“FRUITLANDS”
It is a beautiful place surrounded by hills, green fields and woods, and Still River is at some distance flowing quietly along. Wachusett and Monadoc Mountains are in sight, and also some houses and fields of grain. The house itself is now very pleasantly situated. It has a vegetable garden behind it and some fruit trees. On the left a hill on the top of which are pastures and a road. In front is a small garden, and fields and a house at some distance. On the right is a large barn, grain and potato field, woods and mountains. There are many pleasant walks about Fruitlands, and berry fields, though the berries are not yet quite ripe.
It is a pleasant place to live in, I think.
THE COMMUNITY SETTLE
Thursday, 20.
I had my lesson this morning with Mr. Lane and I did some sums with fractions. I never did any till Mr. Lane began to teach me, and I think I have learned more lately than I ever did before. I think I understand what I learn too. In the afternoon I had my shower bath and sewed. Mrs. Lovejoy came here to see Mother and brought her little baby with her. I took care of it a good deal. Charlotte and Ellen Dudley came to see me and went to Mrs. Barnard’s of an errand with me. I there became acquainted with Adelaide Barnard. We all went into the schoolhouse and played together. In the evening I sewed a little bit and then went to bed.
Sunday, 23.
I did not feel well this morning, so I did not attend the readings, but read in Miss Edgeworth’s “Belinda.” In the afternoon I sewed some and mother finished “Sowing and Reaping” aloud. I then went to look for blueberries, but did not find but a very few. When I returned I had supper and after that I read.
Monday, 24.
I had no lessons to-day, Mr. Lane being unwell and father busy. Mother washed and Louisa and I helped her. I then shelled some peas for dinner. Yesterday Christy went away. He will return sometime I guess. In the afternoon I read part of “Mademoiselle Panache.” I then wrote my journal and took care of Abba. William and I then ironed till we went to supper. In the evening I looked for berries and went pretty early to bed.
Tuesday, 25.
This morning I had lessons by myself. I did a French lesson and wrote in my journal. I then sewed some. In the afternoon I made some little presents to give Abba as to-morrow is her birthday. I then raked hay. In the evening I read in “Motherless Ellen.”
Wednesday, 26.
Abba’s birthday. We did not do anything to celebrate except that I put some presents into her stocking last night and she found them there this morning. After breakfast father and Mr. Lane started for Boston with Mr. Hecker. We had no lessons. I washed, and the three other children went to a mill for a walk. I arranged a room for myself. It is to be my room and I to stay by myself in it. I then set the dinner table. The children did not return till after dinner. I had a bath and then arranged some pictures for my scrap-book. As Mother was going into the fields to help with the hay, I joined her, and after working there some time went with Louisa to look for berries. We found about a pint. In the evening I read in “Motherless Ellen” some more.
I rose pretty early this morning and having bathed and dressed sat down to write my journal. Having done so I went downstairs and eat breakfast. After I had done I went with Louisa and William to pick blackberries. We got about two quarts. When we returned I read and then worked with William. In the afternoon I wrote and went to Mrs. Lovejoy’s. I then had a bath and wrote, after which I read in the newspapers. In the evening I played.
POETRY
I never cast a flower away
The gift of one who cared for me
A little flower—a faded flower
But it was done reluctantly.
I never looked a last adieu
To things familiar but my heart
Shrank with a feeling almost pain
Even from their lifelessness.
I never spoke the word farewell
But with an utterance faint and broken
A heart with yearning for the time
When it should never more be spoken.
September, 6.
I think the world would be a very dismal world without books. I could not live without them. I take so much pleasure in reading beautiful stories and poetry. I like to hear beautiful words and thoughts. Beautiful is my favorite word. If I like anything I always say it is beautiful. It is a beautiful word. I can’t tell the color of it. Louisa and I took a walk. It was pleasant if it had only been a little warmer. When we returned we sat in our chamber. I wrote down all the beautiful names we could think of, and in the evening wrote the colors of them.
[Here Anna’s journal written at Fruitlands comes to a sudden ending. Numberless pages have been torn out carefully, and Mr. Alcott’s handwriting appears in footnotes here and there, showing that it was he who destroyed the story of the later days of Fruitlands written from his youthful daughter’s pen. It is one more proof of the intensity of his feelings regarding Fruitlands, and the bitter disappointment that Time never softened. His own journal written there has also been destroyed. It seems as if that experience of failure was too heartrending to him to allow the world to share it. We only get glimpses here and there with which to construct a picture of the New Eden where these Transcendentalists worked out a beloved theory and found it wanting. We have the account of the start, so full of enthusiasm and ecstatic hopefulness. The curtain has been drawn over the rest as carefully as was possible. Her journal starts again in 1846, but it does not state the month. In it she mentions a point which reveals something of Mr. Alcott’s philosophy. She says: “Father said that if a person wanted a thing very much and thought of it a great deal, that they would probably have it.”]
VIII
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT’S DIARY AT FRUITLANDS[[10]]
September 1st.—I rose at five and had my bath. I love cold water! Then we had our singing-lesson with Mr. Lane. After breakfast I washed dishes, and ran on the hill till nine and had some thoughts,—it was so beautiful up there. Did my lessons,—wrote and spelt and did sums; and Mr. Lane read a story, “The Judicious Father.” How a rich girl told a poor girl not to look over the fence at the flowers, and was cross to her because she was unhappy. The Father heard her do it, and made the girls change clothes. The poor one was glad to do it, and he told her to keep them. But the rich one was very sad; for she had to wear the old ones a week, and after that she was good to shabby girls. I liked it very much, and I shall be kind to poor people.
[10]. When she was ten years old.
Father asked us what was God’s noblest work. Anna said men, but I said babies. Men are often bad; babies never are. We had a long talk, and I felt better after it, and cleared up.
