is courageous, but the white men are the children of God, said Plato. It will happen by & by, that the black man will only be destined for museums like the Dodo. Alcott compassionately thought that if necessary to bring them sooner to an end, polygamy might be introduced & these made the eunuchs, polygamy, I suppose, to increase the white births.

I myself consider (something which Patterson does not consider) that in this context Emerson was hinting that he and Bronson Alcott had been scheming to accelerate the disappearance of the black race in America through forced miscegenation, by a wet-dream final solution for the American race problem in which white owners were to geld all black men so that they themselves as white superiors would be the only males who might fecundate the black women of America. Of course, in recollecting such a conversation, Emerson would need HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

as above to make Alcott bear the brunt of the responsibility for such musings, and, of course, in recollecting such a conversation, Emerson would need as above to characterize the affect as compassion rather than as viciousness.91 Patterson merely goes on to point up the fact that although Emerson, like so many of his contemporaries who were presuming their own race to be inherently and intrinsically superior, was wont to speculate bloodily that the inferior races would most likely be exterminated, this is far from all the information and guidance that we might extrapolate from these foul droppings of his pen92 — if we can bring ourselves to pay careful attention:

91. While I was a pubescent, after WWII during the occupation of Japan, there was talk of this in regard to the Japanese population. Perhaps I heard this as idle “guy talk” in my uncle Frosty’s barbershop in Cory, Indiana. Kill all the men and fuck all the women. What I have to confess is that this sort of wet-dream final solution then became a fertile source of sexual fantasies for me. It is probably just as well I wasn’t Ruler of the Universe at that time, or President or something, and probably just as well that nobody was looking to me for good advice. So I suppose that here, since I sense a similar strain of though in these journal musings of Emerson, I should feel a special empathy for him and for Alcott, the Sage and the Saint. But I don’t. Somehow I don’t feel they were one bit better informed, or more highly spirited, than that pubescent Indiana boy with whom I can hardly any longer identify. 92. A suspicion has been raised, on the internet, in regard to our 2005 horror at Emerson’s and Alcott’s 1854 discussion of the desirability of a proposal to castrate all black American males, that our horror may be due to the error “presentism,” the historic error of retrojecting into the past an attitude that could only pertain to today and to 2005’s relative condition of enlightenment. Back in 1854, the concept of “genocide” having not yet been created, how do we dare to stand on our mount of enlightenment and fault Emerson and Alcott for thinking thoughts back then that today would be considered genocidal? I responded that Frederick Douglass was not a man of today, but was a man of yesterday. Nevertheless, had he been privy, in 1854, to this privileged conversation between the white man Emerson and the white man Alcott, a privileged conversation in which they were toying with the idea of castrating him so that he would be able to product no children, and castrating every other man who was like him, every other colored man, so that none of them would ever be able to have a home and family with children of their own — he would unquestionably have been offended, he would have been horrified, he would have been denunciatory, he would have been outraged, etc. Perhaps the only thing he might not have been, is, he might not have been surprised. –He would have had that sort of attitude and, guess what, it would have been an 1854 attitude. Since he could not have been guilty of a “presentism,” since he in 1854 would not have been guilty of the historic error of retrojection into his own era of an attitude that could only pertain to 2005’s relative condition of enlightenment, we in 2005 are not guilty of a presentism, in reconstructing and embracing what would have been his 1854 attitude. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

The sheer weight of evidence that proves the fact of Waldo Emerson’s racism is disturbing. However, we would miss the focus of this discussion –namely, the historical function of racism in Emerson’s writings– were we simply to dismiss him for exhibiting the racist perceptions of his time.... Emerson’s racism is central to his vision of American nationality — a compelling, myopic vision that must be viewed in the context of a violent policy of westward expansion that prevailed in nineteenth-century America. In NATURE, Emerson’s unmistakable reference to the raciality of the American self allows him to situate that self at the brink of egocentric absolutism: at the same time he expresses a near disavowal of human society represented by ties to the liberal-democratic state in NATURE, Emerson’s racist imagination of the white, male body of Columbus is a framework for social cohesion. For Emerson, race functions to express both a threat to and an affirmation of social order. Generally speaking, Emerson’s racist vision of the representative self is essential for his articulation of a call to revolution — what Henry Thoreau (and, much later, [the Reverend] Martin Luther King, Jr.) would designate as “civil disobedience.”

“Waldo Emerson’s profound racism abated over time, but it never disappeared, always hovering in the background and clouding his democratic vision. Like all too many of his fellow intellectuals, throughout his life and works Emerson remained convinced that the characteristics that made the United States, for all its flaws, the great nation of the world were largely the product of its Saxon heritage and history. Here, alas, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s democratic imagination largely failed him.” — Peter Field HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

YOU SEE, I’M A WHITE MAN

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

November: Bronson Alcott visited George Washington Briggs “concerning Louisa’s book of ‘Flower Fables’ which he is printing as a child’s Christmas gift.” THE ALCOTT FAMILY

The type of photograph which became known as the carte-de-visite –because the same size as and often used 1 1 1 in a similar manner to a visiting card (2 ⁄2" x 4", on which the image is sized 2 ⁄4" x 3 ⁄2")– was introduced in Paris by André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri (1819-1890). In this albumen-prints-from-wet-collodion-negatives process, because of the lens that was used, eight to ten images could be made on one standard-size glass plate, so that the positive prints made from this plate could then be cut apart with scissors and presented on eight to ten different occasions to eight to ten different people. The exposures could be made either simultaneously, for identicality and convenience, or consecutively, to obtain different poses, at the customer’s choice. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

December 9, Saturday: Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” to become incomparably more famous as a poem than his “Charge of the Heavy Brigade,” which of course you’ve not so much as heard of.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON

Also, on December 9th, Henry Thoreau surveyed a 7 1/2 acre woodlot, belonging to Tilly Holden, that was part of the property near the north part of Nut Meadow Brook (Gleason H4) on Sudbury Road (Gleason H5) and Old Marlborough Road (Gleason H3) which he had surveyed for Amos and Noah Wheeler in November of 1853.

Also, Louisa May Alcott published the stories she had originally created while caring for Ellen Emerson, as FLOWER FABLES, in time for the Christmas Book gift season, and took her essay “How I Went Out to Service” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

to James Thomas Fields, the Boston publisher — but was informed she could not write.93 “Pondering shadows, colors, clouds Grass-buds, and caterpillar shrouds Boughs on which the wild bees settle, Tints that spot the violet’s petal.” — Emerson’s WOOD-NOTES.

To Ellen Emerson, For whom they were fancied, These flower fables Are inscribed, By her friend, — The Author. Boston, Dec. 9, 1854.

Chapter I: The Frost King: or, The Power of Love Chapter II: Eva’s Visit to Fairy-Land Chapter III: The Flower’s Lesson Chapter IV: Lily-Bell and Thistledown Chapter V: Little Bud Chapter VI: Clover-Blossom Chapter VII: Little Annie’s Dream: or, The Fairy Flower Chapter VIII: Ripple, the Water-Spirit Chapter IX: Fairy Song THE ALCOTT FAMILY

December 19, Tuesday: George Washington Briggs stocked Louisa May Alcott’s FLOWER FABLES on the shelves of his bookstore on Washington Street in Boston in time for the Christmas season, as a potential child’s Christmas gift item. He placed an advertisement for it in the Boston Evening Transcript:94 Flower Fables. this day published by Geo. W. Briggs & Co. the most beautiful Fairy book that has appeared for a long time, written when in her sixteenth year, by Louisa May Alcott, a young lady of Boston. It will be

93. That’s “could not” as in “should not,” you understand. Good thing Thoreau had been born a Henry and not a Henrietta! Good thing our Louisa was not one to be so easily turned aside!

As long as THE SPREAD EAGLE paid her a dollar a column for her ‘rubbish,’ as she called it, Jo felt herself a woman of means, and spun her little romances diligently. But great plans fermented in her busy brain and ambitious mind, and the old tin kitchen in the garret held a slowly increasing pile of blotted manuscript, which was one day to place the name of March upon the roll of fame.

94. The young author would be rather disappointed with the cash proceeds of authorship: “I only got a very small sum for them owing to Mr Briggs’ dishonesty.” There seems to be no reason to suspect dishonesty, as the gross for the 550 copies that the book sold would have been approximately $340 and Louisa’s cut would have been 10% or $34, approximately what she did in fact receive from George Washington Briggs. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

the most popular juvenile issued this season. THE ALCOTT FAMILY In approximately this year of 1854 the Children’s Aid Society was being founded and a Newsboy’s Lodging House was being created so that the abandoned boys who were forced to hawk newspapers on the streets, referred to at the time as “newsies,” would not have to find their night shelter on the street during the winters. This evidently began a tradition of treating newsboys with great kindness and consideration, as useful citizens of the commonwealth — as witness the following corporate communication from the pages of the Editor & Publisher:

Treat them well, that is, entertain them, give them help when they need it, and invite them to Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners and they will show their gratitude by selling your papers in preference of all others.

Henry Thoreau wrote to his new correspondent, Friend Daniel Ricketson to accept the hospitality of his home “Brooklawn” in New Bedford while lecturing there, and to ask his host to “warn Mr Mitchell that I accepted at once his invitation to lecture on the 26th of this month.”

Concord Mass. Dec 19th 1854. Dear Sir, I wish to thank you again for your sympathy. I had counted on seeing you when I came to New Bedford, though I did not know exactly how near to it you permanently dwelt; therefore I gladly accept your in- vitation to stop at your house. th I am going to lecture at Nantucket the 28 , and as I suppose I must NANTUCKET ISLAND improve the earliest opportunity to get there from New Bedford, I will endeavor to come on Monday that I may see yourself and New Bedford before my lecture. I should like right well to see your ponds, but that is hardly to be thought of at present. I fear that it is impossible for me to combine such things with the business of lecturing. You cannot serve God and Mammon. However perhaps I shall have time to see something of your country. I am aware that you have not so much snow as we. There has been excellent sleighing here ever since the 5th ult. Mr Cholmondeley has left us; so that I shall come alone. Will you be so kind as to warn Mr Mitchell that I accepted at once his invitation to lecture on the 26th of this month, for I do not know that he has got my letter. Excuse this short note from Yours truly Henry D. Thoreau.

Thoreau also wrote a nice long letter to H.G.O. Blake: HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Concord Mass. Dec. 19th 1854. Mr. Blake, I suppose you have heard of my truly providential meeting with Mr Brown —providential because it saved me from the suspicion that my words had fallen altogther on stoney ground, when it turned out that there was some Worcester soil there. You will allow me to consider that I correspond with him thro you. I confess that I am a very bad cor- respondent, so far as promptness of reply is concerned, but then I am sure to answer sooner or later. The longer I have forgotten you, the more I re- member you. For the most part I have not been idle since I saw you. How does the world go with you? or rather, how do you get along without it? I have not yet learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very soon. I find however, that in the long run things correspond to my original idea—that they correspond to nothing else so much,—and thus a man may really be a true prophet

Page 2 without any great exertion. [The day] is never so dark, nor the night even, but that the laws, at least, of light still prevail, and so may make it light in our minds if they are open to the truth. There is considerable danger that a man will be crazy between dinner and supper—but it will not directly answer any good purpose that I know of, & it is just as easy to be sane. We have got to know what both life and death are before we can begin to live after our own fashion. Let us be learning our a b c s as soon as possible. I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

and rolled thro' a [mud puddle]; he comes out honor bright from behind every storm. Let us then take sides with the sun—seeing we have so much leisure[ ] [l]et us not put all we prize into a foot-ball to be kicked, when a bladder will do as well. When an Indian is burned, his body [may be] broiled, it may be no more than a beef- steak. What of that? They may broil his heart, but they do not therefore broil his courage,—his principles. Be of good courage! That is the main thing.

Page 3 this cold winter to pay for the fuel that will be required to warm them? I suppose I have burned up a pretty good sized tree to-night—& for what? I settled with Mr Tarbell for it the other day—but that was'nt the final settlement. I got off cheaply from him. At last, One will say— “Let us see, how much wood did you burn, Sir? And I shall shudder to think that the next question will be, “What did you do while you were warm?”— Do we think the ashes will pay for it?— that God is an ash-man? It is a fact that we have got to render [an] an account for the deeds done in the body. Who knows but we shall be better the next year than we have been the past? At any rate, I wish you a really new year—com- mencing from the instant you read this,—and happy or u[n]happy ac- cording to your deserts. Henry D. Thoreau Dec. 19, 1854. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

In the afternoon he enjoyed his “first tolerable skating” of the winter, going half a mile up the Assabet River past Clamshell Bank or Hill (Gleason 23/G5) and there walking to the foot of Fair Haven Hill (Gleason H7).

Off Clamshell I heard and saw a large flock of Fringilla linaria [Common Redpoll Carduelis flammea] over the meadow no doubt it as these I saw on the 9th. (But I saw then, and on the 10th, a larger and whiter bird also; may have been the bunting.) Suddenly they turn aside in their flight and dash across the river to a large white birch fifteen rods off, which plainly they had distinguished so far. I afterward saw many more in the Potter swamp up the river. They were commonly brown or dusky above, streaked with yellowish white or ash and more or less white or ash beneath. Most had a crimson crown or frontlet. and a few crimson neck and breast. very handsome. Some with a bright-crimson crow n and clear-white breasts. I suspect that these were young males. They keep up an incessant twittering, varied from time to time with some mewing notes and occasionally for some unknown reason, they will all suddenly dash away with that universal loud note (twitter) like a bag of nuts They are busily clustered in the tops of the birches picking the seeds out of the catkins! and sustain themselves in all kinds of attitudes, sometimes head downwards. while about this. Common as they are now, and were winter before last. I saw none last winter. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1855

January 1, Monday: In the afternoon Henry Thoreau and Ellery Channing skated to Pantry Brook. The Nantucket Island Inquirer printed a long account of Thoreau’s lecture, which began:

“What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?” By Henry D. Thoreau, Esq. Notwithstanding the damp, uncomfortable weather of Thursday evening, and the muddy streets, a large audience assembled to listen to the man who has rendered himself notorious by living, as his book asserts, in the woods, at an expense of about sixty dollars per year, in order that he might there hold free communion with Nature, and test for himself the happiness of a life without manual labor or conventional restraints. His lecture may have been desultory and marked by simplicity of manner; but not by paucity of ideas.1

1. Nantucket Inquirer, January 1, 1855, page 2, columns 2-3; Don Jordan, “Thoreau’s Nantucket Lecture,” Thoreau Society Bulletin 166 (Winter 1984): 1-3. The reviewer went on for 128 sentences, the lengthiest contemporary newspaper summary of any of Thoreau’s lectures. Clearly, “WHAT SHALL IT PROFIT” had been well received.

Louisa May Alcott began her diary for the new year:

Twenty-two Years Old The principal event of the winter is the appearance of my book “Flower Fables.” An edition of sixteen hundred. It has sold very well, and people seem to like it. I feel quite proud that the little tales that I wrote for Ellen E. when I was sixteen should now bring money and fame. I will put in some of the notices as “varieties.” Mothers are always foolish over their first-born. Miss Wealthy Stevens paid for the book, and I received $32.

ELLEN EMERSON THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1856

Louisa May Alcott, age 24, was living on her own in a rooming-house in Boston and, as one might well imagine, was enjoying her newfound ability to go for walks “to see pictures, get books, or eat goodies.”

Boston is nicer & noisier than ever.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 12, Monday: Henry Thoreau and Bronson Alcott walked by the Cottage of the Alcott family and the Hollowell Farm, and dined together, presumably at the Thoreau boardinghouse because Alcott was shown the “magnificent present of an Oriental library” from Thomas Cholmondeley in England. That evening Thoreau and Alcott went over to a party at the Emersons, and saw Waldo Emerson and Mrs. Lidian Emerson, Mary Merrick Brooks, Mrs. Lucy Jackson Brown, Miss Jane Whitney, Mary Brooks, Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, “and many more,” and, Alcott added in his journal, they “talk pleasantly on Society — Emerson, Thoreau, Mrs. Emerson, Mrs. Ripley, Sanborn contributing to the entertainment.”

We hear the first bobolink. How suddenly the birds arrive after the storm, even yesterday before it was fairly over, –as if they had foreseen its end! How much life the note of the bobolink imparts to the meadow!

