Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

CHAPTER IX.

SOCIAL AND PARLOR LIFE.

We now pass over some months of the life with few words. I have tried to portray it on the farm as it appeared to me, and leave you to think that it continues on and on, ever in the same general current, through the long, clear days and moonlight nights of summer, and the cooler days and misty evenings of the later season, to the time when the warning comes to the farmer to gather in the ripened products of his labor.

I pass over the later autumn—when the fields are cleared of all but the remains of vegetation, and we hear no more the songs of the crickets and the multitudinous insect life that fills the air of the August and September nights, as the full moon looks down on the fields and meadow rich in foliage—to the time when the thought of the farmer is for wood for the winter, for the preservation of the farming implements, for making all things "taut and trig" about the barn and houses to secure their warmth for the coming cold weather and snow; past the day of the New England Thanksgiving, along to Christmas time, saying only in passing that the leaders were much engaged in lecturing, as well as with other duties.

One evening in autumn a party from the farm, myself the youngest of them, started for Boston to hear one of a course of lectures. Mr. Ripley was the chairman, and the ever bounteous joyousness of his nature sparkled out in wit and mirth. These meetings were free, and discussion was invited, but there was present an excitable woman who had a habit of rising at any moment, no matter who was speaking, to make odd remarks and inquiries. She was considered a great nuisance, especially at the meetings of the antislavery societies, where she was often found, and I more than once saw her "suppressed" by police officers. On this occasion, whilst Mr. Brisbane was speaking, she arose to propound questions.

Immediate excitement was visible in the audience, and cries of "Put her out," arose. Mr. Ripley was on his feet in an instant. He declared the meeting to be a free one, and that it was ever the faith and duty of those engaged in this liberal movement to give the largest liberty to all inquirers; he appealed to all to be quiet and hear what the lady had to say, for she would, as well as all others, give them credit for having paid respectful attention to whoever wished to make inquiries, and whenever Miss F. had spoken, she could not but acknowledge that they had always and at all times listened to her with the utmost—and he hesitated as if seeking carefully for the exact word, which he uttered slowly and with the utmost gravity—patience. At this queer termination the audience laughed loudly, and gave her a hearing, and shortly, pleased at her conquest, she sat down, and disturbed no future meeting of the Associationists.

Again during the discussion Mr. Ripley announced that a contribution would be taken to defray expenses, "but as the speaking was to be continued during the time the box was passing round," the audience was requested to "put in as many bills as possible so as not to disturb the speaker by the rattling of small change." After the meeting closed, the wagon in which we rode to town was deserted by some half dozen of its male passengers who, with the speed of Indian runners, started for the farm on foot. Being slight of build and not over strong, I would have been left behind, had it not been for the friendship of the Admiral, who awaited my movements, but we still sped on with rapidity, overtaking some, and neared the farm in time to hear the bark of our dog Carlo announce the arrival of the team only a few minutes before us.

The autumn and early winter were very mild. The ground was not frozen on the twenty-fourth day of December, and the gardener had many crocus bulbs unplanted, owing to too much labor in and around the new greenhouse and garden, and being desirous of saving them, commenced to plant them on the Hive terraces in "her majesty's garden." There were hundreds of them. In the morning we prepared our beds and dug our holes for planting. The sky was lowery, and it was afternoon when we commenced to plant.

Shortly the raindrops began to fall, but we continued our work. It rained harder and harder. I had on only ordinary woollen clothing, cotton shirt, no undershirt, and wore over it only an old green baize jacket. Wet to the skin; the rain ran off of me in streams. With my wet hands I assorted and handed the bulbs, four or five at a time, to the gardener, and as they touched the ground or his fingers, the earth stuck to them and mixed mud and plants together. The rain began to grow colder and colder, and our work was not done, but as the shades of night began to fall we finished it. Chilled and cold we wended our way towards the greenhouse, where I changed wet clothes for dry ones. The night came on cold; the wind howled; the rain turned into snow and on Christmas morning the ground was covered with a rough, hard conglomerate of snow and ice.

But the next day neither chill nor cold resulted from the long exposure. Was it because our lives were more in harmony with nature than is usual?

