Mounting the central and highest portion of the farm I found it was beautifully situated in an amphitheatre surrounded by hills on all sides, and formed a charming picture. There was a young orchard of apple trees, and here and there stood a few shade trees by the walls and roadside. There were fields, or rather patches, where corn and vegetables were grown for family use. Some of them were exposed on the southern faces of the hills, and some were in the hollows. In front was the broad, meadow, like a pleasant sea of green, stretching far away.

From the first house, the old farmhouse called now "the Hive"—a pretty and well-chosen name—the driveway led to the other houses. It descended nearly to the level of the meadow, and did not rise again until it neared the "Pilgrim House," the most distant one. From that it turned on itself on the high ground toward the "Cottage" and "Eyry," the remaining houses.

The "Pilgrim House," an oblong double house, occupying a commanding position, was plain and white, without ornamentation, and squarely built like most of the New England country houses of its date. There were no trees around it, and it was the least attractive house on the place.

The "Cottage" had four gables, and was also plain and unpretending; it had only some half-a-dozen rooms and was painted a dark brown color. It was situated on a little knoll, with flower beds in the rear, and greensward all around it.

Beyond and nearer to the "Hive," in the centre of the domain, was the "Eyry" (this is the way Mr. Ripley spelled it; some spelled it "Eyrie" and some "Aerie"). It had for its base a ledge of Roxbury conglomerate called "pudding-stone," and it was banked up with two greensward terraces. It had the highest and finest location, with a background of oak and maple woods, and looked out on the orchard, commanding a fine view. It was a square, smooth, wooden structure painted a light gray, sandstone color. It was made of smooth, matched boards, and had a large, flat cornice or flange that surrounded it near the top, which saved it from extreme plainness. Yet it was pleasing to the eye, and it had low, French windows that open like doors out on to the upper terrace.

As I looked in it for the first time I saw that a few pictures adorned the walls: pressed fern leaves filled the mantel vases, and the bright remnants of last autumn's foliage were in some places fastened to the walls. There was also a piano, over which hung an oil painting, and in the opposite room was a large array of Mr. Ripley's books. It was "the library," and many of the works were in German. In particular, there was a set of fourteen volumes, "Specimens of Foreign Literature," edited by Mr. Ripley, that attracted my attention.

At the Cottage were the school-rooms principally for the younger children; and the Pilgrim House was used mostly for family lodgings.

For a time my sleeping apartment was with others in the upper room of the rear wing of the farmhouse, dignified by the name "Attica." My companions were all single men; good, reliable fellows who were working for a principle and would ordinarily have declined such a lodging- place, but under the circumstances were not apt to grumble, but made the best of it. It was like camping out, and all its mischances were turned into fun. My roommates were called "the Admiral," "the Dutchman," "the General" and "the Parson,"—nicknames given each one of them for some personal peculiarity.

There were advantages as well as disadvantages in living in "Attica." It was nearest the centre of the life and business of the place. In the winter mornings there was no long walk to meals, as those had who lived at the other houses. We were near the warm kitchen; and when the house was still and work suspended—all save the baking of bread, which often proceeded in the evening in the range ovens—a group would gather around the fire and talk and gossip—for we were not beyond the last; speculation, theory and argument went pleasantly on until bed-time.

No, Attica! I have not forgotten the days spent inside thy walls, thy strange inhabitants, or the mysteries that surrounded thee on my first entrance into thy domain! I have not forgotten the long, low roof and projecting beams, or the half dozen bedsteads that were standing around; the two large chimneys that arose in the centre and the number of stove-pipes that came from below and entered them; or the skylights that were thy only means of illumination save the window at "the Parson's" end, which looked out on the pleasant fields and the houses beyond; or the plain, uncarpeted floor, the washstands by the chimneys and the clothing hung up around.

Neither have I forgotten the nights when lying in bed I have heard the rain pouring and pattering above thee and me; or when I saw by the dim light of a single oil lamp, as I lifted myself on my elbow in bed, one of the occupants moving his cot bedstead from some gentle leak that was getting too familiar with his bedclothes; or when in the dreary winter the Storm King howled around and bore some fleecy flakes on his windy gusts through a stray hole in the roof, and morning showed us a miniature white mountain on the floor.

No, to this day a vision of the "Parson" (Capen) comes to me, reading by the light of an oil lamp placed on a shelf at the head of his bedstead, long after others were asleep; lying in bed at the furthermost portion of thy space; now chuckling to himself, then drowsily reading on and on, with his spectacles dropped down on to the point of his long nose—as the passage was either witty or dry; or visions of the early risers, waking betimes and disturbing the dreams of the later ones by the preparations of the toilet; or the sound of the morning horn as it rose from beneath us on the clear air!

I was seventeen years of age, and having passed the time when I could have been by right a pupil in the day school, was assigned to manual labor. You will see by the Constitution that I was a "Probationer." It was fortunate that I loved the grass and trees, and the routine of farm life. My youth excused and deprived me of the council meetings and the right to vote, so that many hours spent by some, though but a little older than myself, in meetings, were absolutely mine to rove in, or to use as I liked. Though born to city life and work I dearly loved the country and a farm, but did not know its duties, nor had I the strength for heavy labor, so I assisted in work in and about the houses in the early hours of the day, and in some of the lighter farming, as planting, hoeing, weeding and driving the oxen, horses and cows; in fact, taking a lad's place in the farm and house employments.

Owing to the amount of labor and the disproportion of female help, some of the young men under age oftentimes assisted after meals in wiping dishes and supplying hot and cold water. It was a matter of rivalry between parties to see which could beat in a match, the washer or wipers. Two lads of near my own age supplied dishes and hot water as fast as it was needed, and one young lady washed the plates, saucers, mugs and the like, the same young men doing the wiping.

There was plenty of plain crockery piled up and it was rushed into a capacious receptacle and washed with great dexterity. Then wipe, young men, wipe! Will you allow a young lady to wash faster than two can wipe? Never, boys, never! and with incredible speed the surface of the plates and dishes was changed into mirrors. There was one young lady who was hard to beat; often when the parties thought they had nearly succeeded she would cry out for "hot water"! and one would have to supply her with it, and by that time his partner would be overwhelmed with a stock of unwiped crockery. Need I say that at times I was one of those boys?

There were none of the modern conveniences for water, and the pump had to do its share of work. The rooms were supplied daily by a water carrier who went from house to house filling the pails and pitchers in the rooms and halls.

I was willing and tractable. The fresh air, the simple diet and the free life began at once to tone up my organization. I soon found that the Eyry steps and the Eyry embankments were where the air was freshest of an evening, and the tones of the piano presided over by the "poet's sister," Fanny Dwight, attracted me more and more. The pupils and those of their ages grouped naturally together. I did not care to go among the arguers and the disputants who talked anti-this and anti-that, the new sciences of medicine—the water cure and homoeopathy; who disputed the doctrines of community of property, western lands, politics, approaching war with Mexico, etc., etc. Nor did I care to group with the few who played euchre and smoked "conchas," and the book of nature had very often more charms for me than any other.

Our family rooms were small, and as stated I was sandwiched in with others, in rather unpromising quarters. But I almost only slept there. My interested parents often spent the evenings as well as the days in domestic duties, so I was much alone. I cared not. I could thoughtfully contemplate the climbing constellations, and sometimes one of the many who grew friendly to me would point out the planets and name the stars for me, and I would watch the moon rise slowly above the horizon. The beautiful meadow was below me, and above and around the whole eastern hemisphere of sky. Or I would wander around the houses to see what was going on, meeting groups of promenaders by the way. At the cottage the piano would be playing, and likely as not Lucas and Jos or Willard and Charles were waltzing with Anna and Abbie or Katie and Agnes to Louisa's playing. Or it was singing school, and all joined it; or Mrs. Ripley was going to read "Margaret"; or the "Professor" (Dana) wanted me in his German class; or it was full moon and we would walk a mile or two down the highway, or make a moonlight visit to the pines. Otherwise I was dreaming day-dreams to Fanny's piano playing.

Ah! do you think I was indolent? Not so! In my meditations I was working out social problems and solving theories of life and religion. I was nursing kindliness of heart, love to all men. I was awakening a crushed nature, and absorbing influences that made the mottoes of "Unity of man with man," "Unity of man with God," "Unity of man with the universe," seem like real, tangible things. But who can say how much was also due to the low, soothing harmonies that floated out of those graceful windows with parting sashes that opened like doors down to the windowsills?

In time I explored every cranny and hollow of ground. I wandered in the woods, found every wild flower, knew every tree; knew where the trailing evergreens grew; could go to the spot where I could find what I wanted for bouquets, and surprised the Community with their ample size and beauty. I came in with wreaths and garlands; gathered varieties of grasses untold; picked rhodoras in early spring, saracenas and orchids in summer, asters and gentians in the late fall, and innumerable flowers in various places of a neighborhood wonderfully rich in botanical specimens.



CHAPTER IV

THE INDUSTRIAL PERIOD.

When I arrived, Hawthorne, Bradford, Hosmer, Hecker, Burton, Leach and Allen had gone; as had also the Curtis brothers, George and Burrill, the Bancroft boys, sons of the historian, and Barlow (since General Barlow)—all pupils; as well as some of the ladies—Miss Dora Gannett, niece of Rev. Ezra S. Gannett, Miss Georgianna Bruce, (afterwards Mrs. Kirby), Miss Allen, Miss Sarah Stearns; and the phase of the Brook Farm life jocosely or seriously alluded to by the after-comers as the "Transcendental Days" or "Community Times," gave place to the "Associative or Industrial Period."