WHERE ABBA MAY’S STOCKING WAS HUNG THE NIGHT BEFORE HER BIRTHDAY
Anna’s bedroom is on the right, next to Mrs. Alcott’s. The portraits of the “Little Women” hang on the wall
We had bread and fruit for dinner. I read and walked and played till supper-time. We sung in the evening. As I went to bed the moon came up very brightly and looked at me. I felt sad because I have been cross to-day, and did not mind Mother. I cried, and then I felt better, and said that piece from Mrs. Sigourney, “I must not tease my mother.” I get to sleep saying poetry,—I know a great deal.
Thursday, 14th.—Mr. Parker Pillsbury came, and we talked about the poor slaves. I had a music lesson with Miss P. I hate her, she is so fussy. I ran in the wind and played be a horse, and had a lovely time in the woods with Anna and Lizzie. We were fairies, and made gowns and paper wings. I “flied” the highest of all. In the evening they talked about travelling. I thought about Father going to England, and said this piece of poetry I found in Byron’s poems:—
“When I left thy shores, O Naxos,
Not a tear in sorrow fell;
Not a sigh or faltered accent
Told my bosom’s struggling swell.”
It rained when I went to bed and made a pretty noise on the roof.
Sunday, 24th.—Father and Mr. Lane have gone to N. H. to preach. It was very lovely.... Anna and I got supper. In the eve I read “Vicar of Wakefield.” I was cross to-day, and I cried when I went to bed. I made good resolutions, and felt better in my heart. If I only kept all I make, I should be the best girl in the world. But I don’t, and so am very bad.
(Poor little sinner! She says the same at fifty.—L. M. A.)
October 8th.—When I woke up, the first thought I got was, “It’s Mother’s birthday: I must be very good.” I ran and wished her a happy birthday, and gave her my kiss. After breakfast we gave her our presents. I had a moss cross and a piece of poetry for her.
We did not have any school, and played in the woods and got red leaves. In the evening we danced and sung, and I read a story about “Contentment.” I wish I was rich, I was good, and we were all a happy family this day.
We sang the following song:
SONG OF MAY
Hail, all hail, thou merry month of May,
We will hasten to the woods away
Among the flowers so sweet and gay,
Then away to hail the merry merry May—
The merry merry May—
Then away to hail the merry merry month of May.
Hark, hark, hark, to hail the month of May,
How the songsters warble on the spray,
And we will be as blith as they,
Then away to hail the merry merry May—
Then away to hail the merry merry month of May.
I think this is a very pretty song and we sing it a good deal.
Thursday, 12th.—After lessons I ironed. We all went to the barn and husked corn. It was good fun. We worked till eight o’clock and had lamps. Mr. Russell came. Mother and Lizzie are going to Boston. I shall be very lonely without dear little Betty, and no one will be as good to me as Mother. I read in Plutarch. I made a verse about sunset:—
“Softly doth the sun descend
To his couch behind the hill,
Then, oh, then, I love to sit
On mossy banks beside the rill.”
Anna thought it was very fine; but I didn’t like it very well.
Friday, Nov. 2nd.—Anna and I did the work. In the evening Mr. Lane asked us, “What is man?” These were our answers: A human being; an animal with a mind; a creature; a body; a soul and a mind. After a long talk we went to bed very tired.
(No wonder, after doing the work and worrying their little wits with such lessons.—L. M. A.)
A sample of the vegetarian wafers used at Fruitlands:—
Vegetable diet
and sweet repose.
Animal food and
nightmare.
Pluck your body
from the orchard;
do not snatch it
from the shamble.
Without flesh diet
there could be no
blood-shedding war.
Apollo eats no
flesh and has no
beard; his voice is
melody itself.
Snuff is no less snuff
though accepted from
a gold box.
Tuesday, 20th.—I rose at five, and after breakfast washed the dishes, and then helped mother work. Miss P. is gone, and Anna in Boston with Cousin Louisa. I took care of Abba (May) in the afternoon. In the evening I made some pretty things for my dolly. Father and Mr. L. had a talk, and father asked us if we saw any reason for us to separate. Mother wanted to, she is so tired. I like it, but not the school part or Mr. L.
Eleven years old. Thursday, 29th.—It was Father’s and my birthday. We had some nice presents. We played in the snow before school. Mother read “Rosamond” when we sewed. Father asked us in the eve what fault troubled us most. I said my bad temper.
I told mother I liked to have her write in my book. She said she would put in more, and she wrote this to help me:—
“Dear Louey,—Your handwriting improves very fast. Take pains and do not be in a hurry. I like to have you make observations about our conversations and your own thoughts. It helps you to express them and to understand your little self. Remember, dear girl, that a diary should be an epitome of your life. May it be a record of pure thought and good actions, then you will indeed be the precious child of your loving mother.”
December 10th.—I did my lessons, and walked in the afternoon. Father read to us in dear “Pilgrim’s Progress.” Mr. L. was in Boston and we were glad. In the eve father and mother and Anna and I had a long talk. I was very unhappy, and we all cried. Anna and I cried in bed, and I prayed God to keep us all together.
IX
AUTUMN DISAPPOINTMENT
As any one knows who has any experience in farming, the true farmer spirit shows itself in the man who accepts the disappointment of a meagre crop in spite of his dreams of a plentiful harvest, and working diligently, gets what he can from it.
