A number of the members, male and female, joined the Association in New Jersey near Red Bank—the North American Phalanx. There they renewed the social life and experiment, with such result as some other pen can tell.
It was about the time of the closing of the Brook Farm experiment that the "California fever" broke out, or the rush for the gold mines. Some of our theorists argued that the country was too poor for the establishment of the social organizations proposed, and that more wealth was needed. A number of the Brook Farmers went to the new country for gold. The gardener, Peter Klienstrup, was one. I am sorry to say that disappointment awaited him. A foreigner, and sensitive, partly deaf and past middle life, he was not the man for the country or the life. He died there poor. His charming, tuneful daughter, with the beautiful complexion and lovely rounded shoulders, did not long survive him. His wife survived, but one day I stood with only a few who knew her, at the door of an open tomb, and a strange thrill passed over me when one by my side said, as her body was placed within, "This is the last of her race—the family is extinct!"
The good, kind-hearted "General" sleeps within sound of the Pacific waves, for he, too, was one of the early Californians. And the Admiral, the pure-hearted, high-minded and keen-eyed Admiral, has long since laid down his burdens and his aspirations. And so also with many, too many for me here to recount. The two sisters that I have described with flowing hair, grew in loveliness to full womanly beauty and then passed to the angelic world.
Mr. Ryckman, surnamed the "Omniarch," reigns no more in this sphere.
Peace to his memory.
The downfall of the Association was the wrecking of Irish John. He seemed homeless and aimless. The constant smiles on that remarkable face gave way to soberness profound. Old habits crept back upon him. He had a friend, one of our number, who took a kindly interest in him, but could not follow all his waywardness. He departed for New York, ostensibly for business. Not long after this his friend received a note from there in John's handwriting, saying that if he would send to a certain number and street he would find something for him. It was a trunk, and appeared to contain all of John's effects except the suit of clothes he had on. What end he made no one knows.
How grand it would be if the social fabric could keep and guard all its weak ones, surround them by influences that could prevent them from falling into evil ways, and bear them up until the end comes peacefully and naturally!
Marianne Ripley, Mr. Ripley's sister, the devoted soul who reigned over the Kitchen Group and cultivated the flowers on the terraces, spent her later hours in the West, and passed away at Madison, Wisconsin. John Allen, the firm preacher, has gone also. His little boy, who conveyed the small-pox to the farm, grew to manhood, and at an early age fought with Grant at Vicksburg, where he received the wound that caused his death.
The dear girl with the loud laugh is still here, but tears and sorrow have been in her cup. Her kind husband, one of our number, and some children are with the shadows; and the dimpled face of the black-haired girl with the Irish name, whose beauty took my young fancy, long ago joined the larger realm of beauty.
The house dog, Carlo, whom everybody knew, grew rapidly old when the Association broke up. I never saw such a change. It seemed as though regretful remembrances of former times clung to him. There was no more the music of "the sounding horn" to awaken him from his drowse, and he passed much of his time under the woodshed. But he was not the sleek and canny dog of yore. He grew thin and weak. Long locks of indifferent colored brown hair grew out of his sides, and hung loosely down. His gait was slow and feeble, and it was not pleasant to look at him. Finally, one cold day, at least a year after the general departure, he was missing, and I could find nothing of him. Inquiries were in vain. It was in the following spring that his bones were found where either he himself had dug a burrow, or the hand of charity had laid him. Good Carlo!
Some very happy marriages sprang from the acquaintance at Brook Farm. There, in a few weeks or months, a better knowledge could be formed, a truer and more absolute and certain estimate of character, than by years of fashionable flirtation. And here let me add, that the women were always well dressed: there were no party dresses, all shine, lace and glitter, and household wrappers all slouched, torn and drabbled. The situation of woman was such as to stimulate her ever to neatness in personal appearance, even if the material was but a "ninepenny" calico; and the same may be said to a marked extent of the men.