purchase a few articles, and while there we went out one evening to
Roxbury[6] where there are 80 or 90 persons playing away their youth and
daytime in a miserably joyous, frivolous manner. There are not above
four or five who could be selected as really and truly progressing
beings. Most of the adults are there to pass “a good time”; the children
are taught languages, etc.; the animals (in consequence I believe solely
of Mr. George Ripley’s tendency) occupy a prominent position, there
being no less than 16 cows, besides 4 oxen, a herd of swine, a horse or
two, etc. The milk is sold in Boston, and they buy butter to the extent
of 500 dollars a year. We had a pleasant summer evening conversation
with many of them, but it is only in a few individuals that anything
deeper than ordinary is to be found. The Northampton Community is one of
industry, the one at Hopedale aims at practical theology, this of
Roxbury is one of taste; yet it is the best which exists here, and
perhaps we shall have to say it is the best which can exist. At all
events we can go no further than to keep open fields, and as far as we
have it open house to _all_ comers. We know very well that if they come
not in the right name and nature they will not long remain. Our dietetic
system is a test quite sufficient for many. As far as acres of fine land
are concerned, you may offer their free use to any free souls who will
come here and work them, and any aid we can afford shall be freely
given. The aid of sympathetic companionship is not small, and that at
least we can render. To bridge the Atlantic is a trifle if the heart is
really set on the attainment of better conditions. Here are they freely
presented, at a day’s walk from the shore, without a long and expensive
journey to the West. Please to advertise these facts to all youthful men
and women; for such are much wanted here. There is now a certain
opportunity for planting a love colony, the influence of which may be
felt for many generations, and more than felt; it may be the beginning
for a state of things which shall far transcend itself. They to whom our
work seems not good enough may come and set out a better.
Footnote 6:
Brook Farm.
I should mention to you that passing his door Mr. Theodore Parker came
to the Community in the evening and again in the morning. He is a very
popular man at present and has a congregation at Roxbury, but being
unwell by reason of close study, he will sail to Europe on the 1st
September. He will remain in Germany for three or four months, and
afterwards as long in England. No doubt you will see him and render him
all the service you can.... At present we are not sought by many
persons, but the value in our enterprise depends not upon numbers so
much as upon the spirit from which we can live outwardly and in all
relations true to the intuitions which are gifted to us. We must not
forget how great have been the works done by individuals, and in the
absence of what are usually called facilities. Our obstacles are, I
suppose, chiefly within, and as these are subdued we shall triumph in
externalities. I could send you a description of works and crops, our
mowing, hoeing, reaping, ploughing in tall crops of clover and grass for
next year’s manure, and various other operations, but although they have
some degree of relation to the grand principle to which they are
obedient, they are worth little in the exoteric sense alone. Perhaps the
external revelations of success ought always to be kept secret, for
every improvement discovered is only turned to a money making account
and to the further degradation of man, as we see in the march of science
to this very moment. If we knew how to double the crops of the earth, it
is scarcely to be hoped that any good would come by revealing the mode.
On the contrary, the bounties of God are already made the means by which
man debases himself more and more. We will therefore say little
concerning the sources of external wealth until man is himself secured
to the End which rightly uses these means....
Mr. Charles Stearns Wheeler, the eminent Greek student, who went from
here to Germany last summer, died at Leipsic[7] in June, age 26. He was
one of Mr. Emerson’s great hopes.
Footnote 7:
This should be Rome.
Samuel Bower continues with us, but he is not so happy in body or mind
as he ought to be: a letter from you in the universal spirit would cheer
him up. He confesses to the possession of a little Nomadic blood in his
veins. He thinks Mr. Alcott is arbitrary or despotic, as some others do,
but I shall endeavour (and, I think, not in vain) to urge him to the
noblest conduct of which our position is capable. He must not complain
nor walk off, but cheerfully amend whatever is amiss. I suppose your
letter has failed at the post somewhere, but I have inquired fully on
this side. With assurances of continued affection to yourself and all
friends on the divine ground,
I remain, dear Oldham,
Truly yours,
CHARLES LANE.
III
BROOK FARM AND FRUITLANDS
There is so much confusion in the minds of many regarding the difference
of aim existing in the Community at Brook Farm and that of Fruitlands
that it seems well to insert here a well-authenticated account of Brook
Farm and also an extract from a letter written by John Sullivan Dwight
who was a member.
