Boston, Massachusetts – 1837
31st August, 1837
I have just returned from Mr. Emerson’s address to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, my mind still reeling from his words like a church bell struck too hard. The September air carries the first hint of autumn’s chill through my small window here on Beacon Hill, and as I take up my pen by candlelight, I find myself asking the same question that has plagued me for months past: Why do I commit these thoughts to paper when no soul shall ever read them?
Emerson spoke this afternoon of the American scholar, of “Man Thinking” rather than mere bookworms who parrot the wisdom of others. His voice rang through Harvard’s halls with such conviction that I felt each word strike my chest like hammer blows. “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of Europe,” he declared, and I found myself wondering – am I not guilty of this very sin? Have I not filled these pages with imitations of Byron’s brooding melancholy and Wordsworth’s pastoral musings, never once daring to examine the life that unfolds before my own eyes here in Boston?
The question torments me now as I sit in this cramped chamber, little more than an attic room really, furnished with naught but a narrow bed, a pine writing desk, and my trunk of books. Why do I write here, in secret, when these observations shall never see the light of day? What compels me to record my daily wanderings through this bustling city, my encounters with Irish dock workers and German shopkeepers, my thoughts on the sermons I hear at Park Street Church?
Perhaps it is mere vanity – the foolish notion that my reflections possess some worth. Or perhaps it is cowardice, the safe harbour of private scribbling rather than the perilous waters of actual authorship. I think of my father’s words when I graduated from Harvard three years past: “Silas, you’ve had your fill of books and fancy ideas. Now ’tis time to make your way in the world like other men.” And so I clerk for Morton & Associates, copying legal documents in a careful hand whilst my evenings belong to this leather-bound journal and my impossible dreams.
But tonight, after hearing Emerson’s clarion call, I cannot simply dismiss these nocturnal scribblings as idle fancy. There is something in me that demands expression, something that stirs when I witness the great drama of American life unfolding in our streets. Only yesterday, I observed a heated exchange between a mill owner and his workers near the harbour. The owner, a thin-lipped Yankee in fine broadcloth, spoke of “economic necessities” and “market forces” whilst the workers – their faces weathered by labour, their voices carrying the music of Ireland and the German states – spoke of families to feed and dignity to preserve.
I found myself recording every word I could remember, capturing not merely the substance of their dispute but the very rhythms of their speech, the gestures that accompanied their arguments, the way the afternoon light caught the dust motes stirred by their passion. Why did I feel compelled to preserve this scene? What purpose does such documentation serve?
1st September, 1837
Another day spent hunched over Morton’s ledgers, my fingers stained with ink, my mind wandering despite my efforts to focus upon the task at hand. The office windows overlook State Street, and I find myself watching the constant flow of humanity: merchants in beaver hats hurrying to the Exchange, servants carrying baskets from the market, sailors fresh from distant ports with stories written in the salt lines of their faces.
During my dinner hour, I walked to Faneuil Hall, where the afternoon light cast long shadows through the colonnade. A group of men had gathered near the east entrance, their conversation animated. I lingered within earshot, pretending to examine the posted notices whilst listening to their discourse.
“Emerson’s speech has set the whole college ablaze,” one fellow was saying – a portly gentleman with the bearing of a professor. “He speaks of intellectual independence, but what does that signify for a nation scarce sixty years old? Are we to abandon all that Athens and Rome and London have given us?”
Another voice, younger and more heated: “But sir, is that not precisely his point? We measure ourselves against dead Greeks and Englishmen whilst the living American experience goes unexamined. What poetry captures the song of our mill wheels? What philosophy addresses the questions raised by our democratic experiment?”
I wished to join their discussion, to offer my own tentative thoughts, but the words died in my throat. What right had a law clerk to speak amongst learned men? Instead, I retreated to my pen and this journal, recording their conversation and my own cowardly response to it.
Yet as I write these words, I wonder: is this not a form of courage in itself? To observe, to record, to attempt understanding through the act of writing? Or is it merely another kind of retreat, a scholarly withdrawal from the very life I claim to study?
