Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs Part 5

"Yes, madam, we expect a great deal. The theory of our life is that a great saving can be made over ordinary ways of living. It now takes one hundred houses for one hundred families, and one hundred housekeepers, and probably, on the average, one hundred servants, one hundred kitchens, one hundred fires, and as many cooking stoves or ranges, and everything in proportion. Now by combining together the saving on the cost of all these houses and cooks, kitchens, coal and wood, dispensing with all unnecessary servants and labor, a house of magnificent proportions adapted to the wants of the combined families could be built, with elegant parlors for lectures, a.s.semblies and music; dining-rooms, kitchens and laundries which would not cost as much as the separate households full of inconvenience and discomfort.

"This economic side of our life is easily seen, but there are many other sides or phases that are not as readily comprehended. We are here as a protest to the unnatural life of our crowded cities. We are here to build society anew on juster principles, believing that if we once get a fair foothold, the inst.i.tution will be self-supporting, and so attractive that we shall have no need to seek for true, earnest workers; they will seek us, rather than we seek them, and we shall be able to choose of the best material for an eternal city where all will be rich in the fulness of the surrounding life, and the children will be educated from the start to industry, goodness and justice."

Among the pleasant pictures of memory is that of Thomas Blake as he appeared after he had changed his civilized clothes for a Brook Farm tunic of blue plaid, a "tarpaulin" straw hat and a neat broad rolling shirt collar of large dimensions that gracefully tended towards his square shoulders. I see again his dark, manly countenance lighted up by his keen brown eyes; his Roman features; his closely curling hair; his intellectual forehead and pleasant smile, and his very neat, "trig"

appearance. The new life seemed to fill him full of pleasure, and he was always ready for his share of work, study or enjoyment. His short, nautical figure and his name, Blake, soon earned him the complimentary t.i.tle, which with one accord we gave him, "the Admiral." A nearness of age brought us together, and a strong sympathy of tastes cemented our friendship. We worked, played, danced and sung together, and wandered up and down the paths and roads discussing social problems and all sorts of subjects, ever returning in our talks to our home life, its pleasures, aims and duties.

I thought that there was a little of the dapper look about John Glover Drew who arrived the same day with the Admiral, as I met him for the first time near the corner of the Hive. He seemed stiff and formal in dress and manner, and his face had in it the cool, matter-of-fact element which did not attract me; in fact he looked too "civilized."

His clothes were of fine materials; dress coat, silk vest and dark pantaloons. His stylish and plump person filled them out thoroughly. A tall silk hat set a trifle back on his head exposed his large forehead; a fob and seal that hung below his vest, in contrast to the Brook Farm dress, made an added conspicuousness to his appearance. I can see him now, in my mind's eye, lift his watch out of its secret enclosure and examine it to secure promptness of his engagements.

His large head was covered with dark, slightly curling hair. His smooth face, toned by a delicate beard and fine arching eyebrows, reminded one of the portraits of Shakespeare. His nose was short and round and his nostrils dilated when in animated conversation. The muscles of his firm mouth were ever on the play and gave life to his countenance, which when in repose a.s.sumed a heavy and somewhat stern appearance. The union between his head and body was made, apparently, by a high, stiff, black neck-stock.

He was fully of medium height, and healthy, but if one in his presence tried the blowing of a flute or the tuning of a violin it would set him in agonies, and the of his wrath was not forthcoming. He was wholly alive. There was not a point where you could touch him and not appreciate that the nerves of sensation vibrated and quivered. Droll and jocose in manner, he was constantly quoting from Shakespeare or the poets, of whom he had been a constant reader. He was witty, too, and did not disdain a pun, or repartee.