Brook Farm was a Community established in West Roxbury, Massachusetts,
in 1841. “The head of the Community was George Ripley, formerly a
Unitarian clergyman in Boston, who had been in 1836 one of the Founders
of the Transcendental Club with Emerson, Hedge, Alcott, and others.
Associated with Ripley in the Brook Farm enterprise were Nathaniel
Hawthorne, Charles A. Dana, John S. Dwight, and other well-known men.
They bought a farm comprising some 200 acres. Its object was the
establishment of an ‘agricultural, literary, and scientific school or
college.’
“Several trades beside agriculture were carried on and a number of
children were received as pupils, instruction being furnished in ancient
and modern languages, history, mathematics, moral philosophy, music,
drawing, etc. It was designed to substitute coöperative for selfish
competition, and to dignify bodily labor by uniting it with the
intellectual and spiritual life. The Community was at first organized as
a joint-stock company, each subscriber being guaranteed 5 per cent per
annum on his shares. In 1847 the experiment, having proved a failure
financially, was given up.
“Life at Brook Farm, especially during the first years of enthusiasm,
had idyllic and romantic aspects. In its palmiest state the Community,
including school children and boarders, numbered about 150 souls.
Kitchen and table were in common; very little help was hired, but
philosophers, clergymen, and poets worked at the humblest tasks, milking
cows, pitching manure, cleaning stables, etc., while cultivated women
cooked, washed, ironed, and waited on table. All work, manual or
intellectual, was credited to members at a uniform rate of ten cents an
hour.”
* * * * *
John Sullivan Dwight wrote of Brook Farm:—
“I remember the night of my first arrival at Brook Farm. It had been
going all summer. I arrived in November. At that time it was a sort of
pastoral life, rather romantic, although so much hard labor was involved
in it. They were all at tea in the old building, which was called the
Hive. In a long room at a long table they were making tea, and I sat
down with them. When tea was over they were all very merry, full of
life; and all turned to and washed the dishes, cups and saucers. All
joined in,—the Curtis brothers, Dana and all. It was very enchanting,
quite a lark, as we say. Much of the industry went on in that way,
because it combined the freest sociability with the useful arts.”
Robert Carter, a co-editor with James Russell Lowell of a magazine
called _The Pioneer_ in 1843, wrote an article called “The Newness” in
after years, describing Fruitlands and Brook Farm. Of the latter he
says:—
“It was a delightful gathering of men and women of superior cultivation,
who led a charming life for a few years, laboring in its fields and
philandering in its pleasant woods. It was little too much of a picnic
for serious profit, and the young men and maidens were rather unduly
addicted to moonlight wanderings in the pine grove, though it is
creditable to the sound moral training of New England that little or no
harm came of these wanderings—at least, not to the maidens. Brook Farm,
however, was not the only Community which was founded by the disciples
of the ‘Newness.’ There was one established in 1843 on a farm called
Fruitlands, in the town of Harvard, about forty miles from Boston. This
was of much more ultra and grotesque character than Brook Farm. Here
were gathered the men and women who based their hopes of reforming the
world and of making all things new on dress and on diet. They revived
the Pythagorean, the Essenian, and the Monkish notions of Asceticism
with some variations and improvements peculiarly American. The head of
the institution was Bronson Alcott, a very remarkable man, whose
singularities of character, conduct, and opinion would alone afford
sufficient topics for a long lecture. His friend Emerson defined him to
be a philosopher devoted to the science of education, and declared that
he had singular gifts for awakening contemplation and aspiration in
simple and in cultivated persons.... His writings, though quaint and
thoughtful, are clumsy compared with his conversation, which has been
pronounced by the best judges to have been unrivalled in grace and
clearness. Mr. Alcott was one of the most foremost leaders of the
‘Newness.’ He swung round the circle of schemes very rapidly, and after
going through a great variety of phases he maintained, at the time of
the foundation of ‘Fruitlands,’ that the evils of life were not so much
social or political as personal, and that a personal reform only could
eradicate them; that self-denial was the road to eternal life, and that
property was an evil, and animal food of all kinds an abomination. No
animal substance, neither flesh, fish, butter, cheese, eggs, nor milk,
was allowed to be used at ‘Fruitlands.’ They were all denounced as
pollution, and as tending to corrupt the body, and through that the
soul. Tea and coffee, molasses and rice, were also proscribed,—the last
two as foreign luxuries,—and only water was used as a beverage.
