that, although it was no fault of hers that the routine of her life was in
every way repulsive, she did struggle to accommodate herself to it, and
failed. When she found it impossible to drag on at home, she became an
inmate of a refined and cultivated household in the village, where she had
opportunity to follow her own fancies and to associate with educated and
attractive persons. But even here she could not escape the feeling that it
was all temporary, that her position was one of dependence; and her pride,
now grown morbid, often drove her from the very society which alone was
agreeable to her. This was all genuine. There was not the slightest strain
of the _femme incomprise_ in her demeanor. She was always shy and silent,
with a touching reserve which won interest and confidence, but left also a
vague sadness in the mind of the observer. After a few months she made
another effort to rend the cloud which was gradually darkening around her,
and opened a school for young children. But although the interest of
friends secured her a partial success, her gravity and sadness failed to
excite the sympathy of her pupils, who missed in her the playful gayety
always most winning to children. Martha, however, pushed bravely on, a
figure of tragic sobriety to all who watched her course. The farmers
thought her a strange girl, and wondered at the ways of the farmer's
daughter who was not content to milk cows and churn butter and fry pork,
without further hope or thought. The good clergyman of the town,
interested in her situation, sought a confidence she did not care to
bestow, and so, doling out a, b, c to a wild group of boys and girls, she
found that she could not untie the Gordian knot of her life, and felt with
terror that it must be cut.
"One summer evening she left her father's house and walked into the fields
alone. Night came, but Martha did not return. The family became anxious,
inquired if any one had noticed the direction in which she went, learned
from the neighbors that she was not visiting, that there was no lecture
nor meeting to detain her, and wonder passed into apprehension. Neighbors
went into the adjacent woods and called, but received no answer. Every
instant the awful shadow of some dread event solemnized the gathering
groups. Every one thought what no one dared whisper, until a low voice
suggested the river. Then with the swiftness of certainty all friends far
and near were roused, and thronged along the banks of the stream. Torches
flashed in the boats that put off in the terrible search. Hawthorne, then
living in the Old Manse, was summoned, and the man whom the villagers had
only seen at morning as a musing spectre in his garden, now appeared among
them at night, to devote his strong arm and steady heart to their service.
The boats drifted slowly down the stream, the torches flashed strangely
upon the black repose of the waters, and upon the long slim grasses that
weeping fringed the marge. Upon both banks silent and awe-stricken crowds
hastened along, eager and dreading to find the slightest trace of what
they sought. Suddenly they came to a few articles of dress, heavy with the
night dew. No one spoke, for no one had doubted the result. It was clear
that Martha had strayed to the river, and quietly asked of its stillness
the repose she sought. The boats gathered around the spot. With every
implement that could be of service the melancholy search began. Long
intervals of fearful silence ensued, but at length, towards midnight, the
sweet face of the dead girl was raised more placidly to the stars than
ever it had been to the sun.
"So ended a village tragedy. The reader may possibly find in it the
original of the thrilling conclusion of the 'Blithedale Romance,' and
learn anew that dark as is the thread with which Hawthorne weaves his
spells, it is no darker than those with which tragedies are spun, even in
regions apparently so torpid as Concord."
Far too much has been made of the realistic elements in the "Blithedale
Romance." Hawthorne says in his preface that "he has occasionally availed
himself of his actual reminiscences;" but it cannot be claimed that he did
anything more. The fact seems to be that he used such reminiscences and
incidents merely as stimuli to his imagination, that the real romance of
the story was purely of his own creation. So far as he used the facts of
his life at Brook Farm it was to give an air of reality to his story; and
in no other sense can it be accepted as truthful to Brook Farm life. For
instance, his Zenobia was in every sense an original creation, and not a
description of any person he had known. Three persons he knew at Brook
Farm gave him hints, traits of character, and points of departure for the
activity of his imagination. The stately elements in Zenobia resembled
those of Mrs. George Ripley, her luxurious tastes were like those of Mrs.
