ENTERTAINMENTS
Our slide down the Knoll proved very popular, and, with occasional
repairs, lasted all winter, making a welcome addition to our outdoor
diversions during the season when these were necessarily limited.
Living in the open was one of the salutary customs of the community, a
custom faithfully followed even in comparatively bad weather. Rain or
shine, snow or blow, save only in real storms, every one spent a good
many of the twenty-four hours under the broad skies. There was always
some work to be done, cutting wood, digging peat—the main reliance for
fuel—mending stone walls, and attending to the tree-nurseries. Then for
fun, there was coasting, skating, sleigh-riding and taking long tramps
over the place or to some distant point of interest. Exposure to the
elements seemed to harm no one, and coughs, influenzas and rheumatics
were unknown.
Withal, however, indoor pleasures took the most prominent place, during
the winter months. After the reorganization of the Association as a
Phalanx, Mr. John Dwight was the Chief of the Festal Series, and as he
was, first of all, a musician, it followed that music formed the
principal feature of our entertainments. Vocal and instrumental music
was thoroughly taught in the school, and, as nearly all the members of
the community were music lovers, and many were singers and players, the
place was melodious from morning until night. There was always some new
song or perhaps some very old one to be tried, some local composition
to be heard, or some preparation for future musical events to enlist
attention. Selections from the operas then known and now forgotten,
were given in the dining room; parts, with all the characters and
choruses, from “Zampa,” “Norma” and the “Caliph of Bagdad” recur to my
mind. Two public concerts were given to pay for a new piano, and as the
proceeds did not quite fill the bill, we all gave up butter, selling
the entire product of the dairy for three months to make up the
deficit. That was just like Brook Farm. The most ambitious performance
in my time was the rendition of the Oratorio of Saint Paul, which was
given twice by request, but this was in the summer when we had ample
room and verge enough in the pine-grove amphitheater.
We had another theater, a very little one, please, where light plays,
tableaux, readings and recitations and similar entertainments were
offered by the Dramatic Group during the winter. One member of this
group, Mr. John Glover Drew, was ambitious, and urged the presentation
of something more serious and edifying than merely amusing trifles,
and, accordingly, an excursion was made into the realm of the
melodrama. Glover, as he was called, was intensely Byronic, after the
fashion of the times, and he prepared a succession of thrilling scenes
from Byron’s sensational poem, “The Corsair,” for presentation by his
fellow players. This melodramatic production was staged with all the
pasteboard pomp and secondhand circumstance the little workshop theater
could afford and was given with all the fire the high-toned author
could impart to his company. The result was disastrous.
Glover was a very genial, jolly young man, a fellow of infinite jest,
and always full of fun, but his play was distinctly dismal. The spirit
of Brook Farm being as distinctly joyous, the melancholy drama went
against the grain, and the performance fell dolefully flat. It was the
one failure among the many successful entertainments offered by the
Festal series, and the members of the cast including the author, were
greatly depressed when the curtain went down with the auditorium
already nearly empty. Glover undoubtedly had his bad quarter-of-an-hour
that night, but the next morning he regained his usual equipoise, and
cast off his chagrin with a characteristic gibe, at his own expense. A
sympathetic friend ventured to ask if the fiasco was caused, perhaps,
by too much blood and thunder in the piece.
“Not blood and thunder, but thud and blunder,” was Glover’s quick
come-back.
We had two or three other plays in the shop, that season, in one of
which my father took a small part. This was “The Rent Day,” by Douglas
Jerrold, I think. The play opens with a tableau reproducing Wilkies’
picture of “The Rent Day,” and the most important thing my father had
to do was to sit at the head of the table in the character of Master
Crumbs, the steward. Peter Baldwin, who succeeded Mr. Hecker as
baker-general—being therefore given the title of General—usually did
the first old man business, but as he was suddenly called to Boston, my
father, who happened to be visiting us at the moment, was asked to fill
the role of Master Crumbs, which he consented to do, on short notice.
There never was such a thing as a theater in the Old Colonie and I can
imagine the disturbed feelings of the good Dutch burghers could they
have known that their respected fellow citizen, Charles Sears, Esq., of
the pier, was actually appearing on the stage as a play actor.