In the place of the Transcendentalists came other men and women, new and untried, with not so much of Greek and Latin, not so much suavity of manners, not so much "cultivation," but warm of heart and brave of purpose. The magnificent idea was a revelation of truth to some but also a great temptation for many shivering poor and impatient outsiders. They could thrive on it. They felt it was their right, their destiny, having failed in the civilized fight for bread and butter and comfort, to have from some source food, shelter and protection; and it struck them that Brook Farm was just the place to go for it. So the Association was inundated with applications of all kinds by person and by letter.

It is my fortune to possess the originals of a number of these interesting letters, specimens of which may be found in the appendix. The replies by Mr. Ripley were drafts of the letters sent; they are all in his fine handwriting and bona fide documents which the writer personally secured at Brook Farm many years ago, after the organization had broken up.

The Directors used discretionary power, and if there was any probability that the applicant would be useful, his case was presented for action at a general meeting of the Association.

I was not long on the farm before I became acquainted with many of the Associates besides those before mentioned—those who belonged entirely to the Associative period; and among the unique figures there was no one that struck my young fancy more than that of Peter, or, in familiar talk, "the General."

Peter M. Baldwin was about his work when I was introduced to him, and as he put forth his hand I saw that his arms extended no little way through the sleeves of a common green baize jacket; and that his large feet, which were encased in an old pair of slippers, had descended some six inches below a pair of blue overalls before they touched the ground. If he had been inclined to corpulency, his frame was ample to build upon for a man of Websterian proportions, but he was not so inclined; on the contrary, he simulated other great men in his personality—Jackson, or our modern Abraham Lincoln. He was spare, bony, nervous. His heavy eyebrows, his dark hair well sprinkled with gray, which arose straight upward from his high, indented forehead, and his large, half Roman nose, prominent cheek-bones and thin cheeks reminded one so forcibly of the pictures of General Jackson that he was by unanimous consent nicknamed "the General."

He shook me by the hand warmly and asked me a few questions, and it was not until after this first interview that I discovered he had an impediment in his speech. A rapid talker, he would rattle on in conversation and then stop as suddenly as though you had put your hand over his mouth. You would look up in astonishment, and then find by the contortions of his face that he was trying to speak some troublesome word but could not. The word once recovered, his speech flowed on as before and perhaps for a long while, until he stumbled upon another fence-like one; when he would dismount, take down the bars, or jump it, and proceed as before.

This impediment, strange to say, never troubled the General when he had prepared a piece for recitation, for he would then speak with dignity and precision, and made the very beau ideal of "the lean and hungry Cassius."

He was a universal favorite, on account of the kindness and benevolence of his disposition. This generosity was superabundant, for if any of the younger portion of the family wished for the sweets of the storeroom, over which he presided, they had only "to coax the General" to succeed in obtaining their wishes.

"The General" was the baker and made the bread, cake and some of the pastry. He also assisted the "kitchen group" in domestic cookery. Beyond this he was particularly fond of three things—disputation, the newspapers and a cigar. He was thoroughly devoted to the doctrines of "United industry" and to Brook Farm. He was among the first up in the morning and last at night, attending to his ovens and his bread.

Peter's room was at first in Attica with others, where I saw him often, and his favorite pastime was a game of euchre, which had not then worked itself into general favor. I did not care to play it then, or any cards; I was too much charmed with the life of the place, with the society of the young, with social games under the inspiration of the hostess, with love of dance and music and the ever-changing face of nature, to care for such dull solace as the pasteboard games.

But the General did; he conversed, he smoked, he read the newspapers, he argued, stuttered and talked the "water cure," and one day I was surprised on going into the room to find him fully embarked for the cure of a desperate headache. What had he done? Why, taken the wash- bowl and filled it with water, placed it on the floor, stretched himself out at full length on the floor also, and, with a pillow at his shoulders, laid the back of his head into the wash-bowl. But being of an active temperament he could not be quiet and idle long, so, calling for a newspaper and lighting a cigar, he gently puffed the weed and read the news, lying still in position while the "cure" was progressing. It was a funny sight!

My attention was soon drawn to a large, portly gentleman who carried his head erect and had an easy, familiar way about him; for he was acting as host, being charged with the reception of guests and strangers who came to visit or to look about the place. He walked with the grandeur of a Falstaff and the dignity of a sachem. His capacious gray coat and broad-brimmed hat might suggest to a stranger that he had been at some time a member of a Shaker community, but his closely cut gray hair and his heavy, o'erhanging eyebrows and brave visage gave the lie to any such suggestion. Aye, aye, every hair that stood bristling up on that front of his seemed to stand in rebellion against such a charge, seemed saying, and growing more bristly every moment, "I, a Shaker? Not I!" A large mouth was an appropriate companion to a ponderous throat and chin, which were daily shaven with scrupulous adherence to the first principles of warm water, soap and a sharp razor, and a practice of thirty years gave a polish to his face unknown to those less adept in the art.

On one occasion, some of the members fled from the tyranny of the brutal blade and let their beards grow in uncut stubble, not, however, without criticism from our host, who said in answer to their argument that it was natural for the beard to grow, "Art is the perfection of nature! Look at this garden!" It was after dinner, and some were taking a few moments' rest in front of the Hive, lounging on the fence and looking down the terrace into what was called "her majesty's garden" and toward the bubbling brook. "What would it be without its walks, flower-beds and arrangement?" he continued. "And these fields—what would they be without the art of cultivation? You see it is art that perfects nature."

Then some wag suggested that he was trying to cultivate "the field of his face," but nothing could disturb the imperturbable gravity of his composition. Gravity, solid gravity, was one of the basic elements of his nature. When, however, he lighted his enthusiastic lamp, and his warm heart gushed forth in song or story—I think I hear him singing now, "A man's a man for a' that!"—he carried his audience with him.

The "Omniarch," as Mr. Ryckman was called, was a man of family, his short, sprightly, nervous little wife acting as hostess and attending to the lady visitors.

Many visitors asked the question of him, "Mr. Ryckman, do the Brook Farmers hold all their property in common?"

With a bland smile he would say to them: "Certainly not; the idea of a Community, as it is generally understood, is a society that owns or holds all the property or capital of its members as its own, in its own corporate right—that no one can remove, but everyone can use portions of at will, or in turn. If the ideas of the first projectors were not all definite on this point, we now stand boldly as champions of individual property. It is one of our watchwords. For what is property? It is but the extension of the individual; wings to fly with; hands to work with; dried labor; labor's product laid away for future use, to bless oneself with. It is the bottom and foundation of material society, for none exists without it, and the greater the amount, distributed fairly and justly, the greater the power and strength of the society that holds it. We take human nature as it is—as God made it. We do not propose to remake it; that is the folly of reformers and theorists, and more especially moralists in and out of the church. The desire, the personal desire, to acquire property is a fundamental trait of character more or less strong in every individual. If a society cannot be adjusted to that trait it will fail. We think one can be. We think ours is so, as fairly as the nature of our transitory conditions will allow. We want capital here. That we can make it here in time, there is no doubt, but we must labor long to secure a plus of labor that we can dry and store for future use. Meanwhile we want to build a suitable unitary building, which is almost an absolute necessity; farming implements and various appliances are wanted to suit the new conditions under which we live, and many things for comfort, too numerous to mention."

The host was not sparing of his words, especially when stimulated by charming questioners, in ways like these: "Tell me more, Mr. Ryckman." "What are you living here for?" "Can you expect anything from this life?"

"Yes, madam, we expect a great deal. The theory of our life is that a great saving can be made over ordinary ways of living. It now takes one hundred houses for one hundred families, and one hundred housekeepers, and probably, on the average, one hundred servants, one hundred kitchens, one hundred fires, and as many cooking stoves or ranges, and everything in proportion. Now by combining together the saving on the cost of all these houses and cooks, kitchens, coal and wood, dispensing with all unnecessary servants and labor, a house of magnificent proportions adapted to the wants of the combined families could be built, with elegant parlors for lectures, assemblies and music; dining- rooms, kitchens and laundries which would not cost as much as the separate households full of inconvenience and discomfort.

"This economic side of our life is easily seen, but there are many other sides or phases that are not as readily comprehended. We are here as a protest to the unnatural life of our crowded cities. We are here to build society anew on juster principles, believing that if we once get a fair foothold, the institution will be self-supporting, and so attractive that we shall have no need to seek for true, earnest workers; they will seek us, rather than we seek them, and we shall be able to choose of the best material for an eternal city where all will be rich in the fulness of the surrounding life, and the children will be educated from the start to industry, goodness and justice."

Among the pleasant pictures of memory is that of Thomas Blake as he appeared after he had changed his civilized clothes for a Brook Farm tunic of blue plaid, a "tarpaulin" straw hat and a neat broad rolling shirt collar of large dimensions that gracefully tended towards his square shoulders. I see again his dark, manly countenance lighted up by his keen brown eyes; his Roman features; his closely curling hair; his intellectual forehead and pleasant smile, and his very neat, "trig" appearance. The new life seemed to fill him full of pleasure, and he was always ready for his share of work, study or enjoyment. His short, nautical figure and his name, Blake, soon earned him the complimentary title, which with one accord we gave him, "the Admiral." A nearness of age brought us together, and a strong sympathy of tastes cemented our friendship. We worked, played, danced and sung together, and wandered up and down the paths and roads discussing social problems and all sorts of subjects, ever returning in our talks to our home life, its pleasures, aims and duties.

