Eden's Outcasts (20 page)

The most impressive yield at Fruitlands was its luxuriant crop of words. When Alcott and Lane were not working to sustain the farm, they were writing. Alcott and Lane produced a variety of essays about the farm that were partly manifestos and partly solicitations. This was one of the paradoxes of Fruitlands: the community wished to be both removed from the corrupting world and yet highly visible to it. Isaac Hecker thought one of the farm's best points was its delightful solitude. But if it were to change the world, Fruitlands was also dependent on the public eye. In a gesture tending to reflect their singleness of purpose, Alcott and Lane acquired the practice of signing both their names to their essays, but it seems evident that they were primarily Lane's. Though Alcott still had great confidence in himself as a social theorist, Emerson's criticisms of his “Psyche” manuscript and the poor public reception of “Orphic Sayings” had punctured his self-assurance as a writer. He realized that Lane's terser style was preferable to his own rhapsodic digressions.

The spirit of restraint was evident not only in the tone of Lane's writing but also its content. Almost everything Lane wrote at Fruitlands is laden with a heavy spirit of negation and self-denial. He had a gift for making his Utopia sound sanctimoniously joyless, as in the following passage written in August:

The pious litany of forbidden actions draws on still further. Shall the Fruitlands disciples become hirelings or hire others? Shall they subjugate cattle? Shall they trade? Shall they become parents? Shall they take an interest in politics? To all these questions, the Fruitlanders returned the same answer, a single word boldly printed in capital letters: “
ABSTAIN.”
The core of reform, at least for Charles Lane, lay not in doing, but rather in refraining from doing. Americans as a people have always inclined toward action; our response to a problem is far more likely to be “What should we do?” instead of “What should we cease to do?” In advocating less rather than more, Lane and Alcott sounded a note that was seldom heard in public discourse in their own time, and which is even less audible today.

Two years later, near the banks of Walden Pond, Alcott's friend Thoreau had a conversation with an Irish laborer named John Field. It was an exchange of views that might easily have taken place at Fruitlands between Alcott and a neighboring farmer. Thoreau tried to impress Field with the beauty of a simple life and frugal diet. Thoreau explained to Field “that I did not use tea, nor coffee, nor milk, nor fresh meat, and so did not have to work to get them…but as he began with tea, and coffee, and butter, and milk, and beef, he had to work hard to pay for them.” To Thoreau's surprise, Field was not persuaded. It seemed to him that the very point of coming to America was to live in a place where “you could get tea, and coffee, and meat every day.” Thoreau made another sally, asserting that “the only true America was that country where you are at liberty to pursue such a mode of life as may enable you to do without these.” Thoreau made no progress with Field, however, and their discussion ended with some unkindly mutterings about congenital Irish poverty.
²²
Yet as the Fruitlands experiment had already shown, Field's was the majority opinion; one lived in America in order to get things, not to test one's character by doing without them.

There is a curious absence in the statements of purpose that issued from Fruitlands that summer—an absence that seems to signal that Lane's influence was more powerful than his partner's. The pieces written for
The Dial
and for various curious observers tended to say very little about the hoped-for influence of the community on its children. Lane's and Alcott's letter to the Ohioan Mr. Brooke says almost nothing about how life on the farm would especially improve the souls of children. Indeed, the letter to Brooke names becoming a parent among the acts a virtuous person should avoid—strange advice from two men who had sired five children between them.

Lane's and Alcott's omission of the concerns of the children seems at odds with the entire trajectory of Alcott's career to date. Throughout his life, Alcott saw himself first and foremost as an educator. He always believed that, to reform the world, one would have to break the cycle by which the hatreds and stupidities of parents were reborn in their children. He also recognized the frustrations of trying to teach one's children a better way to live, only to have one's messages contradicted by so much of what the children could see outside their front door. Now, however, that he had found the very place where he might shape his daughters' spirits with a minimum of interference, he appears to have taken less interest, not more, in the girls' development.

