The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1896-12-05
A NEW BROOK FARM EXPERIMENT.
BY HENRY FORCE LEE.

m0HJ, IdmOu5 Ill llJeTdJuTe DIS luEulSu-
ing the basis of Hawthorne's "Blithe-
dale Romance" was begun. Many
entered it, as Hawthorne did, believ-
ing a modern Arcadia was to be the
result of the enterprise. Labor was
to be spiritualized, life was to be
simplifed and become something
more than mere struggle for sub
sistence or the means of sensual
qualification or vulgar display.
As Hawthorne says, in his great
romance, Each stroke of the hoe was
to uncover some aromatic root of
wisdom, heretofore hidden from the
sun. Pausing in the field, to let the
wind exhale the moisture from our
foreheads, we were to look upward
and catch glimpses into the far-off
soul of truth" How the enterprise
drew to itself some of the brightest
men and women in America, and how
it eventually failed to realize the i'm
practical dreams of that band of
dreamers and enthusiasts is matter of
history that need not be related in
this place.
Hawthorne has told how gradually
the roseate hue of this Arcadia faded
for him and for most of the really
noble souls who were associated in
this novel attempt at reorganiza-
ton of human society. Hawthorne's
account of the experiment is, however,
that of one who was never, perhaps, in
hearty sympathy with the idea. His
shy, sensitive nature would ere long
have found itself out of harmony with
such surroundings, even had the ideal
of the founders of the community
been realized far more perfectly than
it ever was at Brook Farm.
The role of a Thoreau in his log
hut at Walden Pond would have been
much more congenial to Americas
great romancer than the one which he
hesitatingly assumed at Brook Farm
and soon promptly, and without re-
gret, renounced.
These and similar experiments
were not, however, wholly in vain.
They were protest against the grow
ing refnements of civilization unac-
companied with the leisure for the
true integrity of the soul and the
cultivation of its noblest powers for
which every human being sensibly
or insensibly yearns. There is d.
vinity in man that ever rebels against
the tyranny society and our modern
civilization impose. And if such a
protest was useful and significant
sixty years ago, much more is such a
protest needed now, when wealth has
been accumulated to an extent in this
country scarcely dreamed of as pos
sible in the first half of the century.
Invention has kept pace with wealth
and luxury with invention. Com
pare, for instance, the life of even the
moderately wealthy of today, with all
our modern inventions to induce lux
ury, with the simplicity of Thoreau's
ideal. 'It is desirable" he says in
"Walden," that a man be clad so
simply that he can lay his hands on
himself in the dark, and that he live
in all respects SO compactly and pre-
paredly, that, if an enemy take the
town, he can, like the old philosopher,
walk out the gate empty handed
without anxiety. While one thick
garment is, for most purposes, as
good as three thin ones; and cheap
clothing can be obtained at prices
really to suit customers; while a
thick coat can be bought for five
dollars, which will last as many years,
thick pantaloons for two dollars,
cowhide boots for dollar and half
a pair, summer hat for quarter of
a dollar, and winter cap for sixty
two and half cents, or a better be
made at nominal cost, where is he SO
poor that, clad in such suit of his
own earning, there will not be found
wise men to do him reverence?"
1t would be difficult to reduce a
life to simpler or more heroic basis
than Thoreau did during his Walden
experiment. But despite all his fine
phrases and his laudation of his SIM
pie life at Walden, healso went back,
if not wholly to the refinements he
had left when he went to the woods,
at least to a more comfortable way of
living than he once embraced with
such enthusiasm.
Dozens of similar experiments, in
part, to the Brook Farm community
have been tried since with varying
degrees of success or failure. The
latest and most interesting of these
is that established last year up in
the Adirondacks, 1000 feet above the
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