PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
PEOPLE ALMOST MENTIONED IN WALDEN:
RICHARD LOVELACE
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION,
THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
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WALDEN: Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely
necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in
tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep
around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it
deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living
honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question
which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am
become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the
railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers
locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every
man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and,
having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least,
get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid,
and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This
did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable
alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and,
whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord
dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the
rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen
to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is
a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot
so be disposed of.
PEOPLE OF
WALDEN
RICHARD LOVELACE
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1617
December 6, Saturday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace was born, either in Kent, England where the family owned
considerable property, or in Holland, the 1st son of Sir William Lovelace with Anne Barne Lovelace.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
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1627
August 12, Sunday (Old Style): When Richard Lovelace was 9 years 8 months, and 3 days of age, his father Sir
William Lovelace died at the siege of Grol in Holland.
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.
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1629
While Richard Lovelace was 11 years of age, King Charles I nominated “Thomas Lovelace,” upon petition
of the mother, Anne Barne Lovelace, to Sutton’s foundation at the Charterhouse school in London, and
presumably “Thomas” was a mistake for “Richard.” We don’t know whether during the 5 years he was there
he was attending the Charterhouse classes, or was being privately tutored. We do know that for 3 of these 5
years he was studying alongside Richard Crashaw, who would also become a poet.
The Parliament to which Oliver Cromwell had been elected was dissolved by King Charles I because it failed
to vote him money. Oliver would take up farming in Huntingdon and become a convert to Puritanism. Charles
would until 1640 rule personally (this would prove to be something of a mistake of judgment for, with the
parliament dissolved, the cloth trade slumping, and bad harvests, of course there would be nobody to blame
but Charley).
THE FUTURE IS MOST READILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
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PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
1631
May 5, Thursday (Old Style): At the age of 13 Richard Lovelace took the oath as a “Gentleman Wayter Extraordinary”
to King Charles I (for this entirely honorary and nominal court position, the family had needed to pay a fee).
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
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RICHARD LOVELACE
PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
1634
June 27, Friday (Old Style): At the age of 16 Richard Lovelace matriculated as a Gentleman Commoner at Gloucester
Hall of Oxford University, where he would be recognized by one of his contemporaries, Anthony Wood,
as “the most amiable and beautiful person that ever eye beheld; a person also of innate modesty, virtue and
courtly deportment, which made him then, but especially after, when he retired to the great city, much admired
and adored by the female sex.”
He was the cat’s pajamas.
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND
YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
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1635
While Richard Lovelace was at Oxford University, he authored a comedy “The Scholars” that was performed
in Oxford and then London.
In Salop, England, an immensely old man named Thomas Parr died. He claimed to have been born in 1483,
and to have lived 152 years. (As our birth records have improved over the centuries, fewer and fewer old folks
have been living this long!) Thus we have:
WALDEN: What is the pill which will keep us well, serene,
contented? Not my or thy great-grandfather’s but our greatgrandmother Nature’s universal, vegetable, botanic medicines, by
which she has kept herself young always, outlived so many old
Parrs in her day, and fed her health with their decaying fatness.
For my panacea, instead of one of those quack vials of a mixture
dipped from Acheron and the Dead Sea, which come out of those long
shallow black-schooner looking wagons which we sometimes see made
to carry bottles, let me have a draught of undiluted morning air.
If men will not drink of this at the fountain-head of the day,
why, then, we must even bottle up some and sell it in the shops,
for the benefit of those who have lost their subscription ticket
to morning time in this world. But remember, it will not keep
quite till noon-day even in the coolest cellar, but drive out the
stopples long ere that and follow westward the steps of Aurora.
I am no worshipper of Hygeia, who was the daughter of that old
herb-doctor Æsculapius, and who is represented on monuments
holding a serpent in one hand, and in the other a cup out of which
the serpent sometimes drinks; but rather of Hebe, cupbearer to
Jupiter, who was the daughter of Juno and wild lettuce, and who
had the power of restoring gods and men to the vigor of youth.
She was probably the only thoroughly sound-conditioned, healthy,
and robust young lady that ever walked the globe, and wherever
she came it was spring.
PEOPLE OF
WALDEN
THOMAS PARR
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THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT
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1636
August 30, Tuesday (Old Style): At 18 years of age, at the completion of 2 years of study and a 3-week celebration at
Oxford University, Richard Lovelace received the degree of Master of Arts. Soon he would meet the Royalist
politician George Goring, 1st Earl of Norwich and get himself into some political hot water.
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1637
October 4, Wednesday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace entered Cambridge University. At the age of 19 he contributed
a verse to a volume of elegies commemorating Princess Katharine.
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1638
Richard Lovelace’s poems began to appear in print, such as “An Elegie. Princesse Katherine borne, christened,
buried, in one day” (presumably referring to a female infant of King Charles I that had had January 29, 1637
as its single day of mortal existence):
AN ELEGIE. PRINCESSE KATHERINE
BORNE, CHRISTENED, BURIED, IN ONE DAY.
You, that can haply [aptly?] mixe your joyes with cries,
And weave white Ios with black Elegies,
Can caroll out a dirge, and in one breath
Sing to the tune either of life, or death;
You, that can weepe the gladnesse of the spheres,
And pen a hymne, in stead of inke, with teares;
Here, here your unproportion’d wit let fall,
To celebrate this new-borne funerall,
And greete that little greatnesse, which from th’ wombe
Dropt both a load to th’ cradle and the tombe.
Bright soule! teach us, to warble with what feet
Thy swathing linnen and thy winding sheet,
Weepe [Mourne?], or shout forth that fonts solemnitie,
Which at once christn’d and buried [buried, and christ’ned?] thee,
And change our shriller passions with that sound,
First told thee into th’ ayre, then to [?] the ground.
Ah, wert thou borne for this? only to call
The King and Queen guests to your buriall!
To bid good night, your day not yet begun,
And shew a setting, ere a rising sun!
Or wouldst thou have thy life a martyrdom?
Dye in the act of thy religion,
Fit, excellently, innocently good,
First sealing it with water, then thy blood?
As when on blazing wings a blest man sores,
And having past to God through fiery dores,
Straight ’s roab’d with flames, when the same element,
Which was his shame, proves now his ornament;
Oh, how he hast’ned death, burn’t to be fryed [freed],
Kill’d twice with each delay, till deified.
So swift hath been thy race, so full of flight,
Like him condemn’d, ev’n aged with a night,
Cutting all lets with clouds, as if th’ hadst been
Like angels plum’d, and borne a Cherubin.
Or, in your journey towards heav’n, say,
Tooke you the world a little in your way?
Saw’st and dislik’st its vaine pompe, then didst flye
Up for eternall glories to the skye?
Like a religious ambitious one,
Aspiredst for the everlasting crowne?
Ah! holy traytour to your brother prince,
Rob’d of his birth-right and preheminence!
Could you ascend yon’ chaire of state e’re him,
And snatch from th’ heire the starry diadem?
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Making your honours now as much uneven,
As gods on earth are lesse then saints in heav’n.
Triumph! sing triumphs, then! Oh, put on all
Your richest lookes, drest for this festivall!
Thoughts full of ravisht reverence, with eyes
So fixt, as when a saint we canonize;
Clap wings with Seraphins before the throne
At this eternall coronation,
And teach your soules new mirth, such as may be
Worthy this birth-day to divinity.
But ah! these blast your feasts, the jubilies
We send you up are sad, as were our cries,
And of true joy we can expresse no more
Thus crown’d, then when we buried thee before.
Princesse in heav’n, forgivenes! whilst we
Resigne our office to the HIERARCHY.
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1639
Richard Lovelace joined the regiment of Lord Goring as a senior ensign, serving in the First Scottish
Expedition during the Bishops’ Wars. He would be made a captain. This would inspire his “Sonnet. To
Generall Goring,” a poem that was not so much a glorification of military action as a Bacchanalian celebration.
William Davenant became the manager of a new theatre in Drury Lane of London. His vigorous participation
in civil war on the side of the monarchy would, however, interfere with his career prospects.
The imposition of an English prayer-book in Scotland provoked rebellion and led to the 1st Bishops’ War
between King Charles I and the Scottish Church made up of rebellious Presbyterians. Since this king had not
since 1629 been able to call a Parliament for fear of what it might do, he was hard put to finance this war and
would turn to the system of knighthood fines, fines for the enclosure of forests and common land, excise taxes
on domestically produced goods, and “ship money” — levies upon inland towns supposedly to be used to
finance the English navy.1 Another expedient would be the sale by the government of monopolistic rights of
manufacture, trade, and sale. The most despised of these royally chartered monopolies would be a Merchant
Adventurers Company which had purchased from the monarch the sole right for any and all trade in textiles.
The anonymous pamphlet A DISCOURSE FOR FREE TRADE called for the removal of their charter.2 In the
proposed Leveler constitution, commerce was to be free from this sort of government intervention:3
That it shall not be in their power to continue or make any Laws
to abridge or hinder any person or persons, from trading or
merchandizing into any place beyond the Seas, where any of this
Nation are free to Trade.