Surprisingly, it was Lane, not Alcott, who gave most of the lessons to the children at Fruitlands. One reason was that Lane possessed skill in areas, music, for instance, in which Alcott had neither talent nor training. The bulk of the teaching also fell to Lane because Alcott could not be in two places at once. The two principal tasks to be done at the commune were teaching and farming. Alcott, the son of a farmer and a longtime veteran of the classroom, was arguably Lane's superior at both. However, Lane, while at least competent as a teacher, was practically hopeless as a farmhand. Abba thought he was lazy. Years later, when Lane was again a houseguest of the Alcotts in Concord, his skills had not improved. As Louisa reported in a letter to a friend, “Our garden looks dreadful shabby, for Father has been gone to New York for a long time, and Mr. Lane does not understand gardening very well.”
²³
Thus, those who came to visit Fruitlands found Alcott ever more in the fields and Lane ever more with the children. Louisa, for one, resented this turn of events, since she never liked the Englishman to begin with. Once, in her Fruitlands diary, she notes that Lane was absent from the farm and could not resist adding, “and we were glad.”
²⁴
If the plan had been for the colony to bring Alcott and his daughters closer together, it was backfiring ominously.

Despite their father's diverted attention, however, if Fruitlands came close at any time to being a paradise for any of its participants, it was perhaps so for Alcott's daughters. Undeniably, they had their share of the housework, and the incessant moralizing of the adults must have been disagreeable at times, but the surviving documents also convey a spirit of delight that all the perfectionism that surrounded the children could not stifle. Louisa's first surviving efforts at journal writing date from the Fruitlands period. Though fragmentary and showing no more sophistication than one might expect from a precocious ten-year-old, her diary gives a charming account of the joys she experienced during her father's social experiment—an episode that, in her eyes, seemed at first no more serious than an extended picnic. One entry, much more complete than most, gives a breezy and endearing account of one day in a child's life at Fruitlands:

Except for some morning dishwashing, Louisa's account of her day mentions nothing in the way of chores, in spite of the chronic shortage of hands on the farm. Looking back on the venture as an adult, Louisa complained about the amount of labor she had been required to do. Nevertheless, her diary reflects that by far the most important work a child could do at Fruitlands was to improve herself, both intellectually and morally. Most of the girls' reading at Fruitlands emphasized moral instruction. Alcott's discourse with Anna and Louisa on the nobility of God's creation shows that he was still elaborating the ethical themes and Socratic pedagogy he had employed at the Temple School almost a decade earlier. As he had done before, he was trying to draw out the authentic intuitions of the children, for he still regarded young minds as the most promising source of uncorrupted wisdom.

Nevertheless, some spontaneous utterances were apparently better than others. Since Louisa writes that her choice of babies as God's noblest creation required “clearing up,” one may guess that Anna's response of “man” won greater favor with Bronson. Anna, always better attuned to her father's intuitions and more precisely aware of how to please him, was able to hit the mark without even giving the reason for her answer. Louisa, the more independent thinker and more candid observer of the world, gave both an answer and a plausible explanation, but her effort was singled out for correcting. Louisa looked to prove her assertion by reference to the world as she saw it; Anna was safer and more doctrinaire. Nevertheless, although Anna gave the desired response, it was Louisa's that triggered the “long talk.” It is hard to say whether, at the age of ten, Louisa already grasped that the answer that inspires discussions is often a better answer than the “correct” one. In any event, by stating and defending her opinion, Louisa was already truer to the inquisitive, original spirit of Alcott's friend and protector Emerson than her father was prepared to recognize.

Lessons, however, were only one part of the Alcott girls' day. Alcott and Lane, for all their condemnation of physical self-indulgence, understood the importance of recreations that strengthened the body and sharpened the mind. Whereas meat and leather were not welcome at Fruitlands, music and, more surprisingly, card playing were. As is clear from Louisa's diary, play was a central part of her and her sisters' existence. Like all good transcendentalists, Lane and Alcott believed devoutly in the restorative power of the natural world, and Louisa shared their love of the outdoors. She responded to her natural surroundings with deep awareness and sympathetic energy.

Walking today on the hill that Louisa describes in her journal, one immediately understands its attraction to a youthful spirit. It has just the slope that is made for children. Not so steep as to present real danger, the hill is angled so that a child of ten does not run down it quite so much as she
flies
. For a girl of Louisa's imagination, to careen laughing and shouting down this hill at top speed was to share for a moment in the freedom and exaltation of the birds.

