Journal of a Sabbatical

January 18, 2001

the future is now

Today's Reading: John Greenleaf Whittier: Life and Letters by Samuel T. Pickard

I think Wilbur has the right idea for coping with this winter, just plunk down on the nice pink flowery quilt with a teddy bear and sleep. For the rest of the winter. Except of course I need a good book as well as a cat, a quilt, and a teddy bear.

I've been so absorbed in the life and letters of abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier that I dreamed that John Ashcroft was before the Senate being accused of being pro-slavery. I think Charles Sumner was in the dream too. Gotta get my mind out of the 19th century. But wait, I think there was a confusing sound bite on the radio about Ashcroft not being pro-slavery just because he gave an interview to Southern Partisan. That must have made it into my dream. The past wasn't that long ago. Their future is now.

In my reading of the Whittier letters I've reached the War Years (that would be the War Between the States). I've been repeatedly amazed at how many writers and politicians and abolitionists with whom he corresponded. No wonder he was tired all the time!

Besides Celia Thaxter (she of the salon on Appledore Island in the Isles of Shoals) Whittier corresponded with Lucy Larcom and Lydia Maria Child, both of whom I'd heard of, and Bayard Taylor of whom I had never heard. Taylor just provides another example of how many of my seemingly unrelated interests connect in unexpected ways. Turns out that Taylor (who basically invented the genre of travel writing) sailed with Perry to Japan! Black Ships! Boy does that ever dovetail with my fascination with that period in Japanese history and in 19th century foreigners' impressions of Japan. You can bet I'll be hunting down Taylor's account of that trip.

Whittier writes to Sumner about Lajos Kossuth's (or Kossuth Lajos to use the Hungarian name order), who gets mentioned twice in my journal in his botanical context, August 6,1999 and August 8,1999, US visit in 1851. Was that before he was forced to seek comfort in botanizing Italy? Must double check those dates. Whittier also mentions a "friend in battle, as in exile, of Kossuth" named Zagonyi who accompanied Jessie Fremont (wife of General John C. Fremont) on a visit to Whittier's Amesbury home in 1863. Hungarians are everywhere, eh?

It almost goes without saying that Whittier read Walden, which he describes as "capital reading, but very wicked and heathenish." Guess Whittier wasn't a member of the church of sauntering.

So far, then, beyond the Merrimack River theme, we have Black Ships era Japan, Hungarian botanists, and Thoreau as topics in common. I have not yet come across any references to Moby Dick, homeless cats, or short-eared owls, but you can bet I'll be on the lookout.