1. While King Charles I was in Scotland, he cured a thousand scrofula patients — but evidently it was not the custom for a monarch
to charge for such miraculous hand-of-God-in-the-King cures.
2. Gregg, Pauline. FREE-BORN JOHN. London: Dent, 1986, page 118
3. “An Agreement of the People,” in Aylmer, G.E., ed. THE LEVELERS IN THE ENGLISH REVOLUTION. London: Thames and Hudson,
1975, page 165
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1640
William Davenant’s Salmacida Spolia.
In approximately this year the playwright John Ford died.
Commissioned as a captain in the Second Scottish Expedition; Richard Lovelace wrote a tragedy,
“The Soldier,” based on his own experience in the military. Returning to Kent at 21 to take possession of his
family’s property, he would begin the life of a country gentleman including serving as a local Justice of the
Peace. He authored “To Lucasta, Going to the Warres,” in which we discover the infamous masculinist put-off,
I could not love thee, dear, so much,
Lov’d I not Honour more.
During the following decade of civil war in England Edward Benlowes would be composing his THEOPHILA,
OR LOVES SACRIFICE, a long poem about the progress of the soul toward mystic communion with God.
He would be siding with the Cavalier cause of the monarch Charles I, which would eventually mean that he
would forfeit much of his estate.
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1641
William Habington’s OBSERVATIONS VPON HISTORIE (Printed by T. Cotes for Will. Cooke, and are to be sold
at his shop, neere Furnivalls-Inne gate in Holborne), created in collaboration with his father Sir Thomas
Habington.
At a meeting in Maidstone, Kent, Richard Lovelace led a group of men who seized and destroyed a proParliament, anti-Episcopacy petition which had been signed by 15,000 Englishmen, for the abolition of
Episcopal rule.
Due to the onset of the English Civil War, in Broadwindsor the Reverend Thomas Fuller, his curate Henry
Sanders, the churchwardens, and five others needed to certify that each and every adult male of their parish,
242 in total, had sworn the Protestation oath that had been ordered by the speaker of the Long Parliament.
Although he would not be formally dispossessed of his living and prebend on the triumph of the Presbyterian
party, at about this period he would relinquish both preferments. For a short time he would preach at the Inns
of Court and then, at the invitation of Walter Balcanqual, the master of the Savoy, and the brotherhood of that
foundation, he would become lecturer at their chapel of St Mary Savoy. Sometimes his hearers there would
overflow the structure and stand in the chapel-yard looking in at the windows and doors. In one of his sermons
he would set forth the hindrances to peace, and urge the signing of peace petitions directed both to King
Charles I at Oxford, and to the Parliament.
DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD.
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1642
April 30, Saturday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace and Sir William Boteler (a persecutor of the Quakers of
Northamptonshire) presented to the House of Commons a “Kentish Petition” for the restoration of the
Anglican Liturgy, the maintenance of the bench of Bishops and “a good understanding between King and
Parliament” (a similar petition by Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden Dering and Sir Roger Twysden had only
recently been found seditious and publicly torched by the Common Hangman). Parliament committed Boteler
to the Fleet Prison and Lovelace to the Gatehouse Prison in Westminster (this structure had once been the
gatehouse to Westminster Abbey).
June 21, Tuesday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace had appealed his imprisonment and was released on stipulation that
he refrain from any further such political stunts, pledging to attempt no communication with the House of
Commons without explicit permission (his bail bond of £10,000 would prevent him from participating in the
1st phase of the English Civil War, although he had done everything to demonstrate himself a loyal Cavalier
of the crown during the Bishops’ Wars). He would do everything he could to remain in King Charles I’s favor
despite his inability to join against the revolutionaries. During travel to Holland with General Goring he
created “The Rose,” followed by “The Scrutiny.”
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August 22, Monday (Old Style): The standard of King Charles I was raised at Nottingham.
Richard Lovelace wrote “To Lucasta” and “To Althea from Prison.” In addition to the famous couplet
“Stone walls do not a prison make / Nor iron bars a cage,” this 2d poem ended with a verse that would wind
up being referenced by Henry Thoreau in WALDEN:
If I have freedom in my love,
and in my soul am free, –
Angels alone that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
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WALDEN: Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely
necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in
tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep
around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it
deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living
honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question
which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am
become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the
railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers
locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every
man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and,
having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least,
get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid,
and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This
did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable
alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and,
whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord
dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the
rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen
to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is
a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot
so be disposed of.
PEOPLE OF
WALDEN
RICHARD LOVELACE
When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at the grates;
When I lie tangled in her hair
And fetter’d to her eye,
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The birds that wanton in the air
Know no such liberty.
When flowing cups run swiftly round
With no allaying Thames,
Our careless heads with roses bound,
Our hearts with loyal flames;
When thirsty grief in wine we steep,
When healths and draughts go free–
Fishes that tipple in the deep
Know no such liberty.
When, like committed linnets, I
With shriller throat shall sing
The sweetness, mercy, majesty,
And glories of my King;
When I shall voice aloud how good
He is, how great should be,
Enlargèd winds, that curl the flood,
Know no such liberty.
Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage;
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage;
If I have freedom in my love
And in my soul am free,
Angels alone, that soar above,
Enjoy such liberty.
September: Richard Lovelace went to Holland and France with General Goring, writing on the trip “The Rose” and
“The Scrutiny.”
The arms of the Agawam and other tribes, which had been taken from them because it had been suspected that
they were intending to rise against the English, were at this point returned to them.
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1643
Richard Lovelace, in financial straits, sold some of his family property in Kent to Richard Hulse of Great
Chart.
Because scarlet was one of the traditional colors of the British monarchy –the other color was blue but that
color was already in use by the King’s officers– Parliament authorized British infantrymen to wear scarlet
jackets. (The exact designation was “Venice Colour Red.”) The retention of these scarlet coats among British
infantry until 1882 was not as reactionary as it sounds. For example, sweat-stained scarlet is hard to see at a
distance, and hides blood stains well. Also, long-range identification depends more on the shape of a soldier’s
cap or pack than the color of his clothes.
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1646
October: Richard Lovelace was wounded at Dunkirk while fighting as a Colonel in the French army under General
Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé, against the army of the Spaniards.
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1647
October 26, Saturday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace was admitted as a freeman of the Painter Stainers’ Company.
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1648
February 4, Friday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace’s LUCASTA was licensed at the Stationer’s Register.
June 9, Friday (Old Style): During the political chaos of this year in England, Richard Lovelace attempted to play his
Cavalier loyalist role and was rewarded with another punishment by the Parliamentarians. A warrant for his
arrest was issued on this day. This time he would be held for nearly a year at Peter House nearly opposite
Shaftesbury House on Aldersgate-street in London (this had been the town mansion of Henry Pierrepoint,
Marquess of Dorchester and was being utilized by the Parliamentarians as a holding pen for Royalist
gentlemen).
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1649
April 10, Tuesday (Old Style): Richard Lovelace was paroled from Peter House subsequent to the beheading of his
monarch (the loyalty of a political careerist being no longer a threat once there is no longer anyone who could
offer rewards for being loyal). In need to support his gentlemanly lifestyle, he would vend the remainder of
his family property and portraits to Richard Hulse.
May 14, Monday (Old Style): Publication of Richard Lovelace’s volume of poetry, LUCASTA (he created “The Ant,”
“The Grasse-hopper,” “The Snayl,” “The Falcon,” and “The Toad and Spyder”).
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1658
April: Richard Lovelace died before reaching the age of 40 in Gunpowder Alley near Shoe Lane and was buried at
St Bride’s Church on Fleet Street in London.4
4. There is a record of a “Dudley” Lovelace being buried at St Bride’s Church on April 5, 1657 and there is the possibility that this
record is an inaccuracy pertaining actually to Richard Lovelace. (Hard to say.)
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1660
Robert Boyle made himself the initial European to mention that gunpowder had revolutionized European
warfare. (Duh, you suppose?)
Richard Lovelace’s brother arranged for a posthumous LUCASTA: POSTUME POEMS, containing “A MockSong.”
A Mock-Song.
Now Whitehall’s in the grave,
And our head is our slave,
The bright pearl in his close shell of oyster;
Now the miter is lost,
The proud prelates, too, crossed
And all Rome’s confined to a cloister;
He that Tarquin was styled,
Our white land’s exiled,
Yea undefiled,
Not a court ape’s left to confute us;
Then let your voices rise high,
As your colors did fly,
And flourishing cry,
“Long live the brave Oliver-Brutus.”
Now the sun is unarmed,
And the moon by us charmed,
All the stars dissolved to a jelly;
Now the thighs of the crown
And the arms are lopped down,
And the body is all but a belly;
Let the Commons go on,
The town is our own,
We’ll rule alone;
For the knights have yielded their spent gorge;
And an order is ta’en
With HONI SOIT profane,
Shout forth amain,
For our dragon hath vanquished the St. George.