I thought that there was a little of the dapper look about John Glover Drew who arrived the same day with the Admiral, as I met him for the first time near the corner of the Hive. He seemed stiff and formal in dress and manner, and his face had in it the cool, matter-of-fact element which did not attract me; in fact he looked too "civilized." His clothes were of fine materials; dress coat, silk vest and dark pantaloons. His stylish and plump person filled them out thoroughly. A tall silk hat set a trifle back on his head exposed his large forehead; a fob and seal that hung below his vest, in contrast to the Brook Farm dress, made an added conspicuousness to his appearance. I can see him now, in my mind's eye, lift his watch out of its secret enclosure and examine it to secure promptness of his engagements.

His large head was covered with dark, slightly curling hair. His smooth face, toned by a delicate beard and fine arching eyebrows, reminded one of the portraits of Shakespeare. His nose was short and round and his nostrils dilated when in animated conversation. The muscles of his firm mouth were ever on the play and gave life to his countenance, which when in repose assumed a heavy and somewhat stern appearance. The union between his head and body was made, apparently, by a high, stiff, black neck-stock.

He was fully of medium height, and healthy, but if one in his presence tried the blowing of a flute or the tuning of a violin it would set him in agonies, and the of his wrath was not forthcoming. He was wholly alive. There was not a point where you could touch him and not appreciate that the nerves of sensation vibrated and quivered. Droll and jocose in manner, he was constantly quoting from Shakespeare or the poets, of whom he had been a constant reader. He was witty, too, and did not disdain a pun, or repartee.

He had the elements of a good mercantile training, and was therefore just the man needed in the young Association, and soon arose from one position to another, winning the meaner laurels of "chief of group" and "head of series," and in time became the "commercial agent" and member of the "Industrial Council." Thenceforth and ever after, he was more bustling than before, both in and out of doors; hovering around the barn with its horses and wagons; ever tackling up teams and starting for the city; unpacking boxes, bales and barrels; ever in conference with the chiefs, inquiring what was needed—anyone could see that almost everything was needed—and showing by his exterior the busy brain that worked within. Mr. Drew was an especial admirer of some of Byron's poems, and it was rumored around that the corners of newspapers had occasionally been garnished with the fruits of his pen.

Here let me say that first impressions in this case gave no index to the manly, brave spirit that was in him, which, true as steel, bore to the end witness to his belief in the truth and the divinity of the associative and coperative ideas.

There was in the farming group a healthy-looking young man, of ruddy countenance and fair skin, with brown hair and beard that grew luxuriantly, who soon made himself conspicuous by his individuality, his good nature and cheerfulness. There was a positive side to his character; he was in earnest, and he put himself by his earnestness into a positive way that to the superficial seemed to savor of the important, so that Irish John nicknamed him "John Almighty," and it stuck to him, as an old simile says, "like a burdock to a boy's trousers." His devotion was rewarded by chances to lecture. He became one of the faithful, and faithful he has always remained. Amid all the changes of life that have come to him since, and notwithstanding the many persons indoctrinated with Fourier's ideas, he has been for years almost the only man among them broadly advocating them and directly working for the laboring man by endeavoring to organize societies and industrial unions of various sorts for their benefit. I sincerely honor the devotion of John Orvis, continued through so many years of his life.

But what would be the use in sketching the characters that throng around me by the hundreds, who were associated with this new life? Good-natured, full-faced Frederick Cabot, of Boston, whose capacities were devoted to the bookkeeping department and who was clerk of the corporation, who was in the vigor of young manhood, unique of face and beard, with stout neck and low, rolling collar, when beards were absent and collars high; and plain, unpretending Buckley Hastings, who could work like a Trojan—were of them; and the corps of farmers and workers, male and female, who made the body politic, all were interesting, but they must be left out of this narrative, along with the great number of kind and sympathetic persons whose dear hearts encouraged, and whose dearer presence stimulated the Association in its labor.

But it will hardly do to leave out John Cheevers from the list of strange characters on the farm, because, though he did not belong there as member and was as a barnacle on the body politic, he was so quaint and queer. He was Irish and came to America as valet to Sir John Caldwell, who died very suddenly at the Tremont House in Boston. Pity, compassion or the like induced Mr. Ripley to befriend him, and being introduced to the life he became, as may be said, omnipresent. His education, his refined tastes, seemed to spring from a crude and vigorous soil. Travel and contact with high and low made his conversation interesting, and the mystery of a supposed relationship with Sir John added a romance to his life.

His affection for many of the residents was very great. He was introduced into associative life in "Transcendental days," and many a tale he told of the departed ones, often alluding to them as "extinct volcanoes of Transcendental nonsense and humbuggery."

Like many of his countrymen, he carried things to extremes. Extremes in language were the most common, for he had all the oiliness and glibness of an Emeraldic tongue, and in conversation, when a little excited, the words tumbled out with headlong velocity or flowed like molten brass into the mould of the founder, and, to carry the simile farther, some would sputter over. He had in his storehouse of language, many queer phrases and sayings that he brought out to embellish his conversation, some of which were only used as a corps de reserve, or brought into action when all others failed in argument.

He prophesied that all people, no matter how high they might carry their heads, would sooner or later "find their level." He believed in the practical. All "folly" and "nonsense" were eschewed by him, and yet no one was more fond of a joke than he, excepting when it was played on himself. John professed great love for the mother church if you attacked it; but if anyone spoke earnestly in its favor he was equally persuaded by him not to believe in such "Jesuitical nonsense and folly." His tunic dress, instead of being a blue one like what most of the men wore, was made of green plaid, but on Sundays, a dark blue "swallowtail" coat with brass buttons made its appearance, and with shoes newly polished he was ready for church.

Unlike the majority of the men, who wore the hair moderately long, his was cut short to his pate, not a straggling hair protruding itself beyond the others. In deference to the seventh day, he exchanged his shirt of blue cotton for a white, well-starched linen one, and donned a high black lasting neck-stock and dark vest, and shaved his face so clean that it reflected his own sunshine if not the solar ray. In person he was of medium height, with a head of thick, dark, almost black hair, slightly sprinkled with gray, and his small dark eyebrows were high above his full eyes which were set almost flush with his forehead. The muscles of his face were prominent, and deep lines were marked around his large mouth with its long under lip, which half the time was on a broad grin.

He walked with a headlong sort of gait, his body slightly bent forward, deriving its motion from the lower portion of his frame, without that swaying of arms and chest so common, and which gives grace to motion. He was ever moving, bustling about; ever inquiring—now for this one, then for another; occasionally taking from his pocket a small paper parcel into which he thrust finger and thumb mysteriously and guardedly, and turning half away from you would make the cabalistic motions common to imbibers of "old Rappee"; and having satisfied the desire of that extraordinary pug nose of his, would be off in a twinkling to some distant part of the farm, where you may be sure that he was edifying his hearers with a specimen of good-nature, and the peculiar intonations of a mellow voice flavored with genuine brogue.

There are two friends of the movement who cannot be left out, who were often on the farm, whose characters were very unlike and almost at antipodes; yet both were impressed with the associative theories. One of them viewed them from a Christian and moral side, believing that Christianity favored them, that they were productive of the earthly end toward which the sublime doctrines of Christianity pointed; and the other believed that scientific social organization alone would act so powerfully as a stimulant and teacher to humanity, that mankind and human nature would gravitate to their own sublime places at once if an organization was presented suitable to their needs. They were Albert Brisbane and William Henry Channing.

Among the devoted friends there was no one for whom we had greater admiration and esteem than Rev. William Henry Channing. He was a Unitarian minister and a nephew of the celebrated Rev. William Ellery Channing. His figure was tall and stately, though rather slender. He carried himself finely, and walked with head erect. His features were sharp cut, clean and regular. His hair was dark and curling, and worn a trifle long for these days. His forehead was high and slightly retreating. His eyes were sharp and piercing, deeply set, with delicate dark eyebrows. His complexion was warm and brilliant, his beard closely shaven. He had a pleasant smile which, when it deepened, showed a fine set of white teeth. All of these physical signs were in his favor, but there was about his face, so handsome at times, an earnestness that seemed almost painful, when, devoted to the cause, he spoke with the burning, eloquent words he so often uttered.

In social life he was charming. His voice was soft and melodious; his education and talents were of the finest order. He was a firm believer in the mission of Jesus Christ to bring peace, order and justice out of our social chaos. He was an Associationist from the Christian side, if I may so speak. His belief in Christ was so thorough that it made him think all things possible that were Christlike, and he believed that associated life contained more of the spirit of Christ in it than any other form of society, ancient or modern.

He desired to join the organization with his wife and young children, but Mrs. Channing did not, and we were deprived of his union with us, as well as of the company of a charming woman and her family. But he was around us like a protecting spirit. He spoke on social occasions to us. He was full of inspiration and full of hope, though his education was not of a practical sort after a worldly standard. He couldn't calculate market values. Neither could he organize a workshop or build a barn. His thoughts were for greater things; for everything that elevated large numbers of people—education, morals, faith, peace, anti-slavery and the good government of his country.

One Sabbath afternoon we were invited to meet with him in the near-by beautiful pine woods, for religious services; and like the Pilgrims and reformers of old, we there raised our voices in hymns of praise, and listened to a sermon of hopefulness from his eloquent lips. Would we had a picture of that marked company as they were seated around on the pine leaves that covered the ground, following their "attractions" by joining in groups with those they most admired or most sympathized with—young and fair, bright and cheerful, as they mostly were, with the warm sunlight glinting through the sighing pines; hearts and eyes illuminated with great thoughts; hands and faces browned with working for great, world-wide ideas. Memory is the only photograph of it, and be assured the picture is a beautiful one.