The crops at Fruitlands underwent many vicissitudes. No sooner did a crop show some sort of promise than they turned it back into the earth again, in order to enrich the soil, they said. This method did not tend to fill the winter storehouse with the needed vegetables, and a faint suggestion of disillusionment began to creep into the perfect harmony of the consociate family as autumn approached. Early in September Mr. Alcott and Charles Lane went on a trip in search of recruits. They went to Providence and had an evening’s conversation with Mrs. Newcomb and some of her friends, during which Mr. Alcott said that, as competition had made facilities so great, they might take that opportunity to go on to New York. Charles Lane then spoke up and said there was no other objection than lack of means, whereupon the company contributed the necessary amount. In writing to Oldham about it, Charles Lane passes comment on what he saw: “We went to the Graham House to breakfast where we found some people half if not quite alive” and again: “The number of living persons in the 300,000 inhabitants of New York is very small.” During this visit they went to see Mrs. L. M. Child, who gave the following account of it:
“A day or two after [Theodore] Parker left, Alcott and Lane called to see me. I asked, ‘What brings you to New York?’ ‘I don’t know,’ said Mr. Alcott; ‘it seems a miracle that we are here.’ Mr. Child and John Hopper went to hear a discussion between them and W. H. Channing. I asked Mr. Child what they talked about. ‘Lane divided man into three states,—the disconscious, the conscious, and the unconscious. The disconscious is the state of the pig; the conscious is the baptism by water; and the unconscious is the baptism by fire.’ I laughed, and said, ‘Well, how did the whole discussion affect your mind?’ ‘Why, after I heard them talk a few minutes, I ‘ll be cursed if I knew whether I had any mind at all.’ J. H. stayed rather longer, though he left in the midst. He said they talked about mind and body. ‘What did they say?’ ‘Why, Channing seemed to think there was some connection between mind and body; but those Boston folks, so far as I could understand ‘em, seemed to think the body was all sham!’”
There is a story that on their return from New York they went by steamer to New Haven. All the money that had been contributed by Mrs. Newcomb and her friends had gone, but that did not trouble the philosophers. They boarded the boat quite serenely and when it started sat on deck enjoying the breeze. The ticket-man came to each passenger for his ticket, and when he came to Mr. Alcott and Mr. Lane, sitting there in their linen suits, he asked them for theirs. Quite undisturbed Mr. Alcott replied that they had no money or scrip, but they would quite willingly pay their way by addressing the passengers and crew with a little conversation in the saloon. It is said that in reply the language of the ticket-man was not as civil as it should have been.
It was all very pleasant, this wandering off and showing their linen tunics to the world and holding conversations to enlighten people in regard to the future wonders of the New Eden, but the day they left Fruitlands Joseph Palmer was off attending to his cattle at No Town, and the crop of barley had been cut and was waiting to be harvested. Poor Mrs. Alcott looked at it with anxious eyes. The granary was almost empty and this barley meant food. She could forget herself, but she could not ignore the needs of her children. Christopher Greene and Larned and Bower were also away. The barley lay there with no one to bring it in to a safe shelter. The next day she looked at it again with a sinking heart. As the afternoon waned, black clouds covered the sky and flashes of lightning rent seams through them with terrifying rapidity. Then Mrs. Alcott made a quick decision. Gathering all the baskets she could find, she carried them to the barley-field with the help of the children, and in hot haste they gathered the barley into the baskets and dragged them to the granary, and then ran back as fast as they could for more. Thus they worked with all their strength, and when the storm broke, they had saved enough to last them for at least a few weeks.
So if Mrs. Alcott lacked, as Lane said, spiritual insight, she fortunately for them had practical foresight, from which they all reaped a benefit.
The following letter to Mr. Oldham is suggestive of the trend of affairs in the community:—
Fruitlands, Harvard, Mass.,
September 29, 1843.
On our arrival at home we learnt that in our absence several friends and strangers had called, amongst them S. Bower, Parker Pillsbury, and an acquaintance, Mr. Hamond of New Ipswich in New Hampshire State. Thinking the latter worth seeing we went to visit him, a distance of about twenty-five miles. He is married to an exoteric wife of some good household qualities; he has built with his own hands a smart cottage, being an expert workman, and has moreover a respectable talent for portrait painting which he estimates humbly without a consciousness of humility. Next to Edward Palmer, he is a person who, I should think, would make one with us. He introduced us at two houses to four females who vitally considered constitute with himself the whole of the town. Our visit there will do some good, for though they have read my letters printed last winter in the newspapers, yet the presence of a living person is much more real a thing. I saw their good intentions were greatly encouraged. I could not dissuade the oldest from promising never to taste flesh again, which I was rather inclined to on account of her years....
On Saturday last Anna Alcott most magnanimously walked her little legs fourteen miles in about five hours down to old Concord, where our friends appear to have been pretty somnolent since our departure. On Tuesday we returned on foot, and accomplished somewhat towards the liberation of the animals by a heroine of thirteen. Mr. Emerson is, I think, quite stationary: he is off the Railroad of Progress, and merely an elegant, kindly observer of all who pass onwards, and notes down their aspect while they remain in sight; of course, when they arrive at a new station they are gone from and for him. I see Mr. John Sterling dedicates his new tragedy of “Strafford” to him: no very alarming honor! I suppose that Thomas Carlyle, with all his famous talking, does not yet actually lead the people out of their troubles. These worthy and enlightened scribblers will do little to save the nation. Some there are I hope of more real solid metal....
THE OUTER KITCHEN
Samuel Bower has not yet had your note, as I am not sure where he is. He could not, it seems, long endure Joseph Palmer’s offer of land, etc., it was so solitary. He called here when we were on our long journey on his way to Lowell, the Manchester of New England. If his aims are high and his head clear, or his hands effective, he will not be able to wander far from us; but a wanderer it is certain he must be allowed to be. Abraham [Abram Everett] comes and goes with some regard to the law within him; he is now busy with our latter hay, the maize, buckwheat, etc.
