The Invention of Nature

124 ‘The wonderful Humboldt’: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Journal, 1845, Emerson 1960–92, vol.9, p.270; see also Ralph Waldo Emerson to John F. Heath, 4 August 1842, Emerson 1939, vol.3, p.77; Walls 2009, pp.251–6.

125 Eureka and Cosmos: Walls 2009, pp.256–60; Sachs 2006, pp.109–11; Clark and Lubrich 2012, pp.19–20.

126 ‘spiritual and material’: Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘Eureka’, Poe 1848, p.8.

127 ‘the most sublime of’: Ibid., p.130.

128 Whitman’s ‘Kosmos’: Whitman 1860, pp.414–15; for Whitman and Cosmos, see AH Letters USA 2004, p.61; Walls 2009, pp.279–83; Clark and Lubrich 2012, p.20.

129 ‘Song of Myself’: The word ‘kosmos’ is the only one that didn’t change in the various versions of Whitman’s famous self-identification. It began as ‘Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos’ in the first edition and became ‘Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son’ in the last.

Chapter 19: Poetry, Science and Nature

1

‘wished to live’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.118.

2

Thoreau’s cabin: Ibid., pp.52ff., 84.

3

‘earth’s eye’ and ‘closes its eyelids’: Ibid., p.247, 375.

4

‘slender eyelashes’: Ibid., p.247.

5

plants near the cabin: Ibid., pp.149–50.

6

rustled leaves and singing: Channing 1873, p.250.

7

naming places: Ibid., p.17.

8

‘Facts collected by’: Thoreau, 16 June 1852, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.5, p.112.

9

Thoreau as a boy: John Weiss,

Christian Examiner

, 1865, Harding 1989, p.33.

10

‘fine scholar with’: Alfred Munroe, ‘Concord Authors Considered’,

Richard County Gazette

, 15 August 1877, Harding 1989, p.49.

11

like a squirrel: Horace R. Homer, ibid., p.77.

12

Thoreau’s studies at Harvard: Richardson 1986, pp.12–13.

13

Emerson’s library: Sims 2014, p.90.

14

Thoreau’s tetanus symptoms: Thoreau to Isaiah Williams, 14 March 1842, Thoreau Correspondence 1958, p.66.

15

‘a withered leaf’: Thoreau, 16 January 1843, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.1, p.447.

16

‘build yourself a hut’: Ellery Channing to Thoreau, 5 March 1845, Thoreau Correspondence 1958, p.161.

17

death part of nature: Thoreau to Emerson, 11 March 1842, ibid., p.65.

18

‘There can be no

really

’: Thoreau, 14 July 1845, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.2, p.159.

19

Concord at Thoreau’s time: Richardson 1986, pp.15–16; Sims 2014, pp.33, 47–50.

20

sound of axes: Richardson 1986, p.16.

21

railroad to Concord: Ibid., p.138.

22

‘Simplify, simplify’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.119.

23

‘a life of simplicity’: Thoreau, spring 1846, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.2, p.145.

24

Thoreau appearance: Channing 1873, p.25; Celia P.R. Fraser, Harding 1989, p.208.

25

‘imitates porcupines’: Caroline Sturgis Tappan about Thoreau, American National Biography; see also Channing 1873, p.311.

26

Thoreau ‘pugnacious’: Channing 1873, p.312.

27

‘courteous manners’: Nathaniel Hawthorne, September 1842, Harding 1989, p.154.

28

many thought Thoreau funny: E. Harlow Russell,

Reminiscences of Thoreau

, Concord Enterprise, 15 April 1893, Harding 1989, p.98.

29

‘an intolerable bore’: Nathaniel Hawthorne to Richard Monckton Milnes, 18 November 1854, Hawthorne 1987, vol.17, p.279.

30

Thoreau being eccentric: see Pricilla Rice Edes, Harding 1989, p.181.

31

‘refreshing like ice-water’: Amos Bronson Alcott Journal, 5 November 1851, Borst 1992, p.199.

32

‘duel’ of mud–turtles: Edward Emerson, 1917, Harding 1989, p.136.

33

‘seems to adopt him’: Nathaniel Hawthorne, September 1842, Harding 1989, p.155; for Thoreau and animals, Mary Hosmer Brown, Memories of Concord, 1926, Harding 1989, pp.150–51 and Thoreau Walden 1910, pp.170, 173.

34

‘a little star-dust’: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.287.

35

Thoreau at Walden: Ibid., pp.147, 303.

36

‘self-appointed inspector’: Ibid., p.21.

37

‘like a picture behind’: Ibid., p.327; playing the flute, p.232.

38

‘a wood-nymph’: Alcott’s Journal, March 1847, Harbert Petrulionis 2012, pp.6–7.

39

returned to village regularly: John Shephard Keyes, Harding 1989, p.174; Channing 1873, p.18.

40

two thick notebooks: Shanley 1957, p.27.

41

‘purely American’: Alcott’s Journal, March 1847, Harbert Petrulionis 2012, p.7; for bad reviews of

A Week

, Theodore Parker to Emerson, 11 June 1849 and

Athenaeum

, 27 October 1849, Borst 1992, pp.151, 159.

42

‘over seven hundred’: Thoreau Correspondence 1958, October 1853, p.305.

43

‘While my friend was’: Thoreau, after 11 September 1849, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.3. p.26; see also Walls 1995, pp.116–17.

44

crush on Lydian: Walls 1995, p.116.

45

‘only man of leisure’: Myerson 1979, p.43.

46

‘insignificant here in town’: Emerson in 1849, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.3, p.485.

47

‘than walking off every’: Maria Thoreau, 7 September 1849, Borst 1992, p.138.

48

‘What are these pines’: Thoreau Journal, after 18 April 1846, Thoreau Journal 1981–2002, vol.2, p.242.

50

Thoreau measured precisely: Myerson 1979, p.41.

50

frozen bubbles: Thoreau Walden 1910, p.328ff.

51

‘calling on some scholar’: Ibid., p.268, 352.

52

Thoreau and Transcendentalism: Walls 1995, p.61ff.

53

‘cloud the sight’: Emerson 1971–2013, vol.1, 1971, p.39.

54