Brook Farm: Historic and Personal MemoirsCodman, John Thomas
History
Brook Farm: Historic and Personal Memoirs
Codman, John Thomas
Brook Farm Phalanx (West Roxbury, Boston, Mass.)
"Surely the power of united effect is irresistible. What has it not
already accomplished?--tunnelling mountains, bridging oceans with
boats, wringing from the gnomes of the mines their wealth long buried
in sparry palaces of salt and diamond, of gold and silver,--preparing
to sever the bond that unites twin continents, summoning storms and
staying them, making the desert yield an hundred fold, using the
lightning for post boy, giving iron weavers coal for bread and fire for
drink, that they may spin garments for the nations,--prodigious power
of combined effort, what may it not do!
"We will appeal to the rich and mighty. We will show them how they can
multiply their means seventy times seven. We will unite the race in one
grand effort of prolific production and unlimited voluptuousness. We
will be kings upon earth. All these things that thou seest from this
high mountain of exceeding enterprise, all these kingdoms and their
glory shall be thine, if thou wilt but give thyself up, O Association!
body, soul, spirit, to the worship of worldly power and splendor and
enjoyment."
Ah, Satan! that was thy wiliest web. What! no poor, all nobles, all
fat, all glittering in court raiment, all surfeited with sweets, all
bathing in Johannisberg and champagne, all tended by houries, all
pillowed on orange-scented beds, and covered with gauze or eider down,
according to the season? Charming Satan! Selfishness made universal
will be selfishness no more. Thou art an angel of light!
Just in so far as Association, using the tact of worldly training, has
in its plannings and pleadings, lowered itself to exaltation of the
outward, by merging the inward, it has permitted the magic of sin to
dazzle its vision.
It is indeed a splendid prospect, this of a world reclaimed, of
overflowing plenty. And it shall be realized. Perfect beauty shall one
day enwreath this earth with its clustering vines. The long folded
petals of this little planet flower on the tree of the sun, shall open
and distil sweetness; its gorgeous fruit of consummate joy shall swell
and ripen. Far more than all the voluptuaries of all ages have dreamed
of shall exist, heightened by a purity they could not conceive of.
Yes! O devil, the kingdoms and the glory of them are there before us.
But know this--they do not belong unto thee to give. Thou poor devil,
always mocked and always mocking. Have not six thousand years taught
thee yet, that self-love is always a suicide? Thou wilt give the
kingdoms of the world as thou always hast, first by stealing them for
thy slaves, and then stealing them from thy slaves? No! thou forlorn
devil, thy rule is ended, thy sceptre snapped into shivers; henceforth
thou art so wholly accursed, that God and man will heartily forgive
thee, whenever thou canst forgive thyself.
"_Duty of Associationists to the Cause," by Horace Greeley. From the
Harbinger of Oct. 25, 1845._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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