What is to be our destiny I can in no wise guess. Mr. Alcott makes such high requirements of all persons that few are likely to stay, even of his own family, unless he can become more tolerant of defect. He is an artist in human character requiring every painter to be a Michael Angelo. He also does not wish to keep a hospital, nor even a school, but to be surrounded by Masters—Masters of Art, of the one grand Art of human life. I suppose such a standard would soon empty your Concordium as well as every other house, which I suppose you call by insinuation “Discordiums,” or, more elegantly, “Discordia.” I propose to pass at least another winter in New England to know more averagingly what they are, as the last was particularly severe. I have gone about on these several journeys in the simple tunic and linen garments and mean to keep them on as long as I can. We have had a fine summer of three months, and a fine autumn seems on hand. Sharp frost this morning, yet we took our bath as usual out-of-doors in the gray of the morn at one-half past five. Health, the grand external condition, still attends me, every stranger rating me ten or twelve years younger than I am; so that if such are the effects of climate I may indeed be happy, for my youthfulness is not all appearance—I feel as buoyant and as boyish as I look, which I find a capital endorsement to my assertions about diet, etc. It staggers the sceptical and sets their selfish thoughts to work....
Hoping that all minds are thus laboring, let us, my dear friend, act as if all good progress depended upon us and unfailingly present a clean breast to Eternal Love, shedding forth our full measure in the clearest Light; in which I am
Thine truly,
Chas. Lane.
Abraham just notifies me there is work in the field, so I must go.
Joseph Palmer had offered his old house at No Town to Samuel Bower as a refuge in which to test his theory of the benefits to be derived from accustoming the body to live without the enervating burden of clothing. Bower’s experiences in this line at Fruitlands had not been satisfactory or convincing, as it was only at night that he could make the experiment, and then they insisted on his donning a white garment for his peregrinations in the open. Even this caused agitation in the neighborhood, and tales of a white ghost wandering over the hillside caused much alarm, and several times a posse went out from the village to look into the matter. At No Town he could be in solitude. While there he wrote a number of articles for the Liberator, in one of which he predicted the full regeneration of man, “if we can rid the kitchen of its horrors and keep our tables free from the mangled corse.”
In another letter Lane writes to Oldham:—
... At present I am situated thus. All the persons who have joined us during the summer have from some cause or other quitted, they say in consequence of Mr. Alcott’s despotic manner, which he interprets as their not being equal to the Spirit’s demands. Joseph Palmer, who has done, and is doing our farmwork for love, still remains in the same relation as he ever did.
Palmer says that having once declared this land free we should never go back, at least until the work has been fairly tested. Under all this it should be stated that Mrs. Alcott has no spontaneous inclination towards a larger family than her own natural one, of spiritual ties she knows nothing, though to keep all together she does and would go through a good deal of exterior and interior toil. I hoped I had done with pecuniary affairs, but it seems I am not to be let off. The crops, I believe, will not discharge all the obligations they were expected to liquidate, and against going further into debt I am most determinately settled.... You will perceive that I have, like yourself, a small peck of troubles; not quite heavy enough to drive me to a juncture with our friends, the Shakers, but sufficiently so to put the thought into one’s head, as you perceive. In the midst of all these events and of William’s illness, who is in bed eight or ten days with a sort of bilious fever, I am not without the consolatory hope that some measure of Spirit utilitary is bound up with our obscure doings.
Yours most affectionately,
Charles Lane.
At a late visit on foot to Roxbury, I found the numbers at Brook Farm considerably diminished. I don’t know what they will say to my letter if they see it in The New Age, but never mind.
From now on clashing of wills disturbed the serenity of Fruitlands. Charles Lane, despondent over the course of events and the sense of failure, and seeing further financial complications in store for him, began seriously to consider the plan of life adopted by the Shakers whose well-filled corn-bins and full-rigged haylofts bespoke a system which provided plenty for man and beast, and gave time for alternate work and meditation. He began to talk of this to Mr. Alcott and urged him toward a more monastic life, and then suggested that they should join them. That he had great influence with Mr. Alcott is evident, and Mrs. Alcott, who fully realized this, grew restless and then alarmed.
In writing to Oldham, Lane kept dwelling upon Mrs. Alcott. Once he wrote: “Mrs. Alcott has passed from the ladylike to the industrious order, but she has much inward experience to realize. Her pride is not yet eradicated and her peculiar maternal love blinds her to all else—whom does it not so blind for a season?”[[11]]
[11]. Sanborn’s Bronson Alcott.
And he ascribes the failure of other persons to join the experiment largely to Mrs. Alcott, “who vows that her own family are all that she lives for.” No such narrow purpose, Lane adds, has inspired him; and he blames Mr. Alcott for listening too much to his family affections, and regarding too much what that guardian angel of middle-class England, Mrs. Grundy, will say.
In speaking of Mr. Alcott, he complains that “constancy to his wife and inconstancy to the Spirit have blurred over his life forever.”
Poor Mrs. Alcott, poor “Marmee,” as her daughters called her!—in her loyalty she had almost worked her fingers to the bone with no thanks for it. Her days had passed without any help to lighten the manual labor. At first they said that not a lamp could lighten Fruitlands because the oil contained animal fat, and only bayberry candles could be used, and only a few of them. But Mrs. Alcott then rebelled. How could she sew and mend the clothes with such poor light? There seemed some sense in this, so one small lamp was brought to Fruitlands just for her. The philosophers tried sitting in the dark, but one by one would try to find some pretext to join her at the sewing-table, and Mrs. Alcott’s lamp burned bright and steady, an emblem of her own true and faithful heart.
Ellery Channing said: “Mrs. Alcott was one of the most refined persons of my acquaintance. She told me years afterwards that in 1843–44 she feared for her husband’s sanity; he did such strange things without seeming to know how odd they were; wearing only linen clothes and canvas shoes, and eating only vegetables.”
