USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Romantic days in old Boston : the story of the city and of its people during the nineteenth century > Part 4
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With such people as Mr. and Mrs. Ripley at its head and such men as Dana and John S. Dwight acting as effective lieutenants, Brook Farm was sure to be a Mecca for visitors. The popularity of the place helped towards its undoing, indeed. Dr. Codman records that, in one year, more than four thousand people came out to the farm to stay for a longer or shorter period. At first these people were made welcome to meals without charge and members of the community were drafted to show them about. But when their number came to be
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" legion " it was found necessary to exact a fee for the food consumed, and they were left to wander as they would. "Yet every pleasant day from May to November," the historian of the place declares, " men, women and chil- dren were passing from Hive to Eyrie and over the farm back to the Hive, where they took private carriage or public coach for their de- parture. Among these people were some of the oddest of the odd; those who rode every con- ceivable hobby; some of all religions; bond and free, transcendental and occidental; anti-slavery and pro-slavery; come-outers, communists, fruitists and flutists; dreamers and schemers of all sorts." In a word cranks galore. Such was Bronson Alcott's friend Lane, who was opposed to eating anything that was killed or had died, so ate neither fish nor flesh; who was opposed to wearing wool because it was an animal product and implied robbing the sheep of its protection; who was opposed to wearing cotton and would use neither rice nor sugar because they were products of slave labor; for whom no way of getting to Brook Farm but on his legs seemed possible and no encompassing garment but a linen suit could be regarded as sufficiently moral. Alcott himself did not come often. He found Concord a more favorable spot in which to follow his peculiar genius. Moreover, he was fresh from the failure of
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his own recent experiment in community life at Fruitlands, near Harvard, Massachu- setts.
Orestes Augustus Brownson was one of the interesting characters who wandered back and forth between Brook Farm and the outer world. Brownson had experienced so many kinds of religion before he " walked backward into the Catholic Church " that it was once remarked of him, when a preacher invited to the communion table the members of all Christian churches, that Brownson was the only person in the congregation who could " fill the bill."
Brownson it was who brought to the farm Isaac Hecker, - already referred to as the family baker, - who became the head of the Paulists and, in his day, the best interpreter of the Roman Catholic Church to the cool- headed practical American. His sojourn at Brook Farm may very well be credited in tracing out the influences which made him what he was. "To leave this place is to me a great sacrifice," he wrote as he was going away. "I have been much refined by being here." Hecker was a " partial " boarder when he first entered Brook Farm; he paid four dollars a week and gave his services as a baker in ex- change for instruction in German, philosophy, French and music. Later he became a " full " boarder, paying for the greater freedom five
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dollars and a half a week. Hecker was of the Grahamites, while at the Farm. In the dining- room there was always one table of vegetarians - those who used no flesh meats and generally no tea or coffee, who were, in fact, followers of the dietary principles of Dr. Sylvester Graham, whose name is still connected with bread made of unbolted flour because it was by him considered the very perfection of human food. When the plans for the Phalanstery - the large house which was destroyed by fire before it was completed - came to be made, it was decided that those at the Graham tables should be given board at a less price than the others, because their food was less expensive.
The burning of the Phalanstery (March 3, 1846) marked an epoch at Brook Farm. For a long time accommodations had been insuffi- cient and high hopes were placed upon what might be accomplished when this large, roomy building should be available for lodging and assembly purposes. By those who wished to swing the Community into line with Fourier- ism the central house was deemed especially desirable, and when it seemed impossible to get together the seven thousand dollars which had been lost through the fire their enthusiasm dwindled gradually away. Writers on Brook Farm are agreed that the cause of the Com- munity's failure was its advocacy of this as-
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sociationist doctrine as preached by Albert Brisbane, and that the occasion to which dampen- ing of enthusiasm may be traced is the burning of the Phalanstery, the outward and visible sign of Fourierism.