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1795
All 14 volumes of Robert Anderson’s Edinburgh edition of THE WORKS OF THE BRITISH POETS, WITH
PREFACES BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, that occupied him from 1792 into 1807, would bear the nominal date
of 1795. (It is said that Henry Thoreau would copy poems by Sir William Drummond of Hawthornden,
Thomas Carew, George Peele, Samuel Daniel, Richard Lovelace, Lawrence Minot, and the Reverend John
Donne from Volumes IV and V of this anthology; I am however unable to locate anything by Peele in these
volumes.)
WORKS, VOLUME IV
WORKS, VOLUME V
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1843
In about this year, it is alleged, Henry Thoreau copied into his literary notebook, from Robert Anderson,
M.D.’s THE WORKS OF THE BRITISH POETS, WITH PREFACES BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL, extracts from
George Peele’s The Arraignment of Paris, Edward the First, The Old Wives Tale, David and Bethsabe, The
battle of Alcazaar, The beginning, Accidents, and End of the Fall of Troy, Polyhymnia, The Honor of the
Garter, and The Anglorum Feriæ, England’s Holidays (I have been, however, unable to locate Peele in this set
of volumes, and thus I have substituted other random electronic editions below).
Where is he?
ARAYGNEMENT OF PARIS
KING EDWARD THE FIRST
THE OLD WIVES TALE
DAVID AND BETHSABE
THE BATTLE OF ALCAZAAR
THE FALL OF TROY
POLYHYMNIA
THE HONOR OF THE GARTER
ANGLORUM FERIÆ
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October 22, Sunday: Thoreau expressed, in his journal, an attitude toward Richard Lovelace, that he was “what his
name expresses — of slight material to make a poets fame— His goings and comings are of no great account.
His taste is not so much love of the good as fear of the bad — though in one or two instances he has written
fearlessly and memorably.”
(Thoreau at some point extracted from Lovelace’s “To Lucasta on Going to the Wars,” “To Althea from
Prison,” “To His Dear Brother Colonel F.L.,” “The ant,” “The Snail,” “On Mrs. Elizabeth Filmer,” and “Ode”
into his literary notebook.)
October 22: Donne was not a poet — but a man of strong sense, — a sturdy English thinker— Full of
conceits and whimsicalities hammering away at his subject be it eulogy or Epitaph —sonnet or satire — with
the patience of a day laboror — without the least taste, but with an occasional fine distinction and poetic
utterance of a high order. He was rather Doctor Donne than the poet Donne. He gropes for the most part. His
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letters are perhaps best.
WALDEN: Consider first how slight a shelter is absolutely
necessary. I have seen Penobscot Indians, in this town, living in
tents of thin cotton cloth, while the snow was nearly a foot deep
around them, and I thought that they would be glad to have it
deeper to keep out the wind. Formerly, when how to get my living
honestly, with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question
which vexed me even more than it does now, for unfortunately I am
become somewhat callous, I used to see a large box by the
railroad, six feet long by three wide, in which the laborers
locked up their tools at night, and it suggested to me that every
man who was hard pushed might get such a one for a dollar, and,
having bored a few auger holes in it, to admit the air at least,
get into it when it rained and at night, and hook down the lid,
and so have freedom in his love, and in his soul be free. This
did not appear the worst, nor by any means a despicable
alternative. You could sit up as late as you pleased, and,
whenever you got up, go abroad without any landlord or house-lord
dogging you for rent. Many a man is harassed to death to pay the
rent of a larger and more luxurious box who would not have frozen
to death in such a box as this. I am far from jesting. Economy is
a subject which admits of being treated with levity, but it cannot
so be disposed of.
PEOPLE OF
WALDEN
RICHARD LOVELACE
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1846
July 23, Thursday or 24, Friday: Henry Thoreau provoked Sheriff Sam Staples, who was under contract as the
Concord tax farmer, into taking him illegally to the Middlesex County Prison5and spent the night there, for
having for several years (up to perhaps 9), following the example of Bronson Alcott, refused to pay certain
taxes as useful for the perpetuation of domestic slavery and foreign wars.6
“RESISTANCE TO CIVIL GOVERNMENT”: It was formerly the custom in our
village, when a poor debtor came out of jail, for his
acquaintances to salute him, looking through their fingers, which
were crossed to represent the grating of a jail window, “How do
ye do?” My neighbors did not thus salute me, but first looked at
me, and then at one another, as if I had returned from a long
journey. I was put into jail as I was going to the shoemaker’s to
get a shoe which was mended. When I was let out the next morning,
I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended
shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put
themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour —for the horse
was soon tackled— was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one
of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was
nowhere to be seen.
This is the whole history of “My Prisons.”
I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as
desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject;
and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my
fellow-countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the taxbill that I refuse to pay it.
5. The usual penalty for failure to pay the Massachusetts poll tax was property seizure and auction upon failure to display a stamped
tax receipt, and was most certainly never imprisonment, but young Thoreau possessed few auctionable items and probably did not
use a bank account.
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(I find it fascinating that Thoreau did not ever, in reminiscing about his famous night in the lockup, make any
easy reference to the snippet of poetry that was quite as familiar to him as it is to all of us, from Richard
Lovelace’s “To Althea from Prison.” –Thoreau wasn’t going for a hole-in-one!)
Walter Harding has tracked down what may well be the origin of the often-told but utterly spurious story,
that Waldo Emerson came to visit Thoreau in his prison cell and expressed concern: he found a “Bringing Up
Father” cartoon strip in the newspaper, in which Paddy was in jail for drunkenness, and when Jiggs asks him
how come he was in jail Paddy retorts “How come you’re not?”
Alcott has reported that Emerson’s reaction to the news of this was to find Thoreau’s stand to have been
“mean and skulking, and in bad taste.” Therefore, is this not the point at which we can profitably ask,
was Thoreau merely running away from his social responsibilities, as has been so often alleged, when he went
out to live at Walden Pond? Let’s attach the humorous title “DECAMPING TO WALDEN POND: A GENDER
ANALYSIS BY MARTHA SAXTON”7 to the following quotation:
It seems, from exaggerated nineteenth-century sex
definitions, that Victorians were afraid men and women
might not be able to distinguish gender. So women were
trussed, corseted, and bustled into immobility while
men posed in musclebound attitudes of emotionless
strength. this suppression of tenderness, warmth, and
most expressions of feelings produced the male
equivalent of the vapors. Louisa [May Alcott]’s
teacher and secret love, Henry David Thoreau, decamped
to Walden Pond rather than confront social demands that
he be conventionally “male.”
6. During the one year 1845, in Massachusetts, the “poll tax” had been being reckoned as if it were a state tax, although in all other
years it had been and would be reckoned as a municipality or county tax. As a town tax, and as a county tax, of course, it could
hardly be considered to be in support of slavecatching or of foreign wars, since neither the Massachusetts towns nor the
Massachusetts counties engaged in either slavecatching or the raising of armies. Also, even in the one year 1845, while this tax was
being considered as a state tax, under the law no part of this revenue was to be used for the catching of fugitive slaves, and no foreign
war was going on at the moment (the march upon Mexico had not yet fairly begun). Thoreau, therefore, in declining to pay
voluntarily this tax bill, actually was not refusing to acknowledge slavery, as alleged, or a war effort, as alleged, but was refusing
to recognize any political organization whatever.
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Another member of the Thoreau family, we don’t know who, paid the tax for him, as the tax had previously
been paid by Judge Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar when Alcott had almost been jailed on January 17, 1843.
Although Emerson was irritated no end by such unseemly conduct, on the part of an associate, as failure to pay
one’s share of the general tax burden, to his credit he did continue to press for publication of Thoreau’s A WEEK
ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS manuscript. However, at that time Thoreau was still preparing
additions to the second draft.8
7. On page 226 of her LOUISA MAY: A MODERN BIOGRAPHY OF LOUISA MAY ALCOTT, Saxton accused Thoreau of “unrelenting
misogyny” as her way of elaborating on Bronson Alcott’s remark of November 5, 1858 that Thoreau was “better poised and more
nearly self-sufficient than other men.” This caused me to look back to her title page and inspect the date of publication and say to
myself, “Yeah, this thing was published back in 1977, the bad old days when we thought we had to combat male sexism by nurturing
prejudice against anyone with a penis.”
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8.
Lawrence, Jerome (1915-2004) and Robert Edwin Lee (1918-1994), THE NIGHT THOREAU SPENT IN JAIL: A
PLAY. NY: Hill and Wang, 1971, Spotlight Dramabook #1223, c1970, c1972
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I should make reference here to a snide remark that Albert J. von Frank has included at page 202 of his
AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY.1 The sentence is as follows, in its entirety: “Henry Thoreau expressed
his own anti-politics a month later by spending a night in jail for tax evasion, an act
that drew Emerson’s quick disapproval, thought the principles behind the act, as Thoreau
explained in ‘Civil Disobedience,’ had more in common with Emerson’s own position than
he then suspected.” Now here are the things that I suppose to be quite wrongheaded about von Frank’s
assertion, which would seem on its face simply to be praising Thoreau against Emerson:
•
•
•
“anti-politics” Thoreau’s act was not an act of anti-politics but an act of politics.