November 26, 1843, Lane wrote to Oldham from Fruitlands:—
“What with agitations of mind and ills of body, I have passed a less happy time than usual. William was ill a whole month with a low fever so that he could not even sit up in bed for one minute. I had to nurse him while plagued with hands so chapped and sore that I was little more capable than the patient. Then came Mr. [Samuel J.] May’s announcement that he should not pay the note to which he had put his hand; so that money affairs and individual property come back again upon me for a season. Thereupon ensued endless discussions, doubts, and anticipations concerning our destiny. These still hang over us. But in the midst of them Mrs. Alcott gives notice that she concedes to the wishes of her friends and shall withdraw to a house which they will provide for herself and her four children. As she will take all the furniture with her, this proceeding necessarily leaves me alone and naked in a new world. Of course Mr. A. and I could not remain together without her. To be ‘that devil come from Old England to separate husband and wife,’ I will not be, though it might gratify New England to be able to say it. So that you will perceive a separation is possible. Indeed, I believe that under the circumstances it is now inevitable.”
Mr. Sanborn says in his “Memoirs of Bronson Alcott”:—
“Those who read Louisa’s ‘Transcendental Wild Oats’ will see by her names ‘Timon Lion’ for Lane, and ‘Abel Lamb’ for Alcott, that she looked on her father as rather the victim of Lane in the ‘Fruitlands’ failure. Without conceding this, the impartial observer will say that Lane had the stronger will, and the far more prosaic nature; that he decided most of the questions for his associates in both countries, and that he was rather a hard person to get on with. Neither his first wife, nor Wright, nor Mrs. Alcott, nor Alcott himself, nor the Harvard Shakers, nor finally Oldham, could quite suit him. He over-persuaded Alcott, who was a good farmer and mechanic, to adopt impossible modes of working the ‘Fruitlands’ farm, and much of their whimsies in dress and food seem to have come from Lane and his English friends. Mrs. Alcott, when reëstablished in a home of her own at Concord, early in 1845, offered Lane a home there, and he tried it for a time in the next summer, but still complained, as he had at ‘Fruitlands,’ that she wished to keep her family small, and made it uncomfortable for guests. Knowing Mrs. Alcott’s character well, in the last twenty years of her life, I cannot believe that this was ever true of her. She was hospitality itself, whether poor or rich; and it must have been Lane’s own individualism that made him dissatisfied.
CHARLES LANE’S ROOM
The old cowhide trunk, in which some of the most valuable of the books were shipped from London; also the old chest in which the linen was kept. The spinning-wheel belonged to a former owner.
“The rigors of a New England winter promoted the dissolution of the ‘Fruitlands’ Community, but did not alone break it up. A lack of organizing power to control the steady current of selfishness, as well as the unselfish vagaries of his followers, was the real cause. Nothing in fact could be more miserable than the failure of this hopeful experiment.”
Mr. Alcott had written in his diary of Emerson:—“It is much to have the vision of the seeing eye. Did most men possess this, the useful hand would be empowered with new dexterity also. Emerson sees me, knows me, and more than all others helps me,—not by noisy praise, not by low appeals to interest and passion, but by turning the eye of others to my stand in reason and the nature of things. Only men of like vision can apprehend and counsel each other. A man whose purpose and act demand but a day or an hour for their completion can do little by way of advising him whose purposes require years for their fulfilment. Only Emerson, of this age, knows me, of all that I have found. Well, every one does not find one man, one very man through and through. Many are they who live and die alone, known only to their survivors of an after-century.”
How he recalled that now! He was tossed in mind and troubled beyond measure. All his beautiful dreams were melting away one by one. Everything seemed to be falling from his grasp. Most of the crops had failed;—the enthusiastic lovers of “The Newness” had proved themselves false and had slipped away as the cold weather approached. All his wonderful plans had come to naught. He had promised to the world the vision of a new Eden: he had believed it could exist: he had worked for it with his whole soul: he had nothing to show for it but failure. Would his friend Emerson stay by him in his anguish? He believed he would, and yet how meet his friend? How face the world?
The cold penetrated the old house. William Lane lay ill in his room and his father watched over him. All were heavy-hearted. It was as late as January that Charles Lane and his son moved to the Shakers. After that Mr. Alcott retired to his room, as he thought, to face the end. Mr. Sanborn tells us: “The final expulsion from this Paradise nearly cost Mr. Alcott his life. He retired to his chamber, refused food, and was on the point of dying from grief and abstinence, when his wife prevailed on him to continue longer in this ungrateful world.”
This prayer was written in his diary after leaving Fruitlands: “Light, O source of light! give Thou unto thy servant, sitting in the perplexities of this surrounding darkness. Hold Thou him steady to Thee, to truth, and to himself; and in Thine own due time give him clearly to the work for which Thou art thus slowly preparing him, proving his faith meanwhile in Thyself and in his kind.”
“Shall I say with Pestalozzi that I was not made by this world, nor for it,—wherefore am I placed in it if I was found unfit? And the world that found him thus asked not whether it was his fault or that of another; but it bruised him with an iron hammer, as the bricklayer breaks an old brick to fill up a crevice.”
“That is failure when a man’s idea ruins him, when he is dwarfed and killed by it; but when he is ever growing by it, ever true to it, and does not lose it by any partial or immediate failures,—that is success, whatever it seems to the world.”
In speaking of the Fruitlands experiment Mr. Sanborn says:—
“It brought its own compensations, and left the whole Alcott family richer and not poorer for this romantic experience with its sad termination. It prepared Alcott to face more patiently the storms of later life, and to train his daughter, who was his best single gift to the world, better for her conspicuous service. And ‘Fruitlands’ will be remembered, perhaps longer than most of the adventures that awaited this romantic household in its voyage of life....
