THE REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS AND HIS WIFE ABBA HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1795
November 9, Monday: Boston auctioned off the grounds of its former Almshouse, Workhouse, and Granary.
Birth of Convers Francis, Jr. in Medford, Massachusetts, 5th child of Susannah Rand Francis with David Convers Francis, a successful baker and businessman.
HISTORY’S NOT MADE OF WOULD. WHEN SOMEONE REVEALS, FOR INSTANCE, THAT A PARTICULAR INFANT WOULD INVENT THE SEWING MACHINE, S/HE DISCLOSES THAT WHAT IS BEING CRAFTED IS NOT REALITY BUT PREDESTINARIANISM. THE RULE OF REALITY IS THAT THE FUTURE HASN’T EVER HAPPENED, YET.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS
1802
February 11, Thursday: Birth of Lydia Maria Francis in Medford, Massachusetts, as the final child of the 7 of Susannah Rand Francis with David Convers Francis,1 a successful baker and businessman.2 She would grow up under the wing of her bookish older brother Convers Francis, Jr. and attend local schools and Medford’s First Parish, an orthodox Congregational church. When she would become 9, her brother would leave home to attend Harvard College. Possessed of an eager, inquiring mind, Lydia would be free to use the library of the First Parish minister, the Reverend David Osgood.
The 6th generation of Southmayds in America: Daniel Starr Southmayd was born in Waterbury, Connecticut. He was a son of Ebenezer Southmayd (January 23, 1775-September 30, 1831) and Elizabeth Starr Southmayd (January 8, 1777-July 3, 1842) who had gotten married at South Farms, Connecticut, on April 16, 1797.
1. Her paternal grandfather, a weaver by trade, had been in the fighting around Concord and Lexington in 1775, and is said to have offed five of the enemy before being himself offed. Her “Grandfather’s House” about which she wrote her Thanksgiving poem was on South Street in Medford, Massachusetts and supposedly is this one near the Mystic River:
2. At no point would she ever allow herself to be referred to as “Lydia.” The name “Maria” is here to be pronounced not as in Spanish or French but as if it were “Mariah,” per “they called the wind mariah.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1815
Thaddeus William Harris received his BA degree from Harvard College and entered the Harvard Medical School. NEW “HARVARD MEN”
Convers Francis, Jr. also received his bachelor’s degree. Still on file there is his “Spherical Problems. Convers Francis (21 ¾ x 29 inches).”
The Hollis Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy at Harvard, John Farrar, was sponsoring the building of a weather observatory at Harvard (the project would not accumulate the required funds). Harvard awarded its automatic degree of Master of Arts to William Elliott of South Carolina (who actually, now fancy this, hadn’t even graduated with his class).
Professor Sylvestre François Lacroix left the École Polytechnique to take up a chair at the Sorbonne, and was appointed to the chair of mathematics at the Collège de France where since 1812 he had been teaching.
“HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE” BEING A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN TIME (JUST AS THE PERSPECTIVE IN A PAINTING IS A VIEW FROM A PARTICULAR POINT IN SPACE), TO “LOOK AT THE COURSE OF HISTORY MORE GENERALLY” WOULD BE TO SACRIFICE PERSPECTIVE ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS
Summer: Caroline Amelia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Princess of Wales, in exile from England, purchased the Villa d’Este on the shores of Lake Como.
The Reverend Timothy Flint embarked upon a number of missionary travels, first to Kingston and Raymond, New Hampshire, then perhaps into western Massachusetts and to Essex County in upstate New York, on behalf of the Massachusetts Society for promoting Christian Knowledge.
After the death of her mother Abba and the marriage of her favorite sister Mary Francis, her father David Convers Francis decided that Lydia Maria (Lydia Maria Child) would be better off in Mary’s new home in Norridgewock, Maine. She was removed from the meandering tidal Mystic River to Norridgewock on the Kennebec River, just downstream from the Bonebasee Rips and the ancient site of the Abenaki village of the name Norridgewock, still occupied, which she would visit.3
3. At some point during Lydia Maria Child’s adolescent years in Maine, 1815-1821, she would allege much later in her LETTERS FROM NEW YORK, she had visited one of the Penobscot villages on the banks of the Kennebec River and had there met the sachem of the Penobscot, “Captain Neptune,” with small black eyes, “smoking a pipe and wearing a crushed hat and a dirty blanket.” Accompanying the sachem, she would say, was his nephew Etalexis, who was of marriageable age and thus was attired in “a broad band of shining brass around his hat, a circle of silver on his breast, tied with scarlet ribbons, and a long belt of curiously-wrought wampum hanging to his feet.” Miss Francis alleged that she had reached down and grabbed this young man’s wampum, and had demanded to know why the sachem himself was not so attired. “Me no want to catch ’em squaw,” she alleged the old man replied. (Miss Francis had made no mention, however, of such an incident, in her correspondence of the period, and one would have fancied that, had such an incident occurred, it would have been eagerly recounted to any number of her friends. My sense of it is that what we have here is not an account of a meeting, but a rare and privileged glimpse into this young lady’s sexual fantasy life. It wasn’t this young red man’s wampum that she took in her hand, and rather than it being this old red man who was not looking to catch ’em, it was the young woman who was hoping that this young red man was looking to catch ’em.) HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS
1819
June 23, Wednesday: Under the pseudonym Geoffrey Crayon, Washington Irving put out the 1st American installment of his THE SKETCH BOOK, including “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.”4 In this text this racist author (the same racist author who announced that a Negro was “an abomination”) regurgitated our “Philip of Pokanoket” legend dating to “King Phillip’s War”, titillating us yet again with our very precious memory of a dead Indian chief. READ THE FULL TEXT
At Concord, John D. Folsom of Concord got married with Betsy W. Dakin of Concord.
The newly minted Reverend Convers Francis, Jr. became the pastor of the 1st Parish Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Watertown.
4. There is in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER a literary reference to Irving’s headless horseman figure:
THE SCARLET LETTER: Meanwhile, the press had taken up my affair, and kept me for a week or two careering through the public prints, in my decapitated state, like Irving’s Headless Horseman, ghastly and grim, and longing to be buried, as a political dead man ought. So much for my figurative self. The real human being all this time, with his head safely on his shoulders, had brought himself to the comfortable conclusion that everything was for the best; and making an investment in ink, paper, and steel pens, had opened his long-disused writing desk, and was again a literary man. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
The Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord gave the charge and the Reverend Samuel Ripley of Waltham and
Concord led the prayer. The Reverend Convers Francis would remain pastor of this Watertown flock until 1842.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 23rd of 6th M 1819 / Our Meeting this Afternoon was a very triumphant one. Truth rose into dominion in a very remarkable manner. The meeting was as large as it ever is on first day at Yearly Meeting time, & more quiet than usual at that time. The Govoner of this state with both Houses of the Legislature attended & sat in a body. — Elizabeth first appeared in humble prayer, chiefly on behalf of those placed in Authority over us. Then in a very pertinent address to the members of the Legislature on the subject of intemperance & War. Then the current of testimony run chiefly to the female part of the Audience & lastly to an hardened, rebelious state which she felt to be present. & the latter part of her testimony in particular came with such living power & gospel Authority that it seemed to me, that had she preached before the Apostle Paul he would at least have qualified his charge, forbidding Women to “preach or to teach” &c. — The Audience was all attentive & many deeply impressed with the Power of her ministry, as was evident in many who took her by the hand at the close of the Meeting with tears in their eyes. — The Govoner observed that he never heard Such HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS CONVERS FRANCIS
preaching before. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
The Supreme Council of the Province of Texas declared the independence of Texas from Mexico: As all Governments were originally established by the will of the people for the benefit of society, whenever the existing Government, in any community, fails to effect the purposes for which it was instituted, it is competent to the community at large to rescind its express or tacit allegiance to the ruling power, and to organize a new constitution and form of government, more consistent with its interests, and more consonant with its feelings. In exercising this unquestionable right, an independent people have only to consult their own discretion. But, though amenable to no tribunal for its municipal acts, a free state, in claiming admission to the immunity of nations, owes of itself an exposition of the motives which have prompted it to the assertion of its rights, as well as of the principles which it assumes to vindicate. The citizens of Texas have long indulged the hope, that in the adjustment of the boundaries of the Spanish possessions in America, and of the territories of the United States, that they should be included within the limits of the latter. The claims of the United States, long and strenuously urged, encouraged the hope. An expectation so flattering prevented any effectual effort to throw off the yoke of Spanish authority, though it could not restrain some ineffectual rebellions against an odious tyranny. The recent treaty between Spain and the United States of America has dissipated an illusion too long fondly cherished, and has roused the citizens of Texas from [the] torpor to which a fancied security had lulled them. They have seen themselves, by a convention to which they were no party, literally abandoned to the dominion of the crown of Spain and left a prey not only to impositions already intolerable, but to all those exactions which Spanish rapacity is fertile in devising. The citizens of Texas would have proved themselves unworthy of the age in which they live, unworthy of their ancestry, of the kindred of the republics of the American continent, could they have hesitated in this emergency what course to pursue. Spurning the fetters of colonial vassalage, disdaining to submit to the most atrocious despotism that ever disgraced the annals of Europe, they have resolved under the blessing of God to be free. By this magnanimous resolution, the maintenance of which their lives and fortunes are pledged, they secure to themselves an elective and representative government, equal laws and the faithful administration of justice, the rights of conscience, and religious liberty, the freedom of the press, the advantage of liberal education, and unrestricted commercial intercourse with all the world. Animated by a just confidence in the goodness of their cause, and stimulated by the high object to be obtained by the contest, they have prepared themselves unshrinkingly to meet and firmly to sustain any conflict in which this HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
declaration may involve them. Done at Nacogdoches, the 23rd day of June, in the year of our Lord 1819.