“Mr. Alcott would not allow the land to be manured, which he regarded as
a base and corrupting and unjust mode of forcing nature. He made also a
distinction between vegetables which aspired or grew into the air, as
wheat, apples, and other fruits, and the base products which grew
downwards into the earth, such as potatoes,[8] beets, radishes, and the
like. These latter he would not allow to be used. The bread of the
Community he himself made of unbolted flour, and sought to render it
palatable by forming the loaves into the shapes of animals and other
pleasant images. He was very strict, rather despotic in his rule of the
Community, and some of the members have told me they were nearly starved
to death there; nay, absolutely would have perished with hunger if they
had not furtively gone among the surrounding farmers and begged for
food.
Footnote 8:
This was a mistake on Mr. Carter’s part, as they ate potatoes freely.
“One of the Fruitlanders took it into his head that clothes were an
impediment to spiritual growth, and that the light of day was equally
pernicious. He accordingly secluded himself in his room in a state of
nature during the day, and only went out at night for exercise, with a
single white cotton garment reaching from his neck to his knees.
“Samuel Larned lived one whole year on crackers, and the next year
exclusively on apples. He went to Brook Farm after the collapse of the
Fruitlands Community, and when that also failed he went South, married a
lady who owned a number of slaves, and settled there as a Unitarian
minister.”
In this same article Mr. Carter asserts that Fourierism brought Brook
Farm into disrepute at the end, and that a large wooden phalanstery, in
which members had invested all their means, took fire and burned to the
ground just as it was completed. Upon this catastrophe the association
scattered in 1847. Nathaniel Hawthorne lost all his savings in the
enterprise. While he was at Brook Farm he looked after the pigsties.
In contrast to this is the full account of the object and aim of
Fruitlands.
The following letter on The Consociate Family Life was written to A.
Brooke of Oakland, Ohio, and published in the _Herald of Freedom_,
September 8, 1843:—
* * * * *
DEAR SIR: Having perused your several letters in the _Herald of
Freedom_, and finding, moreover, a general invitation to correspondence
from “persons who feel prepared to coöperate in the work of reform upon
principles” akin to those you have set forth, I take this public means
of communicating with one, who seems to be really desirous of aiding
entire human regeneration.
After many years passed in admiration of a better order in human
society, with a constant expectation that some beginning would shortly
be made, and a continued reliance that some party would make it, the
idea has gradually gained possession of my mind, that it is not right
thus to linger for the leadings of other men, but that each should at
once proceed to live out the proposed life to the utmost possible
extent. Assured that the most potent hindrances to goodness abide in the
Soul itself; next in the body; thirdly in the house and family; and in
the fourth degree only in our neighbors, or in society at large; I have
daily found less and less reason to complain of public institutions, or
of the dilatoriness of reformers of genetic minds.
Animated by pure reform principles, or rather by pure creative spirit, I
have not hesitated to withdraw as far and as fast as hopeful prudence
dictated from the practices and principles of the Old World, and acting
upon the conviction that whatever others might do, or leave undone,
however others might fail in the realization of their ideal good, I, at
least, should advance, I have accordingly arrived in that region where I
perceive you theoretically, and I hope, actually dwell. I agree with you
that it would be well to cross the ocean of Life from the narrow island
of selfishness to the broad continent of universal Love at one dash; but
the winds are not always propitious, and steam is only a recent
invention. I cannot yet boast of a year’s emancipation from old England.
One free step leads to another; and the third must necessarily precede
the fourth, as the second was before the third.
A. Bronson Alcott’s visit to England last year opened to me some of the
superior conditions for a pure life which this country offers compared
to the land of my nativity and that of your ancestors. My love for
purity and goodness was sufficiently strong it seems to loosen me from a
position as regards pecuniary income, affectionate friends, and mental
liberty, which millions there and thousands here might envy. It has
happened however that of the many persons with whom Mr. Alcott hoped to
act in conjunction and concert, not one is yet fully liberated by
Providence to that end. So that instead of forming items in a large
enterprise, we are left to be the principal actors in promoting an idea
less in extent, but greater in intent, than any yet presented to our
observation.
