B RO O K
I TS M E M B E RS
,
FA R M
S C H O L AR S
V I S IT O R S
,
AND
Nat wnal Sta t u e s;
I
G E O R GE E
I
D WA R D
OLD C
By
m fimm
I
T H O M AS
W OO
can
D B E RRY
AM B R I D G E
E DITOR
.
.
W E NTW O RTH H I GG I NSO N
.
ARM
L IN DSAY S W I FT
B ROOK
By
IN
THE
I ma m ,
I
F
.
.
PREPA RA TIO N
.
A M E R I C A N H I ST O R I C A L N O V E L
B y PAUL LE I CEST E R F O R D
T H E K N I C K E R B O CK E R S
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B y T H E REV
.
H E N RY
V AN
D Y KE
D D
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.
I
B y J O H N K E N D R I CK BAN G S
T H E C L E R G Y I N A M E R I C A N LI F E A N D
L ETTE R S
T H E R E V D A N I L D ULA N E Y A DDI SO N
F L O W E R O F E SS E !
B y T H E E DI T O R
T H E H O O S I E R W R I TE R S
B y M E RE DI T H N I C H O LSO N
SO U T H E R N
H U M O R ST S
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E
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O t be rs t o be
a n n ou n c e d
.
BROOK FARM
ITS M E M BE R S
,
SC H O L A R S, A N D
V IS I T O R S
LI N D S A Y S WI FT
6
4
fl
Nt h)
nd:
fi
T H E M A C M I L LA N C O M PA N Y
c o Lm
LON D ON M A CM ILLAN
:
A ll
.
r
ig/z is
r es er
ve d
,
CO PY RIG HT ,
B Y TH E M
Se t
1 900
u
p
a n d e le c t ro ty
1 900,
ACM ILLA N
pe d
Ja n u
a ry ,
CO M
PAN Y
R e p rin t e d
1 900
.
.
f
b e
13 8 3 ?
Norwoob iBre s s
J 8 Cu s h in g
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8: Co
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B e rw ic k
No r w o o d M a s s U S A
.
Sm it h
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.
May ,
P R E FA CE
IT
has often been said by those best qualified
to know and it may he re properly be said again
that the veracious history of Brook Farm w ill
never be w ritten Some of the most important
records of its institutional life a re hopelessly
lost O ther material is lodged in the keeping
of a former member who has already made
copious use of it
There are also before the
world various recollectio ns and memories of
associates scholars and visitors once fully iden
This literature of
t ifie d with this experiment
the subj ect is not inconsiderable and much of
it is entertaining and valuable ; but it is often
contradictory often repetitious and too often
erro n eous No Brook Farmer of the first im
portan ce has chosen to write with fulness of his
experience
The most which remains of the
highest authority exists only in an occasional
lecture an agreeable paper of a personal nature
o r so m e remembered conversation
Th ose to
w hom Brook Far m meant the m ost have been
the most sil e nt and its sto ry w a s written — for
only a f e w survive
deep in their hearts This
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P R E FACE
vi
reticence did not find its reasons in sentiment
alone
What is t rue of a m ovement like the
A ntislavery agitation is true also of Brook
Fa rm
B oth looked to the realization of a
moral ideal and the subtle spirit which ani
mated both was perishable and incommunicable
I t is more than fifty years Since the last d w eller
in that p leasant domain turned his reluctant
step s a w ay from its noble illusions and toward
the stress of realities ; but from no one of this
gracious company has ever come the admission
that B rook Farm was a failure
There may yet be a place for a boo k which
shall endeavor w ithout too much minuteness to
and present w hat r e ally is kno w n
c o Ordin a t e
co n cerning the most romantic incident of New
England Transcendentalism There was a dis
tinct beginning a fairly coherent progress but
a vague termi n ation
The enterprise faded
flickered died down a n d expired Like som e
ill contrived play the Brook Farm Phalanx lin
during
one
more
act
after
the
essential
r
d
e
e
g
dram atic elements were exhausted
It iS still
possible to give a nearly complete account and
it is to be trusted w ithout causing undue dis
t u rb a n c e to the se n sitiven e ss of the survivors or
their friends w h o guardi n g t h e privacies and
the arcana of w hat seemed to many a home life
w ould shield it from intrusion and vulgar dis
closure There has bee n no w ish to make these
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P R E FACE
vii
pa ge s a catch basin for floating gossip or ill
natured anecdotes : these have been suffered
to float unstayed out to the sea of oblivion
M anifest absurdities the extravagance of youth
and the passin g lights and shadows of the daily
life may in fairness b e con sidered as a relief to
the seriousness of the story a s a whole
I nspired by a philosophical and speculative
enthusiasm Brook Farm began as an attempt
to w ork m odifications in social life
I n this
direct att e mpt it certainly ended in disaster
The visible fruits were i n tellectual and of the
m e n and women who contributed to the re n o w n
of Brook Farm as o n e of the true seeding
grou n ds of A m e rican l e tters it is the purpose of
this book to speak not critically or b io gra p h i
cally but rather from the personal Side and
in particular as each person considered w a s
affected by the associative life at Brook Farm
Some w h o came to a greater or less distinction
some scholars and some w ere
w ere members
influential visitors
I t only rem ains to express my gratitude to
Miss M ary H arris R ollins w h o has rendered
me the most loyal friendly services and advice
and has herself renoun ced to aid my o w n
efforts a long cherished ambition to devote her
ability and energy to a similar proj ect
I am indebted to all w h o h av e been a p
w
r
h
d
ith
doubtless
troublesome
questions
e
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P R E FA C E
for their unfailing kindness and in particular to
my mother who permits me to print a hitherto
unpublished letter from her former friend M iss
Georgianna B ruce once a member of the Brook
Farm A ssociation
M any valuable data have
been supplied by M rs O sborn e M acdaniel of
N e w York once a resident of Brook Farm and
still mindful of its charm
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L
AUGUST
I I,
1 8 99
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S
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CO N T EN T S
C H A PT E R I
T HE
T RA NSCE ND E NTAL C LUB
C H AP TE R I I
B ROO K F A R M
T h e O rga n iz a t io n
T h e Bu ild in g s a n d G ro u n d s
T h e I n du s t rie s
T h e H o u s e h o ld W o rk
T h e A m u s e m e n t s a n d Cu s t o m s
C H A P T E R II I
T HE
S C HOO L A N D I TS S C HO LAR S
G e o rg e W ill ia m Cu rt is a n d J a m e s Bu rrill Cu rt is
I s aa c T h o m a s H e c ke r
C H AP TE R IV
T HE
M EM B ERS
G e o rg e R ipl e y a n d S o p h ia W ill a rd R ipl e y
C h a rl e s A n d e rs o n D a n a
J o h n Sull iv a n D w igh t
69
8;
94
CO NT ENTS
!
N a t ha n ie l H a w t h o rn e
J o h n O rv is a n d J o h n A ll e n
M in o t P ra t t
G e o rg e P a rt rid ge B ra dfo rd
Wa rre n Bu rt o n
C h a rl e s K in g N e w c o m b
C H A PT E R
V
V I SI TOR S
T HE
M a rga re t Full e r
W ill ia m H e n ry C h a n n in g
R a lp h Wa ld o E m e rs o n
A m o s B ro n s o n A l c o t t a n d C ha rl e s L a n e
O re s t e s A u gu s t u s B ro w n s o n
T h e o d o re P a rk e r a n d F ra n c is G e o rg e Sh a w
C hris t o p h e r P e a rs e C ra n c h
E l iz a b e t h P a l m e r P e a b o dy
CH A PT E R V I
C L OSI NG P E R I O D
T HE
T h e H a r binge r
A l b e rt B ris b a n e
B I B LI OGR A PHY
I ND E!
an d
F o u rie ris m
B RO O K
ITS M E M B E R S
,
FA R M
SC H O L AR S
V I S IT O R S
,
AN D
FA R M
B RO O K
C H A PT E R
T HE
TR
I
AN SCE ND E NTA L
C
LU B
distance seem s wide bet w een I mmanuel
K ant and the small group of social philosophers
of the Transcendental C lub in an d about B os
ton fifty or more years ago ; yet but for him
a n d the schools of Fichte Schelli n g H egel a n d
Schleiermacher which immediately follo w ed or
schismatically differed from him the r e w ould
have b e en n o Transcendental Club and very
likely no Brook Farm although K a n t m ight
have recognized with di fficulty the progeny of
”
“
his o w n genius
German philosophy had
powerfully affected t w o men in England : Cole
ridge wh o especially felt the i n fluence of
Schelling even to the point of plagia rism and
Carlyle w h o bes t of his generation interpreted
German thought in both philosophy and litera
ture Coleridge derived his inspiratio n at first
hand for he lived and studied in Germany
With his extraordinary p owers of abs orptio n
he became so full of every sort of learning that
T HE
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B
I
B ROO K FAR M
2
his genius o ve rfl o w e d upon other minds of his
generation but he w a s not other w is e an origi
nating force in his own country
Carlyle
imbibed German philosophy mainly through
German literature Philosopher he never really
was however vigorous a thinker and man of
letters H e an nounced opinions and follo w ed
convictions but i n duction w a s often too slow a
method So far a s he w a s inspirational and
given to intuitions he remain ed a Tra n s c e n
de n t a lis t in practice if not at heart though the
name g r ew to o ffend him Emerson s calmness
and fairness made him tolerant of Carlyle s
later vicissitudes as the apostle of force and
hero worship but the real impression of the
more rugged genius o n the ge n tler was made
while Carlyle was yet interpreting German y to
England a n d A merica
“
When Emerson introduced Sartor R e s a r
tus to A merica a genuine interest in the best
O f German thought was already fully unde r w a
y
in this country Few as were the hands into
w hich the torch passed from Germany through
England and to A merica it is easy to under
estimate the number Emerson takes pains to
attribute the beginning of the change toward
individualism — and this after all is the real
form which Transce n dentalism assumed in this
cou ntry — to Edward Everett and this begin
ning he sets at about the year 1 8 2 0 Everett
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T RA NSCEND E NTA L CLUB
TH E
3
and George Ticknor both studied in Germany
and both brought home w holesom e traditions of
learning ; neither of them w a s however outside
the limits of a refined and earnest scholarship
fitted by character to promote or to lead a new
movement in thought although in their re s p e c
tive chairs at H arvard College and through their
finished and academic w ritings they affected
A merican literature
Emerson also i n cludes
Channing as o n e w h o brought fresh Spiritual
forces to combat the grim fro n t of N e w England
theology adding that
His cold temperament
”
made him the most unprofitabl e companion
A t the same time also there began to be studied
in this country various forms and schools of
French philosophy and social reform — late c hil
dre n of the first R evolution Saint Simonis m
the philosophy of Cousin J oubert Constant
Leroux and presently the huge elaborations of
Fourier all made their w a y into temporary
favor in part as counteractions again st the
purer Transcendentalism but particularly as
directing atte n tio n to the need of political
and social r e generation
The scholars —for it was at first an affair of
—
n
scholars alo e
who were centred in Boston
were busied with this French philosophy mainly
eclectic and w ere also inquiring deeply into
German philosophy on thei r o w n account though
inspired by Coleridge Carlyle and by our own
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B ROOK F AR M
4
pioneers to German u n iversities Particularly
were Georg e R ipl e y M argar e t Fulle r W H
Chan n ing Convers Fra n cis Felto n James
Freeman Clarke — nor did these complete the
—
number then looki n g into the o riginal sources
and not depending too much on the large claims
which Carlyl e had begun to make as early as
1 8 2 7 for his intellectual attachme n t to Germany
M rs Dall herself still living and a triumphant
apostle of the Newness assigns to Frederic
H enry H edge the leadership in this strong
movement of N e w E n gland scholarship H edge
had been the private pupil of George Bancroft
her e a n d in Germany and his learning was of
the soundest ; he was furthermore able to c om
His influence w a s
m u n ic a t e his zeal to others
no less potent because all his life a certain e n vi
able obscurity attended him which enabled him to
build achievement not reputation It is of no
importance however who was first or last great
est or least ; the galaxy was small but it was
brilliant and each star helped to make it SO
The literary activity of the group w a s m ost
e ffectively shown in the series — the first of its
kind in A merica and edited by George R ipley
“
entitled
Sp ecimens of Foreign Standard
Literature fourtee n volumes in all which b e
gan to appear in 1 8 3 8
M iss Fuller Felto n
Dwight J ames Freeman Clarke Samuel O sgood
C T Brooks and W H Channing contributed
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6
B ROO K FAR M
“
without strong protest H is Latest Form of
”
I nfidelity w a s the boldest most defiant and
most arrogant attack w hich they w er e called
up on to sustain Puritanism was and is to d ay
as robust in a Unitarian as in a Trinitarian pro
vide d only that he has the blood of the ea r ly
saints in his veins 512 i T IEEBEEESQ EEEEELVY
reaction against the essential conservatism of
both the U n itarian and T rin it a ria n forms of
Puritanism neitherof which c h eris h e d any b e lie f
m i d o u t s ide
in t h e self s u ffic 1e n c y f t h e hu m
én n
of re vt IOII T he Tra n SCCIide n t a liSts of o s
ton were not perhaps so anxious to do m ic ilia t e
t h e philosophy of K a n t Cousin and their con
n
r
e
e
s
as
to
a
s
s
e
supremacy
of
man
him
t
t
g
er h
self a n d of each and every man as well
Under such conditions native and foreign
the Transc e ndental Club cam e into being in no
sudd e n or violent way I n fact its development
and realization w ere s o natu ral that ev e n to day
it is a matter of doubt if there ever really was
such a club The name if accepted by the
members at all w a s taken as a necessity not as
a deliberate choice Since all B oston insisted
that certain people w h o used to meet occasion
ally made a Tr anscendental Club there w a s n o
”
escaping the obligation
I supp ose says
“
Eme rson
all of them were su rprised at this
rumor of a school o r sect and ce rtai n ly at the
name of Transcendentalism given nobody kno w s
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T RANSCEND ENTA L CLUB
TH E
7
by whom or w hen it was first ap plied
Dr
H edge writing forty years later says that
R ip ley Emerson George Putnam and himself
“
called the first meeting of what was named
”
in derision the Transcendental C lub but he
insists that this Club consisted only in occasional
meetings of like minded men and women and
that no line was draw n between those who
were members and those who were not except
that due notification was always given to certain
pers ons Those who were to be looked for at
such a coterie w ere Emerson Al cott Thoreau
Stetson the R ipleys and Mrs Samuel R ip ley
D w ight Miss Fuller and Miss Peabody Parker
R obert Bartlett J ones V ery Con vers Francis
Weiss B artol and H edge N ow and again
Bradford Samuel O sgood and Ephraim Pea
body would com e Putnam w h o found that the
meetings too k a turn unexpected to him came
no more after the first meeting at Emerson s
Brownson continues H edge met with us once
or twice but b e came unbearable and was not
”
afterward i n vited
O f these choice souls Dr
Cyrus A ugustus B artol is alone living to day
then one of th e minor prophets but
al w ays a thorough Transcendentalist though
after his o w n fashion fearless honest and
not overweighted with discretion
The Club w a s often called by the members
the Symposium but the real name if there was
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B ROO K FAR M
8
“
’
any was H edge s Club inasmuch as a j our
ney by him fro m Ba n gor to Boston insured a
call for a meeting The larger title ho w ever
was foisted on these gatherings and w a s never
repelled H edge h a s not been remembered so
fully as he should have been in connection w ith
the events of these few years ; for he was an
im port ant factor and was even as k ed to be an
editor of the D ia l the most immediate result
of the Club when that periodical appeared in
A mong others identified w ith the Club
1 8 40
w ere J ames Freeman Cla rke Thom as T Stone
both the Channi n gs uncle and nephew Samuel
ns
M
ay
Samuel
D
R
obbi
C
P
Cranch
J
H aw tho rn e George Bancroft Clevenger the
sculptor Dr Charles T Foll e n Samu e l G
Ward William R ussell Caleb Stetson M iss So
phia Peabody w h o m arried H a w thorne in 1 8 4 2
and Miss M arianne R ipley Some of these w ere
not members yet all w ere w ithin a fairly def
in it e circle and followed a r e cognized cult
N o trust w orthy list of th e membe rs or meetings
of the Club now exists Though all shared to a
greater or less extent the common fervor and
though discussion w a s as general as could b e
expected in such gatherings the burd e n of talk
and e ffort fell on the enthusiastic and w illing
fe w
I t is understood that the first conferen ce
on Sept e mb e r 8 1 8 3 6 considered the unhappy
plight in which t h e Unitarian C hurch then
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TH E
T RANSCEND ENTA L CLUB
9
found itself and the preponderance in the Club
of clergy settled or unsettled was so large that
the early discussion s w ere naturally theological
R evelation Inspiration Providen ce L a w Truth
and other generalities were treated openly a n d
candidly Not without truth was the c h arg e then
made that the main tendencies of the new spirit
were toward Pantheism
The occasional meetings w ent on with a
singular amiability u n til R ipley always a lead
ing voice became so dissatisfied with his o w n
attitude toward the O ffice of t h e ministry that
h e resigned his charge late in 1 8 40 and urg e d
that some p ractical application should be m ade
of the fresh views of philosophy and life Em
e rs o n says that Dr C han n ing took counsel w ith
R ipley in the year of the latter s withdra w al
“
from his Purchase Street pulpit to the point
whether it were possible to bring cultivated
thoughtful people together and m ake a society
that d e served the name
There is mention of a
conferenc e at the house of Dr J ohn C Warre n
which ended w ith an oyster supper crowned by
”
excellent wines
N ot too much in support of
R ipley s proj ect was to be expected of the Club
itself ; in fact none of the o rigin al members
accompanied R ipl e y to Brook Farm and of the
later members only H aw thorne and D w ight
followed him ; but they were all ready enough
—
to listen to A lcott
and it was no unexactin g
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IO
B ROO K FAR M
tas k —while he read Plato as an equal
their
features were composed and their minds attuned
to the I mmensities and Eternities w hen this
“
discursive sage was asked w hether o m n ip o
”
tence abnegated attribute
Indeed these Tran
s c e n de n t a lis t s often found themselves enj oying
seraphic moods Philosophy foreign and do
m e s t ic w a s only a part of w h at they considered
They were reformers in that they were dis s a t is
fie d with any ideal less exalted than their o w n
and though far from a contentious or unamiable
set they had the reformer s capacity for making
others feel a sense of i n eptitude The relative
fe w ness of their numbe rs made this unconscious
loftin ess seem arrogance B ut w ith all their t o l
e ra n c e of ideas
they b ad n o ears for R ipley s
practical appeal E merson made the best kn o w n
refusal and it w a s n oble and honest ; in replying
to R ipley s letter of N ovember 9 1 8 40 he said
fr an kly that in ve St r
n
wer
se
e
t
e
S
n
c u rer than t he y w ere likely to be at Brook
Farm I t was a favorite theory of Emerson
—
a
u
n
n
r
th t method was
a theory due
eC
eSs a y
perhap s to a certain physical and mental ine rt
ness w hich the v
ulga r do n o t: hesitate to call
lazines s I n the B z a l in Speaking of the you n g
m e n who have been v e xing society for these last
years with regenerative methods he says that
“
they all failed to see that the R eform of R e
forms m ust be accomplished w ithout mea n s
“
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T RAN SCEND ENTA L CLUB
T HE
I
I
With the more cultivated and colder of the t w o
sorts of Boston Transcendentalists this cheerful
e t it io p r in c zf ii found favor ; but the younger
p
and more radical who said according to Emer
“
son
I wish I was not I were not satisfied
I n this way Emerson and R ipley p arted o n e to
his life of continuing serenity a n d to what in a n
other would h ave proved a fattening optimism
and the other with his little caravan across the
untried desert which lies between m ankind and
every Utopia
Broo k Farm was a Transcendental movement
without doubt but only after all in that it was
a Speculation of pure idealists and that its
inspiration came from the source s here so imp er
fe c t ly outlined
The germ of R ip ley s plan
“
may h ave Sprung from t he
N euhof of Pes
t a lo z z i
himself a g enuine Transcendentalist
concerning whom R ipley wrote an article
for the Ch ris t ia n E xa m in e r as early as 1 8 3 2 ; or
it may have been only one of the private mag
w
o
t
s
which
Lo
ell
in
his
largest
m
anner
said
g
w ere then in everybody s brain
Whatever the
remote cause nothin g Short of some kind of
realiz ation of an i deal would satisfy R ipley
He h a d no doubt pottered long enough though
“
he had no unkind word to say w ith the intel
”
lectuals O f Boston To u n dersta n d properly
the true p arentage of Brook Farm a n d espe
c ia ll
the
relations
of
the
Transcendentalists
to
y
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I2
B ROO K FAR M
reform some p ains must be taken to read con
temporary O pinions
The D ia l in p articular
was friendly to Transcendentalism and even
to Brook Farm but the balanced n ic e ty of its
good will is precisely typical of its passion for
in dividualism in op position to associatio n
In
Emerson b oldly
t h e issue for J anuary 1 8 4 3
asserts that there is no such thing as a Tran
there is no p ure T ra n s c e n
s c e n de n t a l p a n y
—
de n t a lis t
H e insists that it is I dealism
that
is
I dealis m as it exists in 1 8 42
then follow
searching obj ections to t h e extravagance the
separateness the fastidious n ess and the in a c t iv
ity of th e se friends of his bosom B ut at the
close of this one of his most coherent essays
he fi n ds use for all such by reason of their fineness
and discriminations I n a commendatory no tice
“
of A n Essay on Transcen dentalism ( Boston
an enthusiastic little book the autho rship
of which is attributed to Charles M Ellis son
of the previous owner of Brook Farm the D ia l
repudiates the notion that the n e w faith is re
f o rm a t o r y ;
it has higher nobler lovelier work
than that of warring with the past or abusing
the present
O n the other side H ecker writing as late as
“
J une 1 8 44 does not hesitate to say that A
Transcendentalist is one w h o has keen Sight but
little warmth of heart ; who has fine conceits
but is destitute of the rich glow of love He is
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B ROOK FAR M
I4
ance and has furnished no little aid even to
Frothingham and to those who have since
studied this matter
The plan of Brook Farm as a sociological
experiment will not b e dealt with here ; n o r
w ill its relations w ith several communities which
slightly touched its own life be especially e xam
The essential difference between it and
in e d
such other attempts at social reform as the
H opedale Community the N orth A merican
Phalanx at R ed Bank N e w J ersey the Wis
consin or Ceresco Phalanx and the N o rt h a m p
ton A ssociation o f Education and Industry w a s
indicated by Charles Lane ( D ia l I V
when
he said of the West R oxbury A ssociation
It
is not a commu n ity ; it is not truly an associa
tion ; it is merely an aggregation of persons
a n d lacks that oneness of spirit w hich is prob
ably needful to m ake it of help and lasting value
to mankind
The attempt to transform Brook
Farm i n to a modified Fourierist Phalanx proved
its ruin
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C H A PTE R
II
B ROO K FAR M
IN
the summer of 1 8 40 M r and Mrs
R ipley boarded on a milk farm in West
R oxbury I t w a s a pleasant place varied
in contour w ith pine w oods close at hand the
Charles R iver w ithin easy distance
A close
inspection of the substratum of sand and
gravel w ould have confirmed a suspicion in
the mind of a practical farmer that there
was a reason why there had been no attempt
to produce anything but milk on the estate ;
but the meadows which formed a large part
of the farm were fair to see and the fertile
farm s a dj oining seemed to i n dicate a favor
able soil and location
A t all events the
R ipleys left it feeling that they had found a
spot on which to carry out w hat had becom e
“
their d e arest w ish : to i
n atural
w
n
m
U
e
intellectual
and
a
n
d
a
i
l
f
d
bO
yM
yye
than now
fie the thinker an d
the worker as far as p os sible in the same
individual ; to guarantee the highe st mental
providing all with labor adapted
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B ROOK FAR M
16
to their tastes
an
d
talents and securi n g to them
,
enefits
of
educatio
n
and
t h e p r ofits of labor
b
f
i
e
a
o
are
a
ociety
thus
o
d
an
Jbl L
s
t p rep
M 4
-a
c u
d
-Q
tio n s with each o t h e rl vou ld p e rmit a m ore w hole
b e l e d a m id s t
some and
the p ressure of our comp etitiv e
”
“
To accomplish these obj ects
R ip ley w rote
to Emerson in a letter of N ovember 9 1 8 40
d
.“ l
l
l
m
0
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m
m
u
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“
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”
M
M
O
C S
hihh the most compl e t e
school or college
i n struction shall be given from the first rudi
me n ts t o
When R ipley fi rst talked over the subj ect of
an association w ith Em erson he thought that
w ould be necessary for its equipment ;
but at the time o f writing the above letter he
had decided that
would sup ply the land
and buildings f o r ten families a n d allo w a sufh
cie n t margin to c oM
t year s expenses
This sum he proposed to raise by forming a j oint
stock company amo n g those w h o were friendly
to his enterpris e each subscriber to be guar
anteed a fixed interest and the sub scriptions to
be secured by the r e al e state Ten thousand
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TH E
ORG ANI ZATI O N
17
dollars of t h e amount he believed could be raised
amo n g thos e who were ready to lend th e ir per
sonal co operation to t h e u n d e rtaki n g ; the rest
w ould be fu r n ished by those w hose sympathy
could take only the form of financial encourage
ment The shares h e would place at $ 5 00 each
five per ce n t interest would be guara n teed and
the privilege of w ithdra w ing w ould be allo w ed
an
S hareholder w h o gave th ree mo n ths notice
y
of his intenti on This last p roviso ho w eve r
w a s modified w hen the A rticles of A ssociation
came to be drawn up
I n the winter of 1 8 40 R ipley decided to buy
Brook Farm making himself at first r e spo n sible
for its management and success A bout the
first of A pril 1 8 4 1 he with his w ife and sister
and some fifteen othe r s i n cludi n g H aw tho rn e
Mrs M inot Pratt and children Geo rge P B rad
ford and Warren B urton took possession of the
farm house which w ith a large barn w a s al ready
on the estate The first six mo n ths w ere spent
”
in getting sta rted especially in the matt e r of
the school of which M iss R ipley w a s largely in
charge and it was not until the ea rly fall
—
2
September 9 that the Brook Farm I nstitute
of A griculture and Education w a s o rganized
By this time Minot Pratt a n d Charles Dana had
arrived and the A rticles of A ssociation w ere
dra w n up the stock subscrib e d f o r and the offi
cers of the I nstitut e e l e ct e d T h e si gn e rs of
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B ROOK FAR M
18
the original agreement in addition to the persons
already named w ere Samuel D R obbins and
Mary R obbins his w ife D avid M ack George
C Leach and Lemuel Capen O f thes e Mr and
Mrs R obbins and David M ack never allied
themselves w ith the A ssociation M ack j oining
the C ommunity at N ortham pton which was
organiz ed in 1 8 4 2 T w enty four Shares of stock
were taken and one third of the amount w a s actu
ally paid in M r R ip ley s library being his pledge
for $ 400 of his s ubscription These shares were
distributed as follows : George R ipley held
N os 1 2 and 3 amounting to $ 1 5 00 ; Minot
Pratt 4 5 6 ; William B A llen
Charles
;
9
A Dana 1 0 I I 1 2 ; Marianne R ipley 1 3 I 4
1 5 ; Sophia
R ipley 1 6 I 7 ; N athaniel H aw
thorne 1 8 1 9 ; M aria T Pratt 2 0 2 1 ; Sarah
F Stearns 2 2 2 3 ; Charles O Whitmore 2 4
A t the same time the follo w ing o fficers w ere
elected : General Direction
R ipley Pratt and
A llen ; Direction of Finance
H aw thorne
Dana and A llen ; Direction of A griculture
A llen Pratt and R ipley ; Direction of Educa
tion
Sophia W R ipley Dana a n d M arian n e
R ipley ; R ecording Secretary — Dana ; Treas
u re r — Pratt
A lle n a young farmer from
V ermont had been engaged as head farmer
for the first season there bein g no other man
of much agricultural experi e nce in t h e com
pany during the first few months except Frank
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THE
OR GANI ZATI ON
I9
Farley w h o had previously spent some time at
“
farming in t h e West The vote to transfer
t h e Institution recently carried o n by George
R ip ley to the Brook Farm I nstitute of A gric u l
ture and E du c a t l o n from and after November
“
I
and to transfer the establishment
”
recently carried o n by M arianne R ip ley w a s
not passed u n til O ctober 3 0 and w a s merely the
formal ratificatio n of earlier business transactions
The farm w a s bought of Charles and M aria
M Ellis and according to the deed dated O c
“
tober 1 1 1 8 4 1 contained about o n e hundred
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w
m
f R oxbury
t
m
a
w
hich has lately been set o ff
”
“
from New ton and on the westerly side of
”
the road leading from Dedham to Watertown
A nother parcel of land called the K eith lot
lying on the O pposite side of this road was in
cluded in the same conveyance but there is
nothing in the deed Sho w ing the area of this lot
and it would be di fficult at this time to estab
lish its boundaries w ith any degree of cer
tainty The area w a s t w enty two acres The
consideration for the whole estate is stated to
be
O n the same day O ctober 1 1
184 1
R ipley H a w thorne Dana and A llen
as trustees mortgaged the property to Daniel
Wilder and J osiah Quincy commissioners of the
sinki n g fu n d of the Western R ailroad Corp ora
tion to secure the payment of $ 6000 in three
ow n o
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B ROO K FAR M
20
years and twenty one days ; they also made a
second mortgage to secu re to Geo rge R R ussell
H enry P Sturgis and Francis G Shaw the
payment of $ 1 5 00 each and to Lucy Cabot
the payment of $ 5 00
I f the consideration
named in the deed from Ellis and his wife was
the real consideratio n ( and it prob ably was ) it
would s e em that the trustees succeeded at the
start in mortgaging their property for $ 5 00
more tha n it cost them
Each subsc r iber w a s entitled to the tuition of
one pupil for eve ry share of stock held instead
of his i n terest or tuitio n to an amount not
exceeding t w enty per cent interest on his in
vestment
The consent of the trustees was
necessary to the legal transference of stock ;
and any stockholder might w ithdraw his stock
with the interest due thereon by giving t w elve
months notice to the trustees Every applicant
for resident membership was to be receiv e d
on a two months probation and at the end of
that time the established members were to de
cide o n his merits as a per manent acquisition a
t w o thirds vote being required for his admissio n
I t was agreed that labor should o ffset the price
—
a year s labor for a year s board
o f board
with lesser amounts in the same proportion
T
o b e considered
the equivalent of a year s labor a n d was to e n
title the A ssociate to o n e share of annual divi
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W
’
B ROOK F AR M
22
a collection of group s an d series no change
was made in the pri n ciples of its constitution
though the details w ere nec e ssarily modified
The course of financial events may be here
conveniently follo w ed to the end I n Decem
ber 1 8 42 H awthorne and Allen conveyed their
interest as trustees to I chabod M orton and
J ohn S Brown ; and on A pril 6 1 8 4 3 Morton s
interest was conveyed to M inot Pratt The t w o
years w hich had then elap sed since the found
ing of the A ssociation had not brought a s u ffi
cient number of new members to take up any
large amount of sto ck or to develop the farm
and its industries to the p oint at which the
income largely exceeded the outgo and on the
last mentioned date R ipley Dana Pratt and
Bro w n as trustees placed a third mortgage for
$ 1 000 on the property which was taken by
Theodore Parker as guardian of George Co l
b u rn This w a s payable o n demand and w a s
to bear interest at five p er cent ; it increased the
mortgag e debts to
O n O ctober 7
1 8 44 Bro w n turned over his interest as trustee
to Le w is K R yckman and on M ay 3 1 8 4 5
the board of trustees then consisting of R ip ley
Dana Pratt and R yckman deeded the entire
p roperty to a certain j oi n t stock company
i n corporated by the G e n eral Cou rt of the Com
m o n w e a lt h of M assachusetts by the name of
the Brook Farm Phalanx and
this day
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TH E
ORGANI ZATI ON
23
organized under the A ct of I ncorporation
”
according to law
The Phalanx assumed the
payment of all debts and obligation s of every
nature contracted by the former j oint stoc k com
pany and agreed to hold the trustees as well as
all other agents harmless agai n st all claims and
documents contracted in behalf of the A ssociation
Three months later A ugust 2 0 1 8 4 5 the new
corporation ap pears to have put on a fourth
mortgage of $ 2 5 00 to Francis G Shaw executed
by George R ipley President of said Phalanx
“
and Charles A Dana Chairman of the Council
”
of Finance
The fact w a s so patent that the
community must o ffer suitable accommodations
fo r the families of desirable men who could
aid in developing the industrial side of the
experiment that desperate measures seemed
necessary to secure the completion of the
partially constructed Phalanstery
Without
doubt the Board of Direction felt that the in
creased productiveness of the farm the new
buildings and other improvements which they
had achieved w arranted the placing of this last
mortgage ; for although the fin a n c ie rin g of the
Brook Farmers may not have been adj udged
able it was never thought to be unscrupulous
The di fficulties under which the leaders must
have labored seem clear enough in the light of
the facts disclosed by the R egistry of Deeds of
N orfolk County Starting apparently with a
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B ROOK FAR M
24
capital of $4 5 00 furnished by the paid u p stoc k
and the balance between the cost of the farm
and th e amount raised by the first mortgage a
plant had to b e p rovided with which to develop
a w holly uncultivated soil and to set in motion
the wheels of household industry The in s u r
a nce and interest on stock and mortgages were
furthermore ever present prob lems
The rep ort of the Direction of Finance for
1 8 4 2 and 1 8 4 3 showed a deficit on N ovember I
the report for 1 8 44 a balance
1 8 4 3 of
of $ 1
a n d it seems to have been a matter
of debate whether the last named sum Should
b e distributed as dividends or allo w ed to go
toward w iping out the preceding deficit ; but it
was finally recognized that the earlier loss
might prop e rly be considered as s o much cap
ital invested in p ermanent improvements on the
estate and that the results of one year s indus
try ought to be divided irrespective of the re
s u lt s of former years and certificates of stoc k
issued to those persons who are entitled to such
dividends
Later rep orts c a nnot b e consulted
but the fourth mortgage sets aside any doubt re
garding the general state of the treasury
A fter the burning of the Phalanstery which
occurred M arch 3 1 8 46 it bec ame far m ore dif
fic u lt to raise capital or to dispose of s to ck
Since the structure had been built through in
vestments o n the loan stock no insurance had
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ORG ANI ZATI O N
TH E
25
been placed on the house and the holders of
pa rtnership stock the refore and the regular
members of the A ssociation had to bear the
loss
A bout $ 7 000 had already been laid out
on the Phalanstery and about $ 3 000 it w a s
estimated w a s still n eeded A current report
perhap s founded on a statement by Dana that
the i n surance had exp ired t h e day b e for e the fire
and that the failure to r e n e w it had been o w ing
to the carelessness of o n e of the Directors does
not agree w ith R ipley s o w n statement in the
H a rb ing e r of M arch 1 4 1 8 46
For another year the quiet conflict w ent for
at
a
meeting
of
w ard
a n d on M arch 4 1 8 4
7
stockholders and creditors Mr R ipley w a s a u
t h o riz e d to let the farm for one year from
M arch 1 for $ 3 5 0 ; and the K eith lot for $ 1 00
or more with such condition s and reservations
as he felt to be for the interests of the stock
holders A t a later meeting of the stockholders
A ugust 1 8 1 8 4 7 the President of t h e Phalan x
w a s authorized
to transfer to a board of three
trustees the whole property of the Corp oration
for the purpose and with power of dis posing of
it to the best advantage for all concerned
The
board of trustees included Theodore Parker
George R R ussell and Samuel P Teel
O n A pril 1 3 1 8 49 the farm was s old at pub
lic auction and w a s bought for
by John
L Plummer chairman of a special j oint c om
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B ROO K FAR M
26
on the removal of the R oxbury alms
house O n A pril 1 6 the Common Council of
the City of R oxbury instructed this committee
to acquire the estate
M ortgages a m ounting
to
an execution in favor of A nna G
A lvord am ounting to about $ 1 9 61 and also an
accumulated int e rest am ounting to $ 98 4 brought
the indebtedness of the Phalanx to
The Phalanx therefore receive d $ 1 7 04 toward
the s e ttling of all o ther claims against it The
City of R oxbury established an almshouse on its
purchase
I n 1 8 5 5 Brook Farm became the
property of the R ev J ames Freeman Clar k e
who seems to have cherished a vague proj ect
to colonize the place with desirable companions
though the difference betw een his scheme and
an ordinary land speculation is not obvious In
1 8 68 it passed into the hands of L a u ra n n a C
Munroe w h o held it as the wife of J ames W
Munroe until 1 8 7 0 The estate was then bought
by G P Burkhardt w h o Shortly after deeded it
“
to the A ssociation of the Evangelical Lutheran
”
Church for Works of M ercy w hich to day pro
vides a shelter there for many homeless chil
dren in what is known as the M artin Luther
O rphan H ome
A seeker after country quiet and beauty
h e B u il din g s
b e as much attracted to day by
might
easily
nd Groun ds
the undulating ac res of Brook Farm as
were those who sought it as a r e fuge from s o
m it t e e
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TH E
B UI LDINGS
AN D
G RO UN D S
27
discouragement nearly sixty years ago The
brook still runs slenderly through the meadow ;
there are still the sunny uplands the dim
groves and the denser woodlands ; and human
life s till teems over it all
The farm house
which stood not far from the road w hen the
life of the little community began and w hich
was naturally put to immediate use was speedily
christened the H ive I t was the heart of th e
community though perhaps it would have been
superseded had the Phalanstery reached com
l
i
n
I
t
was
a
h
ouse
with
two
rooms
on
e
t
o
p
each side of a wide hall ; those on one side
were occupied by the vivacious M rs Barlow
and her three sons who came as boarders and
those on the other side served as sitting room
and dining room the kitchen being back of
the latter
The upper room s were used as
S leeping rooms
With a gro w ing family some
reconstructio n soon became necessary a n d t w o
of the rooms on the first floor w ere thro w n
together to make a larger dining room which
S hould also serve
as an assembling place not
only for H ive it e s but for the othe rresidents
and both these needs it met so long as the com
munity survived I ts ceiling w a s l o w ; at e ach
end of the room were t w o w in dows a n d in the
middle of one end w a s an old fashioned fire
place o f brick
There w ere as many as Six
long pine tables w ith benches on either Side
c ia l
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B ROOK FAR M
28
painted white ; and the neat n e ss and attractive
ness of the apartment were emphasized by whit e
linen and white table ware The rooms on the
other side of the hall became parlor and o ffice ;
M r R ipley s library was arranged along either
side of the hall and from a door at its farther
end one c ould step out into the meadow To
t h e original buildi n g were added two wings con
taini n g rooms for laundry and other purposes
w ith spaces for shed a n d carriag e rooms under
neath There was a room for example w here
mothers could leave their children in care of
the Nu rsery Grou p w hile they attended to their
daily w ork
a clear forerunner of the present
”
day nurse ry
A large upper room in one of
the w ings occupied by single m e n passed by
the nam e of
a sounder j est than can
usually be
the annals of Brook Farm
H ere at one time Slept J ohn Codman the
Gen e ral ( Bald w in ) the Parso n ( Cape n ) the
A dmiral ( B lake ) and others
The h o u s e f a c e d to w ard the east and was
separated from the brook and meadow belo w
by two terraced emban kments e n livened by
shrubs and flower beds M ulberry and spruce
trees gave character and backgrou n d to thes e
adornments and a great elm w hich stood near
the g ive and a sycamo re w hich S haded it added
dignity to the ordina ry looki n g d w ellin g
N ew comers w ere w o n t to fin d their first wel
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B ROOK FAR M
0
3
Early in 1 8 4 2 the colo n y having outgrown
its accommodation s a house was built on
the highest point of land w hich the farm con
t a in e d a pudding stone ledge forming the cellar
and two sides of the foundation wall This
square wooden structure in w hich the exterior
use of smooth matched boards served to produce
a most depressing effect wa s so flim s ily con
structed that what went on in any one room
could be heard in every other room I t was
painted after the imitative fancy of the day
the color of gray sandstone The only feature
which redeemed its severity was a deep slightly
ornamented flat cornice which ran around the
top although there were low French windows
through which one could step out upon the upper
of the two ter races The house was reached by
a long flight of steps from the farm road The
View was a delight ; the H ive was distant about
three minutes walk ; there w a s a grove in the
rear an orchard in fro n t ; a n d from some of t h e
upp er w indows might be had charming glimpses
of the river
I nto this — the Eyrie A erie or
Eyry ( as Mr R ipley spelled it ) M r and Mrs
R ip ley moved as soon as it was finished ; M r
R ip ley taking the greater p art of his books with