He had the elements of a good mercantile training, and was therefore just the man needed in the young a.s.sociation, and soon arose from one position to another, winning the meaner laurels of "chief of group" and "head of series," and in time became the "commercial agent" and member of the "Industrial Council." Thenceforth and ever after, he was more bustling than before, both in and out of doors; hovering around the barn with its horses and wagons; ever tackling up teams and starting for the city; unpacking boxes, bales and barrels; ever in conference with the chiefs, inquiring what was needed--anyone could see that almost everything was needed--and showing by his exterior the busy brain that worked within. Mr. Drew was an especial admirer of some of Byron's poems, and it was rumored around that the corners of newspapers had occasionally been garnished with the fruits of his pen.

Here let me say that first impressions in this case gave no index to the manly, brave spirit that was in him, which, true as steel, bore to the end witness to his belief in the truth and the divinity of the a.s.sociative and cooperative ideas.

There was in the farming group a healthy-looking young man, of ruddy countenance and fair skin, with brown hair and beard that grew luxuriantly, who soon made himself conspicuous by his individuality, his good nature and cheerfulness. There was a positive side to his character; he was in earnest, and he put himself by his earnestness into a positive way that to the superficial seemed to savor of the important, so that Irish John nicknamed him "John Almighty," and it stuck to him, as an old simile says, "like a burdock to a boy's trousers." His devotion was rewarded by chances to lecture. He became one of the faithful, and faithful he has always remained. Amid all the changes of life that have come to him since, and notwithstanding the many persons indoctrinated with Fourier's ideas, he has been for years almost the only man among them broadly advocating them and directly working for the laboring man by endeavoring to organize societies and industrial unions of various sorts for their benefit. I sincerely honor the devotion of John Orvis, continued through so many years of his life.

But what would be the use in sketching the characters that throng around me by the hundreds, who were a.s.sociated with this new life?

Good-natured, full-faced Frederick Cabot, of Boston, whose capacities were devoted to the bookkeeping department and who was clerk of the corporation, who was in the vigor of young manhood, unique of face and beard, with stout neck and low, rolling collar, when beards were absent and collars high; and plain, unpretending Buckley Hastings, who could work like a Trojan--were of them; and the corps of farmers and workers, male and female, who made the body politic, all were interesting, but they must be left out of this narrative, along with the great number of kind and sympathetic persons whose dear hearts encouraged, and whose dearer presence stimulated the a.s.sociation in its labor.

But it will hardly do to leave out John Cheevers from the list of strange characters on the farm, because, though he did not belong there as member and was as a barnacle on the body politic, he was so quaint and queer. He was Irish and came to America as valet to Sir John Caldwell, who died very suddenly at the Tremont House in Boston. Pity, compa.s.sion or the like induced Mr. Ripley to befriend him, and being introduced to the life he became, as may be said, omnipresent. His education, his refined tastes, seemed to spring from a crude and vigorous soil. Travel and contact with high and low made his conversation interesting, and the mystery of a supposed relationship with Sir John added a romance to his life.

His affection for many of the residents was very great. He was introduced into a.s.sociative life in "Transcendental days," and many a tale he told of the departed ones, often alluding to them as "extinct volcanoes of Transcendental nonsense and humb.u.g.g.e.ry."

Like many of his countrymen, he carried things to extremes. Extremes in language were the most common, for he had all the oiliness and glibness of an Emeraldic tongue, and in conversation, when a little excited, the words tumbled out with headlong velocity or flowed like molten bra.s.s into the mould of the founder, and, to carry the simile farther, some would sputter over. He had in his storehouse of language, many queer phrases and sayings that he brought out to embellish his conversation, some of which were only used as a _corps de reserve_, or brought into action when all others failed in argument.

He prophesied that all people, no matter how high they might carry their heads, would sooner or later "find their level." He believed in the practical. All "folly" and "nonsense" were eschewed by him, and yet no one was more fond of a joke than he, excepting when it was played on himself. John professed great love for the mother church if you attacked it; but if anyone spoke earnestly in its favor he was equally persuaded by him not to believe in such "Jesuitical nonsense and folly." His tunic dress, instead of being a blue one like what most of the men wore, was made of green plaid, but on Sundays, a dark blue "swallowtail" coat with bra.s.s b.u.t.tons made its appearance, and with shoes newly polished he was ready for church.

