Dana took Brook Farm seriously, but he was not one of the poseurs of the colony. No smocks for him, no long hair! He wore a full, auburn beard, but he wore a beard all the rest of his life. He was a handsome, slender youth, and he got mental and physical health out of every minute at the farm. By day he was busy teaching, keeping the association’s books, milking, waiting on table, or caring for the fruit-trees. He was the most useful man on the farm. At night, when the others danced, he was at his books or his writings. He wrote articles for the _Harbinger_, and for the _Dial_, which succeeded the _Harbinger_ as the official organ of the Transcendentalists. Dr. Ripley was the editor of the _Harbinger_, and he had such brilliant contributors as James Russell Lowell and George William Curtis; but Dana was his mainstay. He wrote book-reviews, editorial articles and notes, and not a little verse. His “Via Sacra” is typical of the thoughtful youth: Slowly along the crowded street I go, Marking with reverent look each passer’s face, Seeking, and not in vain, in each to trace That primal soul whereof he is the show. For here still move, by many eyes unseen, The blessed gods that erst Olympus kept; Through every guise these lofty forms serene Declare the all-holding life hath never slept; But known each thrill that in man’s heart hath been, And every tear that his sad eyes have wept. Alas for us! The heavenly visitants-- We greet them still as most unwelcome guests, Answering their smile with hateful looks askance, Their sacred speech with foolish, bitter jests; But oh, what is it to imperial Jove That this poor world refuses all his love? A Mrs. Macdaniel, a widow, came to Brook Farm from Maryland with her son and two daughters. One of the daughters brought with her an ambition for the stage, but her destiny was to be Mrs. Dana. On March 2, 1846, in New York, Charles A. Dana and Eunice Macdaniel were married. That day, coincidentally, the fire insurance on the main building at Brook Farm lapsed, perhaps through the preoccupation of the recording secretary; and the next day this building, called the Phalanstery, was burned. That was the beginning of the end of Brook Farm and of Dana’s secluded life. He went to work on the Boston _Daily Chronotype_ for five dollars a week. It was a Congregational paper, owned and edited by Elizur Wright. When Wright was absent, Dana acted as editor, and on one of these occasions he caused the _Chronotype_ to come out so “mighty strong against hell,” that Mr. Wright declared, years afterward, that he had to write a personal letter to every Congregational minister in Massachusetts, explaining that the apparent heresy was due to his having left the paper in the charge of “a young man without journalistic experience.”