The church was Channing's first love, but he found it bound with creeds, and not broad enough to cover all humanity, as his great bounding heart did. After music and an inspiring address under the trees, and the arches of Nature's temple, looking heavenward, he said, "Let us all join hands and make a circle, the symbol of universal unity, and of the at-one-ment of all men and women, and here form the Church of Humanity that shall cover the men and women of every nation and every clime."

Who shall say that it was not so?—that then and there was not formed one of the impulses of life, one of the branches of the spiritual church that shall live forever! Their daily toil, the thousand and one annoyances they had to submit to from uncomfortable surroundings and private discords—for no one need think that all the persons and those connected with them who came to Brook Farm were equally inspired and interested—and the risk of personal losses, were part of their pledge and baptism of earnestness.

Mr. Albert Brisbane, of New York, was equally tall with Mr. Channing, but of a type of features that was ordinarily less pleasing; wearing a full beard closely trimmed, intellectual in forehead and face, with a voice one could hardly call musical; a rapid, earnest talker; the travelled son of a wealthy man, who had spent some years abroad and in France, where he became acquainted personally with Fourier and with his doctrines of association, which had deeply impressed him. On his return to America he advocated them in the New York Tribune, and by the publication of two or more volumes, by active interest in a society, and by various writings for papers and magazines.

I do not know whether Mr. Brisbane owned stock in the Brook Farm Association or not. Certainly he never gained any dividend by his labor there, but was an interested observer who boarded at the farm at intervals, sometimes passing a few days only, and finally residing some months, occupied in the study and translation of Fourier's works.

He was an enthusiast, but his over enthusiastic moods influenced the Brook Farmers, it seemed to me, often-times unwisely. He saw the full- blown phalanstery coming like a comet and expected every moment. We shortly would be in a blaze of glory! He loved to talk of the good things to be—of social problems worked out by science and by harmonic modes; to flatter himself that without great self-sacrifice, devotion and untiring industry, the world was to be regenerated. It seemed to his mind, that it could be done all at once by organization and enthusiasm, and it was only necessary to create enough of them to carry everything before them as in a bayonet charge.

He labored hard with the society to change its name to Phalanx, and to push the movement as far as possible into the formulas and organization described by Fourier, which did not advance it a single step in material or spiritual progress, and acted, as in the case of the constitution, as a dead weight, owing to the burdensomeness of its details, which called for too much labor to keep the accounts of so complex an organization.

Having described a few of the many persons who were members of the Association, I must speak of three noted persons who are very often accredited as belonging to the West Roxbury Community; they are Miss Margaret Fuller (afterwards Countess D'Ossoli), Ralph Waldo Emerson and Theodore Parker. They were all personal friends of Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and belonged to the Transcendental Club. In the first period of the experiment the two former made lengthy visits at the farm, but during the Industrial Period only one of them, Mr. Parker, that I remember visited the place. I must except a single visit from Miss Fuller, whom I recall as plain-looking, and plainly to old-fashionedly dressed, with a crane-like neck and a long gold chain around it, which reached to her waist. She talked quite easily and freely, and the impression of the blue-stocking was left perhaps unfortunately on my mind.

Rev. Ralph Waldo Emerson—for he had been an ordained minister—wrote for the Dial, furnished it with queer poems, wrote articles on the wrongs of labor, and agreed fully with Mr. Ripley on so many points that he has been mistaken many times for a Brook Farmer.

Concord, Massachusetts, Mr. Emerson's home, contained a marked radical centre, and some of the Concord people were affiliated by kinship and by sympathy with the Brook Farm people from first to last during the entire experiment. Mr. Ripley invited Mr. Emerson to join it, but he declined in a letter which may be found in Mr. Frothingham's "Life of George Ripley," Appendix, page 315. I make the following extract:—

* * * * *

"My Dear Sir: 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. It becomes a matter to entertain it in a friendly spirit, and examine 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, I or others might possess—the painful power, I mean, of preventing the execution of the plan."

* * * * *

Rev. Theodore Parker, the noted liberal Unitarian preacher, of whose close personal relations with Mr. Ripley much might be said, lived two miles away, at West Roxbury, where he preached in the village church, and his afternoon walk every few days was over to the Farm and back for exercise, and to meet and converse with Mr. Ripley at the Eyry. At the close of their chat you would see them coming down the hill together towards the barn, where Mr. Ripley's duties as milkman took him at that time of day, when they would part—Mr. Parker for his long walk home.

One afternoon they were seen as usual coming down the hill. Theodore Parker had not then become famous, but preached in a little square, wooden church, to his small country congregation, and once on a time, being on a visit to a friend at a distance (we will call the friend's name Smith, for convenience sake), Mr. Smith asked Mr. Parker how Mr. Ripley was getting along with his "Community." "Oh," said the faithless Parker, "Mr. Ripley reminds me, in that connection, of a new and splendid locomotive dragging along a train of mud-cars."

Soon after Mr. Ripley heard what Mr. Parker had said of him, and resolved to pay him in his own coin. So he held him that day in pleasant, lively conversation until he reached the farmyard by the barn at the Hive, and the unsprung joke was running all around the pleasant lines of his face and twinkling in the corners of his brilliant eyes. Towards the close of the conversation, as Mr. Parker was about to leave, Mr. Ripley casually said that he had met Mr. Smith, and he had spoken of Mr. Parker and his church.

"Indeed," said Mr. Parker, "and what did he say of me?"

"Well, if you must know," Mr. Ripley replied, "he said that you and your little country church over there in West Roxbury, with its few dozen of farmers, reminded him of a new and splendid locomotive dragging along a train of mud-cars."

It would have been worth a month of an ordinary lifetime to be there when Mr. Ripley exploded his joke, to hear his merry peal of laughter, whilst his sides shook again, and his reverend friend stood confounded.

But such little jokes did nothing towards rupturing the sincere confidence and friendship of these two brave men, and soon after this Mr. Parker was writing pleasant notes to the "Archon," as Mr. Ripley was often called. By good fortune, I am the possessor of one of them, and as it shows the playful side of a great man, the side often withheld from the public, I give it here. It is charming. It is without date and reads:—

* * * * *

"Archonite Illustrissimo: I have just received a letter from the Secretary of the Navy, who informs me that he has jurisdiction over the waters of the U. S. A., and accordingly over Brook Farm. He therefore requests me to investigate your proceedings and report to the department. He thinks of appointing yourself to the command of the fleet destined against Texas, and wishes me to Sound you on that point. (How would Little John do for California?)

"I am to come over tomorrow P. M. and make investigations, so have the chips picked up, and the pigs shut up in the library. Now hold yourself in readiness to receive Blanco White, who thinks you were one of the greatest men who had appeared since Balaam the son of Beor. Pray reward him for the honor he has done you.

"Yours, T."



CHAPTER V.

THE RUSH AND HUM OF LIFE AND WORK.

The departure from the ordinary mode of living initiated at the farm seemed to stir up every curious, investigating and odd mortal, from one end of the country to the other, and they all wanted to visit the place. At first they were made welcome to the table, and to what there was to spare of the members' time, but when their name was "legion" the Board of Government found it necessary to exact a fee for meals. This did not diminish them; the cry was "Still they come!" Men, women and children were passing from Hive to Eyry on every pleasant day from May to November, and over the farm, back to the Hive, where they took private carriage or public coach for their departure. Among these people were some of the oddest of the odd; those who rode every conceivable hobby; some of all religions; bond and free; transcendental and occidental; antislavery and proslavery; come-outers, communists, fruitists and flutists; dreamers and schemers of all sorts.

The number of notable persons who visited the farm at this period was large. I was too young to appreciate the positions they held, in literature, the church or the nation, but append a list of names, selected almost at random, mostly of distinguished persons who were occasional visitors. Horace Greeley, Parke Godwin, Henry James, Freeman Hunt, Charles Kraitsir, Henry Giles, S. P. Andrews, all of New York; Rev. O. A. Brownson, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Rev. Henry A. Miles, Rev. Edward E. Hale, Rev. Samuel Osgood, Rev. Frederick T. Gray, Rev. A. B. Green, Rev. C. A. Greenleaf, Hon. John G. Palfrey, Hon. E. Rockwood Hoar, Hon. George H. Calvert, of Newport, R. I.; Hon. Charles Sumner, Judge Ellis Gray Loring, Judge Wells, Dr. W. F. Channing, R. H. Dana, A. Bronson Alcott, George B. Emerson, Samuel G. Ward,—Marcus Spring and Edmund Tweedy, of New York; James A. Kay, of Philadelphia. W. W. Story, C. P. Cranch, E. Hicks, Joseph and Thomas Carew, John Sartain, John A. Ordway and Benjamin Champney, were among the many artists who came; the major portion of all the above named persons were from New England.

It will not do to forget young and curly-headed John A. Andrew, who became the war governor of Massachusetts, or Robert Owen, the English communist, well known for his social experiments at New Harmony, Ind., who, at this time, was a ruddy-faced, almost white-haired person, with a large nose, and carrying well his seventy years on a vigorous frame.

George R. Russell, Francis G. Shaw and Theodore Parker, with their wives and members of their families, were very friendly visitors.

There were numerous ladies, also, who came. I remember Miss A. P. Peabody, Pauline Wright, Mary Gove and sweet Lydia Maria Child, of New York.

The old record book that lay in the reception room at the Hive would reveal a list of four thousand names, registered in one year, to select from, but alas! it is lost forever.

