Our box was filled Christmas goodies, olecokes and crullers, candies and cookies and all the fifty-seven varieties of Dutch dainties proper to the season; and on New Year’s eve good Mrs. Rykman made this store of sweets the nucleus of an impromptu feast designed for our comfort and consolation. It was well meant and well managed and the kindly feeling manifested made up in part for the disappointment we had experienced; but the Christmas of that year was a dead loss—a loss that I regret to this day.
At Brook Farm, however, there was small chance to indulge in regrets and the Christmas trouble had to give place to more immediate interests. The Farmers were, first of all, Transcendentalists which is to say they were philosophers and not given to repining. Their philosophy was not stated in their public announcements but was expressed in their lives. It may be formulated as the philosophy of Here and Now.
Here and Now; on the spot, with the goods, at the moment. Not yesterday; not to-morrow, but to-day, this hour, this instant is the appointed time to live for all you are worth. Put your heart in your work right Here. Give your mind, your skill, your energy to whatever you have in hand just Now. Respect for the past, for its traditions and its memories is all right but never look back intently enough to prevent seeing what is before you Here and Now. Hope for the future is all right, but let not dreams of the good time coming becloud clear comprehension of the realities at hand Here and Now. That was the philosophy of the Brook Farmers, not set forth in words, but set forth in deeds. To be on the spot, with the goods at the moment—this was their ideal and they lived up to it every day and all day long.
Their Puritan neighbors professed a philosophy of the hereafter, and although they did not live up to it constantly, they proclaimed it all the more vehemently. Not in the life of this wicked and weary world but in the life of the world to come their hopes and especially their fears were centered. Miserable sinners, born into total depravity could only employ their brief sojourn on earth in striving to save their souls. Mortifying the flesh and holding all pleasures to be foolish if not impious, they deferred happiness to the realms beyond the skies. To them Here was nothing and Now was nothing. The eternal hereafter was all. Looking at life as merely a preparation for death, their point of view was diametrically opposite to that of the Farmers who looked upon life as a phase of existence to be made the most of and to be enjoyed to the full with every breath from first to last. Naturally enough, perhaps, the devout pietists regarded the cheerful worldlings as lost beyond hope of redemption. The same sentiments that prompted the whipping and hanging and persecuting incidents of Puritan history were entertained by the orthodox elect of Roxbury and were manifested Brook Farmward sometimes with sullen hostility. The young folk of the neighborhood came to our entertainments gladly enough, but some of the harsh-visaged elders would have found greater satisfaction in administering stern old-fashioned discipline if their power to deal with malignants had only been what it was in the days when their kind ruled Massachusetts Bay Colony with a rod of iron.
It was these pleasurings of ours that brought down on us the severest anathemas. We were idlers forever singing and fiddling and dancing when honest folk were at work. This criticism was in part true. We certainly did devote more time and more attention to recreation than was customary among working folk. The two half-holidays of the week were set apart for diversions. All care and toil came to a full stop, and everyone was free to do exactly as he or she pleased. Usually all hands pleased to be together, after the Brook Farm fashion, everyone joining in whatever scheme of amusement was on foot for the day.
After the reorganization the Festal Series took systematic charge of the holidays and there was always something worth while provided for the afternoon or evening or both, in which all of us were ready to take part and eager to enjoy.
The Brook Farm Association was at first organized as a joint stock company. The stated objects of this company were the conduct of a school, a farm, a printing and publishing business and other light industries. The unstated purpose was the carrying out of a social experiment; a practical attempt to form a community living what we would now call the Simple Life. Incidentally there was a deliberate intent to make the most of opportunities for promoting happiness. These bright, intelligent, cultured young people set out to have a sane, sensible, joyous good time in the world, and they certainly succeeded wonderfully well in this endeavor. I can truly say I have never known any company anywhere who enjoyed this earthly existence more thoroughly than did these Brook Farmers. They believed the Good Lord meant this life to be beautiful and harmonious and they set out in good faith to make it conform to the Divine idea. They were happy, on principle, so to speak. To this end they consistently demonstrated the worth of good cheer, good companionship and good entertainment. Recreation and amusement were as much a part of their programme as tilling the soil, teaching school or keeping house. To wake up every morning eager to begin an active, interesting, joyful day, without a thought of anxiety—that was their ideal, and, like their other ideals, this was fairly realized.
Our critics held that we had no moral right to give up a whole day each week just for fun. This might have been true had we been trying to get rich, but getting rich was not the first object we contemplated. Other things came before wealth-seeking, but, all the same, in competition with those who thought ill of our ways, we beat them all to pieces. In Boston markets Brook Farm products were at a premium and found quicker sale at better prices than the West Roxbury farmers and gardeners could command. They sent potatoes in the bottom of a wagon; apples in a soap box; berries in a battered tin pail and butter in an old cracked crock; none of these things being particularly clean. Our girls put up our garden stuffs in neat, regular parcels. The quality of the orchard and farm and dairy products was invariably the best; and everything was fresh as possible, and neat and attractive in appearance. I will venture to say we got more money from an acre of ground in five days than any of our neighbors did in six. Perhaps that was another reason why they did not like us.
CHAPTER IX.
FOURIER AND THE FARMERS
In the language of the time the Farmers were Socialists, but the Socialism of 1840-50 was a very different proposition from the Socialism of to-day. The earlier socialists were not in politics. They had no party, politically speaking, and took only a remote and indirect interest in political affairs. What they wanted was to reform the world; to reconstruct civilization on a scientific basis. That was what President Lincoln was wont to call a big job. However, faith will move mountains, and the socialists certainly had faith. Their purpose was far reaching, to be sure, but, after all, it rested on a very simple basis. Reduced to a syllogism it might be stated as follows: Major premise: Every human being desires happiness. Minor premise: Socialism provides for the happiness of every human being. Conclusion: Demonstrate this truth and every human being will become a socialist. Q. E. D.