him The room on the right of the hall became
the library but was also used as a recitation
room I n the parlor O pposite was the piano by
the aid of w hich J ohn Dwight taught music and
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TH E
BUI L DINGS
G RO UNDS
AN D
31
the family enj oyed many a rare evening B e
hind thes e room s w e re four small dormitories
giv e n over to pupils M r and M rs R ipley
occupied the r oom over the parlor and M rs
K irby ( then M iss Georgianna B ruce ) and Miss
Sarah Stearns w ere in the room behind them
Charles N e w comb and the Curtis brothers also
roomed here and Miss D ora Wilder was the
housekeeper
—
The Cottage
which alone of all the com
—
n
w a s the next
munity buildings remai s to d ay
house erected after the Eyrie
Mrs A G
A lvord w hose heart w a s in B rook Farm but
w hose health was precarious built the Cottage
reserving a part for herself but putting most
of it at the service of active members
I t was
in the form of a M altese cross w ith four gables
the central space being taken by the staircase
It contained only about half a dozen rooms and
probably could not have accommodated m ore
than that number of residents Miss R ussell
says that it w a s t h e prettiest and best furnished
house o n the place ; but an examination of the
pathetic simplicity of its constructio n w ill con
firm the memory o f one of its occupants that
contact w ith nature was admirably close and
unaffected ; from the rough dwelling w hich
re sembled an inexpensive beach cottage to
outdoors w a s hardly a transition and at all
seasons the external and internal temperatures
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B Ro o K
2
3
FAR M
closely corresponded
The house was well
p laced on a cl e arly defined knoll and the grass
stretched directly from it in all directions ex
cep t in the rear where the flo w er garden had
been started The schoolroom s for the younger
children were transferred to this building and
M iss R ussell Dwight Dana and M rs A lvord
roomed here until the new organization was
e ffected w hen M iss R uss e ll w a s moved to the
Pilgrim H ouse The Cottage has alw ays been
kno w n as t h e M argaret Fuller Cottage
al
though it was probably the only house on the
estate in which M argaret Fuller never stayed
during her occasional visits I t is one of the
charms of a legend that its lack of truth only
slightly detracts from the sentimental associa
tions accumulated around it ; and this is espe
which still bears its
c ia lly true of the Cottage
traditionary honors
During a visitation of
smallpox the Cottage was divested of its fur
n is h in gs
and turned into a temporary hospital ;
and at another time it barely escaped entire
demolition through the carelessness of some
workme n who were digging a cellar under it
Until lately the C ottage wore its original dark
brown color ; and it is still t h e best visible rem
nant of the early days and gives a pleasant im
pression of w hat the daily life of the A ssociation
must have been
The Pilgrim H ouse w a s built by I chabod M or
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BUIL DINGS
TH E
G RO UNDS
AN D
33
ton of Plymouth w h o planned to occupy it with
his family and w h o possibly hoped to p ersuade
his brother Edwin to j oin him I t was a double
house placed south of the Cottage There w ere
double p arlors separated by folding doors run
ning across one en d of the house a n d two
families might occupy these in common ; a
partition wall built at right angles to the par
lor divided the rest of the building into two
houses each having its own entrance
Ex
t e rn a lly it looked like twin houses back to
”
back and was a very uncouth building
The
barrenness of its appearance was the more
m ar k ed because there were no trees about it ;
and standing as it did on high ground it pro
claimed in its oblong shape and white p aint an
austere N ew Engla n d origin I chabod M orton
after a brief residence of t w o weeks returned
to Plymouth and the dwelling passed into the
hands of the A ssociation
The community
too k down the walls between the two kitchens
and thus provided a commodious and chee rful
place for the laundry rooms ; the tailoring
department was established here and here the
H a rbing e r the literary publication of B rook
Farm had its editorial o ffice The big parlor
furnished a bare but conve n ient p lace for con
vivia lit ie s
O therw ise the dwelling was given
over to lodging purposes
In the spring of 1 8 4 3 the con str u ction of a
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B ROO K FAR M
34
wor k shop w a s begun according to Dr Codman
some three hundred yards northwest of th e H ive
I t was a two story building Sixty by forty with
a horse mill in the cellar at first
This w a s
later replaced by an engine which sup plied
p ower for the machinery used in the various
branches of work Partitions were put up as
it became necessary to provide rooms for the
di fferent manufacturing industries which were
introduced The printing o ffic e was placed on
the second floor of the Shop and cot beds were
sometimes set up on this floor for visitors who
could not be cared for else w here
Peter K le in s t ru p the gardener probably ar
rived in the spring of 1 8 43 and his coming
gave a great impetus to th e aesthetic considera
tion of the estate A greenhouse was decided
upon and ornamental plants were cultivated
during the outdoor S eason of that year with
the intention of placing them under cover in the
winter The fall came but the money lagged
and at last a temp orary shelter had to b e pro
vide d in the sandy ban k near the farm road
The proj ect was by no means abandoned ho w
ever and in the following s pring fresh e fforts
were put forth in the direction of horticulture
—partly as a business venture and partly as
an additional attraction to hoped for members
whose coming should hasten the days of pros
r
i
t
e
n
A
garden
coveri
g
perhaps
half
an
p
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TH E
BUILDINGS
AND
G RO UN D S
35
acre was laid out behind the Cottage with a
chance of enlargement if necessary by cutting
aw ay some of the woods beyond This land
was carefully levelled and laid out with the
w a l k s a n d other precise accessories of a conve m
t io n a l ly professional flower garden
I n the fall
of 1 8 44 the gardener s heart was m ade gl ad by
a building in w hich his treasure s could be safely
and conveniently cared for d u ring the winter
The greenhouse w a s placed behind the Cottage
and garden near the boundary w all of the estate
and parallel with it To make room for the
building it was a painful necessity to p lough up
a beautiful patch of rh odora
Nothing in the change to Fourierism showed
more courage than the decision to accept the
experiment with such modifications of the found
er s scheme as were made necessary by re
s t ric t e d funds and fewness of numbers
There
was some pretence of carrying out th e theory of
groups and s o far as was practical the main
outlines w ere followed but the great harmonic
proportions of Fourier were simply out of the
question
O ne feature however was clearly
indispensable —a central house as laid do w n by
the M aster or Teacher as Brisbane insisted on
calling him A ccordingly in the summer of
1 8 44 the unitary building or Phalanstery was
begun I t w a s placed in front of the Eyrie
at some distance from it and nearly parallel
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B ROO K FAR M
36
with the to w n road
A ll the public room s
were to be in this buildi n g which was almost in
the middle of the e stat e
The parlors reading
room reception rooms general assembly hall
dinin g room capable of seating over three hun
dr e d p eo ple kitchen and bakery were carefully
planned for a common use By the staircase
leading from the m ain hall — which was at the
left of the centre of the building — there was
access to a corridor like piazz a which extended
along the entire front of th e house From this
piaz z a opened seven doors leading to as m any
suites each containing a p arlor a n d three bed
rooms The third floor was arranged in the
same way and the attic was divided into single
room s The building was of wood and 1 7 5 feet
long Thus th e larger families w hose m embers
had been scattered by reason of the cro w ded
condition of the other houses could be insured
a secluded family life and such room s in the
older buildings as were in use for other than
living purposes might be available for this legit
im a t e need
The work went on very slo w ly however and
by the time that it was necessary to stop work
for the season only the foundation walls had
been laid and the first floor boarded S ome
progress was made during th e spring and sum
mer o f 1 8 4 5 but the h Op e o f o c c u p y in g th e house
in the fall of that year b ad to be reluctantly aban
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B ROOK FAR M
8
3
a common Spirit of resolve could have raised
success from disaster the fire might have proved
a blessing Whe n the excitement had passed
ho w ever there was a frank recognition of the
meaning of the calamity Letters of sympathy
and some substantial assistance came but there
was no evading the problems before the A ssoci
ation
For once at least in its brief career Brook
Farm was obliged to receive and ackno w ledge
gratefully the crude agency of a civilization
which it affected playfully no doubt to de
Spise
The sno w covered ground threw bac k
the reflection of the blaze and the glow was visi
A id came from all sides and
b l e for miles
civilis ées worked to extinguish the flames as
if the cause were sacred to themselves The de
struction ho w ever w a s soon complete and there
was nothing left to do but to invite those w h o
had fought the fire to share the m orning s break
fast j ust ready from the baker s oven While
these courtesies were going forward George
R ipley thank e d those who had helped him a n d
his associates With that courage peculiarly
—
w
n
o
his
never so buoyant as during the hard
est stress — h e assu red the firemen that their
visit w a s so unexpected that he could only regret
that B rook Farm was not better prepared to
give them a worthier if not a warmer recep
tion
It is recorded that no one seems to have
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THE
B UILDINGS
AN D
G RO UND S
39
labored more energetically to quell the flames
than neighbor O range who though ironically
Silent at festivities in the grove gave his honest
strength in the hour of misfortune H e would
have little understood the submissiveness of
Dwight s sister who wrote of the event : I w a s
—
calm
felt that it was the work of H eaven and
was good
The sentimental character of some
of the members was brought out by the burnin g
of the Phalanstery as it so often was by lesser
provocations and an aesthetic app reciation of
the scene was not allowed to languish
The A ssociation had been in existence for
j ust five years I n that time it had built or
bought three houses besides making substantial
additions to the original house ; it had con
structed a wor k shop and a greenhouse ; it had
b e a u t ifie d and cultivated a large tract of land ;
and it had nearly finished a huge Phalanstery
seventy five p er cent of the cost of which
had been paid
I n vie w of the small capital
with w hich the proj ect started this does not
seem a particularly meagre record of achieve
ment
The City of R oxbury had used the Hive for
an almshouse only about a year when it burned
down the barn Sharing its fate The present
Lutheran H ome was raised on part of the old
foundations of the H ive and its printing o ffic e
stands near by
The Eyrie and the Pilgrim
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B ROOK FAR M
4o
H ouse have since fallen victims either to flames
or to w eather ; but t h e workshop is said to form
a part of the annex to th e present A sylum From
M ay 1 1 to J uly 8 1 8 61 the S econd M a s s a c h u
setts I nfantry under Colonel ( afterward Gen
eral ) George H Gordon was quartered in what
was kno w n as Camp A ndre w the camp oce n
w
the
slope
n
given
over
to
the
graveyard
n
o
i
;
py g
the regiment found on the estate a parade ground
large enough for t h e evolutions of a thousand
men
Brook Farm s best crop according to the
m o t of Dr James Freeman Clar k e who was at
that time its owner
The industries re lied up on to furnis h
h e In d u s t rie s
the visible profits of the A ssociation were
many I t was expected that returns from these
sources would materially supplement the receipts
from n e w members w h o should come with prop
r s who should take up the stock
e rt
from
outside
y
of the A ssociation as an investm e nt and from
pupils an d other boar ders
the founders hav
ing placed their chief depende n ce o n these
three means of revenue during the period of
H o w w ide their expectation s
development
shot of the mar k except in the case of the
school has been brought out ; and it remains
to Sho w the strenuous attempts to ma k e good
an i n come in other directions
During the first t w o years little was under
t a k en beyond increasin g the tillage o f the far m
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IND UST R I E S
TH E
41
—
difficult and costly process
A lthough
there was a large output of hay it was not of
a prime quality and did not therefore bring
high prices V egetables fruit and milk were
marketable products but much of the time the
need of the A ssociation itself for these articles
was in excess of the sup p ly Dr Codman is
inclined to think that the time limit of w ork in
—
summer to ten hours was unwise
that dur
ing the hayin g and harvesting season there w ere
many days when it would h ave been a n economy
to disregard such a regulation ; but this was one
of the few c ases in which R ip ley sacrificed the
future to the present
I n order to lay do w n new land it was necessary
either to p lough up some of the grass land or to
clear w aste land of underbrush and bushes and
then to enrich it all to the point of productive
ness There were always two barriers which
—
w ant of
chec k ed development along this line
men and want of manure The farm could not
supply the latter in su fficient quantities and to
buy liberally would have been beyond its purse
I n dull seasons it was considered prudent to
dig muck w h ic h t h ou gh serviceable was not
wholly satisfactory
When the nursery w a s
decided upo n the community laid a heavy bur
den o n itself for besides the cost of buyi n g a
multitude of young trees and seedlings the
necessary transplanting budding and grafting
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B ROOK FAR M
2
4
had to be done by a man trained to the work
For evident reasons too it was thought well to
k eep the grounds in good order ; and doubtless
this was indirectly a sound policy although
circumstances conspired to make it ine ffective
The flower garden was perhaps the most dis
heartening failure for after a very careful prep
aration it w a s found that the natural soil was
quite unsuited to the purpose an d that proper
ferti lization was out of the question The green
house too had not begun to pay its way when
the A ssociation dissolved I t had required the
attentio n of two men w hose services migh t other
wise have been utilized in more profitable chan
nels and the fuel for winter added a large ite m
to the expense account There is little doubt
that these things w ould have paid in the course
of time and that the embarrassment which the
Board of D irection suffered was attributable to
lack of capital rather than to lac k of Sk ill a l
though in default of funds more skill would
have enlivened the prospect A S it was the
added fertility of the farm benefited only those
into whose possession it came later
Few
agricultural implements suitable for use on
such uneven ground were then obtainable and
Dr Codman asserts that not until the third or
fourth year was it thought prudent to buy a
horse rake this and a seed drill ta k en on trial
were the only modern implements used
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IN DUST R I E S
TH E
43
peat meadow lying near the river was one of
the pleasantest spots in w hich to work and
several of the A ssociates w e re glad to turn in
this direction when they could b e spared from
more pressing duties
A s the C ommunity drew to itself a greater
and greater variety of indivi duals the trades at
which they had previously worked w ere gradually
introduced until carpenters printers and shoe
m a k e rs were at work and the manufacture o f
Britannia w are and of doors sash e s and blinds
was established The Shoe making Group w a s
of good Size consistin g p robably of eight or
ten men in the latter days ; but they were
seldom overworked although such sales a s
they made were fairly profitable
B ritannia
ware lamp s and co ffee pots did not find a ready
market The printers expended their time for
the m ost part on the H a rb ing e r and the car
rs found ample employment on the estate
n
e
e
t
p
The sash and blind business ought to have been
remunerative for it was in the hands of George
H atch an exceedingly capable man ; but lack
of capital was particularly disastrous to this in
Lumber could not be bought in large
du s t ry
quantities ; furthermore it could not be kept on
hand long enough to become properly dried
and the vexation of customers w hose doors
sh rank was gr e at a n d j ustifiable A formidable
obstacle to prosperity w a s the distance of the
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B ROOK FAR M
44
farm from its market I t was nine miles from
B oston and four from the nearest railroad station
now Forest H ills and all the stoc k for manu
f a c t u rin g purposes as well as family stores coal
and manure had to be tra n sp orted by teams
while the manufactured goods and farm produce
must go back over the sam e ground to be sold
This usually kept two wagons and two men on
the road all the time and diminishe d by j ust so
much the productive strength of the C ommunity
The later organization of these industries
under the Phalanx is outlined in the second
constitution
The department of I ndustry
S hall be managed in group s and serie s as far
as is practicable and shall consist of three pri
mary series to wit : A gricultural M echanical
and Domestic I ndustry
The chief of each
group to be elected weekly and the chief of
each series once in two month s by the members
thereof subj ect to the approval of t h e General
”
Dire ction
New group s and series may be
formed from time to time f o r the prosecution of
”
di fferent and new branches of industry
A
group consisted of three or more persons doing
the same kind of wor k although it seem s n ot
“
to have been permissible to use any but har
”
monic numbers in making up a group Thr e e
five seven or twelve people might combine to
form a group but not four six or eight This
was of course stark lunacy I n a Farming
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B ROO K F AR M
46
the prosecution of each industry Mr R ipley
was of the opinion that this arrangement se
“
cured
more personal freedom and a wider
and that there w a s a
Sphere for its exercise ;
more constant demand for the exercise of all the
”
faculties
I t is possible that the waste of time
which was incurred by this system was offset by
th e waste of nervous energy which is undoubt
occasioned by the friction of competitive
life
George Bradford has said that many
h ours were lost through lack of any definite
school programme ; for it frequently happened
that a teacher w h o was diggin g on the farm
would leave his work to meet an engagement
with a pupil ; but the pupil being absorbed in
the pursuit of w oodchucks would either forget
his appointment altogether or put in an ap pear
ance an hour late I t is also plain that undue
”t im e and prominence w a s given to the matter of
”
“
elections Each group was to elect a c hief
every week and once in t w o months all the
”
“
chiefs of th e same series were to meet and
”
“
choose a chief for that series
This was
only one of the badges of mental vulgarity
which Fourierism w ore
I t left out of the
account all questions of fitness for leadership
and dwelt on the baser desire for notoriety or
conspicuousness as opposed to merit I t may
have been a preventive of j ealou sy although
that is doubtful
I ndeed since Fourierism
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TH E
H OUS EH O LD WORK
47
made a ritual of orga n iz ation only limited
minds could accept it for any length of time
The Transcendental Brethren of the
Common Life had it w ell in mind n o t
only to thin k together though not certainly
alike to drudge with a holy and equal zeal no
matter how humble or how high the diverse
tasks but to give the theory of A ssociation the
Sharp test of a communal table and to elevate
domestic service to noble conditions I f during
the years of trial there were gru m blings over
necessary economies of fare there was hardly
a note of Shirking or dissatisfaction among
those w h o humbly yet proudly served
Na
”
thaniel H awthorne Ploughman
l n his first
“
enthusiasm wrote to his sister : The whole
fraternity eat together and such a delectable
way of life has never been seen on earth Since
the days of the early Christians We get up at
half past six dine at half past twelve and go to
”
bed at nine
This seraphic content died soon
m the heart of the romantic ploughman but the
health and j oy born of simple food and u n p re
tending equality satisfied the Brook Farmers so
well that they varied little the househ old plan
“
with which they began
O ur food was very
”
plain but good says M iss R ussell ; but she
adds that fresh meat was not always to be had
O n Sundays beans and pork were furnished not
only in accordance with local tradition but also
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B ROOK FAR M
48
as a luxury befittin g the day and in re c o gn i
tion of that occasional orgy which a latter day
English Socialist holds to b e a necessity of h u
man life Pan dowdy is mentioned by one writer
as a delicacy w hile Miss R ussell speaks with
feeling of brewis —a dish n o w passing into
undeserved neglect but once in N ew England
of great repute Tem perance in food was the
rule ; in regard to drink it was a m atter of
principle The close union of the school and
the A ssociation would have invited hostility
toward even the most restricted use of wine
beer or spirits
When the evil days began
there was retrenchment in the cost of living
as in oth er ways The use of co ffee w a s modi
fie d and the quality of butter noticeably fell
Such details speedily aroused the attention of
outsiders but there is evidence that the B rook
Farmers took their hardships in the same
buoyant spirit in which they entered the ex
m
n
t
as
a
whole
r
e
i
e
p
R adical in many ways these reformers cer
t a in ly were ; they often contravened social
habits and roused unfeigned astonishment and
amuse m ent in persons of discretion and solid
w orth
But they were n ot B ohemian s and had
few of t h e proclivities of that agreeable and
undeterminable fello w ship Even tobacco that
co nstant solacement to those at odds with re
s p e c t a b ilit
was
in
little
vogue
O
ne
woman
y
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.
TH E
H O US E H O LD WORK
49
ays that this indulge n ce w a s held in such con
tempt by the socially domi n a n t sex that no man
essayed the practice of it ; but ther e were at
least three smokers
Bald w in Pallisse the
engineer and K le in s t ru p the gardener whose
vain e fforts to abj ure his shame have been
sympathetically pictured by a fellow w orker
Simple as the dietary w a s there w ere in this
hive of oddities some w h o w e nt even yet further
from the w orld s ways of eati n g There w a s
a Graham table at w hich sat veg e ta rians w h o
were for eating no flesh w hile t h e w o rld stood
and who even denied themselves tea and co ffee
I t was an era of cold w ater a n d u n bolted flour
It was not so much a question w hat to eat
as what not to eat Emerson it is remem
bered decided not to invite Charles Lane to sit
at his Than ksgiving boar d lest that over princi
pled copartn er of A lcott should make a n occa
sion for ethical improvement over the turkey
The vegetarian s h a d a fa ir
at Brook
Farm to test the com parative Y
EW Of t h e ir
faith ; and it is kno w n that t h e y s to o d w ell
with their associates fo r endurance p ersistence
a n d general
o od
a
t
h
This
relatively
equal
l
g
h
g
footing may ho w ever have been due to the in
voluntary continence o f thos e w h o chose a w ider
but at best a very u n pretentious menu I t has
been said that it w a s the custom to put a cent
do w n by one s plate for each cup of tea ordered
s
,
,
,
,
,
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,
’
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,
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.
,
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,
-
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h
w
“
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~
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,
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,
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,
"
,
,
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’
E
“
’
-F
B ROOK FAR M
50
but w hether the rule held for all or only for
visitors it is not possible to say
f
Th
e usual duties w er e mainly discharged by
r
the young wome n no attempt being made to foist
on the men tasks beyond their experience or
kno w ledge
A s volunteers and gallant aids to
the household brigade the men were ho w ever
welcome and m ade themselves useful and possi
bly attractive They were of special service in
lt h e laundry where the poundi n g w ringing and
hanging out of clothes was a severe test of mus
c u la r strength since there were no mechanical
adj uncts to this department JA ppliances to re
duce the irksomeness of the trivial round w ere
few ; a pump was the main dependence for
water and duly appointed carriers visited daily
each house and supplied the empty pitchers
sometimes attended in stormy w eather by a
youth Wh o carried an umbrella
Curtis occa
s io n a l l
trimmed
lamp
s
and
Dana
organized
a
y
“
band b f griddle cake servitors composed of four
”
of the most elegant youths of the Community
legend w hich has the air of probability
es that a student confessed his passion
helping his sweetheart at the sink ! O n
washing day eveni n gs o ffers of help in fOldin g
the clothes were never rej ected and the work
w ent fast and gayly
Similar gatherings p re
pared vegetables for the market in the barn on
summer evenings ; and w hile chivalry an d the
,
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,
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-
,
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H O US E H O LD WORK
TH E
51
ardor of youth w ent far toward lightening these
household t asks the young men had to exert
th e mselves to hold an even pace w ith the sex
perman e ntly Skilled in deftness The excess of
young m e n in point of numbers over the young
w omen is partly responsible for their large share
in these domestic labors and a desire to free the
young w omen for particip ation in some further
scheme of entertainment was not seldom a mo
tive po w er I t w ould b e too much to expect
that this ecstatic fervor should be constantly
maintained but during the earlier years the men
certainly discharged w ell and with commend
able patience their moiety
“
V isitors w ere amused at the fanaticism ex
h ib it e d by well bred women scrubbing floors a n d
scraping plates a n d of scholars and gentle
men hoeing potatoe s and cleaning out stables
and particularly at the general air of cheerful
”
engrossment apparent throughout
M onotony
there must have been and often but it is the
testimony of all who have spoken that the real
marvel was that so m uch variety and good spirits
were introduced Little sympathy w a s needed
for the well bred women and the scholars b e
cause as soon as w a s practicable special c a
a
i
was
developed
and
youthful
training
for
c
t
p
y
particular service w a s made available
Miss
“
R ussell says
I was early taught to clear
“
starch and o ffered to make up the muslins
,
.
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B ROO K FAR M
52
of all on the p lace w h o wore them
M uslins
were certainly a luxury from a communal point
of view and perhaps lik e other futilities a n d u n
necessary details w e re not encouraged There
were no curtains and no carpets except on one
”
or two of the best rooms
I n the beginning there had been a hired cook
but when economy became imperative o n e of
the women as sociates o ffered to undertake this
trying duty and in spite of unsmothered gro w l
ing over her e fforts at retre n chment she a d
hered to her chosen post an d to h e r policy a rgu e
”
“
Peter Baldwin — the General
a a fin e m
fille d the imp orta n t r61e of baker thus reducing
to a minimum the dem ands up on the cook
Emerson who never refers to B rook Farm
without conveying to the finest sense the assur
anc e that some one is laughing behind the
shrubbery notes the disintegrating tendency of
“
these har m onious souls when he says : The
country members naturally were surprised to
observe that one man ploughed all day a n d o n e
—
looked out of the window all day
and per
hap s drew his picture and both received at
”
night the same w ages
A t its fullest lif e there had few com plexities
but it strove to spread beyond the bou n ds of
the few acres of the farm Som e of t h e w ome n
saw possibilities of introduci n g leav e n into the
eventles s farm life of the nea r n eighbo rh ood
.
,
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B ROOK F AR M
54
chill on the main body of youth and good spirits
though one m a y sup pose that Charles Newcomb
who played successfully at ae sthetic C atholicism
was something of a blight at times and that
the occasional appearance of the contentious
Brownson was no Signal for mirth Emerson
has given the lasting impression that Brook
Far m was a continuous fe t e e na mp e t re he has
even stated specifically that as the men
dan
ed
c
”
in the eve ning c lot he sp lp i dro pp e d from their
Legendary
as
this
no
is
it
ex
e
t
s
d
O
i
I
b
t
o
p glg
resses
well
the
outsider
S conviction that merri
p
ment reigned at Brook Farm
e w holesomeness of the life has never been
seriously called in question and nothing bears
weightier testimony to its sanity than the simple
and spontaneous character of the sports which
found acceptance O ut o f—
door life was a pas
sion w hich like all noble passions absorbed into
itself many less w orthy emotions and lifted very
ordinary amusements out of the Sphere o f the
comm onplace Even the uncommendable habit
of punning by w hich the e n ti re community led
by the arch punster R ipley was at times ln
fe c t e d may perhaps be explained as one of the
forms of e ffervescence induced by s u p e ra b u n
dant oxygen
A fter meals in the evening and when it was
possible to be in the open air the A ssociates
made happiness a duty and their high co u rage
,
,
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‘
‘
,
w
,
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,
A MUS E M ENTS
THE
CUSTO MS
AN D
55
held them to harmless fun w hen fainter souls
w ould have drooped at the w hisperings of evil
days ahead Except in the dead of winter the va
ried acres of the domain itself as well as the
surrounding country served as a setting for the
animation which the finished labors of th e day
had set free and the younger members of the
family especially w alked and picnicked through
the outlying regions ; the great boulders form
ing Eliot s pulpit invited strolling feet ; there
were j unketings at Cow I sland boating parties
on the Charles R iver the b e a u t ie s o f w hich at
and near this p art of its course have never had
their deserts ; and expeditions w ere made even
to the distant woods surrounding Muddy ( n o w
Turtle ) Pond w hich at that tim e w ere felt to be
full of mysterious dangers but w hich n o w o ffer
an uninteresting security through the efforts of
a paternal state commission
Sundays w ere naturally most favorable for
the quieter of these amiable strayings but church
going was not neglected Som e of the members
w ould go to West R oxbury to hear Parker w hile
others of more persistent faith and sturdier legs
w ould push on to B oston w here lay a larger field
of choice for their unprej udiced tastes H aw
thorne has given the most charming descriptions
of the places to be reached by w alking but in
a s m u c h as his expeditions we r e tak e n o n his o w n
account they lack the humanizing significance
,
.
,
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B ROOK FAR M
56
which those o f the wandering group s of less
s e c l u s w e members seemed to have
A lthough there would be n o w and the n dur
”
ing the winter a fancy party the true revels
of this sort were reserved for w arm weather and
were held in the still beautiful grove Dancing
w a s much in vogu e and w a s enj oyed by all who
k n e w the art Dr Codman tells with conscious
pride that he has seen five men who had been
trained for the ministry engaged in this co u rtl y
p astime at o n e time The fashion was to dis
pose of the supper dishes w ith astonishing rap
idit y and then to clear the di n i n g hall for the
eveni n g s pleasure Youth w a s at the pro w as
usual but the elders were not discountenanced
To w ering above the rest was the figure of the
General ( Bald w in ) displaying m ore vigor than
grace but not less welcome because the roo m
seemed smaller by his presence O ften the
dance was less formal even than this and con
sisted of half a dozen of the younger people
w h o strolled into the C ottage after sup per and
too k turn s as players and dancers for an hour
or so dispersing at the end of that time to the
real call of the evening
I f dancing was the froth of their life conver
sation was the substance Dr Codman says
Brook Farm was ric h in cheerful buzz
The
talk ran from the heavy p olemics fortunately o c
c a s io n a l of Brownson and the cheerful imp etu
.
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TH E
A MUS E M ENTS
it y
A ND
CUST O MS
57
of the high souled Channing do w n to the
thinnest sort of punning To revile this man
ner of j esting is alm ost as comm o n place as to
indulge the practice itself ; but if w e may trust
to friendly memories the habit was really a fea
ture of the intellectual life The certainty that
the custom was rife would help to establish an
impression that some high intelligen ces are de
void o f nice perceptions of w it as it is evident
that they often lack the fai n test relish for music
or art To have been present at one of these
j oyous gatherings a n d to have heard the gay
sallies would have softened the hardest obj e ctor ;
but little thanks are due the p ai n ful diarists
who have embalmed the p e rs ifl a ge in such a
way as to remind one of that sorry humor at
the p e n s ion in B alzac s P e re Goriot
A nother
frank touch of mediocrity w a s the co n stant iter
ation of phrases For a lo n g time after one of
“
Mr A lcott s visits a pie was alw ays cut from
”
t h e centre to the periph e ry ; and M rs H o w e
avers that a customary formula at table w a s
I s the butter within t h e sphere of your in fl u
”
ence ?
Mrs R ip ley declared herself at one
time weary of the extravagant moods of the
”
“
young girls and sick of the very word a f
”
“
M orbid familism was a frequent
rep roach brou ght agai n st exoteric civilization
But extravagance was a mood of t h e era and
not of the p lace A strikin g i n stance of this
os
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B ROOK FAR M
58
excess occurs in an article on Woman signed
”
“
V and printed in the P re s e n t : Thro w your
libraries i n to th e streets an d se w ers on the
instant that you fin d as you will all knowledge
”
within yourselves
I n stormy w eather a favorite diversion was
an impromptu discussion in the H ive parlor
S everal subj ects w e re proposed a vote was
taken and the choice of the maj ority decided
the question to be debated There is an a c
count by M rs K irby o f a w ell sustained argu
m ent o n the query : I s lab or in itself ideal or
b e i n g unattractive in character do w e in effect
?
w
clothe it ith the spirit we bring to it
The w inter amusements were varied S k ating
took t h e p lace of boating and proved especially
allu ring to those of Southern birth Sometimes
a party I ncluding the children and elders as
well as the young men and women w ould visit
the river w ith Sleds and Skates and maturity
and youth w ould run a very even race for the
prize of pleasur e Coasting was not neglected
although the op portu n ities for its indulgence
w er e meagre
O n e of the few accidents w hich
have been thought serious enough to b e remem
bered resulted from one of these revels
There w a s naturally much in door recreation
during the winter Literary societies and read
ing clubs flourished ; Shakespeare received due
attention and the readings in connectio n with
,
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A M US E M ENTS
THE
AN D
CUST O MS
59
the study accorded him w e re e nlivened by o cca
sio u al happenings n o t recorded in the text as
in the case of a failure of one of the best readers
to give a satisfactory renderi n g of R omeo for
the inartistic reason that the J uliet did not suit
his taste
Cornelia H all who boarded for
periods of varyi n g length at the Farm used
to give remarkable dramatic readings which
attracted attention from the outside world
Father Taylor esteemed it a high privilege to
”
“
go out to hear her read the A n cie n t M ariner
O n Sunday after n oons during the earlier years
R ipley elucidated K ant and Spinoza to those
who cared to listen and there w ere often lec
tures by such gifted friends of the community
as Emerson M argaret Fuller A lcott Brisbane
and Channing George Bradford and Mrs R ip
ley w ere members of a class w hich read w ith
out an instructor the greater part of Da n te s
”
“
D ivina Commedia in the original t h e stu
dents reading aloud in turn I n summ e r this
coterie held its meetings out of doors N o s e ri
ous intellectual w ork engaged the community
as such ev e n in its fi rst fresh n ess ; m ost of t h e
people w ere too yo u ng life w a s too radia n t a n d
the daily routi n e was su fficie n tly exhausting to
make the hou rs of recreation w elcome A c o n
sociatio n of mental e ffort could hardly expect to
—
accomplish the highest results
these are for
the lonely and strenuous individual
,
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B ROOK FAR M
60
I mpromptu tableaux dialogues and charades
were in good reput e but the best tal e nt of the
A ssociation found expression in an occasional
play sometimes of the most ambitious character
Good m aterial for acting existed although n o
one in later life seem s to have developed his
or her capacities in the direction of the stage
Whe n ever an elaborate dramatic entertainment
was taken in hand by the A musement Group
the lower floor of the w orkshop was called into
service in place of the H ive dining room I n
the shop Chiswell one of the carp enters had
built a portable stage w hich could b e set up for
rehearsals and rem ov e d afterward w ith very little
trouble Dr Codman gives an account of the
attemp t instigated by J ohn Glover Drew an
arde n t admirer of Byron to produce scenes
from the C orsai r
an e ffort which the com
munity and the visitors from the neighboring vil
lage frankly set down as a melancholy failure
”
Sheridan s Pizarro too was undertaken and
much merriment w a s caused by R olla s fall
under a shot which was fired several m inutes
after he had been disabled by it The visitors
including Pa rk er on this occasion gently w ith
dre w long before the play was over and the
A ssociates had the good sense to accept this
courteous hint that they were not at their best
in this field of histrionics
Card playing never seems to have kindled a
,
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B ROOK FAR M
62
said that people livi n g on Spring Street in West
R oxbury three quarte rs of a mile a w ay could
hear her Singi n g in t h e open air
When
Christop her Cran ch came the you n g people
w ere full of glee for they kne w that he could
provide many varieties of entertainment musi
cal and literary Miss G ra u p n e r s piano p laying
too was heartily sanctioned a n d the occasional
quartettes which M r Dwight imported from
B oston gave deep satisfaction The H utchinson
family consecrated to the cause of antislavery
and temperance but naturally interested in other
phases of social reform drifted in time to Brook
Farm w here everybody w a s moved by their per
f e c t singing of indifferent music w hich probably
seemed less than mediocre to ears and tastes
which had been trained by J ohn Dwight A bby
H utchinson whose name is a synonym to most
of u s for a scarlet velvet bodice was only
thirteen at this time and here as every w here
was the centre of much sympathetic interest
This famous group of radicals went forth from
their visit much refreshed by what they found
and even sought to turn their own home a t
M ilford New H amp shire into a miniature
Brook Farm
Partly from necessity partly from choice it
was customary for the you n g people to sit on
the floor or on the stairs during evening enter
t a in m e n t s at the Eyrie and the habit produced
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A MUS E M ENTS
TH E
CUST O MS
AN D
63
a variety of comments George Bradford thought
it very pretty ; Margaret Fuller found it very
annoying When the w ashing and w iping of
dishes was going o n often the group employed
“
would ease the task by Sin ging O Ca n aan
“
bright Canaan or I f you get there before I
do or some other secularly religious song dear
”
to the Elder K napp period A ttenda n ce at
concerts and lectures aw ay from the Fa rm w a s
comparatively of inf requent occurrence ; there
was so much that was interesting
and high in quality at home that there w a s n o j,
particular induc e ment to seek diversio n abroad ?
Whenever such excursions w ere taken the m o
tive was usually something more serious than a
Nothing better evinces
Search for pleasure
the fine zeal of these Brook Farmers
some of
them simple folk enough — than their j ourney
ing to Boston to hear good music and then
walking back a good nine miles under the stars
and in the middle of the night with an early
morning s work before them This same warm
interest attached to the A ssociationist meetings
in B oston in which M r R ipley usually took a
leading part A ntislavery gatherings in Boston
and Dedham were attended by large numbers
who went in farm wagons O nly one or t w o of
the A ssociation were zealously committed to this
cause but it would have been impossible for so
humane a company to remain untouched by the
.
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B ROOK FAR M
64
call for sympathy which was sent up all about
them O ne woma n ( Mrs Leach w a s so deeply
imbued w ith antislavery feeling that Sh e dis
card e d the use of t h e linen collar until the slave
I t is n o t quite
S hould be paid for his w o r k
certain w hether s h e confounded cotton with
flax ; but her reasoning was l e ss direct than
that of Charles Lane w h o decided that linen
was the only fabric w hich a moral man could
conscientiously wear The use of cotton he
held must certainly be discouraged because it
gave excuse for the employment of slave labor ;
and he further argued that in our choice of
w ool for clothi n g w e rob the S heep of his n atu
ral defences A nother Brook Farmer a woman
scoffed at amenities of clothing by quoting
.