James Long, President of the Supreme Council Bis[en]te [sic] Tarin, Secretary
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
August 22, Sunday: At his home in Waltham, Massachusetts, the Reverend Convers Francis, Jr. delivered a sermon based upon Isaiah 40:31, “On religious perseverence.”
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 22nd of 8 M / Our Morning meeting was in good measure favord - Jonathon Dennis Anne Greene & Hannah Dennis were engaged in testimony - In the Afternoon father Rodman & David Buffum were engaged in testimony, the latter was to considerable length for him - & very lively - I have at seasons secretly rejoiced that there are left among us those who publish the gospel in the Spirit of it. — a lively ministry is a blessing to a meeting. & May there be some raised up & cloathed upon to stand as Aarons to the people. — how are they needed in this day - we who live in it can see & do Know -5th day 26th of 8th M 1819 / Rode to Portsmouth with Sister Ruth & attended the Moy [Monthly] Meeting - In the first Hannah Dennis was concerned in a lively testimony. - In the last we Rec’d Freeborn Chase into membership. She is a young woman who has been long an attender of our Meetings & of a religious life & conversation, has for some years believed it would be right for her to join our society, but thro’ weakness has defer’d it till now, when she is far gone in a consumption & not expected to remain but a short time in mutability. Friends rec’d her as with open Arms, as I hope we shall all who request on right
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
grounds. — We dined at Anne Anthonys — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
November 18, Thursday: The Thaddeus was rounding the Horn: “We have new occasion to sing of mercies, favorable winds, safe progress, returning health to the body and thought and life to the soul demand our elevated praise.”
The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown, Massachusetts exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the afternoon sermon was Matthew 9:5 and his topic was “The Gospel Preached to the Poor.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 18th of 11 M / Meeting pretty well attended. In the last (Preparative) no buisness excepting a request for a removal Certificate. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS From the diary of Adlard Welby: Fredericktown stands in a good situation, having a fine view of the ridges of hills immediately west of it. The place is about half the size of Lexington (Kentucky): the inhabitants seem to be rich, having erected many good buildings both public and Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
private, the latter very tastefully and expensively furnished. The Court-house, a handsome building, stands in a square which is yet to be gravelled; on one side we remarked a lofty shed under which were hung an enormous pair of scales, seemingly typical of the purposes to which the central building is devoted. Churches are plentiful, nine in number and some of them well built. Talbot's tavern excellent and good attendance, but charges, as they are every where on this road, very high. This is a Slave State; an institution hateful to English ears; yet I will observe again that after travelling through three slave States, I am obliged to go back to theory to raise any abhorence of it: not once during the journey did I witness an instance of cruel treatment, nor could I discover anything to excite commiseration in the faces or gait of the people of colour — they walk, talk, and appear at least as independent as their masters; in animal spirits they have greatly the advantage: doubtless there may be instances of cruelty, but I am inclined to think that such are of rare occurrence, and this for other reasons, as before remarked, besides those of humanity. Upon the question “What is the proper place of the Black in the order of creation?” (a subject which, after so much has been said on both sides, yet remains in dispute,) the tendency of the above observations may seem to place him subordinate to the white — the next link in that chain of gradation, almost imperceptible to us, which nature exhibits throughout all her works: yet is the man of colour in general orderly in his conduct under the every-day duties of life, and also instances are not wanting of superior abilities among them, though they have not had perhaps fair-play shewn them in this respect. I may have occasion to observe more hereafter on this subject, mean-while let it console the philanthropist, that if the black is not in his proper place, yet he possesses comforts, and appears very contented.
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.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
November 28, Sunday: “I passed a very pleasant day, & in the evening returned.” The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown, Massachusetts exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was Matthew 16:24 and his topic was “On Self Denial.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Psalm 119:60 and his topic was “On Delaying Repentance.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 28th of 11th M / Our friend Micajah Collins attended both our meetings which was large & he much favord in testimony. The gospel was largely & clearly preached in the power of it - to Some I believe I may say to many it was a season of rejoicing —He with his wife Hannah Dennis & sister Ruth took tea with us & set part of the evening & then went to See Avis Mumford who has been some time confined by sickness, & had a pleasant opportunity with her in her Chamber RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1822
Though Lydia Maria Francis (Lydia Maria Child) was living with her brother the Reverend Convers Francis, Jr., who had become a Unitarian minister at First Parish in Watertown, and was attending his church regularly, she had become a member of the Boston Society of the New Jerusalem. Apparently, she maintained some connection there until the 1830s, when the pro-slavery stance of the pastor made her doubt “whether such a church could have come down from heaven.” Later she would be drawn to the preaching of the Reverend William Ellery Channing, though she despaired over his reluctance to embrace abolitionism wholeheartedly. She found Unitarianism “a mere half-way house, where spiritual travelers find themselves well accommodated for the night, but where they grow weary of spending the day.”
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
May 12, Sunday: “My manner was not such as to satisfy myself.” The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown, Massachusetts exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was John 14:6 and his topic was “The Way, the truth, and the Life.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Romans 14:12 and his topic was “On the Accountability of God.”
Waldo Emerson to his journal (a crossed out entry):
I have a nasty appetite which I will not gratify.
(We may wonder for how many minutes he was able to hold out.)
Percy Bysshe Shelley’s boat, the Don Juan, arrived.
Gaetano Donizetti’s dramma La zingara to words of Tottola was performed for the initial time, in the Teatro Nuovo, Naples. The composer would remark “the public was certainly not stingy with compliments.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: [obscured] day 12 of 5 M / A favoured Meeting this morning H Dennis was [obscured] afed in a lively testimony — In the Afternoon rather lean to m RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, A PRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO INSTANT HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1823
August 17, Sunday: “I spoke too loudly in the forenoon.” The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was 1st Corinthians 3:19 and his topic was “The Wisdom of the World.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Amos 6:1 and his topic was “On Moral Unconcern.”
In Newport, Rhode Island, Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: [—] day 17th of 8 M / Father Rodman & D Buffum were engaged in lively testimony in the Morning Meeting. In the Afternoon the Meeting was silent — Took tea [at] D Buffums. — Francis Shay of NewYork in compnay [-ith] whom we have had a few Days pleasant acquaintance, he appears to be a tender spirited young man & near as we can discover much of the right stamp upon [him]. RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
BETWEEN ANY TWO MOMENTS ARE AN INFINITE NUMBER OF MOMENTS, AND BETWEEN THESE OTHER MOMENTS LIKEWISE AN INFINITE NUMBER, THERE BEING NO ATOMIC MOMENT JUST AS THERE IS NO ATOMIC POINT ALONG A LINE. MOMENTS ARE THEREFORE FIGMENTS. THE PRESENT MOMENT IS A MOMENT AND AS SUCH IS A FIGMENT, A FLIGHT OF THE IMAGINATION TO WHICH NOTHING REAL CORRESPONDS. SINCE PAST MOMENTS HAVE PASSED OUT OF EXISTENCE AND FUTURE MOMENTS HAVE YET TO ARRIVE, WE NOTE THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS. Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1827
September 9, Sunday: “I labored all day under the pressure of a heavy, stupefying cold.” The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was “1st Corinthians 13:11 and his topic was “The Difference between the Present and Future State Illustrated by the Difference between Childhood and Manhood.” His prooftext for the first of his afternoon sermons was 1st Kings 20:11 and his topic was “The Danger of Premature Confidence and Exaltation Illustrated.” His prooftext for the second of his afternoon sermons was Mark 4:26-28 and his topic was “Religion like Seed Cast into the Ground.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 9th of 9 M / In the morning Meeting D B was very lively & pertinent in testimony - grounded in the 1st Psalm. — In the afternoon we were Silent - - In the eveng with my wife & Sr Ruth took a walk to the lower end of the Town & stoped a while at Wm Lee’s - RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
FIGURING OUT WHAT AMOUNTS TO A “HISTORICAL CONTEXT” IS WHAT THE CRAFT OF HISTORICIZING AMOUNTS TO, AND THIS NECESSITATES DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN THE SET OF EVENTS THAT MUST HAVE TAKEN PLACE BEFORE EVENT E COULD BECOME POSSIBLE, AND MOST CAREFULLY DISTINGUISHING THEM FROM ANOTHER SET OF EVENTS THAT COULD NOT POSSIBLY OCCUR UNTIL SUBSEQUENT TO EVENT E.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
December 9, Sunday: From the journal of the Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown: This day Mr. Emerson from Cambridge preached for me, though I performed the other services. His sermons were from 1 Timothy V, 4 — “let them learn,” & from II Chronicles XX, 20, “believe in the L. your G.”, &c — These sermons were distinguished by great felicity of thought & style, by rich moral eloquence, & by a fresh & fervent earnestness. It is delightful to see & hear such as young man as Mr. E. —
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 9th of 12 M / Silent & poor wandering meetings to me, was however led to make some effort for a settlement & to feel a little of the rise of life - Last eveng we recd a very pleasant letter from John & in the evening I finished one to him. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1828
May 21, Wednesday: The Reverend Convers Francis, a Congregationalist minister from Watertown,
discussed 5 errors of contemporary education in a discourse delivered at the anniversary celebration of the Derby Academy. He warned against rote learning and the considering of children as mere “passive receptacles” to be crammed with facts. He advocated instead a process of disciplining and strengthening the mind, in part by the continued inclusion of the classical languages in the curriculum. His other points include the need to attend to the power of association in education (echoing John Locke’s SOME THOUGHTS CONCERNING EDUCATION of 1693), the danger of ignoring education in the early, formative preschool years, and the importance of “moral cultivation,” educating the heart as well as the intellect.5
5. Francis, Convers. ERRORS IN EDUCATION. Hingham MA: Farmer & Brown, 1828 HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1830
Summer: Having passed the entrance examination for Harvard College by virtue of tutoring by his lifelong friend, the Reverend Caleb Stetson, but lacking financial resources, Theodore Parker was allowed to be a
nonresident student and to take the examinations for his courses of study. Passing everything, he would at the urging of the Reverend Convers Francis be straightforward enrolled with an “honorary” bachelor’s degree in HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1834 directly into the Harvard Divinity School.