Unlike the majority of the men, who wore the hair moderately long, his was cut short to his pate, not a straggling hair protruding itself beyond the others. In deference to the seventh day, he exchanged his shirt of blue cotton for a white, well-starched linen one, and donned a high black lasting neck-stock and dark vest, and shaved his face so clean that it reflected his own sunshine if not the solar ray. In person he was of medium height, with a head of thick, dark, almost black hair, slightly sprinkled with gray, and his small dark eyebrows were high above his full eyes which were set almost flush with his forehead. The muscles of his face were prominent, and deep lines were marked around his large mouth with its long under lip, which half the time was on a broad grin.

He walked with a headlong sort of gait, his body slightly bent forward, deriving its motion from the lower portion of his frame, without that swaying of arms and chest so common, and which gives grace to motion.

He was ever moving, bustling about; ever inquiring--now for this one, then for another; occasionally taking from his pocket a small paper parcel into which he thrust finger and thumb mysteriously and guardedly, and turning half away from you would make the cabalistic motions common to imbibers of "old Rappee"; and having satisfied the desire of that extraordinary pug nose of his, would be off in a twinkling to some distant part of the farm, where you may be sure that he was edifying his hearers with a specimen of good-nature, and the peculiar intonations of a mellow voice flavored with genuine brogue.

There are two friends of the movement who cannot be left out, who were often on the farm, whose characters were very unlike and almost at antipodes; yet both were impressed with the a.s.sociative theories. One of them viewed them from a Christian and moral side, believing that Christianity favored them, that they were productive of the earthly end toward which the sublime doctrines of Christianity pointed; and the other believed that scientific social organization alone would act so powerfully as a stimulant and teacher to humanity, that mankind and human nature would gravitate to their own sublime places at once if an organization was presented suitable to their needs. They were Albert Brisbane and William Henry Channing.

Among the devoted friends there was no one for whom we had greater admiration and esteem than Rev. William Henry Channing. He was a Unitarian minister and a nephew of the celebrated Rev. William Ellery Channing. His figure was tall and stately, though rather slender. He carried himself finely, and walked with head erect. His features were sharp cut, clean and regular. His hair was dark and curling, and worn a trifle long for these days. His forehead was high and slightly retreating. His eyes were sharp and piercing, deeply set, with delicate dark eyebrows. His complexion was warm and brilliant, his beard closely shaven. He had a pleasant smile which, when it deepened, showed a fine set of white teeth. All of these physical signs were in his favor, but there was about his face, so handsome at times, an earnestness that seemed almost painful, when, devoted to the cause, he spoke with the burning, eloquent words he so often uttered.

In social life he was charming. His voice was soft and melodious; his education and talents were of the finest order. He was a firm believer in the mission of Jesus Christ to bring peace, order and justice out of our social chaos. He was an a.s.sociationist from the Christian side, if I may so speak. His belief in Christ was so thorough that it made him think all things possible that were Christlike, and he believed that a.s.sociated life contained more of the spirit of Christ in it than any other form of society, ancient or modern.

He desired to join the organization with his wife and young children, but Mrs. Channing did not, and we were deprived of his union with us, as well as of the company of a charming woman and her family. But he was around us like a protecting spirit. He spoke on social occasions to us. He was full of inspiration and full of hope, though his education was not of a practical sort after a worldly standard. He couldn't calculate market values. Neither could he organize a workshop or build a barn. His thoughts were for greater things; for everything that elevated large numbers of people--education, morals, faith, peace, anti-slavery and the good government of his country.