.
.
,
,
.
,
.
“
,
An d t h e
Was
ga rm e n t
v
in
w h ic h s
w o e n o f m an
y
he
s
,
h in e s
S in s
but as regards dress the maj ority of the family
while they sought first Comfort and suitability
had a normal regard for the beautiful and artis
tic When about their work the women wore a
short skirt with k nic k erbockers of th e same ma
t e ria l ; but when the daily tasks were ended
they attired themselves after t h e simpler of pre
vailing fashions There was a fancy for flowing
hair an d broad hats ; and at the H ive dance s
there might be seen w reaths w oven from some
,
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.
TH E
A MUS EM ENTS
CUSTO MS
AN D
65
of the delicate w ild vines and berries found in
the woods t w ined in waving locks
I t is said that the motive of economy w a s re
sponsible for the adoption by the men of the
”
“
tunic in p lace of the old world coat
This
favorite garment w a s sometimes of brown hol
land but often blue and was held in place by a
black belt ; and for great festivals some of
the more fortunate youths possessed black vel
Such an unusual article of raiment
ve t tunics
excited as much dismay in the outer w orld as
the idiosyncrasies of other reformers and has
been described as a compromis e betw een the
blouse of a Paris w orkman a n d the peignoi r
of a p ossible sister Colonel H igginson speaks
“
of the picturesque little vizorless cap s worn
by the young men as being exquisitely u n fit t e d
”
for horny handed tillers of the soil
Economy
of labor may have been accountable for t h e u n
shorn face but the beard w a s certainly in high
favor at Brook Farm a n d a predilection for
long hair w a s also current O ne of the resi
dents probably Burrill Curtis who had been a
model for a portrait of C hrist is described by
“
M rs K irby as a charming feature in the land
scape while the quality of his temper w a s
attested by the sere n ity which he showed when
stoned by some boys o n a pie r for daring to leave
his hair u n clipped in the presence of wharf rats
and other good tories
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B ROO K FAR M
66
M iss R ussell was at first conscious of a sense
of the ludicrousness of the place but fou n d
that this soon wore away ; on the whole ex
c e p t in g always the j ej u n e e ffect of over e n t h u
there was singularly little display of bad
s ia s m
or in a ccurate taste There may have been ex
a gge ra t io n s
but there was no loudn e ss The
radicalism of the Farm was as little o ffensive as
that of Edmund Quincy and Samuel Sewall in
their sympathy with the antislavery movement
I t tended toward beauty in ap pearance action
and thought The pose of arrogance toward
civilis ées betrayed a Slight lack of humor
a common deficiency in reforme r s — and a little
dulness of perception ; but the balance of good
m anners was restored by a more considerate
tone toward the socially less favored A theo
re t ic a l equality never seems to
have entered
anybody s head
The symbol of universal unity was made
on a number of s olemn occasio n s
as at J ohn
O rvis s marriage to M arianne Dwight and at
the close of one of Channing s sermons in the
grove The entire company would rise j oin
hands thus forming a circle a n d vow truth to
the cause of God and humanity O ne such
outpouring of emotional sincerity which o c
curred after four years of commu n ity life attests
the solid basis of an expression of feeling which
earlier m ight have see med hysterical
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THE
A M US EM ENTS
67
CUSTO MS
AND
I t is always to the credit of a reformer that
he is willing to loo k into schemes proposed by
other reformers and Brook Farm was liberality
itself toward new ideas outside its own field
The water cure and the starving cure both
received due attention at the hands of some of
the members of the household
Mrs K irby s
account of the treatment at a cold water cure a
few miles from Brook Farm is vivid but not
allurin g
Thirt e en b arrels of ice cold water
were yielded up daily by a natural spring and
this supply w a s dammed until a patient was
ready for it Then the sluices were opened and
the water allowed to pour down an inclined
p lane and fall a distance of twenty five feet
upon the back of the shudderi n g victim The
sensation is said to have been that of pounding
”
by glass balls
Um schlag or w e t bandaging
was a treatment reserved for the following day
Strict prohibition was p ut on visits to the
Farm in the intervals between douches for the
reason that all excitement must be avoided in
order that the cure might be e fficient
The
starving cure had an ardent follo w er in a young
k
r
o
w
s
i
H ungarian Count G
possibly
u
G
(
though not probably ) who for a time shared the
fortunes of the Farm ; but the simple menu of
the community removed any p ressi n g need for
the general application of this t reatment
O f sport in the restricted and technical sense
,
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B ROO K FAR M
68
there is no record
People who felt doubts of
th e moral character of their butcher simply b e
cause he was a butcher could not take kindly
to hunting and probably not even to fishing
“
Dr Codman says : I do not remember ever
”
seeing a gun on the p 1ace ; and the chances
are that the w oods about the Farm and the
quiet waters of the Charles held undisturbed the
life within them
.
,
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B ROO K FAR M
70
“
The farm was always short of hands but
there was never any lack of heads in the De
—
n
a
r
m
n
of
I
nstruction
a
incidental
testi
t
e
t
p
mony to the superiority of the A ssociation s
brain power as compared with its muscular abil
ity There was an infant S chool for children
under six ; a primary school for those under ten ;
and children whose purp ose it was to ta k e the
regular course of study laid down by the in s t it u
tion were placed in the preparatory school which
fitted youths for college in Six years O therwise
the studies were elective There was also a
course in theoretical and practical agriculture
which covered three years and which was in
charge of John S Bro w n I t was understood
that each pupil should give an hour or two each
day to som e form of manual labor —a require
ment that met w ith disfavor from s ome at first ;
but resentment quickly gave place to interest
if not to devotion a n d an outsider usually found
it impossible to distinguish between the mem
bers and the pupils of the A ssociation in the
m atter of attachment to t h e cause O ne of the
commonest avocations for the boys was hoeing
and the girls helped at dish washing and other
of the lighter household tas k s M uch stress is
laid on the quality of the class room w or k in
consequence of the wholesome physical condi
tion produced by this unique environment O n
t h e o t he r hand , it is n ot t o b e d e ni e d t hat s om e
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’
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SCH OO L
T HE
SCH O L AR S
AN D ITS
I
7
of the pupils who worked eight or ten hours a
day as an equivalent for board and instruction
and studied hard besides m e t w ith the usual
fate of those w h o ignore physiological law s
M uch of t h e boist e rousness of youth w a s lack
ing ; partly because many of the usual artificial
conditions against which boisterousness is a nat
ural protest w ere absent and partly because all
but the youngest realized something of the seri
of t h e purpose which underlay the
ou s n e s s
undertaking Laughter and merriment there
were in large measure but few o u t rs t s of wild
hilarity or unco n trolled animal spirits
Mrs K irby says that the Far m was a grand
place for children
They were quick to feel
the sympathetic interest in their pleasure and
work a n d they too were affected by the general
sense of freedom O ne of the teachers in the
infant school declined at first to accept this duty
on the ground that it w a s unwise to subj ect a
young child to r e straints for w hich he felt an
instinctive and healthy dislike such as sitting
still and learn in g the p rimer Mrs K irby and
Miss A bby M orton both gave e fficient service
in this section of the school which was re o r
under
a
stricter
discip
line
when
the
a
n
i
z
e
d
g
Fourier movement took possession of the
place
M iss M arianne R ipley presided over the
primary department and had w ith her in the
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B ROOK FAR M
72
N e st the two sons of Geor ge Ban c r oft George
and J ohn ; the two Spanish boys from M anila
Lucas and J os é Corrales ; a n d J ames Lloyd
Fuller th e youngest brother of M argaret
Fuller
The latter had no intention of re
maining a neglected genius and it is recorded
of him that he kep t a diary which it would
be absurd to call private since it was his habit
to tear out pages an d leave them about so
that the obj ects of his displeasure could not
well avoid finding th em
The c u rric gl u m o f the preparatory school
had a l
n c l u de d such branches as Latin
Italian German moral philosop hy and the
English classics ; but the advent of many young
men for the special purpose of study made it
necessary to introduce Greek mathematics and
other advanced courses There were students
from M anila H avana Florida and Cambridge
for H arvard College indicated Broo k Farm
as a fitting resort for young men w hose c o n s e
cration to extra collegiate interests rendered
them subj ects for temp orary seclusion and
pref e rably a country life R easonably en ough
pe rhaps botany was exceedingly popular with
those who were feeling their first real contact
with natural beauty ; and since the neighb or
hood p rovided liberally in the way of specimens
there was every excuse for rambles to wood and
river
M r R ipley taugh t m athematics and
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.
THE
SCH OO L
AN D ITS
SCH O L AR S
73
philosophy using Cousin as a text boo k in his
philosophy classes Mrs R ip ley was re s p o n
sible for imbuing man y minds w ith a taste for
history and modern languages She had the
p ower to transmit her o w n intensity of interest
to most of those whom she instructed and she
inspired in them a genuine fervor for culture
Dana s classes were in Gree k and German the
latter being full of pupils who yearned not only
to discover the beauties of German literature but
who admired t h e rather severe methods w hich
the scholarly young tutor introd u ced
The
shame of t h e youth w h o entered Dana s class
room with an u n learned lesson differed in qual
ity from that w hich he felt in other class rooms
under the same circumstances
The teaching
of music and Latin fell to the lot of J ohn S
Dwight ; in the former he was assisted by his
and in the latter by his Sister
Sister Frances
Marianne S o penetrating an influence was his
musical instruction that there has been no o c
casio n to consider his merit as a Latin teacher
altho u gh it seems j ust to believe that if he had
done anythin g extraordi n arily good or bad in
this d e partm e nt somebody would have noted it
A Class in Si n gin g w a s started ; the masses of
H aydn and M ozart were gradually taken up ;
and in instrumental music the standard from
the beginnin g w a s high
Music w a s not the
only art which w a s encouraged Miss H annah
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B ROO K FAR M
74
B R ipley a niece of G e orge R ipley taught
drawing and Miss A melia R ussell who com
m u n ic a t e d life to the A ssociation in many ways
gave lesson s in dancing w hich one susp ects to
have been much in demand The department
of belles lettres was confided to George P
Bradford a graduate of H arvard and a man of
much cultivation and charm H is endeavors in
behalf of unprofitable knowledge could not have
been arduous among these u n w o rldlin gs
A t the end of the second year there were in
the s chool thirty boys and girls w hose fathers
and mothers believed with M r Fuller that it
was a good thing to send children w here they
“
would learn for the first time perhaps that all
these matters of creed and morals are not quite
s o well settled as to make thinking nowadays a
pi ece of supererogation and would learn to dis
sense sublime
n ish bet w een truth and the
”
the dead dogma of the past
This was a rare
demand on a secondary school and rarer still was
the disposition to meet it ; but for this very reason
the school could never have been popular The
wonder is not that this part of the institution
declined under the later attacks of the press
against Fourierism but that it so long held its
prestige While it is manifestly impossible to
gage the intellectual impetus referable to the
Brook Farm school it is equally impossible to
ign ore it in the face of much direct testimony
.
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TH E
SCH OO L
AN D ITS
SCH O L AR S
75
and in view of the honorable career and high
character of many of its students
A son of O restes A B rownson was there ;
M iss Deborah Gannett a niece of Ezra S
Gannett familiarly known as O ra who was
notable for having dare d to tease H a w thorne
and who afterward be came the wife of Charles
B Sedgwic k of S yracuse ; M iss Caroline A
K ittredge after w ard married to James Theo
dore A llen of West Newton ; Miss Sa rah F
S tearns a niece of M rs R ip ley who was
also a member Of the A ssociat ion and w h o
became a R oman Catholic and e n t e red a c o n
vent ; M iss A nnie M Salisbury w h o has pub
lis h e d a little pamphlet on Brook Farm ; H orace
Sumner a younger brother of Charles Sumner
a delicate youth of less intellectual force than
w hose admiration for
his brothers and Sisters
M argaret Fuller led him to j oin her later In
Europe whither he had gone in quest of health
and who returning with the O s s o lis on the
doomed E l iz a be t b met his death with them
these w ere all there at one time or another
O ne young woman who was a pu pil teacher
and who Should be especially considered was
Georgianna Bruce afterw ard Mrs K irby and
u gh o u t this book u n der that name
u
h
r
o
o
t
e
d
t
q
She w as about twenty t w o years old wh e n Sh e
went to Brook Farm on the ag reement that she
w a s t o w or k ei ght hours a da y for board and
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B ROO K FAR M
6
7
instruction She had w ith her there a brother
fourteen years of age w h o was also received as
a pupil w o rk er H er first dutie s were ironing
on certain days preparing vegetables for dinner
“
every day and helping to wash up after
supper A t the end of a year Sh e was admitted
as a bo n a fide m ember of the A ssociation when
it included only a dozen peop le She w a s an
English gi rl of rep utable but some w hat humble
birth She early found that Sh e had her own
living to earn and this she contrived to do in
many and eventful ways She had great vi
va c it y
some sentimentality and a disp osition
w hich might have been peppery had Sh e not
p ossessed su fficie n t discretion to control herself
A fter an experience in England and A merica
w ell calculated to develop her natural strength
of character she found herself in the family of
Dr Ezra Stiles Gannett the Unitarian clergy
man o f B oston as a sort of nursery governess
I mperfectly educated she did not lack ambition
and w a s constantly see k ing to improve herself
”
H er Years of Experience contain some lively
chapters on Brook Farm for she observed
shre w dly although she w a s not unappreciative
and she often does j ustice to her surro u ndings
I n 1 8 7 1 and 1 8 7 2 she contributed sev e ral u n
sign ed papers entitled R eminiscences 01 Brook
”
Farm to Ola a n a N e w
The narrativ e must
not be taken too seriously alth ough it a n d her
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B ROO K FAR M
8
7
y
w e ll
ha ve t a
t he
as
k
e n, as
m
a
y
o f m is c hie f
k pt l
c e ar
e
y ou
s
upp o s e
of
l
f
r
e
a
c
c o m o rt , a s
,
s o rt ,
s om e
I d a re
s ay
.
ft e rn o o n w a s t h e fi rs t t im e t h a t it w a s h o n o re d
w it h o u r p re s e n c e
F o u r o f u s g irl s
M a ry
A bb y M ort o n C a ddy S t o dd e r a n d m ys e lf w it h five b o y s
—o u r Spa n is h M a n u e l b e in g C a p t a in f or t ire a ay —s e t
s a il in C h a rl e s R iv e r a ft e r h a v in g w a l k e d a m il e t h ro u g h
t h e fi e ld s a n d w o o d s n o t t o m e n t io n s w a m p s
W e s a il e d
a g o o d w a y up p a s s e d u n d e r t h e D e d h a m b rid g e
t he n
d o w n s in gin g a w a y A bb y a n d I O h ! t h e w o o d s ro u n d
Co w I s l a n d a re s o ric h t h e y ou n g p a l e g re e n b irc h d o w n
b y t h e b a n k c o n t ra s t e d w it h t h e d a rk t a ll p in e s t h e s ky
n
h
n
e
i
t
e
t
a
t
i
m
l
ud
fy
w it h j u s t e n o u g h o f l i
c
o
s
o
s
s
e
a
d
f
t h e d e e p w a t e r w it h ju s t a rippl e o n t h e s u rfa c e a n d s o
w a rm t h a t y o u c o uld h o ld y o u r h a n d in fo rm e d a p ic t u re
B u t t h e n c a m e in m a n t o m a r a n d
t h a t s e e m e d p e rfe c t
dis figu re
T w o m e n w it h h a t c h e t s c u t t in g d o w n t h o s e
s a m e b e a u t iful t re e s a n d a n o t h e r w it h a l in e h o o k in g t h e
fis h ( fo r m e re a m u s e m e n t m o s t l ik e ly )
I re a lly s y m p a
“
in c u t t in g
t h iz e w it h M r B ra dfo rd w h o w rit e s m e t h a t
d o w n t h e gre e n y o u n g b ra n c h e s fo r p e a s t ic k s h e is re a lly
a fra id o f t h e
v e n ge a n c e o f t h e w o o d d e m o n a n d l o ok s
”
a ro u n d t o s e e if a n y B ro w n ie s a re n e a r
W e ll w e go t
h o m e p e rfe c t ly s a fe a s I in fo rm e d yo u a n d a ft e r t e a a
l a rg e p a rt y o f a ll s o rt s c a m e up h e re t o h e a r s o m e m u s ic
s o h e re I m u s t s t o p t o t e ll y o u t h a t t o m y in e xp re s s ib l e
h
i
a n o a n d M r D w ig h t h a v e a t l e n g t h c o m e
p
t
e
T
h
o
e
y
j
p ia n o is a h a n d s o m e o n e o f a s w e e t t o n e a n d M r D h a s
p rin c ip a lly G e r
s o m e o f t h e b e s t o f m u s ic w h ic h I u s e
m an
Y o u w ill k n o w t h a t e v e ry s p a re m o m e n t is d e v o t e d
W e a re g o in g t o ge t up a g l e e c lu b fo rt h
t o m u s ic n o w
G e o rg e a n d Bu rrill Cu rt is ( o f w h o m I w ill s p e a k
w it h
o r p e rh a p s h a v e s p o k e n b e fo re ) t a k e t h e b a s s a n d t e n o r
I a n d A bb y t h e s o p ra n o a n d s e c o n d T h e n a l a rge n u m
b e r w h o k n o w v e ry l it t l e a b o u t m u s ic a re g o in g t o c o m m e n c e
P o o r M r D s a id t o n ig h t w h e n w e
w it h t h e rud im e n t s
A n d t h is
a
,
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,
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,
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,
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,
SCH OO L
TH E
w e re
w a s h in
ge n t l e m e
g
u
n
h
i
h
t
e
a
t
t
e
p
wi
,
gro up s
gs
79
w it h t w o o r t h re e o f t h e
d is c u s s in g
“
H o w f a s t y o u live h e re ; I like it b u t re a lly m y h e a d
”
and
a n d t h e n w e h a d a t a l k a b o u t it
m y h e a d s u ff e rs
B u rrill s a id t h a t h e h a d n o t ic e d h o w w e s e e m e d t o d riv e
w it h e v e ry t h in g b u t t h a t w e w e re in d e b t a n d m u s t n o t
t h e re fo re b e a t l e is u re a n d t h a t w e m u s t b e w ill in g t o
b e a r t h e Co n s e qu e n c e s o f t h e e rro rs a n d Sin s o f p a s t t im e
fo r a s e a s o n a n d a ft e r a ll h e c o uld n o t t h in k o f l iv in g in
t h e o ld w a y a g a in ; it s e e m e d l ik e s t a g n a t io n v e g e t a t io n
Bu rrill is n o t o f a ge a n d his b ro t h e r o n ly e igh t e e n T h e y
b o t h h a v e l a rg e fo rt u n e s I b e l ie v e a n d h a v e c o m e o u t
o f t h e m o s t fa s hio n a b l e s o c ie t y o f N e w Y o rk t h e ir fa t h e r
Bu rrill is a p e r
e n t ire ly a b s o rb e d in ba n le s a n d d o ll a rs
fe e t b e a u t y e n t ire ly u n c o n s c io u s a n d t h e n ( a s S a ra h
S
If
o
u s p e a k t o h im h e l is t e n s
t
a rn s ! s a y s ) s o h u m a n
e
y
[
a s if h e t h o u g h t t h e re w a s a t l e a s t a Ch a n c e t h a t yo u w e re
He s t a n d s a l o n e a n d a c t s fo r h im s e lf
w o rt h l is t e n in g t o
His b ro t h e r l o o k s t o h im a n d is u n c o n s c io u s ly in flu e n c e d
b y h im G e o rg e h a s a ric h v o ic e a n d t h e y s in g du e t s
w h ic h I l o v e s o m u c h
t o g e t h e r —t h e I ris h m e l o d ie s
G e o rge pl a ys b e a u t ifully a n d e n t ire ly b y e a r Is it
e tc
n o t gra n d t o s e e t h e m c o m e o u t s o in d e p e n d e n t ly a n d
W e h a v e h a d t h e M o rt o n s fro m
w o rk a w a y a t t h e
Ply m o u t h t o m a k e a v is it l e a v e t w o o f t h e ir b o ys a n d
A bb y a n d Ch o o s e a b u ild in g s p o t Yo u w o uld l ik e M r
M
He l o o k s ju s t a s you c a n fa n c y t h e m o s t l o v in g o f
t h e Pu rit a n s l o o k e d a n d re a lly is o n e d iv e s t e d o f a ll t h e ir
s up e rs t it io n a n d b ig o t ry
H e re a d a l e t t e r to u s b e fo re
h e l e ft t h a t h e h a d w rit t e n t o a n e p h e w n o w in G e rm a n y
e xpl a in in g t h e
c o m m u n it y p rin c ipl e s
I w is h yo u
e tc
c o uld h a v e h e a rd it
It is s o s t ra n g e a s w e ll a s pl e as a n t
t o h e a r t h e id e a s w hic h d iffe re n t p e rs o n s e n t e rt a in o f t h e
s a m e s u bj e c t
e xp re s s e d in t h e ir o w n p e c ul ia r w a
a
n
d
;
y
re a lly if I S h o uld jud g e
b y t h e m o s t b e a u t iful l e t t e rs I
h a v e re a d w rit t e n b y o n e a n d a n o t h e r a m o n g u s I s h o u ld
n
p in g
SCH O LAR S
AN D ITS
and
h e re
a nd
t h e re
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B ROOK FAR M
80
t hin
the
k
y
t ha t
ou r
to c o
ll e c t
h is t o ry
We
of
t he
d
i
l
re n w o
a
d
e
l
i
n
r
g
s om e
of
fi
r s t c om
m
uld
t h e m if t h e
u n ity
w a s t e t im e
n ot
y
w ante
d
w e re
t o t ra c e t h e
.
u m b e r o v e r s ix t y a n d s e v e ra l m o re a re c o m in g
W e h a v e n o w a l o n g t a b l e in t h e e n t ry M rs B a rl o w is
g o in g t o N e w Y o rk fo r a w e e k a n d I h a v e o ff e re d t o t a k e
t h e j oy s a n d c a re s o f a m o t h e r t o h e r t w o b o y s du rin g h e r
a b s e n c e c o n c e rn in g w hic h du t ie s a n d pl e a s u re s w e h a v e
”
“
Or a li a e a r
h a d n o l it t l e m e rrim e n t
[G a n n e t t ! h a s
b u t h e r s is t e r M a ry h a s c o m e —a s m a rt
n o t re t u rn e d
pl e a s a n t t ru s t in g c hild O f c o u rs e I do n o t l o v e h e r a s
w e ll a s O ra h ye t b u t I h a v e a s o rt o f a m ot b e r ly fe e l in g
To
t o h e r a n d s h e t u rn s t o m e a s o n e d o e s t o a s is t e r
O n ly t h in k o f m y w rit in g a ll
m o rro w I m u s t w rit e h e r
t h is a ft e r t w e lv e o c l o c k w it h S a ra h s n o rin g a w a y a n d
S o p hia [Ripl e y! w o uld n o t h e a r o f m y p ra c t is in g An d
n ow
I h a v e n o t t o ld yo u o f t h e b e a u t iful w ild fl o w e rs I
fo u n d in t h e w o o d s a n d ga v e t h e m t o M r D w igh t b e c a u s e
h e l o v e s t h e m n o r o f h o w I t o ok m y s c h o l a rs t o w a l k t his
m o rn in g a n d w e s a n g in t h e w o o d s
B u t I m u s t s a y go o d
n ig h t d e a re s t o r s h a ll l o s e m y b re a kfa s t t o m o rro w
N ow
i
s d e a r l it t l e K it fo r m e
n t
u
w
i
ll
k
s
w
o
o
y
yo u ? a n d g iv e
m y l o v e t o a ll
I h a d a n in v it a t io n t o rid e in a n d o u t
l a s t S un d a y b u t h a v in g s p ra in e d m y a n k l e a n d n o t fe e l in g
v e ry w e ll I did n ot t h in k t h a t e v e n t o s e e y ou I o u gh t t o
ris k m a k in g m y s e lf m o re s ic k
I go t t h e m e d ic in e e t c
B e s u re a n d c o m e o u t if yo u c a n ; I h a v e m u c h t o t e ll
h
u
w
i
h
n n o t w rit e
a
n
h
I
I
k
l
k
o
c
c
a
t
w
a
i
t
o
o
e w oo ds
y
t o n ig h t
If I a m e v e r s o t ire d o r e x c it e d t his a l w a y s h a s
a c a l m in g q u ie t in g in fl u e n c e
Y ou r l o v in g s is t e r
G E O R GY
n
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P os t s c r ip t
is ; b u t yo u
Wha t a
m us t t a ke
.
h o rrid m a t t e r
w h a t t h e re
of
is ,
fa c t
n ot w
c o n c e rn t his
h a t yo u
w is
h
SCH OO L
TH E
AN D ITS
SCH O LAR S
8
1
p irit m o v e d in t h e d ire c t io n o f f a c t s D o
c o m e a n d s p e n d t h e da y if y o u c a n w it h M a ry A n n e
I h a v e ju s t t h o ugh t o f t h e in t e re s t in g fa c t t h a t if I h a d
re l a t e d t h e s t o ry o f t h e b o a t in B o s t o n t o a n y o n e n o t
fe e l in g a s m u c h in t e re s t e d a s y o u rs e lf w it h Ou t s p e c ify in g
19 e t c
t he a ge s o f t he b oys 1 5—
it w o u ld h a v e b e e n re
p o rt e d ro u n d t ha t a t B ro o k F a rm t h e l it t l e b oys w e re
a ll o w e d t o go o n t h e riv e r a t a ll t im e s a n d s e a s o n s w it h o u t
a n y re s t ra in t a n d t h a t a f e w h a d a l re a dy b e e n d ro w n e d
T h e t e rm s fo r b o a rd a n d t u it io n in c lud in g a ll b ra n c h e s
T h is
is five d o ll a rs fo r a g irl a n d fo u r fo r a b o y p e r w e e k
in c lud e s m u s ic d ra w in g e t c t h e re b e in g n o e x t ra c h a rg e s
e x c e p t w a s h in g
fo r,
t he
and
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Mrs K irby s fellow teacher in the infant s chool
A bby M o rton has as Mrs D iaz become known
in A merican literature for the excellent quality
“
of h e r humor
The author of the William
H enry books is even more thoroughly imbued
tod ay with the spirit of Brook Farm than she
was during her slight a ffiliation with the c om
munity
Dr J ohn Thomas Codman w hose book
Brook Farm : H istoric and Personal M e
”
moirs is the most comprehensive account as
yet published is still living and practising the
profession of dentistry in B oston Dr Cod
man has told his own story so generously that
little remains to say beyond the imp ortant fact
that although he did n o t arrive as a pupil with
h is pare n ts and brothe r and sister until March
18 43
w he n some of the choicest Spirits were
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G
B ROOK FAR M
82
already gone and although he stayed on well
into the bitter end he champions the cause of
his youth with u n dimm e d ardor H e saw the
w orst
and is the most cop ious w it n ess of the
latter days and still he is a B rook Farmer
H is brother Charles H Codman was also the re
and lived to carry his ea rly imbibed principles
into the conduct of his picture s hop This
brother died by a painful accid e n t on September
The sister R ebecca married Butter
18
18 8 3
fie ld one of the printers of the H a r b ing e r and
is still livin g
Two of the students afterw ard achieved repu
On e
t a t io n as able soldiers in the Civil War
General Francis Cha n ning B arlo w —w a s born
on O ctober 1 9 1 8 3 4 in Brooklyn N e w York
and was graduated at H arvard Coll e ge in the
class of 1 8 5 5 Though a lawyer by profession
at the opening of the Civil War he was doing
edito rial w ork on the Tr ibu n e
Entering t h e
volu n teer service as a private he w a s soon com
missioned as Lieute n a n t Colo n el of the Sixty
firs t R egiment N ew Yo rk V olunteers and was
made Brigadier General in September 1 8 62 for
disti n guished services at Fair O aks H e was
twice severely w ounded w a s with Grant in the
late campaigns of the A rmy of the Potomac
and was mustered out with the rank of M aj or
General From the State of N e w York he held
the o ffice of Sec retary of State from 1 8 65 to
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TH E
SCH OO L
AN D ITS
SCH O LAR S
83
and of A ttorney General from 1 8 7 1 to
1 8 7 3 when he was instrumental in the prose
R ing During the last
c u t io n of the T w eed
twenty years of his life he w a s a brilliant mem
ber of the New York bar and died on J anuary
1 8 68 ,
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1 1 , 1 8 96
.
A nother soldier Colonel George Duncan
Wells was a youth of about fifteen whose
connection with the Farm has seldom been
mentioned although he prepared for college
there under Dana s particular attention H e
was a Greenfield boy and was a fine m an ly fel
low with long blond curls ; erect and hand
some he was equally attractive to the young
and old of both sexes and the young boys e S
conceived
a
high
admiration
for
his
i
a
ll
c
e
p
y
superior skill in all youthful Sports A rthur
Sumner a pupil w h o has published some in
refers with
t e re s t in g p ages of recollections
enthusiasm to his appearance as an I ndian
“
brave in the famous
gyp sy picnic
He
entered the Soph om ore class at Williams in
1 8 43
showing evidences of unusual trai n ing
for his age
The activity and grasp of his
mind his superior literary taste especially in
poetry and his w ide reading occasioned ge n
eral comment
A fter studying law in Green
field and at Harvard he practised it for several
years in Greenfield ; he served two terms in the
Massachusetts Legislature attracting more than
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B RO O K FAR M
84
ordinary notice both as a lawyer and as a legis
lator on account of his brilliant forensic ability ;
in 1 8 5 9 he became a j ustice of the Police C ourt
in B oston
When the war broke out Wells though far
from sympathizing w ith the abolition sentiment
th re w himself into the movement for the preser
vation of the Union Like General B utler h e
would have be e n glad if this consummation had
been possible without the necessity of freeing a
single slave and he frankly stated his position
in his recruiting speeches H e w a s ap pointed
Lieutenant Colonel of the First M assachusetts
Infa n try on M ay 2 2 1 8 61 an d became Colonel
of the Thirty fourth M assachusetts I nfantry on
J uly 1 1 1 8 62 H is e fficiency as an o fficer may
be j ustly i n ferred from the requests entered at
different times at the War Dep artment by
H ooker and Doubleday to have the Thirty
fourth Massachusetts sent to them as a Special
favor Such commendation indirectly confirms
the testimony of his o fficial associates that he
was brave and cool strict in discipline and yet
never unmindful of the comfort of his men ;
j ealous of the reputation of his regiment but
anxious to recognize good service on the pa rt of
any of his soldiers O ne reminiscence which
calls up the traditions of Brook Farm states
“
that the Colonel and Chaplain have thus far
been masters of the butter w hich is n e ve rt h e
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B ROO K FAR M
86
brothers were through fortunate circumstances to
do w hat seemed desirable to them they were by
no means free from the impressionability of
youth and fell u nder the double spell of Emer
son s genius and the vague but alluring influence
of Transcendentalism I t was natural there
fore that they should in 1 8 4 2 go to Broo k
Farm w here they becam e boarders for two
years George being twenty years of age when
the stay ended They were industrious in their
studies of German and of agricultural chemistry
but in particular of music under Dwight
I t is
probable that they took a hand in more exact
ing pursuits even when their spirit of gallantry
made no suggestion s for w hen A rthur Sumner
first saw George he was chopping fagots with
a bill hook behind the Eyrie all alone ; but for
”
“
picnics these
young Gree k gods
as Miss
R ussell calls them had a gen u ine predilection
I t has often been told how the younger of the
t w o dressed in a short green skirt danced as
—
Fanny E ls s le r a celebrity much in vogue in
those days The same kindly m emory recalls a
picture of George Curtis and George B radford
on cold stormy w ashing days hanging out the
clothes for the w omen — a chivalry equal to
that of Walter R aleigh th ro w ing down his cloa k
”
before the Queen Elizabeth
They were true amateurs throughout their
brief stay and there is nothing to Show that
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TH E
CU RTIS B ROTH E R S
87
they held mo re than a w ell br e d complaisance
toward the v arious phases of cultivated radical
ism George in w riting to his fa t h e r t o whom
he seem s never to have yielded a single point
of O pinion said having the Farm in Vie w : N o
w ise man is lo n g a reformer for wisdom sees
plainly that gro w th is steady sure and neither
condemns nor rej ects w hat is or h a s been
R eform is organized distrust
I n after life all
that he said of these two years w a s softened
by the gracious autumnal mist of memory ; if
there w a s any sourness in his rec ollections he
conceal e d it I t is p ossible to exaggerate also
possible to u n der rate the e ffect upon him of the
Brook Farm experience A practical soul w h o
disliked Curtis s vie w s on the rights of w omen
“
once flung out his conviction that there must
be a scre w loose some w here in a man w h o
graduated f rom that lu n atic school at Brook
”
Farm
There w a s however a thr e ad of
r evolt in the pattern of his character
else Cur
tis w ould not have sought as he did almost
at once in the comp any of his brothe r the in
fl u e n c e of Concord
H ere as at Brook Fa rm
w a s the mixture of farm work and of association
w ith cultivated minds
The brothers simply
passed from one grade to another of the same
curriculum Undue parental restriction w ould
have wo rked no w ise result in t h e upbringing
m an who could ask his father :
o f a young
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B ROOK FAR M
88
What does it matter to me or God whether
?