One play was given by the boys and girls, or rather by two boys and one
girl, Dolly Hosmer, Craze Barlow and myself. We did Box and Cox, a
short farce, produced to piece out a vaudeville program.
The first hour of our winter evenings at the Hive was, by common
consent, assigned to the younger generation, and story-telling was
regularly made its most attractive feature. Mr. Dana was one of our
best story tellers, and his narrations were instructive as well as
interesting. In an extended series he gave us accounts, partly
imaginary, of the beginnings of things, of the discovery and the first
use of iron, the evolutions of the boat, of primitive pottery, of
glass, etc.
I was never in Mr. Dana’s classes, Greek and German being beyond my
reach, but I saw something of him in the tree-nursery and the orchard
where I worked under him, he being Chief of the Orchard Group. I cannot
do better in trying to give an idea of him at Brook Farm than to quote
from Mr. John Thomas Codman’s Memoirs, as follows:
“Charles Anderson Dana, when, from Harvard College he presented himself
at the farm, was a young man of education, culture and marked ability.
He was strong of purpose and lithe of frame and it was not long before
Mr. Ripley found it out and gave him a place at the front. He was about
four and twenty years of age, and he took to books, language and
literature. Social, good-natured and animated, he readily pleased all
with whom he came in contact. He was above the medium height, his
complexion was light and his beard, which he wore full but well
trimmed, was vigorous and of auburn hue, and his thick head of hair was
well cut to moderate shortness. His features were quite regular, his
forehead high and full, and his head large. His face was pleasant and
animated and he had a genial smile and greeting for all. His voice was
clear and musical and his language remarkably correct. He loved to
spend a portion of his time in work on the farm and in the tree
nursery, and you might be sure of finding him there when not otherwise
occupied. Enjoying fun and social life, there was always a dignity
remaining which gave him influence and commanded respect.”
[Illustration: Charles A. Dana]
Later in life, as all the world knows, Mr. Dana attained high rank
among the great editors of this country, and that at a period when
personality counted for much more in the conduct of a newspaper than it
does to-day. He served this nation during the Rebellion as Assistant
Secretary of War, and was one of the counselors implicitly trusted by
President Lincoln in that trying time.
Charles Hosmer was another first class raconteur, his musical delivery
in reciting apt bits of poetry and other quotations adding to the
pleasure of hearing his accounts rendered. He gave us modern versions
of the Greek myths and hero legends, of Cadmus and Thebes, of Jason and
the Golden Fleece, of the Trojan epic, of the Delphic Oracle, etc.
Several years after leaving Brook Farm I was presented with a copy of
Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Wonder Book,” and was surprised and indignant to
find the author had actually taken our Brook Farm stories, told us by
Charles Hosmer and printed them, and that, too, without a word of
credit. Of course familiar renditions of the Greek legends have been
common property with English speaking people, for ages, but the
ignorant youngster who heard them at Brook Farm firmly believed the
copyright belonged to Charles Hosmer.
The young folk and children were not only told stories but were
encouraged to exercise their own talents in the same direction. Manuel
Portales gave an interesting account of native life in Luzon; and Angus
Cameron told us about the French habitants and their narrow little
strips of farms fronting on the Canadian streams, every farmer wanting
a littoral right, if only a few yards wide.
Our evening talks were often monologues, anyone with a word to say
having attentive hearers, if interesting, otherwise—not. A young lady,
distinguished as a public speaker, came to us with what was doubtless
an eloquent discourse on Woman’s Rights, and was much put out, after
orating awhile, to note that her glowing periods were falling on dull
ears. Our women-folk had all the rights of our men-folk. They had an
equal voice in our public affairs, voted for our officers, filled
responsible positions, and stood on exactly the same footing as their
brethren. If women were not so well off in the outer-world, they had
only to join our community or to form others like ours.
A leading temperance advocate undertook to lecture us on the terrible
evils of rum drinking and the crying need of promoting the great cause
of total abstinence. We were all total abstainers. There was not a drop
of rum on the Farm. In the exhilarating life of our community there was
no call for stimulants. We had none and wanted none. Rum was a curse in
civilized society but that was because society was disorganized. Let
reformers come and help us reform society and this evil with many
others would be remedied. So it was that the popular lecturer after an
hour’s earnest discourse came to the conclusion that these Brook
Farmers were very impolite indeed as they were all talking together
about plans for the new Phalanstery or some other equally important
subject.
