John Van der Zee Sears

“ 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. ”

“ Urged by my sister Althea, Annie Page took the offered seat, and down the slide we plunged like a shot, all the company watching our venture with intense interest and not a little anxiety. The flight took the breath away, but we sailed over the brook and out to the thin snow on the meadow in one grand swoop, without a bump or a break on the way. Annie was delighted and thanked me, over and over for giving her such a surprising pleasure. ”

“ Three days and three nights the raiding powers of the arctics raged about us and blockaded all but the hardiest and strongest of us in the close quarters of the Hive. To venture out of the house was to risk life and limb. No one was allowed to run such risks alone, as, in case of a fall, the chances would be against getting up again without help, but parties of twos and threes of the young men went to the barns to look after the cattle or up to the Eyrie, the Cottage and Pilgrim Hall to see that all was right and to bring down a sled-load of bedding for the shut-ins. ”

“ Why not begin to remove the mountain of custom and convention?’ In order to live a religious and moral life, they feel it is necessary to come out in some degree from the world and form themselves into a community of property so far as to exclude competition and the ordinary rules of trade, while they preserve sufficient private property for all purposes of independence and isolation at will. They make agriculture the basis of their life, it being most direct and simple in relation to nature. A true life although it aims beyond the stars, is redolent of the healthy earth. ”

“ On the whole, again, from the social point of view, the Brook Farm experiment was eminently successful. We were happy, contented, well-off and care-free; doing a great work in the world, enthusiastic and faithful, we enjoyed every moment of every day, dominated every moment of every day by the Spirit of Brook Farm. ”

“ Ripley and Charles Hosmer made their way home from Boston, hailed with rejoicings by everyone except Master Grumpus, who should have been more than thankful for their timely arrival, had he only known it. Saturday morning regular lessons were resumed in the classroom, but I held aloof in out-of-the-way coverts; one hiding place being the cow-stable. Here Charles Hosmer happened to find me, just incidentally, as it seemed, but really by kindly design no doubt, and gave me a hearty greeting which I couldn’t be so churlish as not to return. ”

“ George Ripley, the founder of Brook Farm.
I do not know anything more about this old time Transcendentalism than I do about the Pragmatism of our day, and that is not much. I believe the two schools of thought were alike in this, they both held that modern civilization has gone sadly and badly astray in the pursuit of wealth. Not money but the love of money is, now as ever, the root of all evil. ”

“ John Cheever was the one person in all West Roxbury who sympathized with my sister and myself in the most grievous trial we ever encountered as children. The Brook Farmers and all their neighbors ignored Christmas. They knew nothing and cared nothing about that wondrous season of joy for the little ones, and could not in the least understand how it was that Althea and I were so sorely hurt by such a trifle as the neglect of an old and forgotten custom. John Cheever did understand. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Partly imagined, too, is the presumption that my father was attracted by the philosophic ideals presented by his Boston friends. A tired business man might well be impressed by the Transcendental teaching that our civilization has gone wrong in forcing all human energy into the one pursuit, that of getting riches. They held that while hard work rarely harms any one, the monotonous grind in the money making mills results in arrested development. Work as hard as you please, spend all the energy, all the talent, all the skill you have but not in seeking wealth. ”

“ Education at Brook Farm began in the kindergarten—only we did not know it. The word was not in the dictionaries of that period, and Froebel was yet to be heard of in Massachusetts; but the rudiments of the kindergarten system were devised and put in practice by our folk in response to a new demand. The little ones, too old for the nursery and too young for the school, demanded some adequate provision for their care while their mothers were at work. In the community the one person best suited to fill any requirement was directed to the undertaking by natural selection. ”

“ We were idlers forever singing and fiddling and dancing when honest folk were at work. This criticism was in part true. We certainly did devote more time and more attention to recreation than was customary among working folk. The two half-holidays of the week were set apart for diversions. All care and toil came to a full stop, and everyone was free to do exactly as he or she pleased. Usually all hands pleased to be together, after the Brook Farm fashion, everyone joining in whatever scheme of amusement was on foot for the day. ”

“ Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of view was diametrically opposite to that of the Farmers who looked upon life as a phase of existence to be made the most of and to be enjoyed to the full with every breath from first to last. ”

“ Everybody sprang up at once, and away they all flew like a flock of birds, leaving an astonished little boy looking for something to eat.
Althea took flight with the others, presently returning to look after her forlorn brother, but, finding I had been taken to the kitchen for something that might at least alleviate the pangs of hunger, she rejoined the girls in the parlor, where there was already a dance under way. Althea was a bright-spirited girl, vivacious, alert, appreciative and companionable. She forthwith took her place in the Brook Farm community with the best grace. ”

“ Kindness to animals was taught and practiced first, last and all the time, and every living creature from the ox at the plow to the swallow building in the sandbank was gentle and not afraid.
The only cruel thing we ever did was to cut down through the middle of an ant’s nest in the pine woods. Our Natural History Club, of which both old folk and young folk were members, made quite a thorough study of ants, at one time, and, for the purpose of illustrating a lesson, John Cheever drove a spade through the center of a nest and shoveled away, one half of it. ”

