Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs

by John Thomas Codman

* * * * *

Many persons who have heard of the Community life at Brook Farm have idealized it into a little coterie of choice spirits who sat around the study lamp at early eve, after the light toil of the day had ceased, and discussed the intellectual problems of the German philosophers who had given much of the impulse to the Transcendental Club, and brought so many young men forward as leaders of thought; but this was only partially true.

Mr. Ripley at first endeavored to instruct the assembly and impart to them some of his own intellectual enthusiasm. Evening classes were formed; readings took place from some of the prominent poets—Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare; from Carlyle and Cousin as well as Emanuel Kant; but when the industrial period began, he had more than his hands full, and he laid his books on the shelf. They were his tools—they were the ladders on which he had mounted to his high estate. Why should he worship them? They had taught him, as had the Hebrew writers, faith in the Creator; faith in His best creation, man; faith in reason, faith in right, faith, in a magnificent human destiny. Why should he spend his life in singing praises of them? To work! To begin to shape society to higher ends! That was indeed the worthiest end in life, and his worthiest homage to the writers and their books.

CHAPTER III.

PERSONAL EXPERIENCES AND DESCRIPTIONS.

It was a pleasant afternoon in March, 1843, when I left Boston, in a small omnibus, that started from Brattle Street for West Roxbury Village and Brook Farm. My father's family of three had preceded me, he remaining behind to close his business; it was a question of but a few days when we should be all embarked in the new and untried life to which we were looking forward with pleasurable emotions.

The nine miles of interval was passed, riding through an undulating country, by pleasant farms surrounded with the stone walls so common in Massachusetts and the eastern states, and by pretty white houses, with green window blinds and little front flower gardens, with fruit and shade trees standing sentinels on their borders. Here and there a ledge of "pudding-stone" cropped out, and the scenery grew more primitive as we neared the vicinity of the farm. Slowly we rode on, leaving passengers and parcels by the way until it showed signs of deepening twilight, when we reached by a slight acclivity the door of the farmhouse that was at the entrance of the place, where I was soon joined by my relatives who took me in charge and made me presentable for supper; but I was too late to join with the family, and took my first meal with them the following day.

Looking out of the window the next morning, I found it overlooked the farm-yard and the broad meadow that lay south of the house. What awakened me was the sound of a trumpet or horn, blown by some one for rising or breakfast. I dressed leisurely, as I found it was the first or "rising horn," and went out of the front door for a survey. Before me was the driveway. A wooden fence, and a row of mulberry and spruce trees stood guarding the two embankments that were terraced down to the brook and meadow. On the embankments were shrubs and flower beds. A couple of rods to the right stood a graceful elm, beside a gateway that opened on a pathway to the garden and fields.

Passing by the front of the house I found that two wings had been added to it in the rear, leaving shed and carriage room beneath. Directly in front of me, and facing due east, was a large barn raised upon stone posts, which was open on the south side to the large barnyard, and between the barn and house was a driveway or road, leading over the premises.

In the kitchen, which was directly in the rear of the dining room, there was a clatter of dishes, and a few persons were going from place to place outside.