Lectures were not on the list of our favorite pastimes. This
indifference to the attractions of the Lyceum was all the more
noticeable as there were several lecturers of repute among our own
members. In the decade 1840-1850 a wave of interest in what was then
known as Social Reform swept over Europe and America, and in the public
discussions of the time the teachings of Brook Farm practical reformers
were in constant demand. Dr. Ripley, John Dwight, John Allen, Ephraim
Chapin, Charles A. Dana and others were called out on lecturing tours
extending all over the Northern states, and, as most of this service
was gratuitous, the cost to the community was a heavy tax on our
limited resources. The socialistic propaganda was an educational
movement of unquestionable value, and, while the immediate objects
contemplated were never realized and are now lost to sight, yet the
agitation had a permanent influence in awakening intelligence, giving
an impetus to thought and enlarging the liberality of the public mind.
Oftentimes the long dining room was promptly cleared after supper for
some minor entertainment, a dance, in which everyone took part, being
always in order when nothing else demanded more immediate attention.
Miss Russell was a most efficient teacher of dancing and we all took
lessons, from the gaunt and grizzled old General to the little ones
just able to learn their steps. It was a marked characteristic of the
Farmers that they all joined hands in whatever was going on. With
unfailing unanimity they all moved together, flocking like birds in
whatever direction happened to be taken at the moment, even those of
the most pronounced individuality preferring to go the way of the
others rather than go his own way alone. The lovers of solitude, self
centered folk, egoists and searchers into the mysteries of their own
souls—Emerson, Hawthorne, Hecker and Margaret Fuller were out of place
in this united association where each person wanted, first of all, to
be in harmony with the common mind.
The dance was so much a matter of course that no preparations were
needed save the putting away of the tables and benches. The music was
always ready, a dozen or more players of the violin and piano relieving
each other in rendering sets of cotillons, waltzes and polkas, the
latter dance being then just in fashion.
Next to the dance, some form of musical diversion was in favor. After
the reorganization Mr. Dwight was Chief of the Festal Series, and as he
and his fiancee, Mary Bullard, were, in a way, professionals there was
always a musical programe in reserve that could be brought forward at a
moment’s notice. We often had musicians of distinction visiting the
place, and these gave us of their best, knowing their virtuosity would
be recognized and appreciated. Carlo Bassini, an eminent violinist,
played for us with great acceptance. His daughter, Frances Ostinelli,
who boarded at the Farm several weeks, sang most delightfully. She had
a glorious voice and, as Madame Biscacianti, subsequently attained fame
as a cantatrice.
The Hutchinson Family, once widely known at home and abroad, but now
pretty much forgotten, made a one-night-stand with us; and a company of
Swiss Bell Ringers also favored us in the same way.
The star artist who pleased us youngsters more than any other was
Christopher P. Cranch. He was not a professional, at that time, having
just completed his course of study for the ministry, but he was
certainly a most successful entertainer. There was nothing he could not
do. He was a painter of more than fair ability, a sweet singer, a poet,
a mighty good story-teller—and we knew a good story-teller when we
heard one—and he could play on any instrument from an organ to a
jewsharp. Whatever he undertook he did well, and his range of
accomplishment was amazing. As Miss Russell remarked his versatility
amounted to universatility. We liked and admired Mr. Cranch very much,
and with all his superficial levity he possessed sterling qualities
that commanded our respect. As an old school song says:
“True winter joys are many
With many a dear delight
We frolic in the snowdrift,
And then the Winter night.”
The many winter joys were all that such joys could be, and young folk,
not afraid of the weather, made the most of them. The winter nights at
the Hive were fairly filled with dear delights, and the youngest of the
young folk had their due share of the evening pleasures until nine
o’clock when they went to bed, except on special occasions like the
giving of a play, or a concert with some celebrity from Boston as a
star attraction. The winter had its pleasures, but it was summer that
was the real joyous season. There was a dear delight then, in just
living in the open air, as most of us did the greater part of every
day. Work in the fields with interesting companions, was an
exemplification of the socialistic doctrine of attractive industry. Men
and women, boys and girls, drawn together in groups by special likings
for the work to be done, made labor not only light but really pleasant.