May 20, Tuesday: In Walpole, New Hampshire, Bronson Alcott wrote in his journal:

Plant peas, corn, cucumbers, and melons in my little garden plot. Human life is a very simple matter. Breath, bread, health, a hearthstone, a fountain, fruits, a few garden seeds and room to plant them in, a wife and children, a friend or two of either sex, conversation, neighbours, and a task life-long given from within — these are contentment and a great estate. On these gifts follow all others, all graces dance attendance, all beauties, beatitudes, mortals can desire and know. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

In Concord, Massachusetts, Henry Thoreau wrote in his journal:

May 20: See and hear a stake-driver in the swamp. It took one short pull at its pump and stopped. Two marsh hawks [Northern Harrier Circus cyaneus], male and female, flew about me a long time, screaming, the female largest with ragged wings, as I stood on the neck of the peninsula. This induced me to climb four pines but I tore my clothes, got pitched all over, and found only squirrel; yet they have, no doubt, a nest thereabouts. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Early September: Bronson Alcott set Henry Thoreau up for a large surveying job with Friend Marcus Spring of a colony for Hicksite Quakers expelled by their meetings, near Perth Amboy, New Jersey across the water from Staten Island.

View Henry Thoreau’s personal working drafts of his surveys courtesy of AT&T and the Concord Free Public Library: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/Thoreau_Surveys.htm

(The official copy of this survey of course had become the property of the person or persons who had hired this Concord town surveyor to do their surveying work during the 19th Century. Such materials have yet to be recovered.)

View this particular personal working draft of a survey in fine detail: http://www.concordlibrary.org/scollect/Thoreau_Surveys/116.htm HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

This was the colony in which Theodore Dwight Weld and his wife Angelina Emily Grimké Weld and her sister

Sarah Moore Grimké had started their Eagleswood School, financed in part by the Mott family, and this was the school in which Ellen Wright, a niece of Friend Lucretia Mott who later married a son of William Lloyd Garrison, was educated, as well as other Wright children.

ANGELINA EMILY GRIMKÉ SARAH MOORE GRIMKÉ HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Thoreau took the train to Fitchburg and from there walked to Westminster; took the train to Brattleboro VT; explored the Connecticut River and Mount Wantastiquet and investigated plants and animals in Vermont; took the train to Bellows Falls; climbed Fall Mountain; took a wagon to Walpole, New Hampshire to visit the Alcott family.

Here is a recollection by Mary Brown Dunton as reported in Elizabeth B. Davenport’s “Thoreau in Vermont in 1856,” Vermont Botanical Club Bulletin III (April 1908), page 37: He struck me as being very odd, very wise and exceedingly observing. He roamed about the country at his own sweet will, and I was fortunate enough to be his companion on a walk up Wantastiquet Mt. I was well acquainted with the flora and could meet him understandingly there, but was somewhat abashed by the numerous questions he asked about all sorts of things, to which I could only reply “I do not know.” It appealed to my sense of humor that a person with such a fund of knowledge should seek information from a young girl like myself, but I could not see that he had any fun in him. The only question I can now recall is this. As we stood on the summit of Wantastiquet, he fixed his earnest gaze on a distant point in the landscape, which he designated, asking “How far is it in a bee line to that spot?” Before dawn on his 1st morning in Brattleboro VT, on his way to visit the Alcotts in New Hampshire, Thoreau reviewed a botanical catalog of Vermont plants. Then, as daylight appeared, he sauntered south along the railroad tracks and back along the banks of the Connecticut River, inspecting plants along the way. He climbed down the embankment to “the cold water path” of Whetstone Brook along neighboring Canal Street and Flat Street. Swamp maples along the Whetstone were beginning to turn color. Deep, dark columns of flowers rose like thick red ropes from the pale green leaves of sumac. He spent the afternoon inspecting plants, testing the murky water, and noting the wildlife. He made a note that Brattleboro appealed to him “for the nearness of primitive woods and mountain.” He stopped to munch on raspberries and made a note of their “quite agreeable taste.” Later that morning he tasted some grapes that were “pleasantly acidic.”

On his 2nd morning in the town, Thoreau wandered far north along the Connecticut River, noting the level of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

the river, the shape of the gravel on its banks, and the explosion of late summer flowers that bloomed everywhere. “Will not the prime of the goldenrods and asters be just before the first severe frost?”

On his 3rd day in the town, Thoreau again went “a-botanizing” up Whetstone Brook. The witch-hazel was out, hemlock lined the stream and asters bloomed everywhere. That night he created a two-page list of each plant. He described the Indian rope plant, named for its use as twine: “How often in the woods and fields we want a string or a rope and cannot find one.... This is the plant which Nature made for that purpose.” He noted that farmers in Vermont used the dried bark to tie up their fences, and wondered if it should be cultivated for that purpose.

While in Brattleboro a man who had recently killed a catamount showed Thoreau its skin and skull. By 1856, the mountain lion had become quite rare in southern Vermont. The skin measured nine feet, including its long tail, and the animal had weighed 108 pounds. Thoreau noted that the man had gotten a $20 bounty for his kill.

On the morning of his last day in the Vermont town, Thoreau climbed Wantastiquet Mountain, the hill that rises out of the Connecticut River, towering above the downtown buildings. From the top he could see as far as Mount Ascutney, but he was more attentive to the horses and people he could see below him. “Above all this everlasting mountain is forever lowering over the village, shortening the day and wearing a misty cap each morning.” His considered opinion was that “this town will be convicted of folly if they ever permit this mountain to be laid bare.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

THOREAU IN VERMONT:

WALKING WITH HENRY DAVID

BY ALAN BOYE

The glorious late-summer sunlight shone golden on the hills above downtown Brattleboro. Ignored by the people passing by, a man stood at the edge of Main Street and tightened the laces of his boots. He checked to see that his pencil and paper were in his backpack, and then climbed down the embankment to the babbling waters of Whetstone Brook. The swamp maples that grew like weeds along the Whetstone were already showing the first hint of autumnal glory on their leaves. Deep, dark columns of flowers rose like thick red ropes from the pale green leaves of sumac. In the last of summer’s brilliant air, insects flickered and then vanished like sparks of memory. The man paused a moment and then set out on “the cold water path” of Whetstone Brook. He spent the beautiful afternoon inspecting its plants, testing the murky water, and noting the wildlife that scurried along its banks. All the while, the busy residents of the town hurried by on neighboring Canal and Flat streets, unaware of the strange creature below them. The man was America’s greatest naturalist, Henry David Thoreau. It was early September 1856. Thoreau was on his way to visit a friend in New Hampshire and stopped to spend four days walking around Brattleboro. It would be the only time in his life that he would explore Vermont on foot. He wrote in his journal that Brattleboro appealed to him “for the nearness of primitive woods and mountain.” A truck blasts past me and, in a low whine of gears, begins to climb Canal St. from downtown Brattleboro. Behind me, the Whetstone squeezes between a canyon of brick buildings. The water tumbles over massive rocks and then, just as suddenly, surrenders to the placid calm of the wide Connecticut. Cars clanging over the long bridge into New Hampshire nearly drown the sound of the rapids. I head straight for the Whetstone past the somber, concrete-gray walls behind a bagel shop. A motion distracts me from the ordinary. Something mysterious watches me from the shadowed banks of the brook. In the weedy edge of the stream stands a creature; the sharply angled body looks more like Egyptian hieroglyph than bird. A green heron walks away cautiously. The spear point of its stout head stabs at the sky with each of its jerking, upstream HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

steps. I move to the bank and follow him, each of my unsure steps an attempt to catch a glimpse of the ghost of Thoreau. In 1856, Thoreau was at the peak of his literary talents. Walden had been published only two years earlier. He was gaining a reputation as a profound lecturer. On podiums across New England, he read aloud the essays that would make him famous for centuries to come. In any era, Thoreau would not have fit well into polite society. First of all, an eagle-sized beak of a nose hung down over a bow-tie mouth; ever a practical man, he had grown a weird, neck- only beard in order to see if it might keep him from getting colds. His hair was almost always unkempt, and his active life gave him the broad, hard look of an athlete. Thoreau had begun to turn away from the broad, philosophical contemplations that made Walden a masterpiece and towards writing focused on the natural world. Ever a keen observer of the world around him, he had turned more and more of his attention to a close study of the plants and animals. He believed that by paying strict attention to the details of the natural world, humankind would finally come to understand and appreciate the essence of life. “In wilderness,” he wrote at about this time, “is the preservation of the world.” Before dawn on his first morning in Brattleboro, Thoreau was studying a catalog of Vermont plants. At daylight he sauntered south along the railroad tracks and then back along the banks of the Connecticut, inspecting every plant along his way. His journal describes with the exactness of a trained botanist each plant he encountered. He stopped to munch on raspberries; he scribbled a note about their “quite agreeable taste.” Later that morning, he found some grapes that tasted “pleasantly acidic.” On his second morning in Brattleboro, Thoreau wandered far north along the Connecticut, noting the level of the river, the shape of the gravel on its banks, and the explosion of late summer flowers that bloomed everywhere. “Will not the prime of the goldenrods and asters be just before the first severe frost?” he wrote. Just twenty yards past the bagel shop, I seem to be in the deepest Vermont wilderness. I have been fighting my way through thick underbrush and stepping from one side of the brook to the other, trying to work my way along the steep banks that tower above me. I stop to inspect an unfamiliar leaf. I spend a good ten minutes with a tree-identification book, only to find the golden treasure I hold is simply the leaf of an ordinary yellow birch. On the third day in Brattleboro, Thoreau was elated because he could “go a-botanizing” up the Whetstone. The witch-hazel was out, hemlock lined the stream and asters bloomed everywhere. Late that night in his sometimes-erratic handwriting, he meticulously scrawled a list of every plant he had found along the Whetstone. The journal entry fills nearly two pages, but he saves the most extensive entry for the Indian rope plant, named for its use as twine. “How often in the woods and fields we want HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

a string or a rope and cannot find one,” he wrote. “This is the plant which Nature made for that purpose.” He noted that farmers in Vermont used the dried bark to tie up their fences, and - ever practical - decided it would be a good idea if they were to cultivate it for just that purpose. The stream is littered with good-sized, practical rocks. I lift a smaller one from the mud of the bank. It is cool in my hand. A thin sheen of moss hugs the rough surface of the stone. It’s easy to see why early settlers used these for grinding and sharpening tools. Where could a fella get a good sharpener? Why over to the Whetstone Brook, of course. I set the stone back in its place in the mud. We don’t have much need of whetstones anymore or, for that matter, of Indian rope plant. Neither do we have any pressing need for Thoreau’s detailed record of Vermont’s plants. The days of hook-nosed Transcendental philosophers carefully noting every one of nature’s wonders have passed. Perhaps my search for some remnant of Thoreau is as quaint and as useless as sharpening a horse- drawn ploughshare on a pale white whetstone drawn from a mossy brook. Two cold and electronic chirps from my watch mark the passing of another hour. I turn around and start back down the stream. While in Brattleboro Thoreau saw something that he would spend pages of his journal trying to describe. The man who had recently killed it showed Thoreau the skin and the skull of a catamount. Even in 1856, the mountain lion was a rare creature in southern Vermont. It would be the only catamount, living or dead, that Thoreau would ever see in his lifetime. The beast measured nine feet, including its long tail, and had weighed 108 pounds. Thoreau tried to capture every detail of the beast that he could in his journal. He noted without comment that the man had gotten a $20 bounty for the kill. I spy a ragged and worn house cat, long since having known the comforts of a human home, slinking through the thin underbrush across the brook from where I walk. A series of rusted steel bars poke up through the thin water of the brook. On the morning of his last day in Brattleboro Thoreau climbed Wantastiquet Mountain, the high hill that jumps straight out of the Connecticut River and towers above downtown Brattleboro. Although from the top he could see as far as Mount Ascutney, he was most fascinated by watching horses and people far below. He marveled at how close nature came to the bustling village. “Above all this everlasting mountain is forever lowering over the village, shortening the day and wearing a misty cap each morning.” He cautioned that “this town will be convicted of folly if they ever permit this mountain to be laid bare.” I am nearly back to the bagel shop. Through the trees I see the dark massive shape of Wantastiquet Mountain. Near the top, still covered in thick forest, is the spot where nearly 150 years ago a great man stood and contemplated how the ways of humankind are made small by the glory and grandeur of the remarkable ways of nature. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

I look away from the mountain, distracted by a sound. Something stirs near the base of a yellow birch tree. The green heron steps into a clearing and stands at the edge of the water. It stares at me through a black, wild eye. In the brook a few small fish weave threads of pure light through quick, silvery curtains of shadow and water.

November 9, Sunday: Henry Thoreau and Bronson Alcott were traveling to Brooklyn Heights on Paumanok “Long Island” in order for them to hear the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher preach in his Plymouth Church. In Cincinnati, Ohio on this Sunday morn, the Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway, on trial, was preaching an anti- slavery sermon in the Unitarian church at 4th and Race streets overlooking the Ohio River and, on the opposite shore, the laboring slaves of Kentucky. The sermon accorded better with the political climate in Cincinnati than it did with the political climate either of that opposite bank or of Washington DC. 95 AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II

The sermon by the Reverend Conway might have been more congenial to Thoreau than the one he actually heard from the Reverend Beecher, a message which distressed him considerably: although the Reverend Beecher was a favorite of Walt Whitman’s, Thoreau found he most definitely was not impressed with this proffered mixture of pantheistic life-worship and self-worship disguised as God-worship. After the sermon, Thoreau and Alcott visited the Whitman home on Portland Avenue twice, finally meeting Whitman.96

Remember that it had been at the Hester Street meetinghouse, in 1826, that the English evangelical preacher Thomas Shillitoe had declared the cause of Friend Elias Hicks to be “unchristian,” and that it had been at this meetinghouse, in 1828, that Samuel Mott had had to be raised up and handed over the heads of the crowd to reach the Clerk’s table, after being duly elected Clerk, whereupon the clerk’s table was torn apart and the evangelical Quakers walked and the great division occurred. (We can be sure that people there informed Thoreau of these utterly infamous events.) Remember that in 1830 the corpse of Friend Elias had been dug up at night to make a bust which Whitman purchased: this bust, set up in Whitman’s home, must have been of great interest to Thoreau, who had heard Friend Lucretia Mott preach in the meetinghouse in which Samuel Mott had been handed along over the heads of the resistors. After meeting Whitman, Thoreau went on to the Eagleswood community on the New Jersey shore. On First Day evening with these Hicksite Quakers, Thoreau read “Walking.”97

95. Moncure Daniel Conway. VIRTUE VS. DEFEAT: A DISCOURSE, PREACHED ON NOVEMBER 9, 1856 (THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION), IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, CINCINNATI, OHIO, BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH. Pamphlet. Printed by the Cincinnati Gazette Company, 1856, Cincinnati. READ THE FULL TEXT

96. He at that time was putting out his expanded 2d edition of his LEAVES OF GRASS, the edition that Thoreau would own. 97. Walter Harding, “A Check List of Thoreau’s Lectures,” Bulletin of the New York Public Library 52 (February 1948): 85. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1857

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1858

March 14, Sunday: We learn, from Bronson Alcott’s journal, that this was the day on which offices were said for the departed Elizabeth Sewall Alcott. Lizzie had asked for ether, to help her be “forgetful of this death I feel.” During the day Alcott visited Waldo Emerson at his home, and in the evening Henry Thoreau and Waldo and Mrs. Lidian Emerson visited the Alcotts at their home. The father entered in his journal:

She lived a short, innocent, and diligent life with us, and has an early translation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

March 15, Monday: At 3PM, Dr. Huntington arrived at the Alcott home and the family held final rites over the body of Elizabeth Sewall Alcott.

At Abba Alcott’s urgent request, the Reverend Dr. Frederic Huntington read the King’s Chapel Burial Service. After the closing prayer, “Mr. and Mrs. Emerson and Ellen Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, John Bridge Pratt, his sister [Caroline Pratt] and mother, and others,” (such as Dr. Josiah Bartlett, and since it would be he who would tend Louisa May Alcott in 1863 during her mercury-induced delusions, we may infer that it was he who had been looking in on Elizabeth during her final illness) helped deposit the HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

remains in the Alcott family’s new plot at Sleepy Hollow. BRONSON ALCOTT LIDIAN EMERSON WALDO EMERSON

Amy Belding Brown has been told that she was one of the first people to be buried in this new cemetery.

March 19, Friday: Henry Thomas Buckle’s lecture at the Royal Institution, “Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge.”