“HUCKLEBERRIES”: I served my apprenticeship and have since done considerable journeywork in the huckleberry field. Though I never paid for my schooling and clothing in that way, it was some of the best schooling that I got and paid for itself. Theodore Parker is not the only New England boy who has got his education by picking huckleberries, though he may not have gone to Harvard thereafter, nor to any school more distant than the huckleberry field. Here was the university itself where you could learn the everlasting Laws, and Medicine and Theology, not under Story, and Warren, and Ware, but far wiser professors than they. Why such haste to go from the huckleberry field to the College yard?
THEODORE PARKER HARVARD COLLEGE JOHN COLLINS WARREN HENRY WARE, SR. HENRY WARE, JR.
CONTINGENCY ALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
February 18, Thursday: Nathaniel Brassey Halhed died in London. His collection of Oriental manuscripts would be purchased by the British Museum, and his translation of the MAHABHARATA, unfinished, is at the library of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
Two songs for voice and piano by Hector Berlioz to words of Moore, translated by Gounet, were performed for the initial time, in Paris: Le Coucher du soleil and Chant sacre.
The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown offered the introductory prayer as the Reverend Hersey Bradford Goodwin was ordained as colleague to the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 18th of 2 M / Attended Preparative Meeting in Providence - Wm Almy was very appropriate & much favourd in testimony — We are highly favourd with a current of gospel Ministry & Oh that we may improve under it. — This evening we have had the very interesting company of our dear Aged friend Moses Brown who seemed very fresh and lively - & enterd into many subjects with an interest & spirit rarely met with at an Age of over 91 Years. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1831
May 8, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was 2d Timothy 1:12 and his topic was “The Christian’s Confidence.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was 1st Thessalonians 5:17 and his topic was “Pray without Ceasing.”
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 8th of 5th M / Our friend John Wilbour attended Meeting this Morning & preached excellently to us. — we were Silent & alone in the Afternoon but it was a pretty good meeting. — RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
ESSENCES ARE FUZZY, GENERIC, CONCEPTUAL; ARISTOTLE WAS RIGHT WHEN HE INSISTED THAT ALL TRUTH IS SPECIFIC AND PARTICULAR (AND WRONG WHEN HE CHARACTERIZED TRUTH AS A GENERALIZATION).
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1833
July 28, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was Hebrews 11:4 and his topic “Being Dead, He Yet Speaketh.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Matthew 13:25 and his topic “While We Sleep, the Enemy Comes.”
Dom Pedro, leader of the liberal cause, entered Lisbon.
Through the efforts of Minister of Public Instruction Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot a Primary Education Law was enacted for France, requiring that each municipality maintain a primary school.
YOUR GARDEN-VARIETY ACADEMIC HISTORIAN INVITES YOU TO CLIMB ABOARD A HOVERING TIME MACHINE TO SKIM IN METATIME BACK ACROSS THE GEOLOGY OF OUR PAST TIMESLICES, WHILE OFFERING UP A GARDEN VARIETY OF COGENT ASSESSMENTS OF OUR PROGRESSION. WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP! YOU SHOULD REFUSE THIS HELICOPTERISH OVERVIEW OF THE HISTORICAL PAST, FOR IN THE REAL WORLD THINGS HAPPEN ONLY AS THEY HAPPEN. WHAT THIS SORT WRITES AMOUNTS, LIKE MERE “SCIENCE FICTION,” MERELY TO “HISTORY FICTION”: IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1834
Having managed to survive at Harvard College as a nonresident poor-boy student, Theodore Parker was allowed to take examinations for his courses of study and passed in everything. At the urging of the Reverend Convers Francis he was straightaway designated an “honorary” bachelor and enrolled in the Divinity School. He would finish the 3-year course there in two years, that is, by 1836.
Concord’s George Moore, son of the sheriff, graduated from Harvard College. He would become a minister.
Edward Jarvis got married with Almira Hunt of Concord.
Henry Ward Beecher graduated from Amherst College.
At Harvard Divinity School, the following gentlemen completed their studies:
George Ware Briggs (A.B. Brown University) Richard Sullivan Edes (A.B. Brown University) William Greenleaf Eliot (A.B. Col. [Columbia College?]) Nathanael Hall Frederick West Holland George Wheelock Woodward (A.B. Dartmouth College) HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1835
October 6, Tuesday: Waldo Emerson received the 2d set of 4 offprints of SARTOR RESARTUS from the Boston Custom Shed, which Thomas Carlyle had dispatched to him in June, and set out quite as enthusiastically to disseminate these as he had the previous set of 4.
SARTOR RESARTUS STUDY THIS STRANGENESS
One he would dispatch to the Reverend Convers Francis in Watertown. We can be pretty sure that Francis’s sister Lydia Maria Child perused that copy, for she was departing for a tour of England and asked Emerson for a letter of introduction to its author. Francis would pass this copy on to Theodore Parker, then a student at the Theological School in Cambridge, and Parker would then loan it to his “most intimate friend,” another student, William Silsbee.
Another copy Emerson would dispatch to the Reverend William Ellery Channing in Newport, Rhode Island. With the Reverend when that copy arrived was Harriet Martineau.
Meanwhile a long anonymous review (written by Alexander H. Everett and made possible by the copy that Emerson had made available to the editor during the late summer) was appearing in the North American Review.6
Sam Houston purchased a general’s uniform in New Orleans after being named Commander-in-Chief by the
6. “Thomas Carlyle,” North American Review 41: 454-482 HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
Nacogdoches “Committee of Vigilance.”
TEXAS HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1836
In this year a volume of Harvard College records was published. As you might imagine, they had to do it up in Latin: HARVARD RECORDS
A group of undergraduates had begun to publish a magazine of their own writings in September 1835 and would continue this practice until June 1838. The undergraduate David Greene Haskins would publish several articles anonymously during his Junior and Senior years, but David Henry Thoreau would take no part in such activity.7 At this point the group reissued the accumulating materials as a 2d book volume:8 HARVARDIANA, VOL. II
Harvard French and Spanish instructor Francis Sales in this year put out a revised, emended, improved, and enlarged 7th American edition of Augutin Louis Josse (1763-1841)’s A GRAMMAR OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE, WITH PRACTICAL EXERCISES (1827; Boston: Munroe and Francis, 128 Washington-Street, corner of Water-Street. 1836, 7th American Edition; Boston: Munroe and Francis, etc. 1842, 10th American Edition: Boston: James Munroe and Company). This 1836 edition would be found in Henry Thoreau’s personal library and is now, with a front free endpaper bearing the notation “D H. Thoreau,” in the special collections of the Concord Free Public Library (having been donated by Sophia E. Thoreau in 1874). GRAMMAR OF SPANISH
Since William Whiting had graduated from Harvard College with the degree of Bachelor of Arts with the Class of 1833, in this year in the normal course of events he would receive in addition the customary degree of Master of Arts.
The publication of volumes V and VI of the Reverend Professor Jared Sparks of Harvard’s THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY. LIBRARY OF AM. BIOG. V LIBRARY OF AM. BIOG. VI
These volumes encompassed four contributions:
•LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT by the Reverend Convers Francis. LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT
7. In later life the Reverend Haskins, a relative of Waldo Emerson on his mother’s side, would denigrate his classmate Thoreau for having neglected to contribute to this undergraduate literary effort. He would aver that Thoreau had neither been a good scholar nor a convivial classmate — in addition, he would cast Thoreau as a mere imitator of his cousin the Sage of Concord. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
•LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY by Henry Wheaton LIFE OF WILLIAM PINKNEY
•LIFE OF WILLIAM ELLERY by Edward T. Channing LIFE OF WILLIAM ELLERY
•LIFE OF COTTON MATHER by William B.O. Peabody LIFE OF COTTON MATHER
8. There would be three such volumes, labeled Volume I, Volume II, and Volume IV. There does not seem to have been a Volume III published in this book form (apparently it was produced only in monthly magazine form) and no electronic text as yet exists, for the Volume I that had been published. The initial editorial group for his magazine consisted of Charles Hayward, Samuel Tenney Hildreth, Charles Stearns Wheeler, and perhaps for a time Horatio Hale, and their editorial office was a small room on what has become Holyoke Street. Thoreau had volumes II and IV in his personal library, and would give them to F.H. Bigelow. The illustration used on the cover of the magazine represented University Hall: HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
Late Summer: In late summer, Lydia Maria Child’s PHILOTHEA: A ROMANCE, set in ancient Greece, ostensibly described the marriage of a character Philothea who is said to be the daughter of Anaxagoras.9
P HILOTHEA (In actuality, the book was about Child’s understanding of Transcendentalism, the unofficial religion of her brother the Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown, Massachusetts — to whom the book was indeed dedicated. David Henry Thoreau thought enough of this effort to make two pages of extracts in his college notebook.)