Almira Barlow, while her genius and brilliancy had a few similarities to
Margaret Fuller. His habit seems to have been to take a single incident in
the life of a person, and to make that the chief one in a character. In
this way his romances gained a realistic phase of a very impressive kind;
but the character of a person as a whole he never copied. It is a strange
comment on his powerful writing that so much should have been made of his
superficial realism, while the persistent and profound romanticism of his
work is too often overlooked. Yet this was one of the weird results of his
genius, that his imagination weaves for itself a world more real than life
itself, and that claims for itself an acceptance as truer to facts than
the word of the historian.
In his paper on Emerson, Curtis gives further account of his life in
Concord. He said that "Thoreau lives in the berry-pastures upon a bank
over Walden Pond, and in a little house of his own building. One pleasant
summer afternoon a small party of us helped him raise it--a bit of life as
Arcadian as any at Brook Farm. Elsewhere in the village he turns up
arrow-heads abundantly, and Hawthorne mentions that Thoreau initiated him
into the mystery of finding them." His account of the club which gathered
for a few evenings in Emerson's study deserves to be placed here in order
to complete his story of Concord experiences, the fictitious names used by
him being changed to the real ones:
"It was in the year 1845 that a circle of persons of various ages, and
differing very much in everything but sympathy, found themselves in
Concord. Towards the end of the autumn, Mr. Emerson suggested that they
should meet every Monday evening through the winter in his library.
'Monsieur Aubepine,' 'Miles Coverdale,' and other phantoms, since known as
Nathaniel Hawthorne, who then occupied the Old Manse; the inflexible Henry
Thoreau, a scholastic and pastoral Orson, then living among the blackberry
pastures of Walden Pond; Plato Skimpole [Margaret Fuller's name for
Alcott], then sublimely meditating impossible summer-houses in a little
house on the Boston Road; the enthusiastic agriculturist and Brook Farmer
[George Bradford], then an inmate of Mr. Emerson's house, who added the
genial cultivation of a scholar to the amenities of the natural gentleman;
a sturdy farmer-neighbor [Edmund Hosmer], who had bravely fought his weary
way through inherited embarrassment to the small success of a New England
husbandman; two city youths [George and Burrill Curtis], ready for the
fragments from the feast of wit and wisdom; and the host himself, composed
the club. Ellery Channing, who had that winter harnessed his Pegasus to
the New York _Tribune_, was a kind of corresponding member. The news of
this world was to be transmitted through his eminently practical genius,
as the club deemed itself competent to take charge of tidings from all
other spheres.
"I went the first evening very much as Ixion may have gone to his banquet.
The philosophers sat dignified and erect. There was a constrained but very
amiable silence, which had the impertinence of a tacit inquiry, seeming to
ask, 'Who will now proceed to say the finest thing that has ever been
said?' It was quite involuntary and unavoidable, for the members lacked
that fluent social genius without which a club is impossible. It was a
congress of oracles on the one hand, and of curious listeners upon the
other. I vaguely remember that the Orphic Alcott invaded the Sahara of
silence with a solemn 'Saying,' to which, after due pause, the honorable
member for Blackberry Pastures responded by some keen and graphic
observations, while the Olympian host, anxious that so much material
should be spun into something, beamed smiling encouragement upon all
parties. But the conversation became more and more staccato. Hawthorne, a
statue of night and silence, sat a little removed, under a portrait of
Dante, gazing imperturbably upon the group; and as he sat in the shadow,
his dark hair and eyes and suit of sables made him, in that society, the
black thread of mystery which he weaves into his stories; while the
shifting presence of the Brook Farmer played like heat lightning around
the room.
"I remember little else but a grave eating of russet apples by the erect
philosophers, and a solemn disappearance into night. The club struggled
through three Monday evenings. Alcott was perpetually putting apples of
gold in pictures of silver; for such was the rich ore of his thoughts
coined by the deep melody of his voice. Thoreau charmed us with the
secrets won from his interviews with Pan in the Walden woods; while
Emerson, with the zeal of an engineer trying to dam wild waters, sought to
bind the wide-flying embroidery of discourse into a whole of clear, sweet
sense. But still in vain. The oracular sayings were the unalloyed
saccharine element; and every chemist knows how much else goes to
practical food--how much coarse, rough, woody fibre is essential. The club
struggled on valiantly, discoursing celestially, eating apples, and
disappearing in the dark, until the third evening it vanished altogether.