In her journal for this month, Louisa May Alcott referred to having purchased the Alcott family plot in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. (Knowing that Lizzie was dying, the family would have made arrangements, most likely with Emerson’s help. The only one who’s not there in the family plot now is Abby May Alcott (Mrs. Ernest Niericker), who would die abroad and whose body would be placed in a rented grave in Paris. Although Louisa would arrange for a stone in the family plot in Sleepy Hollow and make plans to have her body brought home, with her death the rental payments would lapse and May’s remains would be moved to a mass grave.) Louisa’s letter to Eliza Wells on this day indicated that her sister Elizabeth Sewall Alcott had been buried there after her funeral service had been read by the Reverend Dr. Frederic Huntington. Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, and Franklin Benjamin Sanborn had been among the pallbearers.

March 19. P.M. —To Hill and Grackle Swamp. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Another pleasant and warm day. Painted my boat this afternoon. These spring impressions (as of the apparent waking up of the meadow described day before yesterday) are not repeated the same year, at least not with the same force, for the next day the same phenomenon does not surprise us. Our appetite has lost its edge. The other day the face of the meadow wore a peculiar appearance, as if it were beginning to wake up under the influence of the southwest wind and the warm sun, but it cannot again this year present precisely that appearance to me. I have taken a step forward to a new position and must see something else. You perceive, and are affected by, changes too subtle to be described. I see little swarms of those fine fuzzy gnats in the air. I am behind the Hemlocks. It is their wings which are most conspicuous, when they are in the sun. Their bodies are comparatively small and black, and they have two mourning plumes in their fronts. Are not these the winter gnat? They keep up a circulation in the air like water- bugs on the water. They people a portion of the otherwise vacant air, being apparently fond of the sunshine, in which they are most conspicuous. Sometimes a globular swarm two feet or more in diameter, suggesting how genial and habitable the air is become. I hear turkeys gobble. This too, I suppose, is a spring sound. I hear a steady sigh of the wind, rising and swelling into a roar, in the pines, which seems to tell of a long, warm rain to come. I see a white pine which has borne fruit in its ninth year. The cones, four in number, which are seven eighths of an inch long, have stems about two and a half inches long! — not yet curving down; so the stem probably does not grow any more. Met Channing and walked on with him to what we will call Grackle Swamp, admiring the mosses; those bright- yellow hypnums (?), like sunlight on decaying logs, and jungermannia, like sea-mosses ready spread. Hear the phebe note of a chickadee. In the swamp, see grackles, four or five, with the light ring about eye, —their bead eyes. They utter only those ineffectual split notes, no conqueree. Might I not call that Hemlock Brook? and the source of it Horse-Skull meadow? Hear the pleasant chill-lill of the F. hyemalis, the first time I have heard this note. This, too, suggests pleasant associations. By the river, see distinctly red-wings [Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus] and hear their conqueree. They are not associated with grackles. They are an age before their cousins, have attained to clearness and liquidity. They are officers, epauletted; the others are rank and file. I distinguish one even by its flight, hovering slowly from tree-top to tree-top, as if ready to utter its liquid notes. Their whistle is very clear and sharp, while the grackle’s is ragged and split. It is a fine evening, as I stand on the bridge. The waters are quite smooth; very little ice to be seen. The red-wing and song sparrow are singing, and a flock of tree sparrows is pleasantly warbling. A new era has come. The red- wing’s gurgle-ee is heard when smooth waters begin; they come together. One or two boys are out trying their skiffs, even like the fuzzy gnats in the sun, and as often as one turns his boat round on the smooth surface, the setting sun is reflected from its side. I feel reproach when I have spoken with levity, when I have made a jest, of my own existence. The makers have thus secured seriousness and respect for their work in our very organization. The most serious events have their ludicrous aspect, such as death; but we cannot excuse ourselves when we have taken this view of them only. It is pardonable when we spurn the proprieties, even the sanctities, making them stepping-stones to something higher. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

November 29, Monday: After visiting the “Hill,” Henry Thoreau went with Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau to one of Bronson Alcott’s “Conversations,” held at the Emerson home. The topic of this particular conversation was “Private Life.” Also attending were Henry James, Sr., Ellery Channing, Mrs. Lidian Emerson and Miss Mary Moody Emerson, the Pratts (John Bridge Pratt, his sister Caroline Pratt, and their mother?), Miss Ripley, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Albert Stacy, and Samuel Gray Ward. After a number of confrontations and

verbal exchanges one-to-one, the Concord people finally ganged up on James. The coup de grace was administered as a monologue by Miss Mary, and is unrecorded except for her peroration “Let me confront the monster.” James made a record that “The old lady had the flavour to me of primitive woods wherein the wolf howls, and the owl has never been dislodged; and I enjoyed the novelty of her apparition in these days too much to mind the scratches I got in making her better acquaintance.” Indeed. However unrecorded in detail, we know the monologue was effective, for Bronson, who earlier that evening had been reduced to silence by Henry James, Sr.’s gibes, recorded in his journal that her “gifts of speech and mode of handling poor James, win the admiration of the party and the thanks of everyone present.”

Here is biographer Phyllis Cole’s account of the Alcott reading in the Emerson parlor, with the famous encounter between Henry James, Sr. and Mary Moody Emerson. Note that she considers Bronson Alcott and Miss Mary Moody Emerson as “two Platonists”: Only the immediacy of conversation now brought out Mary’s fullest verbal power. Bronson Alcott, who had won enough of Mary’s confidence to attract her to his public conversations, offered dinner and an afternoon’s talk in early September. She appeared witty and incisive, regaling the company with stories about Waldo’s childhood and forbears. The two Platonists finally pursued their common ground as well: Alcott declared her “metaphysical in her tendencies and a match for any theologian,” favoring Dr. Price and his school. Their reconciliation came just in time for Mary to make her HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

justly famous last stand in Concord a defense of Bronson Alcott. Waldo was out of town lecturing the evening of Alcott’s conversation on “Private Life” in the Emersons’ parlor; but those present, in addition to Mary, included Henry Thoreau and his sister Sophia, Ellery Channing, Franklin Sanborn, Lidian Emerson, Mary Brooks and her son George, Sarah Ripley’s daughter Elizabeth, “others of our townfolk,” and from out of town Sam Ward and Henry James Sr. Alcott’s list of guests amounts to a group photograph of a Concord cultural event, rather easily blending genders and generations, writers and their neighbors. But Sanborn’s report of the evening brings the photograph to life. James did not understand Alcottian conversation and took charge, so that neither Alcott nor Thoreau could “check the flow of the semi-Hibernian rhetoric.” Even worse, James’s point was to exonerate criminals from their crimes and charge society instead. Such moral relativism appealed to no Concordian. But Mary, amidst the men’s consternation, grappled with the enemy directly. When James “spoke repeatedly and scornfully of the Moral Law,” she burst forth to the whole group. Rising from her chair at the west side of the room, and turning her oddly-garnished head toward the south side, where the offender smilingly sat, she clasped her little wrinkled hands and raised them toward the black band over her left temple (a habit she had when deeply moved), and began her answer to these doctrines of Satan, as she thought them. She expressed her amazement that any man should denounce the Moral Law, — the only tie of society, except religion, to which, she saw, the speaker made no claim. She referred him to the Bible and to Dr. Adam Clark (one of her great authorities from childhood) and she denounced him personally in the most racy terms. She did not cross the room and shake him, as some author, not an eye-witness, has fancied, — but she retained her position, sat down quietly when she had finished, and was complemented by the smiling James, who then perhaps for the first time had felt the force of her untaught rhetoric. Sanborn’s account of Mary’s gestures and style of speech is unparalleled among all her chroniclers, but he did not fully grasp the issues at stake in this encounter. Mistaken in the name of Mary’s philosopher (it was Dr. Samuel Clarke), he knew even less about the eighteenth-century school to which Clarke, along with Price, belonged. In fact, moral law was the center of the Enlightenment ethics, allowing for an affirmation at once of the mind’s intuition and of God’s universal truths. The “fitness” between these two realities had been the formative discovery of Mary’s youth and the basis of her first argument with Alcott in 1834. Now it was her bond to the Transcendentalists, despite their replacement of Clarke with Kant: Waldo had written in 1841 that he and Mary could meet across generations “where truly we are one in our perception of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

one Law in our adoration of the Moral Sentiment.” All of the inhabitants and visitors at the Emerson house except James wanted to affirm the individual’s intuition of moral right as one with a “higher law.” Sanborn seriously underestimated Mary as well in calling the speech a piece of “untaught rhetoric,” as though it were the natural effusion of her soul rather than the result of long and difficult self-education. James himself was guilty of much greater condescension in his description of Mary several years later. He had not really been upset at “that confabulation at Mr Emerson’s,” James recalled, when “‘shamefully treated’ by the old Lady from Maine.” “The old lady had the flavour to me of primitive woods wherein the wolf howls, and the owl has never been dislodged; and I enjoyed the novelty of her apparition in those days too much to mind the few scratches I got in making her better acquaintance.” Leaving Clarke and the issues of universal ethics wholly behind, he jovially dismissed his critic by lowering her to a backwoods animality beneath mental life. In truth her response to James was a triumphant ending to Mary’s years of intellectual exchange in Concord, at once a recollection of her reading as a young woman at the Manse and a major defense of her vexatious allies the Transcendentalists. Alcott recorded that she won “the admiration of the party and thanks of everyone present.” Then, after a Thanksgiving including all the Emersons and Ripleys, she was gone, finally assenting to Hannah Parsons’s request that she come live in Williamsburg. Lidian and Ellen put in several hours packing her worldly goods and papers at the Brown house (she had either gotten them from Maine or collected more); Waldo accompanied her by train through Hartford, where they stayed in a hotel that was an “old lady’s paradise”; William and his wife welcomed her for dinner at their Manhattan townhouse on December 15. At the age of eighty-four, Mary became a New Yorker.

November 29: P.M.– To Hill. About three inches of snow fell last evening, and a few cows on the hillside have wandered about in vain to come at the grass. They have at length found that place high on the south side where the snow is thinnest. How bright and light the day now! Methinks it is as good as half an hour added to the day. White houses no longer stand out and stare in the landscape. The pine woods snowed up look more like the bare oak woods with their gray boughs. The river meadows show now far off a dull straw-color or pale brown amid the general white, where the coarse sedge rises above the snow; and distant oak woods are now more distinctly reddish. It is a clear and pleasant winter day. The snow has taken all the November out of the sky. Now blue shadows, green rivers, – both which I see, – and still winter life. I see partridge and mice tracks and fox tracks, and crows sit silent on a bare oak-top. I see a living shrike caught to-day in the barn of the Middlesex House. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1859

January 8, Saturday evening: Henry Thoreau again met John Brown, who was again staying with Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, after hearing Brown lecture at the Concord Town Hall. Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott were also in that audience. In the course of this trip Brown would raise a total of about $2,000.00 in Concord and Boston. Sanborn would report later, on this period of his life, for the benefit of his former Harvard College classmates, that:

There are several events in my life since graduating, which are “worthy of record,” because they have brought me in contact with the great political revolution which has taken place since 1855. I was actively engaged in the effort to make Kansas a free State in 1856-7-8, which finally succeeded in 1861. I was a friend and supporter of Captain John Brown in his expedition into Virginia in 1859, and became publicly known in that connection.

THE ALCOTT FAMILY

October 30, late at night: Minot Pratt wrote to Mrs. Minot Pratt after attending Henry Thoreau’s impassioned lecture about Harpers Ferry and John Brown: I have just returned, (most 10 o’clock,) from hearing a sort of lecture from Henry Thoreau, on the subject of the affair at Harper’s Ferry, or rather on the character of Capt. Brown. Henry spoke of him in terms of the most unqualified eulogy. I never heard him before speak so much in praise of any man, and did not know that his sympathies were so strong in favor of the poor slave. He thinks Capt. Brown has displayed heroic qualities that will cause him to be remembered wherever and whenever true heroism is admired. The lecture was full of Henry’s quaint and strong expressions: hitting the politicians in the hardest manner, and showing but little of that veneration which is due to our beloved President and all the government officials, who are laboring so hard and so disinterestedly for the welfare of the dear people. The church also, as a body, came in for a share of whipping, and it was laid on right earnestly. In the course of his remarks on Capt. Brown’s heroic character, and actions in the service of freedom and the probability of his being killed therefor, he said he had been very strongly impressed with the possibility of a man’s dying — very few men can die — they never lived, how then can they die! The life they lived was not life — that constant endeavor after selfgratification, with no high aspiration and effort for the race, was too mean an existence to be called life. Brown was a man of ideas and action; whatever he saw to be right, that HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

he endeavored to do with energy, without counting the cost to himself. Such a real, live man could die. The lecture was full of noble, manly ideas, though, perhaps, a little extravagant in its eulogy of Capt. Brown. Bronson Alcott was also writing that night about the reception of Thoreau’s lecture (JOURNALS.BostonMA: Little, Brown, 1938, page 320): Thoreau reads a paper of his on John Brown, his virtues, spirit, and deeds, at the Vestry this evening, and to the delight of his company I am told — the best that could be gathered on short notice, and among them Emerson. I am not informed in season, and have my meeting at the same time. I doubt not of his excellence and eloquence, and wish he may have opportunities of reading it elsewhere. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1860

February: Walt Whitman came to Boston to oversee the printing of the 3d edition of LEAVES OF GRASS. He had picked up, from various scientific and scientistic sources in the general culture, the Lamarckian notion that if you ate right and exercised, and then had good free sex, your children could be genetically improved, leading to the progressive development of the human kind.98 Waldo Emerson tried to persuade him to omit his overtly sexual “Children of Adam” poem (Whitman explained later that Emerson “did not see that if I had cut sex out I might just as well have cut everything out,” because his doctrine that the expression of human instinct was the expression of divine immanence could not allow that in a single exception the expression of human instinct was the expression of something else, something not divine, something that needed to be, not uninhibited, but inhibited). “Specimen Days”

BOSTON COMMON — MORE OF EMERSON I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights — every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1 — and almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a sociable-silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air, (yet crispy-cool enough,) [Page 915] as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. Up and down this breadth by Beacon street, between these same old elms, I walk’d for two hours, of a bright sharp February mid-day twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm’d at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was an argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home, (like an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, “Children of Adam.” More precious than gold to me that dissertation — it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson; each point of E.’s statement was unanswerable, no judge’s charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put — and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. “What have you to say then to such things?” said E., pausing in conclusion. “Only that while I can’t answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it,” was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never waver’d or was touch’d with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times before).