To privilege assent over dissent in such a manner constitutes an unconscionable expression
of mere partisanship.
“tax evasion” Thoreau’s act was not the act of a tax evader. A tax evader is a cheater,
who is trying through secrecy or deception to get away with something. Thoreau’s act was the
deliberate public act of a man who would rather be imprisoned than assist in ongoing killing, and
thus is in an entirely separate category from such cheating. To conflate two such separate
categories, one of self-service and the other of self-abnegation, into a single category,
in such manner, is, again, an unconscionable expression of prejudicial politics.
“had more in common” The implication here is that Emerson’s attitudes constitute the
baseline for evaluation of Thoreau’s attitudes, so that Thoreau may be condescendingly praised
for imitating Emerson whenever the two thinkers can be made to seem in agreement,
while preserving the option of condemning him as a resistor or worse whenever these
contemporaries seem at loggerheads. –But this is unconscionable.
Albert J. von Frank. AN EMERSON CHRONOLOGY. NY: G.K. Hall & Co. and Toronto:
Maxwell Macmillan International, 1994
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Emerson to his journal:
These rabble at Washington are really better than the snivelling
opposition. They have a sort of genius of a bold & manly cast,
though Satanic. They see, against the unanimous expression of
the people, how much a little well directed effrontery can
achieve, how much crime the people will bear, & they proceed
from step to step & it seems they have calculated but too justly
upon your Excellency, O Governor Briggs. Mr Webster told them
how much the war cost, that was his protest, but voted the war,
& sends his son to it. They calculated rightly on Mr Webster.
My friend Mr Thoreau has gone to jail rather than pay his tax.
On him they could not calculate. The abolitionists denounce the
war & give much time to it, but they pay the tax.
The State is a poor good beast who means the best: it means
friendly. A poor cow who does well by you — do not grudge it its
hay. It cannot eat bread as you can, let it have without grudge
a little grass for its four stomachs. It will not stint to yield
you milk from its teat. You who are a man walking cleanly on two
feet will not pick a quarrel with a poor cow. Take this handful
of clover & welcome. But if you go to hook me when I walk in the
fields, then, poor cow, I will cut your throat.
DANIEL WEBSTER
We now understand that Sheriff Sam was considerably twisting the law under which he confined Thoreau for
nonpayment of that $5 or $6 arrears of poll tax, and for his own convenience. For what the law of the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts required him to do in regard to such a tax resistor, prior to debt
imprisonment, was to attempt to seize and sell some of Thoreau’s assets, such as the books he had in storage
in his parents’ boardinghouse in Concord. Sheriff Staples hadn’t been inclined to do this and at this point didn’t
have time because he was leaving office — and the sad fact of the matter is that, since he was merely under
contract as a “tax farmer,” had he vacated his position without collecting this money from the Thoreau family,
Massachusetts would simply have deducted the sum from his final paycheck (bottom line, The Man always
takes his cut). For here is that law, and it simply offers no support whatever for what Sheriff Staples did to put
pressure on Thoreau:
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Section 7. If any person shall refuse or neglect to pay his [poll]
tax, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of
his goods, excepting the good following, namely:
• The tools or implements necessary for his trade or
occupation;
• beasts of the plow necessary for the cultivation of his
improved lands;
• military arms, utensils for house keeping necessary for
upholding life, and bedding and apparel necessary for
himself and family.
Section 8. The collector shall keep the goods distrained, at the
expense of the owner, for the space of four days, at the least,
and shall, within seven days after the seizure, sell the same by
public auction, for the payment of the tax and the charges of
keeping and of the sale, having given notice of such sale, by
posting up a notification thereof, in some public place in the
town, forty eight hours at least before the sale.
Section 11. If the collector cannot find sufficient goods, upon
which it may be levied, he may take the body of such person and
commit him to prison, there to remain, until he shall pay the tax
and charges of commitment and imprisonment, or shall be
discharged by order of law.
TIMELINE OF
WALDEN
After July 24: In my short experience of human life I have found that the outward obstacles which
stood in my way were not living men –but dead institutions It has been unspeakably grateful & refreshing to
make my way through the crowd of this latest generation honest & dishonest virtuous & vicious as through the
dewy grass –men are as innocent as the morning to the early riser –and unsuspicious pilgrim and many an early
traveller which he met on his way v poetry –but the institutions as church –state –the school property &c are
grim and ghostly phantoms like Moloch & Juggernaut because of the blind reverence paid to them. When I have
indulged a poets dream of a terrestrial paradise I have not foreseen that any cossack or Chipeway –would disturb
it –but some monster institution would swallow it– The only highway man I ever met was the state itself– When
I have refused to pay the tax which it demanded for that protection I did not want itself has robbed me– When
I have asserted the freedom it declared it has imprisoned me.
I love mankind I hate the institutions of their forefathers–
What are the sermons of the church but the Dudleian lectures –against long extinct perhaps always imaginary
evils, which he dead generations have willed and so the bell still tolls to call us to the funeral service which a
generation can rightly demand but once.
It is singular that not the Devil himself –has been in my way but these cobwebs –which tradition says were
originally spun to obstruct the fiend.
If I will not fight –if I will not pray –if I will not be taxed –if I will not bury the unsettled prairie –my neighbor
will still tolerate me nd sometimes even sustains me –but not the state.
And should our piety derive its origin still from that exploit of pius Aenaeus who bore his father Anchises on
his shoulders from the ruins of Troy
Not thieves & highwaymen but Constables & judges –not sinners but priests –not the ignorant but pedants &
pedagogues –not foreign foes but standing armies –not pirates but men of war. Not free malevolence –but
organized benevolence.
For instance the jailer or constable as a mere man and neighbor –with life in him intended for this particular 3
score years & ten –may be a right worthy man with a thought in the brain of him –but as the officer & tool of
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THOMAS CARLYLE
the state he has no more understanding or heart than his prison key or his staff– This is what is saddest that men
should voluntarily assume the character & office of brute nature.– Certainly there are modes enough by which
a man may put bread into his mouth which will not prejudice him as a companion & neighbor. There are stones
enough in the path of the traveller with out a man’s adding his own body to the number.
There probably never were worse crimes committed since time began than in the present Mexican war –to take
a single instance– And yet I have not yet learned the name or residence and probably never should of the
reckless vilain who should father them– all concerned –from the political contriver to the latest recruit possess
an average share of virtue & of vice the vilainy is in the readiness with which men, doing outrage to their proper
natures –lend themselves to perform the office of inferior & brutal ones.
The stern command is –move or ye shall be moved –be the master of your own action –or you shall unawares
become the tool of the meanest slave. Any can command him who doth not command himself. Let men be men
& stones be stones and we shall see if majorities do rule.
Countless reforms are called for because society is not animated or instinct enough with life, but like snakes
I have seen in early spring –with alternate portions torpid & flexible –so that they could wriggle neither way.
All men more or less are buried partially in the grave of custom, and of some we see only a few hairs upon the
crown above ground.
Better are the physically dead for they more lively rot.
Those who have stolen estate to be defended slaves to be kept in service –who would pause with the last
inspiration & perpetuate it –require the aid of institutions –the stereotyped and petrified will of the past
But they who are something to defend –who are not to be enslaved themselves – –who are up with their time –
ask no such hinderance
Carlyle’s is not the most lasting words nor the loftiest wisdom –but for his genius it was reserved at last to
furnish expression for the thoughts that were throbbing in a million breasts– It has plucked the ripest fruit in
the public garden– But this fruit now least concerned the tree that bore it –which was rather perfecting the bud
at the foot of the leaf stalk.
Carlyle is wonderfully true to the impressions on his own mind, but not to the simple facts themselves.
He portrays the former so freshly and vividly –that his words reawaken and appeal to our whole
Experience But when reinforced by this terrible critic we return to his page his words are found not to be
coincident with the thing and inadequate and there is no host worthy to entertain the guest he has invited.
On this remote shore we adventurously landed unknown to any of the human inhabitants to this day – But we
still remember well the gnarled and hospitable oaks, which were not strangers to us, the lone horse in his pasture
and the patient ruminating herd whose path to the river so judiciously chosen to overcome the difficulty of the
ascent we followed and disturbed their repose in the shade. And the cool free aspect of the wild apple trees,
generously proffering their fruit to the wayfarers though still green and crude. The hard round glossy fruit which
if not ripe –still is not poison but New English –brought hither its ancestor by our ancestors once.