[Illustration:
CHARLES LANE
]
Our removal to this estate in humble confidence has drawn to us several
practical coadjutors, and opened many inquiries by letter for a
statement of our principles and modes of life. We cannot perhaps turn
our replies to better account, than to transcribe some portions of them
for your information, and we trust, for your sincere satisfaction.
You must be aware, however, that written words cannot do much towards
the elucidation of principles comprehending all human relationships, and
claiming an origin profound as man’s inmost consciousness of the ever
present Living Spirit. A dwelling together, a concert in soul, and a
consorting in body, is a position needful to entire understanding, which
we hope at no distant day to attain with yourself and many other sincere
friends. We have not yet drawn out any preordained plan of daily
operations, as we are impressed with the conviction that by a faithful
reliance on the Spirit which actuates us, we are sure of attaining to
clear revelations of daily practical duties as they are to be daily done
by us. When the Spirit of Love and Wisdom abounds, literal forms are
needless, irksome or hinderative; where the Spirit is lacking, no
preconceived rules can compensate.
To us it appears not so much that improved circumstances are to
meliorate mankind, as that improved men will originate the superior
condition for themselves and others. Upon the Human Will, and not upon
circumstances, as some philosophers assert, rests the function, power
and duty, of generating a better social state. The human beings in whom
the Eternal Spirit has ascended from low animal delights or mere human
affections, to a state of spiritual chastity and intuition, are in
themselves a divine atmosphere, they are superior circumstances and are
constant in endeavoring to create, as well as to modify, all other
conditions, so that these also shall more and more conduce to the like
consciousness in others.
Hence our perseverance in efforts to attain simplicity in diet, plain
garments, pure bathing, unsullied dwellings, open conduct, gentle
behavior, kindly sympathies, serene minds. These, and several other
particulars needful to the true end of man’s residence on earth, may be
designated the Family Life. Our Happiness, though not the direct object
in human energy, may be accepted as the conformation of rectitude, and
this is not otherwise attainable than in the Holy Family. The Family in
its highest, divinest sense is therefore our true position, our sacred
earthly destiny. It comprehends every divine, every human relation
consistent with universal good, and all others it rejects, as it
disdains all animal sensualities.
The evils of life are not so much social, or political, as personal, and
a personal reform only can eradicate them.
Let the Family, furthermore, be viewed as the home of pure social
affections, the school of expanding intelligence, the sphere of unbought
art, the scene of joyous employment, and we feel in that single
sentiment, a fulness of action, of life, of being, which no scientific
social contrivance can ensure, nor selfish accident supply.
Family is not dependent upon numbers, nor upon skill, nor riches, but
upon union in and with that spirit which alone can bless any enterprise
whatever.
On this topic of Family association, it will not involve an entire
agreement with the Shakers to say they are at least entitled to deeper
consideration than they yet appear to have secured. There are many
important acts in their career worthy of observation. It is perhaps most
striking that the only really successful extensive Community of
interest, spiritual and secular, in modern times was established by A
Woman. Again, we witness in this people the bringing together of the two
sexes in a new relation, or rather with a new idea of the old relation.
This has led to results more harmonic than anyone seriously believes
attainable for the human race, either in isolation or association, so
long as divided, conflicting family arrangements are permitted. The
great secular success of the Shakers; their order, cleanliness,
intelligence and serenity are so eminent, that it is worthy of enquiry
how far these are attributable to an adherence to their peculiar
doctrine.
As to Property, we discover not its just disposal either in individual
or social tenures, but in its entire absorption into the New Spirit,
which ever gives and never grasps.
While we write, negotiations are entertained for our removal to a place
of less inconvenience, by friends who have long waited for some proof of
a determination to act up to the idea they have cherished. Many, no
doubt, are yet unprepared “to give up all and follow him” (the Spirit)
who can importantly aid in the New Advent, and conscientiously
accomplish the legal processes needful under the present circumstances.
