Brook Farm | Page 9

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