“There was some foundation for Alcott’s despair at ‘Fruitlands,’ and with the ill success that followed him after the flourishing Temple School in Boston. Emerson, the gentlest and least exacting of men, looking at his friend’s situation a few years after the ‘Fruitlands’ experiment, wrote in his private journal—
THE BEDROOM
Where Mr. Alcott nearly succumbed to his despair at the failure of his “New Eden”
“‘The plight of Mr. Alcott! The most refined and the most advanced soul we have had in New England; who makes all other souls appear slow and cheap and mechanical; a man of such courtesy and greatness that in conversation all others, even the intellectual, seem sharp, and fighting for victory and angry,—while he has the unalterable sweetness of a muse! Yet because he cannot earn money by his talk or his pen, or by school-keeping, or bookkeeping, or editing, or any kind of meanness,—nay, for this very cause that he is ahead of his contemporaries, is higher than they, and keeps himself out of the shop condescensions and arts which they stoop to,—or, unhappily, need not stoop to, but find themselves, as it were, born to; therefore it is the unanimous opinion of New England judges that this man must die! We do not adjudge him to hemlock or garroting,—we are much too hypocritical and cowardly for that. But we not less surely doom him by refusing to protest against this doom, or combine to save him, and to set him in employments fit for him and salutary for the State.’”
The poem written by Mr. Alcott, with the title “The Return,” may fittingly close this chapter:—
“As from himself he fled
Outcast, insane,
Tormenting demons drove him from the gate:
Away he sped,
Casting his joys behind,
His better mind:
Recovered,
Himself again,
Over his threshold led,
Peace fills his breast,
He finds rest,
Expecting angels his arrival wait.”
X
IN AFTER YEARS
More than thirty years after the Fruitlands failure, Mrs. Caroline Sherman, of Chicago, heard from Mr. Alcott its story as he came to view it in later years. She says:—
“One day at Concord Mr. Alcott consented to give his experience at Fruitlands, and for two hours he entertained the little company with the happiest of humor, as he told the story of his effort to realize an ideal community. Together with Charles Lane, he purchased a location on the north side of a sandy hill in Harvard, and started out with the idea of welcoming hospitably to their community any human being who sought admission. Mr. Alcott described the various sorts of quaint characters who came to live with them, lured by the charms of Utopia and Arcadia combined. Only a vegetable diet was allowed; for the rights of animals to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness formed a fundamental principle in their constitution. This not only cut them off from beef, but from milk and eggs. The milk belonged to the calf, and the chicken had a right to its existence as well as the infant. Even the canker-worms that infested the apple trees were not to be molested. They had as much right to the apples as man had. Unfortunately farm operations were not started until well into June, and the only crop raised that was of value as dependence was barley; but the philosophers did not flinch at the thought of an exclusively barley diet. Now and then they gave a thought as to what they should do for shoes when those they now had were gone; for depriving the cow of her skin was a crime not to be tolerated. The barley crop was injured in harvesting, and before long actual want was staring them in the face. This burden fell heaviest upon Mrs. Alcott, for, as housewife, it was her duty to prepare three meals a day. They remained at Fruitlands till mid-winter in dire poverty, all the guests having taken their departure as provisions vanished. Friends came to the rescue, and, concluded Mr. Alcott, with a tone of pathos in his voice: ‘We put our four little women on an ox-sled,[[12]] and made our way to Concord. So faded one of the dreams of my youth. I have given you the facts as they were; Louisa has given the comic side in “Transcendental Wild Oats”; but Mrs. Alcott could give you the tragic side.’”
[12]. As a matter of fact they did not go to Concord on the ox-sled, but to Still River, where they lived for a year in the house called the “Brick Ends,” belonging to the Lovejoy family. They then moved to Concord where Orchard House now stands as a memorial to the later years.
The odes addressed to Alcott by Thoreau and Lowell should be recalled in connection with these reminiscences of his later years:—
THE HILLSIDE HOUSE
BY HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Here Alcott thought,—respect a wise man’s door!
No kinder heart a mortal form e’er held;
Its easy hinges ope forevermore
At touch of all,—or fervid Youth or Eld.
A mounting sage was he, and could essay
Bold flights of hope, that softly fed his tongue
With honey; then flew swift that happy day,
As tranced in joy on his pure themes we hung.
He knew the Scholar’s art; with insight spent
On Plato’s sentence, that best poesy,
And calm philosophy, his soul intent
Cleared the grey film of Earth and Air and Sea.
He might have lapsed,—but Heaven him held along,—
Or splendrous faded like some sunset dream;
But long shall live! though this bare, humble song
Gains not his dignity,—nor rounds its theme.
He’ll dwell (doubt not) in that fond, wished-for Land,
Where the broad Concave’s stars unquailing bloom;
The guest of angels, that consolers stand,—
Sweetly forgot in light Earth’s lowly tomb.
Then may I wait, dear Alcott, of thy court,
Or bear a mace in thy Platonic reign!
Though sweet Philosophy be not my forte,
Nor Mincio’s reed, nor Learning’s weary gain.
ODE TO ALCOTT[[13]]
BY JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL
Hear him but speak, and you will feel
The shadows of the Portico
Over your tranquil spirit steal,
To modulate all joy and woe
To one subdued, subduing glow;
Above our squabbling business hours,
Like Phidian Jove’s, his beauty lowers,
His nature satirizes ours;
A form and front of Attic grace,
He shames the higgling market-place,
And dwarfs our more mechanic powers.
What throbbing verse can fitly render
That face so pure, so trembling-tender?
Sensation glimmers through its rest,
It speaks unmanacled by words,
As full of motion as a nest
That palpitates with unfledged birds;
‘Tis likest to Bethesda’s stream,
Forewarned through all its thrilling springs,
White with the angel’s coming gleam,
And rippled with his fanning wings.
