cters, as I have said, are not easily traceable, but even in
this respect Hawthorne was something of a photographer. Zenobia seems a
blend of Margaret Fuller and of Mrs. Barlow, who as Miss Penniman was
once a famous Brookline beauty of lively and attractive disposition. In
the strongest and most repellant character of the novel, Hollingsworth,
Hawthorne seems to have incorporated something of the fierce earnestness
of Brownson and the pathetic zeal of Ripley. And those who best know
Brook Farm are able to find in the book reflections of other well-known
members of the community. For the actual life of the place, however,
readers cannot do better than peruse Lindsay Swift's recent delightful
work, "Brook Farm, Its Members, Scholars, and Visitors."

There was, we learn here, a charming happy-go-luckiness about the whole
life. Partly from necessity, partly from choice, the young people used
to sit on the stairs and on the floor during the evening entertainments.
Dishes were washed and wiped to the tune of "Oh, Canaan, Bright Canaan,"
or some other song of the time. When about their work the women wore
short skirts with knickerbockers; the water-cure and the starving-cure
both received due attention at the hands of some of the members of the
household; at table the customary formula was, "Is the butter within the
sphere of your influence?" And very often the day's work ended in a
dance, a walk to Eliot's Pulpit, or a moonlight hour on the Charles!

During the earlier years the men, who were in excess of the young women
in point of numbers, helped very largely in the household labours.
George William Curtis occasionally trimmed lamps, Charles Dana, who
afterward founded the _New York Sun_, organised a band of griddle-cake
servitors composed of "four of the most elegant youths of the
Community!" One legend, which has the air of probability, records that a
student confessed his passion while helping his sweetheart at the sink.
Of love there was indeed not a little at Brook Farm. Cupid is said to
have made much havoc in the Community, and though very little mismating
is to be traced to the intimacy of the life there, fourteen marriages
have been attributed to friendships begun at Brook Farm, and there was
even one wedding there, that of John Orvis to John Dwight's sister,
Marianne. At this simple ceremony William Henry Channing was the
minister, and John Dwight made a speech of exactly five words.

Starting with about fifteen