9. Kenneth Walter Cameron’s PHILOTHEA, OR PLATO AGAINST EPICURUS: A NOVEL OF THE TRANSCENDENTAL MOVEMENT IN NEW ENGLAND (Hartford, Connecticut, 1975). HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
August 28, Sunday: The balloon of the intrepid master Boston goldbeater and aeronaut Louis Lauriat again graced the skies from beautiful Castle Garden, the battery at the toe of Manhattan Island. Meanwhile. out on the Atlantic Ocean, the Alert and its intrepid crew inclusive of the young Harvard College man Richard Henry Dana, Jr., decidedly on their way home, began to catch the cool, steady north-east trade winds.
AND NOW, FOR SOMETHING ENTIRELY DIFFERENT, A REPORT FROM OUR SAILOR: Sunday, August 28th, in lat. 12 N. The trade-wind clouds had been in sight for a day or two previously, and we expected to take them every hour. The light southerly breeze, which had been blowing languidly during the first part of the day, died away toward noon, and in its place came puffs from the north-east, which caused us to take our studding-sails in and brace up; and in a couple of hours more, we were bowling gloriously along, dashing the spray far ahead and to leeward, with the cool, steady north-east trades, freshening up the sea, and giving us as much as we could carry our royals to. These winds blew strong and steady, keeping us generally upon a bowline, as our course was about north-northwest; and sometimes, as they veered a little to the eastward, giving us a chance at a main top-gallant studding-sail; and sending us well to the northward, until–
The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was Luke 34:52 and his topic was “Why Seek Ye the Living among the Dead?”
At an age of approximately seven, William Stephen Coleman was baptized at Horsham, West Sussex. He would train as a surgeon but not practice.
Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 1st day 28th of 8th M 1836 / Our Meetings were pretty good seasons Father Rodman had short & accepable testimonies in each We had Several Strangers at Meeting with us among them were Jos Estes & Christer Davis from Fall River two young men who came on purpose to attend our Meeting — I invited them to Dinner with is & Christie being an old Scholar at the YMB School while we were there we were particularly glad to see him & pleased with a renewal of our acquaintance When I began this No 15 of my Diary it was not my prospect to have written frequently in it - but it seems that within less than three years it is so large that another has become necessary — Altho I may not have been very diffinite in my allusions I can now say that some of the keenest trials of my life occurd in the latter part of No 14 & the forepart of this present No 15 of my HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
Diary — There is also many seasons of Rejoicings occurd in the space of the Same time — Thanks giving & praise is therefore due from me to the Authhor of all good for the many blessings & Mercies recd at his hand [signed large] Stephen Gould RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS [two pages of nearly illegible genealogical chart follows, not in his hand]
NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
September 19, Monday: Formation of “Hedge’s Club” centering around the visits of the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge to Boston from Bangor, Maine.10 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
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
After November 17, Thursday: David Henry Thoreau supplemented his borrowings from the Harvard Library by checking out, from the library of the “Institute of 1770,” Volume 92 of the North American Review — the volume which contains Harvard Professor Charles Beck (1798-1866)’s “Heine’s Letters on German Literature,” a review of LETTERS AUXILIARY, a review “Travellers in America” of the just-published first part of Alexis de Tocqueville’s ONTHE DEMOCRACY OF AMERICA, and critical notices of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s LETTERS, CONVERSATIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS, the Reverend Convers Francis’s LIFE OF JOHN ELIOT, THE APOSTLE TO THE INDIANS (in the 5th of the ten volumes of the 1st Series of the Reverend Jared Sparks’s THE LIBRARY OF AMERICAN BIOGRAPHY), LIBRARY OF AM. BIOG. V
and Thomas K. Fessenden’s TERRIBLE TRACTORATION!! A POETICAL PETITION AGAINST GALVANISING TRUMPERY, AND THE PERKINISTIC INSTITUTION. IN FOUR CANTOS (BY CHRISTOPHER CAUSTIC) (London: Printed for T. Hurst, 1803).
10. 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
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1837
February 1, Wednesday: Paul Friedrich replaced Friedrich Franz I as Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
The Reverend Barzillai Frost was ordained as a teacher and as a colleague for the Reverend Ezra Ripley in the Concord church. The prayer of consecration was offered by the Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown.
According to the recollections of young John Shepard Keyes, the Reverend Frost would be at least at first uninspiring: [He] had been a mathematics tutor at Cambridge and ought never to have been anything else. He was a very old, dried up, cast iron conservative cold critter, that suited the old fashioned notions of some of his parishioners, and never interested any of the live young people. I began to recite to him while he lived at Dr Ripleys, and the dull gloomy Old Manse only increased his dulness and dyspesia It was almost too much for my spirits and if it had lasted much longer might have made a minister or worse of even me — But in June Mr Frost married a very rosy bright agreeable lady a Miss Stone of Framingham and they took east side of the double brick house on Main St. and began housekeeping Col Whiting had built this house a year or two before bringing the bricks in canal boats from Lowell up the river to the bottom of the lot, a feat of navigation that greatly interested us boys— also that same season 1836 the monument at the battleground had been teamed from Carlise by Mr Wilkins and set up, where it could be seen from the windows of the Parsons study when I recited to him. But he had got settled and waked up by his new wife and home and lessons were more interesting and better after this vacation and I made some progress towards being fitted during that summer. J.S. KEYES AUTOBIOGRAPHY Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 4th day 1st of 2nd M Attended the Select Qrly Meeting —It was a time of some searching but on the whole a pretty good Meeting — HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
we had the company of our friends John Meader & wife Moses Beedie & Daniel Clapp & Susan Howland, who with the exception of Moses Beedie are out with minutes from their Meetings Dined at Wm Jenkins’s - lodged at Jonathon Congdons RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS
YOU HAVE TO ACCEPT EITHER THE REALITY OF TIME OVER THAT OF CHANGE, OR CHANGE OVER TIME — IT’S PARMENIDES, OR HERACLITUS. I HAVE GONE WITH HERACLITUS.
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1838
August 10, Friday: Henry Thoreau made some comments in his journal, on the nature of the time of the universe:
August 10th. The Time of the Universe. Nor can all the vanities that so vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has chosen –but ever it must be short particular metre. The human soul is a silent harp in God’s quire whose strings need only to be swept by the divine breath, to chime in with the harmonies of creation. Every pulse beat is in exact time with the crickets chant, and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can. TIME AND ETERNITY
Henry would recycle this reference to the cricket and to the deathwatch beetle into his essay on the NATURAL HISTORY OF MASSACHUSETTS.
In the autumn days, the creaking of crickets is heard at noon over all the land, and as in summer they are heard chiefly at night-fall, so then by their incessant chirp they usher in the evening of the year. Nor can all the vanities that vex the world alter one whit the measure that night has chosen. Every pulse-beat is in exact time with the cricket’s chant and the tickings of the deathwatch in the wall. Alternate with these if you can.
Edgar Allan Poe may have seen this; it may have been inspiration for his short story using the deathwatch beetle. However, that is rather unlikely, as Thoreau in “Natural History of Massachusetts” and Poe in “The Tell-Tale Heart” evoke considerably different complexes of thought and emotion in regard to the hearing of the deathwatch in the still of the night.
Note Thoreau’s careful use of the “human as instrument” theme, similar to his use of this theme on September 30, 1851, when he would write that “As the wood of an old Cremona11 its very fibre perchance harmoniously transposed & educated to resound melody has brought a great price–so methinks these telegraph posts should bear a great price with musical instrument makers– It is prepared to be the material of harps for ages to come, as it were put a soak in & seasoning in music....,” and similar to what he would write in “What shall it Profit,” his most carefully considered sermon, “It occurred to me when I awoke the other morning –feeling regret for some intemperance of the day before which had dulled my sensibilities– that man was to be treated as a
11. The famous violin-makers Nicola Amati (1596-1684), Antonio Stradivari (1644-1737), and Guiseppe Guarneri (1683-1745) had lived and worked in Cremona, Italy, in the Po river valley. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
musical instrument, and if any viol was to be made of sound timber, and kept tuned always, it was he — so that when the bow of events is drawn across him, he may vibrate and resound in perfect harmony. A sensitive soul will be continually trying its strings to see if they are in tune. A man’s body must be rasped down exactly to a shaving. It is of far more importance than the wood of a Cremona violin,” and similar to “There was a time when beauty and music were all within, and I sat and listened to my thoughts, and there was a song in them.... Man should be the harp articulate.”
William M. White12 would later present a version of this journal entry as poetry:
The human soul is a silent harp in God’s quire, Whose strings need only to be swept By the divine breath To chime in with the harmonies of creation.
Every pulse-beat is in exact time With the cricket’s chant, And the tickings of the death-watch in the wall.
Alternate with these if you can.