“ Our critics held that we had no moral right to give up a whole day each week just for fun. This might have been true had we been trying to get rich, but getting rich was not the first object we contemplated. Other things came before wealth-seeking, but, all the same, in competition with those who thought ill of our ways, we beat them all to pieces. In Boston markets Brook Farm products were at a premium and found quicker sale at better prices than the West Roxbury farmers and gardeners could command. ”

“ He belonged to a well-to-do family in New York, engaged in the manufacture of flour specialties, but the restraints and the questionable practices of business were irksome to him, and he eagerly sought a home among the congenial spirits who were trying to live a higher life on their sterile little property in West Roxbury. Being one of the thoroughgoing kind, he had learned all the uses of flour from beginning to end, and this knowledge he gladly made available as baker-general for the Brook Farm community. ”

“ Before bedtime the snowstorm had risen to the height of a terrific tempest, the heaviest and hardest of the winter, and what the New England winter can do when it tries can only be known by experience, as no description can convey any adequate idea of the fierce blasts, the drive of hard-frozen snow and the terrible cold forced straight through clothes and flesh and bones by the piercing spears and pounding hammers of the Northeast gale fiends. ”

“ Ripley who, having the courage of his convictions, bravely suggested putting in practice the principles he and his Transcendental friends advocated in theory. “We talk well,” he said, in effect, “why not try to do the thing which we say?” And he did. With a few of these friends, like-minded, he went out to West Roxbury; six miles from Boston, and bought a farm of 200 acres. Being unusually bright folk, remarkably intelligent, highly educated and, as may be said, brilliantly enlightened, they succeeded, almost beyond belief, in making a woefully bad bargain. ”

“ Ripley in particular have been censured for refusing to accept members of the community and pupils of the school not suited to the forwarding of undertakings held as almost sacred. This exclusiveness was neither hard-hearted nor uncharitable, but was simply necessary under the circumstances. To charge Brook Farm with being heathenish and unchristian on this account, as certain Puritan critics have done, is as unjust as it would be to blame Luther Burbank for discarding a thousand plants to cultivate the one growth giving promise of answering his purpose. ”

“ FOURIER AND THE FARMERS
In the language of the time the Farmers were Socialists, but the Socialism of 1840-50 was a very different proposition from the Socialism of to-day. The earlier socialists were not in politics. They had no party, politically speaking, and took only a remote and indirect interest in political affairs. What they wanted was to reform the world; to reconstruct civilization on a scientific basis. That was what President Lincoln was wont to call a big job. However, faith will move mountains, and the socialists certainly had faith. ”

“ Work was suspended except the simple household duties and the care of the animals, and the hours were devoted to having a good time. The pupils were allowed to do as they pleased, and it pleased us boys sometimes to be robbers and brigands and smugglers in a cavern behind the Eyrie. Here we could build a fire on condition that no fire was ever to be built elsewhere. This dark and dismal cave occupied a conspicuous place in my memories of Brook Farm for many years until in later life, I took my daughter to visit the old place, when puffed up pride had a bad fall. ”

“ The Organization of Labor will evolve Attractive Industries; Harmonious Communities, and will ensure the Equitable Distribution of Gains and the protection afforded by Mutual Guarantees.
These communities will illustrate Fourier’s second axiom. Attractions are Proportioned to Destinies. Every being born into this world has a place in the work of subduing the earth, suited to his abilities and to his tastes. In the Organized Community this place will be open to him. He will be attracted to those industries in which he is destined to do his best work. ”

“ Recreation and amusement were as much a part of their programme as tilling the soil, teaching school or keeping house. To wake up every morning eager to begin an active, interesting, joyful day, without a thought of anxiety—that was their ideal, and, like their other ideals, this was fairly realized. ”

“ Do your best in the world; give all you can, but be sure to get a fair return, not in money but in better things. Seek culture, seek knowledge, seek character, seek friendship, good will, good health, good conscience, and the peace that passeth understanding shall be added unto you. Be content with a small measure of this world’s wealth and do not crave costly luxuries to make a show withal. To this end, go out into the country; raise what you need as far as possible with your own hands, and enough more to exchange for such things as you cannot produce. ”

“ Teachers and pupils, like everyone else at Brook Farm, loved to be in the open. We lived in the free air so habitually that to be shut up in the house was an irksome restraint. All summer long classes were held in the amphitheater, under the elms, on the rocky or the grassy slopes of the Knoll. ”

“ To glide smoothly along through the country on the deck of a canal boat is a method of locomotion affording opportunities to view the landscape o’er with much comfort and constant though not too rapid changes of entertainment. Necessarily running as near the shore as possible, a slight shift of the tiller by an obliging helmsman would enable a small boy to effect a landing and take a quick look into the canal blacksmith shop, or to walk a stretch with the youth driving the horses, and then re-embark without attracting too much attention. ”

“ The provision of Mutual Guarantees will insure to each a good home, good living, good education for the young, good care for the aged and good opportunities for work and for recreation while life lasts. Each one will be perfectly free to follow those congenial pursuits the attractions of which are proportioned to his destiny. The final consummation as announced by Fourier in his third axiom, will be the Unity of Man with God, with Man, and with Nature.
The apostle of Fourierism in America was Albert Brisbane. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”