It is less easy to re-create the “thoughts” that Louisa had on the hillside: thoughts she deemed memorable enough to mention in her journal but not significant enough to describe. The omission is tantalizing. Louisa, of course, knew that her journals were not a wholly private matter. The Alcott family made a practice of reading one another's diaries and sharing comments on them. Especially given their father's propensity for close moral supervision, any thoughts that Louisa or her sisters wanted to keep to themselves were best left off the page. Louisa knew how fanatical an interest Bronson took in her mental workings. She knew it was important to tell her father that her mind was active, so she made sure to tell her journal that she had had
some
thoughts. As to
what
she was thinking, she justly saw that as no one's business but her own.

Perhaps no historical record is so rich or complete that it does not leave us hungry for a little more. Reading Louisa's journal, we want to know more about what she thought that day when she was young and the world seemed made of peace and beauty. How did the grass feel beneath her feet? What sights in the valley spread below her set her mind in motion? To no avail; the weary diarist sets aside her pen, puts out her light, and falls as silent as the moon that gazes in on her.

L
OUISA, OF COURSE, WAS NOT THE ONLY JOURNAL-KEEPING
Alcott at Fruitlands. Throughout their time at the farm, Bronson, Abba, and elder sister Anna recorded their thoughts and observations as well. Bronson, in particular, remained as assiduous a diarist as ever. Whatever the outcome of his time in the wilderness, a Fruitlands memoir based on his journals might possibly become the work that would finally open the eyes of the world to his teachings. Even if this literary project, like too many of the ones that preceded it, failed to hit the mark, Alcott could look forward to the day when his notes on Fruitlands, richly bound like the other great, heavy volumes of his journals, would supply a unique and durable memento of the greatest adventure of his life. Night after night, tired out by the long day of work, Alcott made his way to the farmhouse library to add more pages to his chronicle.

According to “Transcendental Wild Oats,” Abba defied the ban on animal products by maintaining a lamp that burned whale oil. Nevertheless, toward the end of the experiment she complained in her own diary about the toll that poor light had exacted on her vision. In his ascetic purity, it is unlikely that Bronson used her lamp, so his eyes probably bothered him all the more. Then, too, there was the issue of physical pain. The summer's toil had barely begun when Lane started to grumble about his sore, overworked hands. Bronson was not immune to blisters either. Nevertheless, as long as he could hold a pen and keep his eyes open, Bronson would write. He was a creature of the word, and a life without writing and speaking would not have really counted as life. However, as he labored over his Fruitlands journal, he never suspected what would become of this work of his callused hand and teeming brain.

Unlike her father, twelve-year-old Anna had no grand ambitions as she kept her journal. Her handwriting was tiny but immaculate—the work of a young perfectionist. In her journal writing, as, it seemed, in all other aspects of life, Anna knew how to please her parents, and her journal is a record of sunshine and satisfaction. Louisa's diary, however, is peppered with barbs against people she disliked and candid observations of what she took to be their weak points. Louisa sometimes writes of being tired and cross; by contrast Anna tells us that her favorite word is “beautiful.”
¹
It is from Louisa's journal that we know that tears were shed at Fruitlands; it is due to Anna that we know the details of one of the happiest days in the history of the Consociate Family.

On the morning of Saturday, June 24, 1843, a clear, fresh day, Anna rose before five and made her way downstairs to the kitchen. At Fruitlands, as on any farm, early mornings were routine, but Anna had a special reason this morning to greet the dawn: her sister Elizabeth was to celebrate her eighth birthday. Alcott family celebrations were no more materially lavish than any other aspect of their lives. Presents were utilitarian and often homemade. While the family resided at Fruitlands, no special birthday exceptions were made to the usual vegetarian diet. Nevertheless, the simplicity of these occasions seems to have deepened, not diminished, their significance, operating as a stimulating challenge to creativity. Anna gave Lizzie a fan. Louisa had decided on a pincushion, and Lane's son William had selected a book, perhaps from his father's library. Abba, daring the community's censure by exploiting the products of worms, had fashioned Lizzie a little silk balloon. Even three-year-old Abby May was not left out; a small pitcher was to be given in her name. Anna led Louisa and William out to the grove behind the house, where they “fixed a little pine tree in the ground and hung all our presents on it.”
²
Before being called in for breakfast, Anna had time to weave a wreath of oak leaves for each of the children.