The Reverend Convers Francis wrote to the Reverend Frederic Henry Hedge in Bangor, Maine summarizing the Emerson lecture at the Harvard Divinity School and reporting upon the reaction to it: Have you heard that Waldo Emerson delivered the sermon this summer to the class at the Divinity School, on their leaving the seminary? I went to hear it, & found it crowded with stirring, honest, lofty thoughts. I don’t know that anything of his has excited me more. He dwelt much on the downfallen state of the church, i.e. the want of a living, real interest in the present Christianity (where I think he rather exaggerated, but not much), on the tendency to make only a historical Christ, separated from actual humanity, — & on the want of reference to the great laws of man’s moral nature in preaching. These were his principal points, & were put forth with great power, & sometimes (under the first head especially) with unique humor. The discourse was full of divine life, — and was a true word from a true soul. I did not agree with him in some of his positions, & think perhaps he did not make the peculiar significance of Jesus so prominent as he ought, — though I am inclined to believe not that he thinks less of Jesus than others do, but more of man, every man as a divine being. — The discourse gave dire offense to the rulers at Cambridge. The dean & Mr. Norton have pronounced sentences of fearful condemnation, & their whole clique in Boston & Cambridge are in commotion. The harshest words are not spared, & “infidel” & “atheist” are the 12. A library building at the University of Colorado is named for a William M. White, Class of 1933. I wonder if that is the same William M. White. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
best terms poor E. gets. I have sometimes thought that to Mr. E. & his numerous detractors might be applied what Plato says of the winged soul, that has risen to the sight of the absolute, essential, & true, & therefore is said by the many to be stark mad. — the multitude are not aware that he is inspired.
Per HOWE’S BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX OF TWELVE UNITARIAN MORALISTS, PAGE 77: Henry Ware, Jr., his father’s colleague at the Harvard Divinity School, attempted to counteract Emerson’s address with a sermon he preached in the Harvard Chapel soon after classes resumed in September. Ware entitled his own address “The Personality of the Deity” and focused his attention upon the doctrine of God. He contrasted Unitarian orthodoxy (if the term be not contradictory) with certain other opinions he let remain nameless. The Unitarian God stood above and beyond the natural order, as Ware defined Him, and should not be confused with nature itself. Furthermore, to use the word “God” to refer to abstract concepts like “beauty” or “virtue” was “to violate the established use of language.” God was a conscious personality, and to apply His name to either the universe itself or to inanimate abstractions was a pitiful disguise for atheism. While the younger Ware politely refrained from identifying any local crypto-atheists, his target was obvious. Even so, his statement elicited no rebuttal from Emerson. Ware himself did not press the issue further, very likely because he and Emerson had long been personal friends. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
September 23, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was John 6:47 and his topic was “He That Believeth on the Son Hath Everlasting Life.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Acts 21:11 and his topic was “The Language of Action.”
ONE COULD BE ELSEWHERE, AS ELSEWHERE DOES EXIST. ONE CANNOT BE ELSEWHEN SINCE ELSEWHEN DOES NOT. (TO THE WILLING MANY THINGS CAN BE EXPLAINED, THAT FOR THE UNWILLING WILL REMAIN FOREVER MYSTERIOUS.)
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1840
November 7, Saturday: In preparation for filling the Concord pulpit on the following day, the Reverend Convers Francis came over from Watertown and stayed the evening and night with the Emersons. (This would be his frequent custom.) WALDO EMERSON
They talked until quite late on literary friends and acquaintances: “In conversation somehow I cannot get very nigh to Mr. Emerson: but after all, is not every person, by nature of the case, insular, alone, as to the intellect? HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
do people ever come together except through the affections? I suspect not.”
GOD IN CONCORD by Jane Langton © 1992 Penguin Books USA Inc. 31 I did not think so bright a day Would issue in so dark a night.... Journal, November 7, 1840 Viking Penguin
“Mr. Kelly? This is Julian Snow. I hope you’ve got time to talk to me.” ISBN 0-670-84260-5 — PS3562.A515G58
I did not think so bright a day Would issue in so dark a night, I did not think such sober play Would leave me in so sad a plight, And I should be most sorely spent When first I was most innocent. I thought by loving all beside To prove to you my love was wide, HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
And by the rites I soared above To show you my peculiar love.
IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT IT IS MORTALS WHO CONSUME OUR HISTORICAL ACCOUNTS, FOR WHAT WE ARE ATTEMPTING TO DO IS EVADE THE RESTRICTIONS OF THE HUMAN LIFESPAN. (IMMORTALS, WITH NOTHING TO LIVE FOR, TAKE NO HEED OF OUR STORIES.)
November 8, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown exchanged pulpits for the day with the Reverend Ezra Ripley of Concord. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was 2d Kings 6:17 and his topic was “Elisha, Vision of the Horses and Chariots of Fire.”
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1841
September 21, Tuesday: As the Reverend Ezra Ripley had grown older, to help him cope the town of Concord had called in the services of assistant ministers. In 1830 they had secured the services of the Reverend Hersey Bradford Goodwin, and then after the death of the Reverend Goodwin, in 1838, they had secured the services of the young Reverend Barzillai Frost. The Reverend Ripley was, nevertheless, composing a sermon when he died on this morning. Waldo Emerson wrote in his journal:
Dr Ripley died this morning.... His horror at the doctrine of non-resistance was amusing, for he actually believed that once abrogate the laws, promiscuous union of the sexes would instantly take place!
Emerson would also write “The fall of this oak makes some sensation in the forest, old and doomed as it was,” and “Well the new is only the seed of the old. What is this abolition and Nonresistance and Temperance but the continuation of Puritan-ism, though it operate inevitably the destruction of the Church in which it grew.”
This funeral would occasion “A Sermon Delivered at the Funeral of the Rev. Ezra Ripley,” by the Reverend Barzillai Frost, and “Death of the Aged,” by the Reverend Convers Francis. (Since the First Parish Church structure was at this time undergoing restoration, his funeral would need to be transacted in the Trinitarian Congregational Church which stood across the brook.)
NEVER READ AHEAD! TO APPRECIATE SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1841 AT ALL ONE MUST APPRECIATE IT AS A TODAY (THE FOLLOWING DAY, TOMORROW, IS BUT A PORTION OF THE UNREALIZED FUTURE AND IFFY AT BEST).
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
September 23, Thursday: Friend Lucretia Mott preached at Marlboro Chapel in Boston as part of the New England Non-Resistance Society’s annual meeting.13
Lucretia Coffin Mott in 1841 The opening prayer at the funeral of the Reverend Ezra Ripley was offered by the Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown.
Since the First Parish Church structure was at this time undergoing restoration, his funeral had needed to be scheduled for the Trinitarian Congregational Church which stood across the brook. This ceremony would occasion “A Sermon Delivered at the Funeral of the Rev. Ezra Ripley,” by the Reverend Barzillai Frost, and “Death of the Aged,” by the Reverend Francis.
13. I do not know whether Thoreau came into Boston to hear her, or whether Mott made it to Concord on this trip — but I would like to know. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
September 26, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis of Watertown preached for the faithful of Concord to fill in after the death of the Reverend Ezra Ripley. His prooftext for the Concord morning service was 2d Corinthians 5:4 and his topic was “Mortality Swallowed Up of Life.”
Here is Nathaniel Hawthorne’s entry in his AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS, followed by the manner in which the entry has been rendered into poetry by Robert Peters: A walk this morning along the Needham road. A clear, breezy morning, after nearly a week of cloudy and showery weather. The grass is much more fresh and vivid than it was last month, and trees still retain much of their verdure, though here and there is a shrub or a bough arrayed in scarlet and gold. Along the road, in the midst of a beaten track, I saw mushrooms or toadstools, which had sprung up probably during the night. The houses in this vicinity are, many of them, quite antique, with long, sloping roofs, commencing at a few feet from the ground, and ending in a lofty peak. Some of them have huge, old elms overshadowing the yard. One may see the family sleigh near the door, it having stood there all through the summer sunshine, and perhaps with weeds sprouting through the crevices of its bottom, the growth of the months since snow departed. Old barns, patched and supported by timbers leaning against the sides, and stained with the excrement of past ages. In the forenoon, I walked along the edge of the meadow, towards Cow Island. Large trees, almost a wood, principally of pine with the green pasture-glades intermixed, and cattle feeding. They cease grazing when an intruder appears, and look at him with long and wary observation, then bend their heads to the pasture again. Where the firm ground of the pasture ceases, the meadow begins, — loose, spongy, yielding to the tread, sometimes permitting the foot to sink into black mud, or perhaps over ankles in water. Cattle paths, somewhat firmer than the general surface, traverse the dense shrubbery which has overgrown the meadow. This shrubbery consists of small birch, elders, maples, and other trees, with here and there white pines of larger growth. The whole is tangled and wild and thick-set, so that it is necessary to part the nestling stems and branches, and go crashing through. There are creeping plants of various sorts, which clamber up the trees, and some of them have changed color in the slight frosts which already have befallen these low grounds, so that one sees a spiral wreath of scarlet leaves twining up to the top of a green tree, intermingling its bright hues with their verdure, as if all were of one piece. Sometimes, instead of scarlet, the spiral wreath is of a golden yellow. Within the verge of the meadow, mostly near the firm shore of pasture ground, I found several grape-vines, hung with an abundance of large purple grapes. The vines had caught hold of maples and alders, and climbed to the summit, curling round about and interwreathing their twisted folds in so intimate a manner that it was not easy to tell the parasite from the supporting tree or shrub. Sometimes the same vine had enveloped several shrubs, and caused a strange, tangled confusion, converting all these poor plants to the purpose of its own support, and hindering their growing to their own benefit and convenience. The broad vine-leaves, some of them yellow or yellowish-tinged, were seen apparently glowing on the same stems with the silver-maple leaves, and those of the other shrubs, thus married against their will by the conjugal twine; and the purple clusters of grapes hung down from above and in the midst, so that one might “gather grapes,” if not “of thorns,” yet of as alien bushes. One vine had ascended almost to the tip of a large white pine, spreading its leaves, and hanging its purple clusters among all its boughs, — still climbing and clambering, as if it would not be content till it had crowned the very summit with a wreath of its own foliage and bunches of grapes. I mounted high into the tree and ate the fruit there, while the vine wreathed still higher into the depths above my head. The grapes were sour, being HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
not yet fully ripe. Some of them, however, were sweet and pleasant.
