Index Rerum of William H. Kimball

Thirty-third Edition, Northampton, Mass.: Bridgman & Childs. 1863.

this page in progress (11 April 2010)

A William H. Kimball (1817-92) was born at Goffstown and died at Concord, both New Hampshire. He was a merchant, artist, newspaper publisher, photographer, state legislator, [and] Librarian – State Library. source. It is only possible that this is our Wm. H. Kimball.

Shown below are only a few of the entries; I expect to include all of them. None of the sources are certain, as to edition; almost all of the passages can be found in multiple locations — books, journals and newspapers — in the latter half of the 19th century. Two newspaper clippings pasted to the rear endpaper may help date the usage of this copy, ca 1868-1872 (see discussion following the list of extracts). The book is signed by its owner Wm. H. Kimball, 1865.

Three entries under HaaH (at left) and signature on first free flyleaf.

This copy was lightly used as a commonplace/extract book, not index. Notations are made in what I make out to be three different hands (that will later be identified as A, B and C). All of the entries might be classed under the heads spiritual or practical wisdom, and most have an aphoristic quality. Only a few are presented below (for now). The presentation of sources in the right column is intended only to show the range of publications from which these extracts might have been drawn; I do not claim that any of them are Kimball’s actual source (as is more easily done for entries in Index Rerum of a more scholarly or clerical nature).

AiiA

Afflictions Hearts, like apples, are hard and sour, / Till crushed by Pain’s resistless power; / And yield their juices sick and bland / To none but Sorrow’s heavy hand. Bittersweet this may be J. G. Holland, Bitter Sweet: First Movement — First Episode, as given in Stokes’ Encylopedia of Familiar Quotations (1906) here.

As the ancients held sacred the oak riven by the lightnings, so a delicate mind always regards one who has been afflicted, as if touched by the hand of God. not sourced, but could be here — Mrs. S. H. DeKroyft, A Place in Thy Memory (New York: John F. Trow & Son, 1876)

Advice He who can take advice is sometimes to superior to him who can give it. Von Knebel (various locations, e.g., Friend’s Intelligencer 47 (1890) here, bottom of page)

BaaB

"Ballads Are the gipsey-children of song — born under green hedge-rows, and along the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature — in the genial summer time." Longfellow.

BeeB

Benevolence Benevolence is like the dews of heaven, which falling silently and unobserved, see not to attract attention but to do good.

Beauty As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which lasts only while the warmth continues; but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the load stone, never lose their power. These are the true graces, which as the poet feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmy united to each other. Burton here and there, including F.S. (Frederick Saunders), Pearls of Thought, Religious and Philosophical, Gathered from Old Authors (New York: Stanford & Delisser, 1858), under the heading Moral Beauty.

BiiB

Bible As the moaning shell whispers of the sea, so the Bible breathes of love in heaven, the home of angels, and joys too pure to die.

Birth Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: / The soul that rises with us, our life's star, / Hath had elsewhere its setting, / And cometh from afar. / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory, do we come / From God, who is our home. not sourced, but Wordsworth Intimations of Immortality

BooB

Books Hope and the world are full; and he who drags into book-pages a phrases or two of the great life of passion, of endurance, of love, of sorrow, is but wetting a feather in the sea that breaks ceaselessly along the great shore of the years. Every man’s heart is a living drama, every death is a drop scene; every book only a faint foot light to throw a little flicker on the stage. D. G. Mitchell’s Dream Life, here (extract does not match word for word).

CaaC

Cares Longellow

Change There is no loss but change, no death but sin, o parting save the slow corrupting pain of murdered faith that never lives again. Miss Mulock here, Living: After a Death in Poems by the author of John Halifax, Gentleman, Etc. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866 [Mrs. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik]

Charity Lowell

CiiC

Circumstances Tennyson

Cromwell Oliver. Historical romance of by Henry William Herbert. (Interesting.)

CooC

"Conscience for the obedient has sounds more pleasant than music, but for the transgressor peals more terrific than thunder." L. Beecher here autobiography p 574

Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, Man’s conscience is the oracle of God. Byron

PeeP

Preaching Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all. Johnson
Pope Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, here (bottom right of page).