And up the rocky channel of a brook we scrambled which had long served nature for the sluice in these parts
leaping from rock –through tangled woods at the bottom of a ravine, darker and darker it grew and more hoarse,
the murmur of the stream –until we reached the ruins of a mill where now the ivy grew and the trout glanced
through the raceway and the flume.
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And the dreams and speculations of some early settler was our theme
But now “no war nor battle’s sound”
Invades this peaceful battle ground
but waves of Concord murmuring by
With sweetly fluent harmony.
But since we sailed, some things have failed
And many a dream gone down the stream
Here then a venerable shepherd dwellt .....................................................The Reverend Ezra Ripley
Who to his flock his substance dealt
And ruled them with a vigorous crook
By precept of the sacred Book.
But he the pierless bridge passed o’er
And now the solitary shore
Knoweth his trembling steps no more.
Anon a youthful pastor came .......................................................................... Nathaniel Hawthorne
Whose crook was not unknown to fame
His lambs he viewed with gentle glance
Dispersed o’er a wide expanse,
And fed with “mosses from the Manse”
We view the rocky shore where late
With soothed and patient ear we sat
Under our Hawthorne in the dale
And listened to his Twice told Tale.
MT. KEARSARGE
It comes on murmuring to itself by the base of stately and retired mountains –through dark primitive woods –
whose juices it receives and where the bear still drinks it– Where the cabins of settlers are still fresh and far
between, and there are few that cross its stream. Enjoying still its cascades unknown to fame perhaps unseen
as yet by man –alone by itself –by the long ranges of the mountains of Sandwich and of Squam with sometimes
the peak of Moose hillock the Haystack & Kearsarge reflected in its waters. Where the maple and the raspberry
that lover of the mountains flourish amid temperate dews. Flowing as long and mysterious and untranslateable
as its name Pemigewasset. By many a pastured Pielion and Ossa where unnamed muses haunt, and receiving
the tribute of many an untasted Helicon Not all these hills does it lave but I have experienced that to see the
sun set behind them avails as much as to have travelled to them.
From where the old Man of the Mountain overlooks one of its head waters –in the Franconia Notch, taking the
basin and the Flume in its way –washing the sites of future villages –not impatient. For every mountain stream
is more than Helicon, tended by oreads dryads Naiads, and such a pure and fresh inspirit draught gift of the gods
as it will take a newer than this New England to know the flavor of.
Such water do the gods distill
And pour down hill
For their new England men.
A draught of this wild water bring
And I will never taste the spring
Of Helicon again.
But yesterday in dew it fell
This morn its streams began to swell
And with the sun it downward flowed
So fresh it hardly knew its road.
Falling all the way, not discouraged by the lowest fall –for it intends to rise again.
There are earth air fire & water –very well, this is water. down it comes that is the way with it.
It was already water of Squam and Newfound lake and Winnipiseogee, and White mountain snow dissolved on
which we were floating –and Smith’s and Bakers and Mad rivers and Nashua and Souhegan and Piscataquoag
–and Suncook & Soucook & Contoocook –mingled in incalculable proportions –still fluid yellowish restless all
with an inclination seaward but boyant.
Here then we will leave them to saw and grind and spin for a season, and I fear there will be no vacation at low
water for they are said to have Squam and Newfound lake and Winipiseogee for their mill ponds.
By the law of its birth never to become stagnant for it has come out of the clouds, and down the sides of
precipices worn in the flood through beaver dams broke loose not splitting but splicing and mending itself until
it found a breatheing plaace in this lowland– No danger now that the sun will steal it back to heaven again
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before it reach the sea for it has a warrant even to recover its own dews into its bosom again with every eve We
wandered on by the side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains –& through notches which the stream
had made –looking down one sunday morning over Bethlehem amid the bleating of sheep, and hearing as we
walked the loud spoken prayers of the inhabitants –like crusaders strolled out from the camp in Palestine–9 And
looking in to learning’s little tenement by the way –where some literate swain earns his ten dollars by the month
–after the harvest –with rows of slates and well cut benches round –as well cut as farther south –not noticing
the herd of swine which had poured in at the open door, and made a congregation– So we went on over hill and
dale through the stumpy rocky –woody –bepastured country –until we crossed a rude wooden bridge over the
Amonnoosuck and breathed the free air of the Unappropriated Land.
Now we were in a country where inns begin– And we too now began to have our ins and outs– Some sweet
retired house whose sign only availed to creak but bore no Phoenix nor golden eagle but such as the sun and
rain had painted there – –a demi public demi private house –where each apartment seems too private for your
use –too public for your hosts. One I remember where Landlord and lady hung painted as if retired from active
life –upon the wall –remarkable one might almost say –if he knew not the allowed degrees of consanguinity for
a family likeness –a singular deflexion of the nose turned each to each –so that the total variation could not have
been better represented than in the picture.
–But here at any rate the cream rose thick upon the milk –and there was refreshment
One “Tilton’s Inn” tooo sheltered us which it were well worth remembering, in Thornton it was where towns
begin to serve as gores only to hold the world together –reached late in the evening and left before the sun
rose. But the remembrance of an entertainment still remains and among publicans Tiltons name still stands
conspicuous in our diary.
But where we took our ease was not Canterbury street, no Four corners nor Five points –no trivial place where
3 roads meet but hardly one road held together– A dank forest path –more like an otter’s or a marten’s trail or
where a beaver had dragged his trap than where the wheels of travel ever raised a dust. The pigeon sat secure
above our heads high on the dead limbs of the pine reduced to robins size– The very yard of our hostelries was
inclined upon the skirts of mountains and as we passed we looked up at angle at the stems of maples waving in
the clouds –and late at evening we heard the drear bleating of innumerable flocks upon the mountains sides
seeming to hold unequal parley with the bears
Shuddered through the Franconia where the thermometer is spliced for winter use, saw the blue earth heaved
into mountain waves from Agiocochook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee and Squam gleamed like dewy
cobwebs in the sun– And like bright ribbons the streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adroscoggin “take up their
mountain march–
Went on our way silent & humble through the Notch –heard the lambs bleat in Bartlett on the mountains late at
night –looked back on Conway peak –threaded the woods of Norway pine –and saw the Great Spirit smile in
Winnipiseogee10
Varro advises to plant in Quincunx order in order not to “obstruct the beneficial effects of the sun and moon and
air,” and adds “nuts, when they are whole, which you might comprize in one modius, because nature confines
the kernels in their proper places, when they are broken, can hardly be held in a measure of a modius and a
half.” Vines thus planted produce more fruit “more must and oil, and of greater value”.
I read in Varro that “Caesar Vopiscus AEdilicius, when he pleaded before the Censors, said that the grounds of
Rosea were the gardens [(sedes)] of Italy, in which a pole being left would not be visible the day after, on
account of the growth of the herbage.” This soil was not remarkably fertile yet I was so well contented with
myself it may be & with my entertainment –that I was really remind of this anecdote.
In speaking of “the dignity of the herd” Varro suggests that the object of the Argonautic expedition was a ram’s
fleece the gold apples of the Hesperides were by the ambiguity of language [] goats and sheep which
9.
We wandered on (by the side and over
the brows of hoar hills and mountains —
& through notches which the stream had
with awe
made — looking down ^one sunday morning over Bethlehem amid the bleating
of sheep, and hearing as we walked
the loud spoken prayers of the inhabiwhere every house seemd to us a holy sepulchre
tants — like crusaders strolled out from
Richards as if we were
the camp in Palestine — (T 74)
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Hercules imported –the stars and signs bear their names the AEgean sea has its name from the goat and
mountains and straits have hence their names –sic. The Bosphorus Piso makes Italy to be from Vitulis– The
Romans were shepherds “Does not the fine [mulcta, a mulgendo] that was by ancient custom paid in kind refer
to this?” The oldest coins bore the figures of cattle and the Roman names Porcius –Ovinus Caprilius & the
surnames Equitius, Taurus, Capra Vitulus.
Vide Cato “Of purchasing an Estate –” “How an estate is to be planted –” &c in Lat & Eng.
I will insert here some commentary on this early draft of material that would wind up in the “Monday” chapter
of A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS:
A WEEK: If, for instance, a man asserts the value of individual
liberty over the merely political commonweal, his neighbor still
tolerates him, that is he who is living near him, sometimes even
sustains him, but never the State. Its officer, as a living man,
may have human virtues and a thought in his brain, but as the tool
of an institution, a jailer or constable it may be, he is not a
whit superior to his prison key or his staff. Herein is the
tragedy; that men doing outrage to their proper natures, even
those called wise and good, lend themselves to perform the office
of inferior and brutal ones. Hence come war and slavery in; and
what else may not come in by this opening? But certainly there
are modes by which a man may put bread into his mouth which will
not prejudice him as a companion and neighbor.
