North American Review

The North American Review

“[I]t is not possible to understand the social fabric properly until one has studied three or four of its component threads in detail.” — Hippolyte Taine

MASTER INDEX HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1811

When during this year a 17-year-old named William Cullen Bryant sent his initial draft of a poem titled “Thanatopsis,” written as a rejection of the orthodox Calvinism of the Reverend Cummington in favor of Deism,1 to Richard Henry Dana, that editor feared a hoax and refused to print it. (A subsequent version of the poem would appear in 1817 in the North American Review.)2

1. But soon he would abandon this posture in favor of a Unitarian providentialism, as witness his “To a Waterfowl” (1815, revised 1818 and 1821). 2. This was, incidentally, the year of the death of Judge Francis Dana, this editor’s father — although I don’t know that that has anything to do with anything. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1815

The North American Review was started in Boston under the editorship of William Tudor and would print his “Theology of the Hindoos as Taught by Ram Mohan Roy” as well as Theophilus Parson’s “Manners and Customs of India.” In 1817 it would pass into the control of a club of Boston gentlemen, who would make Jared Sparks chief editor, then Edward Tyrrell Channing, then in 1819 Edward Everett would assume the post. NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MASTER INDEX

“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 HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

ALTOGETHER. THIS IS FANTASY-LAND, YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF. THERE CANNOT BE ANY SUCH THINGIE, AS SUCH A PERSPECTIVE.

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

May: Harvard College’s Unitarians issued Volume 1 Number 1 of the North American Review:

It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with the conservatives, the writers of the North American Review, the merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those respectable old blockheads, who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had not come into vogue since yesterday-morning.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MASTER INDEX

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. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

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.

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1817

September: William Cullen Bryant’s 1811 poem “Thanatopsis,” written at the age of 17, finally appeared in print in the North American Review, but was not as yet assigned to any school child to memorize.3

THE YOUTUBE VERSION (The delay had been due entirely to editor Richard Henry Dana, Sr.’s fear that a plagiarism was being foisted upon him, based upon suspicion that no mere 17-year-old student could possibly have authored such a poem.)

3. This original poem contained only the present lines 17-66, and these the father Dr. Peter Bryant, something of a published poet himself, had patched it together out of various drafts the son “Cullen” had left behind in his father’s desk, and copied out in his own hand for submission (the editor at the Review would presume that everything in the father’s hand constituted one poem, when in fact they had not, four of the stanzas being in fact inferior and quite another poem). This Greek title “Thanatopsis” is something that was dreamed up by some editor or other at the Review. In 1821 the poet would tack on introductory and concluding lines, for THANATOPSIS AND OTHER POEMS, and until that late date the editor at the Review would remain persuaded that “Thanatopsis” had actually been written by the father rather than by the son. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING: HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1823

The Reverend Jared Sparks resigned from his position as the Unitarian minister of the First Independent Church to become owner/publisher/editor of the North American Review.

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MASTER INDEX

NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

September 27, Saturday: … We of Massachusetts boast a good deal of what we do for the education of our people–of our district-school system–& yet our district schools are as it were but infant schools–& we have no system for the education of the great mass who are grown up.– I have yet to learn that one cent is spent by this town–this political community called Concord directly to educate the great mass of its inhabitants who have long since left the district school.– for the Lyceum–important as it is comparatively–though absolutely trifling is supported by individuals– There are certain refining & civilizing influences as works of art–journals– & books & scientific instruments–which this community is amply rich enough to purchase which would educate this village–elevate its tone of thought, & if it alone improved these opportunities easily make it the centre of civilization in the known world–put us on a level as to opportunities at once with London & Arcadia–and secure us a culture at once superior to both– Yet we spend 16000 dollars on a Town House a hall for our political meetings mainly–and nothing to educate ourselves who are grown up. Pray is there nothing in the market–no advantages–no intellectual food worth buying? Have Paris & London & New York & Boston nothing to dispose of which this Village might buy & appropriate to its own use. Might not this great villager adorn his villa with a few pictures & statues–enrich himself with a choice library as available without being cumbrous as any in the world–with scientific instruments for such as have a taste to use them. Yet we are contented to be countrified– to be provincial. I am astonished to find that in this 19th century–in this land of free schools–we spend absolutely nothing as a town on our own education cultivation civilization. Each town like each individual has its own character–some more some less cultivated. I know many towns so mean spirited & benighted that it would be a disgrace to belong to them. I believe that some of our New England villages within 30 miles of Boston are as boorish & barbarous communities as there are on the face of the earth–and how much superior are the best of them? If London has any refinement any information to sell why should we not buy it? Would not the town of Carlisle do well to spend 16000 dollars on its own education at once–if it could only find a schoolmaster for itself– It has one man as I hear who takes the North-American Review –that will never Civilize them I fear– Why should not the town itself take the London & Edinburg Reviews–& put itself in communication with whatever sources of light & intelligence there are in the world? HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Yet Carlisle is very little behind Concord in these respects– I do not know but it spends its proportional part on education. How happens it that the only libraries which the towns possess are the District school libraries–books for children only–or for readers who must needs be written down to– Why should they not have a library, if not so extensive yet of the same stamp & more select than the British museum? It is not that the town cannot well afford to buy these things–but it is unaspiring & ignorant of its own wants. It sells milk, but it only builds larger barns with the money which it gets for its milk. Undoubtedly every New England village is as able to surround itself with as many civilizing influences of this kind the members of the English nobility–& here there need be no peasantry. If the London Times is the best news-paper in the world why does not the village of Concord take it that its inhabitants may read it–& not the 2nd best. If the south sea explorers have at length got their story ready–& Congress has neglected to make it accessible to the people–why does not Concord purchase one for its grown up children. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