Whitman was proposing a new nationalistic chronology, according to which the supreme, in fact pivotal, event

98. That hot fantasy did not necessarily have anything in particular to do with Waldo Emerson’s worm “striving to be man” as it “mounts through all the spires of form,” for it was a notion that had been around for a long time: certain ancient Greeks believed that were a woman to receive an inadequate quantity or quality of semen and sexual interest during her pregnancy, she was more likely to bear a female / deformed / inadequate child. And Lamarckism would also be around for a long time after Walt Whitman, as witness such pop luminaries of our own era as Arthur Koestler and Teilhard de Chardin. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

of world history was not the birth of Christ but the date of our throwing off the English yoke. Thus that 3d edition, issued in AD1860, was marked “85TS,” that is, the 86th year of These States. Despite all this hot patriotism, Miss Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau, Mrs. Lidian Emerson, and Mrs. Abba Alcott, discussing together, put it out to the menfolk that this Walt fellow would not to be welcome in their homes. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

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

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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

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

P. M.—69. By boat to Ball’s Hill. Say the sweet-scented vernal grass is in its prime. Interrupted fern fruit probably a day or two, and cinnamon, say the same or just after. I see on the white maples, and afterward running along the shore close to the water, at different times, three or four water-thrushes (water wagtails, Turdus Noveboracensis). By its lurking along the waterside it might be mistaken by some at first for the song sparrow. It is considerably like the golden-crowned thrush, but it has a distinct buffish-white line over the eye and the breast and sides distinctly striped with dark. All above uniform olive-brown. It may be distinguished at a distance from a sparrow by its wagging motion, teetering on its perch. It persistently runs along the shore, peetweet-and song-sparrow-like, running like a rail around the tussocks and other obstacles and appearing again at the water’s edge. It was not very shy. We very easily kept along two rods off it, while it was amid the button-bushes. Started up two (probably) Totanus solitarius (?), (possibly small yellow-legs???). They utter a faint yellow-leg note, rather than peetweet note, viz. phe, phe, pheet pheet pheet. Are not shy; stand still [on] or beside a tussock to be looked at. Have peculiarly long, slender, curving wings. Fly like a peetweet, but are considerably larger and apparently uniformly dark-brown above. The belly and vent very bright white; breast (upper part) grayish- brown. When they flew from me saw considerable white, apparently on tail-coverts or sides of tail. Watched one still within three rods, with glass. There was a little speckling of whitish perhaps amid the brown above. I think they were too small for the lesser yellow-legs. Eleocharis pallustris, say three or four days. Critchicrotches some two or three days; now tender to eat. How agreeable and surprising the peculiar fragrance of the sweet flag when bruised! That this plant alone should have extracted this odor surely for so many ages each summer from the moist earth! The pipes in the Great Meadows now show a darker green amid the yellowish of the sedges, like the shadow of HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

a passing cloud. From a hilltop half a mile off you can easily distinguish the limits of the pipes by their dark green. They do not terminate abruptly, but are gradually lost in the sedge. There is very little white maple seed this year, so that I cannot say surely how far advanced it is. What I notice appears to be fully grown, but is on the trees yet, always surprisingly large, like the wings of some lusty moth. Possibly it ripens with mouse-ear. I get sight for a moment of a large warbler on a young oak,—only the under side, which is a clear bright lemon- yellow, all beneath, with a sort of crescent of black spots on the breast. Is it not the Sylvia pardalina? Methinks it was a rather dark brown above. [Vide 28th.] The quarter-grown red oak leaves between you and the sun, how yellow-green! Now, if you look over our Great Meadow from Ball’s Hill, in a warm, fair day like this, you will receive the same impression as from the English grass fields in the middle of June, the sedges are so much more dense and forward. I mark the large white maples, now conspicuous and pretty densely leaved, stand up over the green sea on this edge of the river, so still, with each a speck of shade at its base, as in the noon of a summer day, and a dark line merely of shadow runs along at the base of the hill on the south of the meadow,—the June shadows beginning here. A green canopy held still above the already waving grass. It reminds you of warm, still noons, high grass, and the whetting of the scythe. Most of the corn is planted. Distinguish plainly a swamp sparrow (two to-day) by the riverside, a peculiarly glossy deep-chestnut crown, ash side-head and throat, and a dark or black line through the eye. I find, in skunk hedge below Flint’s, Carex rosea, not long, say three or four days. I should have thought it C. stellulata, but it is plainly staminate above, fertile below. [Also seen at calamint wall, Annursnack, June 10th.] Also C. gracillima, same place, apparently four or five days. River at 6 P. M. about one and two thirds inches below summer level; risen some two and a half inches since 6 A.M. Notice the flags eaten off, probably by musquash. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

May 26, Saturday: The federal government of the United States appropriated $40,000 to carry out the Act of March 3, 1819, and subsequent acts (STATUTES AT LARGE, XII. 21). INTERNATIONAL SLAVE TRADE

The Reverend Samuel Joseph May had an opportunity to discuss his latest attitudes toward violence vs nonviolence with his brother-in-law Bronson Alcott and the widow Mary Ann Day Brown, in preparation for an oration he was scheduled to give before the American Peace Society. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 26. Overcast, rain-threatening; wind northeast and cool.

9 A.M.—To Easterbrooks Country. Carex lanuginosa, Smith’s shore, say three or four days. C. pallescens (?), long-stalked, staminate, Channing’s shore, high. C. pallescens var. undulata, rather spreading, common, as in Clark’s field from opposite my old house. C. polytrichoides well out, say a few days, Botrychium Swamp. Melons have peeped out two or three days. Our pink azalea.

5 P.M.—River five eighths of an inch below summer level. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

June 28, Thursday: At Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, August Bondi married Henrietta Einstein. She had been born in Germany on October 15, 1833, and was a daughter of Israel and Sophia Kettner Einstein. The couple would have ten children, eight daughters and two sons. Henrietta Einstein Bondi would die at Salina on August 24, 1900.

The Hawthorne family’s ship docked in Boston. As soon as the family was ensconced in “The Wayside” again, the Emersons threw a strawberry party for them which the Alcott family and Thoreau family attended.

June 28.—Assabet Bath and Sunset Interval. On the 25th I first noticed that the black willows—the sterile ones, not whitened with down—were just begun to be handsome, with their light ethereal green against other trees. They are now getting to be sufficiently thick. This month, it must be 85° at 2 P. M. and still to make hot weather. 80° with wind is quite comfortable. June-grass is now generally browned atop, its spikes being out of bloom and old. Herd’s-grass out, two or three days. I now see and hear many young birds about; young barn swallows on telegraph-wire, etc. Farmer said yesterday that he thought foxes did not live so much in the depth of the woods as on open hillsides, where they lay out and overlooked the operations of men,—studied their ways,—which made them so cunning. The 21st I began to notice the Festuca ovina in dry pastures, prevailing and so marking a season. Fowl-meadow grass, though not quite in bloom, has now begun to make an impression on the inlands and in the meadows, with its dense-growing recurved or drooping green tops. Panicum latifolium, how long? I see no tortoises laying nowadays, but I meet to-day with a wood tortoise which is eating the leaves of the early potentilla, and, soon after, another in Hosmer’s sandy bank field north of Assabet Bridge, deliberately eating sorrel. It was evidently quite an old one, its back being worn quite smooth, and its motions peculiarly sluggish. It continued to eat when I was within a few feet, holding its head high and biting down at it, each time bringing away a piece of a leaf. It made you think of an old and sick tortoise eating some salutary herb to cure itself with, and reminded me of the stories of the ancients, who, I think, made the tortoises thus cure themselves with dittany or origanum when bitten by a venomous snake. That is, it impressed me as if it must know the virtues of herbs well and could select the one best suited [to] its condition of body. When I came nearer, it at once drew in its head. Its back was smooth and yellowish,—a venerable tortoise. When I moved off, it at once withdrew into the woods. See two of those remarkably brilliant beetles near the caving edge here, with copper and green reflections (head green), and blue ones. They are sluggish and can be transported on a leaf. On the alder leaves by the riverside in Sunset Interval, I see countless small black miller-like insects three eighths of an inch and of this form:

but all of them had not feelers. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

I think they were the same that hover in a swarm over the water at evening.

Early Summer: The Alcott family hosted a reception for Mary Ann Day Brown.

20 people were invited and 42 attended. Evidently the ladies, instigated by Sophia Elizabeth Thoreau, presented a bedquilt or comforter to Mrs. Brown, hand inscribed with appropriate mottoes, for we have a letter written on a Sunday during this period by Annie Bartlett, 23-year-old daughter of Dr. Josiah Bartlett of Concord,99 to her soldier brother Ned, speaking of such an appropriate gift:

Miss Sophia Thoreau has been round for all the ladies to make a square for a bedquilt or comforter to be given to Mrs. John Ossawatomie Brown the center of which must be white so the ladies can write their names and a line of poetry or prose from scripture or elsewhere. Florry and Annie Keys have made theirs and have written “Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted.” Emmie doesn’t like the writing, but George said he wrote on hers, “Blessed are the peacemakers (piece-makers).” Wasn’t that a good joke. So was Florry’s but I don’t think she thought of it.

99. We can see here that though the Bartletts didn’t approve of Henry, they didn’t have such a problem regarding Sophia. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

May 27, Sunday: Giuseppe Garibaldi’s army entered Palermo.

Kibrisli Mehmed Pasha replaced Mütercim Mehmed Rüstü Pasha as Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

Professor Henri-Frédéric Amiel, who would be referred to as the “Swiss Thoreau,” wrote in his JOURNAL INTIME: “I heard this morning a sermon on the Holy Spirit — good but insufficient. Why was I not edified? Because there was no unction. Why was there no unction? Because Christianity from this rationalistic point of view is a Christianity of dignity, not of humility. Penitence, the struggles of weakness, austerity, find no place in it. The law is effaced, holiness and mysticism evaporate; the specifically Christian accent is wanting. My impression is always the same — faith is made a dull poor thing by these attempts to reduce it to simple moral psychology. I am oppressed by a feeling of inappropriateness and malaise at the sight of philosophy in the pulpit. “They have taken away my Saviour, and I know not where they have laid him;” so the simple folk have a right to say, and I repeat it with them. Thus, while some shock me by their sacerdotal dogmatism, others repel me by their rationalizing laicism. It seems to me that good preaching ought to combine, as Schleiermacher did, perfect moral humility with energetic independence of thought, a profound sense of sin with respect for criticism and a passion for truth. The free being who abandons the conduct of himself, yields himself to Satan; in the moral world there is no ground without a master, and the waste lands belong to the Evil One. The poetry of childhood consists in simulating and forestalling the future, just as the poetry of mature life consists often in going backward to some golden age. Poetry is always in the distance. The whole art of moral government lies in gaining a directing and shaping hold over the poetical ideals of an age.”

In a letter to her sister Anna “Meg” Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott described the family’s reception for the Browns: Thursday we set our house [Orchard House] in order, and at two the rush began. It had gone abroad that Mr. M [the Reverend Samuel Joseph May] and Mrs. Captain Brown [Mary Ann Day Brown] were to adorn the scene, so many people coolly came who were not invited, and who had no business there. People sewed and jabbered till Mrs. Brown, with Watson Brown’s widow [Isabella Thompson Brown] and baby came; then a levee took place. The two pale women sat silent and serene through the chatter; and the bright-eyed handsome baby received the homage of the multitude like a little kind, bearing the kisses and praises with the utmost dignity. He is named Frederick Watson Brown, after his murdered uncle and father [Frederick Brown was killed in 1856 in “Bleeding Kansas”, Watson Brown at Harpers Ferry], and is a fair, heroic looking baby with a fine head, and serious eyes that look about him as if saying, “I am a Brown! Are these friends or enemies?” I wanted to cry once at the little scene the unconscious baby made. Some one caught and kissed him rudely; he didn’t cry, but looked troubled, and rolled his great eyes anxiously around for some familiar face to reassure him with its smile. His mother was not there; but though many hands were stretched to him, he turned to Grandma Bridge, and putting out his little arms to her as if she was a refuge, laughed and crowed as he had not done before when she danced him on her knee. The old lady looked delighted, and Freddy patted the kind face, and cooed like a lawful descendant of that pair of ancient turtle doves. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

When he was safe back in the study, playing alone at his mother’s feet, C. and I went and worshipped in our own way at the shrine of John Brown’s grandson, kissing him as if he were a little saint, and feeling highly honored when he sucked our fingers, or walked on us with his honest little red shoes, much the worse for wear. Well, the baby fascinated me so that I forgot a raging headache and forty gabbling women all in full clack. Mrs. Brown, Sen., is a tall stout woman, plain but with a strong, good face, and a natural dignity that showed she was something better than a “lady” though she did drink out of her saucer and used the plainest speech. The younger woman [Isabella Thompson Brown] had such a patient, heart-broken face, it was a whole Harpers Ferry tragedy in a look. When we got your letter, Mother [Abba Alcott] and I ran into the study to read it. Mother read aloud, for there were only C, A, I and Mrs. Brown Jr. in the room. As she read the words that were a poem in their simplicity and happiness, the poor young widow sat with tears rolling down her face; for I suppose it brought back her own wedding-day, not two years ago, and all the while she cried the baby laughed and crowed at her feet as if there was no trouble in the world. The preparations had been made for twenty at the utmost; so when forty souls with the usual complement of bodies appeared, we grew desperate, and our neat little supper turned out a regular “tea fight”. A., C, B, and I rushed like comets to and fro trying to fill the multitude that would eat fast and drink like sponges. I filled a big plate with all I could lay hands on, and with two cups of tea, strong enough for a dozen, charged upon Mr. E [Waldo Emerson] and Uncle S [the Reverend Samuel Joseph May] telling them to eat, drink, and be merry, for a famine was at hand. They cuddled into a corner and, feeling that my mission was accomplished, I let the hungry wait and the thirsty moan for tea while I picked out and helped the regularly Antislavery set. We got through it but it was an awful hour; and Mother wandered in her mind, utterly lost in a grove of teapots, while B. pervaded the neighborhood demanding hot water, and we girls sowed cake broadcast through the land. When the plates were empty and the teapots dry, people wiped their mouths and confessed at last that they had done. A conversation followed, in which Grandpa B. and EPP [Elizabeth Palmer Peabody] held forth, and Uncle and Father [Bronson Alcott] mildly upset the world, and made a new one in which every one desired to take a place. Dr. Bartlett [Dr. Josiah Bartlett], Mr. B., Thoreau [Henry Thoreau], etc, appeared and the rattle continued till nine, when some Solomon suggested that the Alcotts must be tired, and everyone departed by C. and S. We had a polka by Mother and Uncle, the lancers by C. and B. and an etude by S., after which scrabblings of feast appeared and we drained the dregs of every cup, all cakes and pies we gobbled up, etc., then peace fell upon us, and our remains were interred HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

decently. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 27. Fire in house again. The Sylvia striata are the commonest bird in the street, as I go to the post-office, for several days past. I see six (four males, two females) on one of our little fir trees; are apparently as many more on another close by. The white bars on the wings of both sexes are almost horizontal. I see them thus early and late on the trees about our houses and other houses the 27th and 28th and 29th also,—peach trees, etc., but especially on the firs. They are quite tame. I stand within seven or eight feet while they are busily pecking at the freshly bursting or extending glaucous fir twigs, deliberately examining them on all sides, and from time to time one utters a very fine and sharp, but faint tse tse, tse tse, tse tse, with more or less of these notes. I hear the same in the woods. Examining the freshly starting fir twigs, I find that there are a great many lice or aphides amid the still appressed leafets or leaves of the buds, and no doubt they are after these. Occasionally a summer yellowbird is in company with them, about the same business. They, the black-polls, are very numerous all over the town this spring. The female has not a black, but rather, methinks, a slate-colored crown, and is a very different bird,—more of a yellowish brown. Eleocharis acicularis, not long, on the low exposed bank of the river; if [?] it is that that greens the very low muddy banks. J. Farmer found a marsh hawk’s nest on the 16th,—near the Cooper’s hawk nest,—with three fresh eggs. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

August: This month’s issue of Harper’s New Monthly Magazine. CONSULT THIS ISSUE

Louisa May Alcott put in a solid month’s work on a 1st draft of her novel MOODS,

“Moods.” Genius burned so fiercely that for four weeks I wrote all day and planned nearly all night, being quite possessed by my work. I was perfectly happy, and seemed to have no wants. Finished my book, or a rough draft of it, and put it away to settle. Mr. Emerson offered to read it when Mother told him it was “moods” and had one of his sayings for motto.1 Daresay nothing will ever come of it; but it had to be done, and I’m the richer for a new experience.