The following is, if I recall correctly and can trust my notes, from William Bronk’s THE BROTHER IN ELYSIUM:
IDEAS OF FRIENDSHIP AND SOCIETY IN THE UNITED STATES (1980), pages 104-106:
The crux of the matter is that Thoreau believed that all evil
did come in through the opening formed when any man might so
betray his own nature as to lend himself to perform an inhuman
office. While it might be contended that good and evil are
something to be done at will and according to will, without
reference to our own constitutions, — that we are of indifferent
10.<Like the pilgrims> our way
<We> Shuddered ^through that Fran<ing>
conia where the thermometer is spliced
for winter use, saw the blue earth
heaved into mountain waves from Agiocochook, and where the Umbagog Ossipee
and Squam gleamed like dewy cobwebs
in the sun — And like bright ribbons the
streamlets of Connecticut Saco & adroscoggin “take up their mountain march —
<not knowing what to say>
Went on our way ^silent & humble
<at><vast>
<the nick of time>
through the Notch ^— heard the lambs
bleat in Bartlett on the mountains
holding unequal parley with the wolves & bears
late at night — ^looked back on
Conway peak — threaded the woods of
Norway pine — and saw the Great
<once more>
Spirit smile ^in Winnipiseogee (T 76-77)
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or irrelevant moral quality ourselves, and are able to choose
between a good act and an evil one and so determine by the excess
of one kind of action over the other our own moral quality and
the moral quality of the world, yet it was Thoreau’s contention
that the process by which good and evil came into being was more
exacting and natural, less arbitrary than this. He believed that
it was always necessary to make the choice between good and evil
whenever such a choice was presented, but he also believed that
in most cases, the choice was not presented, and that evil
resulted in some mysterious way without anyone’s willing it, or
being aware of it, and even to everyone’s surprise and chagrin.
Thoreau accounted for this phenomenon by saying that being is
more important and more effective than doing. Anything therefore
might happen to us which was consistent with the nature we took
for ourselves, even though the process by which the happening
came about was so subtle or so complicated that we missed the
apprehension of it, even after its end. If. as Thoreau said, we
do outrage to our proper nature, — if we take our identity from
the state, then we become liable to the evils of the state, and
have no defense against war and slavery, since it has none. It
is only by refusing to do the office of inferior and brutal
natures that we can hope to escape, on our own part, treatment
which in its brutality is suited to inferior natures. We must
be treated according to the nature which we determine shall be
ours. We can win or lose, or act in any other way, only in
accordance with terms we set for ourselves. The identity which
Thoreau wished us to find, which left no opening for the evil
we claimed to deplore, was most certainly not to be found in the
state; and neither was it to be found in any other external form,
for its essence was personal. It was to be found only through
that steady communion with one’s deepest desires and insights,
which was called silence. He found no evil and little that was
ambiguous in silence. It is easier to see now, of course, why
Thoreau rejected philanthropy and reform, since to find one’s
identity, to become personal, was truly to ennoble one’s being;
it was to enjoy those moments of serene and self-confident life
which were better than whole campaigns of daring; it was to
combat evil directly by leaving no opening by which it could
enter. Philanthropy’s method was less direct. It offered the
goodness of actions as an excuse and substitute for being.
Reform was an attempt to avoid a change in true form by changing
the surface only.
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1851
July 21, Monday: An article containing material on Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, comte de Mirabeau which had been
obtained by way of Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal appeared in the American Harper’s Monthly Gentleman’s
Magazine (I, 648) and Henry Thoreau was intrigued enough by this French desperado-wannabee to copy
quotes into his journal. One of these quotes, or part of it, would eventually find its way into the concluding
chapter of WALDEN:
WALDEN: It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery
“to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order to
place one’s self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of
society.” He declared that “a soldier who fights in the ranks does
not require half so much courage as a foot-pad,” –“that honor and
religion have never stood in the way of a well-considered
and firm resolve.” This was manly, as the world goes; and yet it
was idle, if not desperate. A saner man would have found himself
often enough “in formal opposition” to what are deemed “the most
sacred laws of society,” through obedience to yet more sacred
laws, and so have tested his resolution without going out of his
way. It is not for a man to put himself in such an attitude to
society, but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find
himself through obedience to the laws of his being, which will
never be one of opposition to a just government, if he should
chance to meet with such.
PEOPLE OF
WALDEN
MIRABEAU
Thoreau referenced a snippet from Richard Lovelace’s “To Althea from Prison” in his journal, and also wrote
that “With most men, life is postponed to some trivial business, and so therefore is heaven. Men think foolishly
they may abuse and misspend as they please and when they get to heaven turn over a new leaf.”
July 21, Monday: 8 AM The forenoon is fuller of light. The butterflies on the flowers look like other
& frequently larger flowers themselves. Now I yearn for one of those old meandering dry uninhabited roads
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which lead away from towns –which lead us away from temptation, which conduct to the outside of earth –over
its uppermost crust –where you may forget in what country you are travelling –where no farmer can complain
that you are treading down his grass –no gentleman who has recently constructed a seat in the country that you
are trespassing –on which you can go off at half cock –and waive adieu to the village –along which you may
travel like a pilgrim –going nowhither. Where travellers are not too often to be met. Where my spirit is free –
where the walls & fences are not cared for –where your head is more in heaven than your feet are on earth11 –
which have long reaches –where you can see the approaching traveller half a mile off and be prepared for him
–not so luxuriant a soil as to attract men –some root and stump fences which do not need attention– Where
travellers have no occasion to stop –but pass along and leave you to your thoughts– Where it makes no odds
which way you face whether you are going or coming –whether it is morning or evening –mid noon or midnight– Where earth is cheap enough by being public. Where you can walk and think with least obstruction –
there being nothing to measure progress by. Where you can pace when your breast is full and cherish your
moodiness. Where you are not in false relations with men –are not dining nor conversing with them. By which
you may go to the uttermost parts of the earth– It is wide enough –wide as the thoughts it allows to visit you.
Some-times it is some particular half dozen rods which I wish to find myself pacing over –as where certain airs
blow then my life will come to me methinks like a hunter I walk in wait for it. When I am against this bare
promontory of a hucklebery hill then forsooth my thoughts will expand. Is it some influence as a vapor which
exhales from the ground, or something in the gales which blow there or in all things there brought together
agreeably to my spirit? The walls must not be too high imprisoning me –but low with numerous –gaps– The
trees must not be too numerous nor the hills too near bounding the view –nor the soil too rich attracting the
attention to the earth– It must simply be the way and the life. A way that was never known to be repaired nor
to need repair within the memory of the oldest inhabitant–12 I cannot walk habitually in those ways that are
11. William M. White’s version would be:
Now I yearn for one of those old, meandering,
Dry, uninhabited roads,
Which lead away from towns,
Which lead us away from temptation,
Which conduct to the outside of earth,
Over its uppermost crust;
Where you may forget in what country you are travelling;
Where no farmer can complain
That you are treading down his grass,
No gentleman
Who has recently constructed a seat in the country
That you are trespassing;
On which you can go off at half-cock
And wave adieu to the village;
Along which you may travel like a pilgrim,
Going nowhither;
Where travellers are not too often to be met;
Where my spirit is free;
Where the walls and fences are not cared for;
Where your head is more in heaven
Than your feet are on earth....
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liable to be repaired, for sure it was the devil only that wore them –never by the heel of thinkers (of thought)
were they worn –the zephyrs could repair that damage. The saunterer wears out no road –even though he travel
on it –& therefore should pay no highway tax –he may be taxed to construct a higher way than men travel.
A way which no geese defile nor hiss along it –but only some times their wild brethren [Canada Goose
Branta canadensis] fly far overhead –which the king bird [Eastern Kingbird
Tyrannus tyrannus] & the
twitter over–& the song sparrow [Melospiza melodia] sings on its rails. where the small red
swallow
butterfly is at home on the yarrow –& no boys threaten it with imprisoning hat. There I can walk & stalk & pace
& plod– Which no body but Jonas Potter travels beside me –where no cow but his is tempted to linger for the
herbage by its side– Where the guide board is fallen & now the hand points to heaven significantly –to a
sudbury & Marlborough in the skies. That’s a road I can travel thats the particular sudbury I am bound for 6
miles an hour or 2 as you please– And few there be that enter thereon. There I can walk and recover the lost
child that I am without any ringing of a bell– Where there was nothing ever discovered to detain a traveller but
all went through about their business– Where I never passed the time of day with any –indifferent to me were
the arbitrary divisions of time– Where Tullus Hostilius might have disappeared –at any rate has never been
seen The road to the corner –the ninety & nine acres that you go through to get there I would rather see it again
though I saw it this morning, than Gray’s churchyard. The road whence you may hear a stake driver [American
Bittern
Botaurus lentiginosus] –a whipporwill [Whip-Poor-Will
Caprimulgus Vociferus] –a quail
[Northern Bobwhite Colinus Virginianus] in a mid summer day –a yes a quail comes nearest to the gum
C bird heard there– Where it would not be sport for a sportsman to go.– (and the may weed looks up in my
face –not there) the pale lobelia & the Canada Snap Dragon rather. a little hard hack & meadow sweet peeps
over the fence –nothing more serious to obstruct the view– And thimble berries are the food of thought –before
the droubt along by the walls.