The Reverend Professor Francis Bowen’s articles responding to Waldo Emerson’s Divinity School Address were collected into a book, CRITICAL ESSAYS ON A FEW SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE HISTORY AND PRESENT CONDITION OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY.4

4. A 26-year-old Harvard College instructor, he had given an unsympathetic review of the new views in Emerson’s little NATURE. To discredit the idealistic philosophies which were seducing some Yankees, he wrote a series of articles for the Christian Examiner and the North American Review. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

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.

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

January: Although, before this date, Alexander von Humboldt was certainly known within scientific, political, and literary circles in the USA, for reviews of his work had been appearing in British magazines from at least 1810 and many of these, no doubt, were seen by American eyes, he seems not to have come into his own as a personage in the popular press until his COSMOS began appearing in English translation in 1845. An American who had followed the Edinburgh Review or the Quarterly Review (London) could have had an understanding of the nature of Humboldt’s writings and scientific theories without having glimpsed the volumes. Laura Dassow Walls has, however, been able to locate only one major article about Humboldt in the pre-COSMOS years in America, and it was an omnibus review of Humboldt’s works by Edward Everett in his North American Review of this date. In his review he took the tone of an educator introducing the American public

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW MASTER INDEX

to an important but hitherto little-known Continental writer. He acknowledged the unavailability of the volumes of Messrs. de Humboldt and Bonpland in America, “and few persons, who have not had occasion HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

particularly to inform themselves, are acquainted with the precise state of a series of works, not yet completed, which constitutes already an era in American history, natural and civil.” Works “so important to America” deserved “to be known and prized in this country”; accordingly, he offered an account of Humboldt’s travels and an enumeration of the principle works published to that date. Though billed as a review of the two latest volumes in the series covering the American explorations, VII and VIII, Everett apologized after twenty-five

pages for not having left himself room to do so and instead offered his readership a “specimen, instructive as well as amusing, of their contents.” Subsequently, in the years from 1845 through 1860, it would have been possible for an American to know who Humboldt was and what he stood for through reviews, accounts, gossip, biographies and memorials appearing not only in the North American Review and the New Englander but also such venues as the Methodist Quarterly and Godey’s Lady’s Book.

CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1837

January: The current issue of North American Review (Number XCIV). JAN. 1837, N.A. REVIEW MASTER INDEX

April: The current issue of North American Review (Number XCV). APR. 1837, N.A. REVIEW MASTER INDEX

The years 1835 and 1836 had been a period of prosperity for the nation as a whole as well as for business in Massachusetts. Railroads had been being established and were succeeding. Banks were paying dividends, stocks were doing just fine, and of course speculation had become rife. A major source of this prosperity, however, turned out to have been overlending to Americans by London banking houses, lending without adequate reserves. All this was happening even after President Andrew Jackson’s attempts at monetary reform, including a system he had set up of regional depository banks each with the authority to print paper money, and attempts to limit specie circulation by requiring that public lands be paid for in gold and silver, motivated by animosity towards the Bank of the United States. Things were just going too well. During this month a rush on the London houses revealed their lack of reserves, and railroad expansion and speculation in western land parcels ended suddenly, as did many industrial operations — and suddenly unemployed laborers began to riot.

THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

July: The current issue of North American Review (Number XCVI). JUL. 1837, N.A. REVIEW MASTER INDEX HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

October: The North American Review published a blistering anonymous 40-page attack on the work of Thomas Carlyle and on Harriet Martineau’s book sponsoring it, obviously by the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, that Harvard University Dexter Professor of Sacred Literature scourge of the Transcendentalists, the Reverend John G. Palfrey: “No living writer ...,” continues Miss Martineau, “exercises so enviable a sway, as far as it goes, as Mr. Carlyle.” There is much virtue in that clause, as far as it goes, inasmuch as, to supply this nation of fifteen millions, over which the author of the “SARTOR RESARTUS” “exercises so enviable a sway,” that work, — a work, too, which they have “taken to their hearts,” and which “is acting upon them with wonderful force,” — has, according to information on which we have the best reason to rely, been printed in but two editions, the first consisting of five hundred copies, and the second, after an interval of more than a year, being only twice as large.

SARTOR RESARTUS OCT. 1837, N.A. REVIEW SOCIETY OF TH. CARLYLE

Not only had the Transcendentalists sustained the American dissemination and publication of SARTOR RESARTUS, for they had proceeded directly to sponsor the publication here of his following book, his THE FRENCH REVOLUTION of 1837, and they would compound their error by proceeding directly to sponsor the publication here of his next work as well, his CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS ESSAYS of 1838. Carlyle’s American reputation would persist until, by denouncing the Union cause during the Civil War as mere niggerocracy, he would entirely alienate this Northern support group. (Those who had so eagerly bought and championed his writings in the 1830s and 1840s would conclude to their sorrow during the 1860s that they should all along have been distancing themselves from such a spirit.)

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

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

October: In about 1855 Henry Thoreau would read, and record extracts in his Indian Notebook #9, an article by Mr. George Washington Green, the United States Consul at Rome, entitled “Life and Voyages of Verrazzano,” in review of the volume Delle Navigazioni et Viaggi, raccolte da M. GIOVAM-BATTISTA RAMUSIO, IV. vol., fol.; Venezia, appresso i Giunti; (tom. iii. MDLXV., MDCVI.), on pages 293-310 in the current issue of North American Review (Number XCVII). VOYAGES OF VERRAZZANO OCT. 1837, N.A. REVIEW

(The issue here is whether the eyes of Captain Verrazano indeed had been the initial “white-man-eyes” to view the locale that would eventually become Rhode Island. One possibility would be that Verrazano’s claim to priority as of 1524, that had first seen publication in 1556, had been an accurate one, and another possibility would be that this claim had been based on a later forgery originating in a rivalry among Italian cities, each striving to out-lie all others about giving birth to great discoverers, for the honor of becoming the greatest braggart.)

Volume 1, Number 1, the 1st issue of John L. O’Sullivan’s The United States Magazine and Democratic Review, was published in New-York by J.& H.G. Langley. Thoreau would publish “Paradise (To Be) Regained” in this mag in 1843, about two years before he would begin “Civil Disobedience.” His “Civil Disobedience” would then feature a pseudo-quotation “That government is best which governs least” that our guy would adapt slightly from the masthead of this political mag. In the masthead, the quotation had appeared as the motto

“The Best Government Is That Which Governs Least.”

This was a quote from an article titled “Introduction: The Democratic Principle — The Importance of Its Assertion and Application” which had appeared on page 6 in this initial issue: “The best government is that which governs least. No human depositories can, with safety, be trusted with the power of legislation upon the HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

general interests of society so as to operate directly or indirectly on the industry and property of the community.” Although the article was unsigned, the editor –John Louis O’Sullivan– almost certainly was the author that Thoreau would adapt. Hence the 1st sentence of Thoreau’s essay on civil disobedience can only be characterized as ironic, and cannot be said to have derived directly from anything that President Jefferson had said or thought.5

Interestingly, when in Chapter 37 of THE AGE OF JACKSON, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. would attempt to render this political mag’s motto, he would produce it as “That government is best which governs least” — which instead of being the historical masthead was instead Thoreau’s more famous adaptation.

VOLUME 1 (October 1837 - March 1838) • Cover - Volume I • Issue 1 (October 1837) • Issue 2 (January 1838) • Issue 3 (February 1838) • Issue 4 (March 1838) VOLUME 2 (April 1838 - July 1838) • (Cover Missing) Picture of Persico’s Columbus • Issue 5 (April 1838) • Issue 6 (May 1838) • Issue 7 (June 1838) • Issue 8 (July 1838) VOLUME 3 (September 1838 - December 1838) • Cover - Volume III • Issue 9 (September 1838) • Issue 10 (October 1838) • Issue 11 (November 1838)

5. Lee A. Pederson, “Thoreau’s Source of the Motto in ‘Civil Disobedience,’” Thoreau Society Bulletin 67 HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

• Issue 12 (December 1838)

DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1839

July: The North American Review. JUL. 1839, N.A. REVIEW • Prison Discipline • Kant and his Philosophy • English Discoveries in the Ohio Valley • Engraving • Holbrook’s North American Herpetology • Davis’s Memoirs and Journal of Aaron Burr • Self-Cultivation of the Christian Minister (Samuel H. Stearns) • Bird’s Adventures of Robin Day • Critical Notices: Colman’s Agricultural Address Chandler’s Law Reporter Abbott’s Teacher The Moral Teacher Sawyer’s Mental Philosophy Leonard’s Practical Treatise on Arithmetic Ellet’s Characters of Schiller Travels of Father Hennepin Letters on Education in Kentucky Willis’s A l’Abri

October: The North American Review. OCT. 1839, N.A. REVIEW • Border Wars of the Revolution • Chateaubriand’s Sketches of English Literature • Milnes’s Poems • Schoolcraft’s Indian Tales and Legends • British American Politics • Cooper’s Naval History • Ramshorn’s Latin Synonymes • Life of General Van Renselaer • Critical Notices: Gill’s Mathematical Miscellany Marshall on the Constitution Foqué’s Undine Kinne’s Questions on Blackstone Otis’s Translation of the Tusculan Questions The Token and Atlantic Souvenir HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Beauties of Everest Hale on Typhoid Fever HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1851

September 27, Saturday: The Théâtre-Historiques, Paris, after refurbishment, was reopened for opera as the Théâtre-Lyrique.

September 27, Saturday: Here is a cloudy day–& now the fisherman is out. Some tall many-flowered blueish-white asters are still abundant by the brook sides. I never found a pitcher plant without an insect in it. The bristles about the nose of the pitcher all point inward, and insects which enter or fall in appear for this reason unable to get out again. It is some obstacle which our senses cannot appreciate. We of Massachusetts boast a good deal of what we do for the education of our people–of our district-school system–& yet our district schools are as it were but infant schools–& we have no system for the education of the great mass who are grown up.– I have yet to learn that one cent is spent by this town–this political community called Concord directly to educate the great mass of its inhabitants who have long since left the district school.– for the Lyceum–important as it is comparatively–though absolutely trifling is supported by individuals– There are certain refining & civilizing influences as works of art–journals–& books & scientific instruments–which this community is amply rich enough to purchase which would educate this village–elevate its tone of thought, & if it alone improved these opportunities easily make it the centre of civilization in the known world–put us on a level as to opportunities at once with London & Arcadia–and secure us a culture at once superior to both– Yet we spend 16000 dollars on a Town House a hall for our political meetings mainly– and nothing to educate ourselves who are grown up. Pray is there nothing in the market–no advantages– no intellectual food worth buying? Have Paris & London & New York & Boston nothing to dispose of which this Village might buy & appropriate to its own use. Might not this great villager adorn his villa with a few pictures & statues–enrich himself with a choice library as available without being cumbrous as any in the world–with scientific instruments for such as have a taste to use them. Yet we are contented to be countrified– to be provincial. I am astonished to find that in this 19th century–in this land of free schools–we spend absolutely nothing as a town on our own education cultivation civilization. Each town like each individual has its own character–some more some less cultivated. I know many towns so mean spirited & benighted that it would be a disgrace to belong to them. I believe that some of our New England villages within 30 miles of Boston are as boorish & barbarous communities as there are on the face of the earth–and how much superior are the best of them? If London has any refinement any information to sell why should we not buy it? Would not the town of Carlisle do well to spend 16000 dollars on its own education at once–if it could only find a schoolmaster for itself– It has one man as I hear who takes the North-American Review6–that will never Civilize them I fear– Why should not the town itself take the London & Edinburg Reviews–& put itself in communication with whatever sources of light & intelligence there are in the world? Yet Carlisle is very little behind Concord in these respects– I do not know but it spends its proportional part on education. How happens it that the only libraries which the towns possess are the District school libraries–books for children only–or for readers who must needs be written down to– Why should they not have a library, if not so extensive yet of the same stamp & more select than the British museum? It is not that the town cannot well 6. The North American Review:

