The length of his stay was by no means uncommonly short, for
there was always a transient contingent at Brook Farm, many of whom
remained but a few weeks. A devoted but not a wealthy disciple, who had
given six thousand dollars for the building of the Pilgrim House, and
hoped to end his days within it, retired forever after a very short
sojourn, not dissuaded from the theory, but convinced that the practical
application was foredoomed to disaster. And, in truth, though a manful
effort was made, with good pecuniary success for a time, ten years
brought the final hour of failure to this millennial plan.
Very few people who were at Brook Farm seem to have known or even to
have seen Hawthorne there, though he was elected chairman of the Finance
Committee just before leaving, and I am told that his handsome presence,
his quiet sympathy, his literary reputation, and his hearty
participation in labor commanded a kind of reverence from some of the
members. Next to his friend George P. Bradford, one of the workers and
teachers in the community, his most frequent associates were a certain
Rev. Warren Burton, author of a curious little book called
"Scenery-Shower," designed to develop a proper taste for landscape; and
one Frank Farley, who had been a pioneer in the West, a man of singular
experiences and of an original turn, who was subject to mental
derangement at times. The latter visited him at the Old Manse,
afterward, when Hawthorne was alone there, and entered actively into his
makeshift housekeeping.
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