It is they who go to Brighton & to market that wear out the roads –& they should pay all the tax –the deliberate
pace of a thinker never made a road the worse for travelling on. There I have freedom in my thought & in my
soul am free– Excepting the omnipresent butcher with his calf cart –followed by a distracted & anxious cow–
Be it known that in Concord where the first forcible resistance to British aggression was made in the year 1775
they chop up the young calves & give them to the hens to make them lay –it being considered the cheapest &
most profitable food for them –& they sell the milk to Boston.
On the promenade deck of the world –an outside passenger– The inattentive ever strange baker –whom no
weather detains that does not bake his bread in this hemisphere –and therefore it is dry before it gets here– Ah
there is a road where you might advertise to fly –& make no preparations till the time comes where your wings
will sprout if anywhere. where your feet are not confined to earth. An airy head makes light walking.
Where I am not confined & baulked by the sight of distant farm houses which I have not gone past. In roads the
obstructions are not under my feet –I care not for rough ground or wet even –but they are in my vision & in the
thoughts or associations which I am compelled to entertain I must be fancy free– I must feel that wet or dry
12. William M. White’s version would be:
The walls must not be too high,
Imprisoning me,
But low, with numerous gaps.
The trees must not be too numerous,
Nor the hills too near,
Bounding the view,
Nor the soil too rich,
Attracting the attention to the earth.
It must simply be the way and the life, —
A way that was never known to be repaired,
Nor to need repair,
Within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.
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high or low it is the genuine surface of the planet & not a little chip dirt or a compost heap –or made land or
redeemed. Where I can sit by the wall side and not be peered at by any old ladies going a shopping –not have
to bow to one whom I may have seen in my youth –at least not more than once –I am engaged and cannot be
polite.
Did you ever hear of such a thing as a man sitting in the road –& then have four eyes levelled at you. Have we
any more right sometimes to look at one than to point a revolver at him –it might go off –& so perchance we
might see him –which would be equally fatal –if it should ever happen –though perhaps it never has.–
A thinker’s weight is in his thought not in his tread –when he thinks freely his body weighs nothing. He cannot
tread down your grass farmers.
I thought to walk this forenoon instead of this afternoon –for I have not been in the fields & woods much of late
except when surveying –but the least affair of that kind is as if you had black veil drawn over your face which
shut out nature as that eccentric & melancholy minister whom I have heard of. It may be the fairest day in all
the year & you shall not know it –one little chore to do –one little commission to fulfil –one message to carry
would spoil heaven itself. Least of all is the lover engaged! And all you get is your dollars– To go forth before
the heat is intolerable –and see what is the diffirence between forenoon & afternoon. It seems there is a little
more coolness in the air; there is still some dew even on this short grass in the shade of the walls & woods –and
a feeling of vigor the walker has. There are few sounds but the slight twittering of swallows
& the springy
in the grass or trees –& a lark [Eastern Meadowlark
Sturnella magna] in the
note of the sparrow
meadow (now at 8 AM) and the cricket under all to ally the hour to night. Day is in fact about as still as
night. draw the veil of night over this landscape and these sounds would not disturb nor be inconsistent for their
loudness with the night. It is a difference of white & black. Nature is in a white sleep. It threatens to be a hot
day & the haymakers are whetting their scythes in the fields where they have been out since 4 o’clock. When I
have seen them in the twilight commencing their labors, I have been impressed as if it were last night. There is
something ghastly about such very early labor. I cannot detect the whole & characteristic difference between
this and afternoon –though it is positive & decided enough –as my instincts know.
By two o’clock it will be warmer & hazier obscuring the mts, & the leaves will curl –& the dust will rise more
readily. Every herb is fresher now –has recovered from yesterdays drought– The cooler air of night still lingers
in the fields as by night the warm air of day. The noon is perchance the time to stay in the house.
There is no glory so bright but the veil of business can hide it effectually With most men life is postponed to
some trivial business & so therefore is heaven. Men think foolishly they may abuse & misspend life as they
please and when they get to heaven turn over a new leaf.
I see the track of a bare human foot in the dusty road, the toes & muscles all faithfully imprinted– Such a sight
is so rare that it affects me with surprise as the foot print on the shore of Juan Fernandez did Crusoe– It is
equally rare here I am affected as if some Indian or South Sea Islander had been along –some man who had a
foot. I am slow to be convinced that any of my neighbors –the judge on the bench –the parson in the pulpit might
have made that or some thing like it however irregular. It is pleasant as it is to see the tracks of cows & deer &
birds. I am brought so much nearer to the tracker –when again I think of the sole of my own foot –than when I
behold that of his shoe merely, or am introduced to him & converse with him in the usual way.
Men are very generally spoiled by being so civil and well disposed. You can have no profitable conversation
with them they are so conciliatory –determined to agree with you. They exhibit such long suffering & kindness
in a short interview. I would meet with some provoking strangeness. So that we may be guest and host & refresh
one another. It is possible for a man wholly to disappear & be merged in his manners. The thousand and one
gentlemen whom I meet I meet despairingly & but to part from them for I am not cheered by the hope of any
rudeness from them. A cross man a coarse man an ecentric man a silent –a man who does not drill well of him
there is some hope. Your gentlemen, they are all alike They utter their opinions as if it was not a man that
uttered them. It is “just as you please” –they are indifferent to everything– They will talk with you for nothing.
The interesting man will rather avoid –and it is a rare chance if you get so far as talk with him. The laborers
whom I know –the loafers –fishers & hunters –I can spin yarns with profitably –for it is hands off –they are they
& I am I still –they do not come to me & quarter themselves on me for an day or an hour to be treated politely
–they do not cast themselves on me for entertainment –they do not approach me with a flag of truce. They do
not go out of themselves to meet me. I am never electrified by my gentleman –he is not an electric eeel, but one
of the common kind that slip through your hands however hard you clutch them & leave them covered with
slime.
He is a man every inch of him –is worth a groom–
To eat berries on the dry pastures of Conantum as if they were the food of thought –dry as itself. Berries are
now thick enough to pick. 9 A M on Conantum
A quarter of a mile is distance enough to make the atmosphere look blue now. This is never the case in spring
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or early summer. It was fit that I should see an Indigo bird [Indigo Bunting Passerina cyanea]13 here
concerned about its young –a perfect imbodiment of the darkest blue that ever fills the vallies at this season–
The meadow grass reflecting the light has a bluish cast also.
Remember thy creator in the days of thy youth. i.e. Lay up a store of natural influences –sing while you may
before the evil days come –he that hath ears let him hear –see –hear –smell –taste –&c while these senses are
fresh & pure
There is always a kind of fine AEolian harp music to be heard in the air– I hear now as it were the mellow sound
of distant horns in the hollow mansions of the upper air –a sound to make all men divinely insane that hear it –
far away over head subsiding into my ear. to ears that are expanded what a harp this world is! The occupied ear
thinks that beyond the cricket no sound can be heard –but there is an immortal melody that may be heard
morning noon and night by ears that can attend & from time to time this man or that hears it –having ears that
were made for music.14 To hear this the hard hack & the meadow sweet aspire They are thus beautifully
painted because they are tinged in the lower stratum of that melody.
I eat these berries as simply & naturally as thoughts come to my mind.
Never yet did I chance to sit in a house –except my own house in the woods –and hear a wood thrush
[Catharus mustelina] sing –would it not be well to sit in such a chamber –within sound of the finest songster
of the grove?
The quail [Northern Bobwhite Colinus Virginianus] –invisible –whistles –& who attends
10 A M– The white lily has opened how could it stand these heats –it has pantingly opened –and now lies
stretched out by its too-long stem on the surface of the shrunken river. The air grows more & more blue.–
making pretty effects when one wood is seen from another through a little interval. Some pigeons [American
Passenger Pigeon Ectopistes migratorius] here are resting in the thickest of the white pines during the heat
of the day –migrating no doubt. They are unwilling to move for me. Flies buz and rain about my hat –& the
dead twigs & leaves of the White pine which the choppers have left here exhale a dry & almost sickening scent.
A cuccoo [Black-billed Cuckoo
Coccyzus erythropthalmus] chuckles half throtled on a neighboring tree –
& now flying into the pine scares out a pigeon which flies with its handsome tail spread dashes this side and
that between the trees helplessly like a ship carrying too much sail15 in midst of a small creek some great
amiral.– having no room to manoeuvre– A fluttering flight.
The mts can scarcely be seen for the blue haze only Wachusett and the near ones.
The thorny apple bush on Conantum has lately sent up branches from its top resolved to become a tree, & these
spreading (and bearing fruit) the whole has the form of a vast hour-glass.– The lower part being the most dense
by far you would say the sand had run out.
I now return through Conants leafy woods by the spring –whose floor is sprinkled with sun-light –low trees
which yet effectually shade you
The dusty may weed now blooms by the roadside one of the humblest flowers.