1. Alcott’s epigraph in MOODS: “Life is a train of moods like a string of beads; and as we pass through them they prove to be many colored lenses, which paint the world their own hue, and each shows us only what lies in its own focus. — Emerson” What Emerson had written in the essay “Experience” published in ESSAYS, 2D SERIES: “Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a train of moods like a string of beads, and, as we pass through them, they prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the mood of the man, whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and giggle? or if he apologize? or is affected with egotism? or thinks of his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? ...”

which her biographer refers to as “a love story about Henry Thoreau” and as “a stormy, triangular love story based on her long-term, secret infatuation with Henry Thoreau.100 It was a story from the heart, lingering over passionate possibilities and displaying Louisa’s unrequited desire for an absorbing, erotic love.”101

100. The novel would need to be cut almost in half so it could be published as a saleable single volume rather than as an unsalable double volume on October 8, 1864, Abba’s 64th birthday. The sanctimonious publisher, A.K. Loring, insisted that a reference to a character as perusing Walt Whitman’s LEAVES OF GRASS volume be elided. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

101. In an undated letter to Louisa, this Loring unashamedly exposed the American businessman’s poverty of mind and arrogance: I judge a book by the impression it makes and leaves in my mind, by the feelings solely as I am no scholar. —A story that touches and moves me, I can make others read and believe in. —What I like is conciseness in introducing the characters, getting them upon the stage and into action as quickly as possible. —Then I like a story of constant action, bustle and motion, —Conversations and descriptive scenes are delightful reading when well drawn but are too often skipped by the reader who is anxious to see what they will do next, and it’s folly to write what will be skipped in reading.... I like a story that starts to teach some lesson of life (and) goes steadily on increasing in interest till it culminates with the closing chapter leaving you spell bound, enchanted and exhausted with the intensity with which it is written, the lesson forcibly told, and a yearning desire to turn right back to the beginning and enjoy it over again.... HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

MOODS presents an American Rochester modeled on Henry David Thoreau, in the character of Adam Warwick. He is a very tempting mate to Sylvia. Warwick has no house to keep but rather claims the world at large and nature in particular as his domain. Moreover, he offers to share nature with Sylvia and to teach her its secrets. Somewhat like Rochester, he does have a sexual secret as well in the first MOODS; he is betrothed to Ottila. Thoreau’s influence on the character of Warwick is twofold: both natural and sexual. Thoreau’s “prejudice for Adamhood” became well known, establishing a direct relationship with nature as one American model of manhood. He was the Alcott girls’ favorite companion on cross-country nature rambles. Charming birds and chipmunks, telling stories of Indian history and natural geography, he attracted Louisa May Alcott as well. She recalled trailing behind Thoreau and her father as they discussed Thoreau’s essays. In addition Thoreau provides a possible source for the fictional rivalry between Warwick and Moor; there were rumors of an attraction between Lidian Emerson and Thoreau. Even though critics found the triangles in MOODS “impossible,” Alcott confided to her JOURNALS, in a postscript to the 1865 pages, that a case of the sort exists in Concord and the woman came and asked me how I knew it. I did not know or guess, but perhaps felt it without any other guide, and unconsciously put the thing into my book, for I changed the ending about that time. It was meant to show a life affected by Moods, not a discussion of marriage which I knew so little about, except to observe that very few were happy ones. ...[Warwick is] “restless, brilliant and violently virtuous.” Like Thoreau, who supported John Brown’s Harper Ferry raid, denounced the Mexican War, and defended the cause of American Indians, Warwick is a masterful soul, bent on living out his beliefs and aspirations at any cost, much given to denunciation of wrong-doing everywhere, and eager to execute justice upon all offenders high or low.

Meanwhile, the love object was taking a train to Troy, New Hampshire and walking to Mt. Monadnock with Ellery Channing, camping out for five nights. The love object was working on his natural history materials. [SEE “MOODS” ON NEXT SCREEN]

Needless to say, if this character “Mr. Adam Warwick” in MOODS was indeed modeled by Louisa upon her “impressions of Thoreau,” then the author’s creation informs us far more about her own soul and the impressions which it insisted upon manufacturing than about the soul of the person to whom she was seeming HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Little notice was taken of her stories, but they found a market; and encouraged by this fact, she resolved to make a bold stroke for fame and fortune. Having copied her novel for the fourth time, read it to all her confidential friends, and submitted it with fear and trembling to three publishers, she at last disposed of it, on condition that she would cut it down one-third, and omit all the parts which she particularly admired. “Now I must either bundle it back in to my tin-kitchen to mold, pay for printing it myself, or chop it up to suit purchasers and get what I can for it. Fame is a very good thing to have in the house, but cash is more convenient; so I wish to take the sense of the meeting on this important subject,” said Jo, calling a family council. “Don’t spoil your book, my girl, for there is more in it than you know, and the idea is well worked out. Let it wait and ripen,” was her father’s advice; and he practiced what he preached, having waited patiently thirty years for fruit of his own to ripen, and being in no haste to gather it even now when it was sweet and mellow. “It seems to me that Jo will profit more by taking the trial than by waiting,” said Mrs. March. “Criticism is the best test of such work, for it will show her both unsuspected merits and faults, and help her to do better next time. We are too partial, but the praise and blame of outsiders will prove useful, even if she gets but little money.” “Yes,” said Jo, knitting her brows, “that’s just it. I’ve been fussing over the thing so long, I really don’t know whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent. It will be a great help to have cool, impartial persons take a look at it, and tell me what they think of it.” “I wouldn’t leave a word out of it. You’ll spoil it if you do, for the interest of the story is more in the minds than in the actions of the people, and it will be all a muddle if you don’t explain as you go on,” said Meg, who firmly believed that this book was the most remarkable novel ever written. “But Mr. Allen says, ‘Leave out the explanations, make it brief and dramatic, and let the characters tell the story,’” interrupted Jo, turning to the publisher’s note. “Do as he tells you. He knows what will sale, and we don’t. Make a good, popular book, and get as much money as you can. By and by, when you’ve got a name, you can afford to digress, and have philosophical and metaphysical people in your novels,” said Amy, who took a strictly practical view of the subject. “Well,” said Jo, laughing, “if my people are ‘philosophical and metaphysical,’ it isn’t my fault, for I know nothing about such things, except what I hear father say, sometimes. If I’ve got some of his wise ideas jumbled up with my romance, so much the better for me. Now, Beth, what do you say?” “I should so like to see it printed soon,” was all Beth said, and smiled in saying it. But there was an unconscious emphasis on the last word, and a wistful look in the eyes that never lost their childlike candor, which chilled Jo’s heart for a minute with a forboding fear, and decided her to make her little venture ‘soon.’ So, with Spartan firmness, the young authoress laid her firstborn on her table, and chopped it up as ruthlessly as any ogre. In the hope of pleasing every one, she took every one’s advice, and like the old man and his donkey in the fable, suited nobody. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

to relate. But perhaps these easy identifiers (the analysts quoted above) were quite mistaken. Perhaps this character “Mr. Adam Warwick” was indeed modeled upon a historical person, but not upon anyone so famous as Thoreau with whom we are so well acquainted. Please note that Louisa May Alcott was a little girl growing up with three other little girls in a family which attracted adult males to reside with it, at Fruitlands and elsewhere, drifting characters of means such as the English metaphysical chap Charles Lane.

For the remainder of this exceedingly nasty suggestion, I will decline to carry the freight myself but instead will allow Henry James, Sr., who personally had an opportunity to observe this situation in the Alcott household over a period of years, to carry that freight for me. What he had to say in the period in which this novel first saw the light of day was as follows — and it strikes me that for 1865, the year in which it was HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

written, this is strong meat indeed:

... Mr. Adam Warwick, is one of our oldest and most inveterate foes. he is the inevitable cavaliere servente of the precocious little girl; the laconical, satirical, dogmatical lover, of about thirty-five, with the “brown mane,” the “quiet smile,” the “masterful soul,” and the “commanding eye.” Do not all novel-readers remember a figure, a hundred figures, analogous to this? Can they not, one of his properties being given, — the “quiet smile” for instance, — reconstruct the whole monstrous shape? When the “quiet smile” is suggested, we know what is coming: we foresee the cynical bachelor or widower, the amateur of human nature, “Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the part,” who has travelled all over the world, lives on a mysterious patrimony, and spends his time in breaking the hearts and the wills of demure little school-girls, who answer him with “Yes, sir,” and “No, sir.” Mr. Warwick is plainly a great favorite with the author. She has for him that affection which writers entertain, not for those figures whom they have well known, but for such as they have much pondered....

I take it that this “whole monstrous shape” who “spends his time in breaking the hearts and wills of demure little school-girls” amounts to about as close as one might come in the literary world of the 19th Century to a suggestion that there had been pederasts, either active or latent, in the vicinity during the childhood formation of the author (if you have some easier interpretation of his concern, please do share this easier interpretation with us).

October 18, Thursday: “Dirty Bertie” the Prince of Wales visited Boston and rode the length of the Beacon Street mall atop the biggest black horse they could find, in a colonel’s uniform. Among the people introduced to him on this visit would be Waldo Emerson. Louisa May Alcott found all this so appealing that she would craft a reference to the “Prince of Whales.”102

October 18: P.M. – To Merriam’s white pine grove. I often see amid or beside a pitch or white pine grove, though thirty years old, a few yet larger and older trees, from which they came, rising above them, like patriarchs surrounded by their children. Early cinquefoil again. I find fair-looking white oak acorns, which abound on the trees near Beck Stow’s, to be decayed on the tree. Wishing to see what proportion were decayed I pull down a bough, and pluck forty-one acorns, which I cut open successively with my knife. Every one is soft and spoiled, turned black or dark-brown within, though there is not a single worm in them. Indeed, abundant and beautiful as the crop is, they are all decayed on that and the neighboring trees, and I only find one sound one after long search. This is probably the reason why they hold on still so numerously, and beside the squirrels do not disturb them. I suspect that they were killed by the severe frost of about October 1st. Abundant as the crop is, perhaps half of them have already been destroyed thus. Those that were touched first and most severely are paler-brown on one or both sides. Here, or on these trees, is a whole crop destroyed before it fell, though remarkably abundant. How many thousand bushels there must be in this state in this town! 102. He was already huge but his special sex stool had yet to be created in Paris. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

See how an acorn is planted by a squirrel, just under a loose covering of moist leaves where it is shaded and concealed, and lies on its side on the soil, ready to send down its radicle next year. If there are not so many oak seedlings in a deciduous wood as in a pine one, it may be because both oaks (and acorns) and squirrels love warmth. The ground does not freeze nearly so hard under dense pines as in a deciduous wood. Look through an oak wood, say twenty-five or thirty years old, north of the Sherman grove on the road. It appeared to me that there were fewer seedling oaks under this than under pines, and the roots of the other little ones that looked like seedlings were old and decaying, and the shoots slender, feeble, and more or less prostrate under the leaves. You will find seedling oaks under oaks, it is true, but I think that you will not find a great many of them. You will not find, as under pines, a great many of these little oaks one to eight or ten years old, with great fat, or fusiform, roots, all ready to spring up when the pines are cut. If it were true that the little oaks under oaks steadily grew and came to trees there, then even that would be a reason why the soil would not be so well stocked with them when the wood was cut as when a pine wood is cut, for there would be only ten trees in the first case to one hundred in the last (according to our calculation before). Most of the little oaks here were little or dwarfed, apparently because they were shoots from poor and diseased rootstocks, which were common in the ground. But I think that neither pines nor oaks do well under older trees. Methinks you do not see numerous oaks of all ages and sizes in an old oak wood, but commonly large trees of about the same age and little ones like huckleberry bushes under your feet; and so commonly with pine woods. In either case, if the woods are well grown and dense, all the trees in them appear to have been planted at the same time. For aught that I know, I would much rather have a young oak wood which has succeeded to pines than one that has succeeded to oaks, for they will make better trees, not only because the soil is new to them, but because they are all seedlings, while in the other case far the greater part are sprouts; just as I would prefer apple trees five or six years from the seed for my orchard to suckers from those which have come to maturity or decayed. Otherwise your young oaks will soon, when half grown, have the diseases of old trees, – warts and decay. I find that Merriam’s white pine grove is on the site of an oak wood, the old oak stumps being still very common. The pines appear to be some forty years old. The soil of pine leaves is an inch to an inch and a half thick. The oldest little oaks here are five years old and six inches high. Am surprised to see that the pasture west of this, where the little pitch pines were cut down last year, is now even more generally green with pines than two years ago. What shall we say to that management that halts between two courses, – does neither this nor that, but botches both? I see many a pasture on which the pitch or white pines are spreading, where the bush-whack is from time to time used with a show of vigor, and I despair of my trees, –I say mine, for the farmer evidently does not mean they shall be his,– and yet this questionable work is so poorly done that those very fields grow steadily greener and more forest-like from year to year in spite of cows £md bush-whack, till at length the farmer gives up the contest from sheer weariness, and finds himself the owner of a wood-lot. Now whether wood-lots or pastures are most profitable for him I will not undertake to say, but I am certain that a wood-lot and pasture combined is not profitable. I see spatter-dock pads and pontederia in that little pool at south end of Beck Stow’s. How did they get there? There is no stream in this case? It was perhaps rather reptiles and birds than fishes, then. Indeed we might as well ask how they got anywhere, for all the pools and fields have been stocked thus, and we are not to suppose as many new creations as pools. This suggests to inquire how any plant came where it is, – how, for instance, the pools which were stocked with lilies before we were born or this town was settled, and ages ago, were so stocked, as well as those which we dug. I think that we are warranted only in supposing that the former was stocked in the same way as the latter, and that there was not a sudden new creation, – at least since the first; yet I have no doubt that peculiarities more or less considerable have thus been gradually produced in the lilies thus planted in various pools, in consequence of their various conditions, though they all came originally from one seed. We find ourselves in a world that is already planted, but is also still being planted as at first. We say of some plants that they grow in wet places and of others that they grow in desert places. The truth is that their seeds are scattered almost everywhere, but here only do they succeed. Unless you can show me the pool where the lily was created, I shall believe that the oldest fossil lilies which the geologist has detected (if this is found fossil) originated in that locality in a similar manner to these of Beck Stow-’s. We see thus how the fossil lilies which the geologist has detected are dispersed, as well as these which we carry in our hands to church. The development theory implies a greater vital force in nature, because it is more flexible and accommodating, and equivalent to a sort of constant new creation. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Mr. Alcott tells me that the red squirrels which live in his elms go off to the woods (pitch pines behind his house) about June, and return in September, when the butternuts, etc., are ripe. Do they not go off for hazel-nuts and pine seed? No doubt they are to be found where their food is. Young oaks, especially white oaks, in open woodland hollows and on plains [ARE] almost annually killed down by frost, they are so tender. Large tracts in this town are bare for this reason. Hence it is very important that the little oaks, when they are tenderest, should have the shelter of pines and other trees as long as they can bear it, or perhaps till they get above the level of the frosts. I know of extensive open areas in the woods where it would be of no use to sow acorns or to set seedling oaks, for every one would be killed by the frost, as they have already been; but if you were to plant pines thinly there, or thickly at first and then thin them out, you could easily raise oaks, for often you have only got to protect them till they are five or six feet high, that they may be out of the way of ordinary frosts, whose surface is as level as that of a lake. According to Loudon (vide Emerson on oaks), the best authorities say plant some two hundred and fifty acorns to an acre (i.e. some from three hundred to five hundred, others from sixty to one hundred), or about one and one half acorns to a rod, or two hundred and forty to an acre. In my walk in Walden Woods yesterday I found that the seedling oaks and chestnuts were most common under the fullest and densest white pines, as that of Brister Spring. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1861

March 18, Monday: At the invitation of the government of Santo Domingo, Spain re-annexed its former colony. Spanish troops from Cuba entered the country.

A state convention in Arkansas turned down secession 39-35 but allowed for a plebiscite.

Governor Sam Houston of Texas, having declined to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States of America, was deposed and retired.

Concord’s annual exhibition was held in the new town hall. An announcement was made that Mr. Thoreau could not be present due to illness, but was still at work, hopefully, on the natural history of Concord that was to be used in the public schools there. Since the celebration that year was honoring Bronson Alcott as the Concord superintendent of schools, Louisa May Alcott had written a poem which, in the 2d verse, mentioned HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

John Brown. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

An attempt was made to have this reference suppressed but the attempt was defeated, largely through the intervention of Waldo Emerson. We have a letter briefly and unenthusiastically mentioning the program, from the 23-year-old daughter of Dr. Josiah Bartlett, Annie Bartlett, to her soldier brother Edward Jarvis “Ned” Bartlett to whom she was writing religiously every Sunday:

Mr. Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Franklin B. Sanborn spoke in the Hall about education, but I did not trouble them.

