WALDEN: the cornice of the palace
finished — the mason
returns to his hut HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1801
September 17, Thursday: Edward William Lane was born in Hereford, England, 3d son of the Reverend Dr.Theophilus Lane.
Thomas Jefferson wrote to Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse that he had completed the variolation against the small pox of several hundred people, including the Monticello slaves, his sons-in-law, and some of his neighbors, with the kine pox.
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1814
In Upper Mall, Hammersmith, the Reverend Dr. Theophilus Lane, rector of St. Michael’s, Crooked-lane, Cannon-street died in the 76th year of his age. After his father’s demise Edward William Lane would be sent to grammar school at Bath and then Hereford and would exhibit a talent for mathematics. He would visit Cambridge as more or lest a tourist, and then join his brother Richard in London to study to support himself through engraving. An interest in ancient Egypt would be perhaps aroused by visiting a presentation by Giovanni Battista Belzoni in about 1821 or so and, on his own, he would begin to study Arabic. When he would set sail for Egypt, this would be for the hot climate as a corrective for fragile health, as well as in the hope of a career.
NO-ONE’S LIFE IS EVER NOT DRIVEN PRIMARILY BY HAPPENSTANCE
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1821
William Bullock’s Piccadilly Egyptian Hall in London was the venue for an exhibit by Giovanni Battista Belzoni of his recent discovery, the inscriptions in the tomb of Seti I.
(Before) (After)
Presumably, this was the exhibit that Edward William Lane visited that gave him the idea of Egypt and caused him, on his own, to begin to study Arabic. When he would set sail for Egypt, this would be for the hot climate HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE as a corrective for fragile health, as well as in the hope of a career. Joseph Wolff toured Egypt, the Sinai Peninsula, Jerusalem, Aleppo, Mesopotamia, Persia, Georgia, and the Crimea.
From this year into 1829, with significant outside assistance –literary philhellenes included Lord Byron and Victor Hugo, and foreign militaries involved included the British and French navies and the Russian army– the Greeks would be freeing themselves from Ottoman Turkish rule. A heroine of the war would be Lascarina Bouboulina, a Spetsiot woman who commanded ships in battle against the Turks and Egyptians, and took pride in being able to take and discard lovers like a man.
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.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1825
September: By this point the “Egyptian Hall” in Piccadilly that had in 1821 inspired Edward William Lane to take up the study of Arabic had passed on to displays about other exotic climes (such as Mexico). Lane landed in Alexandria and soon went on to Cairo. He would remain in Egypt for some two and a half years, using his language skill and mingling with the locals. He dressed as a Turk since the Ottoman Empire was then dominant in the region, and took notes of everything he saw and heard. In Old Cairo, he lived near Bab al-Hadid and studied Arabic, among others, with Sheikh Muhammad ’Ayyad al-Tantawi (1810-1861), who would later be invited to teach at Saint Petersburg, Russia.
A negrero flying the Spanish flag (as shown below), the Iris, master Echevarria, M.S., on one of its three known Middle Passage voyages, came out of an unknown area of Africa with a cargo of 350 enslaved Africans toward Cuba.
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.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1828
Fall: Kaspar Hauser began to produce some fragmentary indications of his life experiences prior to his appearance on the streets of Nüremberg on May 26th, 1828 — but nothing very helpful.
Joseph Smith, Jr. returned to his translation of the golden plates he had received from an angel, that he kept in a box he would allow others to heft but not to open, using his brother Samuel, his wife Emma, and her brother Reuben as scribes.
Edward William Lane returned to London with voluminous notes. Seeking out the publisher John Murray, he proposed to publish an manuscript description of what had remained of Ancient Egypt, as DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT. The publisher was favorable, but then suggested that it would be better to expand one of the chapters into an entire book, MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MODERN EGYPTIANS (the entire DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT manuscript would not appear in print until 2000, by the American University in Cairo Press).
THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1836
Edward William Lane’s AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MODERN EGYPTIANS, WRITTEN IN EGYPT DURING THE YEARS 1833, -34, AND -35, PARTLY FROM NOTES MADE DURING A PREVIOUS VISIT TO THAT COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1825, -26, -27, AND -28 (Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge; Printed by W. Clowes and sons, 14, Charing Cross and Charles Knight and Co., 22, Ludgate Street). The work was modeled in part on a successful volume by Alexander Russell, THE NATURAL HISTORY OF ALEPPO, that had been published in 1756. The author departed again for Egypt, to collect materials to expand and revise the work, which of course, since it was stuffed full of exotica, became a crowdpleaser.
THE MODERN EGYPTIANS THE MODERN EGYPTIANS
THE TASK OF THE HISTORIAN IS TO CREATE HINDSIGHT WHILE INTERCEPTING ANY ILLUSION OF FORESIGHT. NOTHING A HUMAN CAN HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE SEE CAN EVER BE SEEN AS IF THROUGH THE EYE OF GOD.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1837
John Gardner Wilkinson’s MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, INCLUDING THEIR PRIVATE LIFE, GOVERNMENT, LAWS, ARTS, MANUFACTURES, RELIGION, AGRICULTURE, AND EARLY HISTORY, DERIVED FROM A COMPARISON OF THE PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND MONUMENTS STILL EXISTING, WITH THE ACCOUNTS OF ANCIENT AUTHORS, in three volumes.
England’s viceroy over Egypt, Mohammed Ali, sent George Robins Gliddon to the United States to purchase machinery for the processing of cotton, rice, etc.
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”:
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE IT’SNOT WORTH YOUR ATTENTION. HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1838
Edward William Lane began to publish a translation of the ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, in monthly parts. Lane’s version was bowdlerized, and yet included an exceedingly suggestive illustration by William Harvey.
1,001 NIGHTS
ESSENCE IS BLUR. SPECIFICITY, THE OPPOSITE OF ESSENCE, IS OF THE NATURE OF TRUTH.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1839
Acclaim for John Gardner Wilkinson’s MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT Egyptians, INCLUDING THEIR PRIVATE LIFE, GOVERNMENT, LAWS, ARTS, MANUFACTURES, RELIGION, AGRICULTURE, AND EARLY HISTORY, DERIVED FROM A COMPARISON OF THE PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND MONUMENTS STILL EXISTING, WITH THE ACCOUNTS OF ANCIENT AUTHORS brought knighthood.
William Fullerton Cumming’s NOTES OF A WANDERER IN SEARCH OF HEALTH, THROUGH ITALY, EGYPT, GREECE, TURKEY; UP THE DANUBE AND DOWN THE RHINE (2 volumes).
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).
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1840
A “quadruple alliance” of the major European powers was being formed expressly to threaten Egypt into relinquishing control over Syria.
Edward William Lane got married with Nafeesah, a Greek-Egyptian woman who had originally been either presented to him or purchased by him as a slave when she had been only about eight years of age, and whom he had undertaken to educate. His monthly installments of the ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS were published as a volume. Lane’s version was bowdlerized, and illustrated by William Harvey.
1,001 NIGHTS
“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. Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1841
From this year into 1843, Jean-François Champollion’s Egyptian dictionary would be being published.
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson’s MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS, INCLUDING THEIR PRIVATE LIFE, GOVERNMENT, LAWS, ARTS, MANUFACTURES, RELIGION, AGRICULTURE, AND EARLY HISTORY, DERIVED FROM A COMPARISON OF THE PAINTINGS, SCULPTURES, AND MONUMENTS STILL EXISTING, WITH THE ACCOUNTS OF ANCIENT AUTHORS appeared in six volumes. HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE George Robins Gliddon’s MEMOIR ON THE COTTON OF EGYPT, APPEAL TO THE ANTIQUARIES OF EUROPE ON THE DESTRUCTION OF THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT, and DISCOURSES ON EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY.
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1842
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson returned to Egypt.
From this point forward, Edward William Lane would devote himself to the preparation of an ARABIC- ENGLISH LEXICON (he would also find time to contribute several articles to the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft).