3rd September, 1837
I encountered Nathaniel Fuller at the Athenæum this afternoon – a fellow from my Harvard days who now reads law with his father’s firm. We had not spoken since commencement, and I confess I approached him with some eagerness, hoping to discuss Emerson’s address with someone of my own generation.
“Ah, Putnam!” he greeted me with the hearty manner I remembered. “Still haunting the library stacks, I see. Tell me, what did you make of our Mr. Emerson’s performance the other day?”
“I found it rather stirring,” I replied, attempting to sound casual whilst my pulse quickened. “His call for American intellectual independence seemed – “
“Independence?” Fuller laughed, a sound like coins rattling in a purse. “My dear fellow, the man’s a mere enthusiast. Independence from what, I ask you? From Shakespeare and Milton? From Plato and Aristotle? ‘Tis folly to suggest we can simply invent wisdom anew, as though centuries of human thought were mere impediments to our rustic American genius.”
His words struck me like cold water. “But surely there is something to be said for examining our own experience, our own – “
“Experience?” He waved dismissively. “What experience have we Americans that has not been better examined by superior minds? Our politics are drawn from Locke and Montesquieu, our poetry from English masters, our philosophy from German idealists. Even our language belongs to England. This notion that geographical circumstance grants us some special insight is romantic nonsense.”
I found myself unable to form a proper reply. What could I say? That my private journal contained observations worthy of consideration? That my daily encounters with Boston’s citizens revealed truths that learned European authors had missed? The very idea seemed suddenly preposterous.
We parted cordially enough, but his words followed me through the streets like pursuing shadows. Back in my chamber now, I stare at these pages filled with my careful script, my earnest observations, my fumbling attempts to make sense of American life. Perhaps Fuller is correct. Perhaps I am merely a provincial clerk playing at being a man of letters, no different from a child who dresses in his father’s clothes and imagines himself grown.
Yet something in me rebels against this conclusion. When I walked home tonight through the narrow lanes of the North End, past the taverns where German immigrants gathered to speak their native tongue, past the boarding houses where Irish families crowded into rooms smaller than mine, I felt the pulse of something unprecedented in human history – a nation attempting to build itself upon ideals rather than blood, a society where men of all origins might forge their own destinies.
Surely this deserves documentation, even if only in the private pages of an obscure law clerk’s journal. Surely the question “Why do I write?” deserves a better answer than mere dismissal.
The candle burns low, and tomorrow brings another day of copying legal documents. But tonight, despite Fuller’s mockery and my own doubts, I shall continue to write. For what else is there to do when something within demands expression, when the act of writing feels as necessary as breathing itself?
Perhaps that is reason enough – for now.
5th September, 1837
Tonight, I write with a newfound resolve. Fuller’s dismissive words still sting, yet they have kindled something unexpected – a fierce determination to test Emerson’s challenge with my own pen. If I am to discover whether my observations possess any worth, I must cease this timid dancing around truth and commit to honest observation, however crude it may appear.
This afternoon, inspired by a reckless courage, I ventured to the mill district near the Charles River, where the great wheels turn ceaselessly and the air hangs thick with cotton dust. There, outside Boott Mills, I witnessed a confrontation that no European novelist could have imagined, for it was born entirely of our American circumstances.
A group of mill operatives – mostly young women from the countryside, their faces pale from long hours indoors – had gathered around a stout Irishman whose voice carried the music of County Cork. His weathered hands gestured as he spoke, and I found myself drawing closer, compelled to capture his exact words.
“‘Tis twelve hours a day we’re givin’ them, and for what wages?” he declared, his brogue thick with indignation. “Back home, we had little enough, but at least a man could call his soul his own. Here, they’d have us machines, no different from their cotton gins and spinning jennies.”
A young woman – scarce older than myself – stepped forward, her voice clear despite its working-class inflection: “Patrick’s right as rain. We come here thinking to better ourselves, but they treat us no kinder than they would their livestock. And when we speak up, they threaten us with dismissal.”
