Early Letters of George William Curtis

Early Letters of George William
Curtis

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Title: Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis
Author: G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8222] [Yes, we are more than one
year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 3, 2003]

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LETTERS OF GEORGE WM. CURTIS ***

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EARLY LETTERS OF GEORGE WM. CURTIS
TO
JOHN S. DWIGHT: Brook Farm and Concord
Edited by George Willis Cooke

CONTENTS
EARLY LIFE AT BROOK FARM AND CONCORD EARLY
LETTERS TO JOHN S. DWIGHT LETTERS OF LATER DATE

EARLY LIFE AT BROOK FARM AND CONCORD
George William Curtis was born in Providence, February 24, 1824.
From the age of six to eleven he was in the school of C.W. Greene at
Jamaica Plain, and then, until he was fifteen, attended school in
Providence. His brother Burrill, two years older, was his inseparable
companion, and they were strongly attached to each other. About 1835
Curtis came under the influence of Ralph Waldo Emerson, who was
heard by him in Providence, and who commanded his boyish
admiration. Burrill Curtis has said of this interest of himself and his
brother that it proved to be the cardinal event of their youth; and what
this experience was he has described.
"I still recall," he says, "the impressions produced by Emerson's
delivery of his address on 'The Over-Soul' in Mr. Hartshorn's
school-room in Providence. He seemed to speak as an inhabitant of

heaven, and with the inspiration and authority of a prophet. Although a
large part of the matter of that discourse, when reduced to its lowest
terms, does not greatly differ from the commonplaces of piety and
religion, yet its form and its tone were so fresh and vivid that they
made the matter also seem to be uttered for the first time, and to be a
direct outcome from the inmost source of the highest truth. We heard
Emerson lecture frequently, and made his personal acquaintance. My
enthusiastic admiration of him and his writings soon mounted to a high
and intense hero-worship, which, when it subsided, seems to have left
me ever since incapable of attaching myself as a follower to any other
man. How far George shared such feelings, if at all, I cannot precisely
say; but he so far shared my enthusiastic admiration as to be led a
willing captive to Emerson's attractions, and to the incidental
attractions of the movement of which he was the head; and Emerson
always continued to command from us both the sincerest reverence and
homage."
Burrill went so far as to discontinue the use of money and animal food;
both the brothers discarded the conventional costumes in matters of
dress, and their interest was enlisted in the reforms of the day. The
family removed to New York in 1839, George studied at home with
tutors, and was an attendant at the church of Dr. Orville Dewey.
I
The warm and active interest of the brothers in the Transcendental
movement, in all its phases, led them to propose to their father that he
permit them to attend the school connected with the Brook Farm
Association. Permission having been granted, they became boarders
there in the spring or summer of 1842. At no time were they members
of the association, and they paid for their board and tuition as they
would have done at any seminary or college.
At this time the Brook Farm Association had two sources of
income--the farm of about two hundred acres, and the school which
was carried on in connection therewith. In fact, the school was more
largely profitable than the farm, and was for a time well