FRANKLIN B. SANBORN

In about this timeframe Thoreau was copying from HERODOTUS. A NEW AND LITERAL VERSION FROM THE TEXT OF BAEHR. WITH A GEOGRAPHICAL AND GENERAL INDEX. BY HENRY CARY, M.A., WORCESTER COLLEGE, OXFORD (London: Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden, 1845) into his Indian Notebook #12 and Commonplace Book #2. HERODOTUS’ HISTORIES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

March 18. Tree sparrows have warbled faintly for a week. When I pass by a twig of willow, though of the slenderest kind, rising above the sedge in some dry hollow early in December, or in midwinter above the snow, my spirits rise as if it were an oasis in the desert. The very name “sallow” (salix, from the Celtic sal-lis, near water) suggests that there is some natural sap or blood flowing there. It is a divining wand that has not failed, but stands with its root in the fountain. The fertile willow catkins are those green caterpillar-like ones, commonly an inch or more in length, which develop themselves rapidly after the sterile yellow ones which we had so admired are fallen or effete. Arranged around the bare twigs, they often form green wands eight to eighteen inches long. A single catkin consists of from twenty-five to a hundred little pods, more or less ovate and beaked, each of which is closely packed with cotton, in which are numerous seeds so small that they are scarcely discernible by ordinary eyes. I do not know what they mean who call this the emblem of despairing love! “The willow, worn by forlorn paramour!” It is rather the emblem of love and sympathy with all nature. It may droop, –it is so lithe, supple, and pliant,– but it never weeps. The willow of Babylon blooms not the less hopefully with us, though its other HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

half is not in the New World at all, and never has been. It droops, not to represent David’s tears, but rather to snatch the crown from Alexander’s head. (Nor were poplars ever the weeping sisters of Phaëton, for nothing rejoices them more than the sight of the Sun’s chariot, and little reck they who drives it.) Ah, willow! willow! Would that I always possessed thy good spirits. No wonder its wood was anciently in demand for bucklers, for, take the whole tree, it is not only soft and pliant but tough and resilient (as Pliny says?), not splitting at the first blow, but closing its wounds at once and refusing to transmit its hurts. I know of one foreign species which introduced itself into Concord as [a] withe used to tie up a bundle of trees. A gardener stuck it in the ground, and it lived, and has its descendants. Herodotus says that the Scythians divined by the help of willow rods. I do not know any better twigs for this purpose. How various are the habits of men! Mother says that her father-in-law, Captain Minott, not only used to roast and eat a long row of little wild apples, reaching in a semicircle from jamb to jamb under the andirons on the reddened hearth (I used to buy many a pound of Spanish brown at the stores for mother to redden the jambs and hearth with), but he had a quart of new milk regularly placed at the head of his bed, which he drank at many draughts in the course of the night. It was so the night he died, and my grandmother discovered that he was dying, by his not turning over to reach his milk. I asked what he died of, and mother answered apoplexy! at which I did not wonder. Still this habit may not have caused it. I have a cousin, also, who regularly eats his bowl of bread and milk just before going to bed, however late. He is a very stirring man. You can’t read any genuine history –as that of Herodotus or the Venerable Bede– without perceiving that our interest depends not on the subject but on the man, — on the manner in which he treats the subject and the importance he gives it. A feeble writer and without genius must have what he thinks a great theme, which we are already interested in through the accounts of others, but a genius –a Shakespeare, for instance– would make the history of his parish more interesting than another’s history of the world. Wherever men have lived there is a story to be told, and it depends chiefly on the story-teller or historian whether that is interesting or not. You are simply a witness on the stand to tell what you know about your neighbors and neighborhood. Your account of foreign parts which you have never seen should by good rights be less interesting. WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 19, Friday: President Abraham Lincoln issued a Proclamation of Blockade against Southern ports, and the first blood of civil warfare was shed.

On this “sacred date” of American independence, couriers rode along the route followed by Paul Revere in HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1775 calling out regiments for a new war, and there was “the ringing of bells, the firing of cannon and the assembling of soldiers, as brave, true and prompt as those of olden times.”103

Meanwhile, attempting to march through Baltimore en route to Fort Monroe in Virginia, the 6th Massachusetts in their new blue uniforms was being savaged by a mob of indignant citizens.104

Meanwhile an even fresher company of Concord volunteers “marched off for the Civil War.” They marched to the depot, that is, and took a train to Washington DC. Louisa May Alcott, watching this brave display, wrote:

I’ve often longed to see a war, and now I have my wish. I long to be a man; but as I can’t fight, I will content myself with working for those who can.

–You will pardon me if, in my inimitable manner, I become disgusted and insist on translating this as a masturbation fantasy which in the vernacular of the 20th Century would be something like “If I can’t fuck you, I need to kill you, and if I can’t kill you, I want you to kill somebody while I watch, and if I can’t watch, I want to fantasize about your killing somebody while you’re off doing it. (If you get wounded, that’ll work for me too.)” Is it any wonder that Henry Thoreau never wanted to get romantically involved with such a person as Louisa?

As the American Civil War began, Kit Carson would resign as federal Indian agent for northern New Mexico and join the New Mexico volunteer infantry that were being organized by Ceran St. Verain. Although the territory of New Mexico officially allowed slavery, this region’s geography and economics made the peculiar institution so peculiar that there were in fact very few slaves anywhere to be found. The territorial government and the leaders of opinion would therefore all throw their support to the Union. Carson would occupy himself during the civil war in organizing a New Mexico volunteer infantry on behalf of the Union. Overall command of Union forces in the Department of New Mexico would fall to Colonel Edward R.S. Canby of the Regular Army’s 19th Infantry, headquartered at Ft. Marcy in Santa Fe. Carson, provided with the rank of Colonel of Volunteers, would be in command of the 3d of Canby’s five columns. Carson would divide his 500 soldiers into two battalions, each consisting of four companies of the 1st New Mexico Volunteers. When the Navajo would attempt to take advantage of the military slack caused by the hostilities among the white people, the US federal government would delegate Colonel of Volunteers Carson to take care of the matter one way or another. His mission as the government understood it would be to get these native hostiles into a clump and sequester them at Fort Sumner in Reservation Bosque Redondo. When some of the natives hid in the Canyon de Chelly, Carson would begin a merciless scorched-earth campaign of burning fields and villages and killing livestock plus any Navajo he could locate. Once their fields of crops had been laid waste and their herds were rotting on the ground, the Navajos would realize that being shepherded onto a reservation in this manner was the sole manner in which they might hope to avoid starvation.

103. Pullen, Doris L. and Donald B. Cobb. THE CELEBRATION OF APRIL THE NINETEENTH FROM 1776 TO 1960 IN LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS. Lexington MA: Town Celebrations Committee, 1960, page 9. 104. When the Concord Soldiers’ Monument recording that “The Sons Defended What the Fathers Won” would be established in Monument Square upon a pedestal made of a stone from the abutment of the washed-away Old North Bridge six years later, an orator would remind the citizenry to be indignant at this Southern outrage, since when “our 6th Regiment was attacked in the streets of Baltimore, and the first blood was shed in defense of the American Union as it was, on the same day, in 1775,” that had been an injustice for “our boys were good boys” who had not been coming “with their hearts full of hatred.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

[THOREAU MADE NO ENTRY IN HIS JOURNAL FOR 19 APRIL]

–You will pardon me again, if again in my inimitable manner, I do not neglect to point out that this demonstration of Concordians marching off to war on April 19th demonstrated that the Concordians had utterly forgotten the lesson of April 19th, which had been that one ought not attack other people with harmful weapons in order to force them to behave as one believes they ought to behave? “Specimen Days”

CONTEMPTUOUS FEELING Even after the bombardment of Sumter, however, the gravity of the revolt, and the power and will of the slave States for a strong and continued military resistance to national authority, were not at all realized at the North, except by a few. Nine-tenths of the people of the free States look’d upon the rebellion, as started in South Carolina, from a feeling one-half of contempt, and the other half composed of anger and incredulity. It was not thought it would be join’d in by Virginia, North Carolina, or Georgia. A great and cautious national official predicted that it would blow over “in sixty days,” and folks generally believ’d the prediction. I remember talking about it on a Fulton ferry-boat with the Brooklyn mayor, who said he only “hoped the Southern fire-eaters would commit some overt act of resistance, as they would then be at once so effectually squelch’d, we would never hear of secession again — but he was afraid they never would have the pluck to really do anything.” I remember, too, that a couple of companies of the Thirteenth Brooklyn, who rendezvou’d [Page 708] at the city armory, and started thence as thirty days’ men, were all provided with pieces of rope, conspicuously tied to their musket-barrels, with which to bring back each man a prisoner from the audacious South, to be led in a noose, on our men’s early and triumphant return!

PATRIOTS’ DAY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

This article appeared in the Goodhue County Republican of Red Wing, Minnesota:

THE WAR’S BEGUN! –––– Maj. Anderson Summoned and Refuses to Surrender! –––– CHARLESTON BATTERIES OPEN THE FIRE! –––– Fort Sumter Reported on Fire! –––– REPORT OF ITS SURRENDER! HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

–––– WASHINGTON IN DANGER! –––– Pennsylvania in the Field with Men and Money! ––––

CHARLESTON, APRIL 11 — Beauregard at two o’clock to- day demanded the surrender of Fort Sumter which Anderson declined. It is currently reported that the negotiation relative to the surrender will be opened to-morrow between Anderson and Beauregard. Special dispatches received at Washington to-day, assert that both Pickens and Sumter will be attacked, but they doubt if war follows. A Montgomery dispatch to-day says it has been resolved to attack the two forts immediately. Three steamers were seen off the coast yesterday for a long time. Anderson fired a signal gun this morning. The attack on Fort Sumter is momentarily expected. Business is suspended. No work is being done. It is rumored that the fight will commence at eight o’-clock this evening, unless Anderson surrender. The steamer Harriet Lane is off the bar. Thousands of persons line the shores to witness the attack. CHARLESTON, APRIL 12 — The ball has opened. War is inaugurated. The batteries of Sullivan's Island, Morris Island and other points were opened on Fort Sumter at four o’clock this morning. Fort Sumter has returned the fire and a brisk cannonading has been kept up. No information has been received from the seaboard yet. The military are under arms, and the whole of our population are in the streets, and every available space facing the harbor is filled with anxious spectators. The firing has continued all day without intermission. Two of Fort Sumter’s guns have been silenced, and it is reported that a breach has been made in the southeast ward. The answer to Gen. Beauregard’s demand by Major Anderson was, that he would surrender when his supplies were exhausted; provided he was not reinforced. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

September 3, Tuesday: The 23rd anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s freedom, which we may well elect to celebrate in lieu of an unknown slave birthday.

Here is a Daguerreotype, by an unidentified photographer in the 1850-1855 timeframe.

“It has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday.”

Per Friend Daniel Ricketson’s journal:105By this point Abby May, the youngest of the Alcott daughters, would

BRONSON ALCOTT Weather warm and cloudy. Spent forenoon with Mr. Alcott in his study, Thoreau there part of the time. On our ABBA ALCOTT way visited an antiquarian collection of a Mr. Davis LOUISA MAY ALCOTT in company with Miss Sophia Thoreau and Mr. Thoreau. Dined with Mr. Alcott, his wife, and daughters Louisa SOPHIA E. THOREAU and Abby. Returned to Thoreau’s to tea, walked this evening in the dark, got lost for a time, but by retracing my steps found my way again. Dark cloudy evening, warm. Talked with T. till ten.

have reached her full adult stature of five feet ten inches, so she must have made quite a contrast with the five 105. Would this Mr. Davis be the wealthy philanthropist who in 1843 was leading the “Providence Movement” of mystic anarchists in Providence RI? Or the owner of “Eleazer Davis’s Hill” near Carlisle Bridge? Would he be a descendant of the Davis who stood and delivered among the Concord minutemen on the Lexington battleground? HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

foot three inch Ricketson! “How’s the weather down there?” THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1862

June 29, Tuesday: There was fighting at Savage’s Station. Waldo Emerson repeated his funeral oration on Henry David Thoreau for the benefit of the Reverend Theodore Parker’s “Fraternity” in Boston.

After Thoreau’s death, Louisa May Alcott wrote a poem “Thoreau’s Flute” for The Atlantic Monthly. According to Dr. Edward Waldo Emerson she wrote the poem while she was nursing in the military hospital in Washington DC where she had received the news of Henry Thoreau’s death:

We sighing said, “Our Pan is dead— His pipe hangs mute beside the river, Around it friendly moonbeams quiver, But music’s airy voice is fled. Spring comes to us in guise forlorn, The blue-bird chants a requiem, The willow-blossom waits for him, The genius of the wood is gone” Then from the flute, untouched by hands, There came a low, harmonious breath: For such as he there is no death. His life the eternal life commands. Above men’s aims his nature rose. The wisdom of a just content Make one small spot a continent, And turned to poetry life’s prose Haunting the hills, the stream, the wild, Swallow and aster, lake and pine To him seemed human or divine, Fit mates for this large-hearted child. Such homage nature ne’er forgets; And yearly on the coverlid ’Neath which her darling lieth hid Will write his name in violets. To him no vain regrets belong Whose soul, that finer instrument, Gave to the world no poor lament, But wood-notes ever sweet and strong. Oh lonely friend, He still will be A potent presence, though unseen, Steadfast, sagacious and serene. Seek not for him: he is with Thee.

At that time the magazine was withholding the names of contributors, and Louisa was informed by her father Bronson Alcott that one day while he was visiting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet had picked up the The Atlantic Monthly and had read aloud a few lines from her poem, and had asked her father whether he had read “Emerson’s fine poem on Thoreau’s Flute?” THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Whittier-Holmes-Emerson-Motley-Alcott-Hawthorne-Lowell-Agassiz-Longfellow HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

In “Chiefly about War Matters,” edited and expurgated by Ticknor & Fields, Nathaniel Hawthorne revealed that he had been utterly at odds with Emerson’s and Thoreau’s attitude toward John Brown while Brown was awaiting execution in 1859.

I shall not pretend to be an admirer of old John Brown, any farther than sympathy with Whittier’s excellent ballad about him may go; nor did I expect ever to shrink so unutterably from any apophthegm of a sage, whose happy lips have uttered a hundred gold sentences, as from that saying (perhaps falsely attributed to so honored a source), that the death of this blood-stained HANGING fanatic has “made the Gallows as venerable as the Cross!” Nobody was ever more justly hanged. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Plan of Fort Ridgely as it was in 1862 during the race war HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1863

February: Back home in Concord from her service in Washington DC, Louisa May Alcott was wearing a lace cap to cover the baldness caused by the doses of calomel that had been prescribed for her at the Army hospital.

“For 2400 years patients have believed that doctors were doing them good; for 2300 years they were wrong.”

— David Wootton, BAD MEDICINE: DOCTORS DOING HARM SINCE HIPPOCRATES, Oxford, June 2006

She was troubled by repeated mercury-poisoning delusions in which Spanish grandees leaped out of closets at her, etc. Dr. Josiah Bartlett visited her every day, and in all probability this is the point at which she began her use of opium.

WALDEN: The old and infirm and the timid, of whatever age or sex, PEOPLE OF thought most of sickness, and sudden accident and death; to them WALDEN life seemed full of danger, –what danger is there if you don’t think of any?– and they thought that a prudent man would carefully select the safest position, where Dr. B. might be on hand at a moment’s warning. To them the village was literally a com-munity, a league for mutual defence, and you would suppose that they would not go a-huckleberrying without a medicine chest. The amount of it is, if a man is alive, there is always danger that he may die, though the danger must be allowed to be less in proportion as he is dead-and-alive to begin with. A man sits as many risks as he runs.

DR. JOSIAH BARTLETT

ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

September 3, Thursday: On this day, and on the following two, people would be killing each other at Whitestone Hill.

Calvin H. Greene visited the Alcott family’s home in Concord and was able to see Bronson Alcott, but Louisa May Alcott did not come down because at the army hospital in Washington DC, under treatment with calomel (a mercury concoction), she “had lost a part of her hair (which she claimed she laid upon the altar of her country) & so was unpresentable.”

(Actually, the probable reason why Louisa –whom Greene referred to as “Louise”– did not put on her lace cap and come downstairs would be that in this period she was coping with her illness by the use of opium.)

This day marked the 25th anniversary of Frederick Douglass’s freedom, which we may well elect to celebrate in lieu of an unknown slave birthday.

Here is a Daguerreotype, by an unidentified photographer in the 1850-1855 timeframe.

“It has been a source of great annoyance to me, never to have a birthday.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

September 27, Sunday: Bronson Alcott noted: “Abby walks with me to Walden. We find the old paths by which I used to visit [Henry Thoreau] from ‘Hillside,’ but the grounds are much overgrown with shrubbery, and the site of the hermitage is almost obliterated.” ALCOTT FAMILY HILLSIDE HERMITS

(It is clear that at this point no cairn had yet been begun at the site on the shore of Walden Pond, where Emerson’s (Thoreau’s) shanty had once stood.) THOREAU’S CAIRN HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1864

May 28, Saturday: There was fighting at Haw’s Shop / Enon Church. Fighting began at Totopotomoy Creek / Shady Grove Road that would continue into the 30th.

James Thomas Fields had given Louisa May Alcott a copy of Henry Thoreau’s THE MAINE WOODS, and she wrote to him on this day that it was as if he “were walking with me again.”106 TIMELINE OF THE MAINE WOODS ALCOTT FAMILY

106. This is one of the few indications we have that Louisa ever glanced at anything Henry wrote. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

October 8, Saturday: Louisa May Alcott contracted to publish, through the firm of A.K. Loring, her most serious novel, her favorite novel, MOODS, in which her memories of Henry Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious novel, her favorite novel, it had had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two. It would appear on Abba Alcott’s 64th birthday, Christmas Eve. ALCOTT FAMILY

Lawrence Buell would comment, in particular about this book and in general about the relation of women writers to Thoreau, cherchezing for the femme dryly and –one trusts– in good humor, that: The first fictional recreation of Thoreau was by a woman, Louisa May Alcott (MOODS). The first book, to my knowledge, published by an outsider to the transcendentalist circle that celebrates nature as a refuge from hypercivilization with explicit invocation of Thoreau as model and precursor was written by a woman: Elizabeth Wright’s LICHEN TUFTS, FROM THE ALLEGHANIES (1860). The first Thoreau Society was founded by a group of young women (1891)....

