You perceive
I am occupied with the philosophy of 'de cart.'" This referred to some
writings he had lately published on Descartes' philosophy, and made his
audience laugh heartily.
Mr. Dwight then appeared and gave an interesting account of a flock of
wild geese which he had discovered early in the morning marching through
the cornfield. He said they looked exactly like tame geese, but as soon
as he came in sight of them they flew away in a most surprising manner.
Mr. Bradford, who is frequently mentioned in Hawthorne's note-book,
looked sunburnt and very thin, and averred that milking the cows on a
frosty morning was a chilly kind of business. Hawthorne himself had gone
to Boston; probably to sell the pig referred to in his conversation with
Franklin Pierce. The visitors walked about the premises and were shown
through the "Hive," but found it rather a dreary and comfortless
building. The farm did not appear to be well kept. There was too
evidently a lack of order and discipline there; and without order and
discipline no enterprise in which numbers are concerned can succeed.
Having discovered nothing better than fool's gold at Brook Farm,
Hawthorne suddenly came across the true metal in the domestic privacy
of his married life at Concord. It would appear from one of Mrs.
Hawthorne's letters that George Ripley was so sanguine of the success of
his experiment that he had given Hawthorne a sort of guarantee for the
thousand dollars which the latter had invested in it.
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