When Charles Fourier, the son of a French linen draper, died in 1837, his theories were not well known in this country. But Albert Bris- bane got hold of them in England, converted Horace Greeley to them, and, through Greeley, who took a very deep and real interest in Brook Farm, foisted them upon the Brook Farm Community. The old slander that Brook Farm was a "regular free love institution " now began to be repeated in the religious press as well as from mouth to mouth. And unfor- tunately there was just one little remark which Fourier had once made which could be inter- preted as condoning irregularity in some cases. In his study of human nature he believed he had discovered inherently inconstant natures, ex- ceptional men and women who cannot be con- stant to one idea, one hope or one love; and believing this inconstancy to be a normal trait of character with some persons, who are exceptions to the general rule, he simply ac- knowledged the fact and speculated on the result and the position such persons would have in the future ideal society. "But," he said very unmistakably, " the man has no claim
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as discoverer or to the confidence of the world, who advocates such absurdities as community of property, absence of divine worship and rash abolition of marriage." This would have been circumstantial enough for any unprejudiced writer. But then, as now, newspapers battened on articles in defence of " sacred institutions " nobody has attacked, and the impression that Brook Farm encouraged a laxity of moral out- look was not allowed to die. Of course this reacted disastrously upon the school attendance, which was to have been a chief source of income. Moreover, the industries, which had latterly been introduced, did not flourish as it had been fondly hoped they might. The nine miles from Boston proved too far to cart window-frames and the like profitably to market.
The organ of Fourierism in this country was the Harbinger, printed at Brook Farm from June, 1845, to June, 1847. Had the paper been used to tell the world the truth about Brook Farm instead of being devoted to the promulga- tion of doctrines already obnoxious to many, the day might have been saved in spite of the fire. As it was, the Harbinger was fatally associated with propaganda considered subversive of the social order. From a literary standpoint it was a great success, however; its poetry and musical criticism were excellent, and the first number contained an admirable translation of George
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Sand's "Consuelo," contributed by Francis Gould Shaw, a neighbor and very kind friend of the Brook Farmers. Dr. Codman recalls that Mr. Shaw, on his horse, with his young son, a tiny little fellow, on a pony by his side, often galloped over to the Farm to call. The " little fellow" is now commemorated in Boston's beau- tiful Shaw Memorial, opposite the State House.
Another West Roxbury neighbor whom those at the Farm were always glad to welcome was Theodore Parker. Parker was a warm friend of Ripley, and as he was then having troubles and religious perplexities of his own it is prob- able that he found it a great comfort to tramp two miles across the fields and talk things over with one who had been through the mill. On Sundays some members of the Community would usually turn out to hear Parker preach.
Sunday was a delightful day at the Com- munity. Hawthorne has reproduced for us something of its flavor in his talk about Eliot's pulpit in The Blithedale Romance, and Dr. Codman has given us a charming snapshot description of a certain occasion when William Henry Channing held a religious service in the nearby beautiful pine woods and his hearers, like the Pilgrims and reformers of old, raised their voices in hymns of praise and listened to a sermon of hopefulness. That must have been a thrilling moment when Channing bade the
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assembled company, seated on the pine-needles at his feet, " to join hands and make a circle, the symbol of universal unity, and of the at-one-ment of all men and women."
But life at Brook Farm was more than work and study and preaching. Of pure fun there was always a good deal. As Lindsay Swift has whimsically put it, " Enjoyment was almost from the first a serious pursuit of the Com- munity. It formed a part of the curriculum and was a daily habit of life." Dancing was much in vogue, and after the dishes had been done in the evening it was quite the custom to clear away the dining-room tables and have a joyous hour or two. Then the talk at meals was apt to be good. The immediate effect of a visit from Alcott was the direction to cut pie " from the centre to the periphery," and Mrs. Howe avers that the customary formula at table was, "Is the butter within the sphere of your influence? "
The fact that, for a long time, there were more men than women in the Community made things very pleasant for the girls who had housework to do. George William Curtis occasionally trimmed lamps, Dana organized a band of griddle-cake servitors composed of four of the most elegant youths in the Com- munity, and there is a story that one young fellow confessed his passion while helping his
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sweetheart at the sink. Of love-making there was quite a little. No less than fourteen happy marriages may be traced to acquaintance begun there. Dr. Codman thinks this was due, in part, to the fact that the girls in their neat costumes - very like that afterwards associated with Mrs. Bloomer - never looked anything but attractive. The men must have made a fine appearance, too, in their tunics of brown linen or Rob Roy flannel.
