Early Letters of George William Curtis | Page 4

made, body and soul. The health of each requires reasonable exercise. If every man did his share of the muscular work of the world, no other man would be overwhelmed by it. The man who does not work imposes the necessity of harder toil upon him who does. Thereby the first steals from the last the opportunity of mental culture--and at last we reach a world of pariahs and patricians, with all the inconceivable sorrow and suffering that surround us. Bound fast by the brazen age, we can see that the way back to the age of gold lies through justice, which will substitute co-operation for competition.
"That some such generous and noble thought inspired this effort at practical Christianity is most probable. The Brook Farmers did not interpret the words,'the poor ye have always with ye,' to mean,'ye must always keep some of you poor.' They found the practical Christian in him who said to his neighbor, 'Friend, come up higher.' But, apart from any precise and defined intention, it was certainly a very alluring prospect--that of life in a pleasant country, taking exercise in useful toil, and surrounded with the most interesting and accomplished people. Compared with other efforts upon which time and money and industry are lavished, measured by Colorado and Nevada speculations, by California gold-washing, by oil-boring, and by the stock exchange, Brook Farm was certainly a very reasonable and practical enterprise, worthy of the hope and aid of generous men and women. The friendships that were formed there were enduring. The devotion to noble endeavor, the sympathy with all that is most useful to men, the kind patience and constant charity that were fostered there, have been no more lost than grain dropped upon the field. It is to the Transcendentalism that seemed to so many good souls both wicked and absurd that some of the best influences of American life to-day are due. The spirit that was concentrated at Brook Farm is diffused, but it is not lost. As an organized effort, after many downward changes, it failed; but those who remember the Hive, the Eyrie, the Cottage; when Margaret Fuller came and talked, radiant with bright humor; when Emerson and Parker and Hedge joined the circle for a night or a day; when those who may not be publicly named brought beauty and wit and social sympathy to the feast; when the practical possibilities of life seemed fairer, and life and character were touched ineffaceably with good influence, cherish a pleasant vision which no fate can harm, and remember with ceaseless gratitude the blithe days of Brook Farm."
Curtis returned to the same subject in 1874, in discussing Frothingham's biography of George Ripley. Some of the errors into which writers about Brook Farm had fallen he undertook to correct, to point out the real character of the association, and its effort at the improvement of society.
"The Easy Chair describes Brook Farm as an Arcadia, for such in effect was the intention, and such is the retrospect to those who recall the hope from which it sprang.... The curious visitors who came to see poetry in practice saw with dismay hard work on every side, plain houses and simple fare, and a routine with little aesthetic aspect. Individual whims in dress and conduct, however, were exceptional in the golden age or early days at Brook Farm, and those are wholly in error who suppose it to have been a grotesque colony of idealogues. It was originally a company of highly educated and refined persons, who felt that the immense disparity of condition and opportunity in the world was a practical injustice, full of peril for society, and that the vital and fundamental principle of Christianity was universally rejected by Christendom as impracticable. Every person, they held, is entitled to mental and moral culture, but it is impossible that he should enjoy his rights as long as all the hard physical work of the world is done by a part only of its inhabitants. Were that work limited to what is absolutely necessary, and shared by all, all would find an equal opportunity for higher cultivation and development, and the evil of an unnatural and cruelly artificial system of society would disappear. It was a thought and a hope as old as humanity, and as generous as old. No common mind would have cherished such a purpose, no mean nature have attempted to make the dream real. The practical effort failed in its immediate object, but, in the high purposes it confirmed and strengthened, it had remote and happy effects which are much more than personal.
"It is an error to suppose that many of the more famous 'Transcendentalists' were of the Brook Farm company. Mr. Emerson, for instance, was never there except as a visitor. Margaret Fuller