A. Bronson Alcott came one day and brought his friend Lane, who was anxious to visit the "Community," but Lane was opposed to eating anything that was killed or had died, so he ate neither fish nor flesh. Neither would he wear wool, because it was an animal product, for he did not like animal products. Neither would he wear cotton nor use sugar nor rice, because they were the products of slave labor. And finally, he walked from Boston in a linen suit, because he would avoid using a horse, for his argument was that the value of time spent in providing food, lodging and care of animals, was not returned to the owners for the outlay. Lane came from England, and was not a "Yankee crank," as some might possibly think.

Miss Louisa M. Alcott wrote of him in connection with her father and herself, in an article entitled "A Journey to Fruitlands." Judging from my remembrance of all the characters, the picture is faithfully drawn.

Among the odd visitors the climax was reached, when a man came to pass a day and a night, who announced, that he had no need of sleep and had not slept for a year. The statement was passed by as a mere whim, we thinking of course that when night came he would not refuse a bed, but he did. After spending the evening at the Eyry, where the visitors were more especially entertained, he was notified that an attendant would show him to his bed, but he politely declined one, and as there seemed to be no other way, he was allowed to remain in an easy chair, with a lamp burning, after the household had retired.

It was late when Irish John Cheevers, our odd genius, prowling about the premises on his way to his room at the Cottage, saw the light in the Eyry parlor, and supposing some of the household were awake, went softly up and looked in at the window. There sat the visitor in the chair, asleep. He then went in, but his noise aroused the sleeper, and as John couldn't possibly keep his tongue still a minute, he said, "I beg your pardon, sir, I did not intend to disturb your sleep—not in the least, sir," in his palavering way, at which the stranger protested strongly that he hadn't been disturbed, as he had been awake all the time.

In the morning the stranger was there, still sitting in his chair, and declared he had passed the night pleasantly, but had not been asleep. Of course the improbability of the thing made, as the newspapers say, a "sensation." "By gad," said John, "I caught him asleep in the Eyry parlor. I did, upon my word; I did, my very self."

John wasn't inclined to be profane, but when anyone pretended to be what they were not, it aroused his combative spirit, and it was the "blank humbuggery of the thing" that mightily displeased him. But the time came when the laugh was against him. He had been in bed and slept some hours one summer night; it was the time of the full moon, when its transcendent beauty led the young folks to wander over the farm from house to house, to sit a while on the doorsteps or on the knoll at the Hive; to sing "Das Klinket" or such part songs as "Row gently here, my gondolier," or "The lone starry hours give me Love, when calm is the beautiful night," or anything else to let out the joyousness of their hearts. They were not wild, for they labored enough to take away the wildness that indolence brings, and to sober them down to the cheerful mood; and cheerily would talk to one another of the people around them, and of the hundred little excitements the novel life led them into, that were wanting elsewhere, and often it was an hour or two later than the usual time for rest, before they were in bed.

John had been to his couch, and when he awoke it was broad daylight. He dressed and went down to the Hive, and as some one was going away early to Boston, concluded to get the wagon ready. But first he looked into the kitchen; the door was unlocked, as it always was, day and night; there was no one there, and it was surely time some one should be up. He drew out the light wagon from under the shed, and went for the harness. All the time the universal stillness surprised him. Where could all the people be? He thought he would see how high the sun was, and looking up into the sky, beheld the full face of the most beautiful moon that ever shone on God's fair acres, when a new thought struck him, that he had mistaken moonshine for daylight. He wheeled the wagon into the shed, and then went for another long nap; but some of the young men, who hadn't been in bed a great while, overheard the movements, and had their laugh and fun out of it!

During the first spring and summer of my stay my hours were largely spent in the Farming Series, working in the various groups. I assisted at planting, hoeing and driving or leading the horses at the plough. I also helped the gardener, who arrived with plants, in the care of them and in the ornamentation of the place.

According to the science of Fourier, everything is naturally arranged in groups and series. A group consists of three or more individuals or things, and a number of similar groups together make a series. To have harmony in society requires the application of this law or arrangement to all the relations of daily life; or in other words, it is natural to be thus arranged in industrial and social life. The Brook Farmers, being ambitious to introduce a resemblance to such an organization—for it could be but very faintly shadowed by their few members—and also desirous to indoctrinate all into the idea of this natural arrangement, organized "groups and series" in the following manner as proposed in the new constitution. "Three or more persons combined for some object or labor" made a group; harmonic numbers for groups—three, five, seven, twelve, etc. A series consisted of three or more groups for a similar object, joined under one head or chief.

To illustrate the system we will suppose it to be the spring of the year. The Farming Series will then consist of the following groups: First, a Cattle Group, Which attends to the feeding, grooming and general care of the cattle—horses, cows, oxen, pigs, etc. It may include the milking of the cows, or that may be a group in itself under the name of the Milking Group. Second, a Plowing Group, who attend to the plowing of the fields. Third, a Nursery Group, who have the care of the young trees, grafting, budding, etc. Fourth, a Planting Group, which may later in the season change into a Hoeing Group, or into a Weeding Group, or into a Haying Group, or a separate organization for each may continue till the end of the season. Each chief of a group recorded the hours expended in labor in his group, so that it was possible to tell, at the end of a season, how many hours had been spent in a given occupation, as hoeing, weeding, planting, etc. These groups, each having a chief, formed the aforenamed series, and the heads, or "chiefs" of all the groups together elected the head of the series, who kept a record and had general charge of the work done under his management.

The Mechanical Series, consisting of shoemaking, carpentering, sash and blind-makers' groups, were usually the same persons the year around. If, however, the shoemaker was tired of his group, and could be spared, he took his hoe and rake, and went into some group in the Farming Series for a change of occupation; the hours he spent there were put to his credit on the book of the group in which he labored in that series.

The Domestic Series had care of the houses and all domestic work, and was divided into Consistory, Dormitory and Kitchen Groups. There were also Washing, Ironing and Mending Groups, and perhaps some others. The beds, rooms, halls and lamps had to be attended to every day, water and towels provided, and the "Dormitory" and "Consistory Groups," situated as the Brook Farmers were, were obliged to go from house to house to attend to these duties.

There were independent groups on the farm, not connected with any series, as the Teachers' Group, and the Miscellaneous Group, who did a variety of miscellaneous work; and there was a Commercial Agent who bought and sold goods for the Association. There was also a group called "The Sacred Legion," who did exceptionally disagreeable labors, not from the love of them but from the sacred principle of duty. Only occasionally some repugnant task had to be undertaken, and be it to the honor of the leaders, not one of them, even the most fastidious or cultivated, shirked the responsibility of it.

The industrial system of Fourier has often been objected to as a mechanical arrangement, by which persons were fixed, automaton-like, and expected to work where they were placed, and has been opposed with the criticism that human beings are not automatic—that they have the restlessness of human nature and will constantly rebel at such conditions.

Another and a greater criticism has been that the levelling tendency, as is supposed, of the Fourieristic doctrines, is inimical to every-day experience, and that the natural differences of characters, ambitions and mental conditions were not recognized in the system, consequently there would be no place for all these varied human attributes to work and progress in.

These are very great errors, and are entirely attributable to the superficial knowledge of the man and his works. If ever there was a man in this universe who had faith in the Supreme Power, Fourier was that man. His theology covered the absolute wisdom and absolute goodness of God. Starting from these two fixed standpoints, he believed that the Creator wisely planned the universe and laid out the destiny of the human race from its inception, as a wise and beneficent being, fixing its beginning and its end and all of the intermediate stages between them as parts of the plan. Creating man as a social being, he must, therefore, have created from the first the form of society under which he should, finally, as a race, pass the greatest portion of his sojourn here, and, being an absolutely good Creator, he must have created absolutely good social conditions as the destiny towards which all mankind is now tending, and which will finally be reached.

Having also created man with many varied talents, the society or the social order in which he intends him to live, must have room in it for the use and development of the variety he has created: a place for the strong, a place for the weak; a place for the proud, a place for the lowly; a place for the penurious, a place for the lavish; a place for the sober and a place for the gay. Moreover, if the Creator is wise, he has created just the number and variety of mental and physical personages to fill the otherwise empty places, and no others; for, if he has created a surplus of them, he is unwise, and they must be in discord with the rest. If the movements of the heavenly bodies are not left to chance, neither is the destiny nor the place of any human being in creation left to chance, either here or hereafter.

Far from any levelling tendency in Fourier's system, far from any communism, it contains, in itself, room for the completest aristocracy there ever was, the natural and the true aristocracy, ordained by the logical mind of the Creator, implanted in our natures, and which we intuitively admit and admire. But having given man freedom of will, not having made him to associate automatically, as he has, apparently, made the honey-bee, the beaver, the ant, and various social creatures, it is necessary for him to go through a period of ignorance, and, consequently, of some suffering, whilst he is learning by experience to find his powers and his position in creation, even as the little child does, who reaches out its hand for the moon, and stumbles over trifles lying in its way that were easily removed, could it, in its undeveloped condition, have sense enough to do it. But the two conditions are not possible, together. Both ignorance and knowledge of a subject cannot dwell in one person at the same time; therefore it is only slowly and painfully that we find, by degrees, our wonderful powers, the bountiful provision for happiness, and the grand destiny that so peacefully lies in the arms of the future, awaiting our embrace and caress.