The Grape-Vines The vines had caught hold of maples and alders and climbed to the top curling round about interwreathing their twisted folds so that it was not easy to tell the parasite from the supporting shrub. Sometimes the same vine enveloped several shrubs and caused a strange tangled confusion, converting all these poor plants to supports, hindering their growing to their own benefit. The broad vine-leaves growing on the same stems with silver maple leaves were thus married against their will by this conjugal twine. One vine ascended to the tip-top of a large white pine, spreading its leaves and hanging its purple clusters among all its boughs — still climbing and clambering. I mounted high into the tree and ate grapes there while the vine wreathed still higher into the depths of the tree above my head.
September 26, 1841
Robert Peters. HAWTHORNE: POEMS ADAPTED FROM THE AMERICAN NOTEBOOKS. Fairfax CA: Poet-Skin / Red Hill Press, 1977 HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1842
The Reverend Convers Francis resigned his pastorship of the 1st Parish Congregational (Unitarian) Church of Watertown, Massachusetts to become the Parkman Professor of Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care at the Harvard Divinity School. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1843
September: The Reverend Theodore Parker visited Lydia Maria Child in New-York while on his way to Europe. (Parker, as a schoolteacher and divinity student in the early 1830s, had been a frequent visitor at the Reverend Convers Francis’s parsonage in Watertown, Massachusetts, for it had been Child’s brother who had been preparing him for admission to the Harvard Divinity School.) Parker’s version of Transcendentalism was the version which Child was prepared to credit. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1845
May 25, Sunday: Frederick Douglass lectured in New Bedford.
Waldo Emerson’s 42d birthday.
The Reverend Convers Francis preached the afternoon sermon in Concord. His prooftext was Jeremiah 8:22 and his topic was “The Call for Reform.” This was another repeat of a sermon he had originally preached in the Harvard College chapel on March 25, 1844. To the canned sermon the reverend added I do hope, fr[iend]s., that the righteous sentiment of indignation wh[ich] is now rising from the hearts of vast masses, will not sink & die away in quiet submission to wrong, as it has already so often done to our shame, & to the sorrow of the good; but that it will be the turning point from wh[ich] we may look forward to a better day. — When you look at the state of things around you, I am sure you will be reminded it was not for such results the men of ’75 met the soldiers of the oppressor on the banks of yonder river; — it was not for such results that HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
you built yonder monument, was it? HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1852
January 18, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was 1st Corinthians 3:17 and his topic was “The Agency of God and Man in Union with Each Other.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Acts 5:38-39 and his topic was “Gamaliel’s Advice.”
January 18, Sunday: E Hosmer tells me that his daughter walking with Miss Mary Emerson to some MARY EMERSON meeting or lecture, perhaps it was Mrs Smith’s–the latter was saying that she did not want to go– She did not think it was worth the while to be running after such amusements &c &c Whereupon Miss Hosmer asked “what do you go for then?”– “None of your business.” was the characteristic reply. Sometimes when a woman was speaking where gentlemen were present–she put her hand on her & said “be still–I want to hear the men talk.” I still remember those wonderful sparkles at Pelham Pond. The very sportsmen in the distance–with their guns & dogs–presented some surfaces on which a sparkle could impinge–such was the transparent flashing air. It was a most exhiliarating intoxicating air–as when poets sing of the sparkling wine. I have seen some men in whom the usually posthumous decay appeared to have commenced– They impressed me as actually rotting alive– As if there was not salt enough in their composition to preserve them. I could not approach them without a smelling bottle at my nose–not till the Fates strengthened the pickle in which they were. While the snow is falling, the telegraph harp is resounding across the fields. As if the telegraph approached So near an attribute of divinity, that music naturally attends it. AEOLIAN HARP To day again I saw some of the blue in the crevices of the snow– It is snowing–but not a moist snow. Perhaps the snow in the air as well as on the ground–takes up the white rays & reflects the blue There is no blue to be seen overhead & it has as it were taken refuge in the chinks & crevices in the snow. What is like the peep or whistle of a bird in the midst of a winter storm? The pines–some of them–seen through this fine driving snow have a bluish hue. IDA PFEIFFER Barbarous as we esteem the Chinese they have already built their steam boat Swiftly the arts spread in these 14 CHINESE days. Madame Pfeiffer visited the garden of a mandarin in Canton “in which” says she “I was the more interested because it was the birthplace of the first Chinese steamboat, built by order of the mandarin and by Chinese workmen. The Mandarin had gone through his studies in N America, where he remained for 13 years”. She was there after ’46.
14. Note that when Canton MA had been named in 1797, it had been so named because someone had ignorantly asserted it to be on the exact opposite side of the earth from Canton, China. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1856
February 3, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was Psalms 38:21 and his topic was “God as Distant and as Near.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Proverbs 16:4 and his topic was “The Wicked for the Day of Evil.” (A prolonged illness in late 1855 and early 1856 had sent the Reverend Barzillai Frost off to the West Indies to recuperate, and Attorney General Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, on behalf of the parish, had offered to the Reverend Francis that he might fill this pulpit in the absence of its incumbent at “the usual country price of $15 a Sabbath.”)
HENRY OFTEN MENTIONS THE GREAT SNOW
Feb. 3. Analyzed the crow blackbird's nest from which I took an egg last summer, eight or ten feet up a white maple hY river, opposite Island. Large, of an irregular form, appearing as if wedged in between a twig and two huge contiguous trunks. From outside to ut1t>Si(1e it measures from six to eight inches; inside, foul; depth, two, height, six. The fomeda.tion is a loose mass of coarse strips of grape-vine bark chiefly, some eighteen inches long by five eighths of an inch wide; also slender grass and weed stems, mikania stems, a few cellular river weeds, as rushes, sparganium, pipe-grass, and some soft, coarse, fibrous roots. The same coarse grape-vine bark and grass and weed stems, together with some harder, wiry stems, form the sides and rim, the bark being passed around the twig. The nest is lined with the finer grass and weed stems, etc. The solid part. of the nest is of half-decayed vegetable matter and mud, full of fine fibrous roots and wound internally with grass stems, etc., and some grape bark, being an inch and a half thick at bottom. Pulled apart and lying loose, it makes a great mass of material. This, life similar nests, is now a great haunt for spiders.
