Connecticut western news., 1880-08-26
, GA New England Idyl.0 y

ltaobiyo GA New England Idyl.0
 ENGLISH E aisu E s11T U In TIE 1RooR BROOK FARM eo eoAHqNFFF ? FoqNpsp NJ T, PF GEORGE Eadn RIPLEY LEI
 n9 The death of George tRipley,.at the. ripe age of seventy -eight, t,a,says an eN- change, brings to mind 8 striking story. \ To those whose memory extends back forty years his 'decease will recall the famous experiment. with which his name will ever be connected, though it is now
 only 9 faint reminisc cence, to all save the1 few who survive its founder. We refer
 to the Brook Farm Community: uo 1twasl B Socialist attempt to make the world
 better, and it failed, like many, which went before it, and like most which havel succeeded it. But a Commune which numb befed among it's members lEme erson, Thoreau, Hawthorne and Margaret Full Her. pcould iscarcely fail to, leave oits mark
 on iterature or on, the ,society which 1t aimed at reforming. Of the cultivated men and women lMhb took part in 1t
 nearly all are dead.o. enitsiy asndt ,.m.os, fuoB Brook Farm was a, pleasant enough
 affair. The members chopped wood and
 talked of the Infinite, peeled apples and Nrecons struucted thec universe; and after
 Zenobia, Priscilla and Miles Goverdala
 had sold fat pigs to- aprosaicg Boston butchers, they returned to read Goethe
 and discuss the "natural man. G9 The
 younger members for though alIMere
 enthusiastic. there weEer degrees:i x their ,enthusiasm sometimes Yearied Iof the
 monotony of their gregarloIs existence,
 and were only sustained byy the thought that they we're, as Haw tlfofne put 1t in a letter to his futaFe wife,a leading assa
 righteous and Heayen- blessed way of slife.,I Brook Farm was in, after years
 looked upon by many of the members as a pleasant oasis in 2 edreary desert. .os sNlr. Ripley had however, s6mea difficulty
 With his 1recruits,,9 and Hawthorne has left it on record that LI.s transcendental
 heiferbelonging to Miss Margaret FulieS "
 gave him sore, trouble in the milking,
 while he chopped hay for the cattle with
 suches < sright teous Xehemence, thatin the
 space of ten minutes broke the ma leehines lThen t dhrought wood and re-
 plenished the fires, and fiinI}fa4ly1i fiinI}fa4 went | down to breakfast, and ate up huge
 mound of buckw5heat cakes After break Hast Mr.1n Ripleyi ,pHtR four=pronged in l strunent into my hands, which hiieh he gave
 me to understand was called a pitchfork, and he and MT. Farley being armed with
 similar 1n VI weap M We all three commenced \ a gallant attack upon a heap of manure. lure. l I shall make an excellent .husbandman, '' l the novelist concludes jocularly though, 'pIserhaps. he was as serious as the ma A11tUlrity of the Brook FaImers 4ssI feel the
 original oAdanl19 reyiying within me. y After this hard work and plain living, I they took to high tl1inking.- By moon light they played classical music, sang Pola ballads,s or joined Moore'so songs ito l operatic airs An original poem or essay
 would be recited, or 2 play. of Shake speare's read in parts among the gather1 ing. Fashionable people drove from
 Boston to see the spectacaes and returned
 telling how they found the young women
 of the Hive singing while they washed 1 the dishes, and the youthful yeomen in l checked bloftses, bread oollarsand eath-
 efn belts; drying thecrockerY, ahd fiirt. l ing in g adecoro1s, transcendental, ph1lo' 4sophical WAY. Of course, Brook Farm | failed. :, Hswas too good for the mpef- | feet nineteenth century It's theory was Eexeellent, and its. doctrine ultless, but I it's founders left out of account that inn ] l,portant factor called Human Nature. I The Communistsf aim waasn noble and rpaiseeworthy. They did not, like the 9aProl oletafiate ''onoM sitting in Congress f in Paris, orsthe wild red -capped people f who prate nonsense under4 the lsaane
 name, talk about q saving societys ss col
 dividing others peoples goods. They
 only tried to- lead albetter life and retuln d to similar state. of society, which they
 fondly fancied to be that of the "natnral ca
 man" q But the melancholy truth IS, that the '"naturaI man 7 does not love
 his brother eats him ; and in such 2
 society as Brook Farm, social progress
 was impossible, though George Ripley
 and his faithful followers would never
 allow as much, as they went forth into {
 stony, jeering world, poor, sorrowfu
 and unconvinced. ,.-t .s.... ''' :