The rough hawkweed too by the damp roadside –resembling in its flower the autumnal dandelion– That was
probably the verbena hastata or com. blue vervain which I found the other day by Walden Pond
The Antirrhinum Canadense Can. snap dragon in the Corner road. And the ragged Orchis on Conantum.
81/2 PM
The streets of the village are much more interesting to me at this hour of a summer evening than by day.
Neighbors and also farmers come ashopping after their day’s haying are chatting in the streets and I hear the
sound of many musical instruments and of singing from various houses. For a short hour or two the inhabitants
are sensibly employed.
The evening is devoted to poetry such as the villagers can appreciate.
How rare to meet with a farmer who is a man of sentiment Yet there was one Gen. Joshua Buttrick who died
the other day –who is said to have lived in his sentiments. He used to say that the smell of burning powder
excited him.
It is said that Mirabeau took to highway robbery “to ascertain what degree of resolution was necessary in order
to place one’s self in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society.” He declared that “a soldier who
fights in the ranks does not require half so much courage as a footpad.” – – “honor and religion have never stood
in the way of a well considered & a firm resolve. Tell me, Du Saillant, when you lead your regiment into the
heat of battle, to conquer a province to which he whom you call your master has no right whatever, do you
consider that you are performing a better action than mine, in stopping your friend on the king’s highway, and
demanding his purse?”
“I obey without reasoning,” replied the count.
“And I reason without obeying, when obedience appears to me to be contrary to reason,” –rejoined Mirabeau.
13. Thoreau’s “indigo-bird” of May 4, 1853 was a black-throated blue warbler Dendroica caerulescens.
AEOLIAN HARP
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Harpers New Month. vol 1st p 648 from Cham. Ed.– Journal
This was good & manly as the world goes– And yet it was desperate– A saner man would have found
opportunities enough to put himself in formal opposition to the most sacred laws of society and so test his
resolution in the natural course of events without violating the laws of his own nature. It is not for a man to put
himself in such an attitude to society –but to maintain himself in whatever attitude he find himself through
obedience to the laws of his being. which will never be one of opposition to a just government. Cut the leather
only where the shoe pinches– Let us not have a rabid virtue that will be revenged on society –that falls on it
not like the morning dew but like the fervid noonday sun to wither it.
JONAS POTTER
JOSHUA BUTTRICK
DESPERATION
14. William M. White’s version would be:
There is always a kind of fine æolian harp music
To be heard in the air.
I hear now, as it were,
The mellow sound of distant horns
In the hollow mansions of the upper air,
A sound to make all men divinely insane that hear it,
Far away overhead,
Subsiding into my ear.
To ears that are expanded what a harp this world is!
The occupied ear thinks that beyond the cricket
No sound can be heard,
But there is an immortal melody that may be heard
Morning, noon, and night,
By ears that can attend,
And from time to time
This man or that hears it,
Having ears that were made for music.
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1852
January 28, Wednesday: Henry Thoreau again referenced a snippet from Richard Lovelace’s “To Althea from Prison”
in his journal:
January 28, Wednesday: Perhaps I can never find so good a setting for my thoughts as I shall thus have
taken them out of. The crystal never sparkles more brightly than in the cavern. The world have always loved
best the fable with the moral. The children could read the fable alone – the grown up read both. The truth so
told has the best advantages of the most abstract statement – for it is not the less universally applicable. Where
also will you ever find the true cement for your thoughts? How will you ever rivet them together without leaving
the marks of the file?
Yet Plutarch did not so– Montaigne did not so. Men have written travels in this form – but perhaps no man’s
daily life has been rich enough to be journalized. Our life should be so active and progressive as to be a journey–
Our meals should all be of journey-cake & hasty pudding. We should be more alert — see the sun rise —
not keep fashionable hours– Enter a house our own house as a Khan — a caravansery. At noon I did not dine
I ate my journey-cake. I quenched my thirst at a spring or a brook. As I sat at the table the hospitality was so
perfect & the repast so sumptuous that I seemed to be breaking my fast upon a bank in the midst of an arduous
journey – that the water seemed to be a living spring – the napkins grass, the conversation free as the winds.
& the servants that waited on us were our simple desires.–
Cut off from Pilpay & AEsop the moral alone at the bottom – would that content you?
There will be no more rambling through the aisles of the wood, with occasional vistas through which you see
the pond.
In those days when how to get my living honestly with freedom left for my proper pursuits, was a question
which vexed me even more than it does now – I used to see a large box by the RR, 6 feet long by 3 wide, in
which the workmen locked up their tools at night– And it suggested to me that every man who was hard pushed
might get him such a one for a dollar, and having bored a few auger holes in it to admit the air at least – get into
it when it rained and at night, & so have freedom in his mind and in his soul be free. This did not seem the worst
alternative nor by any means a despicable resource. You could sit up as late as you pleased. & you would not
have any creditor dogging you for rent. I should not be in a bad box. Many a man is harassed to death to pay
15. William M. White’s version would be:
Flies buzz and rain about my hat,
And the dead twigs and leaves of the white pine,
Which the choppers have left here,
Exhale a dry and almost sickening scent.
A cuckoo chuckles, half throttled,
On a neighboring tree,
And now, flying into the pine,
Scares out a pigeon,
Which flies with its handsome tail spread,
Dashes this side and that
Between the trees helplessly,
Like a ship carrying too much sail....
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the rent of a larger and more luxurious box – who would not have frozen to death in such a box as this. I should
not be in so bad a box as many a man is in now.
If you mean by hard times – times not when there is no bread, but when there is no cake, I have no sympathy
with you.
Economy is a subject that admits of being treated with levity, but it is not a subject that can be so disposed of.
Why dont you put on your over-alls? Why these are overalls & underalls — being all I have got. These are over
all I have got.
They showed me Johnny Ruyaden today – with one thickness of ragged cloth over his little shirt for all this cold
weather – with shoes with large holes in the toes into which the snow got as he said– Without a an outer garment
– to walk a mile to school every day over the bleakest of causeways– The clothes with countless patches –
which hailed from – claimed descent from were originally identical with pantaloons of mine– Which set as if
his mother had fitted them to a teakettle first– This little mass of humanity – this tender gobbet for the fates,
cast into a cold world with a torn lichen leaf wrapped about – him– O I should rather hear that Americas first
born were all slain than that his little fingers and toes should feel cold while I am warm– Is man so cheap that
he cannot be clothed but with a mat – a rag– Are there any fellow creatures to whom we abandon our rags – to
whom we give our old clothes and shoes when they will not fend the weather from ourselves?
Let the mature rich wear the rags & insufficient clothing – let the infant poor wear the purple & fine linen –
I shudder when I think of the fate of innocency– Our charitable institutions are an insult to humanity. A charity
which dispenses the crumbs that fall from its overloaded tables. which are left after its feasts.
3 P M Went round by Tuttle’s road & so out onto the Walden road. These warmer days the woodchopper finds
that the wood cuts easier than when it had the frost in it, though it does not split so readily. Thus every change
in the weather – has its influence on him – & is appreciated by him in a peculiar way.
The woodcutter & his practices & experiences are more to be attended to – his accidents perhaps more than any
others’ should mark the epochs in the winter day. Now that the Indian is gone he stands nearest to nature.
Who has written the history of his day? How far still is the writer of books from the man – his old playmate it
may be – who chops in the woods! There are ages between them. Homer refers to the progress of the
woodcutters work – to mark the time of day on the plains of Troy– And the inference from such passages
commonly is that he lived in a more primitive state of society than the present. But I think that this is a mistake.
Like proves like in all ages – & the fact that I myself – should take pleasure in referring to just such simple &
peaceful labors which are always proceeding – that the contrast itself alway attracts the civilized poet to what
is rudest and most primitive in his contemporaries, — all this rather proves a certain interval between the poet
& the chopper whose labor he refers to than an unusual nearness to him.– on the principle that familiarity breeds
contempt. Homer is to be subjected to a very different kind of criticism from any he has received.
That reader who most fully appreciates the poet & derives the greatest pleasure from his works, himself lives
in circumstances most like those of the poet himself.
About Brister’s spring the ferns which have been covered with snow – & the grass are still quite green –
The skunk cabbage in the water is already pushed up & I find the pinkish head of flowers within its spathe
bigger than a pea.
It is remarkable that no pains is taken to teach children to distinguish colors. I am myself uncertain about the
names of many–
“MAGISTERIAL HISTORY” IS FANTASIZING, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project
The People of Walden
HDT
WHAT?
INDEX
THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:
RICHARD LOVELACE
PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
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 2014. 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 <[email protected]>.
“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: July 4, 2014
HDT
THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:
WHAT?
INDEX
RICHARD LOVELACE
PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
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
THE PEOPLE OF WALDEN:
WHAT?
INDEX
RICHARD LOVELACE
PEOPLE MENTIONED IN WALDEN
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 <[email protected]>. Arrgh.