MASTER INDEX HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

afford to buy these things–but it is unaspiring & ignorant of its own wants. It sells milk, but it only builds larger barns with the money which it gets for its milk. Undoubtedly every New England village is as able to surround itself with as many civilizing influences of this kind the members of the English nobility–& here there need be no peasantry. If the London Times is the best news-paper in the world why does not the village of Concord take it that its inhabitants may read it–& not the 2nd best. If the south sea explorers have at length got their story ready–& Congress has neglected to make it accessible to the people–why does not Concord purchase one for its grown up children. Parrot in his “journey to Ararat” speaking of the difficulty of reaching it owing to the lateness of the season– says of the surrounding country.–“As early even as the month of June vegetable life becomes in a manner extinct, from the combined influence of the sun’s rays, and the aridity of the atmosphere & soil: the plains & mountain sides, being destitute of both wood and water, have no covering but a scanty & burnt herbage, the roots of which are so rarely visited by a refreshing shower that the reparatory power of nature is all but lost, while the active animal kingdom seeks protection against the heat & drought either by burrowing in the earth, or retiring to the cool and inaccessible retreats in Caucasus and the mountains of Asia Minor.” This reminds me of what I have observed even in our own summers. With us too “vegetable life becomes in a manner extinct”–by the end of June & the beholder is impressed as if “the reparatory power of nature is? all but lost” 2 Pm Rowed down the river to Balls’ Hill. The maples by the river side look very green yet–have not begun to blush–nor are the leaves touched by frost. Not so on the uplands. The river is so low that off N Barrets shore some low islands are exposed covered with

a green grass like mildew. There are all kinds of boats chained to trees & stumps by the riverside–some from Boston & the salt–but I think that none after all is so suitable and convenient as the simple flat bottomed & light boat that has long been made here by the farmers themselves. They are better adapted to the river than those made in Boston. From Balls’ Hill the Great meadows now smoothly shorn have a quite imposing appearance–so spacious & level– There is so little of this level land in our midst. There is a shadow on the sides of the hills surrounding– (a cloudy day) & where the meadow meets them it is darkest. The shadow deepens down the woody hills & is most distinctly dark where they meet the meadow line. Now the sun in the west is coming out & lights up the river a mile off so that it shines with a white light like a burnished silver mirror The poplar tree seems quite important to the scene. The pastures are so dry that the cows have been turned on to the meadow, but they gradually devest it–all feeding one way– The patches of sunlight on the meadow look luridly yellow as if flames were traversing it. It is a day for fishermen. The farmers are gathering in their corn. The Mikania scandens & the button bushes & the Pickerel weed are sere & flat with frost. We looked down the long reach toward Carlisle bridge– The river which is as low as ever still makes a more than respectable appearance here–& is of generous width. Rambled over the hills toward Tarbells. The huckleberry bushes HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

appear to be unusually red this fall–reddening these hills– We scared a calf out of the meadow which ran like a ship tossed on the waves over the hills toward Tarbells. They run awkwardly–red oblong squares tossing up & down like a vessel in a storm–with great commotion. We fell into the path, printed by the feet of the calves– with no cows tracks. The note of the yellow hammer [Yellow-shafted Flicker Colaptes auratus] is heard from the edges of the fields. The soap-wort gentian looks like a flower prematurely killed by the frost. The soil of these fields look as yellowish white as the cornstalks themselves. Tarbells hip-roofed house looked the picture of retirement–of cottage size under its noble elm with its heap of apples before the door & the wood coming up with-in a few rods–It being far off the road. The smoke from his chimney so white & vaporlike like a winter scene. The lower limbs of the Willows & maples & buttonbushes are covered with the black & dry roots of the water-marygold & the ranunculi–plants with filiform capillary rootlike-submerged leaves. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1875

In this year and the following one, Henry Brooks Adams would serve as the editor of the North American Review.

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.

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

1940

Italy, Germany, and Japan signed a tripartite pact as the “axis powers.” The Japanese military occupied French Indochina (Vietnam) with approval by France (which is to say, with the approval of the Vichy government of collaborators) and announced that its intention was the creation of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.”

Founding in 1815 in Boston by William Tudor and the journalist Nathan Hale, the North American Review, the oldest American literary magazine, had come to be owned by a hack writer named Joseph Hilton Smyth. In this year this owner was unmasked as having received $125,000 from Manhattan’s Vice Consul Shintaro Fukushima in payment for publishing pro-Japanese sentiments, and so the magazine discontinued publication).

The Japanese tradition of the Cherry Blossom Pageant was introduced in Washington DC.

The Japanese military dropped bombs on the city of Ningbo in China containing fleas which they had carefully infected with the bubonic plague. HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

The Japanese military introduced typhoid fever and cholera into China by way of Chekiang Province. WORLD WAR II GERM WARFARE

THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT

COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2015. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at .

“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST

North American Review “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Prepared: November 8, 2015 HDT WHAT? INDEX

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

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

NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW

Commonly, the first output of the algorithm has obvious deficiencies and we need to go back into the modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and recompile the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.

First come first serve. There is no charge. Place requests with . Arrgh.