John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[527] held, were always much impressed. Mr. Emerson came once or twice a year, and when he came there was a gathering in the parlor, and he would discourse, and some one else would discourse, and others would ask questions, and there would be a discussion of some interesting literary or philosophical theme, and everybody listened with pleasure to this high debate. The same was the case when Margaret Fuller paid us an occasional visit. It was really delightful, and it gave a kind of character and reputation to the place that it never would have got from the more prosaic mowing and haying that went on there in the daytime. Then the opportunity of education was open to everybody who belonged to the society. Every person, member or member's child, paid so much for his board, and the Greek and Latin, the esthetic philosophy, the singing and dancing were thrown in. But the regular students who were not members paid, and some of them worked, too, because they liked it. I remember one young gentleman from an aristocratic family in Boston had the misfortune to get rusticated at Harvard, and he was sent off for six or eight months. Well, he came to Brook Farm; and I remember that some of his natural predilections developed themselves there as they had not before been able to do. One of his passions was horses, and if he could get a horse to curry and brush down, his happiness was complete. Nobody asked him to do it; he asked if he might, and he got the permission very easily, I assure you. So in the morning he would work an hour or more around the horses and then get his breakfast. In the afternoon, after he had done with his lessons, if he could drive four oxen to plough, or if he could get a stout team of horses and go and haul in wood, he thought it was lovely. He was never happier in his life than when he had on a long blue farmer's frock, and was starting off with his big cart after a load of wood.

So everybody enjoyed it. And it was really delightful, because there was this combination of intellectual occupations and out-door work; and the living, too, was pretty fair. It was not luxurious; it was fair; it was nutritious. Everybody enjoyed it, and the thing went on beautifully. Every