My Friends at Brook Farm | Page 8

orator in the First
Unitarian Church of Cambridge, Mass., but even the liberal
communion of that free congregation was too close for his independent
spirit, and he abandoned a career of brilliant promise in the ministry, as
he said, "for his soul's peace." Sui generis, to be himself he must stand
alone, and alone he stood during the remainder of his life.
A stanza of his poem, "The Problem" doubtless expresses something of
his sentiments with regard to religious affiliation:
"I like a church, I like a cowl, I love a prophet of the soul, And on my
heart monastic aisles Fall like sweet strains or pensive smiles, Yet not
for all his faith can see Would I that cowled churchman be."
Of all the visitors coming to Brook Farm, I think Emerson was the most
welcome. He was beloved by everyone from Dr. Ripley, dear friend
and brother clergyman, to Abby Morton's little ones. The messages of
cheer and the words of wisdom he brought were received and treasured
with intelligent appreciation. I have heard it said that Emerson was at
his best when talking in monologue of an evening at the Hive, or in
more formal discourse in the grove on Sunday. He was companionable
and entered into the life of the place with evident enjoyment--happy but
not jovial. He smiled readily and most charmingly, but never laughed.
As a young man his personality was most attractive, serene
loving-kindness illumining his comely countenance! My mother, also a
serene spirit, thought his face the most beautiful she ever saw; and she
was sure that laughter would be unseemly and disturbing.

Emerson liked to be with us at times, but never to be one of us. In the
beginning Dr. Ripley wrote him a cordial invitation to join the
association, the only invitation of the kind he ever gave, I believe. The
invitation was declined in a note quoted by Rev. O. B. Frothingham in
his admirable biography of Dr. Ripley, as follows:
"It is quite time that I made an answer to your proposition that I should
venture into your new community. The design appears to me noble and
generous, proceeding as I plainly see from nothing covert or selfish or
ambitious but from a manly heart and mind. So it makes all men its
friends and debtors. A matter to be entertained in a friendly spirit and
examined as to what it has for us.
"I have decided not to join it, yet very slowly and I may almost say,
with penitence. I am greatly relieved by learning that your coadjutors
are now so many that you will no longer attach that importance to the
defection of individuals which you hinted in your letter to me or others
might possess--I mean the painful power of defeating the plan."
CHAPTER III
A STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
Racial prejudice was cherished as a virtue in the Old Colonie and the
real, solid Dutch families found it anything but creditable that Van Der
Zee children--we had the honor of being regarded as Van Der Zees in
Beaver street--should be sent to an English school in far off Boston
town. Massachusetts was, to them, an English colony, and the people
there were English, that is to say, foreigners, strangers, and not to be
trusted. However, when it was learned that we were actually going, and
mother set about making the elaborate preparations considered
necessary for so formidable an undertaking, kind friends came in
bringing gifts deemed suitable for the occasion, knitted mittens and
mufflers, pies and cakes, apples and cider, and choice stores of the
cellar and pantry enough to provision a ship for a long cruise. My
nearest boy friend, Gratz Van Rensselaer, gave me his knife. How close
were our relations may be understood from the fact that we had a

private signal, a peculiar whistle of our own which we used to call each
other, as boys are wont to do when on terms of exclusive intimacy. To
quote Mr. Peggotty, "A man can't say fairer nor that, now, can he?"
When Gratz went down into his pockets and handed me that knife in
solemn silence, I fully realized that he was making a sacrifice on the
altar of friendship. Any critic of this writing will be justified in
objecting that I did not probably formulate the idea in just these terms,
but this is about the size of it, all the same.
Whether my schoolmate ever afterward used our call, I do not know, as
our parting was a finality, but for my part, I took it with me to Brook
Farm where my new mates adopted it forthwith. Later, the elders took
it up, and eventually it became widely known over the face of the earth
as "the