* * * * *
Himself unshaken as the sky,
His words, like whirlwinds, spin on high
Systems and creeds pellmell together;
‘Tis strange as to a deaf man’s eye,
While trees uprooted splinter by,
The dumb turmoil of stormy weather;
Less of iconoclast than shaper,
His spirit, safe behind the reach
Of the tornado of his speech,
Burns calmly as a glowworm’s taper.
[13]. From “Studies for Two Heads.”
As Mr. Alcott suffered acutely from the disastrous ending of the Fruitlands Community, so also did Charles Lane. The cherished ideal of the regeneration of the world by a vivid example was shattered beyond repair. Saddened and disillusioned he returned to Alcott House in England.
In writing to Thoreau from London, in 1848, Emerson gives a description of him. He says: “I went last Sunday for the first time to see Lane at Ham, and dined with him. He was full of friendliness and hospitality; has a school of sixteen children, one lady as matron, then Oldham. This is all the household. They looked just comfortable.” The matron here spoken of was undoubtedly a Miss Hannah Bond, who had lived at Owen’s Community at Harmony Hall, and in due time Lane cast aside his antagonism to family ties and married her. But from his letters to Joseph Palmer, it is evident that his experience in life never allowed him freedom from questions of money and property. He had sunk his all in the experiment at Fruitlands, as “an offering to the Eternal Spirit.” One feels a note of bitterness in him from a letter written by Wright to Oldham in which he says: “I have been told that Mr. Lane says Alcott is an unpractical dreamer, or something tantamount thereto. Alas! how far shall we have to go to find those who will deliver the same opinion of C. L. [Charles Lane] and W. O. [William Oldham] and others whom I could mention! Sometimes I almost suspect that of myself. The world has decided pretty truly. I begin to respect its decision and to suspect my own.”
And from the following paragraph the pain and disheartenment of a disappointed life shows itself with infinite pathos, as Wright says: “Somehow or other I seem to have made up my mind that it is for me to die, to which I look forward with hope rather than terror.” “What have I ever done?” he asks, and responds bitterly, “Nothing, absolutely nothing! I have dreamed only of great deeds. Let me never attempt again what is beyond my being’s power.”
Fruitlands was left in the hands of Joseph Palmer, who bought it of Charles Lane. The latter, fully aware of the shrewd common sense that lurked beneath an eccentric exterior, urged Joseph Palmer to join him in founding a larger Community, connecting a farm in Leominster with that of Fruitlands as a plant on which to work out a scheme that would promise some measure of success. They drew up the following paper and it was duly signed and sealed:—
Whereas it is desireable to form Associations of well disposed persons for the supply of their physical and mental requirements, for the support of a free school for youth, and a home for the aged, destitute and indigent, and Whereas a capital of one hundred dollars for each associate is deemed sufficient for beginning such an Association, We, the undersigned do agree to the purchase of estates in Leominster and Harvard, Massachusetts, for the purpose of forming such an Association which we propose to commence on the first of January next, to the amount of five thousand dollars capital, afterwards to be extended by the addition of new shares for the purchase of more real estate at the discretion of the shareholders assembled on the first Monday in January in each year, so that all persons interested shall hold equal rights by possessing one share only. The property now in hand for this purpose consists of Land and Buildings in Leominster and Harvard, together about 190 acres with Stock, Tools, Provisions, etc., needful for carrying out the said design held in the name of Joseph Palmer.
Joseph Palmer.
Charles Lane.
August 18, 1846.
But this same shrewd common sense evidently stood in the way of bringing this plan into actual existence, for Charles Lane writes a letter complaining that so much time has been wasted in considering it that he can no longer remain in America, and he sails for England leaving his son William with the Shakers. It is a noticeable proof of the confidence the members of the Community placed in Joseph Palmer that not only Charles Lane wanted him as an associate, but also Samuel Bower, who urged him to join him in founding a Community in a more temperate climate where he could carry out his convictions regarding the casting aside of all outer clothing. But Palmer had seen enough of the Transcendentalists to make him realize the advantages of running his own Community, which he did for upwards of twenty years in a strange, haphazard sort of fashion. He had no name for it, and he never sought recruits, but he never closed his door to the wayfarer, and two large iron pots, one full of baked beans, and the other full of potatoes, stood always ready for the poor and hungry. And so in a humble way, Joseph and Nancy Palmer carried out some of the ideals started at Fruitlands by the Transcendentalists. Calvin Warner lived there off and on for many years, and old Widow Webber sought refuge there, and many came and went. The Harvard people called it a home for tramps and called him “Old Jew Palmer”; but any one who takes the trouble to look closely into his life finds in him a stalwart character full of fibre and unswerving courage, with a very real and abiding religious faith.
He was a fighter for his rights, to the end. The right of way belonging to Fruitlands crossed old Silas Dudley’s land to the highway. A continuous battle raged concerning that right of way, and so fierce did it become that when after a heavy snowstorm Joseph Palmer started to shovel the snow off of it, old Silas Dudley shovelled it back again. They kept at it there all day, both irate old men holding out with a grim determination to win. As neither succeeded in gaining advantage, they sent for Mr. Emerson to come and settle the question, which he did.
Quaint old times, quaint old people,—we are grateful for just such pictures of the past!
The following letters were found by a grandson of Joseph Palmer among some old papers at Fruitlands.
New York, Sept. 10, 1846.
To Joseph Palmer,
Still River,
Harvard, Mass.
Dear Friend:—
I owe you a severe scolding, and as I always endeavor to pay my debts, here goes. You detained me so long that my school is broken up, the weeds are shoulder high at the door, and my utility in this direction is at an end. Hereafter do not be so dilatory. The good you desire to do will forever escape undone if you are so very, very, very cautious. Yet I am not for haste or for a magnificent work. But having really made your decision and concluded your plan, carry it out faithfully and confidingly on such a scale as you know you can stand by.