ViiV

"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien / As to be hated, needs but to be seen; / Yet seen too often, familiar with his face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace."
Pope Pope has it oft not often

Two clippings on back endpaper, showing reverse at right. The Beautiful Snow was taken up by several papers, for example here, in The Journal of Education for Ontario (Toronto), Vol. 21 No. 12 (December 1868), where there is provided a more detailed — even explicit — description of the fallen woman, with its depiction of a fair brow upon which had long been written that terrible word — prostitute!. The poem (and a short introduction) also appears in the Pittsfield Sun of November 27, 1872.

Regarding one of the notices on the obverse of this poem, a different account of the Valuable Testimony of Dr. Holland of Springfield, Massachusetts on the temperance question (wine in Switzerland no improvement over whiskey) appeared in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette on November 25, 1868.

maintaining the self/selves

AiiA
Afflictions	Hearts, like apples, are hard and sour, / Till crushed by Pain’s resistless power; / And yield their juices sick and bland / To none but Sorrow’s heavy hand. Bittersweet	this may be J. G. Holland, Bitter Sweet: First Movement — First Episode, as given in Stokes’ Encylopedia of Familiar Quotations (1906) here.
	As the ancients held sacred the oak riven by the lightnings, so a delicate mind always regards one who has been afflicted, as if touched by the hand of God.	not sourced, but could be here — Mrs. S. H. DeKroyft, A Place in Thy Memory (New York: John F. Trow & Son, 1876)
Advice	He who can take advice is sometimes to superior to him who can give it. Von Knebel	(various locations, e.g., Friend’s Intelligencer 47 (1890) here, bottom of page)
BaaB
"Ballads	Are the gipsey-children of song — born under green hedge-rows, and along the leafy lanes and by-paths of literature — in the genial summer time." Longfellow.
BeeB
Benevolence	Benevolence is like the dews of heaven, which falling silently and unobserved, see not to attract attention but to do good.
Beauty	As amber attracts a straw, so does beauty admiration, which lasts only while the warmth continues; but virtue, wisdom, goodness, and real worth, like the load stone, never lose their power. These are the true graces, which as the poet feigns, are linked and tied hand in hand, because it is by their influence that human hearts are so firmy united to each other. Burton	here and there, including F.S. (Frederick Saunders), Pearls of Thought, Religious and Philosophical, Gathered from Old Authors (New York: Stanford & Delisser, 1858), under the heading Moral Beauty.
BiiB
Bible	As the moaning shell whispers of the sea, so the Bible breathes of love in heaven, the home of angels, and joys too pure to die.
Birth	Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: / The soul that rises with us, our life's star, / Hath had elsewhere its setting, / And cometh from afar. / Not in entire forgetfulness, / And not in utter nakedness, / But trailing clouds of glory, do we come / From God, who is our home.	not sourced, but Wordsworth Intimations of Immortality
BooB
Books	Hope and the world are full; and he who drags into book-pages a phrases or two of the great life of passion, of endurance, of love, of sorrow, is but wetting a feather in the sea that breaks ceaselessly along the great shore of the years. Every man’s heart is a living drama, every death is a drop scene; every book only a faint foot light to throw a little flicker on the stage.	D. G. Mitchell’s Dream Life, here (extract does not match word for word).
CaaC
Cares	Longellow
Change	There is no loss but change, no death but sin, o parting save the slow corrupting pain of murdered faith that never lives again. Miss Mulock	here, Living: After a Death in Poems by the author of John Halifax, Gentleman, Etc. Boston: Ticknor and Fields, 1866 [Mrs. Dinah Maria Mulock Craik]
Charity	Lowell
CiiC
Circumstances	Tennyson
Cromwell	Oliver. Historical romance of by Henry William Herbert. (Interesting.)
CooC
"Conscience	for the obedient has sounds more pleasant than music, but for the transgressor peals more terrific than thunder." L. Beecher	here autobiography p 574
	Whatever creed be taught, or land be trod, Man’s conscience is the oracle of God. Byron
PeeP
Preaching	Sir, a woman’s preaching is like a dog’s walking on his hind legs. It is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all. Johnson Pope	Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson, here (bottom right of page).
ViiV
"Vice	is a monster of so frightful mien / As to be hated, needs but to be seen; / Yet seen too often, familiar with his face, / We first endure, then pity, then embrace." Pope	Pope has it oft not often

index rerum, William H. Kimball’s copy

maintaining the self/selves