Our entertainments, too, were in these happy days almost exclusively
free from the limitations of four walls and a ceiling. Rambles in the
woods and fields, excursions to Chestnut Hill or Cow Island, rowing
parties on Charles River, ball-games, athletic contests, swimming
matches, everything the Greeks ever did and more than they ever thought
of. Even our meals conveniently simple as they were, frequently took
the form of impromptu picnics on the Knoll.
The center of summer festivities was a natural amphitheater in the
beautiful pine-woods. Here was a little hollow, clear of trees which
served admirably well as an auditorium, and a bank at one end, leveled
down with very little artifice, made a spacious stage, or, if required,
a suitable rostrum. Here we had plays worth seeing and concerts worth
hearing. Here, too, Sunday services were sometimes held, to the
scandalizing of our Puritan neighbors, though when Dr. Channing
preached a saintly sermon and Mr. Dwight’s quartet rendered the
Gregorian chants, the service was an appropriate and impressive
expression of sincere religious sentiment.
Some of our Puritan neighbors called us heretics because we did not
believe in infant damnation or some equally profitable and comforting
doctrine of the orthodox faith, and, furthermore, we actually sang
hymns in Latin. All that was very bad to be sure, but then we kept the
commandments, eleven of them, ten in the old testament and one in the
new, and we dealt fairly with all men. We went to church too, either
having Sunday services at home or attending Theodore Parker’s church in
Brookline. However, both Theodore Parker and Dr. Ripley were
Unitarians, so that did not help us very much in the opinion of our
critics.
It may almost be said that Brook Farm was as much an outgrowth of
Unitarianism as of Transcendentalism. Nearly all the first members were
Unitarians and many of the later comers were of the same faith. The
congregation of the Unitarian church at Brookline usually contained a
considerable percentage of Brook Farmers, and at times a Unitarian
minister from the Farm officiated in that sacred edifice. Rev. Dr.
Ripley, Rev. John S. Dwight, Rev. George P. Bradford, Rev. Warren
Burton, Rev. John Allen and Rev. Ephraim Chapin were resident
ministers, and Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Rev. William H. Channing and
Rev. James Freeman Clarke were warmly interested in the Association.
Charles K. Newcomb and Christopher P. Cranch also immediate friends,
were educated for the Unitarian ministry. Dr. Codman in his
“Recollections” speaks of seeing five Unitarian clergymen dancing in
the pine-grove at once.
One of the features of our holiday doings was the procession which
spontaneously came into order, after dinner, when there was anything to
the fore in the pine-woods. Then a parade took place like unto the
wedding march of the villagers in an old fashioned opera. There was
always some display of decoration on such occasions, usually floral,
the girls, wearing garlands and wreaths or sprays of vine and chaplets
of leaves. Headed, perhaps by the boys with fife and drum, or by the
members of the cast if a play was to be given, the whole community,
young men and maidens, old men and children, went singing from one end
of the place to the other, that is from the Hive near the entrance to
the Amphitheater near the far side of the grove.
When a high festival was to be celebrated, the procession took on the
picturesque dignity of a pageant. A real pageant we dearly loved, but
the show was too expensive to be offered more than once or twice
annually. We had to hire musicians as our own were too busy to serve.
Then the costumes and banners and hangings took a good bit of money,
though artistic ingenuity helped out amazingly. Where all the
magnificence came from was a mystery, the splendors of purple and gold,
of rich draperies, fine furbelows, shining garments and glittering
adornments being really splendid. Bonico and I, as Heralds, for
example, once were superbly arrayed in white tabards emblazoned with
red dragons and gold embroidery, cut from paper and pasted on white
muslin. There was a deal of real, genuine, sumptuous finery brought out
from family wardrobes for the pageant, but the hint as to the Heralds
indicated how an effect could be produced at small cost.
The finest pageant we ever had was arranged by the Festal Series, after
the reorganization. It was historic in design, illustrating the
Elizabethan period in England. Dr. Ripley personated Shakespeare; Miss
Ripley, Queen Elizabeth, in a tissue paper ruff, which I helped to
make; Mr. Dana, Sir Walter Raleigh; Mary Bullard, the most beautiful of
our young women, Mary Queen of Scots, and Charles Hosmer, Sir Philip
Sidney. The programme sent home to mother, at the time, gives a list of
the characters represented but it need not be further quoted here.
