The whole thing was an experiment for everybody concerned, and Hawthorne found it best to withdraw from a further prosecution thereof, as persons were constantly doing who had come to see if the life would suit them. He had contributed a thousand dollars (the chief part of his savings in the Custom House) to the funds of the establishment; and, some time after he quitted the place, an effort was made among the most influential gentlemen of Brook Farm to restore this sum to him, although they were not, I believe, bound to do so. Whether or not they ever carried out this purpose has not been learned. The community flourished for four years and was financially sound, but in 1844 it entered into bonds of brotherhood with a Fourieristic organization in New York, began to build a Phalanstery, attempted to enlarge its range of industry, and came to grief. No one of its chief adherents has ever written its history; but perhaps Mr. Frothingham is right in saying that "Aspirations have no history."[6] At all events Hawthorne, in "The Blithedale Romance," which explicitly disclaims any close adherence to facts or any criticism on the experiment, has furnished the best chronicle it has had, so far as the spirit of the scheme is concerned. Having tried the utmost isolation for ten years in Salem, and finding it unsatisfactory; and having made a venture in an opposite extreme at Brook Farm, which was scarcely more to his liking, Hawthorne had unconsciously passed through the best of preparation for that family life of comparative freedom, and of solitude alternating with a gentle and perfect companionship, on which he was about to enter. In July, 1842, Rev. James Freeman Clarke, of Boston, received the following note, dated from 54 Pinckney Street, which was the residence of Hawthorne's friend, George S. Hillard:-- MY DEAR SIR,--Though personally a stranger to you, I am about to request of you the greatest favor which I can receive from any man. I am to be married to Miss Sophia Peabody; and it is our mutual desire that you should perform the ceremony. Unless it should be decidedly a rainy day, a carriage will call for you at half past eleven o'clock in the forenoon. Very respectfully yours, NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.