Lo w ell or M anchester be ruined
A believ e r
in a high tariff might w ell have despaired as
D avid for A bsalom over a son who left a R hode
I sland merchant as an interested third party out
of such a calculation
When the Curtises left Brook Farm they must
for a time have created a void
A love for all
that is beautiful had its p lace among the resi
dents there and when George R ipley spoke of
”
“
the two wonderfully charming young m e n
it was with that same fondness with which
Miss R ussell mentions Burrill as having a typ
ical Greek face and long hair falling to his
O f Georg e Sh e
Shoulders in irregular curls
notices that though only eighteen years old he
seemed much older like a man of twenty five
possibly with a peculiar elegance if I may ex
press it —a certain remoteness of manner
however that I thin k prevented persons from
becoming acquainted with him as easily as w ith
”
Burrill
In recording his contribution to the
music at Brook Farm M rs K irby tells with
gratitude that Curtis was never guilty of Sing
ing a comic song
I n spite of the potent influence of Emerson
and later of the direct companio n ship at Concord
during intervals of farm w ork of Emerson him
self and of H a w th orne Thoreau A lcott and
“
the poet Char ming
the extremely practical
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B ROO K FAR M
90
of interest and sympathy ; but in leaving this
country he fad e d gradually from public memory
A fter George Curtis s return from Europ e he
entered definitely i n to literature ; his first impor
”
“
tant venture being the N ile N otes of a H o w adj i
The book was clever and successful
but it called do w n on its author some censure as
”
did also the H o w adj i in Syria published a year
lat e r A fter half a century the e ffect of these
books is still fresh and strong They are glo w
ing w ith an O ccidental s feelings toward the
East and have caught the true spirit of im
re s s io n s cl e vo a e
early
instances
in
A
merican
p
y g
literature of this delicate mode of expression
in w hich the French have been s o long masters
I t is C lear that George William Curtis came out
of the East a pretty well sophisticated young
m an a n d not unduly coy or incommunicative
The t w o books show a man naturally sensitive
and delicate but impressionable to a vague and
sensuous atmosphere M r Chad w ick says that
”
“
the H owadj i ma rked an exquisite satirical
recoil from the pretenc e of holiness in things and
p laces w hich could claim no genuine associations
”
with the Christian origins
I t is however true
that Curtis even as early as the B rook Farm
days allo w e d himself certain expressions w hich
Show that in his early manhood there w a s an
”
alloy
In his next book Potiphar Papers
Curtis undertoo k to scourge the evils of a s ociety
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CURTIS B ROTH E R S
TH E
1
9
of which he was an ingratiating and willing
member and the s a va in dign a t io of the true
satirist is therefore wanting H e who said that
”
he could see no satire in V anity Fair never
went farther hi m self than to assail palpable
vulgarity and the superficial aspects of fashion
able life I n the Potiphar Papers
he w a s
clearly following Thackeray but he missed the
ethical soundness which lay beneath Thack
Yet this book has its
e ra y s literary effects
severities and its sincerities and contains some
excellent and memorable passages I t w a s Mrs
“
Potiphar who said : In a country w h e re there s
”
no aristocracy one can t be too exclusive
If
there was a touch of cynicism it came from a
youth
A S Curtis grew older his thrusts w ere
more graceful
not less vigorous H is Belinda
”
and the V ulgar in the Easy Chair proclaim s
his social creed w herein appears a geniality
w hich was earlier wanti n g in the cosmopolitan
—a very
K urz Pacha of the Potiphar Pap ers
terrible and cutting fellow until he is discovered
to be only Curtis disguised in a costumer s garb
as a far travelled O riental
“
Prue and I which followed was of so dif
fe re n t a quality from the
Potiphar Papers
that it may have ta k en off the edge of r elish for
the not especially dangerous cynicism of the
latter Its idealism was unrestrained placing as
it did the solution of human happiness frankly
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B ROOK F AR M
2
9
in the hands of t h e poor man and almost deny
ing to the rich his allotted cup of cold w ater It
w o n a place in the hearts of men rather than in
their heads for such a view of life is comforting
The steady headed Prue is Curtis s concession
to established facts and in her character he
anticipates a later theo ry that men a re the h o rn
idealists and women the practical element of
life though at no period was he a partisan of
the merits of either sex
A t this time and on occasions during the rest
of his life Curtis gave lectures of the older typ e
as best represented by Emers on and Phillip s
H e had a good share in maintaining the repute
of that civilizing institution the lyceum a valued
adj unct to A merican educative methods
In
1 8 5 6 he made himself resp onsible for the pay
ment of a large sum through the failur e of P u t
M o n t /t ly and it w a s n early t w enty years
nam s
before this debt was discharged Such a simpl e
act of duty strengthened the tissues of character
and transformed the glowing youth w hich con
c e ive d the H owadj i books into a ro b u s t manhood
Life moved hence
w hich never failed him
forth for Curtis with the swiftness of the events
in w hich he was to ta k e an active part until his
death
H e was a lready editor of H a ip e r s
We e kly then more p owerful than any similar
publication can hope to b e again
I mper
sonal and moderate in his editorial work he
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B ROO K F AR M
94
political life and therefore what he really did
accomplish was the more remarkable To the
Easy Chair of H a rp e r s N e w M on t /z ly M ag a z in e
he contributed about fifteen hu n dred essays the
charm of which is likely to be a treasured
memory in our letters They served many good
causes an d among them the sp read of a true
cosmopolitanism Did any good man or woman
of m ore than local value die he embalmed the
fragrance of such a life in one of these delight
ful essays
If it be true that he who is not with a move
ment is again st it then surely Curtis is not e n
titled to be thought a true product of Broo k
Farm H e had not the essential qualities of a
reformer there is no evidence that he was ever
so wedded to a cause that he was re ady to suffer
for it H is blo w was steady his purpose hon
est but there w a s lacking the terrible im p la c a
ble strength w hich pe rsists past any ha z ard
until the gates of sin are forced H e wanted
the world to be better ; but he would a c c o m
l
h
i
s
the
result
in
a
gracious
shall
we
say
in
p
a comfortable
manner
B efore Father H ec k er died he had
trave l led widely in spirit and in practic e
from B rook Farm H e never however
showed ingratitude toward his immediate a s so
ciates for whom he had ba k ed and with whom
he had bro k en bread H is pro gress of life
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FATH E R H ECK E R
95
from the early wrestlings against the dangers
of commerciality throughout his brief soj ourn
in g in Brook Farm Fruitlands and Concord
and during his steady advance toward the Cath
olic Church w a s continuous and consistent H e
w a s born on December 1 8 1 8 1 9 of German immi
grant p are n tage ; from the m other who had an
equable temp erame n t and much good sense he
probably received the better p art of his intel
lectual inheritance
His two o lder brothers
an d
himself learned th e baker s trade and
eventually built up a prosperous business H e
is remembered to have said in speaking of his
“
earlier years : I have had the blood spurt out
”
of my arm carrying bread w hen I was a baker
and this untempered zeal for the task at hand
follo w ed him i n to the priesthood A lthough he
studied hard a n d consta n tly H ecker could not
fairly be called an educated man or a thor
oughly train ed priest O n e must have no little
sympathy w ith such a life as H ecker s to j udge
it with fairness or toleratio n
W holesome and
open hearted from his youthf ul days when he
felt a strong aversion to being touched by
an
he
had
an
element
of
unusualness
on e
y
w hich soon developed mystical tendencies and
finally a complete reliance on the workings of
supernatural forces within him
Long before his twentieth year H ec k er had
plunged violently into active political life under
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,
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B ROOK FAR M
6
9
the influence of B rownson wh o in the early
thirties was devoting his tremendous energies
to bringing the W o rkin gm e n s Party to recog
n it io n in N ew York
When H ecker was less
than fifteen years of age he carried through
some important resolutions at the w ard meet
ings of his party H e and his brothers once
invited the menace of l a w by printing across the
bac k of bills received from customers a quota
tion attributed to Daniel Webster proclaiming
the virtues of a paper currency This political
fervor came to nothing definite beyond teaching
the lad self reliance and knowledge of men but
it was the means of con firming a friendship
“
w ith Bro w nson
the strongest most purely
human influence if we except his m other s
which I saac H ecker ever knew to use the
words of his comp etent biograp her Father
Elliott The critical period of youth he passed
with singular purity and simplicity of conduct
and a display of stoical tendencies which devel
oped into asceticism His falling in w ith Brown
son marked also the begin ning o f a distinctly
religious p hase and henceforth each of these
two m e n in his own way trav e lled the same
road toward the same goal H ecker arriving
there a little before his older friend
Eight years after m eeting so fateful an a c
quaintance he fou n d himself at B rook Farm
but the intervening years brought him many
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8
9
B ROO K FAR M
“
a ffectionate manner w ith an air of s in gu la l
refinement and self reliance combined w ith a
half eager inquisitive n ess
and it was Curtis
who disclosed to H ecker that the latter w a s u n
doubtedly the o riginal of Ernest the Seeker in
W H Channing s story of that nam e which a p
i
al
a
re
in
the
D
H
ec
k
er
did
not
long
con
e
d
p
t in u e to ba k e for the common good for w hile the
honest bread rose his spiritual therm ometer was
”
“
falling H e soon became a full boarder pay
ing for the greater freedom five dollars and a half
a w eek furnished w e may sup pose by his hard
working brothers Details o f H ecker s life at
the Farm are wanting but that he was looked
upon as eccentric and shy is evident from the
rather faint impression left The start was in
auspicious according to M rs K irby w h o says
“
I learned the next day that the new comer
who w a s a baker by profession and a mystic by
incli n ation had been nearly crazed by t h e
direct rays of the moon w hich made the circuit
”
of the three exp osed w i n do w s of his room
Father Elliott sees in the associative e xp e ri
ment a working toward a high ideal realizable
only in the supernatu ral order of his church
S o far as association was a revolt in the natural
or unconverted life against selfishness and u n
restrained individualism it was comm e ndab l e
“
These West R oxbury adventure rs w ere worthy
”
H e does
o f their ta s k though not equal to it
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FATH E R H ECK E R
99
“
not find among them the slightest evidence of
sensuality the least trace of the selfishness of
the world or even a n y Sign of the extravagances
of Spiritual pride but contrasts Fre d e ric O za
nam s success with the failures of George R ip
le y and of Sai n t Simon whom he pronounced
”
“
to be a far less worthy man
Both H ecker
and Brownson found the ge n erally tolerant s pirit
of the place refreshing Their association w ith
men and women of noble aspirations w a s help
ful and neither of them failed in a reaso n able
gratitude toward this earl y experience
B oth
of them in later years b ore frank testimony to
the more trying features of the Church w hich
they follo w ed ; a n d the entire want of vulgarity
and low ambitions at Brook Farm m ay often
have been Silently p erhap s regretfully r e mem
bered Strongly under the Spell of Brownso n s
forcible manner H ecker did not wholly confine
himself to discipleship but w ent over to West
R oxbury to hear Parker to Concord to see
Emerson and no doubt to B oston w here every
thing strange and improb a ble was then herde d
together as in an ar k
O utwardly he appears to have made a favor
able impression by reason o f his candor and
amiability ; but there is evidence that inwardly
all was not well with him H is j ournals Show
that he alter n at e ly drew to w ard the C hurch and
then in cold doubt fell shrinki n gly b a c k I t
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I 00
B ROOK FAR M
was strange as it w a s tragic that toward the
close of his life after long years in the priest
hood he again fell into dark moods U p to the
time of his leaving Brook Farm he had settled
the one point that he would never j oin a
Protestant church
Supernatural experiences were not the only
ones which troubled H ecker s serenity at Brook
Farm There is reaso n to think that he felt the
influe n ce of what in the commonplaces of re
”
“
earthly love and that he
ligio n is called an
might even have w ooed and married like other
men ; but in season to prevent this conclusion
there came strongly up on him the vision of a
mystical esp ousal and union which rendered
“
him no longer free to invite any woman to
marriage
Notw ithstanding his convictions in
this matter H ecker was advised frankly not to
trust to supern aturalism in the matter of the
a ffections
“
O n July 5 1 8 4 3 he writes : To leave this
lace
is
to
me
a
great
sacrifice
I
have
been
p
”
m uch refined by being here
O n the eleventh
of the same month he w ent to Fruitland s in
”
“
a deeper life ; and if getting one s
s earch of
e yes opened to harsh realities in less than two
weeks is dee pness of any kind he Certainly
found what he sought O n July 1 2 he raked
”
hay and j oined in a conversation on C lothing ;
“
the next day a conversation w a s held on The
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B ROOK FAR M
I 02
O n the very m oment of crossing the threshold
of Catholicism he found himself at Concord in
A pril 1 8 44 where he lodged at the house of
H enry Thoreau s m other H e had already re
fused to consi der the o ffer of a room furnishe d
”
“
and with good peop le for seventy five dollars
a year ; and he now arranged w ith this excellent
“
lady for a room
a good straw bed a large
table a carpet washstan d bookcase stove
”
chairs looking glass and lights for seventy
five cents a w eek
N ever surely was the in
ward light m aintained a t less cost to the lodger
and at les s profit to the landlady
I n J une 1 8 44 he w ent to B oston to confer
with Bishop s F e n w ic k and Fitzp atrick ; the lat
ter questioned him regarding Brook Farm and
Fruitlands seeming desirous to learn more of
his sup posed socialist theories and finally gave
him a letter to Bishop M c Clo s ke y who on
A ugust I 1 8 44 gave him baptism ; on the next
day H ecker made confession
B efore H eck e r we n t to B elgium in 1 8 4 5 he
p roposed to Thoreau that th ey should go to R ome
together but the latter stated that he had now re
tired from all external activity in disgust and his
life was m ore Brahminical A rtesian w ell Inner
”
Temple like
this was Thoreau s way of escap
ing the fervor of a young convert I n September
of the same year H ecker began his life in the
R edemptorist N ovitiate of St Trond in Belgium
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FATH E R H ECK ER
1 03
H e found the discipline severe under the novice
master Father O t h m a n n but he added self in
“
A cting under im
fl ic t e d severities of his own
”
pulses of grace he tried to conquer the tendency
to sleep I n O ctober 1 8 46 he took the vows
of obedience p ov e rty a n d chastity H e then
w e nt at once to Wittem where for t w o years
he w a s to study philosophy and Latin A t the
end of this time Brother Walworth his c o m p a n
ion w a s ordai n ed priest but I saac H ecker h a v
ing failed to satisfy his superior remai n ed simply
a brothe r The causes of this failure to advance
are so evident and the results from this time to
the end of life w ere so disastrous that it is highly
important to spea k without reserve A fter he
had left Brook Farm and had returned to N e w
York there is an entry in his diary for A ugust
1
0
I f the past nine months or
8 4 3 as follows
3
m ore a re any evidence I find that I can live on
very simple diet
g rai n s fruit and nuts I have
j ust commenced to eat the latter ; I drink pure
w at e r
So far I have had w heat grou n d and
made i nto unleavened bread but as soo n as we
”
get in a n e w lot I shall try it in the grain
Two
years befo re his death Hecker w h o w a s not
w ithout an excellent sense of humor speaking
of these experiments said : Thank God ! H e led
me into the Catholic Church I f it hadn t been
for that I should have been o n e of the worst
cran k s in the w orld
T h ere a re several othe r
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B ROO K FAR M
104
entries as to his dietetic abuses I n N ovember
“
ingly cries I w ish I could dis
18 44 he despai r
pense with the whole digestive apparatus
At
Concord he makes mention of e in b e r rl ic b e s E s
”
“
bread maple sugar and apples
He
s e n of
proposed for the Lenten season of 1 8 4 5 to c o n
fine himself to one meal a day I t is not sur
prising then after this outrag e ous treatme n t of
his physical nature and after the moral and
mental severities of his novitiate that he Should
have been unequal to meet the requirements
at Wittem He became so s t u lt ifie d that he
could not fix attention on his boo k s and
lap sed into a condition of animal stup idity
Father O t h m a n n advised him at St Trond to b e
”
“
come n u s a in t f ou
Unable to study he did
humble services
carried fuel and baked bread
as at Brook Farm There being n o manner
of doubt as to his holiness whatever the opinion
as to his sanity he w a s allowed to go with Father
Walworth to the R edempto rists at Clapham
England and at last w a s ordained by Bishop
Wiseman In O ctober 1 8 49
Shortly after
H ecker with other priests began their R e de m p
t o ris t mission in A merica having for their chief
obj ect the conversion of non Catholics
the o n e
great purpose of Father H ecker till his death
N otwithstanding his temporary obfuscation of
mind in a few years H ecker w a s able to put forth
his ablest and probably best kno w n book Ques
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B ROOK FAR M
1 06
t ic
la rly
to intemperance Cleanliness and good
order as w ell as godliness had a part in Hecker s
methods ; and he Showed a w illingness not only
for supervision but also for p ersonal co opera
tion in the needful drudgery of the mission
The inertness not to say the indolence of his
younger days gave place to a practical manhood
His lectures were popular in the widest sense
and he was a peer of the great lecturers of the
day I t is due to say that b e touched th e hearts
of A mericans as a whole more closely than he
did those of his own faith
The narro w ness
shown toward Catholics at that time was met
with an equal narrowness and it is no w onder
that H ecker s largeness of manner w a s n ot
always understood or ap preciated
H ecke r s prevision an d insight brought the
p owerful aid of ephemeral a n d periodical litera
ture to the support of his Church H is C a t h o li
c is m refused no agencies by w hich success w a s
to be w o n
H e started the Ca t /z o lic Wo r l a in
—
i
1 8 65 and in 1 8 7 0 the Yo u ng Ca t b o l c
both to
day of a reputab le order of religious magazines
H is A postolate of the Pres s was largely pro
moted by means of the Catholic Publicatio n
Society
I n the midst of this busy life Father H ec k er
was called on to pay the p enalty of his early
experiments in that dangerous laboratory his
physical nature
I n 1 8 7 1 his health be gan to
u
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FATH E R H ECK E R
16 7
fail definitely ; b e kept for some time longer his
mental strength but his digestion and nerves
were seriously impaired
H e went abroad for
health but did not find it Strange to say he
had a dread of death which followed him many
years but he made a peaceful end which came
on December 2 2 1 8 8 8 Three years before this
he under w ent strange depressions during w hic h
he neglected the o ffices of his faith This period
seems to have been a revival of the unhap py ex
rie n c e s at St Trond and Wittem
e
p
I t has been said even sneeringly that Fath e r
H ecker was a member of the Yankee Catholic
”
Church
I f this allegation could fairly be
brought against the son of German immigra n ts
living in cosmopolitan N ew York it would a d
H is love
m ira b ly s u mmarize his b e st reputation
of freedom of the soul and a large minded n ess
which he had found and app re ciated in others
at Brook Farm never deserted h im
He w a s
in his day the best interpreter of his chu rch
to the cool minded practical A merica n charac
ter I f those w h o heard him and who read his
books and sermons did not fully understand or
accept his religion they did at least compre
hend and accept him and he was thus a useful
i n termediary bet w een his unchangin g faith and
our swift restless civilization
Though Hecker s w ritings lack the extreme
arroganc e sho w n by Brownso n they have the
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B ROOK F AR M
1 08
advantage of continuity H ecker did not bear
m ental fruitage until his great and as it proved
final choice ; fro m that time his spo k en and
w ritten thoughts expressed the results of ex
w
and
the
accretion
s
of
belief
hile
nce
r
i
e
e
p
Brownson s spiritual vicissitudes make him one
of the least convincing of theological investiga
tors Years back the older man had accused
“
the younger of a tendency to mysticism to
sentimental luxury w hich is really enfeebling
”
your soul
This condition doubtless real was
hap pily overcome but the residuum of H ecker s
intellectual p ossessions was not large H is faith
absorbed so much of himself that there was too
little potency left esp ecially in view of the
fact that he addressed himself to non Catholics
“
H is last book The Church and the A ge does
not lift the proclamation of dogma an inch above
the level maintained by most controversialists
and in no way does it redeem the promise of
”
n
uestions
o
f
the
Soul
I
ndeed
he
failed
o
Q
the whole to comp ass in literature results vouch
safed to him in his immediate field R emem
bering that H ec k er was never a s cholar a n d
that he failed even as a student it would be
fairer to his reputation b oth as a zealous and
faithful priest and as a m a n w h o exerted some
influence on A merican thought and conduct to
pass by his somewhat thin and uninsp iring pages
and fall back on the tribute paid him by the
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C H A PTE R I V
M E MB E R S
TH E
E VE N Emers on admitted that Broo k Farm
was a pleasant place w here lasting frie n dships
”
“
were formed and the art of letter w riting
was stimulated
B ut he held moreover that
impulse without centripetal b alance was the rule
amo n g the members who su ffered from the
“
w ant of a head and experienced an
intellectual
sansculottism
The members could not well
qua rrel w ith these pleasantries nor with his call
“
ing their cherished dream an A ge of R eason
”
in a patty pan
Such strictures are phrases
after all even in an Emerso n
But he went
further w hen he m ade the charge that those
whose resolves were high did not work the
hardest and that the stress fell on the few
“
This however is but one of the necessary
ways of life w hich Emerson himself upheld
Charles Lane in an article contributed to the
D ia l ( vol iv ) and valuable as a contemporary
opinio n was more searching
H e found at
B rook Farm an entire absence of assumption
and pretence but thought that taste rather
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I IO
T HE
M E MB E R S
I II
than piety was the aspect presented to the eye
”
“
I f the maj ority in numbe rs
he continues
w er e considered it is possible that a vote in
favor of self s a c rific e for the common good would
not be ve ry strongly carried
There being n o
professio n of hand to hand altruism —the word
was not then in the vernacular —no charge of
hypocrisy can be lodged
Lane also thought
that riches would have been as fatal as poverty
to the true progress of the A ssociation and
herein he confirmed what had already been pro
claimed
Endowments w ere early recognized
as possible agents for weakening the purp o ses
and activities of the experiment
If as Mrs
K irby says Brook Farm w a s a protest against
the s a u ve gu i p e u t p rinciple then the s t rin ge n
cies and little economies were no bad disciplin e
and the display of a full purse would have been
an o ffence against the ethics of the place
There was no mean poverty as there was no
parade of individual w ealth
I t would be an inj ustice to the good sense
w hich underlay the external a rt ific ia l it
of
this
y
life to say that the people who assured to the
A ssociation a lasting memory cherished any
special faith in the immediate success of the
undertaking T w enty five y e ars had bee n set as
a reasonable limit for the accomplishment of the
high purposes announced I t is probable that
R ipley and D w ight wer e the really sanguin e
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B ROOK F AR M
I 12
ones ; for the influential members as a body
must be fairly credited with a modicum of that
ordinary human j udgment w hich recogniz es
the adventitious quality of any new enterprise
These hoped for good fortune ; but they were
prepared for p artial failu r e at least When the
community dissolved the maj ority of its mem
bers met the crisis with a good natured stoicism
common to A mericans The hop es of the over
buoyant could not fall far for the issues of suc
cess or failure had not rested o n their shoulders ;
and those w h o had grumbled could easily find
another opportunity Brook Farm like college
life was a slow working inspiration to those of
ordinary endo w ment who in after years pros
pered moderately through their contact w ith free
and w holesome influences in the A ssociation
O ne member of the later group William H
Teel writing twenty five years after made the
acknowledgment that what little he possessed of
“
education refinement or culture and taste for
”
matters above things material he owed to this
”
alma mater by adoption
H e p robably voiced
a gratitude felt by other inconspicuous members
in their maturer years
H ad everybody who wished to j oin the A sso
the result had
c ia t io n been allowed to do so
been strange indeed Political exiles trades
men in a small way who had failed elsewhere
minister s without parishes but generally with
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B ROO K FAR M
1 14
Yet to blend domestic an d associative senti
ments was a pa rt of the o rigin al plan
I S it
not quite certai n dubiously asks Lane in the
“
D ia l for January 1 8 44
that the human heart
cannot be set in two places that man cannot w o r
ship a t two altars ?
Emerson was more rudi
mentary when he argued on behalf of m others
“
that the hen on her own accou n t much preferred
the old w a y A hen w ithout her chickens w a s
but half a hen
The Brook Farm experiment
was mainly tested only by women of exceptional
“
courage —p erhap s as the happy helpless a n
which Emerson declared the Farmers
a r c h is t s
as a w hole to have been ; and this w ill explain
what Mrs K irby meant w hen Sh e w rote that
there was no large m other nature at B rook
Farm ; that after the first p eriod the w ome n
who cam e were inferior to the men ; and that
the motive which influenced these new comers
was livelihood rather than so cial melioration
The earlier women thre w a w ay prerogative
and gained the then doubtful privilege of
equal ity The wonder is that those w h o first
w ent to Brook Farm did not I nvite a larger
share of censure from their own sex but the
p henomenal in n ocence of the life there and the
absence of scandal or of the least cause for it
had much to do with a tolerance w hich lasted
until baseless attacks from a part of the N e w
Yor k press caused a temporary odium This
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M E MB ER S
TH E
1 15
shado w did not fall however on Broo k Farm
until its golden age was already gone and the
iron age of Fourierism fully begu n
There was religion at Brook Farm but it was
by no means a religious community Spiritual
culture except in the case o f particular indi
vidu a l s w a s pursued mo r e as a diversion or a
respite from m ore engrossin g interests Unita
ria n is m might safely have included the maj ority
—
it certainly w a s tradi
of the earlier members
W H Chan n in g s
t io n a l w ith most of them
visits never passed without service s of deep in
t e re s t and importance to a representative number
of the A ssociat e s What there w a s of religious
life felt his stimulus A lthough there was n o
“
dogm atism and controversial discussio n was
”
unkno w n there is no recorded evidence of any
o pen bold opp osition to the accepted forms of
faith ; there w a s assuredly no crudeness or
blatancy in this matter
I t has been said that toward the close some
definite interest was taken in Swedenborg s writ
ings but how much does not appear A few
a very f e w —passed from one or another form
of Protestantism to the R oman Catholic Church
There is no pretence that this transition e ver
threatened to assume the importan ce of a stam
pede R omeward ; nor would it be safe to assert
that discourageme n t at the failure of Broo k
Farm affected those w h o sought this Sheltering
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B ROOK FAR M
1 16
fastness The external charms of the historic
faith have their fascinations even for those who
never embrace it
and it is probable that some
effect w a s produced by the strong arguments of
Brownson H ecke r forme rly of their own flock
had gone with Bro w nson and Charles N e w comb
mysteriously flirted w ith the romanticism of the
C hurch This sort of fervor was in the air and
a few naturally followed their desires and tastes
I t would be unnecessary even to mention this
change of religiou s base in M rs R ipley an d her
niece M iss Stearn s and in one or t w o more
were it not that too much stress has been given
to the s im p le f a c t There may p ossibly have
been a touc h of mysticism in the Brook Farm
life ; but M rs K irby for one h as exaggerated
the actual condition w hen she says that rough
wooden crosses and pictures of the M adonna
began to appear and I suspected rosaries rat
”
tling under the aprons
She is entirely in
error w hen she says that H orace Sumner and
M iss Dana becam e C atholics ; the M iss Dana to
w hom she referred w a s not even in the A ssocia
tion A s for the Swedenborgian tendency there
is this to say : J ust as Catholicism represented
the pendulum swung to its furth e st p oint from
rationalism so did Swede n borgia n ism o ffer the
extreme reaction from idealism for in itself it is
m aterialism —a holding out of merely creature
comforts
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B ROOK FAR M
1 18
exactly five words
I t is to be hoped that the
earnest Cha r mi n g pronounced them man and
”
a phrase
wife and not c o u p ly co n sociated
which he suffer e d to be used in the P re s e n t
Starting w ith about fifteen persons the num
bers never increased to above one hundred and
twenty
B y the time that the cha n ge to the
Phalanx had been e ffected nearly all the first
comers were gone A safe estimate would b e
that about two hundred individuals w ere con
Brook Farm from first to last
n e c t e d w ith
S uch name s as w ere of e special lustre stand
apart as they would have stood in any condi
tion from their associates O thers of a second
rank but of considerable importance rise in
memory when ever the nam e of Brook Farm is
By reason of individual vivacity
m entioned
eccentricity or earnestness of character each
helped to make this Sp ot rich in asso ciatio n s
N or have thes e personalities been wholly for
gotten in the issue of their later years But for
their lives and their endeavors Brook Farm
would b e less memorable and it is therefore
proper not to omit them from this record in
tended primarily for the more notable among
the members and visitors
I f it w ere p ossible it would be interesting to
trace the subsequent career of certain relatively
unimportant members O ne would li k e to know
more for instance of Grandpa Treadwell who
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TH E
M E MB E R S
I 19
was a m erry soul though a quiet one ; or of
“
Charles H osmer w h o had the cranial develop
”
ment of a Webster
Christopher List called
“
Chrysalis w h o vied w ith Lizzie Curson in
“
caring for visitors ; Eaton known as
O ld
”
Solidarity ; C olson the shoemaker w ith his
w ife ; J ohn and Mary Sa w yer ; C harles and
Stella Salisbury are some of the names which
come and go without special relation to their
c onsociates
The Misses Foord of contrasting
types of beauty Dolly H osmer M ary Donnelly
—
pretty as her name half implies
these an d
others of the women and girls it is also di fficult
to trace beyond the fact that they o n ce lived
at the Farm The undiscovered nicknames are
tantalizing for they are sometimes so full of
unfulfilled promise
Who was Torquemada
or Savonarola ? Possibly H ecker and Parker
Who we r e Camilla and Sybilla if not C ornelia
H all a n d Ca roline Sturgis and w h o more than
all was H aw thorne s Dismal V iew who soon
abandoned the cheerful life as unsuited to his
gloomy tastes ?
O f several members some of them humble in
reputation and co n dition but faithfully re p re
s e n t a t ive of the variegated membership
some
brief notice d e serves to be given
Le w is K Ryckman a cord w ainer belonged
“
to the
Shoemaking s e ries
u n der the n e w
order H is w ife sho rt sp rightly a n d nervous
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I 20
B ROOK FAR M
played the part of h ostess and attended to the
women visitors R yckman w a s a thorough b e
liever in the associate life w ith its boundless
promise to reduce the w aste and purposeless
friction of individual households but he w a s no
advocate of the sequestration of property
“
dried labor as he called it ; to him the im
pulse and ability to acquire was wholesome and
proper an d he sought economy of social ar
rangement not restriction of the individual
R yck m an went under the name of the O m
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I chabod M orton w a s a trustee fro m D ecem
ber 1 8 4 2 until A pril 1 8 4 3 his place on the
B oard w a s then taken by M inot Pratt H e w a s
from Plymouth and was the father of Mrs
A bby M orton Diaz
Emerson says of him that
he was a plain man and formerly engaged in
the fis h eries with success
B ecause he felt
that sentiment rather than good business j udg
ment governed the practical affairs of the Farm
he abandoned his purp ose of j oining the A sso
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O ne of H ec k er s successors at the honest
task of ba k ing w a s Peter M B ald w i n know n
”
“
to all as th e General
a tall spare osseous
sort of man built on the large Wester n plan
and thought to resemble A ndre w Jackson In
spite of w hat has been w ritten about an abse n ce
of tobacco smoke it is certain that Baldwin
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I 22
B ROOK FAR M
Cabot was interested in th e antislavery move
ment and appears as an auditor of the accounts
of the M assachusetts A ntislavery Society H is
going to Brook Farm seems to have occasioned
s ome criticism from his o ld f rie n ds ; but in an
unpublished letter to Miss Caroline W e ston
dated December 1 1 8 44 from Brook Farm he
defends his conduct on the ground that w hile
he loves the slave no less he loves humanity
“
more and adds
I feel that A ssociation is
doing and w ill do more for A ntislavery than
”
anything else can
A rriving on the same day with Blake J ohn
Glover Dre w usually kno w n as Glover brought
with him the w h olesome atmosphere of business
promptnes s and accuracy Even his personal
app earance besp oke commercial ways and a
trig well groomed man H is advance was rapid
to the position of Commercial A gent a n d mem
ber of the I ndustrial Council and he showed
himself a worthy shipper and forwarder of the
Farm s products and merchandise Yet this
honest determined comrade so unlike many of
his associates Shared their faith and helped to
improve their practice Poetry was in his na
ture but hidden under the smooth careful rai
ment of a seeming pro sperity A ssociated w ith
Drew in the ge n eral expressing Shippi n g and
purveying of t h e Farm w a s Buckley H astings
A s a private enterprise the w ork which they
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TH E
M E MB ER S
123
z ealously performed might have been made
p rofitable
A n other in stance of a continued interest in
social and industrial pr obl e ms originati n g in a
b ri e f reside nce at B rook Fa rm is J H omer
Doucet ( p ronounced D ou gay ) an eclectic phy
Philad e lphia
s ic ia n w h o is still practising in
H e w a s born at Three R ivers in Con n ecticut
in 1 8 2 2 a n d w a s at the A ssociation from the
s pri n g of 1 8 44 to the summer of 1 8 46 comi n g
early eno ugh to experien ce some of th e fi rst
charm and staying lo n g enough to k n o w t h e
sad n ess of decay Several papers of his remi
n is c e n c e s ap peared du r ing 1 8 9 5 in the Con s e r
va t o r a j ournal devot e d to the memory of Walt
W h itman and the cause of ethical culture
These recollections from their evident si n cerity
and openness have considerable value and pre
serve several anecdotes w hich otherwise might
have perished A co rdial tribute is paid by
him to the excellence of the school and to t h e
refi n ing and w holesome influences of the farm
”
“
“
life
I never heard
he writes
loud or
boisterous language used ; I never heard an
oath ; I never s a w or heard of a n y one quarrel
ling ; I never knew that any one w a s ever a c
c u s e d or susp e cted
of having acted in a n
ungentlemanly or unladylike manner anywhere
on the place
H is opinio n of t h e potency o f
“
the land was low yet he says that w e planted
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B ROOK FAR M
I 24
potatoes and raised very good crop s
Th e
straw berry bed to which according to him the
youn g ladies attended stood n ear the H ive and
did not make a good yield D oucet lived in the
Pilgrim H ouse but entered only t w o of its rooms
the ironing room and his o w n used during t h e
day by the Sew ing Group The obvious nick
”
name of H omer the S w eet w a s bestowed on
him
H ospitality at Brook Farm w a s generous
but on one occasion it had fatal results A n
Irish baronet Sir J ohn Cald w ell fifth of that
title and Treasurer General of Canada appeared
one day bringing with him as valet an Irish
man named J ohn C heever The baronet supped
with the community on its greatest delicacy
pork and beans and returned to the Tremont
H ouse in B oston w here he died suddenly of
apoplexy on the following day O ctober 2 2
1 8 42
Cheever had some little education and
the mar k s of a refinement beyond his station in
life H e was commonly supp osed to be t h e
natural son of the baronet w hom he served in
so lowly a capacity A t all events the forlor n
nes s of Cheever s position and the romantic
C ircumstances of his birth moved M r
R ip ley
a n d others to shelter him not as a member but
a s a sort of irregular a t t a c h e
The eccentrici
t ies of his charact er add e d n o little to the life
o f the community ; his Irish wit and brogue
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1 26
B ROOK FAR M
found radicalism somewhat wearisome and b e
cam e a Unitarian minister in M obile where he
had married a slave holding wife
H e died
in N ew York of consumption at the early age
of twenty eight
Jean M Pallisse w a s the Swiss engineer an
intelligent placid man fond of music to the
p oint of playing dance tunes on his violin for
the general festivities H e afterward went to
New York and filled a position of trust in a
business house Pallisse smoked tobacco and
was therefore a rare bird in this flock Peter
N K le in s t ru p the Danish gardener came early
in the Fourier period w ith his wife and da u gh
ter The greenhouse was built for him but
he did not as has been stated ma k e his home
“
in it A melia R ussell said of him : H e w a s
aesthetic
in his ideas and perhaps studied
beauty a little m ore than p rofit
H e died poor
in California where he went during the gold
fever
A mong the wom en who gave loyally of their
strength a few besides M rs Sop hia R ipley
M rs M ary ( B ullard ) Dwight and M rs O rvis
who are best commemorated with their hus
bands deserve a word because of their special
charm or cap ability
Miss A melia R ussell
whose two p apers in the A t la n t ic M o n t bly are
conspicuous for good j udgment and f o r accu
”
racy w a s k nown as M istress of the R evels
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M E MB E R S
TH E
I 27
playing an important part in the A musement
Group of which she was long the chief because
of her skill in arranging the various games and
theatrical e fforts
She also taught dan cing
and achieved an honest fam e as the c lear
starcher p a r e xc e l l e n c e of th e A ssociation O ne
of the children in recognition of her abilities as
”
a laundress called her
Miss M uslin
She
had good manners a petite and engaging
personality and was as her writing shows a
woman of cultivation and tolerant mind I t is
noteworthy that on her arrival Sh e met with
the same p eculiar reception accorded no one
knows why to others who have me n tioned the
experience N o one sp oke to her although
she had previously seen some of the members
“
They kept about their occupations utterly
”
regardless of me
Lizzie Curson who came
from N ewburyport was not one of the celeb ri
ties but she is of gracious memory for her u n
tiring fidelity as chief for more than two years
of the Dormitory Group She was Skilled in
the art of housing for the night unexpected
comers and met the perplexities of her t a sk
with uniform sere n ity She became the w ife
of J ohn A ndre w s H oxie a carpenter at Brook
Farm and died a year or two ago M rs A lmira
Barlow who lived in a front room of the H ive
with her three boys had been a Miss P e nniman
a f a mous beauty in B rookline and of a lively and
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B ROOK FAR M
attractive disposition Later the Curtis brothers
were her fast f rie n ds in Concord where for a
time they all found themselves The impres
sion if a wrong one is hard to e scape that
H awthorne may have had this lady s personal
fascinations in mind w hen he dre w certain char
a c t e ris t ic s of his Z enobia
The
ranks
of
reformers
are
seldom
r
e
rge Ripl e y
a S op h ia
c ru it e d by so unprej udiced and candid a
w a rd Ripl e y
mind a s that of George R ipley From the
beginning to the close of his anxiou s but not u m
quiet life his j udgment controlled his passions
and h e could discern the truth with clearnes s
even when kno w ledge of the truth meant the
los s of everything but courage and ideals
R ipley s first serious disappointment had been
his failure to build up the Unitarian p arish in
Boston which had been gathered for him on
his leaving the H arvard Divinity School H is
friends had felt no doubt that his personality
and unusual intellectual e quipment would
awaken the spiritual life of a large neighbor
hood A las for the drawing qualities of sin
They were n o more
c e rit y and personal piety
p otent in 1 8 2 6 at th e corner of Pearl and Pu r
chase streets than they are to day in correspond
—
after the newness
in gly respectable quarters
was s ome w hat worn aw ay
For more than fourteen years R ipley s mini s
H e w a s often tried
t ra t io n s went faith fu l ly on
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I 30
B ROO K FAR M
dor can be influenced by other minds it is prob
able that he was s w ayed by the talk and the
writing of Dr H edge The latter had been one
of his revered in structors in the Divinity S chool
and had published in the Cb r is t ia n E xa m in e r of
M arch 1 8 3 3 an article on Coleridge w hich re
corded the great results flo w i n g from the spread
of Schelling s ideal philosophy This naturally
strengthe n ed the set of R ipley s thought already
turned into this channel I t would be im p o s
sible though interesting to trace the growth of
the Brook Farm scheme in his mi n d O n e fact
however is beyond dispute : R ipley sac rificed
his p ersonal feelings in pushing the enterprise
H e wrote to Emerson : Personally my tastes
a n d habits would lead me in another direction
I have a passion of being independent of the
world and of every man in it This I could do
easily on the estate which is now offered w hich
I could rent at a rate that with my other r e
sources would place m e in a very agreeable
condition so far as my personal interests were
—
involved
I should hope one day to drive my
own cart to market and sell greens
While Ripley s p roj ect clea r ly did not gain
the san ction of seve r al of his warmest personal
friends it was not s e riously op posed by them
R ip ley was at this time thirty eight years of
age with a reputation for u n usual me n tal bal
ance and it was quite impossible that he S hould
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G EORG E
S O PHI A
AND
w
.