Yet since the financial conditions for marriage were not inviting, only one union was consum- mated at the Farm. This was the wedding of Dwight's sister, Marianne, to John Orvis. Rev. W. H. Channing tied the knot, and the usually eloquent Dwight made a speech of just five words, - " I like this making one." Perhaps he put his maturer thought about what he felt that night into his Harbinger poem, one verse of which runs:
" Come, let us join hands. Let our two flames mingle In one more pure;
Since there is truth in nothing that is single, Be love love's cure."
Twenty-five years had been more or less vaguely set by the first Brook Farmers as the length of time which would be necessary to prove their experiment a real success. It had been going a fifth of that period with ever-in-
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creasing numbers and no decrease of enthusiasm when the Phalanstery burned. A year after that event Mr. Ripley was authorized by the creditors and stockholders to "let the farm." The intervening period covers the gradual dissolution of the Community. Quietly, al- most imperceptibly, the members withdrew into the big outside world. Dr. Codman says there was "no sadness of farewell." All had the feeling that they would some day be to- gether again in another Community whose finest building would not burn down just when things were at their best.
The farm itself passed into various hands and suffered several vicissitudes of fortune. The Community buildings fell away one by one until today the single authentic survival of that happy time is the structure known as the Mar- garet Fuller Cottage, perhaps because it is the only house at which that famous lady never stopped while visiting Brook Farm.
So ends the story of this romantic essay in socialism, this brave adventure in brotherhood which has well been called "the sweetest dream ever dreamed in America." Shall we not in leaving it repeat the benediction Haw- thorne pronounced upon it: "More and more I feel we at Brook Farm struck upon what ought to be a truth. Posterity may dig it up and profit by it."
CHAPTER III
THE REAL ZENOBIA
T HAT Hawthorne meant Margaret Fuller by Zenobia is quite as certain as that he meant Brook Farm by the Arcady he so wonderfully depicts in The Blithedale
Romance. Of course this is not to say that he even attempted to describe Brook Farm or Margaret Fuller photographically in his story. He was first, last and always the great American romancer. Besides, Margaret was never a member of the community at West Roxbury. She was, indeed, only an occasional guest there. Yet, so persistent is belief in what the world wishes to believe and so muddled does literary history ere long become that a learned German work has actually been written under the title Margaret Fuller und Brook Farm. And Brook Farm pilgrims inquire to this day "for the pool in which Margaret Fuller was drowned!"
Whether absent or present Margaret Fuller's influence pervaded the place however, - just
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as her influence pervaded all the transcendental aspiration and all the literary activity of her time.1 Necessarily, therefore, we must rehearse her story in a book covering the Boston of this period. The accident that she was born in Cambridge, did her largest literary work in New York and found the culmination of her life in Italy makes no real difference. For the best that Boston people were and felt and thought in the nineteenth century they owe - very largely - to Margaret Fuller.
Yet Poe called Margaret "that detestable old maid," Carlyle was similarly scathing and uncomplimentary in his comment on her, and Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote down in his Roman Journal a sketch of her character, afterwards indiscreetly published by his son, which, if taken by itself, would brand as arrant idiots all those wise and cultivated folk who were proud to be known as Margaret's admiring friends. For, said Hawthorne, " Margaret Fuller had a strong and coarse nature which she had done her utmost to refine with infinite pains; but of course it could only be superficially changed. . Margaret has not left in the hearts and minds of those who knew her any deep witness of her integrity and purity. She
1 " Her personality never ceased to hover about Concord, even after her death," wrote Rose Hawthorne Lathrop. "She is a part of its fascination."
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was a great humbug - of course with much talent and moral reality, or else she could never have been so great a humbug. Towards the last there appears to have been a total collapse in poor Margaret, morally and intellectually; and tragic as her catas- trophe was, Providence was after all kind in putting her and her clownish husband and her child on board that fated ship."