I stood transfixed, not merely by their grievances but by the cadences of their speech, the particular American mixture of old-world memory and new-world hope. Here was language that no drawing room in London had ever heard, sentiments that arose from conditions entirely unknown to European experience.
Returning to my chamber, I abandoned all pretence of literary grace and wrote exactly what I had witnessed – the Irishman’s passionate gestures, the young woman’s quiet dignity, the way afternoon sunlight caught the dust motes stirred by their movement. For the first time, I wrote not as I imagined a proper author might, but as Silas Putnam, law clerk of Boston, observer of American life.
The act felt both liberating and terrifying. Yet as I completed my account, a peculiar satisfaction settled upon me. These words belonged to no tradition save the one I was attempting to create.
8th September, 1837
My pen grows bolder with each passing day. Walking through the North End this morning, I found myself in the German quarter, where the shopkeepers’ voices carry the harsh music of the Rhine and their children play games that blend Old World customs with New England practicality.
At Herr Zimmermann’s bakery, I overheard a conversation that would have been impossible in any previous age or nation. The baker, flour dusting his leather apron, spoke with a customer – a former Lowell mill girl now married to a Irish dock worker – about their children’s education.
“In the old country,” Zimmermann said, his English careful but clear, “my son would be baker like his father, ja? But here, perhaps he studies law, becomes merchant, who knows? This America, she makes new possibilities.”
The young woman nodded thoughtfully. “My husband says the same. In Ireland, his father was tenant farmer, his grandfather too. But here, maybe our boy owns his own land someday.”
I found myself scribbling notes on a scrap of paper, right there in the street. This conversation – this mingling of German thoroughness, Irish hope, and Yankee ambition – represented something unprecedented in human history. What European chronicler could capture such a scene? They might understand the individual elements, but never this particular American alchemy.
At the Green Dragon this evening, I encountered a group of young men discussing Emerson’s address with the fervour of revolutionaries. One, a printer’s apprentice named Josiah Whitcomb, spoke with particular passion:
“Don’t you see? Emerson’s calling us to cast off these mental chains, same as our grandfathers threw off political ones. Every American who thinks an original thought strikes a blow for intellectual independence.”
His words set my pulse racing, for I recognised in them an echo of my own growing conviction. My journal, these humble observations of Boston life, perhaps they too constitute a form of rebellion – a refusal to see America through foreign eyes.
12th September, 1837
Today brought an encounter that illuminated, with sudden clarity, the purpose that has been forming in my mind these past weeks.
While crossing Boston Common, I noticed a young woman seated beneath the great elm, reading from a slim volume. Something in her bearing – a quality of thoughtful attention – drew my eye. As I passed, I glimpsed the book’s title: Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads.
“A fine choice for such a September afternoon,” I ventured, touching my hat brim.
She looked up with intelligent grey eyes. “Indeed, though I confess I find myself wondering what Mr. Wordsworth might have written had he walked these American paths instead of his English fells.”
The observation struck me with its aptness. “Perhaps,” I replied, “the poetry of our landscape awaits American voices to sing it properly.”
We spoke for several minutes – she was Miss Catherine Wells, daughter of a Unitarian minister, recently returned from a year of teaching in western Massachusetts. Her conversation sparkled with observations about the changes sweeping our young nation: the growing anti-slavery sentiment, the stirrings of women seeking broader rights, the spiritual awakening that Emerson and his circle champion.
“I keep a journal,” she confided as we prepared to part. “Nothing literary, mind you – merely my attempts to understand this remarkable time in which we live. Sometimes I fancy that we are witnessing the birth of something entirely new in human experience.”
Her words resonated through my evening walk home. Yes – that is precisely what I have been documenting without fully realising it. Not merely the daily life of Boston, but the very process of American consciousness taking shape. My journal captures the conversations, the conflicts, the hopes and fears of a people still discovering what it means to be American.
I write because this moment – this birth of a nation’s mind – deserves witness. European authors may chronicle their ancient cultures with centuries of precedent to guide them, but we Americans face the unprecedented task of defining ourselves. My modest journal, with its catalogue of immigrant voices and working-class struggles, its record of changing customs and emerging ideas, becomes a small contribution to that great work of national self-discovery.