R IPL EY
131
ma k e so serious a move through mere e n t h u s i
asm for practising what he preached Every
body w h o kne w him felt assured that his eyes
were wide open to the practical obstacles and
that h e saw the resources w ith w hich to meet
them O n that Side his friends trusted him
What they doubtless feared was perhap s best
expressed by M argaret Fuller who wrote to
“
William H enry Char ming : H is m ind though
that of a captain is not that o f a conqueror
Nobody w ould have admitted this m ore freely
than R ipley himself H e had early realized
that he possessed neither the taste nor the tem
n t for the rOl e of a p opular leader ; w hile
e
ra
m
e
p
yet a student he had written to his mother
I am not one of those w h o can write or speak
from the inspiration o f ge n ius but all that I do
must be the result of my own personal untiring
”
e fforts ; and he certainly felt that in the long
run any mode of life w hich was at once right and
feasible although novel w ould com mend itself
“
to general society whether backed by a con
w
r
u
o
r
or
by
a
level
headed
m
an
h
w
a
more
e
o
s
q
”
“
ready even to work than to lead
I f one
w ere to m ention a single quality which R ipley
mostly lacked and w hich would have stood him
in better stead even at this time than his k n o w l
edge o f practical affairs it would b e worldly
w isdom
A lthough this quality is not a com
mon acc ompaniment of idealism the two are
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B ROOK FAR M
13 2
n ot by any means irreconcilable The almost
universal verdict has been that the Broo k Farm
experiment w a s untimely ; and yet a timelier
time certainly could not have been pitched upon
so far as the condition of pub lic feeling w a s
concerned I f there had been n o Brook Farm
there w ould have been something else The
ferment in m en s m inds must some w here and
someho w have thrown something to the surface
of society ; and there is the keenest satisfaction
to day in the assurance that this hunger and
thirst after social righteousness could not have
found a nobler expression even if it could have
found a w iser one A t all events George Rip
ley was irrevocably committed to associative c o
operatio n
a social ideal which his wife Sophia
R ipley accepted w ith even m ore out w ard e n
The unqualified sup
t h u s ia s m than he himself
port o f so fin e a spirit as Sophia R ip ley might
well strengthen conviction and George R ipley
had been buoyed up by it too long already not
to know its full value
The first weeks at Brook Farm w ere full
for these leaders of the enterprise The farm
must be made ready for cultivation and the do
m e s t ic machinery set in m otio n ; and the in t e rm i
nable detail of all this naturally fell very largely
on the R ipleys With their customary ho n esty
they had set before themselves and before their
friends the w eary months
perhaps years
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B ROOK FAR M
1 34
A bigail
“
Folsom the
flea of conventions
could not irritate The humbler the task the
better it suited R ipley ; it gav e him for in
stance the purest j oy to black William A llen s
boots for him before the latter w e nt to Boston
H is self contro l w a s of the sort that sends a j est
to the lip s when anxiety presses heavily on the
heart and marked in his case not so much
force of will as of character The natur e of
the only app arent impediment to success
—
lack of money
must have been peculiarly
harassing That a f e w thousand dollars should
stand between disaster and an ensured future
has shattered much lofty zeal on the part of
idealists who scorn so vulgar a means of access
to p aradise
M r R ipley however had no words of re
proach for people w h o were slo w to invest in
a proj ect which sho w ed no Sign of return a l
though it is fair to suppose that he had hoped
that more people would be willing to run risks
in the matter ; and to day it seems not a little
singular that in the midst of the shrill popular
cry for a higher life financial supp ort Should
not h ave been o ffered by certain men and
women whose hearts at least indorsed this
attempt Undiscouraged then to all outw ard
appearance the chief organiz er and promoter
of Brook Farm walked unhesitati n gly on con
Sci o u s befor e many months had passed that t h e
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G EORG E
S O PHI A
AN D
w
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R IPL EY
13 5
path w hich he had chos e n le d along a danger
ous and probably impassabl e w a y A t the end
of t w o years the question of industrial organiza
tion became a common topic of discussion and
in the first months of 1 8 44 such a step for
Brook Farm w a s decided up on It is not
w holly clear through what
processes R ipley
reached his decision in this matter ; for a m ore
fundamental change in his attitude regarding
w hat was socially desirable he could not have
made I t must have been that he cam e to lay
more stress on the method by w hich individual
freedom w a s to becom e assured than on the
fact of personal liberty in itself H e had
agreed up to this time that the possibility of
guaranteeing to every man the opportunity to
develop himself into a symmetrical being could
only be gained through the least necessary o r
i
i
a
n
z
a
n
but
since
unorganized
society
clearly
t
o
;
g
w a s not calling out in point of numbers the
membership essential to the stability of any
civilized society and since Fourier s elaboration
did away with the chief stumbling block to the
highest personal liberty
competition
why
not Fourierism ? I t was o n ly another marked in
stance o f R ipley s disposition to accept the truth
when he believed he had fou n d it let it clash
ever so fierc e ly w ith his tastes and desires
The decision made prodigious demands upon
him ; for in u rging the adoption of this system
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B ROOK FAR M
136
he felt strongly the resp onsibility which he
had laid on him self of bringing it into success
ful operation H e wrote and lectured with u n
ceasi n g fervor in the faith that wide popular
k no w ledge would ultimately convince those wh o
were worthy to be received into a higher social
order
It is not pertinent to d w ell here on the para
do xe s of the N e w England conscience ; but we
m ay remind ourselves that j ust as the strongest
religious faith in certain race s bears no clear
relation to their m oral sense so th e New
England h eart and mind have been eternally
at odds The compromise which they have
e ffected is this : the hard head holding domin
ion over the soft heart regulates conduct and
keep s at a safe distance from doubtful invest
ments w h ile allowing the heart unlimited sym
pathy with every good cause
When in the fall of 1 8 4 5 the money was
raised for finishing the unitary buildi n g hope
reassumed for a time its commandi n g position
H ow Short lived was this renewed vision of
attainment has already been told and although
R ipley s outw ard serenity varied n ot an a p p r e
c ia b l e hair from the normal he realized almost
immediately the bitter Significance of the Pha
la n s t e ry fire
H e knew that the expectation of
any considerable financial assistance was n o w
futile but he could meet this kno w ledge w ith a
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B ROO K FAR M
138
continued his editorial labors with indifferent
encouragement for something less than t w o
years when after an illness of several w eeks
his convalescence was gre e ted by the discovery
that the H a rb ing e r had cease d to be Dust and
emptiness were the only occupants of the little
room in the top of the old Tribu n e building
Emp loyment was at once o ffered him on the
Trib u n e although at first it seems to have been
irregular and unprofitable H e earned $ 3 8 by
his contribution to that paper between May 5
and July 1 4 1 8 49 an average of
a week
N ot until September 2 1 1 8 5 1 did he receive a
regular salary of $ 2 5 a week From this point
his fortunes gradually brightened until J anuary
1 8 7 1 when it was agreed to p ay him $ 7 5
11
a week I n the meantime he had moved to
N ew Yor k City and in addition to his Tribu n e
work his articles added occasional strength to
the columns of at least a dozen magazines ;
but the greatest monument to his industry
“
and ability w a s the A merican Cyclop aedia
which was the proj ect of Dr H a w ks and
which in 1 8 5 7 w a s undertaken with R ip ley
and Dana as editors The first edition was
completed in 1 8 62 and it represented for the
first time p erhaps a successful attempt at his
t o ric a l political and ecclesiastical im partiality
on an en cyclop aedic scale
A fter a painful illness Mrs R ip ley died from
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G EOR G E
S O PH I A W R IPL EY
AN D
.
1 39
a cancer in February 1 8 61 H er husband made
every effort to alleviate her weeks of suffering ;
but at th e time he was receiving t w enty five dol
lars a week from the Tribu n e and the R ipleys
were living in one room His distres s of min d
for her sake over cramped conditions was no
less intense because it could not be inferred
from his calm exterior
Mrs R ip ley s life and work had been so
intimately associated with her husband s that it
seems fitting at this point to consider her p art
in the history of Broo k Farm altho u gh her ser
vice w a s quite important enough to be treated
by itself Sophia Willard D ana the daughter
of Francis Dana of Cambridge married George
R ipley in 1 8 2 7 The previous year he had
“
written home of the being whose influence
over me for the year past has so much elevated
”
strengthened and refined my character
and
he had added that his regard for Miss Dana
was founded not up on any rom antic or sudden
passion but upon great respect for intellectual
power moral w orth deep and t ru e C h ris t ia n
piety and p eculiar refinement and dignity of
character
M rs R ipley was in complete accord
w ith her husband on all Vital questions but her
temperament differed so radically from his that
although she met opposition with a s much
courage as he she showed less forbearance
than he to the O pposer A rdor and impulsive
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B ROOK FAR M
1 40
nes s were strong in her but they were only the
superficial expression of deep feeling and not
substitutes for it H er sympathies were wide
and deep but they were hardly so all embracing
as were her husband s Gifted in mind and
brilliant in conversation it is easy to credit the
tradition that her somewhat im petuous espousal
of the community idea deeply annoyed her
fam ily and friends ; the ready delight with
which she exchanged the duties of a minister s
wife for those of a maid o f—
all work might prop
erly be expected to scandaliz e a conservative
Cambridge family in any age The first shock
of course wore o ff and when later the C hief
of the Wash room Group was occasionally
persuade d to seek a brief di version am ong her
B oston or Cambridge friends her folly was
generously overlooked and Sh e received much
pleasant social attention S he was a tall and
graceful woman slight in figure and fair in
coloring
She was near sighted but she de
p ended o u glasses only when looking at distant
obj ects
H er power of infusing life into those around
her must have been extraordinary and no
amount of fatigue or discouragement seemed to
a ffect it
Like her husband she w a s always
eager to undertake the m ost distasteful employ
ments — such as the continuous nursing for some
litt le time of the you n g M anila leper Lucas Cor
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B ROO K FAR M
1 42
no visible Sign of disappointm ent —only the
old courage and buoyan cy When however
disaster really came her strength failed ; and
the consolation that George Rip ley found in the
contem plation of a heroic fight in which defeat
had left his ideals untouche d she sought in that
church which o ffers to m a k e se cure the future
of any soul which submits to its discipline O ne
can only guess how much the closing of a com
mon channel of sympathy affected R ipley ; but
he could not have been indi ffere n t to th e
shutting off of a great field of th o ught and
feeling in which they had hitherto wal k ed in
harmony
Mrs Ripley taught for som e time after the
move to N ew York and became gradually a b
sorbed in charitable and p hilanthropic work
The household was still a hap py one each tak
ing the sam e ge n uine interest in the other s
work but there was always the forbidden
ground on w hich neither cared to venture
Thus m ore than a decade p assed before the
fatality w hich terminated Sophia R ipley s life
A fter her death Ripley went to Brooklyn and
perhaps as never before gave way to grief
B ut his healthy nature could not long entertain
morbidness and he returned to New York to
take up again his normal and bu sy life H is
second marriage in the fall of 1 8 65 with M rs
Sc h l o s s b e rge r a German lady some thirty years
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G EOR G E
S O PH I A W R IPL EY
AN D
143
.
his j unior who married again after his death
brought him many years of wholesome c o m p a n
—
years
too
which
though
far
from
n
h
i
s
io
p
idle were lightened by intervals o f rest and
travel From A pril until O ctober 1 8 66 he was
in Europ e and it was during this visit that h e
paid a memorable call rece n tly described by
Justin M c Ca rt h y A rmed with a letter of in
t ro du c t io n from Emerson he sought Carlyle
who had once described him as a Socinian
minister who left his p ulpit in order to reform
”
the world by cultivating onions
R ipley lis
tened p atiently to a long and violent tirade
against the cond u ct of the Federal government
in A merica but he made no e ffort to stem the
torrent of Carlyle s wrath
When the noisy
—
silentiary paused for a m oment
a rare occur
rence
R ipley quietly gathered himself up
and w ithout a word of remonstrance left the
C helsea home not again to cross its thresh
old His second visit to Europ e covered the
time from M ay 1 8 69 to the fall of 1 8 7 0 an d
in the course of these m onth s he sent to the
Tr ibu n e some remarkable letters on the Franco
Prussian War and an able and fair minded
c riticism on the proceedings of the Ecumenical
Council w hich assembled at the V atican in
1 8 70
Like his friend Parker R ipley had no
great love for art or for natural beauty and his
attention while abroad w a s almost wholly a h
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B ROOK FAR M
1 44
sorbed by the consideration of peoples in s t it u
tions and social problem s
S ome of the most im portant writing w hich
R ipley had hoped to do he did not live to a c
complish H e left uncompleted the chapter on
”
“
Philosophic Thought in Boston
which he
was prep aring for the fourth volume of Win
”
“
sor s M emorial H istory
H is friend Chan
ning had long been urging him to write a history
of modern systems of philosophy —a task for
which his extraordinary mental balance espe
c ia lly fitted him but this he apparently had not
even begun George B ancroft wrote with r e
gret that a history of intellectual culture in
“
Boston did not come from R ip ley s pen
for
he has left us no one who can write it so j ustly
so tenderly and w ith such k nowledge of the
subj ect and candor and s k ill as he would have
done
A s a young man Rip ley was slender with a
pale clean shaven face closely curling brown
hair and black eyes which were so near sighted
that he always wore spectacles
In later life
he grew stout and wore a beard and the vision
of the
formal punctilious ascetic
young
clergyman of the early forties w a s replaced by
that of the cheerful scholarly man of the world
of the early seventies
an appearance that he
maintained to the time of his death on J uly 4
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1 46
B ROO K FAR M
for H arvard College which he entered in 1 8 3 9
When he was in the middle of his course his
sight became seriously weakened from reading
“
O liver T w ist by candle light A t three in
the morning he had finished the badly printed
volume and had nea rly ruined his eyes Several
H arvard men were already at Brook Farm a n d
they invited D ana to j oin them
H e w en t
thither in the fall of 1 8 4 1 to begin his work in
the school as an I nstructor in Greek and Ger
man H e receive d his degree from H arvard
College in 1 8 63 as of the class of 1 8 4 3 and
from the same college the honorary degree o f
M aster of A rts in 18 61
Dana seem s not to have defied worldly custom
either in t h e matter of blouses or unusual hair ;
in fact he was not especially responsive to
the little caprices of his fellows and seldom
j oi n ed in the merriment but was always on
hand for the serious affairs h aving been made
a trustee soon after his arrival H e not only
worked and taught well but sang well and w a s
bass in a choir w hich accordi n g to A rthur Sum
”
“
“
ner sang a K yrie Eleison night and day
It
“
seems to me adds Sumner that they sang it
”
rather often
O ne admirable bit of traini n g for
his future profession D ana acquired through his
connection with the H a rb ing e r to which he was
a frequ e nt contributor
M any of his a rticles
were youthful and imitative hardly better than
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CHAR L ES A
.
DA N A
147
any well brought u p young fellow might pro
duce The mannerism s of the sturdy English
reviewing of the day sat heavily upon him and
he was constantly dismissing the victims of his
disapproval with the familiar cong é of the B rit
ish quarterlies
Short poems and literary no
tices formed the maj or part of his work but it
is unneces sary to particularize the amount or
quality of w hat he did
I t was all excellent
practice
Poe C ooper and A nthon were his
youthful hatreds
A ccording to Colonel Higginson the Professor
“
was the best all round man at Brook Farm
but was held not to be quite so zealous o r u n
”
selfish for the faith as w ere some of the others
though his speeches in B oston and elsewhere
were mo st e ffective Dana was at that time a
very young m a n w ith the faults but w ith all the
splendor and promise of youth N o one has
criticised the fidelity of his w ork at the school
and no one not excepting R ipley spoke more
fervidly than Dana in the cause of A ssociatio n
H e was wise if not w holly ingenuous for he
had the sagacity at the meeting held in Decem
h e r 1 8 4 3 to advocate a continuance of A ssocia
t io n is m for Brook Farm w hile the followers of
B risbane bringer of huge programmes and u m
numbered woes proclaimed the virtues o f modi
fie d Fourierism
Dana lost the tos s but did
n o t forsa k e the field
O n the contrary even
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B ROOK FAR M
1 48
after the flames of the Phalanstery swept up
vortically the hopes of five years he still va l
ia n t ly preached the faith delivered to the saints
A s a mature man the great editor found so few
causes on which he could lavish his vanishing
enthusiasm that it is a pleasure to recall his s c ru
u
l
o
u
s
adhesion
to
the
doctrines
of
A
ssociation
p
until those doctrines became normally merged
in to vaster and more immediate problem s H is
name ranks in imp ortance with O rvis and A llen
as a lecturer although he probably did not so
often as they address the public But when he
talked h e was influential O n the platform Dana
had no especial fluency but he did have the
compensating graces of frankness an d a natural
manner
O n one occasion he defended and
most honestly ambition as the greatest of the
”
four social p assions
This it was the spea k er
argued which brought the A ssociates together
in order to better social conditions I t corre
s p o n ds to the seventh note of music requiring
for completenes s the striking of the eighth note
w hich belongs also to the octave beyond
To
strike these notes is to arrive at a final obj ect
N oble and straightfor w ard
t h e higher unity
sentiments but born one w ould hardly thi n k
“
of that mordaunt a n d luminous spirit
as
Dana w a s afterward remembered
I n D ana
ho w ever there were memo ries some of them
tender for these sincerer days
Dana who
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B ROOK FAR M
1 50
dollars a week This lasted for eight months
when he returned to the Tr ib u n e on the staff of
w hich he remai n ed until Greeley who disagreed
with Dana over the conduct of the war dis
missed him in 1 8 62 H e was made a sp ecial
commissioner of the War Department to loo k
after the condition of the p ay service in the
West and w a s confirmed as A ssistant Secretary
of War in January 1 8 64 For reason s of per
sonal safety h e had also been app ointed by
Secretary Stanton in June 1 8 63 an assistant
adj utant general with the rank of maj or
At
the front for purposes of closer observation and
associated in Washington w ith the men who
surrounded Lincoln and his cabinet Dana s
ability had the fullest opportunity to declare it
self
I n 1 8 65 he took charge of the newly
started Cb ic a g o R ep u bl ic a n but in 1 8 68 issued
his first number of the N e w York S u n of w hich
for nearly thirty years thereafter he was the e s
s e n t ia l force though always supported by a sta ff
co n spicuous in the ranks of A merican j ournalism
When Dana forsook the isolation of Broo k
Farm he foun d many shining examples of a
pretentiousnes s which he genuinely despised
A good hater w ith an ear ly start a critic without
careful balance it was natural enough that h e
should soon find himself in c ontact with a vast
deal of humbug
I t w a s not di fficult for him
with his temper to begin to find that his oppo
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CHAR L E S A D AN A
15 1
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were Charlatans or at least that they had
su fficient duplicity to make him distru st them
The theory is a convenient one : it is easier to
distrust a man because you dislike him than to
dislike him because you distrust him
Mr
Dana w a s ready at finding motives for vin dic
tive hatred t o w a rd m e n w h o did not do what
pleased him H e met the fate of all w h o do
not cherish the spirit of fairness : he continued
to interest and to please but his j udgme n t was
discredited
There are man y who can bear
testimony to the generosity and he lpful n ess of
D ana especially to w ard m e n of his profession ;
his private life his refinements and t a stes w ere
irreproachable M a n y good m en had no faith
in him and thought him to have been false and
unsubsta n tial O ther men who stood near him
are w illing to a ffirm that o n a question of prin
H owever all this m ay
c ip le he never ratted
be in the j udgme n t of those w h o best kne w
Brook Farm he of all its associates departed
furthest from its aspirations
D ana was accounted a handsome man not
a fter the graceful type of the Curtises but mas
H e had
c uline yet so S l e n der as to s e em tall
a
a firm expressive face regular and clear cut
s cholar s forehead aubur n hair a n d a full beard
S trong in mind and gen e ral physique he c o n
Ve y e d the impression of force w hether he m oved
I n his old age he preserved a look
o r spoke
n e nts
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I 52
B ROOK FAR M
of virility and determination though hard
headedness clearly predominated over gracious
ness H e was at Broo k Farm kindly m annered
and gave a p leasant impression to those who
met him while a natural dignity kept him from
many of the extravagances into which some of
the others easily fell H e showed a taste for the
farm wor k which later when success gave 0p
rt u n it
grew
into
a
fondness
for
livestoc
k
an
d
o
p
y
all the accompaniments of a country life A n a d
mirable nervous and muscular strength explains
much of Dana s capacity for successful work
A S outhern family at Broo k Farm by the
n ame of M acdaniel consisted of a mother two
daughters Fanny and Eunice and a son
O sborne
Eunice became the wife of Dan a
while they were at the Farm though the wed
ding did not take p lace on the estate M aria
Dana Charles D ana s sister married O sborne
M acdaniel who wrote a number of articles
strong but eccentric for the H a rbing e r M ac
daniel was of a deeply speculative turn of
mind but did not hold that philosophy was
adapted to everyday life
Mrs M acdaniel
whose mentality is as Vigorous as was her
brother s has never abandoned the faith
I t is not a cheerful prospect to face
existence as a stickit minister ; but it was
inevitable for a man who through excess
of f e eling and w a nt of assertiveness wept on the
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B ROO K FAR M
I 54
absorbed in the teacher and critic of music
later to dominate opinion in a large community
for many years H e was one of the first m em
bers of a society form e d in 1 8 3 7 which as early
as 1 8 40 had taken the permanent nam e of t h e
”
H arvard M usical A ssociation and w hich in
a few years exerted an influe n ce far beyond the
institution w hich gave it n ame and habitation
I t is not clear why D w ight ever w ished to be
a preacher ; religious he m a y easily have been
but theology w a s n ot in him M iss Elizabeth
“
Peabody once spo k e to him frankly of a cer
”
tain want of fluency In prayer and Theodore
Parker who roomed near him as a divin ity stu
dent was not reluctan t s e emingly to poin t out a
vagueness w hich mistook the indefinite for the
”
I nfinite
H is one imp ortant ministry was at
N orthampton where he preached during a part
and w here he was ordained in the
18 39
of
spring of 1 8 40 A t the close of this episode
in the summer of 1 8 4 1 he w ithdrew from the
”
“
profession though he occasionally assisted
Char ming at the meetings of the A ssociationists
in Boston some years later H e did not lik e
Cha r ming vibrate betwee n the pulpit and social
is t ic schemes but step ped definitely out into the
arena of the Newness The disruptio n was not
violent and little sense of disappointment or
failure w a s evident on his part R etreat w ith
him never meant surrender and he did not as
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J O HN
s
DWIGHT
.
155
c rib e
to loss of faith a change made compulsory
by his o w n lac k of fitness for one of the p ro fe s
sio n s
D w ight came to Brook Farm without kin
dred although his parents and t w o sisters
j oined him later and remained with him H e
was young unmarried and well rid of the
mournful obligation of earning a living through
a calling from w hich the zest w a s gone ; but
he did not enter the experiment because there
was no opening else w here though to be sure
his capital stock w a s mainly a lofty enthusiasm
Not until November of the first year of the
Farm did he become a member of the A ssocia
tion and to him was soon assigned in the school
the work of instruction in music and Latin
R esourcefulness is after all a n admirable test
of ability an d D w ight starting his n e w career
w ith a fair education and som e aptitude for
imparti n g his kn owledge quickly developed his
greatest cap acity and i n stilled into the whole
community his o w n conception s regarding m u
sic The other influen ces o f Brook Farm w ere
indirect ; but John D w ight diffide n t and se
elusive as he w a s imp osed on the A ssociation a
cult w hich formed n o part of the original pro
gramme outside the school curriculum
Though he might come to his task w hich he
loved tired with the wo rk on t h e farm w hich he
barely endured he felt that this alternation of
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B ROOK FAR M
1 56
drudgeries was good for him I n later years
“
he said : I have no doubt I should not have
been living at this day if it had not been for the
life the r e for what I did on the farm and among
the trees in handling th e hay a n d even in
”
handling the scythe
Traditio n does not say
how clos e any one dared to approach when a
Transcendentalist s w ung so lethal an implement
as the scythe ; but cautious beholders w ould h ave
been j ustified in maintaining that p rudent re
m o t e n e s s observed by Longfello w who declined
to go into the w ilds w hen he learned that
Emerson had purchase d a gu n for the expedi
tion
M r George Willis Cooke from whose interest
ing volum e on D w ight many facts here given
are gratefully drawn has comp ared Dwight s
influence at this period to that of Em e rson
Parker and R ipley I f E in fl u s s is to be in
sisted upon and the transplantation of German
ideas to be held of much account in the simple
story of B oston Transcendentalism the name of
B eethoven must enter any reckoning w hich ln
e ludes Goethe and K ant
N o external in fluence
has been so potent or lasting in Boston as the
genuine love for Beethoven and for the few
other names clustering about the greater
genius
Literary w or k was one of Dwight s minor
interests in his West R oxbury life although he
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B ROOK FAR M
158
his contributions though limited in range were
n ot narrow and Showed an evident aim at c a t h o
lic it y
The directness of his criticisms —
for to
these his e fforts were mainly c o n fin e d — h ad a
touch of modernness ; he was altogether sincere
and showed little trace of i n flu e n c e an d her e i n
his work manifested an essential superiority
over that of Dana in the same periodical H e
seldom deliberately tried to be clever but a l
lowed the natural sweetness o f his mind to
diffuse itself
The pepperiness of which he
was fully capable came later after he had b e
come something of a N estor in musical j udg
ment ; but even th en he did not man ifest it
temp eramentally
O nly when the necessity
arose for giving expression to a profound con
vic t io n of what he felt to be wrong principles in
art did this quality come to the front
The firmness of his beliefs sometimes passed
from determination i n to obstinacy and he e u
j oyed a well earned though not evil reputation
”
“
for bein g set
H e was the central figure of
a little story w hich passed from mouth to mouth
until Emerson put it into print w ithout how
ever naming Dwight
M r R ip ley said to
Theodore Par k er : There is your accomplished
friend ; h e would hoe corn all Sunday if I would
let him but all Massachusetts could not make him
”
do it on M onday
R umor adds that Parker re
plied : I t is good to k now that he wants to hoe
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DWIGHT
.
159
corn any day in the w eek
O ne who kne w
him well say s that D w ight was something of
a quiddl e w hich is not so dan gerous an a p
pellation as it looks to the u n acquainted eye
and w hich means o n ly that he was fussy over
t rifl e s in the same way in which the Englishman
of popular legend is supp osed to comport himself
in relation to his tub w he n travelling Dwight
was not fond of excessive toil a n d did his w ork
j ust about when and how b e pleased This it
is said is one reason w h y Ditson was obliged
to discontinue the publishing of the j o u rn a l of
[Mu s ic
I f D w ight set his own measure for
work he could not fai rly have been called sloth
ful but he w ork e d in the Spirit of a dilettante
he indulged his moods or perhaps better re
s p e c t e d them
A s is often possible with fine organizations
he was able to adapt himself symp athetically to
all conditions mental and social
H is nature
was too large for a Sho w of fastidiousness H e
bore out the fact that only a g e ntleman can be
a true democrat His ideals were soari n g but
he made it an obligatio n to be entirely human at
the daily task and in t h e schoolroom ; at the
table especially he w a s of a w hole souled sim
i
l
i
n
d
a
good
companion
of
the
hour
H
e
c
t
a
p
y
even pun n ed and pu n ned exceeding ill
The younge r members of the Brook Farm
“
family called him the Po e t more in recog
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B ROOK F AR M
1 60
n it io n
of his temperament than of his verse
none of whic h has been widely remembered
”
except the seven stanzas
R est already a l
lu de d to
O nly a poet ho w ever such as the
young folks thought him would have prop osed
to leave the A ssociation with the liberty of an
occasional return in order to earn more money
w hich he would turn back i n to the c m m u n it y
g
This was lofty but it w a s not visionary John
Dwight was by no means indisposed to the com
fort and w armth of this w orld idealist as he u m
questionably was H e loved books art friends ;
he even loved good dinners During a visit to
New York w here he delivered some lectures
j ust after the Phalanstery fire D w ight diligently
sought aid for the falling venture but it was too
late although he did not seem fully to realize
the fact The curtain is wisely dra w n over the
last days of Broo k Farm R ipley and Dwight
who kindled the fires and fanned them to a
steady flame were not the men to feel the chill
as the embers burned low But at last there
was little need to remain over the ashes unless
they would remain alone The wil lingness to
leave Brook Farm temporarily for the sa k e of
the cause found its natu ral complement in the
fact that D w ight w a s Slo w to desert it at t h e
last remain ing eve n after R ipley had gon e
It was fitting that in 1 8 5 1 W H Channi n g
Should j oin in marriage Mary Bulla rd and J ohn
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1 62
B ROO K FAR M
friends most of whom w e re like himself still
in the tentative period of life The first year
paid for itself ; but the j o u rn a l was as u n c o m
promising as the L ibe ra t or which app ealed to
the w ide r sen timents of hum anity and j ustice
and subsistence is likely to be an actual prob
lem for a man w h o w rites w ithout the spirit of
conciliation and who has not the least faculty
for seizin g an opportunity to enrich himself
should such an opp ortunity come Twelve hun
dred dollars a year w a s the value set on this
idealist in his palmiest days but probably as
ma n y cents would have satisfied him could he
on that sum have maintained his self respect
Since he cared little for pop ularity there is an
interestin g suggestion in th e fact that Dwight s
very lack of technical discrimination and his
persiste n t adherence to Simplicity and grandeur
as constant ideals brought forward and upward
the mass of musical op inion
D wight could
however be tolerant though it w a s easy to dis
cer n the e ffo r t as in the case of Wagner whom
he did not and could not like
A fter something less than ten years of sym
p athetic companionship a n d love Mary his
wife died while he w a s abroad I t w a s char
a c t e ris t ic of his fineness that he could find it
p ossible to stay his year out in Europe instead
of hurrying back to greater loneliness The
relations of time and space being henceforth
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J O HN
s
1 63
DWIGHT
.
disturbed for him he found her presence as
far from her lonely grave as near it
re al
Thereafter D w ight s home w a s in the hearts
and at the houses of his m any friends H e
lived however after 1 8 7 3 in the rooms of the
H arvard Musical A ssociation — the veritable
”
“
genius loci
O n September 3 1 8 8 1 appeared the last
issue of D w n t s j ou rn a l of M u s ic w hich for
thirty years had contended not without a
measure of recognition for the best conceivable
standards I n his old age therefore Dwight
manfully laid down the task w hich h e had taken
up in his prime to m ake a living
But he re
—
n o u n c e d nothing
ab solutely nothing A s he
thought an d w rote in 1 8 5 0 so did he think and
“
w rite in 1 8 8 0
If one have anything worth
saying w ill it not be as good to morrow as to
day
What he was in the B roo k Farm days
he remained
p oor brave inspiring in t e ll e c t u
ally honest There w a s no element of calcula
tion in his nature and therefore it was possible
for him honorab ly to accept assistance as he
occasionally did from friends who loved him and
believed in him ; but such aid w a s rendered
rath er to his cause than to the man himself
To be helped in this way w ithout loss of self
respect is a test of dignity though the ex
nt
m
e
r
i
e
is
necessarily
dangerous
Dwight
s
p
character suffered no loss ; it even gained in
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B ROOK FAR M
1 64
serenity H e dispensed such k indness as he
c ould and is remembered for his good will
toward young musicians H e was even able
to help in her failing days an old Broo k Farm
visitor —Signora B is c a c c ia n t i H is face was
kindly and his manner gentle to those whom
he k new H e was of short stature his head
was a fine one and in his later years he was of
dignified appearance
N early four month s after he was eighty years
of age on September 5 1 8 9 3 he died This
even t brought together such men and women
as never gather except to do honor to those
who die tenacio u s of ideals though profiting
nothing from the maintenance thereof but a
c ontinuing memory in the hearts of the elect ;
and his funeral service was marked by a cheer
fu lness and sincerity which in their recognition
of death w ell typified the old Broo k Farmer s
attitude toward life
H awthorne s decidi n g motive in j oining
the enterprise at Brook Farm does not a p
pear ; but it is possible that he was glad
for a time to go into intellectual retreat when
his relation with the Boston Custom H ouse
was severed in 1 8 4 1
The money which he
invested one thousa n d dollars was saved from
his governme n t earnings His first entry in his
note books bears t h e date of A pril 1 3 1 8 4 1
only a few days after R ipley had begun the
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B ROO K FAR M
1 66
’
dine at M r B ancroft s yesterday with M iss
M argaret Fuller but Providence had given me
some business to do for which I was very
”
than k ful
O n A pril 1 6 he bro k e a machine for chopping
hay through very excess of effort and his re
m arkable e n ergy then employed itself on a heap
of manure This useful adj unct to the new life
“
h e soon began to call his gold mine but a d
mits that a man s soul m ay as w ell be buried
”
there as under a pile of m oney
Presently he
writes : I have mil k ed a c o w
H e is pleased
“
w ith his environment saying :
The scenery is
of a mild and placid character ; and in a letter
“
to his Sister Louisa : This is one of the most
beautiful places I ever s a w in my life and as
secluded as if it were a hundred m iles from any
”
city or Village
I n the same letter he gleefully
boasts that h e is transformed into a comp lete
farmer a n d the next day adds to his note book
“
that toil de file s the hand s indeed but not the
”
soul and speaks of his calling as a righteous
and heaven blest way of life Spring advanced
and turn e d to summer and still N athaniel H aw
thorne m oiled on until suddenly on A ugust 1 2
he burst forth in a different but not less rhap
I n a little more than a fortnight
s o dic a l strain
I shall be free from my bondage
free to enj oy
Nature — f ree to think and feel
O h labor
is the curse of the w orld and nobody can med
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N ATH ANI E L H AWTH ORN E
1 67
dle with it without becoming proportionably
I s it a prais e w orthy m atter that I
b ru t ifie d !
have spent five golden months in providing food
”
for co w s an d horses ? I t is not so
O n Sep
“
tember 2 2 he records : H ere I am again
I have a friendlier disposition toward the farm
now that I am n o longer obliged to toil in its
”
stubborn furrows
Three days later there fol
“
lo w s a determination not to spend the winter
”
here
The happy release from the furro w s is
easily explained by his election to two high
o ffices as he calls them one as Trustee of the
Brook Farm I nstitute and the other as Chairman
of the Committee of Finance The community
may n ot have shown much earthly w isdom in
this selection but literature is the richer by sev
eral pages at this point in his note book where
are d e s cribed places in the close n eighborhood
gro w n dear to his isolated heart H e even goes
to Brighton w ith William A llen to buy some
little pigs and only four days later bu rsts forth
into that immortal comm e ntary on a pen of full
gro w n s w ine m ox m o rit u r i The deep and r e
fr e shing humor of these f e w paragraphs gladde n
lik e rain the heart of him w h o reads and are
”
w orth t h e w hole of the
B lit h e da l e R omance
if one is s e e king merely to discover the true
influence of Brook Farm o n H a w thorne The
pig as a literary motive was never more deli
conceived
not
even
in
S
tevenson
s
tribut
c ate l
e
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B ROO K FAR M
1 68
to his blac k and relucta n tly fertile sow in the
”
“
V ailima Letters
H awthorne li k ed a quiet laugh and made w e l
come any one w h o could follow his own m oods
H ence his attachment to the undemonstrative
Tom O range a character remembered to this
day in West R oxbury as much for his own p er
sonal traits as by reason of his understandings
w ith the taciturn author w h o gave him renown
Tradition holds that O range s widow long re
sisted the attention s of suitors w ith the same
lofty devotion to deceased greatness as was
sho w n by Sarah Churchill to the memory of
J ohn Duke of M arlborough though it may be
that she had found in marriage more acidula
tion than is expressed by so inviting a name as
O range A t a picnic on the sixth birthday of
Frank Dana a masquerade was held in the
grove O range w a s present a t t h is motley f u n
and H aw thorne on w hom it left a fantastic im
pression speaks of his stolid friend as a thick
set sturdy figure enj oying the fun well enough
yet rather laughing w ith a perception of the
nonsensicalness than at all entering into the
”
spirit of the thing
I rony is not wholly re
served for the disp osal of the gods
From this time until the last entry in his
notes the new financier seems frankly to have
devoted himself to long and solitary walks
studying the changing colors of autumn and
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B ROOK FAR M
1 70
they were at no loss for w ords to convey their
feelings I n particular w e re they anxious lest
“
he work too hard
M other groans over it
wishes you would come hom e wrote his Sister
to the brave ploughman as early as the tenth of
M ay Then they soon generate fears that he
may inj ure himself in hot weather without thin
“
clothing
What is the use of burni n g your
brains out in the sun when you can do any
thing better w ith them
They hear that he
is carrying milk into B oston every mornin g ;
and his sister Elizabeth in hap pier vein ,states
her belief that he w ill spoil the cows if he
try to milk them Thus did the worthiest of
women prove their anxiety lest their admired
one in any way lo w er him self by his unac
countable antic s B ut H awthorne h a d an a d
mirable obstinacy else he would surely have
yielded to such powerful domestic pressure
Sisterly care gave way at last to a genuine
burst of sarcasm w hen Louisa w rote in A ugust :
I t is said you are to do the travelling in
Europe for the Community !