But I have since known clubs of fifty times the number, whose collected
genius was not more than that of either of the Dii Majores of our Concord
coterie. The fault was its too great concentration. It was not relaxation,
as a club should be, but tension. Society is a play, a game, a tournament;
not a battle. It is the easy grace of undress; not an intellectual,
full-dress parade."
VII
As will have been seen, Curtis never lost his interest in Brook Farm or
his faith in the principles on which it was founded. In his letters to
Dwight he clearly pointed out its defects, and he indicated in an
emphatic manner that he could not accept some of its methods. He showed
that he was an individualist rather than an associationist or socialist,
that his supreme faith was in individual effort, and in each person making
himself right before he undertook to reform society. His "Easy Chair"
essays make it clear that he saw with keen vision the limitations of Brook
Farm; but it had for him a distinct charm, and one that increased rather
than grew less as the years went on. The Brook Farm effort to right the
wrongs of society, to give all persons an opportunity in life, and to
bring the help of all to the aid of each one, he heartily accepted in its
spirit and intent; and to that faith he ever held with unswerving
confidence.
Not less did the Concord episode remain with Curtis as a bright spot in
his life. He gladly went to Concord whenever the opportunity offered; he
frequently lectured there, and was always heard with delight; and he gave
the Centennial Address, April 19, 1875, on the occasion of the one
hundredth anniversary of the battle at the old north bridge.
It was a part of the Brook Farm and Concord life which Curtis continued in
his intimacy with Dwight. So great was the confidence of this friendship
that he wrote to Dwight as soon as his marriage had been arranged, telling
him of his happiness, and telling him that the promised bride was the
daughter of their old Brook Farm friends, the Francis George Shaws. "Do
you remember her in Brook Farm days?" he asked. "There was never anything
that made parents and children happier." In closing his letter he wrote:
"When do you come to New York? I so want you to see her and know her; then
of course you will love her. Give my love to your wife--think that love is
not for this world, but forever!--and remember your friend who remembers
you." In his reply, Dwight said:
"You are right, George; link your destinies with _youth_. I scarcely
believe in anything else--except Spring and Morning. But then, there is a
way of making these--the soul of them--perpetual; and you have the secret
of it, I am sure, better than most of us.
"To think of that child, who used to play about Brook Farm, and go through
finger drudgery under my piano-professorship (Heaven save the mark!), the
child of our young friends, Mr. and Mrs. F.S. (how can you think of them
as parents?) being the future Mrs. Howadji! or I a dull drudge of an
editor! I do wish indeed to see and know her, and doubt not I shall find
your glowing statements all confirmed, and that in your height of joy you
need not be ashamed to 'blush it east and blush it west.' There is a
certain 'Maud'-like ecstasy in your note that makes me think of that.
"A small bird had already sung the news in my ear. But it was doubly
pleasant to have it straight from you. It was good in you to remember me
so.... Would that I might see you in New York! but I must content myself
with the not very remote prospect of having you by the hand here. Till
then, believe me happy in your happiness, and faithfully as ever your
friend."
Francis George Shaw, and his wife Sarah B. Shaw, were not members of the
Brook Farm community; but they lived in the immediate vicinity, often
visited the farm, joined in its entertainments, and were intimate friends
of the leaders of the association. He was a contributor to the Harbinger,
for which he wrote a number of articles in favor of the associationist
social movement. He made an admirable translation of George Sand's
"Consuelo" for the paper, in which that novel was for the first time
printed in this country. Their children were frequently at the farm, and
grew up in the midst of such ideas and influences as it fostered. One of
them was that Colonel Robert G. Shaw who was "buried with his niggers" at
Fort Wagner, after having led one of the most gallant military movements
of modern times. Three of the daughters married, Curtis, General Barlow,
and General Charles Russell Lowell. Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell has made
for herself a lasting name by her philanthropies, and her generous
interest in all good causes. Mrs. Shaw wrote the biography of her son
Robert, which was published in the work devoted to the Harvard graduates
who fell in the Civil War.
The real effect of Brook Farm, and that movement of which it was a part,
can be rightly understood only when there is taken into consideration what
they did for such persons as Shaw, Curtis, Barlow, Lowell, and Mrs.