George Glidden, who had been an American vice-consul in Cairo, was offering a series of lectures in Boston on Egyptian antiquities, and was illustrating his talks with curiosities loaned to him by Colonel Mendes Cohen. These talks were being so well attended that Glidden would tour the US with his exhibit for two years, sometimes addressing audiences of 2,000 souls.
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1843
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson’s “Survey of the Valley of the Natron Lakes,” in the Journal of the Geographical Society. Publication of a revised and enlarged edition of his 1835 THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THEBES AND GENERAL VIEW OF EGYPT, retitled MOSLEM EGYPT AND THEBES.
Edward William Lane’s SELECTIONS FROM THE ḲUR-ÁN, COMMONLY CALLED, IN ENGLAND, THE KORAN: WITH AN INTERWOVEN COMMENTARY; TRANSLATED FROM THE ARABIC, METHODICALLY ARRANGED, AND ILLUSTRATED BY NOTES, CHIEFLY FROM SALE’S EDITION: TO WHICH IS PREFIXED AN INTRODUCTION, TAKEN FROM SALE’S PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE, WITH CORRECTIONS AND ADDITIONS (London: Printed for James Madden and Co. 8, Leadenhall Street). SELECTIONS FROM THE KORAN
George Robins Gliddon was invited to Boston to deliver a course of Lowell Lectures on Egyptian archaeology. During this visit he took offense when James Ewing Cooley, in THE AMERICAN IN EGYPT WITH RAMBLES THROUGH ARABIA, PETRAEA, AND THE HOLY LAND DURING THE YEARS 1839-1840, characterized his father, John Gliddon, as a pompous, lazy and a wearer of Turkish slippers, in an Alexandria apartment infested with fleas, “anything but a gentleman.” Angered at being criticized by the son for his criticism of the father, Cooley followed the son into a store on lower Broadway on Manhattan Island and punched him out. When Gliddon took Cooley to court he was able to obtain a judgment for merely $5 (maybe less than a week’s wages). The affair left nobody happy — although as you may well imagine it left some people amused.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1844
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson traveled in Dalmatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Edward William Lane had brought his sister Sophia Lane Poole (1804-1891) and her sons to Egypt when she became estranged from her husband the book collector Reverend Edward Poole, and for seven years, veiled in public, she had gained access to Cairo’s hareems and bathhouses. The result was THE ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT: LETTERS FROM CAIRO, WRITTEN DURING A RESIDENCE THERE IN 1842, 3 & 4. WITH E.W. LANE, ESQ., AUTHOR OF “THE MODERN EGYPTIANS.” BY HIS SISTER (these volumes do contain materials acquired through Poole’s visits to hareems, but consists primarily of large sections of Lane’s unpublished manuscript with “I” replaced by “my brother”).
ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT ENGLISHWOMAN IN EGYPT
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1846
Edward William Lane’s AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MODERN EGYPTIANS, WRITTEN IN EGYPT DURING THE YEARS 1833, -34, AND -35, PARTLY FROM NOTES MADE DURING A PREVIOUS VISIT TO THAT COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1825, -26, -27, AND -28. REPRINTED FROM THE THIRD EDITION CONTAINING LARGE ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS (London: Charles Knight & Co.).
THE MODERN EGYPTIANS
In about 1860 Henry Thoreau would obtain these volumes at the Concord Town Library, and make notes in his Indian Notebook #12 and 2d Commonplace Book.
THE FALLACY OF MOMENTISM: THIS STARRY UNIVERSE DOES NOT CONSIST OF A SEQUENCE OF MOMENTS. THAT IS A FIGMENT, ONE WE HAVE RECOURSE TO IN ORDER TO PRIVILEGE TIME OVER CHANGE, APRIVILEGING THAT MAKES CHANGE SEEM UNREAL, DERIVATIVE, A HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE MERE APPEARANCE. IN FACT IT IS CHANGE AND ONLY CHANGE WHICH WE EXPERIENCE AS REALITY, TIME BEING BY WAY OF RADICAL CONTRAST UNEXPERIENCED — A MERE INTELLECTUAL CONSTRUCT. THERE EXISTS NO SUCH THING AS A MOMENT. NO “INSTANT” HAS EVER FOR AN INSTANT EXISTED.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1847
The portion of Edward William Lane’s manuscript DESCRIPTION OF EGYPT that had to do with Cairo’s early history and topography, based on the work of Taqi al-Din Ahmad ibn ’Ali ibn ’Abd al-Qadir ibn Muhammad al-Maqrizi (1364-1442) as well as on Lane’s own observations, was revised by Reginald Stuart Poole. This would not be published, however, until 1896, when it would appear under the title CAIRO FIFTY YEARS AGO.