A fter this she
troubled him no further I n the same month
H aw thorne sent two letters to Sophia Peabody
which seem to have been the last written her
from Brook Farm O n July 9 of the next
year they were married
Curtis once wrote in the Easy Chair that
H a w thorn e Showed no m ar k e d a ffection for
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N ATH ANI E L H AWTH ORN E
I7I
Brook Farm alth ough H awthorne himself has
referred to his stay there as t h e one romantic
episode of his life The intimate nature of his
note books reveals the state of his feelings
although allowance is to be made for the spirit
of banter and the h alf sincerities w hich are apt
to pervade mere j ottings and memoranda I f
sympathy w a s wanting to w ard Transcendental
ism itself o r its concrete expression through the
A ssociation yet H a w thorne s genius w orked
out some interesting if not especially profitable
results
I n spite of frequent warnings a n d
disclaimers regardin g the book in some con
“
B lit h e da l e R omance
has
t ra ry fashion the
come to be regarded as the epic of B rook Farm
A n intelligent consideration of this story — a
story of the second rank in H aw thorne s w ork
makes it clear that he w a s far more of a realist
t h an is usually conceded H arsh for instance
as his interpretation of M argaret Fuller w a s she
doubtless ap peared to h im exactly as b e de
r
cribed
her
Seeing
her
unlovely
att
ibutes
s
more clearly than h e w a s able to see a n ythi n g
else this realistic tendency a sort of mental
n e ar sightedness impelled him to his ungra
task There was a trend in favor of
c io u s
accurate rather than of fanciful a n d disguised
use of literary material Though the pen re lu c
t a n t ly comes to the w riting of it there w a s also
in H aw thorne a fondness for discovering the
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B ROOK FAR M
1 72
forbidding aspects of a personality or a situa
tion — a willingness to minimize
H awthorne w a s gentle by birth and training
and his occasional indelicacies are for this rea
son the less acceptable Whenever he was able
to free himself from circumstantiality and to rise
on the wings of his imagination he left beneath
him these a ffiic t in g trammels But he did not
invariably escape into the em pyrean and the
”
is one instance in which
B lit h e da le R omance
he hardly attempted a lofty flight
H aving
clearly in mind certain incidents and e xp e ri
at B rook Farm some of which amused
ence s
and irritated him he did not avoid the imp ulse
to tell these happenings pretty nearly as he
found them until unsubstantial as the char
may or m ay not be the daily life and
a c t e rs
doings the scenery the surroundings and even
trivial details are presente d with a well nigh
faultless accuracy Whoever chances to know
the topography and history of Brook Farm
“
must of necessity follow the B lit h e da l e R o
”
m ance from the O pening transcript of the
author s arrival in the A pril storm through real
scenes and real events corr e sponding only too
faithfully w ith the m is e e n s c en e and movement
of the Brook Farm A ssociatio n
I t is no crime
to have so thinly disguised actualities only a
fair and legitimate method of lite rary proced
ure The characters are not easily traceable
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B ROOK FAR M
I 74
insu fficiency at the Farm may have a ffected his
coloring of the picture Curtis thought that
H awthorne s aloofness a n d w ant of e ffective
support resembled t h e attitude of C harles Lamb
“
toward life
H e had a subtle and pervasive
”
humor but no Spi rits w rote the same friendly
hand A less generous critic might have said
that H aw thorne expressed for his own uses
the essential values of Brook Farm and then
speedily tired of it Mrs K irby held that he
“
was out of place and obtained the fruits of
”
observation at second hand
H a w thorne w a s not untrue to himself at Broo k
Farm unless in going there at all he was capri
—
u
s
his heart being involved in n o affair of
c io
social regeneration
But even in his sombre
genius there was some gladness and a true
romantic impulse may have dra w n him thither
though he made no pret e nce of accepti n g the
n e w gospel
The whole experience stands as a
thing apart and unrelated to the rest of his life
Such complete detach m ent cannot be a ffirmed
of any other of those who gave reputation to or
borrowed it from Brook Farm
Brook Farmers have usually treated their
early experience not as a folly of youth
but in a partly tender partly vague way
which serves to veil perhaps not i n tentionally
what is so hopelessly go n e except in re c o l
lection Self respect would s a v e th e se memori e s
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J O HN ORVIS
AN D
J O HN A LL EN
175
from c y nicism or ridicule but the bold declara
tio n of a continui n g faith and p ractice is rare ;
J oh n O rvis ho w eve r stands co n spicuous for an
abiding devotio n to the principles of A ssociation
His loyalty to the sentiment of j ustice was a
legitimate inheritance from h is parents w h o
were H icksite Quakers and although he ceased
to be a member of the Society of Friends when
he was still you n g he never abandoned that c o n
c e p t io n of life into which he had been born and
reared H is youth w a s spent on his father s
beautiful farm in Ferrisburg V ermont w here
he laid the foundatio n s for the sup erb health
which in after years enabled him to lavish a
boundless energy on great tasks
H is ea rly
intellectual training which he received princi
pally a t the hands of an Englishman named
W h o lle y was not comprehensive ; he after w ard
became a student at O berlin College but never
finished his course H e came to Boston while
still a youth and finding himself in the midst
of the antislavery agitation he lost no time in
espousing this cause
Late in 1 8 4 3 or early
in 1 8 44 he decided to share the fortunes of
Brook Farm and having chosen to become a
member of the Farming Group h e w orked with
notable earnestness and good humor
J ohn
Cheever whose wit w a s not fine e n ough per
hap s to discrimi n ate betw een positiveness of
conviction and self importance used to c a ll
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B ROOK F AR M
I 76
O rvis
J ohn A lmighty
not however to
O rvis s marked dis c o m fit u re
When Fourierism was introduced O rvis was
called to the more imp ortant wor k of lecturing
through the country in behalf of the general
cause and for the interest of Brook Farm in
particular A n extract from one of his letters
to the H a rb ing e r w ritten during a tour in V er
mont in February 1 8 46 illustrates the spirit in
which he and his associate lecturer John A llen
“
met hardship s
O ur lectures w ere not suc
first evening
c e s s fu l there ( Brattleboro ) the
The second evening they were quite satisfactory
both to ourselves and the audience as far as we
could j udge
I think w e succeeded in giv
ing a tolerably fair expression of the aims of
A ssociation The next day we sent our tr u nks
to Putney by stage an d walked ourselves it
”
being only ten miles
The trun k s were miss
ing at Putney and O rvis consumed a winter s
day in tracing them to Walpole A llen proceed
ing to Sa xt o n s ville to keep an ap pointment that
evening O n the following morning O rvis set
out for the same place in a conveyance loaned
”
“
by a frie n d
This was m ore than kind he
“
for it was t h e stormiest day of the winter
Says
and we had to ride nine miles in the teeth of a
fierce N ortheaster the roads filled with snow
and a perfectly unbroken track But we had a
noble steed and a brave mountain driver who
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B ROO K FAR M
1 78
the dairy viz : that the quality and quan
tity of milk which any cow w ill give and the
length of time that Sh e will continue to give it
can be accurately told by observing the hair or
”
“
escutcheon and dandruff on the p osterior
p arts of the animal
A fte r the Phalanstery fire
a catastrophe
which O rvis did not witness
his zeal re
doubled for the sinking cause
M rs R ipley
speaks of his ret u rn after lecturing at this
“
period
rather worn down and disappointed
but with undying hop e faith and devotion
So far as he was able he gained subscribers
to the stock With a few m ore members like
O rvis Pratt and M rs R ipley Brook Farm
might have w eathered all storms
O n December 2 4 1 8 46 J ohn O rvis was mar
ried to J ohn D w ight s sister M arianne who came
to the Farm in the fall of 1 8 4 3 During her
early stay she taught Latin and drawing and
she always helped with some of the hou sehold
work but later a demand having arisen for her
water color sketches of the wild flo w ers of the
district she gave almost her entire time to sup
plying them It was not an unusual thing for her
to spend eight hours a day in her little studio at
the Pilgrim H ouse autumn leaves supplying her
with material for work when the flowers had
passed by Mrs O rvis is still living
A fter leaving Broo k Farm O rvis too k up for
iz e d
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O HN ORVIS
J
AND
J O HN A LL EN
1
79
a time insura n ce and the selling of sewing ma
chines but with his uncommo n Skill for organi
his ability as a lectu re r and his desire
z a t io n
for social reform the career of a business man
did n o t sit easily on his soul
I n 1 8 62 he
w ent to Engla n d to study the workings of c o
operation investigating w ith especial care the
R ochdale plan
H is return in 1 8 65 w a s the
beginning of a systematic e ffort to introduce c o
operative stores into this cou n try ; but although
the attempt yielded good results in some parts of
the West it failed in the East larg e ly through
bad management
The Patrons of H usbandry a cooperative s o
n g attained large
made
up
of
farmers
havi
c ie t
y
prop ortio n s and a certain stability a feeling
began to disseminate itself in favor of a similar
organi z ation for the mechanical trades and this
sentiment culminated in 1 8 74 largely through
the e ffo rts of William H Earle in t h e fo rmation
of the Sovereig n s of I ndustry
a secret order
To the firm establishi n g of this ord e r J ohn O r
vis brought his trained i n tellige n ce and his u n
abated stre n gth as a lecturer and an organ izer
Whe n the National Council of this association
appointed him as its natio n al lectu re r it imposed
on him for t w o years grav e r esponsibilities for
which it o ffe red but slight remu n eration But
O rvis was too much occupied w ith his endeavor
to transform a theory into a condition to pay
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B ROOK FAR M
18 0
attention to the monetary aspect of his labor ; he
believed that the principle of c o Op e ra t io n could
be as e ffectively employed in the production as
in the distribution of wealth ; and to the tas k of
elucidating this convictio n he applied every re
source of h is mind his tongue and his pen
H is contributions to papers and magazines
were numerous and telling ; in addition to his
other duties b e edited the So ve re ig n s of in du s
Though the O rder grew very
t ry B u l le t in
rap idly there was so great a delay in adopting
the R ochdale system that ma n y of the stores
which were to buy at w holesale and sell at cost
were undersold by competitors and forced out
of business ; a n d in 1 8 7 9 or thereabouts the
proj ect was abandoned
I n a proper sense he was a labor agitator he
had the qualities which characterize the best
English protagonists in this cause in that he
w a s not blatant or self seeking
H e defended
the trades unions and was himself a member of
the K nights of Labor although he deprecated
m any of the methods to which these bodies
resorted
N ationalism also had its charm for
him as a possible avenue of escap e from exist
ing inequalities
I t w a s a part of O rvis s social creed that to
Broo k Farm w ere traceable man y of the move
m e nts which f o r the past fifty years in A merica
h a ve looked to w ard the improvement of indus
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B ROO K FAR M
18 2
ican right of free speech and on his duty as h e
saw it only once a y e ar A t first he pleaded va l
ia n t ly for indulge n c e in this constitu tional p rivi
lege o n ce in three months then once in six
months This w a s denied ; and w hen the con
a
r
t
i
n
o
refused him one day annually in which
e
g g
to sp eak his mind he left a profession and b e
came a m an The exp e rience w a s a common
one in those days ; but A llen did not place the
alternative of livelihood ahead of obvious duty
H e went to Brook Fa rm which w elcomed any
brave man though it professed no e special love
for abolitionism A llen had the delicacy not
to try to make his new home a College of the
Propaganda but p ut his skill at preaching t o
ready use O rvis and he during the t w o years
which followed the adoption of th e B ris b a n iz e d
Fourierism lectured on A ssociation and espe
B oth were good organ
c ia lly on Broo k Farm
iz e rs and practical men
A llen called a meeting
of delegat e s held at Lo w ell in 1 8 44 and pre
sided over by R yckman ; and out of this call
came the New England W o rk in gm e n s A sso
w hich sought sp ecifically to secure by
c ia t io n
legislation a ten hour working day
J ohn A llen did not su fficiently believe in va c
c in a t io n to protect in the accepted manner his
only and motherless child from the danger of
smallp ox The boy was sometimes left with
his aunt M rs Leach while his father was
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JO HN ORVI S
AN D
JO HN A LL EN
18 3
away on lecture tours and in September 1 8 4 5
the scourge came back w ith him from Boston
The Leaches had withdra w n from Brook Farm
in 1 8 4 3 to open a Grahamite hotel and Mrs
Leac h who w a s a stout abolitionist relieved
the monotony of a vegetarian life by harboring
runaw ay slaves
H er husband George C
Leach was as silent as his w ife was voluble
a n d he is
said to have found peace in the
R oman Catholic C hurch
M rs Leach was a
deadly foe to the fix up s in w hich the young
girls at the Farm sometimes indulged although
these were of the simplest description H er
little nephe w s misfortune resulted from his
association w ith a man servant w h o had been
su ffering from a cold attended w ith an eruption
the nature of which was discov e red soon after
the child s return to Brook Fa rm The little
fellow was at once removed f r om the H ive
but too l a te to prevent an epid e mic of moder
ate proportions
O ver thirty cases of small
p ox appeared ; the Cottage w a s turned into
a hospital a n d the wise m ethod of isolation
put into practice until the patients grew too
numerous
There was no fatal case only a
fe w cases w ere serious and admirable to tell
there was no panic I t w a s a severe test of th e
social and mental strength of the A ssociates
that w omen and m e n moved calmly a n d easily
about keeping the w ork going and n ursing a s
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B ROOK FAR M
’
best they could A llen s fanatical carelessness
brought about a valuable experience and for a
time drove away the visitors The son grew to
manhood enlisted in the Civil War and was
w ounded as it proved
mortally at V icksburg
The second w ife of J ohn A llen w a s Ellen Laza
rus w hose father w a s at Brook Farm
The
A llens went West but the wife unable t o
co n ten d against the severities of the change
soon died
Perhaps Mr R ipley s most trusted a d
Pra t t
viser in matters relating to the practical
man a gement of the farm w a s Minot Pratt who
during the months of conference and prepara
tion had given R ipley s scheme his sympathy
and support Mrs Pratt a n d her three children
were among the pioneers at the Farm but Mr
Pratt did not arrive until t w o or three months
later H e w a s a printer and had held for some
time the position of forem an in the Cb ris t ia n
R e g is t e r o ffice ; many details therefor e had to
be arranged before he could perm anently aban
don his w ork there
Pratt was about thirty six years old when he
w ent to Brook Farm w here he w a s soon recog
n iz e d as an important and belov e d factor in the
life H e became head fa rmer at the end of the
first season A lthough Pratt had had no e xp e ri
ence in farm work he took to it as a man who
had al w ays believed that he was not meant to
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B ROOK FAR M
18 6
must be classed with the inarticulate brother
hood he seems none the less to have had some
claim to the qualities and temperament of a
poet in his fine appre ciations
The Pratt family lived at the H ive during
their four years of residence on the Farm and
their youngest child Theodore Par k er Pratt
was the first child born there Mrs Pratt w hose
belief in the associative life was fully as deep
as her husband s lived up to her faith as hon
e s t ly and bravely as he and S h e and her chil
dren were very happy in the community But
both M r and M rs Pratt foresaw rather early
the termination of the Phalanx and felt that
they ought not to wait until th at event left them
stranded before seeking some other means of
providing a livelihood for their family Though
they both ap proved the grafting of Fourieristic
variations upon the old life it is doubtful whether
they gave a very cordial assent to some of the con
comitant changes and in A pril 1 8 4 5 they re lu c
t a n t ly left West R oxbury to take possession of
a farm which they had hired at Concord Sad
de n e d as were R ip ley and the others at this
loss they recogn ized the j ustice of Pratt s argu
ments that his children w ere still too young
to add anything to the productiveness of the
A ssociation and w ere therefore to that extent
a burden up on it ; and that the farm was in a
condition to be deprived of his services w ithout
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G EORG E
B RA DFOR D
P
.
18
7
serious embarrassment I f he d e cided to say
n othing of his deeper reasons it is c h a ra c t e ris
tic that ln his letter of farewell he could only
“
—
—
express a hop e not a belief
that this a t
tempt to live out the great and holy idea of
association for brotherly c o Op e ra t io n
might
meet w ith final success
Mr P ratt later bought the Concord farm and
spent there t h e remaind e r of h is life continui n g
in the intervals of agricultural toil his bota n ical
”
“
studies and w riting his Flora of Concord
the m anuscript of w hich is held by the Concord
Library He has been described as one of the
“
most conspicuously attractive inhabitants of
the H ive — large a n d of fine physique with
strong features and a modest but dignified
mien H e died on M arch 2 9 1 8 7 8 his w ife
s u rvIV In g him unti l M ay 1 8 9 1
when she died
somewhat past eighty the last of the signers of
the original agreem e nt
rg e P a l
o
George Partridge Bradford w h o figures f
e B ra
as the D ominie in M rs K irby s Ol a a n a ga
g
N e w papers was another of the Brook
Farm clergymen w h o had felt the inadequacy
of the pulpit as a m e diu m of social service
Mere formality and conventionalism would not
sit easily on the son of so sturdy a revolutionary
soldier as Captain Gamali e l Bradford once of
Duxbury
The latter whose w ife w a s Eliza
beth Hic k ling had several children of whom
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B ROOK FAR M
18 8
George was the youngest ; he was born on F e h
ru a r
I 6 1 8 07
When
he
was
ten
years
old
y
his mother died and he became the specia l
charge of his sister Sarah w h o in 1 8 1 8 m arried
the R ev Samuel Ripley of Waltham
M rs
R ip ley help ed her husba n d to prepare young
men for college
She w a s a genuine Tran
and in recognition of the fact
s c e n de n t a lis t
Eme r son gave her one of the three c opies
”
“
w hich Carlyle sent to
of
Sartor R e s a rt u s
A merica O f the remaining two copies Emer
son kept one himself and gave the other to
H edge Mrs Dall in her comprehensive lec
“
ture on Transcendentalism in New England
does not hesitate to say that the picture of Par
son A llen s home as dra w n by Saxe H olm in
”
My Tourmaline is a tribute to Mr and Mrs
Samuel R ipley
The guidance and companionship of this
gifted woman w ere potent formative influences
on a mind with strong natural prepossessions
toward p hilosophic thought Bradford was of
the class of 1 8 2 5 at H arvard and was graduated
three years later from t h e Divinity School w her e
he would gladly have b een retained as an in
s t ru c t o r if he had felt willing to stay ; for even
at that time his ability as a teacher was e vi
A lthough
de n t ly suspected if not well known
he delivered an occasional sermon he never
too k a regular parish partly for causes already
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B ROO K FAR M
1 90
that his restlessness was n ot of nervous ori
“
gin but w a s only an expression of fulness
”
of life and sympathy
Mrs R ipley once said
of Bradford that he would not be happy in
heaven unless he could see his way out
I t was nothing but what might have been
expected then that Bradford should j oin that
”
“
comp any of teachers at Brook Farm at the
very outset for they were men with whose pre
vio n s spiritual strivings he had had m uch in com
mon and for whose purpose he felt the sincerest
friendliness H e naturally fell into place in the
school and his gentle an d kindly enthusiasm
stimulated the general gro w th in mental health
M rs K irby says that he was one of those born
”
at thirty four who would n ever get any older
and the friends of his later life h ave al w ays
been ready to substantiate this assertion The
slight tempering of his wit and vivacity by
his occasional gentle melancholy resulted in the
sort of humor which has happily been called
quaint O n one occasion some of the Broo k
Farm maidens too k their lunch to Parker s
church in order to avoid the long walk between
the services and they insisted on having their
im promptu picnic in the pulpit as a protest
against the superstition that there was anything
sacred about that particular p iece of wood The
Dominie who had accompan ied the party to
church shook his head r e proachfully and s aid
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GEOR G E P
B RAD FORD
.
19 1
that he wished to retain the superstition about
the wood since he had once occupied the pulpit
himself
That Bradford s service to the A ssociation
was not wholly intellectual is shown by a sen
tence in a letter written to H awthorne by his
“
sister while he was still at the Farm
Mr
”
George Bradford she writes italicizing as only
“
a sister can one of your b re t b re n has paid a
visit in Lowell where I understand his b a n a s
excited great astonishment
Bradford came
honestly by these callous hands f o r he wor k ed
in the hay field milked cows dug peat and
“
—
a task which
pounded clothes in a barrel
must b e performed to be properly ap preciated
Bradford was a fine botanist and an expert
in market gardening his special delight being
when he went to see Emerson to give advice
if not actual help about the vegetables and to
trim the trees ; and it is clear that the sage did
not consider this expert knowledge the least
admirable of his friend s accomp lishments
A lthough Bradford spoke with some approval
at first of Fourier he did not stay to help recon
struct the community H e believed Fourier to
“
have had a rare and original mind
but he
“
was also aw are that our nobler part protests
at much which a genuine descendant of the old
Puritans must always find it hard to swallow
I t is recounted of him that h e came down stairs
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B ROO K FAR M
1 92
the H ive one morning clad in a long over
coat and carryi n g an umbrella and a pac k age
wrapped up in a blue sil k handkerchief
He
had before i n timated that he could not cordially
app r ove the A ssociation s attitude toward the
”
“
outside w orld a n d that the idea did not seem
quite so acceptable to him as he had hoped ;
and he n o w announced his plan of migrating
to Plymouth w here he meant to start with his
friend M arston Watson a little market garden
of his own Before leaving however he asked
one or t w o of the young women who had always
shown a feeling of affectionate admiration for
him to hear a portentous confession which h e
felt impelled to make although he realized that
in so doing he m ust forfeit their regard forever
The lack of seriousness with w hich this prelude
was received disturbed the gentle D ominie more
than his sense of guilt ; but trusting to the horrors
of the revelation itself to make a proper impres
sion he declared boldly that there had been times
when he would not have lifted a finger to save
Charles Dana s life had he been in immediate
danger of losing it so j ealous was he ( Bradford )
at Dana s success in luring into his German class
the very girls whom Bradford himself longed to
instruct in that language
The kindly scholar thus took his leave and
worked amo n g his o w n vegetables
Watson
and he sold them in person to Plymouth house
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B ROO K FAR M
1 94
When h e died sudde n ly on January 2 6 1 8 90
those w h o had known him long realized that
little as there w a s to chronicle in his u n e ve n t
ful career his sweetnes s an d refinement always
disce r nible in his face had contributed an im
p erishable fragrance to their lives
A n i n stance of B radfo r d s hopeless honesty
is told by President Walker to whom he applied
for the p osition of Librarian at H arvard College
I nstead of unfolding his qualifications Bradford
e laborately gave every possible reason why he
S hould not have the place
much to the good
President s astonishment
Wa rren B urton w h o j oined the o rga n iz
ing party in the sprin g of 1 8 4 1 was a native
of Wilto n N ew H ampshire where he was
born in 1 8 00 There must be fundamental sound
ness in a nature on which such corroding ills as
B urton su ffered when a child leave no scar The
faith of many a youth has been permanently
darkened by less severe religious perturbations
than those through w hich he passed in his a t
tempts to accept the theology of the day and yet
follow the leadings of his own warm a ffections
H is first troubles came at the age o f four from
what he read and f rom the conversations which
he heard ; but he told himself that whe n he grew
old enough to go to church seeming c o n t ra dic
tions would be explained and his doubts would
vanish Great then w a s his dismay to find that
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WARR EN B URTON
195
his understandin g in divine things was still fur
”
ther darkened at the house of worship and th at
the problem must be wrestled with alone A s
his mind unfolded under the influence of study
general reading and observation a n d he came to
und e rstand the function of a figure of speech
much of the terror of the earlier days faded ;
t h e multiplication of interests made it easy not
to focus h is thoughts on the theological puzzle
”
“
A t fifteen the melancholy superstition had
passed and he had escaped a conversion and a
”
zeal w ithout knowledge
For some tim e the
inevitable reaction set in ; religion became a
wholly n eglected subj ect u n til his later study of
t h e Bible and his profound love of nature estab
lis h e d a n ormal readj ustment betw een his moral
and S piritual life H avin g put behind him a
boyhood tortured not only w ith religious doubts
but w ith acute dyspep sia
a youth rendered
peculiarly lonely through the early loss of his
m other and through the fact that he was a n
o n ly child — B urton entered college a mature
overthoughtful young m a n though a very child
in simplicity H e w a s almost w holly self pre
pared for academic w ork the district school and
the occasional help of the parish mi n ister having
been his only sources of instruction
A member of the class of 1 8 2 1 at H arvard
he received his second deg ree in 1 8 2 5 and w a s
graduated from the Divinity School in 1 8 2 6
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B ROO K FAR M
1 96
His first parish w a s that of the Third ( Unitarian )
Congregational Church at East Cambridge which
he took in M arch 1 8 2 8 and where he remained
until June 1 8 2 9 A t the c lose of h is service
there he declined for a time to accept another
app oi n tment preferring to use the opportunity
”
afforded him as a minister at large to carry
out certain educational proj ects to w hich he felt
c ommitted A ccordingly n o t until Septembe r
1 8 3 3 do w e find him again a settled minister ;
bu t at that time he became the pastor of a church
in South Hi n gham w hich h e served until 1 8 3 5
when he w a s call e d to take charge of the Second
R eligious Society in Waltham
I n the year fol
lowing h is removal to Waltham his beloved w ife
Sarah Fli nt w hom he had m arried in 1 8 2 8 died
This w oman w hose character was as rare as h e r
beauty had been his friend and companion from
boyhood a n d her loss so told up on him that he
aban doned his w ork in A pril 1 8 3 7 and again
threw himself into the cause of p opular educa
tion
The great responsibility devolving on
home influences in the matter of education and
cultu re w a s his Special theme and his stay at
Brook Farm o n ly st re n gthened his belief in the
importance of his miss ion
Little is recorded of his community life b e
yond the fact that he came in the spring of 1 8 4 1
and w a s gone in the spri n g of 1 8 44 but if any
thing may be inf e rred f rom his later fervor and
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B ROO K F AR M
1 98
little boo k of quite another type for it sets forth
the moral worthiness of nature as a subj ect for
”
observation and study
Scenery Showing is
the title of a later edition to avoid an obviou s
ambiguity in the first title
Burton became an eager discip le of Sweden
borg who se doctrines had aroused more or less
interest at Brook Farm and showed according to
the D ia l marked a ffinity with those of Fourier ;
but it is said that he held these doctrines in no
narrow sense
H e also took a deep interest
in phrenology
H is manner w a s full of cor
dia lit y and the eagerness and vitality of youth
p ersisted in his talk long after his physical frame
had yielded to disease and pain I n September
1 8 4 5 he had married M ary M erritt of Salem
who in his last illness cared for him with tire
less a ffection H is two children had both died
when comparatively young and Burton himse lf
died in S alem in 1 8 66
The p erplexities and pleasures of the
community were matters of equal in diffe r
ence to C harles N e w c o m b w h o s e aloofness
from the general life marks him as a person for
special consideration
H e c ame from Provi
dence where he had been graduated from
Brown University in 1 8 3 7 at th e age of seven
teen H e had as a youth looked forward to
the ministry as his profession but soon found
it impossible to b e a sectarian
H e attached
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CH AR L ES N EWCO MB
1 99
himself to the Farm in the e arly days as a full
”
boarder
not because he felt at that time a n y
i rr e sistibl e p assion for the upliftin g of man kind
but because he saw that the seclusion and the
Simplicity of the life w ould put no barrier in the
way of lo a fin g and i n viting his soul Charles
Ne w comb thought a good deal about the soul
H e w a s deeply versed in the literature of m y s t i
w h ich he dearly loved and according to
c is m
“
Emerson he hated intellect w ith the ferocity
”
of a Swedenborg
Eme rson was convinced
that N e w comb s r e markable subtlety of mind
a mounted to genius and he assured M argar e t
”
Fuller that c e rtain sentences in Dolon N ew
comb s sole co n tribution apparently to the D ia l
w ere
worth the printing of the D ia l that they
may go forth
O ne sentence from this curious
paper indicates if not genius its n e xt of kin
A child w ill act from the fulness of its a ffe c
tions and feelings as if from consciousness but
these are the Spirit w hich thus affect him and
h e acts from t hem as facts which buoy him up
and float him not as sentiment w hich is need
of the fact and makes him a seeker, as men
or outw ardly re
w h o a w ay from their home
lated to their Sp here feel that w hich d e velop s
in them sentim e nt and aspi ration but does not
put them in the natural position of the sentiment
and t h e sentiment thus acts out of its place
from depths which the surface in its hurried
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B ROO K FAR M
2 00
action is as if dissevered from
Grammar next
to intellect w a s his dearest foe
N ewcomb w a s a sentimental devotee of u n
attached Catholicism fascinated by its psalm s
but scornful
a n d anthem s and dramatic rites
of its other claims
I n his room at the Eyrie
w ere pictures of such of the Church s canonized
ones as possessed the qualities w hich b e admired
H e was fond of lendin g the w o rks of St A ugus
tine an d similar books to his neighbors and
was given to reciting the lita n y in the middle
of the night
When he first heard of Fanny
E lls le r s arrival in B oston he denounced her
“
as a vile creature
but having seen her he
placed her p ortrait bet w een that of Loyola and
I f o n a Sunday morning in winter as
! avier
he skated along the river this feverish young
man sh ould happen to detect a church spire at no
great distance from the shore it w ould give h im
the profoundest satisfaction to remove his skates
seek out the church enter it s k ates in hand
kneel a moment at the altar and r eturn briskly
to his sport
Communion with himself and Nature ( the
spelling of w hich w ithout a capital would have
se e med blasphemous to him ) was the chosen o c
c u p a t io n of his life ; and if wh e n he felt the need
of other companio n ship he sought the society of
C hildren oftener than that of his contemporaries
it w a s because childre n w ere nearer to Nature
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B ROO K F AR M
2 02
Farm friend George Bradford I t is understood
that Mr Newcomb did a large amount of liter
ary work but so far as is known he did
not publish it H e died suddenly in Paris in
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,
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1 8 94
.
C H A PTE R V
TH E
VISITOR S
THE
visitors were many and welcome to the
simple hospita lities of board and even of bed
until their numbers gre w from a few friends
who w ould run out to see how this R epublic of
lovable fools was faring to a steadily increasing
host of all kinds and conditions of reformers
and followers of reform curiosity seekers hos
tile critics the p artly mad and the wholly mad
There w a s at the H ive a V isitors B ook now
lost which is said to have contained four thou
sand entries made in a single year
I n spite of this heavy burden of hospitality
laid so unreasonably on the small community it
was borne with distinguished courtesy although
many of the visitors came uninvit e d a n d e vi
de n t ly felt that they had much to receive but
littl e to return When the slender resources
could no longer stand this undue strain a m od
est fee for each meal was as k ed and paid though
sometimes w ith reluctance There was no doubt
something of po licy in this urbanity to w ard the
guests The Broo k Farmers w e re w illing th at
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B ROO K FAR M
2 04
their light should shin e before m en to the end
that outsiders might b e moved to the right way
of thinking and perhaps of living The fee m ay
h ave acted as a deterrent ; but w hen curiosity
w a s in a measure gratified and the mo m entary
fascination p ast the mass of visitors d w indled
away n ormal conditions reasserted themselves
and only true friends or relatives of the A ssoci
ates a n d the inevitable camp followers of reform
made their calls
I t w a s no w onder that many should be drawn
to this little Mecca of the N ewnes s There was
news abroad of the bold n ess of the proj ect
th e beauty of t h e p lace and the odd but de
lightful character of the inmates A nd so it
fell out that there w a s much running to West
R oxbury to learn h o w the chosen people were
p r ospering
The excitements of B oston have
ever been f e w ; and to see the regeneration of
manki n d going on u n der your own n ose and
eyes with little or nothing to p ay proved an ex
N o t w it h
h il a ra t in g and instructive experience
standin g the trouble to w hich the members were
n o w and then put to provide accommodation of
every s ort these visitors proved an imp ortant
element in the history of Broo k Farm add
ing to its reno w n and somewhat to its charm
Some ca m e from long distances and some w ere
people of real distinction A mong artists w ere
Story Cranch Sartain O rd w ay and Champ
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2 06
B ROOK FAR M
securities represented the extent of their faith
in the theo ri e s of M r R ipley a n d his com
panions There is little need to enumerate the
celebrities both men and women who paid their
respects to Broo k Farm
They came were
amused or e difie d for the while and then went
their way Some may h ave gone to s co ff but
few indeed remained to pray
A f e w choice visitors have always been so
closely identified with the fame of Brook Farm
that their connectio n with it has come to be an
integ ral part of its history Chief am ong them
were M argaret Fuller Emerson William H enry
Char min g A lcott C harles La n e Cranch Bro w n
son H orace Greeley A lbert B risbane and Eliz a
beth Peabody
There also cam e H edge H ig
i
n
n
w
s
o
and
Lowell
these
ho
ever came but
;
g
seldom and had no close identification with the
life of the A ssociates With the distinguished
g roup first mentio n ed Brook Farm had a real
a ffinity The relations may have been closer in
some cases than in others but in each case they
w ere important enough to demand a special
consideration
Not w ithstandin g the greeting which was ex
t end e d to the maj o rity of those w h o came to see
Brook Farm — a n d they often came it must
be admitted in t h e same Spirit in w hich they
it
would have inspected a gyp sy e ncampme n t
should not be forgotten that the Brook Farmers
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M AR G AR ET FULL E R
“
p rofessed to hold civilis ées as they liked to
call the w orldlings in much contempt This
was in p art a playful co n ception ; but a pitying
sentime n t such as Christian entertained for
the benighted City of Destruction was natural
to these determi n ed young separatists Their
deeper regard was kept for the few who were
rep resentative of the larger phases of T ra n s c e n
dentalism a n d Fourierism and who w ere glad
from time to time to cheer their allies by their
presence and stimulating w o rds O f the relations
of these friends to Brook Farm it is fitting to
speak som ewhat in detail H orace Greeley one
of the m ost conspicuous of this group should
properly be m e n tioned later in these pages in
connection with A lbert Brisbane and the Fou
rie ris t movement
M
a rg a re t
A lthough M argaret Fuller s connection
Fu l l e r
with Brook Farm was slight no general a c
count of the community fails to lay some e m p h a
sis o n her relation to it and her attitude toward
it H er position within the circle which had at
heart the success of this movement is indicated
by the fact that she is always associated with
them even in a m atter w ith w hich she did not
d e eply concern herself Just w h y she looked
doubtfully on the e ffort is to be accounted
for in several ways all of w hich necessitate a
somewhat scrutinizi n g glance at her earlier life ;
for at this time she w a s over thirty and she
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B ROOK FAR M
2 08
had thought and felt and therefore su ffered
more than most men and women of that
age
O n M ay 2 3 1 8 1 0 M argaret Fuller was born
the daughter of Timothy Fuller and M argaret
Crane Subsequent to this event the mother
seem s to have played an inconspicuous part in
the life of the child whose early education and
training were wholly taken in charge by her
father Timothy Fuller according to h is da u gh
ter had re c e ived from his father that kind of
sound worldly advice w hich the Puritan clergy
man s conscience has often permitted him to
give —the admonition that he must make sure
of t w o things : a position of professional dis
tinction and a su fficient income to maintain a
family These are to be sure only two phases
of that ideal of success which has never ceased
to be dear to both the church and the world
Starting with this in a more or less modified
form as an inheritance and left wholly to the
care of the p arent from whom it came Mar
garet Fuller s chances of developing into a
w holesome or noble maturity seemed slight in
deed The educational methods o f the period
w ere severe and they were practised on her by
her father with syste m atic though uni n te n tional
cruelty Evenin g recitatio n s a good deal b r oken
into at times but n eve r prete rmitted o n that
account produced the inevitable results attend
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B ROO K FAR M
2 10
was evident to all the w orld but w ith the latter
admiration for her attainme n ts a n d h e r wit w a s
predominant The harsher q u alities of her youth
are thus insisted upo n because in the writer s
opinion M argaret Fuller s glory is that one by
one she exorcised th e se demons and substituted
for them a noble Spirit of self s a c rific e and l ove
”
We may feel disposed with George Eliot to
e xtend to her w h ole career the admiration and
”
sympathy inspired by the closing scenes but
we should only show ourselves unj ust toward
her highest accomplishment by so doing Sin
c e rit
characterized
her
to
the
last
an
d
her
sense
y
of superiority equally dominant in the begin
ning dwindled under the gradual restraint im
p osed by her w idenin g symp athies and interests
H er activities seem to form themselves into
three distinct groups : those of preparation for
her w ork in N e w York on the Tr ibu n e covering
the years of her teaching her Conversatio n s and
her labors on the D ia l ( 1 8 3 7—1 8 44 ) h e r achieve
ments as critic o n Greeley s ne w spaper ( 1 8 44
and her life in I taly ( 1 8 4 7
A s a member of the Transcendental Club
Sh e had
a n d as a close friend of the R ipleys
taken part in the discussio n s which led to the
establishment of Brook Farm ; but until w ithin
a very short time of the takin g of the final step
she did not believe that the proj ect would be a t
tempted Toward the last of D ecember 1 8 40
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M AR GAR ET F U L L E R
211
“
she wrote : I fa n cy the best use of the plan as
proj ected thus far w ill prove the good talks it
has caused here upon p rin ciples
and on M arch
I
2 9 1 8 4 1 on the e ve of the hegira she said :
do not know what their scheme will ripen to ; at
present it does n o t deeply engage my h opes I t
is thus far only a little better way than others
The spirit of toleration was of slow growth in
M argaret Fulle r and at this time it had attained
only respectable proportions H er p osition is
generally stated in an unpublished letter to M rs
Chapman dated December 2 6 1 8 40 : V ery
probably to one whose heart is so engaged as
yours in particular measures this indi fference
will seem incredible or even culp able B ut if
indifferent I have not been i n tolerant ; I have
wronged none of you by a hasty j udgment or
careless w ords and where I have not investi
gated a case so as to be su r e of my o w n opinion
have at least n e ver chimed in w ith the p opular
hue and cry I have al w ays w ished that e fforts
originating in a generous sympathy or a sense
of neglect s h o u l d h a ve fair play [and ! have had
firm faith that they must in some w a y produce
eventual good
The toleration of indifference
is not an uncommon attribute ; it is the tolera
tion which is exercised in the face of one s own
strong feelings of opp osition that really counts
A t the same time it is not fair to lose sight of
the fact that in the seven or eight years which
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B ROO K FAR M
2 I2
preceded the maki n g of this statement
years
in which Miss Fuller had been obliged to re
nounce many of her own pleasures and ambi
tions in order to provide comfort for her mother
and education for her brothers and sisters
sh e
had become far less self centred and less dis
p osed to b o w before the god of intellect
A t Brook Farm as in other p laces there were
differences of opinion regarding her greatness
M rs K i rby gave up her room at the Eyrie some
times when Miss Fuller came first burning pas
tilles as an appreciative preparation and taking
great pleasure in servi n g coffee every morning
to the favored guest in her room out of the only
decorated china cup belonging to the estate
M iss R ussell on the othe r hand seem s not to
have given an unqualified admiration to this
Visitor of whom she says : When listening
to her w onderful conversation s which by the
way w ere limited to one person
herself
and
straining my m ind to comprehend her meaning
I must own I have sometimes wished her Eng
”
lish was rather plainer
A nother woman is
uoted
as
saying
that
she
would
like
to
have
q
M argaret Fuller for a spiritual a dviser M arga
ret Fuller s own early impressions of the com
munity are too familia r to need repetition here
I t is true that she spoke freely of her o w n faults
but it has n ever been m ad e clear that the eriti
c is m of others found ready acc e ptance with her ;
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B ROOK FAR M
2 14
with much satisfaction an o ffer from H orace
Greeley to become a permanent member of his
staff
H er w ork on the D ia l had first calle d
his attention to her ability ; but it was at the
suggestion of Mrs Greeley wh o had come to
kno w M iss Fuller w e ll in the course of several
visits to B oston that h e decided to put forw ard
this opportunity to strengthen her own reputa
tion and that of the Tribu n e
I t is easy to accept M iss Fuller s announce
ment fortified by the assertions of her friends
“
that she talked better than she wrote The ex
cess of reflective conscious n es s which Charles
“
Dana discerned in her Papers on Literature
”
and A rt was much less app arent in her talk
when she felt the stimulating friction of other
minds and forgot herself She did not p a rt ic u
l a rly like literary w ork because it forced her to
a recognition of her o w n limitations ; but re a liz
ing it as the only medium through which to
reach large numbe r s of people she readily
determined to subj ect herself to its discipline
Greel e y s early disappointment in her h e ex
“
plains as follo w s : While I never met another
w oman w h o co n versed m ore freely and lucidly
the attempt to commit her thoughts to paper
seemed to induce a singular embarrassment and
hesitation She could w rite only w hen in the
vein ; and this needed often to h e waited for
through several days w hile the occasion some
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M AR G AR ET FUL L E R
2 15
times required an immediate utterance
The
long strain which she had undergone had doubt
less pro duced a certai n degree of exhaustion
w hich was in part responsible for this ; and it
is also probable that the thought of the effect
w hich her w riting might produce on the public
acted as a restraint on her M r Greeley has
added a fine appreciation of the w idespread
good accomplished by the unfaltering truthful
ness of her w ork however little this quality
may have added to her p opularity
In their
first acquaintance Mr Greeley a n d Miss Fuller
found themselves in imperfect accord on sundry
questions H e resented the exactions of defer
ence m ade by a woman w h o w a s battling for
sex e quality ; and she caustically rej ected his
intimation that Sh e would not hav e s o many
headaches if she dran k less tea an d co ffee
These superficial disagreements ho w ever w ore
aw ay and each came to make a j ust and sound
estimate of the other s excelle n ces H er sym
pathics broade n ed daily ; and the result of her
contact with all so rts and conditions of men a n d
women w a s that she became a more an d mor e
pronounced champion of the w eak and n e g
.
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le c t e d
.