Lowell. These persons were trained by Brook Farm and Transcendentalism;
and their aspirations, philanthropies, chivalrous spirit, and romantic
courage were fostered and developed by them. The tone and quality of
Shaw's courage, and of his heroic effort for the colored men, found in
Brook Farm their motive and incentive; and in Brook Farm because it
represented a phase of life much larger than itself, one that fosters the
noblest faith in men and in the spiritual future of humanity. Of Barlow
and Lowell it may be also said that their heroism and their patriotism
were the legitimate products of that movement whose hope and faith were
the inspiration of their youth. To this source was due Barlow's love of
justice, his unflinching courage in opposing self-seekers and partisan
patriots, and his trust in the ultimate worth of what is right and true.
The letters printed in this volume have a large interest as indications of
how George William Curtis was making ready for his life-work. His
independence, his love of humanity, his courage in maintaining his own
convictions, his chivalrous and romantic spirit, his literary skill and
charm, his profound spiritual convictions, that would not be limited by
any sectarian bounds, all find expression here in such form as to give
sure promise for his future. It was a somewhat erratic kind of training
which Curtis received; but for him it was better than any college of his
day could have given him. Admirably fitted to his tastes, it was no less
well adapted to his needs. It fostered in him all that was best in his
character, and it served to bring out his genius to its rounded
expression.
The two years which Curtis spent in Concord must have been of the greatest
value to him. His contact with Emerson was of itself of inestimable worth,
for it gave him that enthusiasm for ideas, that contact with a noble life
lived for the highest ends of spiritual development, which fostered in him
the enthusiasms which were so genuine a part of his life. Without Brook
Farm, Transcendentalism, and Emerson, it is quite safe to say that the
life of Curtis would have been less worthy of our admiration. The stay in
Concord was a time of seed-planting, and the harvest came in all that the
man was in later years. Without the enthusiasms then cherished the
independent in politics would have been less courageous. And these letters
may suggest anew one of the most important lessons of education, that
without enthusiasms no man can do any great or noble work in the world.
What will give to youth visions, ideals, and enthusiasms is worth all
other parts of culture, for out of these grow the noblest results of human
willing, thinking, and doing.
EARLY LETTERS TO JOHN S. DWIGHT
I
PROVIDENCE, _August 18, 1843._
Are you quite recovered from those divine enchantments which held us bound
so long? Memory preserves for me those silvery sounds, and almost I seem
to catch their echo. Have we indeed heard the Siren song--are we
unscathed? Let me be your Father John, and to these reverend years commit
the tale of youthful fervor. So good a Catholic as I, of course, has long
ago made confession. But another yet remains for me--namely, that I cannot
get that song. Yesterday I heard from Isaac, who cannot buy it in New
York. Nothing but a copy for the guitar and that Rosalie. Would it be an
expensive thing to import? Reed told me he could do that, but as I
supposed there was no doubt of its being in New York, I said nothing about
it. She should have the song; it would be so fine falling out of her
mouth. Mouth-dropped gems would be no longer a fable. As, indeed, we have
seen already. For what so universal an Interpreter as music? That art has
the gift of tongues (_ecce_, the Singing-School).
Burrill met with a mishap on Wednesday. We were walking out of town, and
he, springing from a wall, turned his ankle and sprained it. He is
therefore laid up for some days. It is a disappointment to him, for he
hoped to leave on Monday next, and meanwhile see several persons. I doubt
if he can step on his foot so soon.
I had yesterday a German letter from Isaac; German in spirit, not in
language. He has certainly a great heart, more delicate in his character
than I thought, with a constant force, nervous, not muscular strength.
Will you accept so city-like a letter? I am busy or I should write more;
another time will suffice. Let me accept from you a country-like letter.
Yours in the bonds,
G.W.C.
II
PROVIDENCE, _September 1, 1843._
My dear Friend,--Your letter did not reach my hands until last evening,
when I returned from Newport, where I have passed the last eight days, how
pleasantly I need not tell you. After the quiet beauty of our farm home,
there was a striking grandeur in the sea that I never beheld so plainly
before. There is something sublimely cheerful about the ocean, altho' it
is so stored with woe, and so constantly suggestive it is of that ocean,
life, whereon we all float.