One Sabbath afternoon we were invited to meet with him in the near-by beautiful pine woods, for religious services; and like the Pilgrims and reformers of old, we there raised our voices in hymns of praise, and listened to a sermon of hopefulness from his eloquent lips. Would we had a picture of that marked company as they were seated around on the pine leaves that covered the ground, following their "attractions" by joining in groups with those they most admired or most sympathized with--young and fair, bright and cheerful, as they mostly were, with the warm sunlight glinting through the sighing pines; hearts and eyes illuminated with great thoughts; hands and faces browned with working for great, world-wide ideas. Memory is the only photograph of it, and be a.s.sured the picture is a beautiful one.

The church was Channing's first love, but he found it bound with creeds, and not broad enough to cover all humanity, as his great bounding heart did. After music and an inspiring address under the trees, and the arches of Nature's temple, looking heavenward, he said, "Let us all join hands and make a circle, the symbol of universal unity, and of the _at-one-ment_ of all men and women, and here form the Church of Humanity that shall cover the men and women of every nation and every clime."

Who shall say that it was not so?--that then and there was not formed one of the impulses of life, one of the branches of the spiritual church that shall live forever! Their daily toil, the thousand and one annoyances they had to submit to from uncomfortable surroundings and private discords--for no one need think that all the persons and those connected with them who came to Brook Farm were equally inspired and interested--and the risk of personal losses, were part of their pledge and baptism of earnestness.

Mr. Albert Brisbane, of New York, was equally tall with Mr. Channing, but of a type of features that was ordinarily less pleasing; wearing a full beard closely trimmed, intellectual in forehead and face, with a voice one could hardly call musical; a rapid, earnest talker; the travelled son of a wealthy man, who had spent some years abroad and in France, where he became acquainted personally with Fourier and with his doctrines of a.s.sociation, which had deeply impressed him. On his return to America he advocated them in the New York _Tribune_, and by the publication of two or more volumes, by active interest in a society, and by various writings for papers and magazines.

I do not know whether Mr. Brisbane owned stock in the Brook Farm a.s.sociation or not. Certainly he never gained any dividend by his labor there, but was an interested observer who boarded at the farm at intervals, sometimes pa.s.sing a few days only, and finally residing some months, occupied in the study and translation of Fourier's works.

He was an enthusiast, but his over enthusiastic moods influenced the Brook Farmers, it seemed to me, often-times unwisely. He saw the full-blown phalanstery coming like a comet and expected every moment.

We shortly would be in a blaze of glory! He loved to talk of the good things to be--of social problems worked out by science and by harmonic modes; to flatter himself that without great self-sacrifice, devotion and untiring industry, the world was to be regenerated. It seemed to his mind, that it could be done all at once by organization and enthusiasm, and it was only necessary to create enough of them to carry everything before them as in a bayonet charge.

He labored hard with the society to change its name to Phalanx, and to push the movement as far as possible into the formulas and organization described by Fourier, which did not advance it a single step in material or spiritual progress, and acted, as in the case of the const.i.tution, as a dead weight, owing to the burdensomeness of its details, which called for too much labor to keep the accounts of so complex an organization.

Having described a few of the many persons who were members of the a.s.sociation, I must speak of three noted persons who are very often accredited as belonging to the West Roxbury Community; they are Miss Margaret Fuller (afterwards Countess D'Ossoli), Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker. They were all personal friends of Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and belonged to the Transcendental Club. In the first period of the experiment the two former made lengthy visits at the farm, but during the Industrial Period only one of them, Mr. Parker, that I remember visited the place. I must except a single visit from Miss Fuller, whom I recall as plain-looking, and plainly to old-fashionedly dressed, with a crane-like neck and a long gold chain around it, which reached to her waist. She talked quite easily and freely, and the impression of the blue-stocking was left perhaps unfortunately on my mind.

Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson--for he had been an ordained minister--wrote for the _Dial_, furnished it with queer poems, wrote articles on the wrongs of labor, and agreed fully with Mr. Ripley on so many points that he has been mistaken many times for a Brook Farmer.