December 24, Saturday: A story by Louisa May Alcott appeared in the Boston Saturday Evening Gazette, entitled “Mrs. Podgers’ Teapot, a Christmas Story.”

The first ten copies of Louisa’s MOODS were delivered hot off the press of the firm of A.K. Loring to her and she inscribed the first one for her mother Abba Alcott’s 64th birthday on this day, Christmas Eve. This was Louisa’s favorite novel, in which her memories of Henry Thoreau were the basis for one character. Although this was her most serious work, it had had to be cut almost in half so it could be issued as a saleable one volume rather than as an unsalable two. The “happy, very happy” dutiful daughter wrote: Now if it makes a little money and opens the way for more, I shall be satisfied, and you in some measure repaid for all the sympathy, help, and love that have done so much for me in these hard years. I hope Success will sweeten me and make me what I long to become more than a great writer — a good daughter. ALCOTT FAMILY The sanctimonious publisher had insisted on the omission of a reference to a character reading Walt Whitman’s LEAVES OF GRASS. Her biographer refers to this novel as “a love story about Henry Thoreau” and as a stormy, triangular love story based on her long-term, secret infatuation with Henry Thoreau. It was a story from the heart, lingering over passionate possibilities and displaying Louisa’s desire for an absorbing, erotic love. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Was it possible that Louisa was in love with Henry Thoreau? I, for one, would need to know whether she ever had even the faintest inkling of who this man had been, would need to discover that for instance she had studied WALDEN; OR, LIFE IN THE WOODS and A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS with sufficient perception over the years to have benefited from some of the spiritual material that is present in those books at a deep level, rather than merely utilizing the trip framework of WEEK for the framing of the romantic dialogues of one chapter in her romance! And I simply have not yet been able to see that in her.

James Thomson, an upstate New York farmer, had made no mention of any Christmas gifts in a diary which he had been keeping 1838-1840 and 1857-1864, but then we see this single entry in 1864: 26 Monday- This was a warm day thawed the snow some Snowed a little while in the morning. I went to Delhi with Bob and the Cutter. took the wool for flannel in exchange for it left 8 yards to be dressed into womans ware- paid for dressing it. it was noon when I got to Delhi. got home a little before 8 o’clock P. M. it was foggy- the Snow was drifted on the mountain- I got a Bonet for Jane Since in many years he made no mention of the Christmas holiday or celebration, it is likely that for the Thomson family this was not a significant tradition. This should not be seen as unusual, as there are other 19th- Century diaries and very few make any mention of any gift exchange at Christmas. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1868

October 1, Thursday, 1868: Part I of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Early during this month a telegram from General Lersundi to Colonel Udaeta, governor of Bayamo, would be intercepted by a telegrapher friendly to the revolutionaries. This telegram read: “Cuba belongs to Spain and for Spain she must be kept no matter who is governing. Send to prison D. Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, Francisco Vicente Aguilera, Pedro Figueredo, Francis Maceo Osorio, Bartolomé Masó, Francisco Javier de Céspedes....” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1869

April: Volume II of LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY by Louisa May Alcott was published by Roberts Brothers of Boston. Submitting to the judgment of her publishers, the author allowed the “amateurish” sketches made by her sister Abby May Alcott (the “Amy March” character) to be replaced by the work of the

then well-known illustrator Hammatt Billings:

If ‘genius is eternal patience,’ as Michael Angelo affirms, Amy certainly had some claim to the divine attribute, for she persevered in spite of all obstacles, failures, and discouragements, firmly believing that in time she should do something worthy to be called ‘high art.’

THE ALCOTT FAMILY MICHELANGELO HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

Alcott cited her hero Wendell Phillips the anti-slavery orator full of grace:107

HATEVER his motive might have been, Laurie studied to some purpose that year, for he W graduated with honor, and gave the Latin oration with the grace of a Phillips and the eloquence of a Demosthenes, so his friends said. They were all there, his grandfather — oh, so proud — Mr. and Mrs. March, John and Meg, Jo and Beth, and all exulted over him with the sincere admiration which boys make light of at the time, but fail to win from the world by any after-triumphs.

107. We may note in passing that Louisa’s character “Laurie” was not a depiction of Wendell Phillips. He was not a depiction of Waldo Emerson either, although the author had suffered a rather serious crush on Emerson in her teen years, writing him love letters which, she would later acknowledge, she’d had the good judgment not to post. Perhaps Louisa didn’t allow Jo to marry because she so closely modeled this point-of-view character on herself — and as a young woman she had averred that she’d “rather be a literary spinster and paddle my own canoe.” Though many men have stepped forward to claim that they were “Laurie,” when the author was asked about this she replied that the character had been a composite of two young men she had known. One of these, Alfred Whitman, had been a member of the Concord Dramatic Union founded by Louisa and others in the mid-1850s with whom she had continued to correspond long term, and the other had been Ladislas Wisniewski, a young Polish man with whom she had shared a brief romance while she had been on tour in Europe as companion to an invalid woman. (In “My Boys,” a sketch published late in her life, Louisa would identify only Wisniewski.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Note that Alcott described a particular one of Amy’s painting pigments as being tomato-colored: From fire to oil was a natural transition for burnt fingers, and Amy fell to painting with undiminished ardor. An artist friend fitted her out with his cast-off palettes, brushes, and colors, and she daubed away, producing pastoral and marine views such as were never seen on land or sea. Her monstrosities in the way of cattle would have taken prizes at an agricultural fair, and the perilous pitching of her vessels would have produced sea-sickness in the most nautical observer, if the utter disregard to all known rules of ship building and rigging had not convulsed him with laughter at the first glance. Swarthy boys and dark-eyed Madonnas, staring at you from one corner of the studio, did not suggest Murillo; oily brown shadows of faces with a lurid streak in the wrong place, meant Rembrandt; buxom ladies and dropiscal infants, Rubens; and Turner appeared in tempests of blue thunder, orange lightning, brown rain, and purple clouds, with a tomato-colored splash in the middle, which might be the sun or a bouy, a sailor’s shirt or a king’s robe, as the spectator pleased.

The name deployed in Chapter 27 of LITTLE WOMEN, “Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury,” was modeled by Louisa HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

on the name of the serial novelist of the 1850s, Mrs. E.D.E.N. Southworth:

… Pausing to turn a page, the lad saw her looking and, with boyish good- nature offered half his paper, saying bluntly, “Want to read it? That’s a first- rate story.” Jo accepted it with a smile, for she had never outgrown her liking for lads, and soon found herself involved in the usual labyrinth of love, mystery, and murder, — for the story belonged to that class of light literature in which the passions have a holiday, and when the author’s invention fails, a grand catastrophe clears the stage of one-half the dramatis personæ, leaving the other half to exult over their downfall. “Prime, isn’t it?” asked the boy, as her eye went down the last paragraph of her portion. “I think you and I could do most as well as that if we tried,” returned Jo, amused at his admiration of the trash. “I should think I was a pretty lucky chap if I could. She makes a good living out of such stories, they say;” and he pointed to the name of Mrs. S.L.A.N.G. Northbury, under the title of the tale. “Do you know her?” asked Jo, with sudden interest. “No, but I read all her pieces, and I know a fellow who works in the office where this paper is printed.” “Do you say she makes a good living out of stories like this?” And Jo looked more respectfully at the agitated group and thickly-sprinkled exclamation points that adorned the page. “Guess she does! She knows just what folks like, and gets paid well for writing it.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1871

Publication of LITTLE MEN: LIFE AT PLUMFIELD WITH JO’S BOYS. Simultaneously, the publishing firm of A.K. Loring, which owned the copyright for the 1st novel MOODS, reprinted it to capitalize on the author’s growing fame, apparently without feeling there was any need to make any coordination with its author Louisa May Alcott. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

May 30: Louisa May Alcott wrote about her health condition: Dr. Kane who was army surgeon in India, and Dr in England for forty years, says, my leg trouble and many of my other woes, come from the calomel they gave me in Washington. He has been through the same thing with an Indian-jungle-fever, and has never got the calomel out of him. The bunches on my leg are owing to that, for the mercury lies round in a body and don’t do much harm till a weak spot appears when it goes there and makes trouble. I don’t know anything about it, only [my] leg is the curse of my life. But I think Dr. K’s Iodine of Potash will cure it in the end as it did his arms, after taking it for three months. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1871

Publication of LITTLE MEN: LIFE AT PLUMFIELD WITH JO’S BOYS. Simultaneously, the publishing firm of A.K. Loring, which owned the copyright for the 1st novel MOODS, reprinted it to capitalize on the author’s growing fame, apparently without feeling there was any need to make any coordination with its author Louisa May Alcott. THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1873

In Concord, Abby Gray sold “The Wayside” to her renter, Miss Mary C. Pratt, who was using the place as a successful boarding school known as The Wayside Family School for Girls. OLD HOUSES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Louisa May Alcott’s WORK, with a character alleged by some to have been based on Thoreau. THE ALCOTT FAMILY

Mark Twain patented a self-pasting scrapbook, to be manufactured by Slote, Woodman & Company and sold by J.B. Lippincott & Company.

The freestyle swim stroke was invented (which means that Thoreau hadn’t swum freestyle).

Harriet Beecher Stowe had been born in Litchfield CT, and so after her Florida sojourn she purchased a classic 19th-Century gray wood and brick home at 77 Forest Avenue in Hartford. At this “Nook Farm” she would entertain fellow literary lights, paint watercolors and oils, work in her garden, and, in the small sitting room near her 10-sided bedroom, write several more novels, until she would die simpleminded in 1896. Mark Twain would record that when he visited, she was wandering around, popping up behind visitors and going “boo.” This home is now open to the public and houses the drop-leaf mahogany table at which in her heyday she had written portions of UNCLE TOM’S CABIN. While you are in Hartford, you might also stop by Gallaudet Square at Farmington and Asylum avenues to see the statue to Alice Cogswell, first pupil of Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (the deaf school has removed, as of 1921, to West Hartford). Also, you might visit Christ Church at 45 Church Street, on the north wall of which is a tablet in honor of Lydia Howard Huntley Sigourney, one of the first American “scribbling women” to make a substantial sum of money by writing. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1874

Elizabeth Palmer Peabody’s RECORD OF MR. ALCOTT’S SCHOOL, EXEMPLIFYING THE PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF MORAL CULTURE, 3d Edition, Revised. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 297 pages (This edition was prepared because the school kept by Bronson Alcott had become of popular interest after being described in the writings of Louisa May Alcott.) MAKING OF AMERICA

June 28, Sunday: Bronson Alcott noted: “After bathing we contribute severally our stone to Thoreau’s cairn. The pyramid is insignificant as yet; but could Thoreau’s readers add theirs the pile would rise above the treetops to mark the site of his hermitage.” ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1875

March 24, Wednesday: Abby May Alcott, the “artistic” daughter of the Alcott family, had been solicited and had suggested a local young man, Daniel Chester French, she considered to be of promise;

he had produced a minute plaster model on the model of the Apollo Belvedere (with clothes on);108 a bronze statue was in the last stages of being prepared;109 the base and inscription for the new statue of the “Minute Man” on the west bank of the Concord River at the Old North Bridge in Concord were complete.

108. The Roman copy known as the Apollo Belvedere, at the Vatican, was termed in 1775 “the consummation of the best that nature, art, and the human mind can produce.” It had been uncovered sometime late in the 15th Century, and dates to the reign of Hadrian. We presume that the original of this had been sculpted about 320BCE by Leochares, an Athenian, at the court of Alexander the Great. Thomas Carlyle dealt with the Apollo Belvedere in “Hudson’s Statue.” 109. The plan had been, originally, for a marble statue, but young Daniel the sculptor had preferred bronze and Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar had persuaded the US Congress to make available 10 condemned Civil War brass cannon. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1876

May: After a visit to Boston, Lydia Maria Child stopped by Concord to visit with the Alcott family.

(As “Lydia Maria Francis” and “Abigail May,” she and Abba Alcott had been girlhood friends.) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1877

The Reverend Elizabeth Oakes Smith became the pastor of The Independent Church in Canastoga, New York.

Bronson Alcott’s TABLE TALK (Boston MA: Roberts Brothers, 178 pages).

May 28, Monday: Louisa May Alcott purchased, for $4,500, the Yellow House at 73 Main Street in Concord, in the attic of which Henry Thoreau had had his room from 1850 to 1862, as a residence for her widowed sister Anna Alcott Pratt and her two young sons Frederick and John Pratt. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES

“Is a house but a gall on the face of the earth, a nidus which some insect has provided for its young?” –JOURNAL May 1, 1857

July: The widowed Anna Alcott Pratt and her two young sons Frederick and John Pratt moved into the Yellow House at 73 Main Street in Concord; soon they would be followed by Bronson Alcott, the dying Abba Alcott, and Louisa May Alcott. ALCOTT FAMILY THOREAU RESIDENCES HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

November 25, Sunday: At Harpers Ferry, high water caused considerable damage to the C&O Canal and closed the old Shenandoah Canal for good. The flood crest was 29.2 feet.

Abba Alcott died. The body would be placed in Concord’s Sleepy Hollow Cemetery near the grave of Elizabeth Sewall Alcott (died March 14, 1858 from the aftereffects of scarlet fever). ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1880

The two parts of Louisa May Alcott’s LITTLE WOMEN, OR, MEG, JO, BETH AND AMY were republished together as one volume entitled LITTLE WOMEN, with all the chapters numbered consecutively.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

THE ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1882

April 27, Thursday: James Elliot Cabot, Bronson Alcott, Franklin Benjamin Sanborn, Ellery Channing, Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, and Sheriff Sam Staples were sent for, “to bid him good-bye,” and Sam thoughtfully brought along a bottle of brandy. Waldo Emerson spoke lovingly with Lydian, although mostly unintelligibly. Again and again he made reference to “the beautiful boy” and they supposed him to have been recollecting his first son Wallie who had died in 1842. He was able to make himself understood to Sam and to Judge Hoar. He greeted James Elliot Cabot, his literary executor, by name but by the time Sanborn and Channing saw him, he was dull. According to THE LETTERS OF ELLEN TUCKER EMERSON (Kent OH: Kent State UP, 1982, Volume I, page 690, Volume II, page 676), Emerson had Sanborn dismissed from the room, and presumably this would have been because after urging fighting on other young men he had not himself participated in the Civil War. Dr. James Putnam of Boston was in attendance. We may note that there was a “Confucius say” quote he had liked so much as to have used it twice:

“I will say with Confucius, ‘If in the morning I hear of the right way, and in the evening die, I can be happy.’”

EMERSON AND CHINA

When “a sharp pain came upon him,” his son Dr. Emerson administered sulphurous ether, “which soon relieved him, & kept the ether near his face until near the end” at about 8:30 in the evening.

ETHER

The bell on the Unitarian Church was tolled, 79 strokes.

Dr. Garnett, Emerson’s biographer, would write:

Seldom had “the reaper whose name is Death” gathered such illustrious harvest as between December 1880 and April 1882. In the first month of this period George Eliot passed away, in the ensuing February Carlyle followed; in April Lord Beaconsfield died, deplored by his party, nor unregretted by his country; in February of the following year Longfellow was carried to the tomb; in April Rossetti was laid to rest by the sea, and the pavement of Westminster Abbey was disturbed to receive the dust of Darwin. And now Emerson lay down in death HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

beside the painter of man and the searcher of nature, the English-Oriental statesman, the poet of the plain man and the poet of the artist, and the prophet whose name is indissolubly linked with his own. All these men passed into eternity laden with the spoils of Time, but of none of them could it be said, as of Emerson, that the most shining intellectual glory and the most potent intellectual force of a continent had departed along with him. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1885

January 11, Sunday: Louisa May Alcott reported to Mary E. Edie that the Alcotts had left Concord: “We do not live in the old house. It is sold. We live in Boston.” Louisa had begun living in rented rooms on Chestnut Street in Boston. That spring she would make a couple of day trips to Concord. Then she would be in Concord from April 11th to June 20th, when she would go to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in Boston in September and move in on September 30th. ALCOTT FAMILY

February 18, Wednesday: ADVENTURES OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN, which some take to be the great American indictment against slavery, was first published in the USA during this year in which the practice of human enslavement was being defended in America by no one at all. The Irish were, however, still in considerable general disrepute — for instance, during this year the Irish were being characterized by John Beddoe, 110 in THE RACES OF BRITAIN, as “Africanoid.” Samuel Langhorn Clemens therefore told his illustrator to be careful not to make Huck “Irishy.” He did not want his book to be confrontational or socially helpful; to the contrary, he needed for it to sell. The author needed to and he desired to pander rather than attempt any sort of social corrective.