Tonight, as I set down these reflections, I no longer question why I write. The answer has grown clear through practice: I write because democracy requires individual voices, because the American experiment depends upon citizens thinking and observing for themselves. My pen may be humble, my observations unremarkable to learned eyes, but they are mine, and they are true, and in this time and place, that makes them necessary.
The question is no longer “Why do I write?” but rather “How could I not?”
15th September, 1837
This morning brought an epiphany as sudden and clear as lightning splitting summer sky. I had ventured to Faneuil Hall marketplace, where the great bustle of commerce creates a symphony of American voices that no concert hall could match. The autumn air carried the mingled scents of apples from western orchards, salt fish from the Grand Banks, and the rich molasses that sweetens our New England tables.
Amid the throng, I encountered Mistress Brigid O’Connell, the Irish widow who sells flowers near the east entrance. Her weathered hands were stained with earth, her grey hair escaped from beneath her cap, yet her eyes held the sharp intelligence of one who has observed much and forgotten little.
“Ah, young Silas!” she called out, her brogue thick as cream. “Still wanderin’ these streets with that thoughtful look, are ye? Come here, lad, and tell me what’s got your mind so occupied.”
I approached, oddly comforted by her maternal manner. “I’ve been wrestling with questions of purpose, Mistress Brigid. Whether my writing serves any worthy end.”
She laughed, a sound like coins jingling in a purse. “Writing, is it? And what sort of scribblin’ occupies your evenings?”
“I keep a journal,” I confessed, feeling heat rise to my cheeks. “Nothing grand – merely observations of daily life in our city. The conversations I overhear, the struggles I witness…”
Her expression grew serious. “Listen well, Silas Putnam. Do ye think the fine gentlemen in their counting houses care a whit for the likes of me? Or for Kitty Flaherty who scrubs their floors, or Hans Zimmermann who bakes their bread?” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to an urgent whisper. “We’re the ones buildin’ this country with our sweat and tears, yet who speaks for us? Who remembers our part in the great work?”
The truth of her words struck me like a physical blow. Here, in this cacophonous marketplace where merchants hawked their wares and children darted between the stalls, I witnessed the very heartbeat of democratic life – ordinary citizens creating something extraordinary through their daily labours and dreams.
“That’s it,” I murmured, understanding flooding through me. “That’s exactly it.”
Mistress Brigid smiled knowingly. “Aye, lad. Someone must bear witness, else our voices disappear like smoke. Your pen may not command armies or change laws, but it can preserve what matters – the truth of how we lived, how we struggled, how we hoped.”
I walked home through streets that seemed transformed. Every conversation I passed, every gesture I observed, every face I glimpsed carried new significance. This was my subject – not the grand gestures of history but the countless small acts of courage that truly build a nation.
18th September, 1837
The revelation at Faneuil Hall has settled into steady conviction. Tonight, I write with a clarity I have never known before, understanding at last the true nature of my calling.
Democracy, I now perceive, requires not merely the participation of citizens in governance but their participation in the great conversation that shapes a nation’s character. When working men and women speak their minds – in taverns, in markets, in their own homes – they exercise the same fundamental right that learned men claim in their speeches and publications.
My journal serves as parliament for the unheard. Here, the mill girl’s complaints carry equal weight with the merchant’s concerns. Here, the immigrant’s hopes deserve the same attention as the native-born citizen’s fears. In recording these voices faithfully, I perform an act of democratic citizenship more essential than any ballot cast.
This evening, I encountered young Isaac Tuttle, a blacksmith’s apprentice whose calloused hands speak of honest labour. We fell into conversation outside Tremont’s coffeehouse, where the lamplight spilled golden pools upon the cobblestones.
“You’re that fellow who’s always scribbling in his notebook,” he observed with friendly curiosity. “What d’ye find worth writing about in this old town?”