Concord, Ma.s.sachusetts, Mr. Emerson's home, contained a marked radical centre, and some of the Concord people were affiliated by kinship and by sympathy with the Brook Farm people from first to last during the entire experiment. Mr. Ripley invited Mr. Emerson to join it, but he declined in a letter which may be found in Mr. Frothingham's "Life of George Ripley," Appendix, page 315. I make the following extract:--

"My Dear Sir: It is quite time that I made an answer to your proposition that I should venture into your new community. The design appears to me n.o.ble and generous, proceeding as I plainly see, from nothing covert or selfish or ambitious, but from a manly heart and mind. So it makes all men its friends and debtors. It becomes a matter to entertain it in a friendly spirit, and examine what it has for us.

"I have decided not to join it, yet very slowly, and I may almost say with penitence. I am greatly relieved by learning that your coadjutors are now so many that you will no longer attach that importance to the defection of individuals which you hinted, in your letter to me, I or others might possess--the painful power, I mean, of preventing the execution of the plan."

Rev. Theodore Parker, the noted liberal Unitarian preacher, of whose close personal relations with Mr. Ripley much might be said, lived two miles away, at West Roxbury, where he preached in the village church, and his afternoon walk every few days was over to the Farm and back for exercise, and to meet and converse with Mr. Ripley at the Eyry. At the close of their chat you would see them coming down the hill together towards the barn, where Mr. Ripley's duties as milkman took him at that time of day, when they would part--Mr. Parker for his long walk home.

One afternoon they were seen as usual coming down the hill. Theodore Parker had not then become famous, but preached in a little square, wooden church, to his small country congregation, and once on a time, being on a visit to a friend at a distance (we will call the friend's name Smith, for convenience sake), Mr. Smith asked Mr. Parker how Mr.

Ripley was getting along with his "Community." "Oh," said the faithless Parker, "Mr. Ripley reminds me, in that connection, of a new and splendid locomotive dragging along a train of mud-cars."

Soon after Mr. Ripley heard what Mr. Parker had said of him, and resolved to pay him in his own coin. So he held him that day in pleasant, lively conversation until he reached the farmyard by the barn at the Hive, and the unsprung joke was running all around the pleasant lines of his face and twinkling in the corners of his brilliant eyes.

Towards the close of the conversation, as Mr. Parker was about to leave, Mr. Ripley casually said that he had met Mr. Smith, and he had spoken of Mr. Parker and his church.

"Indeed," said Mr. Parker, "and what did he say of me?"

"Well, if you must know," Mr. Ripley replied, "he said that you and your little country church over there in West Roxbury, with its few dozen of farmers, reminded him of a new and splendid locomotive dragging along a train of mud-cars."

It would have been worth a month of an ordinary lifetime to be there when Mr. Ripley exploded his joke, to hear his merry peal of laughter, whilst his sides shook again, and his reverend friend stood confounded.

But such little jokes did nothing towards rupturing the sincere confidence and friendship of these two brave men, and soon after this Mr. Parker was writing pleasant notes to the "Archon," as Mr. Ripley was often called. By good fortune, I am the possessor of one of them, and as it shows the playful side of a great man, the side often withheld from the public, I give it here. It is charming. It is without date and reads:--

"Archonite Ill.u.s.trissimo: I have just received a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, who informs me that he has jurisdiction over the _waters_ of the U. S. A., and accordingly over _Brook_ Farm. He therefore requests me to investigate your proceedings and report to the department. He thinks of appointing yourself to the command of the fleet destined against Texas, and wishes me to _Sound_ you on that point. (How would Little John do for California?)

"I am to come over tomorrow P. M. and make investigations, so have the chips picked up, and the pigs shut up in the library. Now hold yourself in readiness to receive _Blanco_ White, who thinks you were one of the greatest men who had appeared since Balaam the son of Beor. Pray reward him for the honor he has done you.

"Yours, T."