110. THE RACES OF BRITAIN: A CONTRIBUTION TO THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF WESTERN EUROPE. Bristol, England: Arrowsmith, 1885, page 11. Bear in mind that the description “Nigger Jim” does not appear in this book — it was not Mark Twain but his first biographer, Albert Bigelow Paine, who initiated all our references to the Jim character of this novel as “Nigger Jim.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

According to Noel Ignatiev’s HOW THE IRISH BECAME WHITE, “To be acknowledged as white, it was not enough for the Irish to have a competitive advantage over Afro- Americans in the labor market; in order for them to avoid the taint of blackness it was necessary that no Negro be allowed to work in occupations where Irish were to be found.”

According to the jokes that were going the rounds in those days among non-Irish white racists (the bulk of the population, actually), the Irish were “Negroes turned inside out” while the American free blacks were “smoked Irish.”

It has been well said, that inside the charmed Caucasian chalk circle it is the sum of what you are not –not Indian, not Negro, not a Jew, not Irish, etc.– that make you what you are. And, that’s as true now as it was then. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

The Concord Free Public Library nevertheless immediately banned this new fiction from its shelves as “the veriest trash.” Louisa May Alcott, in particular (if we can believe a popular writer, Thomas Beer, who claimed to have found this in an unprinted letter from Miss Alcott to Frances Hedges Butler –whoever she was– but who has been caught red-handed at inventing other stuff of that nature in his earlier biography of Stephen Crane), possibly was outraged by the temerity of this author:

If Mr. Clemens cannot think of something better to tell our pure-minded lads and lasses, he had best stop writing for them.

— From Nat Hentoff’s FREE SPEECH FOR ME – BUT NOT FOR THEE: HOW THE AMERICAN LEFT AND RIGHT RELENTLESSLY CENSOR EACH OTHER (HarperCollins/Harry Asher Books)

RACISM MARK TWAIN

(There is no indication, however, that the Concord Free Public Library ever removed from its shelves another famous boy’s story which has buried in it a the-black-man-and-the-pig story worthy to be told at a Ku Klux Klan rally. The censorious do tend to be unconscious!) HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

April 1, Wednesday: Sophia Foord died in Dedham, Massachusetts at age 82; Louisa May Alcott would pay tribute to her in the Woman’s Journal.

June 20, Saturday: Louisa May Alcott had come back to the Yellow House in Concord from her rented rooms in Boston on April 11th, and on this day went on to Nonquitt near New Bedford for the summer. She would purchase her place at 10 Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill in September and move in on September 30th, and then her father and sister and nephews would move in with her on October 10th. THOREAU RESIDENCES ALCOTT FAMILY

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

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1888

January 23, Monday: Louisa May Alcott noted that WINTER, a book recently collected from Thoreau’s journals, was a “Nice book.”111 ALCOTT FAMILY

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

111. This is one of the few indications we have that Louisa ever glanced at anything that Thoreau wrote. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

March 4: Amos Bronson Alcott died in Boston. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

March 6: Louisa May Alcott died two days after her father but unaware of his death, in Roxbury.

ALCOTT FAMILY Famous Last Words:

“What school is more profitably instructive than the death-bed of the righteous, impressing the understanding with a convincing evidence, that they have not followed cunningly devised fables, but solid substantial truth.” — A COLLECTION OF MEMORIALS CONCERNING DIVERS DECEASED MINISTERS, Philadelphia, 1787 “The death bed scenes & observations even of the best & wisest afford but a sorry picture of our humanity. Some men endeavor to live a constrained life — to subject their whole lives to their will as he who said he might give a sign if he were conscious after his head was cut off — but he gave no sign Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows.” —Thoreau’s JOURNAL, March 12, 1853 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1883 Karl Marx his housekeeper asked him whether he “Last words are for fools who haven’t said had any last words enough.”

1887 Henry Ward Beecher unsolicited comment “Now comes the mystery.”

1888 Louisa May Alcott unsolicited comment “Thus far the Lord has led me on.”

1890 Joseph Cary Merrick the actor John Hurt, pretending to be “Nothing ever dies.” The Elephant Man in a movie

1891 Phineas Taylor Barnum inquiry “How were the circus receipts today at Madison Square Garden?” ... other famous last words ...

July: After holding a memorial service for Amos Bronson Alcott the Concord School of Philosophy closed its doors. ALCOTT FAMILY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1893

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

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1915

Frederick Llewellyn Hovey Willis (1830-1914) alleged to have remembered Henry Thoreau on pages 91-94 of his ALCOTT MEMOIRS, POSTHUMOUSLY COMP. FROM PAPERS, JOURNALS AND MEMORANDA OF THE LATE DR. FREDERICK L.H. WILLIS, BY E.W.L. & H.B. (Boston MA: R.G. Badger). How much of this is self- promoting fantasy, and how much is based on actual events? This lad Freddy Willis was 17 or 18 years of age in July 1847 when this “keen recollection” of the visit with the Alcott family allegedly was formed. Was he the son of the J. Willis who lived over on Barrett’s Pond, or perhaps of the Universalist Reverend Lemuel Willis of Warner, some eighteen miles west of Concord NH? And, it would be nice to know, was this lad Freddy Willis related to a Quaker born in about 1818, Sarah L. Willis? –Or to the essayist N. Parker Willis who was writing so many excellent articles for magazines during Thoreau’s lifetime? I have a keen recollection of the first time I met Henry David Thoreau. It was upon a beautiful day in July, 1847, that Mrs. Alcott told us we were to visit Walden. We started merrily a party of seven, Mr. and Mrs. Alcott, the four girls and myself, for the woods of oak and pine that encircled the picturesque little lake called Walden Pond. We found Thoreau in his cabin, a plain little house of one room containing a wood stove. He gave us gracious welcome, asking us within. For a time he talked with Mr. Alcott in a voice and with a manner in which, boy as I was, I detected a something akin with Emerson. He was a tall and rugged-looking man, straight as a pine tree. His nose was strong, dominating his face, and his eyes as keen as an eagle’s. He seemed to speak with them, to take in all about him in one vigorous glance. His brows were shaggy as in people who observe rather than see. He was talking to Mr. Alcott of the wild flowers in Walden woods when, suddenly stopping, he said: “Keep very still and I will show you my family.” Stepping quickly outside the cabin door, he gave a low and curious whistle; immediately a woodchuck came running towards him from a nearby burrow. With varying note, yet still low and strange, a pair of gray squirrels were summoned and approached him fearlessly. With still another note several birds, in two crows, flew towards him, one of the crows nestling upon his shoulder. I remember it was the crow resting close to his head that made the most vivid impression upon me, knowing how fearful of man this bird is. He fed them all from his hand, taking food from his pocket, and petted them gently before our delighted gaze; and then dismissed them by different whistling, always strange and low and short, each little wild thing departing instantly at hearing its special signal. Then he took us five children upon the pond in his boat, ceasing his oars after a little distance from the shore and playing the flute he had brought with him, its music echoing over the still and beautifully clear water. He suddenly laid the flute down and told us stories of the Indians that “long ago” had lived about Walden and Concord; delighting us with simple, clear explanations of the wonders of Walden woods. Again he HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

interrupted himself suddenly, speaking of the various kinds of lilies growing about Walden and calling the wood lilies, stately wild things. It was pond lily time and from the boat we gathered quantities of their pure white flowers and buds; upon our return to the shore he helped us gather other flowers and laden with many sweet blossoms, we wended our way homewards rejoicingly. As we were going he said to me: “Boy, you look tired and sleepy; remember, sleep is half a dinner.” I saw him afterwards very many times in the company of his most intimate friends, Mr. Emerson and Mr. Alcott. He often came to our home; indeed, aside from visits to his father, mother, sisters, and Mr. Emerson, he visited no one else. Upon some of these occasions I remember him saying “that he had a great deal of company in the morning when nobody called;” and “I have never found the companion who is so companionable as solitude.” I also remember, “in Walden Woods I hunt with a glass; for a gun gives you but the body while a glass gives you the bird.” He possessed to an uncanny degree a knowledge of flowers, plants, and trees. He kept a careful calendar of the shrubs and flora about Walden and showed it me in explanation many times. The land upon which his cabin was built had been given him by Emerson; the cabin he built himself at a cost of less than thirty dollars and for the first nine months of his life in it his expenses amounted to sixty-two dollars. He thus proved that most of us waste our time and substance upon superficialities, that one hundred dollars per year will suffice for one’s living expenses, and that, best of all, one could really live and still have two-thirds of one’s time to one’s self.... This is but a record of youthful memory; its aim is to compass nothing else. During the nearly sixty years since Thoreau’s death I have read, I think, all that has been said about him. But among it nothing has, nor do I believe ever will, be better said than a paragraph from Emerson’s funeral tribute to his dead friend: “He has in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will find a home.” HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

This Fred Willis, in the early 1850s, achieved a brief notoriety by being dismissed from Harvard College on account of mediumistic activities. The Reverend Frederick L.H. Willis of Boston then became the first minister of a Spiritualist church in Coldwater, Michigan after being in some way involved with the Fox sisters of the “spirit rappings.” In 1858 he got married with a Unitarian named “Love Maria Whitcomb” (1824-1908) who

had been born on June 9, 1824 in Hancock, New Hampshire and died on November 26, 1908 in Elmira, New York. For various periods his wife Love Willis edited THE BANNER OF LIGHT in Boston, and TIFFANY’S MONTHLY MAGAZINE. She became the author of the hymn “Father, Hear the Prayer We Offer.” She later lived for many years in Rochester, New York; by 1907 she was living in Glenora NY, on Seneca Lake. The Reverend Willis was the author of a 7-page pamphlet entitled “A new-year’s discourse: preached before the First Congregational Society of Coldwater, Michigan, Sunday, January 2, 1859.” At the “Golden Jubilee Celebration of Spiritualism” held in Rochester NY in June 1898 under the auspices of the National Spiritualists’ Association, the Reverend Dr. Fred L.H. Willis of Rochester was a featured speaker, delivering an address on “Can Spiritualism Claim to be a Religion?” He said “Our belief has done so much for the improvement and elevation of mankind, added so much to our knowledge of the hereafter and revealed the foundation of character, that we are justified in claiming that Spiritualism is a religion as well as a science and philosophy.” During this celebration, a party of 58 excursionists journeyed to Hydesville to the old homestead of the Fox family, where the “Rochester Rappings” had originated 50 years earlier, to hold a service in front of the Fox cottage during which Dr. Fred Willis delivered a short history of the Fox sisters as he had known them. The attenders endorsed a Spiritualist Declaration of Principles that had been prepared and endorsed by Cora L. V. Richmond, Lyman C. Howe, Mrs. Elizabeth L. Watson, William C. Hodge, and Dr. Fred L.H. Willis: First—We acknowledge an unlimited intelligence in the Universe of which we are all partakers. Second—The highest expressions of this unlimited intelligence we recognize in the reason and intuitions of the human soul. Third—We recognize nature as one infinite whole, and her phenomena as the expression of life, energy and intelligence imminent in the constitution of things. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

Fourth—Spiritual phenomena throughout the ages have demonstrated that man is a spirit and the change called death is one of the evolutionary steps in his progressive development. Fifth—We maintain the truth of spirit communion and seek to aid in all possible ways its practical demonstration. Sixth—Intercourse between the living and the so-called dead is the natural sequence of human relations on earth. It proves that death does not change the nature of man, but reveals to him new aspects of life, and further opportunities for the unfoldment and exercise of the intellectual and moral faculties inherent in every human being. We endorse the objects expressed in all noble reforms, as illustrated in the following: 1. In the efforts to secure equal justice for all races and classes and both sexes. 2. To protect innocent and helpless childhood by educating parents in the laws in duties of life and love, by which the home may become the center of purity, fidelity and mutual devotion and helpfulness. 3. By treating all sin and crime as a disease, and establishing schools and asylums for their proper treatment and permanent cure. 4. By encouraging temperance in all things and relying on moral and social education as the remedy for all forms of abuses. 5. By co-operation and fraternization as the remedy for political and industrial evils. 6. By recognition of the brotherhood of man, and loving toleration of all differences of faith and practice in religion. 7. By teaching and cultivating reverence for truth and a sacred regard for the interests, rights and well-being of every child of nature. 8. By persistent, orderly efforts to improve ourselves; and especially by cultivating a closer relation with the spiritual universe, and obtaining practical knowledge of the higher life by unfolding our own spiritual natures and seeking the helpful co-operation of the spiritual world. 9. By inspiring all men with faith in themselves and confidence in the eternal order of nature, as a perpetual incentive to courageous effort and success in well-doing. This guy died in 1914. HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

May: Clara Endicott Sears’s BRONSON ALCOTT’S FRUITLANDS, about the Alcott family’s “consocial family” experiment “Fruitlands” of Harvard, Massachusetts: INTRODUCTION A NEW EDEN THE FOUNDING BROOK FARM AND F. THE MAN WITH THE BEARD SUMMER SUNSHINE FATHER HECKER ANNA ALCOTT’S DIARY LOUISA’S DIARY AUTUMN DISAPPOINTMENT IN AFTER YEARS TRANSCENDENTAL OATS FRUITLANDS LIBRARY HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

1983

THOREAU’S PSYCHOLOGY. Gozzi, Raymond D., ed. Lanham, Maryland: UP of America, 1983 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

1984

Julie Ellison belatedly came to the realization that good ’ol boy Ralph Waldo Emerson’s penchant for classifying people as type cases of “the philosopher” or “the mystic” or “the skeptic” or “the transcendentalist” –or whatever– by which they are made to “appear to us as representatives of certain ideas, which they never pass or exceed,” had been a covertly aggressive move the agenda of which had been to put the great in their places even as it pretended to concede that greatness.

Julie figured me out.

Kenneth Walter Cameron’s TRANSCENDENTAL CURRICULUM OR BRONSON ALCOTT’S LIBRARY: INVENTORY OF 1858-1860 WITH ADDENDA TO 1888, INCLUDING LIBRARY AT FRUITLANDS (1842-43), TO WHICH IS ADDED SHEAF OF UNGATHERED ALCOTT LETTERS (Hartford CT: Transcendental Books, 1984). Cameron’s AMERICAN AUTHORS IN PICTURES: THE MAJOR NINETEENTH-CENTURY WRITERS AND THEIR BACKGROUNDS (Hartford, Connecticut; Box A, Station A, Hartford 06126: Transcendental Books).

Cameron’s TRANSCENDENTAL CURRICULUM, OR, BRONSON ALCOTT’S LIBRARY: THE INVENTORY OF 1858- 1860 WITH ADDENDA TO 1888, INCLUDING THE LIBRARY AT FRUITLANDS (1842-1843), TO WHICH IS ADDED A SHEAF OF UNGATHERED ALCOTT LETTERS (Hartford, Connecticut; Box A, Station A, Hartford 06126: Transcendental Books).

Cameron’s THE VESTRY LECTURES AND A RARE SERMON / BY RALPH WALDO EMERSON (Hartford, Connecticut; Box A, Station A, Hartford 06126: Transcendental Books).

Cameron’s EMERSON’S TRANSCENDENTALISM AND BRITISH SWEDENBORGISM (Hartford, Connecticut; Box A, Station A, Hartford 06126: Transcendental Books).

Cameron’s new edition of TRANSCENDENTAL HORIZONS: ESSAYS AND POETRY / BY FRANKLIN BENJAMIN SANBORN (Hartford, Connecticut; Box A, Station A, Hartford 06126: Transcendental Books). HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project The Alcotts HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

Prepared: April 11, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

THE ALCOTTS THE PATHETIC FAMILY

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 PATHETIC FAMILY THE ALCOTTS

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.