Julian Hawthorne, certainly, was not kind in giving to the public (in 1884) this unflattering estimate of a woman, long dead. Happily, though, Margaret had still surviving several friends who were eager and able to set her right with the world. James Freeman Clarke, who had been one of her intimates, promptly published in the Independent an account of her relations with the Hawthornes which makes one feel very sure that the great romancer intended only for his private note-book this estimate of one to whom he had been a friend.1 His gentle wife really loved Margaret and he gave the appearance of doing so. As witness this letter written by Miss Sophia Peabody just before her marriage to Hawthorne: 2
1 Dr. Clarke's article embodied, also, the suggestion of one of Hawthorne's intimates that the paragraph in the Roman Journal was really a sketch for a future imaginative character and not meant to be taken, as it too often has been, for Haw- thorne's secret feeling about Margaret Fuller and her claims.
2 Quoted by J. F. Clarke in the Independent.
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" DEAR MOST NOBLE MARGARET: - I have now something to tell you which I know will give you great pleasure. The decision was not made till last evening; and I feel that you are entitled, through our love and profound regard for you, to be told directly. Mr. Hawthorne - in plain words the splendor of the world - and I are going to dwell in Concord at Dr. Ripley's old manse. . . . We shall be married in June, the month of roses and of perfect bloom.
" Mr. Hawthorne, last evening, in the midst of his emotions, so deep and absorbing, after deciding, said that Margaret can now, when she visits Mr. Emerson, spend part of the time with us. .
" Your very true and loving friend " SOPHIA."
If Hawthorne had always disliked Margaret Fuller, as his son Julian contends, he would scarcely have paused, in the ecstasy of betrothal, to make plans that she should visit at his future home. Moreover, the following passage in his American Note-Book 1 shows that their relations actually turned out to be those of capital friends: " After leaving Mr. Emerson's I returned through the woods, and entering Sleepy Hollow, I perceived a lady reclining
1 American Note-Books, I, 221.
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near the path which bends along its verge. It was Margaret herself. She had been there the whole afternoon meditating or reading, for she had a book in her hand with some strange title which I did not understand and have forgotten. She said that nobody had broken her solitude, and was just giving utterance to a theory that no inhabitant of Concord ever visited Sleepy Hollow, when we saw a group of people entering the sacred precincts. Most of them followed a path which led them away from us; but an old man passed near us, and smiled to see Margaret reclining on the ground and me standing by her side. He made some remark upon the beauty of the afternoon, and withdrew himself into the shadow of the wood. Then we talked about autumn, and about the pleasures of being lost in the woods, and about the crows whose voices Margaret had heard; and about the experiences of early childhood whose in- fluence remains upon the character after the recollection of them has passed away; and about the sight of mountains from a distance, and the view from their summits; and about other matter of high and low philosophy." One does not talk of these things a long summer afternoon through with a person whom one does not at least like.
Yet Margaret Fuller had a side to her nature with which Hawthorne could only coolly sympa-
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thize at best. She was a superb lover! Of her culture much has been written. Of her ex- traordinary conversational gifts the descriptions have been so manifold and so awe-inspiring as quite sufficiently to have prejudiced against her the many who hate " haranguing women." But only in Higginson's biography of her is any emphasis laid upon her passionate love of humanity. And even there this phase is merely touched upon in passing because the task which had been set for the writer (in the American Men of Letters Series) was that of studying Margaret Fuller as a literary woman. Loving service was, however, far more the expression of her inmost personality than was writing or the pursuit of that culture with which she is chiefly associated by her contemporaries. Had this not been the case she would never have stood by the side of Mazzini, as she did in Italy's pitiful struggle for independence; nor would young patriots, dying in the hospital, have called for her that they might clasp her hands and cry " Viva l'Italia " with their expiring breath. At the very moment indeed when Lowell was satirizing her in his Fable for Critics as one who
. . will take an old notion and make it her own By saying it o'er in her Sibylline tone, Or persuade you 'tis something tremendously deep By repeating it so as to put you to sleep,"
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she was leading the life of heroic action for which she had long been yearning.
