



Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger








PASSAGES FROM THE AMERICAN NOTE-BOOKS, VOLUME II

By Nathaniel Hawthorne



[EXTRACTS FROM HIS PRIVATE LETTERS.]


Brook Farm, Oak Hill, April 13th, 1841.--.... Here I am in a polar
Paradise!  I know not how to interpret this aspect of nature,--whether it
be of good or evil omen to our enterprise.  But I reflect that the
Plymouth pilgrims arrived in the midst of storm, and stepped ashore upon
mountain snowdrifts; and, nevertheless, they prospered, and became a
great people,--and doubtless it will be the same with us.  I laud my
stars, however, that you will not have your first impressions of
(perhaps) our future home from such a day as this.... Through faith,
I persist in believing that Spring and Summer will come in their due
season; but the unregenerated man shivers within me, and suggests a doubt
whether I may not have wandered within the precincts of the Arctic
Circle, and chosen my heritage among everlasting snows.... Provide
yourself with a good stock of furs, and, if you can obtain the skin of a
polar bear, you will find it a very suitable summer dress for this
region....

I have not yet taken my first lesson in agriculture, except that I went
to see our cows foddered, yesterday afternoon.  We have eight of our own;
and the number is now increased by a transcendental heifer belonging to
Miss Margaret Fuller.  She is very fractious, I believe, and apt to kick
over the milk-pail.... I intend to convert myself into a milkmaid
this evening, but I pray Heaven that Mr. Ripley may be moved to assign me
the kindliest cow in the herd, otherwise I shall perform my duty with
fear and trembling....

I like my brethren in affliction very well; and, could you see us sitting
round our table at meal-times, before the great kitchen fire, you would
call it a cheerful sight.  Mrs. B------ is a most comfortable woman to
behold.  She looks as if her ample person were stuffed full of
tenderness,--indeed, as if she were all one great, kind heart.

          *     *     *     *     *     *

April 14th, 10 A. M.--.... I did not milk the cows last night, because
Mr. Ripley was afraid to trust them to my hands, or me to their horns, I
know not which.  But this morning I have done wonders.  Before breakfast,
I went out to the barn and began to chop hay for the cattle, and with
such "righteous vehemence," as Mr. Ripley says, did I labor, that in the
space of ten minutes I broke the machine.  Then I brought wood and
replenished the fires; and finally went down to breakfast, and ate up a
huge mound of buckwheat cakes.  After breakfast, Mr. Ripley put a
four-pronged instrument into my hands, which he gave me to understand was
called a pitchfork; and he and Mr. Farley being armed with similar
weapons, we all three commenced a gallant attack upon a heap of manure.
This office being concluded, and I having purified myself, I sit down to
finish this letter....

Miss Fuller's cow hooks the other cows, and has made herself ruler of the
herd, and behaves in a very tyrannical manner.... I shall make an
excellent husbandman,--I feel the original Adam reviving within me.


April 16th.--.... Since I last wrote, there has been an addition to
our community of four gentlemen in sables, who promise to be among our
most useful and respectable members.  They arrived yesterday about noon.
Mr. Ripley had proposed to them to join us, no longer ago than that very
morning.  I had some conversation with them in the afternoon, and was
glad to hear them express much satisfaction with their new abode and all
the arrangements.  They do not appear to be very communicative, however,
--or perhaps it may be merely an external reserve, like my own, to shield
their delicacy.  Several of their prominent characteristics, as well as
their black attire, lead me to believe that they are members of the
clerical profession; but I have not yet ascertained from their own lips
what has been the nature of their past lives.  I trust to have much
pleasure in their society, and, sooner or later, that we shall all of us
derive great strength from our intercourse with them.  I cannot too
highly applaud the readiness with which these four gentlemen in black
have thrown aside all the fopperies and flummeries which have their
origin in a false state of society.  When I last saw them, they looked as
heroically regardless of the stains and soils incident to our profession
as I did when I emerged from the gold-mine....

I have milked a cow!!!.... The herd has rebelled against the
usurpation of Miss Fuller's heifer; and, whenever they are turned out of
the barn, she is compelled to take refuge under our protection.  So much
did she impede my labors by keeping close to me, that I found it
necessary to give her two or three gentle pats with a shovel; but still
she preferred to trust herself to my tender mercies, rather than venture
among the horns of the herd.  She is not an amiable cow; but she has a
very intelligent face, and seems to be of a reflective cast of character.
I doubt not that she will soon perceive the expediency of being on good
terms with the rest of the sisterhood.

I have not yet been twenty yards from our house and barn; but I begin to
perceive that this is a beautiful place.  The scenery is of a mild and
placid character, with nothing bold in its aspect; but I think its
beauties will grow upon us, and make us love it the more, the longer we
live here. 