“Everything,” I replied without hesitation. “Your words, just now – the way you speak of your trade with pride despite its difficulties. The dreams you harbour for your own smithy someday. These matter as much as any senator’s speech.”
His eyes widened. “Never thought of it that way. Most folks with education look right through us working types.”
“Then they miss the very essence of what makes America distinctive,” I told him. “We are the first nation built upon the premise that ordinary minds possess extraordinary worth.”
As we parted, Isaac called back: “Keep writin’, then. Somebody ought to remember we were here.”
His words echoed long into the night. Yes – somebody ought to remember. And if that somebody must be me, a humble law clerk with ink-stained fingers and democratic sympathies, then so be it.
20th September, 1837
Three weeks have passed since Emerson’s thunderous challenge rang through Harvard’s halls, and I find myself a changed man entirely. The question that once tormented me – “Why do I write?” – has transformed into something approaching sacred duty.
Tonight, as September’s chill seeps through my window and the candle flame dances shadows across these familiar pages, I set down my pen with profound satisfaction. The leather-bound journal before me, once a source of embarrassment and doubt, now represents something revolutionary: an American book, written by an American mind, for American purposes.
Within these pages lie the authentic voices of my time – Mistress Brigid’s fierce wisdom, Isaac Tuttle’s quiet dignity, the German baker’s patient hope, the mill workers’ righteous anger. No European author could have captured these particular cadences, these specific struggles, these uniquely American dreams.
I write because this moment in human history – this grand experiment in self-governance – deserves chroniclers beyond the great men whose names will grace official histories. The true story of America unfolds in ten thousand private conversations, in countless acts of individual courage, in the daily choices of ordinary citizens to think and speak and hope for themselves.
My journal represents one small rebellion against the tyranny of inherited wisdom. Each entry declares independence from the assumption that only certain voices deserve hearing, that only particular perspectives merit preservation. In recording the speech patterns of Irish dock workers and German shopkeepers, in documenting the aspirations of mill girls and the sorrows of widowed mothers, I participate in the great democratic experiment as surely as any legislator or judge.
The question “Why do I write?” has found its answer in lived experience rather than abstract theory. I write because democracy thrives on the multiplication of voices, because individual observation enriches collective understanding, because somebody must remember that we were here – struggling, dreaming, building something unprecedented in human history.
I write because silence serves tyranny whilst honest expression, however humble, serves freedom.
I write because I am an American, thinking American thoughts in American ways, and in this time and place, that makes my voice necessary.
The candle burns low, and tomorrow brings another day of copying legal documents for Morton & Associates. But tonight, I close this journal knowing that my private scribblings serve a purpose grander than any I had dared imagine. In these pages, democracy finds its truest expression – not in the halls of power, but in the daily testimony of free minds bearing witness to their own experience.
In these words, I find my place in the story of a nation yet unfinished – my voice among the many that build her future.
The End
31st August 1837, Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered “The American Scholar” before Harvard’s Phi Beta Kappa in Cambridge, Massachusetts, urging literary independence and “Man Thinking” over bookish imitation; he privately printed 500 copies that sold out within a month, and the address later earned the sobriquet “America’s intellectual Declaration of Independence.”
The speech occurred amid New England’s rapid industrialisation: by 1840, Lowell’s mills employed over 8,000 workers, nearly three-quarters women, with days often 12–14 hours and average weekly schedules near 73 hours, illustrating the social realities that journals and later reform writings would chronicle.
Within a year, Emerson’s Divinity School Address (15th July 1838) provoked controversy and an institutional ban lasting about 30 years, yet his ideas catalysed Transcendentalist circles and influenced figures from James Russell Lowell to Henry David Thoreau, who began lifelong journaling in 1837.
Compared with European traditions grounded in classical authority, Emerson’s call paralleled broader Atlantic debates on national literatures and public intellectual life, but pressed uniquely American claims for intellectual self-reliance and civic-minded scholarship.
Today, the address remains a touchstone in curricula on American letters and democratic culture, shaping modern views on authorship, public discourse, and the value of personal writing as civic participation.
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