Philip Henry Gosse’s THE BIRDS OF JAMAICA, and, for the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, THE MONUMENTS OF ANCIENT EGYPT, AND THEIR RELATION TO THE WORD OF GOD.
THE BIRDS OF JAMAICA MONUMENTS OF EGYPT
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 HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE THAT EVER EXISTS — AND YET THE PRESENT MOMENT BEING A MOMENT IS A FIGMENT TO WHICH NOTHING IN REALITY CORRESPONDS.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1848
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson’s DALMATIA AND MONTENEGRO appeared in 2 volumes. In this year and the following one, the author would travel a 3d time in Egypt.
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.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1853
Having perfected his Arabic and obtained funding from the Royal Geographical Society, Richard Francis Burton visited Mecca and Medina disguised as a Moslem haj.
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.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
Pilgrim Costumes HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1854
THE GENESIS OF THE EARTH AND OF MAN appeared, anonymously edited by Edward William Lane’s nephew Reginald Stuart Poole.
A POPULAR ACCOUNT OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. REVISED AND ABRIDGED FROM HIS LARGER WORK, BY SIR J. GARDNER WILKINSON, D.C.L., F.R.S., &C. IN TWO VOLUMES. ILLUSTRATED WITH FIVE HUNDRED WOODCUTS (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 329 & 331 Pearl Street, Franklin Square; illustrated by Joseph Bonomi). These two volumes would be purchased for the personal library of Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau would immediately copy from them into his Fact Book, and into his Indian Notebook #8.
ANCIENT EGYPT, VOL. I ANCIENT EGYPT, VOL. II Thoreau copied from George Douglas Brewerton’s article in the previous August’s Harper’s New Monthly Magazine “A Ride with Kit Carson through the Great American Desert and the Rocky Mountains,” into his HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE Indian Notebook #8 (about something that had happened in 1848).
A RIDE WITH KIT CARSON
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.)
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1855
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson made a final visit to Thebes in Egypt. Thereafter he would remain in England studying Cornish antiquities, and as well zoology.
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.)
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1859
A revised edition of Edward William Lane’s translation of the ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS.
THE AGE OF REASON WAS A PIPE DREAM, OR AT BEST A PROJECT. ACTUALLY, HUMANS HAVE ALMOST NO CLUE WHAT THEY ARE DOING, WHILE CREDITING THEIR OWN LIES ABOUT WHY THEY ARE DOING IT.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1860
In this timeframe Henry Thoreau was obtaining Edward William Lane’s AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE MODERN EGYPTIANS, WRITTEN IN EGYPT DURING THE YEARS 1833, -34, AND -35, PARTLY FROM NOTES MADE DURING A PREVIOUS VISIT TO THAT COUNTRY IN THE YEARS 1825, -26, -27, AND -28. REPRINTED FROM THE THIRD EDITION CONTAINING LARGE ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS (London: Charles Knight & Co.) from the Concord Town Library, and making notes in his Indian Notebook #12 and 2d Commonplace Book.
THE MODERN EGYPTIANS
Richard Francis Burton’s THE LAKE REGION OF CENTRAL AFRICA, A PICTURE OF EXPLORATION (New York: Harper & brothers). RICHARD BURTON, I RICHARD BURTON, II
Having done Mecca and having done safari, the adventurous author came to the United States and traveled by HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE stagecoach to Salt Lake City. He would write this up as THE CITY OF SAINTS AND ACROSS THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS TO CALIFORNIA.