It was pleasant to me that Nature confirmed my judgment of Tennyson. The
little poem that closes one of the volumes, "Break, break, break," etc.,
is so exquisitely human and tender, with all its vague and dim beauty,
that the waves dashed to its music, and silently the whole sea sung the
song. Just so the jottings down of poets, the few words that must be said,
tho' the Nature which they sing is so limitless, and inexpressible are the
blossoms of poetry and all literature. Will not the little song of
Shakespeare's, "Take, oh! take those lips away," be as immortal as Hamlet?
Not because chance may print them together, but because it is as universal
and more delicate an expression. That charm pervades our favorite,
Tennyson. There is no rough-marked outline, all fades away upon earnest
contemplation into the tones of his songs, into the colors of the sky. So
in the landscape, tint fades gently into tint, and the beauty that
attracts spreads from leaf to hill, from hill to horizon, till the whole
is bathed in sunlight. Is not this fact also recognized in other arts? In
painting, the great picture is without marked outline; in music, the
truest and deepest is undefined. Beethoven is greater than Haydn. The
precision which offends in manner is as disagreeable everywhere else. Is
it not because when named as Precision, the depth which necessarily means
a graceful form is absent? As when we say a woman has beautiful eyes we
indirectly acknowledge her want of universal beauty. Certainly a man of
elegant manners is admired not for himself, but what he represents.
Indeed, all society is only thus endurable. Nature, and to me particularly
the ocean, makes no such partial impression; and therefore the poet who
sits nearest to the great heart sings rather the sense of vague beauty and
aspiration, of tender remembrance and gentle hope, than a bald description
of the sight. The ocean is not fathomless water nor the woods green trees
to him, but a presence, and a key that unlocks the chambers of his soul
where the diamonds are. Therefore, when I have been into nearer
conversation with Nature I have little to say, but my life is deepened.
The poet is he who with deepened life chants also a flowing hymn which
utters the music of that life. You will understand why the little poem
seems to me so fine, therefore. This water I also see; but not in me lies
the power of the due expression of its influence.
There was another pleasant aspect in Newport, of persons. I walked one
evening towards the town (for I was boarding in the outskirts), and passed
an encampment of soldiers, who in their gay uniforms glittered among the
lighted tents like soldier fays. The band in the shadow of the camp was
playing very sweetly airs proper for that fading light, half-mournful,
half-tender and hopeful. I passed by the houses brilliantly lighted and
filled with finely dressed people, who also thronged the streets. Before
one of the principal hotels was a band from the fort serenading, and
surrounded with a crowd of easy listeners. The ice-cream resort was
filled, the cottages shone among the trees, and an air of entire
abandonment to joy filled the place. Old men and young men, women and
girls, seemed to have laid aside all business, all care, and to be only
gay. It was a vision of the Lotos islands, an earthly portrait of that
meek repose which haunts us ideally sometimes.
I was surprised upon my return to find Burrill still here. He is able only
to crutch about the house, but will probably return to Brook Farm with me
during the latter part of next week, which is the commencement week
here....
I should have been glad to have seen the gay picnic, and to have heard the
O.; let me hope she will not be gone when I return. I am exceedingly
obliged for your kind suggestion of "Adelaide," and if you choose to
present it as a joint gift, you confer a great pleasure upon me.
Commend me particularly to Almira; to the young men whom you will,
including mainly Charles D. and James S.; to Mr. and Mrs. R.; and if you
will write me again you will be sure that your proxy will be welcome to
Your friend,
G.W. CURTIS.
Will you say to Miss Russell that I shall see my aunt this afternoon, and
will perform her commission. Moreover, that I am gratified at so
distinguished a mark of her approbation as the permission to escort a
plant to her garden.
G.W.C.
III
NEW YORK, _Saturday eve'g, November 11, 1843._
Your letter has just reached me, my dear friend, loaded with much that was
not in it, and which needed only a person or a letter from a region so
delightful to bear it to me. Already my life at the Farm is removed and
transfigured. It stands for so much in my experience, and is so fairly
rounded, that I know the experience could never return, tho' the residence
might be renewed. When we mend the broken chain, we see ever after the
point of union.