Fourier discovered the arrangement in nature of the "Serial Order" or the law of the Groups and Series, which on paper seems formal, but is simply one of the mathematical rules of society, and which, under right conditions, does not intrude itself, any more than the rules of arithmetic do when we are buying a few apples, but are nevertheless ever present. The writer does not wish to impose a dissertation on his readers, but felt impelled to answer, in this place, these objections made by many worthy people.

The workshop, which was being built at the time of my arrival, was two stories in height, sixty by forty feet in size, with a pitched roof; well lighted with windows, and situated some three hundred yards behind the Hive, in a northwesterly direction. At its further end, in the cellar, was placed a horse-mill, afterwards exchanged for a steam- engine, that carried the machinery for all the departments of labor. Our engineer, Jean M. Pallisse, a worthy Swiss, a very intelligent man, had a calm face that fitted well with the quiet wreaths of smoke he sent up on the air, from his almost ever-present cigar. It was our delight to coax him to bring out his violin on dance nights, and give us a charming waltz or two. You would hardly associate his intelligent and pleasant face with the dull work of an engine room, but he was there day by day, faithful and regular as a clock, for he was in earnest. He had the sublime faith in him, and in later years held a responsible position in a wealthy importing house in New York City.

The shop was partitioned off, according to the needs of business, and in the time of our greatest numbers, when crowded with members and visitors, no other place being found to stow people in, beds were placed in its upper story.

The general impression of my first summer at Brook Farm is that it was one of great activity and great hopes. Everywhere the ambition was to enlarge—to increase the number of members, to increase the occupations, to increase the tillage by turning over the grass-grown meadows and "laying down" more land; to increase the nursery for young trees and plants, to increase the hay crop by clearing the brushwood and mowing the stubble close. Everywhere were busy people with ploughs and cultivators, hoes and rakes, and I was with them wherever there was work to be done.

The glory of the summer was the hay field. On the fair meadows we turned and gathered the hay. It was a large crop; although the hay was not all of the best, it was mostly of fair quality. And when the hoeing, weeding and haying were done, the farmers dug meadow-muck for compost.

Ready and willing as I was to try my hand at whatever came along, I went into the meadow and followed the plough with a bogging hoe, and one day tried digging muck but the chief of the group thought the labor was too heavy for me; I would have to wait until I grew stronger.

Coming home one day I was told that one of our number had passed away. She had been sick at the Hive a long while before my arrival. I could scarcely be called acquainted with her, though I had been into her room and called with others. In health she had been a brave worker, and in sickness bore her severe suffering patiently. Messrs. Chiswell and Tirrell of the Carpenters' Group were called on for their help, whilst Mrs. Pratt and others prepared the body for its final sleep. Members of the Direction selected a lovely spot in a little pine grove beyond the Pilgrim House for a grave, and we gathered for a last service.

I expected to hear Mr. Ripley speak, but true to a sensitive instinct of propriety he did not, for though he was at the head of the Association, she had her own faith and creed which he deemed sacred. She was an Episcopalian, and after the service was read by one of our number a solemn procession was formed which followed her body, borne on our light wagon, to the grave, where, singing a hymn, we left her quietly in peace.

Soon after the gardener planted some young evergreens, and placed flowering shrubs and a little fence around the sacred spot. If one must die, must surrender life, oh, where can it be done better than under such circumstances? From first to last no stranger's hand had aught to do with this sister either in life or in death. No idle or curiously intrusive person came near, and all the surroundings, though simple, were in keeping with the solemnity of the occasion. There was no pomp or rivalry of show, no gaudy deckings, that we in our hearts despise, but which an unhallowed custom forces upon us; but all was done decently, lovingly, peacefully and well. It was a simple name she bore— Mary Ann Williams.

There was an amusement group, the members of which did not receive pecuniary compensation. Its duty was to provide amusement for the people and the scholars, as often as could be afforded, without trespassing on school and daily duties.

Miss Amelia Russell, a little, plump woman, with a pleasant smile, dimpled cheeks, round, laughing eyes, cultivated and easy manners, was chief of this group for a long period. Her title was "the mistress of the revels." Under her direction there were various plays, games, dances and tableaux.

Besides the walks in the fields and woods there was an occasional "children's festival," in the grove of pines, in which a large portion of the elders joined. There were plenty of amusements, for although the amusement group took general charge of them, there was nothing to prevent any person or number of persons from amusing themselves to any extent, and in any way, not interfering with the business of the place.

Being among the minors, the pleasures of dancing and roaming over the diversified country, were most attractive to me; for the young people danced without expense—as we were, anywhere, any time, for five or ten minutes, an hour or an evening, and it never became a dissipation; it was too natural and common to be a dissipation. There were never late hours. There was no dancing for show, or to display handsome clothes, but simply for the love of it, its harmony and love of one another's society and companionship.

When the cares and lessons of the day were laid aside, and the evening meal was over, we sauntered up the hill to the Eyry, and passing near the Cottage, would perhaps find some one at the piano in the music room, and if we numbered four or five, would waltz or dance to one or the other's playing, the players and dancers taking turns until it was time to stop. It might be there was a class in history or in reading at eight, or maybe singing school would soon commence. If so, that terminated the matter. Perhaps there was to be music at the Eyry,— there was no formality, we went without ceremony to hear it.

There were times when there was a regular "dance at the Hive." The mistress of the revels was kind enough to assist young or old, whose "education had been neglected," and who had never been taught their "steps," by forming a dancing class and including all in it; and it would have done your heart good to see the old fogies try for the first time in their lives to put on grace. Grace it was, but often of the oddest kind. Imagine the tall, spare figure of "the General," turned of forty, full six feet in height and stooping in the shoulders, all legs and arms—who could sit in a chair and wind his legs around each other until the feet changed places, and sit comfortably so—as pupil of the plump, little woman, straight as an arrow, and only (at a guess) four feet six in height, and looking shorter for her plumpness, taking his "one, two, three," and "forward and back steps."

Imagine, also, all hands seated at the supper tables, with the rattle of knives, forks, mugs and plates, and the full buzz of conversation; waiters crowding up and down, supplying the fast vanishing food, and everything cheerful, when a rapping on one of the tables arrests the attention of all. One of the gentlemen, arising, announces, "There will be a dance in this hall this evening, at eight o'clock, to which all are invited." This is received with applause by the young people. Perhaps it is a surprise to them; for some of the pupils who have a little pocket money, have gained permission of the authorities, and have sent for the Dedham "feedler," as our Dane used to call him, to play the violin and call the dances.

As for music, our orchestra was not very large. I am almost ashamed to say that one violin, solitary and alone, or a piano brought down from the Cottage, was often the only solace and cheer. But then the room was not large, and certainly it was not high, so that nothing was lost in its expanse, and truly the young man played very well, and I remember there were some brass instruments used on an especial occasion.

You should have been standing outside, looking in at the window just the time that supper was over. Wouldn't you have seen some busy young folks, clearing the tables and washing the dining-room ware! And you would have seen the clean, white mugs and plates put up in huge piles in the dining-room closet. Wouldn't the benches and tables disappear quickly, and the floor be swept, and the lamps lighted, and everything put in "apple-pie order"! And then the young women workers would disappear, and in a few minutes reappear dressed in their best, like magic pictures of youth and beauty, adorned in simple garments, with a rose bud or a wreath of partridge vine (Mitchella) with its bright red berries, woven into their tresses, or with some simple adornments; and then for an hour or two of enjoyment!

The dance would commence. One by one, after the young persons were in the midst of the revelry, the older persons would come in, and the non- dancers would range around as spectators; and now and then you would distinguish our leader by the curly locks, the gleaming eyes and gold- bowed spectacles, his glowing face expressing satisfaction in our enjoyment.

At ten o'clock, the dance ceased; immediately the tables and dishes would reappear, as if by enchantment, and in a twinkling the dining room was arranged for the morning. We had had our pleasure, and were ready to pay for it by restoring things to immediate order. Besides, what young man could leave the young ladies to set the tables alone, after having danced with them all the evening? After this there were hours enough left for sound sleep, and there were no headaches in the morning. The result was, all the young people grew strong, graceful and healthy.

My peculiar temperament and strong love of nature made the walks and wanderings in the fields dear to me. I recall them with the greatest pleasure, and think that some others among the living must do the same. There were no stated, regular hours for walking. The teachers went when their classes for the day were over; the young folks when their tasks were completed, or at twilight, in the long summer days, and often the larger parties were on Sunday afternoons, for then there was greater freedom from care. Some went to West Roxbury to church in the morning, some, maybe, to the Eyry to read Swedenborg or other writers, and unless Mr. Channing or some other minister who desired to preach was present, there were no set services; and even if there were, a walk might be arranged for a later hour in the summer afternoons.

The tall, slim figure of the wife of our president, wearing a Leghorn shade hat, with one or two graceful lady pupils by her side, was often present and leading the procession; then perhaps the manly form of our head farmer, and his stout wife, and his boys and girl; our "poet," always beside some fair maiden, in cheerful conversation; a visitor and the visited; groups of young people together, with muslin dresses, blue tunics and straw hats intermingled; children; and maybe the stately form of William Henry Channing, with his regular profile, and his head carried high, looking upward and off, as into far, pleasant and dreamy distances, walking beside a tall, black haired woman, with a spiritual face of high type,—in all some thirty to forty in number, making a delightfully picturesque group.

Such parties would generally make the large and beautiful pine woods that were near us the ultimatum of their walk. Others would take a longer walk, to the thicker woods of "Cow Island" (now covered with houses), or to the Charles River. Leaving the farm they dived into the young oak woods, by a small path in the rear of the Cottage, and entering the magnificent grove of pines after a short walk, found a grassy wood path that led a long distance through them. Soon the party would begin to straggle and divide, some to gather wild flowers and berries, and more to find materials for wreaths, or ferns and mosses for decorations.

