HDT WHAT? INDEX 1818 1818 EVENTS OF 1817 General Events of 1818 SPRING JANUARY FEBRUARY MARCH SUMMER APRIL MAY JUNE FALL JULY AUGUST SEPTEMBER WINTER OCTOBER NOVEMBER DECEMBER Following the death of Jesus Christ there was a period of readjustment that lasted for approximately one million years. –Kurt Vonnegut, THE SIRENS OF TITAN January February March Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 29 30 31 April May June Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 26 27 28 29 30 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 28 29 30 31 July August September EVENTS OF 1819 HDT WHAT? INDEX 1818 1818 Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 4 1 1 2 3 4 5 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 26 27 28 29 30 31 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 27 28 29 30 30 31 October November December Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1 2 3 4 5 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 29 30 27 28 29 30 31 THE RHODE-ISLAND ALMANACK FOR 1818. By Isaac Bickerstaff. Providence, Rhode Island: Hugh H. Brown. At about this point the family of Arnold Henri Guyot relocated from Boudevilliers, where the lad had been a student at La Chaux-de-Fonds, to Hauterive near Neuchâtel. John Farmer’s “A Topographical and Historical Description of the County of Hillsborough, New Hampshire” (2 COLL. MASS. HIST. SOC. VII. BOSTON). CASTLES IN THE AIR; OR, THE WHIMS OF MY AUNT. A NOVEL. BY THE AUTHORESS OF “DUNETHVIN; OR, A VISIT TO PARIS,” in three volumes (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, Paternoster Row). WALDEN: I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them. CASTLES IN THE AIR HDT WHAT? INDEX 1818 1818 Edward Hitchcock resigned as principal of Deerfield Academy. He discontinued publication of his COUNTRY ALMANAC and entered Yale College’s theological seminary. Orra White Hitchcock’s colored drawing “A View of the Falls on the Connecticut River at Gill, Mass.” appeared in Portfolio Magazine (Philadelphia). Göran Wahlenberg described the glaciation of the Scandinavian peninsula as a mere regional phenomenon. Ignaz Venetz was persuaded by Jean-Pierre Perraudin that some of the Alpine glaciers they could view had, once upon a time, extended some 5 kilometers beyond their present extents. OUR MOST RECENT GLACIATION Posthumous publication of Dr. William Charles Wells 1813 hypothesis about selection and human evolution (Charles Darwin would later acknowledge that this had been the 1st anticipation of his principle of natural selection as yet recognized in pre-1859 scientific literature). • Wells: “[What was done for animals artificially] seems to be done with equal efficiency, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first scattered inhabitants, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would multiply while the others would decrease, and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the [African] climate, at length [they would] become the most prevalent, if not the only race.” • Darwin: “In this paper he [Wells] distinctly recognizes the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturalists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then he adds, but what is done in this latter case by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit.” THE SCIENCE OF 1818 Carl Phillip Gottfried von Clausewitz was promoted to Major-General and named director of the Prussian War Academy (Preußische Kriegsakademie) in Berlin, an administrative post that he would occupy until 1830. During these dozen years he would devote himself primarily to research into the differential effectiveness of various techniques of warfare. Nicolò Paganini offered concerts in Turin and Piacenza, where he met the violinist Karol Lipinski. He went on to Bologna, where he met Marina Banti and they contemplated marriage. He also met Rossini, the singer Isabella Colbran, and the sopranist Crescentini. Nathan Roberts was made resident engineer on the Erie Canal between Rome and Syracuse. A Southern Route was proposed for the Erie Canal. Construction was begun on an aqueduct to carry the canal across Rochester’s Irondequoit Valley. HDT WHAT? INDEX 1818 1818 Walter Savage Landor fell afoul of the libel laws of Italy, which he had not realized to be somewhat different from the libel laws of England. Thinking it to be as safe in Italy as in England, he wrote a Latin poem that contained an insult to the authorities. When it was pointed out to him that although this sort of thing might be OK in England, it was definitely not OK in Italy, he would respond by threatening to beat up the regio delegato — and would be ordered out of the area. The affair makes you want to praise the Italian authorities for their restraint. They could have locked him up and thrown away the key. However, the case of Amanda Knox this was not. Anna Cummings Johnson was born (or so it is said). HDT WHAT? INDEX 1818 1818 IAMBLICHUS’ LIFE OF PYTHAGORAS, OR, PYTHAGORIC LIFE. ACCOMPANIED BY FRAGMENTS OF THE ETHICAL WRITINGS OF CERTAIN PYTHAGOREANS IN THE DORIC DIALECT; AND A COLLECTION OF PYTHAGORIC SENTENCES FROM STOBÆUS AND OTHERS, WHICH ARE OMITTED BY GALE IN HIS OPUSCULA MYTHOLOGICA, AND HAVE NOT BEEN NOTICED BY ANY EDITOR. TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK. BY THOMAS TAYLOR ... (London: J.M. Watkins). “PYTHAGORIC LIFE” Henry Thoreau would copy materials from this into his Literary Notebook, that would appear in several contexts in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS. A WEEK: Music is the sound of the universal laws promulgated. PEOPLE OF It is the only assured tone. There are in it such strains as far A WEEK surpass any man’s faith in the loftiness of his destiny. Things are to be learned which it will be worth the while to learn. Formerly I heard these RUMORS FROM AN AEOLIAN HARP. There is a vale which none hath seen, Where foot of man has never been, Such as here lives with toil and strife, An anxious and a sinful life. There every virtue has its birth, Ere it descends upon the earth, And thither every deed returns, Which in the generous bosom burns. There love is warm, and youth is young, And poetry is yet unsung, For Virtue still adventures there, And freely breathes her native air.