The residence in N ew York covered less than
two years for it was in A ugust 1 8 46 that she
went to Europe for her great and overwhelming
experience The friends the triumphs and the
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B ROO K FAR M
2 16
failures o f her first year there must be ignored
for the sake of a passing glance at the spirit
Secretly
w hich her Italian life called forth
married in the winter of 1 8 4 7 to the young M ar
chese d O s s o li w h o had become partly at least
through her influence one of the intrepid fol
lo w ers of M azzini she gave the fearless in t e n
s it y of her best self to the R epublican party
With the birth of her son in September 1 8 4 8
she cast aside the shackles which here dity had
imp osed but w hich a continuous chain of cir
c u m s t a n c e s had been steadily wea k ening ; and in
the entire interval w hich dates from her mother
hood to her death w ithin sight of her native
shore the greatness of her character cannot be
lost sight of or denied
Three of M argaret Fuller s passionate loves
had been for children : the young Waldo Emer
son Pic kie Greeley and H ermann C lar k e and
the depth of her feeling for h e r own child need
not b e dwelt up on Yet she left him in what
she had every reason to fear were unsafe hands
b e cause she believed that the claim of a strug
gling people was stronger than any other In
poverty ill health and desperate anxiety for the
little A ngelo and her husband she spent her
strength and a ffection in visiting hospitals of
one of which Sh e had charge and in giving
cheer and encouragement to the allies of Young
I f her youthful aim had been mere self
I taly
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B ROO K FAR M
2 18
riched by an experience of a f e w m onths
preaching in the near West but troubled with
“
his disease of disprop ortionate speculation
Shortly after this he sailed for Europe and
th e re as was the most natural thing in the
w orld for a troubled s o u l f e lt the charm of
“
R omanism w hich had it been as broad i n tel
”
l e c t u a lly as it was grand sentimentally
w ould
have lulled h is restlessness into acceptance
During this trip his uncle wrote to as k him
among other probing inquiries if his new con
or dimin
n e c t io n took him more from himself
”
“
selfish sensitiveness
A fter his
is h e d his
marriage in 1 8 3 6 he undertook brief ministries
in N ew York and elsewhere and then w ent to
Cinci n nati
While still preaching there he
heard the clamor in M assachusetts over the
disintegration of the older Unitarianism Per
“
Jesus Christ did not understand
s u a de d that
—
n
his o w n religio
another w a y of saying that
Christianity was not the religion of its founder
he r esigned a successful pastorate
I w alk
”
in a consciousness of unemployed force he
w rote in 1 8 40
Later cam e a series of meetings
in B rooklyn for a fe w months and then a return
to New York Some time in 1 8 4 5 he left his
wor k in N ew York ; and at about this period
arose a plan to take t h e place left vacant by
Parker w h o had be e n invit e d to B oston and who
w a s installed there o n J anuary 4 1 8 46
Chan
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WI LLI A M H EN RY CH AN N ING
2
I9
ning had some reason to suppose that he would
succeed Parker and doubtl e ss was disappointed
in the failure of his hopes
H is near n ess to
Brook Farm made it easy for him to harbor
th e re and this he did during the summ e r of
H e had left N e w York not only for the
1 8 46
sake of a settlement in West R oxbury but also
to devote himself in part to the enterprise at
Brook Farm and especially to serve the inter
ests of the H a rbing e r to which ho w ever the
total number of his contributions to 1 8 4 7 is
less than forty There is a general in de fin it e
ness in regard to Channing s position at Broo k
Farm ; it is not sure w h en or h o w long he w a s
there ; even his habitatio n is not clearly known
H is o w n purpose w a s to j oin t h e A ssociation
actively w ith his family but the wishes of his
wife w h o shared happily the life of her husban d
without accepting all his fervidness stood out
against this plan a n d Cha r ming w a s th e refore
an inspiration and an occasional pr e sence not a
constant factor The me n tion of his name is
frequent though generally on some special occa
sion ; he did not enter largely into the intimate
daily life and w a s not in truth one of the sturdy
comrades of the barnyard a n d h a y fie ld I t is
evident from detached m e moranda that Chan
ning came to Brook Fa r m w ith no cool and logi
cal convictions ; he had not e ven a programme
then as indisp e nsable to a R eformer as his cloth
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B ROOK F AR M
220
ing T h ere was however no lack of an over
flowing ardor w hich displayed itself even when
an occasion might be lacki n g in insp iration
For the simple ritual of j oining hands in dedica
tion to the Universal Unity Cha rm in g had a
genuine relish since he used it afte r Brook Farm
had ceased to be ; but it is impossible to infer
how others w ere affected by a ceremonial w hich
makes no solemn impression at a later day Por
t e n t o u s ph r ases which once have thrilled earnest
seekers sound hollow to an unappreciative gen
cration
Such influence as Channing at this
time was exerting is indeterminable though he
frankly espoused B risbane s doctrines
Prob
ably the momentary exaltation over his fine
presence and his effective voice was great ;
th e n only did he assume prominence O f his
personality at this time Judge Mellen C hamber
“
lain lately wrote : A fter forty years I still see
the light in his eyes ; his wo n derful voice thrills
m e yet an d to this day I p onder his ethical
”
utterances
Char ming was at no odds w ith
his associates and never quarrelsom e ; but he
evidently felt as he afterward admitted that
there w a s at Brook Farm too little spiritual
atmosphere
H e was w ell fitted in some re
an d aside from a want of organizing
s pe c t s
force to im pose a measure of religious disci
pline n ot severe but su fficiently binding to com
mit the A ssociation to a formal assent to the
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B ROO K FAR M
222
but in 1 8 7 1 he confessed that the experiment
”
“
was quite too tragic a one to be repeated
though for him its fragrance h ad never died
“
O rganize your townships
he held should
have been the cry ; yet in spite of the disaster
“
Brook Farm was to him a grand success as
a college of social students
O n J anuary 3 1 8 4 7 there was formed in
B oston under the lead of Char ming the Re
”
ligiou s Union of A ssociationists
A state
ment was drawn up and ratified by the j oi n ing
of hands of the persons present among whom
were seven of the most conspicuous Brook
Farmers
A ll records of this Union cease
after December 1 8 5 0 ; but as early as June
of that year Char ming whose intensity in the
cause was pathetic took leave of his asso
ciates thus practically ending an attemp t to
perpetuate one of the issues of the original
movement H e then spent some months with
the N orth A merican Phalanx and as late as
1 8 5 4 accepted membership with the R aritan
B ay Union the prospectus of which had been
issued in 1 8 5 2 U p to this time k indly or not
as the impression may be Channing s relation
to the ministry of the gospel stands forth as
an avocation and not as the absorbing labor of
his soul I n A ugust 1 8 5 4 he left a pastor
ate in R ochester and in the fall went to Liver
pool ; henceforth he was identified with English
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WI L LI A M H EN RY CH ANNING
223
life and religious tho u ght H e remained how
ever a n A merican in spirit as he afterward
sho w ed during the Civil War O ne c o n s p ic u
ous achievement in England was his address
“
in 1 8 61 at Liverpool on The Civil War in
”
A merica in an s w er to a leader in the L on don
”
Tim e s indicting the N ortherners as
savages
I t demanded courage to meet boldly the unin
formed and hostile state of public O pinion in
England at this time ; but the loyal A merican
proved him self on this occasion more radical
on the problem of slavery than any other of
his old fello w A ssociationists
The address
w a s not devoid of a certain adroitness in its
appeal to the essential unity of Great Britai n
and the United States as evinced by the cordial
reception of the young Prince of Wales in
A merica the year previous
Char ming returned to A merica to o ffer such
devoted s e rvice as it was in his p ower to render
during the war as chaplain of Co n gress and as
a friend to the wounded and to the helpless
freedmen H e revisited England during the
war and at its c lose w ent back to ally himself
again with English institutions on the solid
foundations of which his tread became firm
and assured Several visits to his own coun
try maintained associations here which he loved
and had no intention of forsaking in spirit I n
December 1 8 8 4 gradually worn out by an in
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B ROOK FAR M
2 24
creasing feebleness he died peacefully parting
with none of the ideals w hich had sustained him
during a life dedicated to almost every cause but
personal success
N o one was les s dismayed by the Brook Farm
fiasco ; and this w a s because as in the case of
his uncle William Ellery C harm ing socialistic
tendencies were fundamental a n d met with
no frustration fro m a temporary defeat
It
was this basic radicalism w hich led Cha r ming
to walk o ff proudly even defiantly arm in arm
with a negro who was about to be restrained
by the o fficers of la w in Washington j ust on
the eve of the Proclamation of Emancipation
H e was not dramatic in the doing of such
acts but would al w ays saunter into trouble
with a grace peculiar to nervous courage
Underestimation of the importance of facts led
him to rush forward into easy traps H e was
for instance too readily betrayed int o anti
vivisection sympathies ; he went dangerously
close to an espousal of the most vulgar of all
modern credulities spiritualism though it should
b e said some w hat in ap ology that he p ossessed
to an unusual degree that force which is called
”
“
by the k nowing p sychic
F ro t h in gh a m says
that tables would ru n upstairs at Channing s
lightest touch ; this phen omenon and others as
marvellous were later believed to be traceable
to unconscious muscular exertion
Cha rm ing
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226
B ROO K FAR M
Foreign Standard Literatu re
advocated the
cause o f French eclecticism and e n couraged
the interdependence of p sychology and the his
tory of philosophy H e was favorably dra w n to
C ousi n s method a n d showed his appreciation
of the ample u s e w hich J
o u ff ro y made of Scotch
and English thought
Pure philosophy was
not long the busines s of so hurried a man and
C ha r mi n g once in the stream of life was soon
pulled away from these charms and floated
easily into passing controversies H is e n t h u
He
s ia s m for Ch ristia n Union was b oun dless
formulated his p rl n CIp le s on the question in
“
1 8 43
and pleaded the insu fficiency of indi
”
n aturally
vidual exe rtion
an unwelcome
tenet to his friends the Tran scendentalists
The matu red plan was fairly tried in N ew
York but w ith small success
The people
could not be brought to enj oy a Sunday ser
”
“
vice which w a s
wholly sp ontaneous
or a
“
weekly meeti n g for the frankest interchange
o f thought in co n versation
I t is indeed strange how thoroughly C han
ning failed to lay hold on the organic senti m ents
of mankind H e w a s ill adapted to conformity
or to ritual and w a s always peering out for
further truth as he had earlier shown that he
“
would do in the last lines of
Ernest the
Seeker
published a n onymously in the first
volume of the D ia l This religious novel
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WI L LI A M H EN RY CH ANNING
22 7
ette le ft the hero saying : So father we mus t
give up our free thought You may be right
B ut I am n o t yet ready I mu st examine fresh
suggestions that come to my tent door They
may be lepers to blast me w ith disease but they
may be also an g e ls in disguise
The m onth of A pril 1 8 44 w hich saw the last
number of the D ia l saw also the close of the
P re s e n t which Cha r ming began to edit in Sep
tember 1 8 4 3
The reason assigned for the
brief life of this magazine was that time and
opportunity w ere n eeded for the preparation
of t h e memoir of William Ellery Cha r mi n g his
most sig n al contribution to A merican letters
The H a rb ing e r ceased in February 1 8 49 and
in J uly of that year Cha r mi n g began to issue
the Sp ir it of t b e Ag e w hich kept alive until
A pril 2 7 1 8 5 0 With his i rr e sistible O penness
“
the e ditor w rit e s in the last n umber
The
paper is disco n tinued because in brief I am
”
brain sick — and it does not pay
I t was fair
to all manner of reforms with none of which
w a s Cha r ming ever in complete accord
The
title w a s a misnomer else perhaps t h e paper
might have lived I n taking fare w ell he admits
“
that his burd en has bee n is a n d w ill be : to
discharge as best I c a n the ungracious and u n
gratifying the slightly appreciated and rarely
”
successful duti e s of a R eco n ciler
H is faith in a unity of religions was fast
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B ROOK FAR M
22 8
when he delivered in 1 8 69 after intervening
years of practical life following his fruitless
editorships a course of Lo w ell lectures on the
”
Progress of Civili z ation in w hich he pressed
the teleological argum ent to the full These
lectures he afterward used as material in dis
c u s s io n s before the Summer Schoo l of Ph ilo s o
—
phy at Concord that strange flickering revival
of the dialectic method on a Yan k ee soil H is
astounding optimism never forsook him and he
never r e nounced hope in some form of social
ism though he came to distrust nationalism as
the p articular direction which reform might
w isely take
H e held in earlier days that
socialism w a s realizable by virtue of the uni
tary tendencies of the race and that the steps
to attainme n t were Co Op e ra t io n R econciliation
Equitable Distribution U niversal Culture A sso
—
and H armony
large bland w ords
c ia t io n
powerless now to inspire but once of a tran
l
i
and
assurin
g
strength
when
uttered
u
i
l
z
i
n
g
q
by the musical V oice of Char ming the hopeful
est but in memory the most shado w y personal
ity among the sanguine Brook Farmers
The mental p ortrait is so interesting that
over against it may properly be set Dr Cod
m an s description and in his o w n w ords of the
“
outward Cha r ming : H is figur e was tall and
stately though rather slender
H e carried
himself finely and w alk e d w ith head erect
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B ROOK FAR M
230
him gladly but met him only as he came — the
welcome guest or lecturer as the case might be
There was no Sitting at his feet ; at a time when
the little place o ve rfl o w e d with high spirits and
W H Chan n ing held the emotions of all rapt
as in a dream of heaven suddenly come to
earth Emerson s cool disrelish for discip leship
was respected
There was indeed some reason to think b e
fore the experiment was begun from his direct
utterances that Emerson might see it to be
his duty and desire to j oin w ith R ipley ; but
his letter probably written in the fall of 1 8 40
firmly declined to take the step R ipley s tone
in his letter of invitatio n was so hopeful that it
is hard not to sup pose that Emerso n had previ
held
forth
some
encouragement
A
fter
ou s l
y
his ans w er there could no longer be any doubt
ho w ever concerning his attitude I t is not dis
coverable if this d e clination was made public to
the other m e mbers by R ip ley ; but even had it
been their o w n decision s w ould hardly have
be e n altered Emerson w a s held by them as
by all i n tellige n t men and w omen then an d
since in due resp ect H is genius w a s recog
n iz e d
By som e especially by the avowed
Transcendentalists he w a s regarded with vener
ation ; but h e w a s not really of them as they
hoed the field wash e d the dishes taught the
childr e n and discoursed hopefully of the fast
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RA LPH WA LD O
EM E
R SO N
23 1
coming regeneration of man
H is was the
s w eet influence of the Pleiades which they
w ould not att e mpt to bind ; and he came and
went assenti n g to but never lauding their pur
poses and ca ri n g little for their methods A ny
S pot less roomy than the universe or more con
tracted than Concord could hardly have pleased
him Emerson s decision was partly based on
the opinion asked of and given by M r Edmund
H osmer of Concord an open minded w holesome
character a n swerabl e o n e might fancy to that
desc ription given of the Farmer by Emerson
in his revie w of a R eport of the A gricultural
Survey of M assachusetts and printed in the
D ia l for J uly 1 8 4 2
H osmer distrusted on
“
p rinciple the gentleman farmer not because
he w a s a gentleman but because he w a s not a
farmer ; and h e saw no practical results in a
scheme w hich th eoretically could not benefit the
individual toiler
It w a s consonant w ith Emerson s dignity to
speak or write pleasantly or even gleefully of
w hatever w a s fairly op e n to tempered mirth
not in his nature
R idicule or abuse w a s
Som e of the phases of Brook Farm life quietly
amused him and h e did not hesitate to com
m u n ic a t e his feeling to others
Just as he said
of a certain meeting of the Transcendental Club
“
that it was like going to H eaven in a s w ing
So he p layfully compared B roo k F a rm t o a
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B
232
ROO K FAR M
French R evolution in small
Peop le w ould
in turn enj oy themselves at his expense but
not in a loud mouthe d way R ip ley alone of
all men and women of that day seems w holly
to have escaped mild ribaldry
I t w a s with
Emerson a fair give and take
O nce in a
while he came in for abuse as in the case of
an unknown M rs Enge of w hom M rs K irby
Speaks who c o n s Ide re d the philosop her a lunatic
“
a most deplorable state of mind and
a n d in
”
intellectual obliquity
A necdotes of his visits to the Farm are not
M iss R ussell in one of her papers
n umerous
recalls the p leasure w hich they always gave and
“
Mrs K irby who says that he seemed an in
”
tells of t w o
t e gra l p art of the movement itself
w omen who had it in mind to w alk to Concord
on the cha n ce of havi n g a talk with him argu
ing that Emerson s impressions would be worth
more to us than the clenched reaso n ing of
”
others
A discerning woman is recorded as
having said that it would not be di fficult to con
“
fess to M r Emerson but he would be shocked
at the proposition to take charge of even one
”
soul
I t w a s ever true of him that he felt the
responsibility of his own selfhood too solemnly
to be willing to intrude on another s personality
H aving the extreme isolation of great courage
he disli k ed organization in itself The imp ulse
to arrange classify and c o Ordin a t e has in truth
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B ROO K FAR M
2 34
I n theory A lcott could certainly have made no
such obj ections against Brook Farm as were o f
f e re d by Emerson
O f reformers he announced
”
in the O rphic Sayings that they uproot in
erase traditions revise usages and
s t it u t io n s
renovate all things They are the noblest of
”
facts
H e had not the genuine seer s distrust
of com pacted effort else he would hardly have
m ade the sorry venture at Fruitlands A s for
the prime requisite of all accomplishment did
“
not this oracle proclaim that
labor is sweet
”
it exalts and humaniz es the soul
Emer
son says Colonel H igginson was so far in fl u
e n c e d by the prevailing tendency as to o ffer to
share his house with M r A lcott and his family
w hile suggesting that other like minded persons
”
should settl e near them
But this gregarious
plan was to h ave been carried out at Concord
n o t at Brook Farm
A lcott sincerely believed no doubt that Brook
“
Farm like Fruitlands awaited the sober cul
”
ture of devout men
H e sang the praises of
toil ; in dietetic reform he was t h e bravest of
them all ; and he would doubtless have wel
comed the certainty of a home Why then
did he not go with R ipley ? There is no sure
answer but we may in fairness suppose that
he w ould have stayed long away from a proj ect
which involved three hundred days labor in
each year w ith an a vera ge o f fift y four w orkin g
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A
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B RONS O N A LCOTT
AN D
CH AR L E S LAN E
23 5
hours to each w eek o f six days This p hilo s o
pher would gladly have conversed under a noon
day sun until the sweat poured do w n his face
but for physical toil he had no affinity The
nebular state of most proj ects was definite
enough for Mr A lcott
H e visited B rook Farm occasionally and held
one or an other of his talks H is gentle beari n g
and serenity may have quelled for the w hile the
general e ffervescence it w a s impossible not to
love and even to respect him so great s e em e d
to be the distance between the vaniti e s of actual
life and the peculiar rehabilitation in his char
acter of a calm belonging to centuries lo n g past
“
O ne conversation at the Farm on
I nsight
w a s thought according to M rs K irby to hav e
”
been a trifle vague though it p e rsuaded young
N ewcomb that the sage was steeped in Brah
m in is m to the lip s
as doubtless he w a s S ome
of the hearers w ere so powerfully stirred by this
address as to m a k e the experiment of a ve ge
table diet
A consideration of M r A lcott s merits and
demerits is not here c alled for By his o w n
choice he did not belong to Brook Farm but he
w a s incidental to it
H e co n tributed little to its
existence though a f e w such as he might have
materially haste n ed its do w nfall I t is so easy
a thing to gird at this man ; so di fficult in these
days is it to see cl e arly his shado w y excel
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B ROOK FAR M
2 36
lences S ome of his earliest friends Viewed him
with misgivings and he was even called by
”
“
one of them Plato Skim p o le
To the day
of his death he encountered ridicule by reason
o f w h at seemed his laziness in e ffic a c y and
nebulosity A lmost all the anecdotes concern
ing him tend to derogation The only way
in which to be j ust to him is deliberately to
searc h for what was admirable in the man
and hold fast to that H is school in B oston
was a good one an d well sustained while it
lasted I t was a concrete and app lied T ra n s c e n
dentalism Charles Lan e h ad given him high
tribute in the third volume of the D ia l and b e
fore the melancholy fiasco at Fruitlands there
w ould have been little but respect tempered by
smiles to pay the w ell disciplined and nobly
conceived Temp le School and the honorable
record which A lcott made in his Visit to Eng
land A fter he had dragged poor Lane down
ho w ever in their sorro w ful littl e tragedy A lcott
lost something w hich h e n ever w holly regained
Even at C oncord distrust was felt and Edmund
H osmer alon e for a time took him to his bosom
A lcott went on bravely for many years a sort of
living tradition ; but there was no real advance
and he was saying the same oracular things in
his simp le m anner hop efully open to all truth
as he thought he saw it until he came to sit in
his advanced and easily flattered a ge on the
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238
B ROO K FAR M
m on S chool better known as the A lcott H ouse
School to which M r A lcott p aid a famous visit
in 1 8 42 Lane was of that ext raordinary group
of English reform ers so admirably described in
the D ia l for O ctober 1 8 4 2 consisti n g of J ohn
A H eraud J Westland M arston Francis Bar
ham editor of the A l is t a monthly magazine
”
“
of Divinity and U n iversal Literature H ugh
Doherty the ablest English representative of
F o u rie ris m and editor of the L on do n P b a la n x
and Goodwyn Barmby editor of a penny
monthly the P ro m e t/t e a n o r Com m u n it a ria n
“
Ap os t l e w ith
little fear of gramm ar and rhet
”
o ric
before his eyes
Most famous of this
coterie was James Pierrepont Greaves who had
died in M arch 1 8 4 2 after an abstention for
thirty six years from fermented drinks and ani
”
“
mal food living mostly on biscuit and w ater
and who was in England a great apostle of the
”
N e w ness to many
Gre a ve s s prime dogma
“
was the sup eriority of Bein g to all knowing
” —
and doing
dogma w ith which A lcott
a
would have been the last to quarrel ; in fact
they both were endued as w a s said of Greaves
”
with a CO p io u S peacefulness
A mong his
varied writings and activities as a devout Pes
“
T h ree H undred M ax
t a l o z z ia n he comp osed
”
ims for the Consideration of Parent s
Lane
was his literary executor
“
Fresh from Umbrageous H am w hich w a s
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A B RO NS O N A LCOTT
.
AND
CH AR L E S L AN E
2 39
the first place to do A lcott substa n tial h onor
a n d f rom these Sy n cretic A ssociationists
and
all ki n ds of Notionists Charles La n e came to
this country as a sort of fo reign importer of
reforms taki n g the place of M r Greaves w h o
before his death had seriously proposed a vo y
age to B oston La n e himself w a s an o riginal
of the first w ater and he n aturally allied him
self to w hatever might be running counter to
the world s practices H e wrote several articles
for the D ia l — amo n g them and of particular
interest here a careful though b rief study of
Brook Farm which was critical but not u n
sympathetic and indicative of the i n te rest w hich
the writer had for the West R oxbury experiment
It is tempting to say more of the similarity real
though Slight between the movement in E n g
land as chiefly represented by Greaves and
that on this side of the water especially since
little or no attentio n has ever been paid to this
relation But it must su ffice to speak of Lane
as introducing the kn owledge of one movement
to the other by means of his own stro n g per
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s o n a lit
y
.
Lane s economic ethics lay mai n ly in p re s c rib
ing to himself what not to do —and this system
of negation pro ved to be complicated and per
l
e
x
i
n
w
H
e
ould
h
ave
well
nigh
solved
the
p
g
problem of e arthly existence had he possessed
no outer skin to clothe and no stomach to feed
’
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B ROOK FAR M
2 40
A voidance consumed the larger part of each
day and various encumbrances to a perfect life
gave him a great deal of trouble because almost
every staple of commerce such a s wool rice
cotton sugar m eat both w hite and red was an
o ffence to him H e would not use a horse but
felt no scruple at riding his hobbies to the death
Prosaic Sincere and courageous in living up
to the articles of his faith Lane was ready to
be victimized by any proj ect which promised to
“
realize his dream of a True H a rm onic A ssoci
”
ation
A n opp ortunity for complete disaster
soon came and was embraced Fruitlands a
farm of about one hundred acres in H arvard
Massachusetts and near the Shaker Community
so pleasantly described in the D ia l w a s bought
by Lane who enlisted in this enterprise under
the flimsy banner of his friend A lcott Ten
was the number of the Consociate F amily five
of whom were children
O rdinary secular
”
farming w a s not in the programme which
“
planned to supersede the labor of the plough
and cattle by the spade and the pruning knife
“
R eliance was placed in the succors of an ever
”
“
bounteous Providence
and in
uncorrupted
”
“
fields and un w orldly persons
A
life of
gain was to be scrupulously avoided Father
H ecker s experie n ce at Fruitlands is elsewhere
told but the mela n choly en d must not be omitted
here A ll of Lane s money w a s absorbed a n d
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B ROOK F AR M
2 42
ber 1 8 42 an article for the D e m oc ra t ic R e vie w
in which he defended the simplicity of the
scheme as agai n st Fou ri e rism H is o w n Visits
were not freque n t and it is hard to believe that
he w a s an especially welcome though he was a
respected guest The little group which was
undergoing a process of Ca t h o liz a t io n was doubt
less his main obj ective p oint ; for the general
buoyancy and a ir of innocent j oyan ce grated
in all likelihood on his rugged honest serious
ness
Though early taught to walk in the usual
paths of N e w E n gland Protestantism at times
“
he seemed to hold a spiritual intercourse w ith
the Blessed M ar y and holy A ngel Gabriel
sho w i n g t h e mystical temperament lik e his
friend H ecker albeit heredity in both called for
no such manifestations H e strenuously labored
in many ways for the earthly well being and hap
2
i
n
s
s
of
mankind
from
1
2
until
1
when
e
8
8
8
4
p
the trend to w ard R omanism definitely set in
A t first a Pre sbyteria n he soon veered to Uni
ve rs a l is m and at the age of twenty two became
a preacher of that sect Then a great fervor
for social reform of many kinds came on him
and lasted for some years H e felt directly the
powerful influence of R obert O wen and indi
“
re c t l
that
of
William
Godwin
of
whose
P
o
y
”
“
lit ic a l J ustice
Brownson says : I t has had
more influence on my mind th an any other
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OR ESTE S A B ROWNS ON
24 3
.
book except t h e Scriptures I have ever read ;
but B ro w nso n w ise after such an admission he
“
thro w s this barb
there is scarc e ly a modern
”
error that it does not contain
Erelong he
found him self in co op eration with Frances
Wright B e n thamit e emancipationist and cul
t iva t e d and e ffective orator w h o after her u n
happy marriag e with D a ru s m o n t her factor
”
died in lon e liness and poverty
Poor Fanny
is Bro w n son s preface to a statement that Sh e
“
did great harm and the morals of the A meri
c a n people feel even to day the inj ury she did
”
them
I t is hard not to see in the character of
”
“
a
Priscilla in Bro w nson s
Spirit R apper
dull philosophic novel written after he had
“
—
made sure harbor
embodiment of Poor
an
”
Fanny Wright
Bro w nson s n ext dissatisfaction was an alli
ance with t h e W o rk in gm e n s Party Though
retaining all his life an unaffected sympathy
“
with the more numerous classes
he soon
gaged the futility of politics as a lever to pro
“
Thereupon as he says : I resumed
le t a ria n is m
my old p rofessio n of preacher though of w hat
”
p articular gosp el it would be di fficult to say
Unitarianism next attracted this r e stless being
and he became the f rie n d of Cha r ming whom
he evid e ntly loved but w h o w a s not the great
”
man ma n y supp osed him to be
In 18 36
when active ly began the ferment of w hich the
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B ROOK FAR M
2 44
Broo k Farm movement was one result Brown
son organized The S ociety for C hristian Union
and Progress
Protestantism was already so
distasteful to him as to give rise to a hope that
he might reconstruct Catholicism without re
gard ho w eve r to the historic church A bout
this time Bro w nson published his N ew V iews
”
of Christianity Society and the C hurc h of
“
which h e n a l ve ly says : it is the last word of
the n o n Catholic world
I n 1 8 3 8 followed his
e
l
i
u
a
r
t
r
R
e
v
ew
of which for five years he
Q
y
w a s almost as much author as editor
Charl e s
El w ood ( 1 8 40) is as R ipley w rote in the D ia l
a slender thread of narrative made to sustain
the most weighty argume n ts on the philosophy
”
of religion
Such interest as this book may
have to day lies in the fact that it elaborates the
th e ories of Cousin then much engaging Brown
son s attention A s he follow e d other illusions
so for a time he pursued St Simonism from
start to finish of its violent career Bro w nson
asserted w ith his usual bluntness that the
M e re Su p rém e w a s too extreme a dogma to
suit his masculine dignity
In 1 8 40 Bro w nson a w oke and found himself
conspicuous if not famous A llied for several
reasons with the Democratic Party he wrote in
that year a n essay o n the labo ring classes in
which he suggested t h e impairme n t by political
methods of corporation s and of the credit sys
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B ROOK FAR M
2 46
discovery and of his e n trance into the haven of
his s alvatio n through a channel indicated by a
kindly but dogmatic pilot There never can be
the least doubt as to the abiding satisfaction felt
by Bro w nson himself in his latest and as it
proved his final decision H e trump eted his
j oy on the hous e tops and from that time for
ward proclaim e d the defects of Protestantism to
his heart s conte n t H e despised the right of
private j udgment — h o w freely he had used it !
he saw in the dialectic method that p o w erful
adj unct of non C atholic thought not a philo
sophical method but a personal foe
I t is pathetic to have to recognize that Brown
son is a really forgotten man for at one tim e he
stood betw een contending forces a seemingly
powerful figure But against the subtle in
dividualism of the Protestant mind h e con
tended w ith sin gularly little result So doughty
a champion probably inspired his new friends
w ith a measure of dismay w hile it may fairly
be doubted if he ever succeeded in winning a
notable convert to his own new way of thinking
I n this resp ect the contrast betw een him and
Father H ecker is strikin g The unsymp athetic
mind commonly regards him as a sort of eccle
s ia s t ic a l recidivist
w h o havi n g tri e d one for m
of spiritual error soon abandoned it only t o
seek another which in turn he w ould presently
repudiate
H is conceit of w hich he alway s
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OR E STE S A B ROWNS O N
2 47
.
made frank ack n o w ledgment le d him firmly t o
maintain that all this was consistent progres s
The finest sentence he ever wrote according
to his acquaintance J os e ph H enry A llen was
“
one in which he upholds that glorious in c o n
sistency w hich does ho n or to human n ature
and makes men so much better than their
”
creeds
J ust b e fore the eventful change he had
discontinued in 1 8 4 3 his Qu a rt e r ly and had
immediately started another w hich w a s con
tin ned until 1 8 7 5 under the name of B ro w n s on s
H e died in 1 8 7 6
Qu a rt e rly R e vie w
Many considerations drove Brownson to his
great a ffirmation but one of them co n sidering
the natural audacity of the m an deserves atten
tion I t w a s nothing less than a strong desire
for personal safety in eternity or to use his
“
because he w ould escape hell and
o w n words :
gain heaven
H e told M r A llen that on
”
“
O ctober 2 0 1 8 44 he became a Christian
But supp ose asked his questio n er with mild
“
derision the p rocess that made you a Catholic
had stopped short at a certain point ; suppose
for instance that you had died on the nineteenth
“
of O ctober ?
I should have gone to hell
he r e plied instantly and grimly Like good
Christia n on his toilsome path to the City
though not afraid of an encount e r Bro w nson
kne w w hen it w a s tim e to use his l e gs
I t is unfortunate that so few traditions remain
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B ROOK FAR M
2 48
’
of Brownson s contact w ith B rook Farm for
he went there at t h e most c ritical moment of
his life w he n as a Brook Farmer once said
”
he walked backward into the Catholic church
A few anecdotes indicate plainly that w hen
Bro w nson turned up the road leading to the
Hive he brought his disp utatiousness w ith him
and that he w a s apt to veer conversation around
to matters w hich interested him if n obody else
Mrs K irby says with her occasional tartness
“
that he was not the prince of gentlemen in
” “
debate
D o you approve of the priests of
the I nquisition roasting o ff the feet of children
”
under fourteen
Cornelia asked
Certainly
he replied according to the same authority
It was better for them to have their feet
roasted o ff in this w orld th an their souls to
be roasted forever in th e next
N o one can
doubt the sincerity of such a convert but he
was j ust as Sin cere in his errors as in his assur
a u ces and this is a snare to the carnally minded
Perhap s he himself has furnished an es cap e
“
from the dilemma when he says in the Spirit
”
“
R apper
I never was so constituted as to
be able to strike a balance between truth and
falsehood or to accept a principle and deny its
”
consequences
Brownson certainly was not a comfortable
man ; lack of breeding may cause a man to a p
p ear to be too ho n est It w ould be inte resting to
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B ROOK F AR M
250
serves up his old friends the Transcendental
is t s and other reformers with a strong coarse
relish The noblest of them is plainly carica
a thin spare man with
t u re d in M r Egerton
a large nose and a cast of Y a nkee shrewdness in
”
his not very handsome face
With his recession
however from early affiliations died Bro w nson s
real potency and certainly the picturesqueness
of his life Powerful as he was in argument
and logical statement he reste d a t last on a fal
lacy To one w h o once asked him how it was
that h e felt so sure of his final decision he re
“
plied : When I w a s a Presbyterian or a Uni
ve r s a lis t
or a Unitarian or whatever I m ay
have been I was sure each tim e that I was
”
right ; but now I know that I c a n n ot be wrong
“
B rownson gives a portrait of himself in The
”
Convert which is probably as j ust as it w ould
be p ossible for one to give in whom a desire of
self exculpation was ever alive I t is worth quot
ing : I am no saint never w a s and never shall
be a saint ; but I al w ays had and I trust I alw ays
shall have the honor of being regarded by my
friends and associates as imp olitic as rash im
prudent and impracticable I w a s and am in
my natural disposition frank truthful straight
forward and earnest ; and therefore have had
and I doubt n ot shall c arry to the grave with
me the reputation of being reckless ultra a
well meaning man pe rhaps an able man but so
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TH EO D OR E PARK E R
AN D
F RA NCIS
G
.
SH AW
25 1
fo n d of paradoxes and extre mes that he cannot
be r e lied o n and is more likely to inj ure than
se rve the cause he espouses So wise a n d pru
de n t men shake their h e ads when my name is
”
mentioned a n d disclaim all solidarity w ith me
Theodore Parker s frequent Visits to Th re Pa
odo
t h e Farm gave him a pleasant t w o mile k c , n d Fra
5
6
8 Ge o g e
w alk ev e ry f e w days across the fields from
Sh a w
his house on Centre Street in West R oxbury
a n d fur n ished him at least w holesom e exercise
Perso n al affection for Geo rg e R ipley w a s the
strongest element in his frie n dli n ess to w ard the
institution a lthough his se n se of humor was
gratified by much that went on th e re and per
hap s his recog n ition of certain non humorous
aspects of the life may have been deeper than
he cared to sho w
I t was Parker s w a y to dis
c over and laugh at the w eakness of reforms to
which he gave his support and it is certai n that
he a fforded some very practical assistance to
Brook Farm
The beginning of Par k er s own perplexities
w a s almost c oetaneous w ith the e stablishment
of Brook Farm for his Discourse of the Tra n
sient and Permanent in R eligion w hich w a s
preached at the ordination of Mr Shackford in
South B oston on M ay 1 9 1 8 4 1 o ccasioned
the division of the religious community for
and again st him Parker himself wrot e of this
“
discours e : T h e sentiments in the South B os
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B ROOK FAR M
252
ton sermon had so long been familiar to me I
had preached them s o often with no rebuke
that I w a s not aware of saying anything that
”
and at another time b e a ffirmed
w a s severe ;
in regard to this same matter that he had read
it to a frien d ( presumably R ipley ) who said it
w a s the weak e st thing Parker had w ritten for a
long while A s the defection of friends which
e nsued w a s a deeper grief to him because he
w a s quite unprep ared for it so the stanch a d
h e re n c e of R ipley and a f e w others was a greater
consolation
The obnoxious sermon was fol
lowed in the fall of 1 8 4 1 by his lectures in the
“
old M aso n ic Temple in B oston A Discourse
of M atters p ertaining to R eligion and the gulf
w a s p erceptibly widened by his utterances
The
substance of these lectures which w ere published
in an enlarged form in the spring of 1 8 4 2 was
carefully talked over w ith R ipley in whose liter
ary and philosophical j udgment he had the high
est confidence
Parker s critical faculty was
much less fine than that of R ipley his scholar
ship was less accurate and his intellectual tem
per less firm ; but the two m e n w ere in clos e
touch on most vital questions w idely as they
di ffered in method and were al w ays mutually
tolerant and sympathetic That Parker had at
one time some thought of B rook Farm as a
temporary residence he him self says in a letter
to Dr Francis on June 2 4 1 8 4 2
H aving
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B ROOK
2 54
FAR M
while they had strengthened and supported
each other Parker may have benefited more
from the frie n dship A s men they were e qually
honest ; but R ipley could give and take a rebuke
or a criticism more ge n erously than Parker ; he
could see his antagonist s side of an argume n t
more clearly than Parker ; and his caution often
p laced a wholesome check on Parker s impetu
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o s it
y
.
Parker made merry over the dress of the
community ; his congregation ho w ever always
numbered a fair percentage of Brook Farmers
who share d his religious sentiments and felt
the humanity beneath his blunt self assertion
H is library was freely opened to the youth of
the neighborhood ; but it is not known how
freely this o ffer was accepted for hardly a p er
son remains there to day who could have come
under his influence at that time T he little
church still stands having been temporarily
rescued from the destroying hand of improve
ment by the private means of one w h o will it
is hoped preserve this humble monument to
the memory of Theodore Parker s early strug
gles for religion as opposed to theology
H ad Emerson and Parker connected them
selves with Brook Farm the first bringing his
genius and the other his religious nature they
would have e ffectually add e d to the intellectual
equipment strong already in R ipley s philo
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TH EO DORE PARK E R
AN D
F RA NCIS G SH AW
.
25 5
’
ophical attainments Dwight s earnestness for
music and Mrs Ripley s a n d Da n a s devotion
to the school No ultimate results w ere changed
by their not j oining these allied forces ; yet had
they become Brook Farmers the humanities
would have been handsomely represented in a
sort of A grarian University
There ran in Parker s veins the blood of a
hard worki n g farming race shrewd to discover
the impractical side of a character or an under
taking Parker may through this inheritance
have reflected the general opinion of the ln
conspicuous yeomen of West R oxbury in his
standing off a little f rom his friends at the
Farm — not hostilely but some w hat quizzically
and disdai n fully as a countryman might who
knew himself to dig and delve on N e w Englan d
soil B esides the honest folk s who mainly com
p osed the population o f the town there were
several families of refinement and great respect
ability who lived there not exactly e n g ra n a
s e i n e u r but preservi n g the aloofness so char
g
a c t e ris t ic of our incomprehensible democracy
always w ith the peop le never of them A mong
these fa m ilies w ere the Shaws the R ussells
and a few others M r Francis George Shaw
o n e of the most estimable of these local patri
early gave his hand to Brook Farm
c ia n s
I f like Pa rker he e nt e rtain e d his own reserved
opinion as to the venture he went furthe r
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B ROO K FAR M
2 56
than Parker in extending sympathy From grad
u a ll
formed
social
intimacies
grew
deep
and
y
lasting friendships Years later Curtis married
Sha w s daughter the Sister of R obert Gould
Shaw We st R oxbury s loved and honored hero
of the Civil War A nother daughter Ellen mar
rl e d General Francis Cha r ming Barlo w
Shaw
is best remembered for excellent English ren
de rin gs of several foreign w orks of note espe
Consuelo w hich first
c ia lly of George Sand s
appeared in the H a r bing e r O f him shortly
after his death Curtis with the usual serenity
and delicacy of the Easy Chair w rote
H e was
allied by sympathy more than by much previous
actual association w ith the founders of B rook
Farm But when they c hose the site for their
enterprise not far from his house he w a s soon
in the pleasantest relations with the leaders for
their Spirit and purpo se were in harmony with
”
his o w n
H e w a s as useful to George R ipley
as to his nearer neighbor Theodore Parker and
his friendlines s to the A ssociation w a s the more
significant by reason of his social conservatism
Like a few other reserved men of his standing
he w a s a radical on the question of slavery and
was a friend to such leaders as Garrison when
this sort of allegiance cost something H e in
St in c t ive l
shunned
extravagance
of
life
but
his
y
home al w ays p reserved its i n dividuality H e
had sympathy and hea rtiness and an undying
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B ROO K FAR M
2 58
In personal appearance he was of the p ic t u
re s q u e typ e of beauty w ith much dark curling
hair a broad forehead delicately cut features
and great sensitivenes s of expression
Tall
s light and graceful h e was an alluring presence
at all times and especially w hen as at B roo k
Farm his imagination was kindled and his sym
a
h
t
i
e
s
strongest
p
Cranch had been graduated from Columbian
University in 1 8 3 2 at the age of nineteen and
had then gone to the H arvard Divin ity School
w here he formed a friendship w ith Dwight who
w a s in the class below him C ra n c h s class being
that of 1 8 3 5 H is mi n istry had been brief for
he abandoned the pulpit in 1 8 42 in order to
study art abroad To this profession he devoted
the re m a in de r o f his life making his A merican
home in New York until some tim e before his
death when he went to Cambridge w here he
died in 1 8 92 Much of his life had been spe n t
in Europe largely in R ome a n d Paris and his
painting was distinctly above the average H is
poetical contributions to the H a r bing e r are grace
ful and give full evidence of his simplicity his
love of beauty a n d his buoyant hopefulness
H is sympathi e s w ere strongly w ith the Tran
s c e n de n t a l movem e n t a n d w ith Brook Farm as
an outcome of that movement I f perhaps it
was true of him that versatility was fatal to
achievement it is also true as Curtis wrote in
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E
LI ZAB ETH
P
.