The walks ended where walks do that have no definite plan—anywhere in the woods, sitting on the boulders or the pine leaves, or in some shady nook where a topic would be found for discussion, or a pleasant book would be read. When the supper horn sounded, you found the absent ones together again, with bright, rosy faces and good appetites; and only a few of the younger folks would be late, who had strayed farther or walked slower, to enjoy the companionship of those of the same age; to listen to their sweet voices, and to linger, as only young folks love to linger.

The summer came on with joy and beauty. I recall the long waves of nodding grass, that swayed in the June wind and were chasing each other, fugue-like on the broad meadows. How beautiful it was, tipped with its various hues of green, yellow, red and purple, bending and rising as each breath of wind passed over it! The crops looked well, and the table was supplied with varieties of garden produce.

If you approached the farm in the middle of the forenoon, you wondered where all the people were, but at the sound of the first horn, half an hour before dinner, "from bush and briar and greensward shade" they would begin to start out like Robin Hood's men, and when the second horn was sounding, the daily, the tri-daily procession was fairly on the move, approaching the Hive from all sides. It was a very pretty and novel sight.

The men had been in the field planting, hoeing or weeding—the farmer's triad of duties in the vegetable field—and as they worked side by side, the questions of the day were discussed with freedom and with partisanship, but with good nature. The one who had a bias for art brought forward his art hobbies; the dress reformer aired his and the vegetarian argued his cause. Personal questions often came to the front—as how Smith probably voted in the Association meeting in the case of the admission of some mooted person; he was so sly you could not find out! And they quizzed one another, and they laughed and rivalled one another in speed of work, which they did faithfully and interestedly. It was a good school of human nature, and sooner or later each one was sized up with a deal of exactness. With the sounding of the horn the hoes were left in the field or put on the shoulder for the march to the barn, where, in its little room, the toilet for meals was made.

When I think under what disadvantages these toilers worked for five years, I wonder at their patience and firmness. What would our city families say to all going out from their apartments, male and female, young and old, and walking from an eighth to a quarter of a mile—often making their own path through the deep snow of our severe New England winters—three times each day, for the simple meals we had there to eat? What would they say to living in crowded rooms, without private parlors, and the public one at the Hive not much better than an office in a back country hotel, and the other disadvantages heretofore named and many more, simply for the principle of the thing?

Of course there was enthusiasm, and that sweetens many dull dishes; but for those used to home comforts, to be sandwiched in with comparative strangers—squeezed down, as it were, into a press—oftentimes having the family separated into various and disunited parts of the mansion or into different houses, was decidedly uncomfortable to bear.

These disadvantages could not but make the Association quite early decide that the one thing above all others needed was a new building with suites of rooms, where families could have the comforts and privacy of homes, which with a large kitchen, bakery, dining rooms, parlors, etc., would make a "unitary dwelling"; approximating to an apartment house of more modern days in many of its details, and improving on it as regards unitary cooking, dining and social conveniences.

The autumn fled rapidly away, and things had to be hurried up and put into shape for the winter. The gardener had no greenhouse, and was growling for fear the early frost might take a fancy to his plants. So the Association built him a temporary one in the "sand bank" by the side of the farm road, and the plan was to bend their energies towards getting the new dwelling started as early as possible in the spring, and to build a permanent greenhouse near it.

I do not know what passed in the General Direction during the winter. They were undoubtedly busy in endeavoring to obtain money for constructing the new building, preparing plans for its interior arrangement, and personally lecturing in various places, to aid in awakening the public to the new ideas, hoping also that some benefit might accrue to their organization, as well as to the cause, from their efforts.

The winter was mild, and it passed rapidly. There were coasting parties of young and old, but it was not often that the snow was favorable. There were literary societies, and we admired "the General" when he recited the part of the lean and hungry Cassius. He didn't stammer then, and he received the additional title of "Shakespeare's hero." These things, with reading, dancing and singing classes, an occasional "social" at the Hive, with private gatherings and chats around the kitchen fire by "Hiveites" (i.e., those living at the Hive), found us with spring at hand before we could realize it.

Among other matters in progress in the spring was the garden. The gardener was urging upon the Association the usefulness and profitableness of the growth and sale of garden and greenhouse plants and flowers; the great benefit they would be in adding attractiveness to the place, and also the importance of starting plants so that they might be growing into sizable shrubs, to return an early profit for their outlay. These facts decided the Association to commence a flower garden, and they located it on a partially level piece of ground behind the Cottage, covering perhaps a half acre, with a chance of future extension by cutting the wood adjoining and cultivating the untilled ground.

There was much labor put on this piece of land, as it was first reduced to a level by removing the soil and subsoil, and levelling the gravelly bottom; then returning the subsoil and soil to the top. Walks were next laid out with great care, and flower beds made. A border was also dug for the expected new greenhouse, and filled with rich soil and compost, and the end of the summer saw it erected.

But the most important step taken in the spring was the establishment of a journal devoted to the interests of Association and Associative life.

It is easy to see how naturally, independent of the need of an organ for a new movement, the Brook Farmers took to the idea of publishing a journal. In the first place there were at hand men who were abundant in talent; who were used to writing, and well up in literature and fine arts, to whom the idea was grateful as water to young ducks, And, second, there were at least two or three printers and compositors residing on the farm, who were as able in their department as the first named were in theirs. There was in this connection, also, the possibility at some future time of obtaining printing for the Printers' Group, should that branch of labor be well established.

The scheme cannot be better introduced than by giving here the prospectus of the Harbinger, the beautiful name of the new weekly paper. You will find in its brave words some of the ideas that the leaders of this movement developed, but more particularly the broad faith they had in human nature and in great principles applied to social life, and the greater trust they had that the Providence under which we live had ordained man for a sublime destiny.



CHAPTER VI.

THE "HARBINGER" AND VARIOUS SUBJECTS.

The following is the prospectus of

THE "HARBINGER."

Devoted to the Social and Political progress. Published simultaneously at New York and Boston, by the Brook Farm Phalanx. "All things, at the present day, stand provided and prepared, and await the light."

Under this title it is proposed to publish a weekly newspaper, for the examination, and discussion of the great questions in social science, politics, literature and the arts, which command the attention of all believers in the progress and elevation of humanity.

In politics, the Harbinger will be democratic in its principles and tendencies; cherishing the deepest interest in the advancement and happiness of the masses; warring against all exclusive privilege in legislation, political arrangements and social customs; and striving with the zeal of earnest conviction, to promote the triumph of the high democratic faith, which is the chief mission of the nineteenth century to realize in society.

Our devotion to the democratic principle will lead us to take the ground of fearless and absolute independence in regard to all political parties, whether professing attachment to that principle or hostility to it. We know that fidelity to an idea can never be reassured by adherence to a name; and hence we shall criticise all parties with equal severity, though we trust that the sternness of truth will always be blended with the temperance of impartial candor. With tolerance for all opinions, we have no patience with hypocrisy and pretense; least of all with that specious fraud which would make a glorious principle the apology for personal ends. It will therefore be a leading object of the Harbinger to strip the disguise from the prevailing parties, to show them in their true light, to give them due honor, to tender them our grateful reverence whenever we see them true to a noble principle; but at all times, and on every occasion, to expose false professions, to hold up hollow-heartedness and duplicity to just indignation, to warn the people against the demagogue, who would cajole them by honeyed flatteries, no less than against the devotee of mammon who would make them his slaves.

The Harbinger will be devoted to the cause of a radical, organic social reform, as essential to the highest development of man's nature, to the production of those elevated and beautiful forms of character of which he is capable, and to the diffusion of happiness, excellence and universal harmony upon the earth. The principles of universal unity as taught by Charles Fourier, in their application to society, we believe are at the foundation of all genuine social progress, and it will ever be our aim to discuss and defend these principles, without any sectarian bigotry, and in the catholic and comprehensive spirit of their great discoverer. While we bow to no man as an authoritative, infallible master, we revere the genius of Fourier too highly not to accept, with joyful welcome, the light which he has shed on the most intricate problems of human destiny. The social reform of whose advent the signs are everywhere visible, comprehends all others, and in laboring for its speedy accomplishment, we are conscious that we are devoting our best ability to the removal of oppression and injustice among men, to the complete emancipation of the enslaved, to the promotion of genuine temperance, and to the elevation of the toiling and down-trodden masses to the inborn rights of humanity.

In literature the Harbinger will exercise a firm and impartial criticism, without respect of persons or parties. It will be made a vehicle for the freest thought, though not of random speculations; and with a generous appreciation of the various forms of truth and beauty, it will not fail to expose such instances of false sentiment, perverted taste and erroneous opinion, as may tend to vitiate the public mind or degrade the individual character. Nor will the literary department of the Harbinger be limited to criticism alone. It will receive contributions from various pens, in different spheres of thought, and, free from dogmatic exclusiveness, will accept all that in any way indicates the unity of man with man, with nature, and with God. Consequently all true science, all poetry and arts, all sincere literature, all religion that is from the soul, all wise analyses of mind and character, will come within its province.

We appeal for aid in our enterprise to the earnest and hopeful spirits in all classes of society. We appeal to all who, suffering from a resistless discontent in the present order of things, with faith in man and trust in God are striving for the establishment of universal justice, harmony and love. We appeal to the thoughtful, the aspiring, the generous everywhere, who wish to see the reign of heavenly truth triumphant, by supplanting the infernal discords and falsehoods on which modern society is built—for their sympathy, friendship and practical cooperation in the undertaking which we announce to-day.