P.M. — Up North Branch. A strong northwest wind (and thermometer 11 0), driving the surface snow like steam. About five inches of soft snow now on ice. See many seeds of the hemlock on the snow still, and cones which have freshly rolled down the bank. Tracked some mice to a black willow by riverside,.just above spring, against the open swamp; and about three feet high, in apparently an old woodpecker's hole, was probably the mouse-nest, a double handful, consisting, four ninths, of fine shreds of inner bark, perhaps willow or maple; three ninths, the greenish moss, apparently, HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
of button-bush; two ninths, the gray-slate fur, apparently, of rabbits or mice. Half a dozen hog's bristles might have been brought. by some bird to its nest there. These made a very warm and soft nest. Got some kind of vireo's nest from a maple far up the stream, a dozen feet high, pensile; within, almost wholly rather coarse grape-vine shreds; without, the same and bark, covered with the delicate white spider-nests (?}, birch-bark shreds, and brown cocoon sill:. Returning, saw near the Island a shrike glide by, cold and blustering as it was, with a remarkably even and steady sail or gliding motion like a hawk, eight or ten feet above the ground, and alight in a tree, from which at the same instant a small bird, perhaps a creeper or nuthatch, flitted timidly away. The shrike was apparently in pursuit. We go wading through snows now up the bleak river, in the face of the cutting northwest wind and driving snow- steam, turning now this car, then that, to the wind, and our gloved hands in our bosoms or pockets. Our tracks are obliterated before we come back. How different this from sailing or paddling up the stream here in July, or poling amid the rocks! Yet still, in one square rod, where they have got out ice and a thin transparent ice has formed, I can see the pebbly bottom the same as in summer. It is a cold and windy Sunday. The wind whistles round the northwest corner of the house and penetrates every crevice and consumes the wood in the stoves,- soon blows it all away. An armful goes but little way. Such a clay makes a, great hole in the wood-pile. [It] whisks round the corner of the house, in at a crevice, and flirts off with all the heat before we have begun to feel it. Sonic of the low drifts but a few inches deep, made by the surface snow blowing, over the river especially, are of a fine, pure snow, so densely packed that our feet make hardly any impression on them. River still tight at Merrick's. There comes a deep snow in midwinter, covering up the ordinary food of many birds and quadrupeds, but anon a high wind scatters the seeds of pines and hemlocks and birch and alder, etc., far and wide over the surface of the snow for them. 1'ou may now observe plainly the habit of the rabbits to run in paths about the swamps. Mr Emerson who returned last week from lecturing on the Mississippi— having been gone but a month— tells me that he saw boys skating on the Mississippi— & on Lake Erie— & on the Hudson— & has no doubt they are skating on Lake Superior— & prob— at Boston he saw them skating on the Atlantic. Tic inside of the gray squirrel, or leaf, nests is of leaves chewed or broken up finely. I sec where one, by the snow lodging on it, has helped weigh down a birch. In Barber’s His’t Coll — p 476 there is a letter by Cotton Mather dated “Boston, 10th Dec. 1717.” describing the great snow of the previous February. from which I quote— “On the twentieth of the last February there came on a snow, which being added unto what had covered the ground a few days before, made a thicker mantle for our mother than what was usual: And the storm with it was, for the following day, so violent as to make all communication between the neighbors every where to cease. People, for some hours, could not pass from one side of a street unto another,”— — — — — — “On the 24th day of the month, comes Pelion upon Ossa: Another snow came on which almost buried the memory of the former, with a storm so famous that Heaven laid an interdict on the religious assemblies throughout the country, on this Lord’s day, the like whereunto had never bee seen before. The Indians near an hundred years old affirm that their fathers never told them of any thing that equalled it. Vast numbers of cattle were destroyed in this calamity. Whereof some there were, of the stranger [stronger? mine] sort, were found standing dead on their legs, as if they had been alive many weeks after, when the snow melted away. And others had their eyes glazed over with ice at such a rate, that being not far from the sea, their mistake of their way drowned them there. One gentleman, on Whose farms were now lost above 1100 sheep, which with other cattle, were interred (shall I say) or inmired, in the snow, writes me word that there were two sheep very singularly circumstanced. For no less than 8 & 20 days after the storm, the people pulling out the ruins of above an 100 sheep out of a snow bank which lay 16 foot high, drifted over them, there was 2 found alive, which had been there all this time, & kept themselves alive by eating the wool of their dead companions. When they were taken out they shed their own fleeces, but soon got into good care again.” — — “A man had a couple of young hogs, which he gave over for dead, but on the 27th day after their burial, they made their way out of a snow-bank, at the bottom of which they had found a little tansy to feed upon.”— — “Hens were found alive after 7 days; Turkeys were found alive after 5 & 20 days, buried in the snow, & at a distance from the ground, & altogether destitute of anything to feed them.”— — — “The wild creatures of the woods, the out- going of the evening, made their descent as well as they could in this time of scarcity for them towards the sea- side. A vast multitude of deer, for the same cause, taking the same course, & the deep snow spoiling them of their only defence, which is to run, they became such a prey to these devourers, that it is thought not one in 20 escaped.” — — — “It is incredible how much damage is done to the orchards, for the snow freezing to a crust, as high as the bows of the trees, anon split them to pieces. The cattle also, walking on the crusted snow a dozen HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
foot from the ground, so fed upon the trees as very much to damnify them.”— “Cottages were totally covered with the snow, & not the very tops of their chimneys to be seen”— These “odd accidents” he says “would afford a story. But there not being any relation to Philosophy in them, I forbear them.” He little thought that his simple testimony to such facts as the above — could be worth all the philosophy he might dream of. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
February 17, Sunday: Heinrich Heine died in Paris at the age of 58.
Frederic Eugene Ives was born.
The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was Luke 7:57 and his topic was “Natural Power of Moral Judgment.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Ecclesiastes 8:5 and his topic was “The Use of Opportunities.”
The Reverend Moncure Daniel Conway preached a sermon on “Spiritual Liberty” which was immediately published as a pamphlet, in which he took up a stance in opposition to the Sermon on the Mount’s “Resist not evil” injunction by declaring that in fact “Christ opposed evil” regardless of what anybody alleged he had said on the subject, and that it was therefore the solemn obligation of every Christian to imitate Christ by making his or her own assault on injustice.15
Why may the injustice of our ancestors to the Indians be freely denounced in the pulpit, whilst every whisper of injustice to the African must be silenced? ... The reason the soul is not gagged about the Indian is because we have got all the good we can by injustice to him, and villainy which does not pay is seen to be horrible at once.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY VOLUME II
THE AGE OF REASON WAS A PIPE DREAM, OR AT BEST A PROJECT. ACTUALLY, HUMANS HAVE ALMOST NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING, 15. Moncure Daniel Conway. SPIRITUAL LIBERTY: A DISCOURSE, DELIVERED IN THE UNITARIAN CHURCH, WASHINGTON DC, ON SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1856, BY MONCURE D. CONWAY, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH. Pamphlet. Buell & Blanchard, Printers, Washington DC. READ THE FULL TEXT HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
WHILE CREDITING THEIR OWN LIES ABOUT WHY THEY ARE DOING IT.
March 30, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was Romans 14:8 and his topic was “Whether We Live or Die, We Are the Lord’s.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Acts 28:24 and his topic was “Believers and Unbelievers.”
Convers Francis “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
April 5, Saturday: Booker Taliaferro Washington was born in Franklin County, Virginia. He would become in 1881 the first principal of the Tuskegee Institute, and would be the individual most responsible for its early development. Washington would in his day be considered the leading African-American spokesperson.
Waldo Emerson to his journal, evidently in a cute comment about explosions of puffball mushrooms:
Walden fired a cannonade yesterday of a hundred guns, but not in honor of the birth of Napoleon.
This image of a wagon train was published:
April 5.... P.M. — To North River at Tarbell’s. Fair weather again. Saw half a dozen blackbirds, uttering that sign-like note, on the top of Cheney’s elm, but noticed no red at this distance. Were they grackles? Hear after some red-wings [Red-winged Blackbird HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
Agelaius phoeniceus] sing boby-lee. Do these ever make the sign-like note? Is not theirs a fine shrill whistle?...
June 1, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord, repeating his “The Call for Reform” of eleven years earlier, while offering significant additions to bring it up to date with current events. Previously, when
he had spoken of “the righteous indignation wh[ich] is now rising in the hearts of vast masses,” the referent had been to the topic of human slavery and in particular the treatment accorded by slavemasters to Concord’s Squire Hoar, but this time he added: They [the righteous] see man holding his brother man as property just as he holds the brute beast, — divesting him of the character of a man, & selling him with his wife & children, as he would sell the brute beast at the auction stand; & to sustain this state of things laws passed wh[ich] ought to make savages blush. They see wide & far reaching plans laid by to extend broad cast over the land & to perpetuate forever, if possible, the mighty wrong of human bondage. For this purpose they see the most solemn national compacts trodden under foot, the most solemn national faith violated, & the whole force of government employed to force slavery by ruffian violence upon our brother whose honest enterprise would lay the foundation of a new State. They see the cowardly, brutal assassin at the very Senate Chamber watching his opportunity to approach a great & noble man stealthily, & smiting him down with the murderer’s bludgeon to the earth, because he had stood in his place to utter manly & eloquent words for freedom, for justice, & right; — & the same brutality threatened to others if they shall dare to utter such words, —& in the meantime the offender, instead of having the mark of Cain, at large among decent men, & even caressed & applauded. It was not for such results, I think, that the men of ’75 met the soldiers of the oppressor on the banks of yonder river. It was not for such results that you erected yonder monument, was it, fr[iend]s? HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
This time the topical referents were the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the debate over the Kansas/Nebraska Acts of 1854, and the beating with a cane of Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the Senate by Representative Preston S. Brooks of South Carolina on May 22, 1856. Brooks, rather than being punished, had been re-elected in a sort of triumph. The Reverend Francis’s Sunday sermon thus reinforced the lecture delivered on Monday, May 26th at the protest meeting in the Concord town Hall by Waldo Emerson, “The Assault upon Mr. Sumner.” His prooftext for the Concord morning service was Jeremiah 8:22. His prooftext for the afternoon service was 1st Timothy 3:15 and his topic was “The Church of the Living God.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
June 22, Sunday: H. Rider Haggard was born.
Friend Daniel Ricketson spent the forenoon in Henry Thoreau’s room copying titles of books, etc. The Reverend Convers Francis was preaching in Concord that morning, and his prooftext was Colossians 1:27 and
his topic “Christ in Us the Hope of Glory.” The thermometer reaching 95 at 3PM. At 4PM Ricketson and Thoreau went over to the Emerson home for tea by prior invitation, stopping by on the way to call on Mrs. Mary Merrick Brooks. Then he, Thoreau, and Emerson went with the Emerson children to Walden Pond.