At the Eyry all through the winter, in its cosy little parlor, reigned our queens and kings of art and music. I was partial to the room and the company, yet neither felt nor understood the deep music. It is true that I sang songs of my own and made my own harmonies as I wandered over the fields and meadows. The mystic measure of the sunny waltz haunted me happily at times, and my heart kept time to its rhythm even as my feet had kept time in the merry dance; but it seemed to me as though there was a lack of sense in the jingle, and a depth of feeling untouched in me that the music of the parlor had not or could not reach—I did not appreciate it.

It was a pleasure for Mr. Dwight to secure a quartette of singers from the city. I could mention names, but I forbear, yet there are two faces so indelibly linked with those most happy hours, that I must, in order to be true to this sketch of Brook Farm life, twine them into my narrative.

The first face was serene, charming and dignified. Its cheeks were round and gracefully full, and colored with delicious pink, and a dimple rounded in them when the kindly face smiled. Above them reigned a queenly forehead, and over the brown eyes a fine brow. The nose was straight, the upper lip short, and the features were regular. The owner of this face was tall and graceful, and her dark, glossy hair was combed plainly back. She was ever neatly dressed, and her favorite decoration was a wreath of the wild partridge vine, rich with its red berries, which added to her graceful presence. It was her sweet voice, soft and low, that chimed in, in our quartette. She came and went and seemed one of us, as in spirit she was, though in fact only a friendly visitor.

The other face was different and not as pretty, yet it grew upon you more and more.

There was no blue like those eyes of blue, if they were delicately small, and if there was a little drooping expression as though the sun above was a trifle too powerful for them. This was no detriment, however; it lent them a mildness, a soft haze, like that we so much admire in a landscape, and made them more in keeping with the mild, tranquil countenance.

The eyebrows were softly penciled—not bold, not prominent—and were not much arched, and the nose, that was Grecian, was full between the eyes. The lips were of good size as well as the mouth, and the upper lip long enough to indicate strength of character. The chin was finely drawn, and the throat rather large and full. About the mouth, even in repose, seemed to rest the faint semblance of a smile, as though it could not leave its pleasant dwelling place; as though it was akin to the features themselves, as the color of the eyes or hair. The forehead was pure, womanly; intellectual enough, full enough, high enough, but toned down to the sweet, womanly features. It was a fine face; a vigorous, womanly one, unmarked with a single manly symptom, but independent, pure and serene.

And what could set off this face better than that soft, light, blonde hair, that wound into full, large ringlets, looped up in Grecian style? In vain it is for me to describe the tints of it. It seemed as though the Divine Artist had taken the beautiful colors from his palette and mixed them for this especial head. There was a touch of sunshine in it also, and it seems but yesterday that I saw the old gardener take a stray one from the sleeve of his baize jacket, where by chance it had strayed and caught—for the fair owner liked to visit the greenhouse—and hold it admiringly and enthusiastically up in the morning sunlight, and I remember the golden shimmer it had in it, for he called my attention to it. A French writer's words seem to meet its description better than my own: "Non pas rouges—Mais blonde avec des reflets dorés, on delicatement se jouait la lumière du soleil."

In distinction to the lady named before, the present one was short, of fairly full figure, and not above the average grace. You might even say that the large head was carried a little too far forward for elegance. In distinction also to the calm, quiet manner of the other, she was vivacious, quick and spritely; was fond of conversation, but no matter how trivial the subject of discourse, it grew into earnestness in her mind unless she was wholly playful. But her chief distinction was her love and talent for music, and in the capacity of beautiful singer she was first introduced to us.

I cannot tell how this pure soul first took to the sublime idea of society founded on justice to all, the Christianity of the idea, and the truths of industry, or how the idea came to her that in this one way and only in this one way could the kingdom of God prayed for for eighteen centuries, come to us on earth; but I think it was born in her as jewels are born in the earth, and sparkle when they come to the sun. But this I know, that when they took possession of her she could not withstand their power, more than Saint Paul could the heavenly influences that brought his Jewish heart to love all, and live and die for all the races of God's humanity. Friends, relatives, companions, were opposed to her visits among the Brook Farmers. It was intimated to her that there were suspicious persons residing there. She bravely pinned her informers to facts; she made searching inquiries, and, convincing herself, boldly stood by the idea and the Brook Farmers as living symbols of a better and more Christian life, and triumphed over all in her sublime truthfulness and dignity.

How willing and ready she was to acknowledge her trivial failures! How ready to do for all such kindness as came in her sphere to do, and how quick she was to comprehend great truths. Untied from the dead letter that killeth, she was overflowing with its pure spirit that gave its abundant life, rich, full and charming, to all around her.

