[454] joined in the enterprise except Mr. Hawthorne, and he remained but a month or two, investing a few hundred, which he took care to recover by a lawsuit afterwards. The community of Brook Farm lasted about five years, and was finally dissolved in consequence of the destruction by fire of its most important and costly building. But if this disaster had not occurred, it must presently have come to an end. The plan was too large for the means, the profits were insufficient, and the friction was too great. It contained at the time about one hundred inmates, including schoolteachers, mechanics, business men, farmers, and pupils. In pursuance of the attempt towards a more just retribution for labor, all employments were paid substantially alike; and thus persons who in the world without could earn large salaries received no more than those who could only earn small ones; but the great difficulty was, that enough could not be earned for all the needs of the establishment. The world is not yet ripe for social democracy. Yet it is not too much to say that every person who was at Brook Farm for any length of time has ever since looked back upon it with a feeling of satisfaction. The healthy mixture of manual and intellectual labor, the kindly and unaffected social relations, the absence of everything like assumption or servility, the amusements, the discussions, the friendships, the ideal and poetical atmosphere which gave a charm to life, all these combine to create a picture towards which the mind turns back with pleasure as to something distant and beautiful, not elsewhere met with amid the routine of this world. In due time it ended and became almost forgotten; and yet it remains alive, and the purposes that inspired it still dwell in many minds. In the case of Mr. Ripley, they remained as the soul of his philosophy, the sure and steady light which lighted up the dark places of thought and action. He was a socialist and a democrat to the last. The same is doubtless true of others who were with him, and who have since been scattered in the ordinary plains and byways of existence. The faith of democracy, the faith of
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