Thoreau walked back from the pond with Ellen Emerson and Edith Emerson while Ricketson, Waldo Emerson, and 12-year-old Edward Waldo Emerson “bathed” and discussed the birds and flowers that they had met on the way. Upon return to the Emersons, Ricketson had a chance to meet Mrs. Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley with Miss Ripley, Mrs. Marsten Goodwin, and the Reverend Francis. They visited until 9, and Ricketson was in bed back at the Thoreaus’ at 10. He had found the day very satisfactory and mused to his journal about Concord’s opportunity of becoming the famous-author tourist trap it is today: HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
My ideas of Mr. Emerson, with whom I had my second interview last night, are that he is a kind, gentle-natured man, even loving, but not what is usually termed warm-hearted. His mind does not strike me as being so great and strong as good in quality; it appears to me also limited as to its power. I should think he could rarely surprise one with any outburst of inspiration — his genius, for what he undoubtedly has, is sui generis. He is thoughtful, original, and only Emerson, and the founder of his race. It does not appear to me that he is even indebted to Carlyle, although the latter has recognized him as a kindred spirit. Emerson’s strength appears to me to lie in his honesty with himself; by his honesty he has produced a genuine article in the way of thought. He is an intelligent philosopher, a recipient of the divine cordial in doses rather homœopathic, but effectual specifics for those seeking a purer and better draught than what the schools afford. He is a blessing to the age. I am much interested in Concord, and should prefer it for a residence to almost any other place. The scenery is very picturesque in and about the village, and all appears quiet and peaceful, none of the stir and bustle of New Bedford. The Concord, or Musketaquid or grass-grown river, as my friend H.D.T. has learned its meaning from the Indians, runs along the edge of the village, which is chiefly on one street, although there are several others. It is a fine stream, and remarkable for its gentle current. With Thoreau I rowed up the river several miles, and had many pleasant views from different points. Walden Pond, by the shore where Thoreau built him a little house and there lived two years, is a small but delightful little lake, surrounded by woods. It is very deep and clear, a kind of well of nature. Concord has been for a long time the home or place of temporary abode for many of our most intellectual men and women, — commencing, so far as I am informed, with Dr. Ripley, then Emerson, Margaret Fuller for a short time as a visitor, Hawthorne, G.W. Curtis, H.D. Thoreau, the true Concord aborigine, William E. Channing, 2d, poet, Hon. Samuel Hoar, and his son, ex-Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar. It is also the home of Mrs. Brooks, a true and stirring abolitionist. Concord has a large number of fine old houses, and the old parsonage, once the home of Dr. Ripley and near the battle-ground, is one of the finest old homes in this county. WALDO EMERSON NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS ELLERY CHANNING SAMUEL HOAR EBENEZER ROCKWOOD HOAR EZRA RIPLEY MARGARET FULLER THOMAS CARLYLE HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
June 29, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the morning service was Matthew 10:42 and his topic was “The Worth of the Cup of Cold Water.” His prooftext for the afternoon service was Mark 10:21 and his topic was “The One Thing Lacking.”
Friend Daniel Ricketson to his journal, in New Bedford with Henry Thoreau:
Very warm, wind S.W. fresh. Thermometer at 87 during the middle of the day. Walked this P.M. with Thoreau down as far as the Indian burial hill on Coggeshall farm, and after tea rode with him round Tarkiln Hill and home by Nash Road; talked widely, and retired at 10. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1857
July 19, Sunday: Waldo Emerson to his journal in regard to the consolations of politics:
A visit to Josiah Quincy, Jr., on his old place at Quincy, which has been in the family for seven generations since 1635.... There lives the old President, now 85 years old, in the house built by his father in 1770; & Josiah Jr. in a new house built by Billings, 7 years ago. They hold 500 acres, & the land runs down to the sea. From the piazza in the rear of the house of J.Q. Jr. you may see every ship that comes in or goes out of boston, and most of the islands in the harbor. ’Tis the best placed house I know. The old man I visited on Saturday evening, & on Sunday he came & spent the evening with us at his son’s house. He is the most fortunate of men. Old John Adams said that of him; & his good fortune has followed to this hour. His son said to me, “My father has thrown ten times, & every time got doublets.” Yet he was engaged to a lady whose existence he did not know of, 7 days before, & she proved the best of wives. I made a very pleasant acquaintance with young Josiah 3d, the poet of “Lyteria.” And I like him better than his poem. Charles Francis Adams also was there in the Sunday Evening. Old Quincy still reads & writes with vigor & steadiness 2 or 3 hours every night after tea till ten. He has just finished his “Life of J.Q. Adams.”
JOHN QUINCY ADAMS
That afternoon the Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the Concord faithful was 1st Peter 1:9 and his topic was “Mediatory and Ultimate Truths.” HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
November 1, 8, 15, 22, or 29, Sunday morning: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the Concord faithful was Psalms 97:1 and his topic was “The Government of God a Joyous Truth.”
December 13, Sunday: The Reverend Convers Francis preached in Concord. His prooftext for the Concord faithful was Matthew 7:5 and his topic was “Moral Evil is Prolific.”
December 13, Sunday: P.M. –To Goose Pond. This and the like ponds are just covered with virgin ice just thick enough to bear, though it cracks about the edges on the sunny sides. You may call it virgin ice as long as it is transparent. I see the water-target leaves frozen in under the ice in Little Goose Pond. I see those same two tortoises (of December 2d), moving about in the same place under the ice, which I cannot crack with my feet. The Emerson children see six under the ice of Goose Pond to-day. Apparently many winter in the mud of these ponds and pond-holes. In sickness and barrenness it is encouraging to believe that our life is dammed and is coming to a head, so that there seems to be no loss, for what is lost in time is gained in power. All at once, unaccountably, as we are walking in the woods or sitting in our chamber, after a worthless fortnight, we cease to feel mean and barren. I go this afternoon thinking I may find the stakes set for auction lots on the Ministerial Lot in December,’51. I find one white birch standing and two fallen. The latter were faced at one end, for the numbers, and at the other rollen and broken off as short, apparently, as if sawed, because the bark so tears. At first I did not know but they had been moved, but thinking that if they had fallen where they stood I should find some hole or looseness in the ground at the rotten end, I felt for it and in each case found it; in one, also, the rotten point of the stake. Thus in six years two out of three stout (two-and-a-half-inch) birch stakes were flat. The hickory stake I set on R.W.E.’s town line in March,’50, was flat this last summer, or seven years, but a white [sic] stake set in’49-’50 on Moore and Hosmer’s lot was standing aslant this month. A surveyor should know what stakes last longest. I hear a characteristic anecdote respecting Mrs. Hoar, from good authority. Her son Edward, who takes his EDWARD HOAR HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
father’s place and attends to the same duties, asked his mother the other night, when about retiring, “Shall I put the cat down cellar?” “No,” said she, “you may put her outdoors.” The next night he asked, “Shall I put the cat CAT outdoors?” “No,” answered she, “you may put her down cellar.” The third night he asked, “Shall I put the cat down cellar or outdoors?” “Well,” said his mother, “you may open the cellar door and then open the front door, and let her go just which way she pleases.” Edward suggested that it was a cold night for the cat to be outdoors, but his mother said, “Who knows but she has a little kitten somewhere to look after?” Mrs. H. is a peculiar woman, who has her own opinion and way, a strong-willed, managing woman. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1858
December 10, Friday: At the funeral of Barzillai Frost, the Reverend Convers Francis “offered a very fervent prayer.”
At 7:30 AM Henry Thoreau and Thomas Cholmondeley left Friend Daniel Ricketson’s for the Tarkiln Hill train station. Thoreau went to the Boston Society of Natural History16 and charged out Edward Jesse’s GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY, SECOND SERIES (he would make entries in his 2d Commonplace Book)17 JESSE’S GLEANINGS
and Zadock Thompson’s HISTORY OF VERMONT (1842),18 THOMPSON’S HISTORY I THOMPSON’S HISTORY II THOMPSON’S HISTORY III
and evidently Cholmondeley stayed in Boston or departed for the Southern states on his way ostensibly to the West Indies (at any rate, Cholmondeley was gone before the end of the year at the outside). 16. These would be the proceedings, for this year, of the Society: PROCEEDINGS, FOR 1858 17. Edward Jesse. GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY, WITH LOCAL RECOLLECTIONS... TO WHICH ARE ADDED MAXIMS AND HINTS FOR AN ANGLER. London, 1832. Edward Jesse. GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY, SECOND SERIES. TO WHICH ARE ADDED SOME EXTRACTS FROM THE UNPUBLISHED MSS. OF... MR. WHITE OF SELBORNE. London, 1834. Edward Jesse. GLEANINGS IN NATURAL HISTORY, THIRD AND LAST SERIES. TO WHICH ARE ADDED NOTICES OF SOME OF THE ROYAL PARKS AND RESIDENCES. London, 1835. (Since many American publishers consider Thoreau to fall within their category “nature writer” — some have considered him the creator of this category in America, others derogate him as one of it poorest exemplars because he fails to focus on the pleasantries they vend. It may be useful, therefore, to contrast Thoreau with a well-published “nature writer” of his own period such as this Edward Jesse, Esquire — why don’t you struggle to detect some similarities with the life or writings of HDT?) 18. For the associated 1842 map of Vermont, see: THOMPSON’S 1842 MAP HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
Thoreau made no entry in his journal for this day. HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
1863
April 7, Tuesday: A Union fleet of nine ironclad Monitor-class warships was sent against Ft. Sumter. The attack was repulsed. CHARLESTON
Convers Francis died. Afterward, Sarah Ripley wrote a letter of condolence to the daughter of her childhood friend, Abby Francis in Cambridge: “Your mother was my earliest friend, and the debt I owe your grandfather [the Reverend John Allyn] I can never forget. He was the morning star of culture to me and for many a day filled my horizon.”
Convers Francis, born in West Cambridge, Nov. 9, 1795, died in Cambridge Apr. 7, 1863, for twenty three years pastor of the First Church in this Town, historian of Watertown 1830, teacher in the theological school at Cambridge for twenty three years. Abby Bradford Allyn, wife of Re. Convers Francis, died in Cambridge Dec. 17, 1860, aged 64 yrs. 11 mos.; their daughter Abby Bradford Francis, born in Watertown, Aug. 21, 1827, died in Cambridge Nov. 18, 1886; their son George Convers Francis, born in Watertown Oct. 1834, died in Nice France Mar. 3, 1873. Erected by the Historical Society of Watertown 1944. FRANCIS HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
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 2016. 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: February 4, 2016 HDT WHAT? INDEX
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
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
CONVERS FRANCIS REVEREND CONVERS FRANCIS
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