Early Letters of George William Curtis | Page 4

proof of which is the condition of
human society, in which the few enjoy and the many toil. But the
enjoyment cloys and disappoints, and the very want of labor poisons
the enjoyment. Man is 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