We do not recognize the purchase of land; but its redemption from the
debasing state of _proprium_, or property, to divine uses, we clearly
understand when those whom the world esteems as owners are found
yielding their individual rights to the Supreme Owner. Looking at the
subject practically in relation to a climate in which a costly shelter
is necessary, and where a family with many children has to be provided
for, the possibility of at once stepping boldly out of the toils into
which the errors of our predecessors have cast us, is not so evident as
it is desirable.
Trade we hope entirely to avoid at an early day. As a nursery for many
evil propensities it is almost universally felt to be a most undesirable
course. Such needful articles as we cannot yet raise by our own hand
labor from the soil, thus redeemed from human ownership, we shall
endeavor to obtain by friendly exchanges, and, as nearly as possible,
without the intervention of money.
Of all the traffic in which civilized society is involved, that of human
labor is perhaps the most detrimental. From the state of serfdom to the
receipt of wages may be a step in human progress; but it is certainly
full time for taking a new step out of the hiring system.
Our outward exertions are in the first instance directed to the soil,
and as our ultimate aim is to furnish an instance of self-sustaining
cultivation without the subjugation of either men or cattle, or the use
of foul animal manures, we have at the outset to encounter struggles and
oppositions somewhat formidable. Until the land is restored to its
pristine fertility by the annual return of its own green crops, as sweet
and animating manures, the human hand and simple implement cannot wholly
supersede the employment of machinery and cattle. So long as cattle are
used in agriculture, it is very evident that man will remain a slave,
whether he be proprietor or hireling. The driving of cattle beyond their
natural and pleasurable exertion; the waiting upon them as cook and
chambermaid three parts of the year; the excessive labor of mowing,
curing, and housing hay, and of collecting other fodder, and the large
extra quantity of land needful to keep up this system, form a
continuation of unfavorable circumstances which must depress the human
affections so long as it continues, and overlay them by the injurious
and extravagant development of the animal and bestial natures in man. It
is calculated that if no animal food were consumed, one-fourth of the
land now used would suffice for human sustenance. And the extensive
tracts of country now appropriated to grazing, mowing, and other modes
of animal provision, could be cultivated by and for intelligent and
affectionate human neighbors. The sty and the stable too often secure
more of the farmer’s regard than he bestows on the garden and the
children. No hope is there for humanity while Woman is withdrawn from
the tender assiduities which adorn her and her household, to the
servitudes of the dairy and the flesh pots. If the beasts were wholly
absent from man’s neighborhood, the human population might be at least
four times as dense as it now is without raising the price of land. This
would give to the country all the advantages of concentration without
the vices which always spring up in the dense city.
[Illustration:
THE SMALL DINING-ROOM
Around this table the philosophers discussed their deepest problems.
]
Debauchery of both the earthly soil and the human body is the result of
this cattle keeping. The land is scourged for crops to feed the animals,
whose ordures are used under the erroneous supposition of restoring lost
fertility; disease is thus infused into the human body; stimulants and
medicines are resorted to for relief, which end in a precipitation of
the original evil to a more disastrous depth. These misfortunes which
affect not only the body, but by reaction rise to the sphere of the
soul, would be avoided, or at least in part, by the disuse of animal
food. Our diet is therefore strictly the pure and bloodless kind. No
animal substances, neither flesh, butter, cheese, eggs, nor milk,
pollute our table or corrupt our bodies, neither tea, coffee, molasses,
nor rice, tempts us beyond the bounds of indigenous productions. Our
sole beverage is pure fountain water. The native grains, fruits, herbs,
and roots, dressed with the utmost cleanliness and regard to their
purpose of edifying a healthful body, furnish the pleasantest refections
and in the greatest variety requisite to the supply of the various
organs. The field, the orchard, the garden, in their bounteous products
of wheat, rye, barley, maize, oats, buckwheat, apples, pears, peaches,
plums, cherries, currants, berries, potatoes, peas, beans, beets,
carrots, melons, and other vines, yield an ample store for human
nutrition, without dependence on foreign climes, or the degeneration of
shipping and trade. The almost inexhaustible variety of the several
stages and sorts of vegetable growth, and the several modes of
preparation, are a full answer to the question which is often put by
those who have never ventured into the region of a pure and chaste diet:
“If you give up flesh meat, upon what then can you live?”