One of the young poets of the farm many years ago paid this graceful tribute to her charms:—

OF MARY BULLARD.

Dearly love I to be near her—
Though thought of her is not dearer
Than friendship may say.
Yet around will I hover;
Bringing joy like a lover,
To brighten her day.

Ever am I lingering near her—
Her whole soul seems to me clearer
Than others that are.
And her love-lighted blue eye,
When an aching heart is nigh,
Beams forth like a star.
It's good for me to be near her—
Should she e'er sorrow, to cheer her
Out of her sad moods;
Her dark path to make lighter,
And behold it grow brighter
Like sunlight through woods.

Still stay I lovingly near her,
Enraptured—sometimes I fear her
Soul is on its wings—
And ask will it yet return?—
Seems it so pure, so lost and gone,
Whenever she sings.

Lingering and waiting near her—
The words that she speaks are dearer
Than birds' songs in May.
With sweet thoughts will I surround her,
As on the day I first found her,
Forever—for aye.

I have been particular in my description of this lady and friend, because they became the encouragers of the later movement in Boston, where those who remained true to the Brook Farm ideas formed themselves into a society of zealots to propagate the faith, she giving her splendid talents and her warm enthusiasm freely to the movement, and because they were as truly united with us as if enrolled as members on the farm.

It was in the latter part of the month of January that we had the fulfilment of a promise of a long visit from the fair singer. The winter had grown cold and stormy; the white snow covered the fields, and at times we gleefully slid down the hills over its frozen crust on sleds and improvised vehicles. And there were days of transcendent beauty. I remember especially, a solitary visit to the pine woods after a deep snow storm, and the lifelong impression of it remains.

The evergreens were bowed heavily with the weight of the snow, and across the wood path birches and various trees bent as if in prayer, obstructing the way. The clear air, which was not very cold—for it was one of those subdued days of winter, when the glare of the sun was obstructed by a cloudy mantle—the intense quiet, the strong contrasts of the dark trunks of trees with the heavy evergreens, and the immaculate purity of whiteness laid on by the greatest and sublimest painter were so marked and so lovely that I seemed to be drinking the nectar of the god of beauty, and was soul-subdued.

Up to the Eyry in the evening, I went with others to hear the singing, when Mary, "the nightingale,"—as we sometimes called her—came. I went often and stayed long. Some were at the Hive, reading; some were, perhaps, engaged in Shakespeare; some in their rooms with their families; some at the Cottage practising the piano, and all "following their attractions," to use our common phrase, in their own little sphere—whether it was reading the papers and journals of the day in the improvised reading-room at the Hive, or commenting on the last articles in the Harbinger, or doing a little work out of hours for amusement or profit, or attending one of the interminable number of meetings for consultation and arrangement held almost nightly.

There the quartette sang the "Kyrie," and "Gloria in Excelsis" from the masses of Mozart and Haydn. An edition had just been published and forwarded from London, and by degrees they became familiar to us as household words. Did it not seem strange, you may ask, that these radical thinkers and "come-outers" from ordinary forms of society, should turn with pleasure to the emanations of a profoundly conservative church? I answer that, having freed their minds from sectarian prejudices, they recognized beauty and genius wherever found, and did not care what church or creed they had served, so that they found the gift of beauty from the infinite Father to man in them. With one glorious soprano voice and boundless talent, how much of joy was added to the circle! How we revelled in the choice creations of the masters of harmony, and how, slowly but surely, the missing link that was wanting in my mind to realize that music could cover the void that separated sound from feeling, came to its place—I am tempted to tell.

The sweet songstress was asked to sing. Did she make excuses? Of course she would do so to follow traditional usage. She must have a slight cold, she must think she won't, must be coaxed, and then—why, do it with a grace. But here was a woman so touched with the divine fire of genius and truth, that no excuse came from her lips. She was always ready if you desired it. In her I first learned that music was not a put-on art, an accomplishment, but the outpouring of soul.

One evening when our little party was being filled with music, and the quartette had bravely sung Rossini's "Prayer in Egypt," with the grand vigor and expression that the soprano put into it, she exclaimed with feeling, "How beautiful that is!" From that moment I understood what music meant. She had translated it for me. But instead of inspiring me with joy, it made me sad. It aroused that terrible feeling, "consciousness of self." It waked me to new ideas of duty and destiny, to wondrous thoughts and aspirations; and they would not down at my bidding. Over and over again I tried to banish them, but the inward and spiritual ear was open, and the sad strains of Schubert's "Elegy of Tears," and "The Wanderer," and the "Ave Maria," seemed my sorrow, my wanderings and my prayers. Sadness was not my nature; I was as cheerful as the bird that sings, save a mighty something which clung to me and overshadowed me like the enormous wings of a terrible genius.