I read the Prospectus to several, and none objected. If your Leominster friends have any truth in them, now it will be known. I have written to D. Mack, and have tried to interest some others, and I really think if you could keep me in New England the next winter, the foundation of a rational, soulful, simple Association might be laid. If you had not kept me so long, this might have been possible, but now it seems to be my destiny to obey the manifold and unceasing calls of the Spirit through William Oldham, and return to Alcott House, where your letters will find me, and I hope you will take time to write me all interesting particulars. Perhaps I may work better on that side. At all events, I can assure you I shall continue to take as deep, as active, and as direct an interest in the Leominster and Harvard Association as if I were present. Now that matters are arranged a little more suitably to my nature, I shall work for it with greater freedom and potency. We should help all men out of their false positions, whatever they are, as fast as we can.
Please do not fail to see Edmund Hosmer, and commune freely with friend Emerson. Give my kind remembrances to your wife and daughter, to Mr. Holman, to Thomas and his wife, to Calvin, and all the faithful hearts in your circle. I shall endeavor to write a little history of Fruitlands, past and future, so pray supply me with all the facts as they arise. I hope there will be plenty of good names to put in my book.
I have faith that I shall see you again, but when I cannot guess. Before that time I trust a faithful band will be congregated. I do not care how few, if they be but good and true. Have your son and daughter signed the Prospectus? Mack may come next to make the casting vote, or some other one on whom you could rely.
I know that you and I, S. Ford, and your daughter could carry the design through, if we should have the happiness to be thrown together. God knows and disposes, and blesses all the earnest, in which company may you ever be found with
Your resigned brother,
Charles Lane.
You have given William his letter, I suppose. See him as often and cheer him as much as you can.
Plenty of people from Brook Farm in consequence of the changes there would be glad to come. The industrials are all obliged to leave. They apply to the N. A. Phalanx, but there is no room for them. Let your plan be known and the house may be filled.
I believe I shall sail in the Diadem for Liverpool in a day or two.
At Mr. Moore’s, Knowles Place, Davidson Street, East Merrimack Street, Lowell, Nov. 6, 1849.
Friend Palmer,—
Having removed to reside in Lowell it may be well to inform you of the change. Perhaps you sometimes come so far in this direction—if so it would be cause of regret to me not to see you. Now, of course, I shall see you if you visit L. whilst I locate in it.
Since conversing with you I have meditated much on the great step in progress which I am incessantly reminded it is my interest and duty to make. But how make it? When? Where? and with whom? or, whether alone? On this subject so important to me, to you and to society, I have many new facts and estimates of facts all tending to induce, I trust, early and beneficial action. How far you might be disposed to coincide with me I know not, nor how far your long experience might modify my intentions if communicated. I should certainly like to confer with you at length and without reservation. For such a purpose writing is quite inadequate, so I shall not attempt any statement of my views, etc., herein. One thing, however, I may say, which is that I am fully and I believe finally fixed in the conviction that no Association of persons can be brought to inhabit Fruitlands or your place at Leominster founding itself on those bases and conditions which six years ago were so frequently discussed by us. Be sure C. Lane can send you nobody from England, and I am unaware that there is in this country any one Realist enough to proceed with the natural economies far enough to satisfy your just expectations.
I shall most assuredly, if the Infinite Spirit wills, make my home in the open heavens and resume the right so long in abeyance of being naturally and therefore well and sufficiently clothed. The true question is a proper Individualism and nothing that is good and desirable in Socialism can come but after this. This is universally and ethically incontrovertible and physically the solution waits our action. You have long stood on the threshold and best know whether you are prepared now to pass over it and give up your localized and civilized life. I think I am quite clear that it will be necessary to stand within circumstances having less pressure. Suitable natural conditions are indispensable and are to be provided at whatever cost of relinquishment of current enjoyments.
Yours faithfully,
Saml. Bower.
London, Sept. 29, 1849.
To Joseph Palmer,
Still River,
Harvard, Mass.
Dear Friend Palmer:—
If there was a possibility of sending me here only six or seven acres of our old Fruitlands, you should hear no more of me as a claimant.
As this cannot be, and I am once more adrift in consequence of the lease of our house and grounds having been sold, I hope you will have prosperity enough in the culture to release yourself gradually from my encumbrance whereby I may be enabled just to pay the rent on an acre or two to cultivate with my own hands.
Do not let me ask in vain for a good long letter narrating all your local news since I left your hill regions. Mr. Emerson will inform you of William’s movements and convey any letters or messages to me. I suppose Dr. Thomas has made a pretty handsome fortune by this time in setting people’s mouths in tune and that he will retire to Fruitlands to make sure of it.
Yours faithfully,
Charles Lane.
London, Sept. 16, 1851.
To Dr. Thomas Palmer,
Fitchburg, Mass.
Dear Friend:—
As I am not so certain of reaching your father through the post-office as you, I enclose this note to say that I should feel obliged if you would have the goodness to discharge my claim. Some two or three years have passed since I thought I should no more trouble Mr. Emerson on the subject, which is one among the reasons for urging a settlement. Your business I am sure has been too successful to make it needful to go out of the family for the cash, or at all events for much of it. The farm has been prosperous, and though your father does not aim at commercial profits, yet his industry and integrity bring them to him. I feel it is but as yesterday I and your father went from Harvard to Fitchburg with the cattle. Oh, how hot! I am differently employed now, but I still desire the field and the garden. If I had such a spot here as Fruitlands I should not quit it, but enjoy a life fruitful in all good. Pray, in this matter of the mortgage attend to the request and give my best regards to your father, from whom I should much like to have a letter.
Yours truly,
Charles Lane.
XI
TRANSCENDENTAL WILD OATS
BY
Louisa May Alcott