from French and German authors, and was ordained to the ministry. He soon left the pulpit, feeling that it was better to try to actualize a Christian life, preaching it by deeds himself, than to preach it by words to others. He was supremely musical, though his musical feeling sometimes showed itself in verse, and he stamped Brook Farm with his musical influence. Short in stature, delicate in physical organization, the school claimed the major part of his services.
Mrs. Ripley was born under favorable stars and had superior mental talent and training, with hosts of friends and relatives. Her devotion to the "Community" caused a great flutter in her social circle. Her relatives were noted for their position, their personal dignity, and generally for a haughtiness of manner unknown in these days. In person she was tall, slender and graceful, with rather light, smooth hair, worn in the plain style of the day. Being near-sighted she was obliged to use a glass when looking at a distant person or thing. Her manner was vivacious and she was a good conversationalist. Mr. Ripley had changed since the description given of his appearance in earlier days, and had grown stouter; had lost his pallor and gained a good, healthy color. He had allowed a vigorous beard to grow, and shaved only his upper lip.
A young man of education, culture and marked ability was Charles Anderson Dana when from Harvard College he presented himself at the farm. 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 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 musical and clear, 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. If you looked into his room you saw pleasant volumes in various languages peeping at you from the table, chair, bookcase, and even from the floor, and they gave one the impression that for so young a person he was remarkably studious and well informed.
George P. Bradford had the department of Belle Lettres. Of him, after his decease, his former friend and pupil, George William Curtis, wrote as follows in Harper's Monthly for May, 1890:—
"The recollection of George Bradford is that of a long life as serene and happy as it was blameless and delightful to others. It was a life of affection and many interests and friendly devotion; but it was not that of a recluse scholar like Edward Fitzgerald, with the pensive consciousness of something desired but undone. George Bradford was in full sympathy with the best spirit of his time. He had all the distinctive American interest in public affairs. His conscience was as sensitive to public wrongs and perilous tendencies as to private and personal conduct. He voted with strong convictions, and wondered sometimes that the course so plain to him was not equally plain to others.
"It was a life with nothing of what we call achievement, and yet a life beneficent to every other life that it touched, like a summer wind laden with a thousand invisible seeds that, dropping everywhere, spring up into flowers and fruit. It is a name which to most readers of these words is wholly unknown, and which will not be written, like that of so many of the friends of him who bore it, in our literature and upon the memory of his countrymen. But to those who knew him well, and who therefore loved him, it recalls the most essential human worth and purest charm of character, the truest manhood, the most affectionate fidelity. To those who hear of him now, and perhaps never again, these words may suggest that the personal influences which most envelop and sweeten life may escape fame, but live immortal in the best part of other lives."
Among the signers was also Nathaniel Hawthorne, the writer, and it may not be out of place to make here a few comments on his relation to the Brook Farm life, so often alluded to by writers.
Hawthorne was an idealist in its broad sense. The idea of a juster and more rational social state pleased him. He felt himself honored, and was very grateful for the appreciation of the men and women by whom he was surrounded in the literary circle of the Transcendental Club, but he never surrendered the well-matured plan of his youth, to be a writer of stories.
When, he went to Brook Farm he thought that his manual labors might in a small way do a trifle towards aiding the formation of the ideal state, and evidently felt that in his leisure hours he could compose, write for magazines, and the like; but the hard, unwonted though self-imposed labor, the peculiar surroundings, the buzz and hum of the large family in which he could not fail to take an interest, distracted him from his purpose. James T. Fields, the publisher, said of him, "He was a man who had, so to speak, a physical affinity with solitude." He could not put his mind to his special work. The seclusion in which he had worked before, he could not find, and though "no one intruded on him," as he says, yet he was not in his best element.
Had he stayed longer, this newness of situation would doubtless have worn off, and he would have found a seclusion little dreamed of at first acquaintance with the life. He was in haste to be at his writing; so after a few months of manual labor, bidding adieu to the farm, he found himself back in Boston. There were other interests that carried him there, for we find that in the next year he married Sophia Peabody of Salem, Mass. Critics have said that the Brook Farm life was hurtful to his genius. He never once intimated it, but said afterwards to Emerson that he was "almost sorry he did not stay with the Brook Farmers and see it out to the finish."
The most ingenuous, the most simple-minded of all men in matters of ordinary business, in relative values and exchanges, and unwilling to act as teacher, he could only be counted as an ordinary day-laborer, except where he could use the twin gifts of intellect and imagination with which he was so highly endowed. His allusion to his "having had the good fortune, for a time, to be personally connected with it," and "his old and affectionately remembered home at Brook Farm" speak volumes, as does also this little passage from "Blithedale Romance":—
"Often in these years that are darkening around me, I remember our beautiful scheme of a noble and unselfish life, and how fair in that first summer appeared the prospect that it might endure for generations, and be perfected, as the ages rolled by, into the system of a people and a world. Were my former associates now there—were there only three or four of those true-hearted men still laboring in the sun—I sometimes fancy that I should direct my world-weary footsteps thitherward, and entreat them to receive me for old friendship's sake. More and more I feel we struck upon what ought to be a truth. Posterity may dig it up and profit by it."
In "Years of Experience" the writer, Georgiana (Bruce) Kirby, one of the early associates, says:—
"Hawthorne, after spending a year at the Community, had now left. No one could have been more out of place than he in a mixed company, no matter how cultivated, worthy and individualized each member of it might be. He was morbidly shy and reserved, needing to be shielded from his fellows, and obtaining the fruits of observation at second-hand. He was therefore not amenable to the democratic influences at the Community which enriched the others, and made them declare, in after years, that the years or months spent there had been the most valuable ones in their lives."
Messrs. W. B. Allen, Minot Pratt, Warren Burton, Charles Hosmer, Isaac Hecker and George C. Leach, with Mr. Hawthorne, devoted most of their time to outdoor farm work.
Many of the pupils became interested in the new life with which they came in contact. It influenced them for good, and in after years they were full of gratitude and praise for the help and moral tone it imparted to them. An extract from a letter from Mr. Richard F. Fuller, the father of Margaret Fuller, to Mr. Ripley at this time reads as follows:—
"A