Margaret Fuller was born, May 23, 1810, in a house on Cherry Street, Cambridgeport, which is still standing. She was drowned, with her husband and child, off the coast of Fire Island soon after she had passed her fortieth birth- day and when her real work in the world had only just begun. Yet the impress of her personality was such, and her book, Woman in the Nineteenth Century so remarkably pro- phetic, that hers may well be regarded as the most successful woman-life of her century, with the single exception of that which gave to the world the slave-freeing Uncle Tom's Cabin.
As a child she was subjected by her father to a forcing-house system of education which, as she herself has said, "made her a youthful prodigy by day and, by night, a victim of spec- tral illusions, nightmare and somnambulism." As one reads her journal one's heart aches with pity for the little girl who, having recited Virgil to her father, late in the evening, dreamed, when she came to sleep, of horses trampling over her and of trees that dripped with blood. Yet Virgil, Horace and Ovid were early num- bered among her dear friends " and reading became a habit and a passion." Shakespeare, too, soon claimed her devotion, the first play
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she assimilated being that which tells the tragic tale of two young people in Verona.
How largely the appeal which Romeo and Juliet made to this child was due to the impassioned love lines we are not told; but since Margaret Fuller was a very ardent creature and was soon to experience the first love of her young life, there is little question that this aspect of the drama must have moved her pro- foundly. All her life long she loved people with a deep absorbing devotion which, as she herself has said, "lavished away her strength." After a lapse of many years, she wrote of her first friend: " My thoughts were fixed on her with all the force of my nature. It was my first real interest in my kind and it engrossed me wholly. " She was twelve at the time.
Two inexorable descriptions of the maiden Margaret have come down to us. One sets her before us as she appeared at the ball given by her father to President Adams: a young girl of sixteen " with a very plain face, half shut eyes and hair curled all over her head; she was laced so tightly, by reason of stoutness, that she had to hold her arms back as if they were pinioned; she was dressed in a badly cut, low necked pink silk, with white muslin over it; and she danced quadrilles very awkwardly, being withal so near-sighted that she could
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hardly see her partner." Again, Oliver Wendell Holmes, with whose class she may be said to have "danced through college " - to quote Howells' phrase, - tells us graphically of her " long and flexile neck, arching and undulating in strange, sinuous movements, which one who loved her would compare to a swan, and one who loved her not to those of the ophidian who tempted our common mother."
There were always many who loved Margaret Fuller and many who loved her not. No woman ever inspired such deep feelings both of attrac- tion and of dislike. James Freeman Clarke, writing of Margaret and her friendships, says that the persons she might most wish to know often retired from her and avoided her. But she was " sagacious of her quarry " and never suffered herself to be repelled by this. She saw when anyone belonged to her and never rested until she came into possession of her property. This is so reminiscent of certain passages in Emerson's essay on Friendship that it seems natural to remark, just at this point, that the Sage of Concord was one of Margaret's most true and devoted friends.
" I became acquainted with her," he writes,
66 in 1835 ... when she came to spend a fortnight with my wife. I still remember the first half hour of her conversation. She was then twenty-six years old. She had a face and
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frame that would indicate fulness and tenacity of life. She was rather under the middle height; her complexion was fair with strong fair hair. She was then, as always, carefully and becom- ingly dressed and of lady-like self-possession. For the rest, her appearance had nothing pre- possessing. Her extreme plainness - a trick of incessantly opening and shutting her eyelids, - the nasal tone of her voice, - all repelled; and I said to myself, we shall never get far."
Yet they became dear and lifelong friends, writing to each other constantly and passing long afternoons in the close intimacy of kindred minds during her frequent and protracted visits to Concord. Emerson was seven years her senior and very grave. Yet to him, rather oddly, Margaret showed herself a wit; of all the people who have written of her he alone points out that she possessed a huge fund of anecdotes and drolleries and that what most call satire in her was really due only to a super- abundance of animal spirits. He was very proud to become her close friend, for he says, " she had drawn to her every superior young man or young woman she had met.
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