The Harbinger was launched, and it weathered the, storm for four years, until its editors sought other and wider fields for their genius. Besides the motto on the prospectus, they took the following from Rev. William Ellery Channing: "Of modern civilization, the natural fruits are, contempt for others' rights, fraud, oppression, a gambling spirit in trade, reckless adventure and commercial convulsions, all tending to impoverish the laborer and render every condition insecure. Relief is to come, and can only come from the new application of Christian principles, of universal justice and universal love, to social institutions, to commerce, to business, to active life."

It was printed in quarto form, sixteen pages to every number, with clear type and in excellent style. The index of the first volume bears a list of twenty-two names as contributors, and it contains many worthy ones. The New York names were as follows:—

Albert Brisbane. William Henry Channing. Christopher P. Cranch. George William Curtis. George G. Foster. Parke Godwin. Horace Greeley. Osborne MacDaniel.

The New England names were:—

Otis Clapp, Boston, Mass. William W. Story, Boston, Mass. T. Wentworth Higginson, Boston, Mass. James Russell Lowell, Cambridge, Mass. J. A. Saxton, Deerfield, Mass. Francis George Shaw, West Roxbury, Mass. John G. Whittier, Amesbury, Mass.

Other contributors were:—

E. P. Grant of Ohio. A. J. H. Duganne of Philadelphia.

The Brook Farm writers were:—

George Ripley. John S. Dwight. Charles A. Dana. Lewis K. Ryckman.

In the second volume are two more of the Channing family as contributors, Dr. William F. and Walter, and also the name of James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, with an additional writer from Brook Farm— John Orvis.

Mr. Ripley and Mr. Dana wrote most of the editorial Associative articles. Mr. Dana was the principal reviewer, and noticed the new books. Mr. Dwight wrote an occasional article on Association, reviewed, and attended to the musical and poetical department. He also earnestly advocated the doctrines of social and industrial life suggested by Fourier. Translations in prose and poetry were common. Parke Godwin and W. H. Channing assisted in translations or selections from Fourier's writings. George William Curtis wrote the musical correspondence from New York, and among the poetical contributions in the first volume, is one from J. G. Whittier, "To My Friend on the Death of His Sister," and five poems by Cranch, Higginson, Story, Lowell and Duganne; also poetic translations from the German by Dwight and Dana, as well as original poems by them.

The paper was not local. It aimed high as a purely literary and critical as well as progressive journal, and I must ever consider it a fault that it did not chronicle more of Brook Farm life. We look almost in vain through its pages for one word of its situation, finding none except in some allusions to it in the correspondence from abroad. Occasionally the school was advertised in a corner, but for the rest it might as well have been published elsewhere as at Brook Farm. The leaders, feeling that the life there was an experiment, and perhaps a doubtful one, were not disposed to gratify a curiosity which they probably considered morbid, by yielding to it. This was a mistake. It was a mistake, as much as it would be for us to leave out of our letters to our friends the petty incidents of daily life, and describe only grand principles and outside events. It is only to those loved most by us that we recite the trivial things, for we know that those trivialities link us closer than anything else, filling all the chinks in our friendship or love. It was a disappointment to those who desired to know often of the spirit of the workers, and of the little events that happened there, not to find more notices of them.

In many other respects the Harbinger was a grand success. In all that pertained to music, criticism, poetry and progress no journal stood higher. I cannot tell of its pecuniary success for I do not find any memorandum of its finances. The first number commenced with a story translated from the French of George Sand (Madame Dudevant) entitled "Consuelo"—in some respects the sweetest story she ever wrote. It was translated by our neighbor, Mr. Francis G. Shaw, who would oftentimes mount his horse, and, with his little boy, a tiny fellow, on a pony by his side, gallop over to see us. How hard it is for me to realize that afterward the same little fellow, as Col. Robert G. Shaw, led his colored regiment through fire and smoke and the whizzing bullets up to the cannon's mouth of bloody Fort Wagner, and there laid down his life for his country.

Francis George Shaw was of a Boston family and a gentleman of means. He took great interest in our experiment and its hoped-for results. I have not words to praise his kindness, and his gentlemanly manner and bearing towards us all. He looked on life from a high standpoint. Wealth did not corrupt him. He was a Christian in large heartedness and philanthropy. He recognized his Maker's image in all men; the garment he saw through; the color he saw through; and he desired above all things the education, progress and culture of all the human family.

Appended is an additional list of all the advertised contributors of the Harbinger, during its publication at Brook Farm, not including those already mentioned:—

John Allen, Brook Farm. Jean M. Pallisse, Brook Farm. S. P. Andrews, New York, N. Y. William Ellery Channing, Concord, Mass. Joseph J. Cooke, Providence, R. I. Fred. Henry Hedge, Bangor, Me. Mark E. Lazarus, Wilmington, N. C. E. W. Parkman, Boston, Mass. J. H. Pulte, Cincinnati, Ohio. Samuel D. Robbins, Chelsea, Mass. Miss E. H. Starr, Deerfield, Mass. C. Neidhart, Philadelphia, Pa.

The presence of a weekly journal on the farm, with its varieties of current literature, poetry and music, could not but awaken in many of the colaborers most pleasurable emotions. Prose articles and poetry from it were discussed by daylight and by the fireside, by the roadside, in the shops, on the farm—in fact, everywhere. The "Admiral" was wild over Hood's "Bridge of Sighs." It was so quaint; the rhythm was so unique; it was so full of sentiment; it was so tender; it displayed so touchingly the sorrows of a young heart, and was so in harmony with the humanitarian sentiment of our lives, that he and others could but repeat it over and over, and the poet's rhymes kept ringing both in our physical and mental ears. The lines—

"One more unfortunate, Rashly importunate Gone to her death.

* * * * *

Take her up tenderly, Fashioned so slenderly Young and so fair."

were repeated times without number. Cranch's, Story's and Duganne's poems were favorably criticised, the authors being friendly to the Association, and the verses of our own members touched tender spots.

When Mr. Emerson's poems were published, there was quite a desire to know what his sonnet to our friend William H. Channing was like. The disappointment was great when, instead of a grand, glowing sonnet to a great-souled man, it took up only an exceptional point of feeling in his mind on the Abolition question, on which they were not quite agreed. Quite a little discussion took place between two young persons as to the propriety of the lines,

"What boots thy zeal, O glowing friend, That would indignant rend The Northland from the South?"

The one party contended that "boots" was entirely inadmissible in poetic phrase. "What boots? Cowhides or patent leathers?" said he, whilst the other contended that the whole scope of the meaning made the poetry. But still the first stuck to his point, that a grand sentiment needed grand words as well as grand ideas, and "boots" was a homely and inadmissible word with which to express a high sentiment.

Among the many volumes noticed, "Festus," by Philip James Bailey, was a constant source of admiration and criticism in some of our circles, and we had many varied ones. Listen to what Mr. Dwight said of it at the time in the Harbinger: "There are more original and magnificent images on a single page of Festus than would endow a dozen of the handsome volumes most in vogue. The conclusion you come to as you read on, is that his wealth of imagination is illimitable, and that you might as well cut a cloud out of the purple sunset atmosphere, as a figure from the boundless atmospheric beauty of this poem."

"Festus" still retains its charm for me.

The Harbinger, as may be seen, was to be published by the Brook Farm Phalanx, not Association. The reason why the name was changed was because "Association" was not a definite one, conveying distinct impressions to the public mind, like "Community"; and the name "Phalanx," although to American ears, new in its connection, was expressive, and was also adopted by a number of social experiments just starting, and it was desirable to have them all associated in name as well as in general doctrine. The name "Community" was rejected because all the societies organized under that name held their property in common, which the "Association" distinctly did not.

There were other changes made at this time, more important in idea than in practice. The name "Areopagus" was applied to an enlarged general council, and our leader got in this connection, without warrant, the name of "the Archon."

"Come!" said jocose Drew to him one day, as he sat on the wagon-seat ready to start for the city, "we are waiting for you!"

"Ah!" was Mr. Ripley's reply, "I see you have the wag-on, and are now waiting for the Archon!"

The government was vested in a General Council consisting of four branches: First, a Council of Industry, composed of five members; second, a Council of Finance, of four members; third, a Council of Science, of three members, and fourth a President, who, with the chairmen of the other three councils, constituted a "Central Council." The Council of Industry was appointed by the chiefs of the several series devoted to manual industry; the Council of Finance, by the stockholders; the Council of Science, by chiefs of the series devoted to educational, literary and scientific matters, and the President by the concurrent vote of the three series.

The Areopagus, whose duty was advisory, consisted of the General Council; the chiefs of the several groups and series; stockholders holding stock to the amount of one thousand dollars or more; all members of the Phalanx over the age of forty-five who had resided on the place for two years or longer; and of such other persons as might be elected by this Council on account of their superior wisdom, merit or devotion to the interests of the Association; no person voting who was not a member of the Phalanx.

There was a curious and interesting addition to the constitution in the "Council of Arbiters," which was to consist of seven persons, "the majority of whom shall be women." To this council individuals and departments were to bring all complaints, charges and grievances not provided for in other ways. They were to take cognizance of all matters relating to morals and manners, and to report to the General Council all cases wherein their decision was not complied with. The reader can judge by this that there were men and women who understood "woman's sphere," and were ready to assist her to it quietly and naturally, long years ago in this little band.