It is quite likely that as Sir Richard was riding along in the stagecoach through the Wild West, from time to time that stagecoach would have been overtaken and left in a cloud of dust by a rider of the Pony Express — for in that year the postal service was recruiting more skinny orphans:
Wanted. Young, skinny, wiry fellows not over 18. Must be expert riders, willing to face death daily. Orphans preferred.
In response to such a solicitation, they hired a 15-year-old named William Cody. Once, when his relief rider had been killed, he would be on horseback carrying the mail nonstop for 21 hours.
CONTINGENCY ALTHOUGH VERY MANY OUTCOMES ARE OVERDETERMINED, WE TRUST THAT SOMETIMES WE ACTUALLY MAKE REAL CHOICES.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1863
Edward William Lane and Stanley Lane-Poole’s AN ARABIC-ENGLISH LEXICON: DERIVED FROM THE BEST AND THE MOST COPIOUS EASTERN SOURCES .... VOLUME 1 OF AN ARABIC-ENGLISH LEXICON: DERIVED FROM THE BEST AND THE MOST COPIOUS EASTERN SOURCES (Williams and Norgate).
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1864
Sir John Gardner Wilkinson bequeathed his collections to his old school, Harrow, with an elaborate catalogue.
After an arbitration by Napoleon III, the conflict between Egypt and Turkey over the Suez Canal was resolved. The Company abandoned its fresh-water canal and 60,000 hectares of irrigable land and accepted an obligation that the manual labor of fellahs would no longer be the basis for the construction (they were to be partially replaced by machinery).
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.
Edward William Lane “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1876
August 10, Thursday: Edward William Lane died in Worthing, Sussex. The body would be placed in West Norwood Cemetery. Leila Ahmed would prepare a biography, EDWARD W. LANE, for publication in London by Longman during this year. He had been unable to complete his massive Arabic-English dictionary, arriving only at the letter Qaf, the 21st of the Arabic alphabet. Great-nephew Stanley Lane-Poole would be completing the work during the following two decades: AN A RABIC-ENGLISH LEXICON: DERIVED FROM THE BEST AND THE MOST COPIOUS EASTERN SOURCES (Williams and Norgate).
WALDEN: the cornice of the palace
finished — the mason
returns to his hut HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE Alexander Graham Bell achieved the 1st long-distance telephone call (this consisted merely of being able to hear in the Dominion Telegraph Company office in White’s Boot and Shoe Store in the town of Paris in Ontario, despite bubbling and cracking sounds, a one-way communication from the telegraph office in Brantford some six miles distant of audible musical notes and singing, plus his being able to distinguish between the voices of different persons who spoke into the mouthpiece).
WALDEN: the devil his due
improved means
unimproved end HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1877
Disastrous flooding of the Nile River valley. According to Nilometer records, other disastrous floods in Egypt had occurred in the years 1200CE, 1230, 1450, 1553, 1641, 1650, 1694, 1715-1716, and 1783 and would occur again in 1899 and 1913, and then in 1972.
Stanley Lane-Poole’s LIFE OF Edward William Lane (London: Williams and Norgate). By 1885 this great- nephew would complete Lane’s lexicon, as AN ARABIC-ENGLISH LEXICON: DERIVED FROM THE BEST AND THE MOST COPIOUS EASTERN SOURCES (Williams and Norgate). HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1883
A full multi-volume edition of Edward William Lane’s translation of the ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS, for the 1st time with his encyclopedic annotations, was prepared by his great-nephew Stanley Lane-Poole, as ARABIAN SOCIETY IN THE MIDDLE AGES. Lane’s version was bowdlerized, and illustrated by William Harvey.
1,001 NIGHTS HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
1885
During this year, and the three following years, private subscription publication of a 16-volume edition of the TALES OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS translated by Richard Francis Burton — everything you had ever wanted to know about erotica, and were afraid that no-one would ask.
This was in sixteen volumes, at his own expense.
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 HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
Prepared: April 1, 2016 HDT WHAT? INDEX
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
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
EDWARD WILLIAM LANE EDWARD WILLIAM LANE
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.
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