PEAB ODY
2 59
that he was of that choice band who are
always true to the ideals of youth and whose
hearts are t h e citadels which conquering time
assails in vain
Few step s in the direction of social prog E l iz a b e t h
ress in Boston between 1 8 3 0 and 1 8 90 P a l m e r
P e a b ody
were taken w ithout obtai n ing the pro
n o u n c e d support of Elizabeth P Peabody
She
loved reforms not indiscriminately to be sure
but as the legitimate progeny varying in worth
of a common sentime n t Every moral e ffort to
her mind deserved encouragement and through
out her long a n d honorable life w e fin d her a
stanch friend of the negro and the I ndian a stu
dent o n subj ects ranging from Spiritual ism to
the K indergarten a writer and a publisher of
books H er rooms on West Street where s h e
had a circulati n g library w ere the resort of
the men and women w h o though of the literary
clan longed for action ; and the early Brook
Farmers and their friends — R ipley Par k er
Dwight S amuel R obbins Bro w n son and B urton
— frequently met here M arga ret Fuller whom
Miss Peabody since rely admired held her Con
in part of w hich
ve rs a t io n s in these rooms
Dr Nathaniel Peabody Elizabeth s father kept
a homoeopathic drug Sh O p
H er p assion for
knowledge was strictly impersonal for she was
not a whit more zealous to obtain it for herself
than to direct others to it
J ames Freeman
1 8 92 ,
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B ROO K FAR M
2 60
Clar k e has said that Sh e was always engaged
in supplying some want that had first to be cre
ated
The little sh 0p on West Street was allo
pathic indeed in t h e dispensing of cures for
social and m oral ills
A t sixteen she began to teach her first pupils
being her Sisters M ary and Sophia afterward
Mrs H orace M ann and M rs N athaniel H aw
thorne When she was eighteen she met Emer
son and induced him to give her lessons in
Greek for w hich the teacher later refused to be
paid because he thought he could teach her
nothing B oth these young creatures were shy
Emerson bein g a year older than herself and
not even a chatting acquaintance came from
their studies S he was Channing s literary assist
ant for a time and in 1 8 3 4 gave some in s t ru c
tion in M r A lcott s Temple School besides
taking do w n his conversations and publishi n g
”
them after w ard as the R ecord of a School
This intimate transcendentalist acquaintance
j oined with her delight in all spiritual agitatio n s
naturally enough awakened her interest in Brook
Farm ; but she was too busy a woman to pay
frequent or long visits to the community ; her
occasional coming however w a s counted as an
especial pleasure by her friends there
She
did not regard the Farm as a retreat in which to
forget the demands of the w orld up o n her as
Margaret Fuller frankly co n fessed to doing but
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B ROOK FAR M
2 62
in whom her enthusiasm had kindled a deep
resp onse is especially dedicated to the training
of the children of the poor by kindergarten
methods
M iss Peabody was the original of M iss Birds
eye in The B ostonians of H enry J ames —the
“
charming old lady who would smile more if
she had time
and s he w a s in her later life
known among her friends as the Grandmother
”
of B oston because she once filled the character
w
a rl e
s
in an ex h ibition of Mrs J
Wax
or
k
s
y
For some years before her death she was totally
blind but this affliction hampered her less than
would be sup posed
O n e incident of the ses
sions at the Concord S chool of Philosophy shows
th e resp ect in w hich she was universally held
Two young rep orters who were sent out to
write up the proceedings of one day were in
structed to make all the fun they chose of any
body but Miss Peabody — a creditable restraint
in the annals of the daily press
When she
died on January 3 1 8 94 in her ninetieth year
it was with her mental power almost u n dim in
is h e d and her childlike and effusive spirit u n
changed
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C H A PT E R V I
THE
CL O SING PE R I O D
T HE
principal factors of the latter days
w ere two
O ne w a s the introduction of
a form of Fourierism as modified by Mr
A lbert Brisba n e ; the other was t h e H a rbing e r
w hich was not only the o fficial organ of Fourier
ism in this cou n try but a literary feature in
the annals of Brook Farm so important as
to deserv e special attention both on its own
account and in connection with the D ia l Th e
D ia l and the H a r bing e r had f e w p oints of
resemblanc e but they belonged to the same
intellectual family N either of them espoused
directly the cause which it represented The
D ia l was edite d a n d conducted by the Tran
s c e n de n t a lis t s
of B oston and Concord but it
contain ed no direct advocacy of the cult This
proved a source of strength and has mad e the
D ia l an integral fragm e nt in the history of
A merican letters T h e H a rb ing e r devoted itself
to the cause of A ssociation and Fourierism neg
leetin g almost w holly the immediate and urgent
interests of B rook Farm This p olicy which
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2 63
,
B ROO K F AR M
2 64
deliberate turned out to be a mista k e for
”
“
it w ould have been legitimate for an organ
such as this paper unquestionably was to inform
its friends and the public generally regarding
matters in which much interest to say nothing
of curiosity was constantly manifested
The a ffinity b etwen the D ia l and Brook Farm
alone may here claim attention
When the
H a rbing e r was born the older magazine was
already dead ; but almost all w h o had written
for the D ia l wrote also for the new j ournal
Several of the contributors to the t ra n s c e n
dental quarterly became active Brook Farmers
I n volume two of the D ia l appeared three
“
papers : one entitled Prophecy T ra n s c e n de n
”
“
Progress ; the second
A G limp se of
t a lis m
”
“
Christ s I dea of Society ; the third
Plan of
—
the West R oxbury Community
the last two
by M iss Peabody ; in volume three one paper
“
entitled Fourierism and Socialism in t ro du c
ing another by Brisbane ; and in volum e four a
”
“
paper on Brook Farm by Charles Lane and
”
“
—
one on Fourierism
by Miss Peabody all
imp ortant contemporary matter bearing directly
or indirectly on the history and the conditions of
the A ssociation from a friendly but not always
approbative source and constituting the only
powerful influence outside itself except the
Tr ib u n e in N ew York which Broo k Farm e ver
had
w as
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2 66
B ROO K FAR M
b ing e r
was a generous quarto with three col
u m n s to a page of no beauty of type or paper ;
it was less attractive than the D ia l although it
was reputably and clearly printed I t appeared
wee k ly and its subscription price w a s t w o
dollars a year in advance and one dollar for six
months A single copy could b e bought for Six
and a quarter cents There were several agents
at various times p articularly in N e w York Bos
ton and Cincinnati The advertisements were
very few R ip ley s introductory notice in the
first number w a s m arked by great moderation
without a word relating directly to Brook Farm
“
The good of all mankind w a s the keynote : our
m otto is the elevation of the w hole human race in
mind morals and manners and the means
orderly and progressive reform
We shall
su ffer n o attachment to literature no taste for
abstract discussion no love of pure ly intel
lectual theories to seduce us from our devotion
to the cause of the O ppressed the down trodden
the insulted and inj ured masses of our fellow
”
men
I n regard to the constituency R ipley
“
closes : We look for an audience among the
refined an d educated classes
but we shall
also be read by the swart and sweaty artisan
The artisan and the cultured were ready to hand
at Broo k Farm not so much to read as to make
the Ha rbing e r which owes its existence to this
It was a necessity in fact that
c ombination
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H AR BING E R
TH E
2 67
ome such proj ect be underta k en to provide
wor k for the in coming members skilled to what
they had already learned to do and of little use
in the farm w ork The A ssociation could have
furnished intelligence but the Phalanx alone
provided technical skill ; and there w a s enough
literary cap acity left over from the early A sso
ciates to furnish copy for the Printe r s Group
S o far then it was not a n unwise business
undertaking but its results were more far reach
ing than w a s anticip ated I t not only gave im
mediate work to compositors and pressmen but
it brought forward in a definite way literary apti
tudes which needed soil for a start and which
grew sturdily after the paper had stopp e d
I t is not safe to say how many copies of the
H a rb ing e r were disp osed of
I n number five
of volume one it is stated that a circulation of
one thousand had been reached and that n e w
”
names were coming in every day
There is
little probability that a distribution of t w o
thousand copies w a s ever attained
R ipley
was editor in chief and even after the paper
was transferred to N ew York he contin ued in
his position at a s alary of five dollars a week
while D w ight and W H Cha r ming were re
t a in e d as B oston contributors
The list of
writers was strong : from N ew York were eight
men — Brisbane Cha r ming Cranch Curtis
Godwin Greeley and O sborne M acdaniel ; from
s
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B ROOK FAR M
2 68
Brook Farm five —
R ipley Dwight Dana
O rvis R yckman ; from B oston six
H iggin
son Story O tis Clapp Dr Walter Cha r ming
W F Cha r mi n g and J ames Freeman Clar k e ;
also Lo w ell from Cambridge Shaw from
West R oxbury Whittier from A mesbury J A
Saxton from D e e rfie ld A J D u ga n n e from
Philadelp hia and E P Grant from O hio There
were other co n tributors among them A llen and
Pallisse of Brook Farm W E Cha rm ing the
poet H edge Stephen Pearl A ndrews S D
R obbins and a f e w more
The heaviest articles and editorials came from
R ipley D ana and Brisbane ; and now and then
D w ight would w rit e something on A ssociation
or an allied topic w hich seemed a little more
luminous than the do w nrightness of R ipley or
the fierce polemic tone of Dana w h o besides
these serious e fforts did many boo k revie w s
spo k en of elsewhere and a number of poems
w hich had force and earnestness though little
D w ight naturally confined himself
s w eetness
m ainly to musical criticism and the extolment
of the art which he loved so devotedly M r
Cooke goes so far as to say that the H a rbing e r
became one of the best musical j ournals the
”
country has ever possessed
A valuable addition to the musical featur e
was the correspondence of Curtis from N ew
York The p oetry was m ainly furnished by
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B ROOK FAR M
2 70
guage one in Esthonian and one in Germ an
Thus the literary traditions of Broo k Farm a re
still locally maintained
When Charles Fourier the son of a
B fis
French linen draper died in 1 8 3 7 at the
age of sixty five his theories were not well
known in this country I n an article on
Fourierism which appeared in the D ia l for A p ril
“
1 8 44 M iss Peabody wrote that the
works of
”
Fourier do not seem to have reached us and
“
that sh e had entertained
remembrances of
vague horror connected with his n ame To
criticise or to elucidate Fourierism now is u n
necessary A dmirably did Emerson penetrate
“
the mesh whe n he said that Fourier
had
skip ped n o fact but one namely Life and
“
that he
carried a w hole French revolution
”
in his head and much more
The single
p oint of interest is to understand how such a
theory could have found even partial accept
ance with H orace Greeley Parke Godwin
—
M argaret Fuller George R ipley all possessed
of sound mind and disp osition — to say nothin g
of the lesser k no w n Fourierists like Byllesby
Skidmore and others Even in London w here
men are hard headed the P b a la n x under the
editorship of Hugh D oherty was making good
head w ay fi rst as a weekly then as a monthly
j ournal
To A lbert Brisbane belongs the re
sponsibility of importing the Frenchman s doc
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A LB E RT B R ISB AN E
FO U R I E R ISM
AN D
27 1
trine to this cou n try and of inf e cting the
shrewd Yankee intelligence w ith its allure
ments
H orace Greeley was the ablest and
easiest victim ; but it was not long before the
staff of the Tr ib u n e which first appeared in
A pril 1 8 4 1 w a s w ell infused with Fourierism
B risbane w a s bo rn in 1 8 09 at B atavia N Y
and spent his early manhood in study in various
parts of Europe and in travelling e xte n sively
there as well as in Turkey and A sia Minor
O f sound education and good intellectual train
ing he was also of an honest kindl y and rather
innocent character Sympathetic by nature he
was impressed by what he believed to be the
unnecessary sufferings of humanity and was
deeply stirred by the i n j ustice of the social sys
tem
I n this mood it was easy for him to
become profoundly attracted by Fourier s A sso
w hich prom
c ia t io n and A ttractive I ndustry
ised all that the fondest dreamer for better days
could hope H is i n terest expressed itself through
his Social Destiny of M an or A ssociation and
”
R eorganization of I ndustry published at Phila
delphia in 1 8 40 w hen he was about thirty years
“
of age This was follo w ed by A Co n cise Exp o
”
s it io n of the Doctrine of A ssociatio n
which it
may be supp osed had the most immediate e ffect
on the members at Brook Farm H e was in
moderate but not depe n de n t circumstances and
would prosecute no business for merely personal
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B ROO K FAR M
2 72
gain
Though scornful of trivial discussions
he was devoid of fanaticism and intolerance
I t was his opinion that A merica not France was
the true field for this gospel ; though an A mer
ican he lacked the national quality of humor
the possession of which would have saved
him some Gallic extravagances Emerson was
amused to see that Brisbane in his e a rnestness
“
—
m ade everything reducible to order
even the
hy aena the j ackal the gnat the bug the flea
were all beneficial p arts of the system
but it
”
took 1 68 0 m en to m ake one M an
R espect
ing Brisbane s seriousness A rthur S umner tells
of a group of Broo k Farmers lying out in the
”
m oonlight
What a heavenly moon ! said
one
Miserable world Damned bad moon !
“
was poor Brisbane s rep ly The A y it s a sad
”
of the dyspeptic Carlyle as he looked
Sicht
with Leigh Hunt at the starry heavens hardly
equals this cosmic despair
Distrusting with Fourier all can t regarding
”
the progress of humanity Brisbane fell back
li k e the M aster on the perfection of nature H e
confined himself in his writings to the elucida
tion and modification of the social schemes
of Fourier leaving superterrestrial regions
”
“
fairly well alone
Philosopher Brisbane as
the N e w Yo rb H e ra la w a s pleased to call him
was sincere but he had certain dangerous men
tal qualities M iss R ussell who w a s never con
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B ROO K FAR M
2 74
back with him from ab road a plan for the
rehabilitation of the universe and who found
Greeley ready to listen even to news f rom the
moon By lectures and conversation s Brisbane
began to make headway Six months after
the Tr ib u n e appeared there was a formal notice
of o n e of Brisba n e s lectures followed a few
weeks later by warmer commendation Early
in the n ext year a column on the first page of
the Tr ibu n e the daily and weekly circulation
of which then exceeded twenty thousand copies
was purchased by a few votaries with the u n
de rs t a n din g that it was to be filled by the pro
du c t io n s of Brisbane s pen pushed as the D ia l
“
w ith all the force of memory
says
talent
”
honest faith and imp ortunacy
This column
was faithfully employed though not always
daily until the middle of 1 8 44 when the writer
revisited Europe Like the rest of Brisbane s
writin gs these contributions make hard reading
to d ay ; they w ere doggedly sincere never by
accident brillia n t and they finally did win atten
tion Fourierism was at last in the a ir and it
was kno w n that Greeley w a s infected by it
Not that he or his paper really i n dorsed Fou
rie ris m
but they encouraged it Greeley was
too radical to trust any scheme absolutely I t
is co rroborative of the progress w hich Fourier
ism was really making pa rticularly in the city
of N e w York that the Society Library a highly
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A L B ERT B R ISB AN E
F O UR I ER ISM
AN D
275
co n servative i n stitution should ha ve opened its
Greeley
rooms in 1 8 44 to lectures by Godwin
and W H Cha r mi n g
There soon bega n attacks personal and gen
eral from ce rtai n papers in particular from the
R oc b e s t e r E ve n ing P os t the N e w Yo rb E xp re s s
the most
a n d from the Cou r ie r a n d E n qu ire r
powerful of all antagonists I n the fall of 1 8 46
when about two hundred thousand A merican s
are said to have acknowledged the name of
Fourierists there was opened a battle r oyal
between the quills of H orace G reeley and H enry
R
aymond
formerly
on
Greeley
s
staff
and
J
then writin g for Colonel J ames Watson Webb s
I t w a s occasioned by
Co u rie r a n d E n qu ire r
a l e tter written by B risbane o n his return from
Europe in 1 8 46 to the Cou r ie r a n d E n q u ire r but
printed in the Tribu n e
For six months and
in t w enty four articles after w ard gathered into
book form raged this spirited and abl e contro
Parton w h o n e ver w rote a dull line has
ve r s y
with all his best vivacity condensed the d e bate
into a f e w p ages of his campaign life of Greeley
The co n test e nded w ith a generally admitted
triumph of skill on the part of R aymond over
Greeley s earn estness The Tr ib u n e a c k n o w l
edged no defeat e xc e pt by a sudde n sile n ce after
t h e last argume n t by R aymond on M ay 2 0 1 8 4 7
There w ere occasional and not unfriendly allu
sions to Fourierism but the Tr ibu n e as an
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B ROOK F AR M
2 76
active j ournal withdre w its ap proval I f h o w
ever Greeley no longer waved the banner of
F o u rie ris m he did not relin quish his e fforts for
social amelioration A s late as 1 8 68 he r c af
firmed a faith in A ssociation and rej ected Com
m u n is m as at war with one of the strongest
and most universal instincts
Greeley took a deep and practical interest in
Brook Farm ; several of his intimate and trusted
friends were there and he was glad to sustain
them by kindly encouragement in the Tribu n e
and by an o ccasional Visit M iss R ussell relates
amusingly the comin g of an apparition which
roved
to
be
Greeley
not
in
disguise
but
p
“
simp ly his astonishing self
H is hair was
so light that it was almost white ; he wore a
white hat ; his face was entirely colorless even
the eyes not adding much to save it from its
ghostly hue H is coat was a very light drab
almost white an d his nether garments the
same
This A postle of Light however odd
his personality was w elcom e to the c o m m u
n it
to
which
he
was
never
disloyal
though
his
y
heart was more with the North A merican
Phalanx a visit to which was easier for so
busy a man
Little as they saw of him
Greeley s good will was valued by the Brook
Farmers none of whom is known to have held
Emerson s opinion that he w a s b oth coars e and
cunning Through n o fault of his own Greeley
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B ROOK F AR M
2 78
igned by J A Collins N H Whiting J ohn
O rvis and J O Wattles for a meeting at the
Community in Skaneateles N ew York on
O ctober 1 4 and I 5 1 8 4 3 in the interest of a
reorganization of the social system by a com
munity of property and interest throughout
the country This was hardly more than a
straw ; but in the December number of Chan
ming s j ournal there was a call for a c o n ve n
tion of the friends of Social R eform in N ew
England and else w here to be holden in B oston
on December 2 6 and 2 7 1 8 4 3 A mong the
signers of this call were three members of the
N orthampton A ssociation ; five persons from
Lynn M assachusetts ; seven from Boston ;
one from Lowell ; F S C abot J ohn A llen
George C Leach from R oxbury M assachusetts
all
Brook
Farmers
and
L
W
R
yckman
Brook
(
)
Farm I t w a s felt that the time w a s rip e for
testing Fourier s theory of A ttractive I ndustry
an d of Passional H armo n ies Cha r ming warmly
commended this call ; w hile admiring Fourier s
accuracy
gorgeous and stup endous imagina
”
tion conscientiousness and other brave virtues
he sent out a word of warning against his s w ee p
ing censure of society his arrogance toward
morbid impatience with what
c riticism and his
”
he thought error hypocrisy or pretension
Evidently o n December 1 5 1 8 4 3 neither Chan
nin g nor the more prominent members of Broo k
S
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A LB E RT B R ISB AN E
AN D
FO U R I E R ISM
2 79
Farm were committed on paper to Brisbane and
A mericanized Fourierism I n the next number
of the P re s e n t ( January 1 8 44) is a full story of
the convention which lasted over from the last
week of D ecember into the first wee k of Jan
“
uary a n d marked in Channing s words
an
era in the history of N e w England
I t proved
to be a veritable love feast of the associations
at N orthampton H opedale and Brook Farm ;
it w a s p lain that the drift of the convention as
a w hole w a s Fo u rie rw a rd N ot forgetting his
former strictures Cha r ming said that it at last
“
se e med to him that Fourier had given us the
clew out of our scientific labyrinth and rev e aled
”
the means of living the law of love
A ssocia
tion w a s upheld but there was some passing
friction betw een the communal and associative
ideals The resolutions indorsed Fourier and
“
hoped to see a test of the actual working of
”
his princip les
O n J anuary 1 8 1 8 44 ap peared a second
edition of the constitution of the Brook Farm
A ssociation p rinted in the M arch issue of th e
P re s e n t and prefaced by an important state
m ent signed by R ipley Pratt and Dana A fter
summarizing the existing conditions and a dva n
tages of the Farm they continued as follows
“
With a view to the ultimate expansion into a
perfect Phalanx we desire without any delay
to or ganize t h e three primary dep a rtmen t s of
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B ROO K FAR M
280
labor namely A griculture D omestic I ndustry
”
and the M echanic A rts
This change so
radical and so fateful was thus definitely a n
A decision w a s certainly reached
n ou n c e d
with remar k able promptness after the Decem
ber convention but there is reason to suppos e
that it had been for some time slowly forming
in the minds of the real leaders
Brisbane was deeply interested in this change
which his influence no one knows how directly
H e lectured and visited
did s o much to e ffect
at Brook Farm and at one time remained there
for several months H e showed a deep solici
tude for a ris k in which indeed so much of
his own reputation w a s practically invested
Letters exist which Show his c oncern for the
financial condition ; he offered practical s u gge s
tion s in regard to securing capital and placin g
stock ; notwithstanding this desire to be of ser
vice among the friends of Brook Farm in N ew
Yor k he like others there was then deeply im
m e rs e d in the a ffairs at R ed B ank and was in no
position to shoulder actual resp onsibility I t is
evident that his main usefulness was confined to
giving advice and to supp lying moral fervor
I n two years more the tide of Fourierism had
begun to ebb and it carried out with it Broo k
Farm But two vestiges were left on seemingly
sur e foundations — the North A merican Pha
lanx which l a sted fourteen years and of which
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L I S T O F B O O KS A N D M A G A Z I N E
A R TI C L E S C I TE D O R U S E D
N OTE
—Thi li t th ugh
s
s
o
,
c om
AL C O T T , A B
b l ful
b ib l i gr ph y
o f re a s o n a
pl
La
e te
e
o
ness
a
,
is
n o t o ffe re
d
as
a
.
P e a b o dy ; Sa n b o rn
A L CO TT LO UI SA M A Y He r L ife L e t t e rs a n d J o u rn a l s
B o s t o n : R o b e rt s B ro t h e rs 1 8 8 9 E s p e c ia lly t h e
”
“
—
F ru it l a n ds pp 3 2—
c ha pt e r o n
T ra n s c e n d e n t a l
55
W ild O a ts ( in h e r S ilve r P it c h e rs )
A L E ! AN D E R J W a n d D OD A B T w o A rt ic l e s fro m
t h e P rin c e t o n R e v ie w c o n c e rn in g t h e T ra n s c e n d e n t a l
P h il o s o p h y o f t h e G e rm a n s a n d o f C o u s in a n d it s
I n fl u e n c e o n O p in io n in t h is C o u n t ry C a m b ridg e
J O w e n 1 8 40
H is t o riqu e de I Ec o le So c iéta ire fo n d ée p a r
AL H A I ZA A
F o u rie r P a ris 1 8 94
A LLE N J H Ou r L ib e ral M o v e m e n t in T h e o l o gy B o s
t o n : R o b e rt s
1 8 8 2 — S e q u e l t o O u r L ib e ra l M o v e
m e nt
B o s t o n : R o b e rt s B ro t h e rs 1 8 97
P rin t e d
As s o c ia t io n a s illu s t ra t e d b y Fo u rie r s S y s t e m
fo r t h e A m e ric a n U n io n o f A s s o c ia t io n is t s
B os ton
Se e
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1 8 47
.
”b y
B RA DFO R D G P
R e m in is c e n c e s o f B roo k Fa rm
n Ce n t u ry M a a z in e
I
a M e m b e r o f t h e C o m m u n it y
g
(
1 8 9 2 V o l 4 5 pp 1 4 1
B R I SB A N E A
A C o n c is e E xp o s it i o n o f t h e D o c t rin e
2d e d
N Y : J R e dfie ld 1 8 43
o f A s s o c ia t io n
and
A t t ra c t iv e I n du s t ry
A s s o c ia t io n
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1 8 42 ,
283
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Life ( In Sa m e , 1 8 42 , Ne w Se rie s , V ol
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of
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B R I SB ANE
A l b e rt B ris b a n e : A M e n t a l B iog
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by
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B OO KS
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C o n s t it u t io n o f t h e B ro o k F a rm As s oc ia t io n fo r In
du s t ry a n d E du c a t io n w it h a n in t ro du c t o ry St a t e
m e nt
2 d e d w it h t h e B y l a w s
B os t o n 1 8 44
T h e C o m m u n it y a t W e s t R o x b u ry
o k F a rm P h a l a n x
y
M a s s n p n d — C o n s t it u t io n a d o p t e d Ma y14 1 845
”
“
B R OWN SON O A
B ro o k F a rm
( In Un it e d S t a t e s
M a ga z in e a n d D e m oc r a t ic R e vie w 1 8 42 N e w S e rie s
C ha rl e s E l w oo d o r t h e I n fid e l
V o l 1 1 pp 48 1
C o n v e rt e d B o s t o n : L it t l e a n d B ro w n 1 8 40 — T h e
C o n v e rt o r L e a v e s fro m M y E xp e rie n c e N Y :
D u n ig a n 1 8 5 7
N e w e d it io n e d it e d b y H F B ro w n
s on
N Y : S a dl ie r
Co 1 8 77 — E s s a y s a n d R e
v ie w s c h ie fly o n T h e o l o gy P o l it ic s a n d S o c ia l is m
N Y S a dlie r C o 1 8 5 2 —T h e L a b o rin g Cl a s s e s
a n A rt ic l e fro m t h e B os t on Qu a r t e r ly R e vie w
B os
ton : B
H G re e n e 1 8 40 — T h e Sp irit R a pp e r a n
A u t o b io g ra ph y B o s t o n : L it t l e B ro w n Co 1 8 5 4
B ROWN SON H F O re s t e s A B ro w n s o n s E a rly L ife
fro m 1 8 03 t o 1 8 44 D e t ro it 1 8 98
B UR R A GE H S e d it o r B ro w n Un iv e rs it y in t he C iv il
W a r P ro v id e n c e 1 8 68
B URTO N W T h e D is t ric t S c h oo l a s it w as B y o n e
Re v e d
B o s t o n : P h ill ip s S a m p
w h o w e n t t o it
H e lp s t o E du c a t io n in t h e H o m e s
s on
Co 1 8 5 0 —
B o s t o n : C ro s b y a n d N ic h o l s
of
O u r C o u n t ry
1 8 63 —M y
R e l ig io u s
at
m y N a t iv e
E xp e rie n c e
H o m e B o s t o n 1 8 3 2 —T h e S c e n e ry S h o w e r B os
t o n : W D T ic k n o r
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L IST O F B OO KS
286
C OO K E
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B roo k F a rm
( In N e w E ngla n d M a ga
—J o h n S ull iva n
z in e
1 8 97
V o l 2 3 pp 3 9 1
D w ig h t B ro o k F a rm e r E d it o r a n d C rit ic o f Mu s ic
—
B o s t o n : S m a ll M a y n a rd
18 8
R
lp
Co
a
h
9
W a ld o E m e rs o n : H is L ife W rit in gs a n d Ph il o s o
B o s t o n : J R O s g oo d 1 8 8 1 Se e Cu rt is
phy
C UR T I S G W E a rly L e t t e rs t o J o h n S D w igh t B ro o k
F a rm a n d C o n c o rd E d it e d b y G W C o o k e N e w
Y o rk : H a rp e r 1 8 98 — F ra n c is G e o rg e S h a w ( In
O t h e r E s s a y s fro m t h e E a sy C/za ir
N e w Y o rk
—F ro m t h e E a sy Cb a ir S e rie s 1 —3 N e w
—
Y o rk : H a rp e r a n d B ro s 1 8 92—
1 8 94
v
l
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e
3
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N o t e s o f a Ho w a dj l [A n o n ! N e w Y o rk : H a rp e r
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D A L L,
C A R O LI NE W E LL S M a rg a re t a n d H e r F rie n d s
o r T e n C o n v e rs a t io n s w it h M a rga re t Full e r
B os ton
R o b e rt s B ro t h e rs 1 8 95 —T ra n s c e n d e n t a l is m in N e w
Bos to n
E n g la n d
D A NA C A
A L e c t u re o n A s s o c ia t io n in It s C o n n e c
t io n w it h R e l ig io n M a rc h 7 1 8 44
B o s t on : B H
G re e n e 1 8 44
D ia l Tb e : a M a g a z in e fo r L it e ra t u re P hil o s o p h y a n d
R e l igio n V o l s 1 —4 B o s t o n a n d L o n d o n 1 8 4 1 44
“
T h e T ra n s c e n d e n t a l M o v e m e n t a n d L it e r
DOW D E N E
l
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on t e m
or a ry R e vie w
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2 97
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Le c t u
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du c a t io n B o s t o n : B H G re e n e 1 8 44
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n A t la n t ic M on t /
ily
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s c
e a n s o f Cul t u re
(
— E d it o r D w zglzt s
26
pp 3 2 1
1 8 70
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of
S e l e c t M in o r P o e m s T ra n s l a t e d fro m t h e G e rm a n
1 Fi t
pp d i H p M g i f J u y 1 8 8 3 p 3 06
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l a t ive P b il os op /zy , V O L 2 3 .
L IST O F B OO KS
28 7
S c h ille r W it h n o t e s b y J o h n S
D w igh t
B o s t o n : H ill ia rd G ra y
Co
1 83 9
n s o f F o re ig n S t a n d a rd L it e ra t u re
e
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C o o k e ; Cu rt is
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M a rga re t Full e r ( In h e r E s s a ys a n d
R e v ie w s B o s t o n
E L LI O TT W
T h e L ife o f F a t h e r H e c k e r
N e w Y o rk
C o lu m b u s P re s s 1 8 9 1
E LLI S C M
A n E s s a y o n T ra n s c e n d e n t a l is m
A
n
n
o
[
!
B o s t o n : C ro c k e r a n d R u ggl e s 1 8 42
E m e rs o n in C o n c o rd
W
B os ton
E M E R SON E
H o u gh t o n M ifflin a n d Co 1 8 8 9
”
Fo u rie ris m a n d t h e So c ia l is t s
E M E R SON R W
( In
“
—
D ia l 1 8 42 V o l 3 pp 8 6
C ha rd o n S t re e t
”
n
B ib l e C o n v e n t io n s
and
I
D
i
al
2
l
1
8
V
o
4
3
(
”
pp 1 00
E n g l is h R e fo rm e rs
n
I
D ia l
(
“
—
H is t o ric
O c t o b e r 1 8 42 V o l 3 pp 2 2 7
”
N o t e s o f Life a n d L e tt e rs in M a s s a c h u s e t ts
n
I
(
l
A t la n t ic M on t ily 1 8 8 3 V o l 5 3 pp 5 2 9—
5 43 ; a l s o in
his L e c t u re s a n d B io g ra p h ic a l S k e t c h e s 1 8 8 4 pp
re s o n t h e
m
8
i
L
t
u
T
L e c tu re III
c
es
e
33
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n D ia l
1
l
pp
8
V
T h e T ra n s c e n d e n t a l is t
o
4
3
3
(
”
“
I
n D ia l
1841
M a n t h e R e fo rm e r
2 97
(
— Se e C a b o t ; C h a p m a n ; C o o k e ;
V o l I pp 5 2 3
F u l l e r ; H o l m e s ; S a n b o rn
F OUR I E R F M C (E u vre s c o m pl et e s P a ris 1 8 4 1—
48
6v
Se e Al h a iz a ; A s s o c ia t io n ; B ris b a n e ; G o d w in ;
H a rb in ge r ; Pe lla rin ; P h a l a n x ; Wa rs c h a u e r
F R OTH I N G HA M O B G e o rge R ipl e y B o s t o n : H o ugh t o n
m
ric a n M e n o f L e t t e rs !
A
e
M ifflin a n d Co 1 8 8 2
[
M e m o ir o f W H C h a r min g B o s t o n : H o ugh t o n
M itfiin a n d Co 1 8 8 6 — R e c o ll e c t io n s a n d I m p re s
G oe t he
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2 47
25 5 . 28 1
o
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a s
du
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n
,
LIST O F B OOK S
28 8
Y o rk :
P Pu t n a m s S o n s 1 8 9 1
T h e o d o re P a rk e r : a B io g ra p h y B o s t o n : O s g o o d
T ra n s c e n de n t a 1is m in N e w E n gl a n d
1 8 74
Ne w
Y o rk : G P Put n a m s S o n s 1 8 7 6
F ULL E R M a rga re t M a rc h e s a d O s s o li M e m o irs B o s t o n
P hill ip s Sa m p s o n a n d C o 1 8 5 2 2 Vo l s 1 —Se e
E l io t G e o rg e ; H igg in s o n ; K n o rt z
G O DW I N Pa rk e G e o rge W ill ia m Cu rt is A C o m m e m o
ra t ive A dd re s s b e fo re t h e C e n t u ry A s s o c ia t io n D e c
1 8 92
N e w Y o rk : H a rp e r 1 8 93 — A P o pul a r
17
V ie w o f t h e D o c t rin e s o f C h a rl e s F o u rie r N e w Y o rk :
s io n s
Ne w
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R e dfie ld,
G OR D ON
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,
War
Co
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1 8 44
of
B ro o k F a rm t o C e d a r M o u n t a in in
G re a t R e b e ll io n B o s t o n : O s go o d
.
the
18 8 3
.
.
th e
and
.
G R E E LE Y H
H in t s t o w a rd R e fo rm s
N e w Y o rk
H a rp e r l 8 5 o — R e c o ll e c t io n s o f a Bu s y Life N e w
Y o rk : J B F o rd a n d C o 1 8 68 — Se e I n ge rs o ll ;
P a rt o n ; So t h e ra n ; Za b ris k ie
G R E E NE W B T ra n s c e n d e n t a l is m W e s t B roo kfie ld
M a s s P re s s o f C o o k e a n d C o 1 8 49
H a r binge r Tb e d e v o t e d t o S oc ia l a n d P o l it ic a l P ro gre s s
Pu b l is h e d b y t h e B ro o k F a rm P h a l a n x
Vo l s 1 —
4
B os t on
N e w Y o rk : B u rg e s s S t rin g e r a n d C o
A ft e r V o l 4 t ra n s fe rre d
R e dd in g a n d C o 1 8 45 47
t o t h e A m e ric a n U n io n o f A s s o c ia t io n is t s a n d pu b
l is h e d in N e w Y o rk t ill F e b ru a ry 1 8 49
N a t h a n ie l H a w t h o rn e a n d h is W ife
H AW T H O R N E J
B o s t o n : J R O s go o d a n d C o 1 8 8 5 2 v o l s
T h e B l it h e da l e R o m a n c e
B os t o n
H A W T HO R N E N
T ic k n or R e e d a n d F ie lds 1 8 5 2 — P a s s a ge s fro m
ric a n N o t e b o o ks
A
m
B
t
n
:
T
i
k
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h
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F ie ld s 1 8 68 2 v o l s
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V ol 1
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u h;
Yo t
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Ca m
b id g b y J F C l k
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r
d
d B t b
C
Pl i b y W H Ch mi g ;
d it i d it d b y A B F ll
ence
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L I ST
2 90
OF B OOKS
4, pp 3 5 1
D ia l , 1 8 43 , V o l 4,
V ol
1 8 44,
n
I
(
pp
.
L I NCOLN W
—
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L if
Soc ia l
65 8 6,
.
T e n d e n c ie s
”
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18 8
T hirt y fo u rt h M as s In
W o rc e s t e r 1 8 7 9
fa n t ry in t h e W a r o f t h e R e be ll io n
”
M C G I NL E Y A A
B ro o k F a rm T o da y
n
t
I
/
to
l
i
c
C
a
(
pp 1 4
Wor ld 1 8 95 V o l
M A I GNE N C H AR L E S E t ud e s s u r l Am éric a n is m e
Le
P ere H e c k e r e s t il u n Sa in t ? R o m e : D e s c l ée Le
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1 8 99
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A m e ric a n La n d s
v o ls
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ol
pp
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7 13
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Dol o n
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Le t t e
and
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n A t la n t ic M on t b l ,
y
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n D ia l, 1 8 42 , V o l 3 , pp
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L
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112
F o rm o f In fi
C a m b ridge : J O w e n 1 8 3 9 — R e m a rk s o n
de l it y
a P a m p h l e t [b y G e o rg e R ipl e y !
e n t it l e d
T h e La t e s t
”
F o rm o f I n fid e l it y e x a m in e d
C a m b ridge : O w e n
A
,
A D is c o u rs e
1 8 8 4,
.
the
on
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t
ate s
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,
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1839
ORR,
J
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T ra n s c e n d e n t a l is m
The
.
I n t e r n a t ion a l R e vie w
O RV
IS J
,
of
c
A
.
Pl a n
18 8 2,
,
of
V ol
.
Ne w
13 ,
fo r t h e O rg a n iz a t io n
C o Op e ra t ive
St o re s
and
gn s
h a n ic s b u rg : So v e re i
P A RK E R
,
pp
.
.
38 1
M a n a ge m e n t
B o a rd s o f T ra d e M e
I n du s t ry B u ll e t in p rin t
a nd
.
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