[Illustration: The Pageant]
The parade was formed on the Knoll and the line of march was up the
road to Pilgrim Hall, over to the Cottage, around the Eyrie, and down
the woodland way to the theater. The whole course was lined with
spectators, coming from Boston and from all the neighboring towns. At
the grove a series of historic tableaux presented the principal
personages in significant pictures, and these were accompanied by Old
English ballads and Shakespearian songs. The finale was a stately
minuet, beautifully danced by four couples. They had been drilled for
weeks by Miss Russell and as she was more than satisfied with the
performance, it was, no doubt, nearly perfect. The audience seemed to
be of that mind as they refused to disperse until the minuet had been
repeated.
The following season we had a smaller pageant, the costumed personages
being the characters in Shakespeare’s comedy “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream.” This was the most important play ever given in the grove, and
as an out-door production, it antedated any similar performance in
America. I have seen “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” given in the open
several times since, but the magic of the first impression has never
again been felt.
With all our love of recreation, there were no sedentary games in our
repertoire. Cards were unknown. The General was said to like a quiet
game of whist in his own room, but if he had a pack of cards, it was
probably the only one on the Farm. There was no prejudice against cards
or chess or any other game so far as I know, but no one cared for any
form of amusement that separated two or four from all the others. I
imagine that even courting, the divine solitude of two, must have been
handicapped by this persistent penchant for all being together.
The spell that drew these sympathetic associates like a magnet was in
great part that charm of the general conversation, the memory of which
still lingers wherever traditions of Brook Farm are cherished. The
never failing succession of entertainments especially in summer were
enjoyed to the full by the happy Farmers, but it was conversation, the
mutual exchange of bright ideas that afforded their chiefest enjoyment.
Not literature, not the drama, not the dance, but the fascination of
human speech in its best employ attracted and held their enthralled
attention. It is impossible to report in writing even the heads of this
discourse, pervading as it did the atmosphere of Brook Farm as currents
of electricity pervade the air in breaths. In a college-student’s ditty
is a strain conveying some hint of such parley:
“We’ll sing to-night with hearts as light
And joys as gay and fleeting
As the bubbles that swim on the beaker’s brim
And break on the lips at meeting.”
The bubbles that break on the lips are past mending. The effervescence
and sparkle of wine can only be known as the glass is filled. The fine
art of conversation can be perfected only by choice spirits whose
hearts are light, whose sprightly wit, gay good humor and alert
intelligence make their utterances almost intoxicating.
Some attempts have been made to chronicle famous Brook Farm
conversations but the best record could hardly be more than a jest
book. The alert sallies and quick retorts, the pat allusions and apt
quotations, the exaggerations, the absurdities, the shrewd witticisms,
the searching satires, the puns and improvised nonsense verses might
possibly have been registered on paper, but the spirit of merriment, of
good fellowship and mutual understanding that made thoughts to live and
words to sing—the spirit of Brook Farm—no snap-shot camera could ever
have caught.
These talks were not all for fun, either. Happy and blithesome, the
Farmers were, at heart, earnestly devoted to purposes held sacred. They
were inspired by high ideals. Noble conceptions and beautiful beliefs
found expression in fitting phrase. Rippling mirth flowed in an
undercurrent of serious, sincere faith and hope and love.
One more matter may be referred to in connection with our recreations,
namely, there was no hunting over our acres. The woods became a refuge
for birds and small game. No gun was ever heard there, and the shyest
creatures learned they were safe, among friends who loved them. Rabbits
excepted. Under Mr. Hosmer’s direction we boys trapped rabbits
industriously, not for sport but to prevent them overrunning the place.
From the traps they were transferred to the warren and thence either to
the kitchen or to market.
Gray squirrels troubled us some by raiding the cornfield next the woods
but their depredations were not very extensive. Ex-president Jefferson
had the same trouble at Monticello, the squirrels destroying the
outside rows of his cornfield. His feeble-minded brother conceived the
brilliant idea of checkmating the little robbers by not planting any
outside rows. The Farmers improved on this plan by planting an extra
outside row for the gray thieves to feed on.