One day it began again to snow; a million feathers from the frost king's fleece were flying in the air. It snowed all day, and in the evening it snowed and whirled and blew around the Eyry, with its little party of choice spirits in its cosy parlor making merry and singing. Perhaps it was the "Wood Robin," or the "Skylark," or one of Colcott's glees, or one of Mendelssohn's two-part songs, or Schubert's "Serenade," or Beethoven's "Adelaide"; or maybe an interlude of piano, one of Mozart's Sonatas, or "Der Freyschutz," and then a Kyrie, Dona Nobis, Gloria, or Agnus Dei, one or all, until it was time to retire. And still it snowed and snowed.

From the Eyry parlor I would go to my quarters in the greenhouse, and there the old man would be anxious for the flowers, that the fire be neither too hot nor too cold, and with a long story to tell me of manners and customs of his youth in Denmark—some of them quaint and strange enough—would slowly finish out the evening, and it was often midnight before we retired.

All the next day it snowed, and piled up its pure whiteness over every projecting thing, whirling and tossing its feathers about, unlike anything else in nature, and at night it snowed still. It snowed steadily for three days and nights, but when the fourth morning broke, it was on one of the clearest and most beautiful days ever known and to my surprise I awoke full of renewed cheerfulness and physically like my former self. The youthful storm of my life was over.

But the "Ego" had changed. I was living in a poetic atmosphere and imbibing its qualities and its stimulants. Born with artistic tastes, I had imagined an artistic future; but as the procession of realistic lives passed before me, I seemed to see the inward side of the real and the ideal. An artistic life!—a triumph after long years of labor, awarded by the hand-clapping of a few admirers, most of whom had no appreciation of the work, and no sympathy with its higher motives. Would it not be cold? Would it not slowly freeze my heart to the warm love of human beings, with every one of whom I had now something in common? A real life, taking part in active work, in plain, daily toil; touching the great, full, seething heart of humanity on its warm side; working for them; working with them; being one with many—one with her. Which was best? Which was the supremest ideal? I think the latter.

There were other visitors who came, attracted by the little group of singers. There was a young lady, Miss Graubtner from Boston, who touched the piano with the grace of a master. Her German name indicated the stock from whence she sprung, and the training she received from her musical father. There were tenors and basses who were attracted also, but they came and went; the sweetest songstress remained, and the cold days of winter were beginning to give way to the warm March sun when the visit was completed, and we reluctantly gave her back to "civilization."

Among the pleasant occasional visitors was a gentleman who joined in the circle with his flute, who had the reputation, well deserved, of having written some fine verses—some of them are in the Harbinger—and who was in very friendly sympathy with our music man, as an old and, I think, college acquaintance. His accomplishments were varied. He had graced a pulpit, and afterwards made his mark with his pen, pallet and brush. He had a very pleasant gift of imitation, and, with his modest and gentlemanly bearing, made quite an impression on me.

I fancy I see him now, with his tall, graceful, upright figure, his wealth of dark, curling hair, and his young manhood, with his sober, dignified face and large forehead, just retiring from our crowded Eyry parlor to the hall, where under cover, he can more readily introduce his menagerie—menagerie or barnyard you certainly would think it was; for from behind the door comes the imitation of the cow with its young calf; a sow and its pigs are squealing; the lambs and sheep are bleating; the rooster begins to crow, and near by the house dog is heard; soon all is still except his persistent, hoarse bark; then from a distance we hear the bark of another dog awakened by the first; soon another, nearer still, wakes up and tunes his note; presently we hear all the dogs of the village who are now awake. Then the sound of the starting up of the locomotive drowns all other noises, and when it has passed away we hear nothing but far in the dim distance some one solitary dog still barking. The frogs begin to peep, and the turtles whistle, and the doves coo, until you are carried away from the circle, its lights and its pleasant, laughing faces into the bosom of nature. It is needless to say that all these sounds came from the throat of Christopher P. Cranch, the poet-artist, and were clever imitations which were hugely appreciated by the young folks.