Breakfast was followed by a merry procession to the wood. Except for Wood Abram, who was at the plow, all the commune members joined in.
³
The morning air was still cool as Charles Lane took out his violin and opened the festivities by playing while the others sang. Next came a spiritual reading—a parable selected and read aloud by Bronson, who then added a quickly drafted five-stanza, ninety-nine-line ode of his own composition. The poem is as much about the community as it is about Elizabeth; Alcott does not get around to mentioning the birthday girl until the fourth stanza. Nevertheless, he expresses his tender feelings when he hails her as:

Lane and Abba had also written poems, though theirs were much shorter. Lane's poem, titled “To Elizabeth,” ended with the lines “May your whole life / Exempt from strife / Shine forth as calm and bright.”
⁵
Abba's read in part, “Dear gentle Dove / So full of love, / My own dear child, / So good and mild.”
⁶
If one were to use these birthday verses to describe a “Fruitlands School” of poetry, one would surely comment on their serenity of mood, to the point of blandness. Another noteworthy feature is the eccentric sense of meter. Alcott himself cared little about counting iambs; his lines contain five feet or three or four, depending on his whim. In the quoted passages from Abba and Lane, one observes a seeming reluctance to write a line of more than two metric feet. Although Lane ends with a line of trimeter, everything else is compressed into lines of only four syllables. Fruitlands was a place where even poetry tended to be devoid of luxury and self-indulgence.

The last gifts Lizzie received were imaginary. Bronson asked each of his family what flower she would give the birthday girl if she were able. Anna echoed Bronson's own choice, a rose. Louisa chose a lily of the valley for its connotations of innocence. Abby May, already attracted to dramatic displays of color, chose a tiger lily, which she called by its folk name of “wake-robin.” Abba, focused as she often was on emotional ties, said she would give forget-me-nots for remembrance. Not to be left out, Lane added that he would give the girl “a piece of moss, or humility.”
⁷
One hopes that Lane's announcement was greeted by knowing winks and a few eyes rolled heavenward. The quiet, unassuming Lizzie needed nothing less than another dose of humility; why couldn't the dour Englishman put aside his sackcloth and ashes—and his imaginary moss—long enough to enjoy a little girl's party?

In describing Elizabeth's party, Anna made no note of games or laughter. It was a warmly happy time, but also highly decorous and restrained. Decorum, too, presided at the lessons that Alcott and Lane continued to give the children in the farmhouse library. While most of these involved only the children and either Alcott or Lane, there were times when all the members of the two men's families were present. The children and Abba would arrange themselves in a semicircle around a chalkboard. On July 2, the session began not with discussion but with reading: two hours' worth from ten in the morning until noon. Then Mr. Alcott rose to deliver a talk that, perhaps because it was a Sunday, was as much a sermon as a lecture. As Abba wrote:

Among the five children, his wife, and the celibate Lane, just whose “lusts of the flesh” did Bronson have in mind? Whose furtive urges did he mean to symbolically crucify? What further sacrifices did he propose to extract from his roomful of meatless, teetotal acolytes? Alcott's words showed no sense of moderation, and they reflected a refusal to differentiate among degrees of wrongdoing.

Besieged with exhortations to purge herself of desire, Louisa did her best to oblige. She had, it seems, two besetting faults that she could not master: her unruly temper and her desire for things she could not have. When her good intentions failed her and she lost her temper, her disappointment made her cry herself to sleep. She would then make noble resolutions once again and, for a while, feel “better in [her] heart.” If only she kept all the moral promises she made, she observed, “I should be the best girl in the world. But I don't, and so am very bad.” Louisa herself felt that she never achieved the goodness at which she aimed. Nearly forty years later, as she read over her Fruitlands diary, she added the notation, “Poor little sinner!
She says the same at fifty
.”
⁹
As to her worldly yearnings, it was not always wealth that she coveted. After a visit to some of her mother's friends, who proudly showed Louisa their newborn son, she wrote, “I often wish I had a little brother but as I have not I shall try to be contented with what I have got (for Mother often says if we are not contented with what we have got it will be taken away from us) and I think it is very true.”
¹⁰
To help herself remember this lesson, she copied into the journal the words of a poem from her father's beloved
Pilgrim's Progress
:

At the age of thirty-five, Louisa would use the same lines to end the penultimate chapter of
Little Women
, part 1. But quoting Bunyan did not greatly ease her burden. As she remembered later, it was during these months that she started to feel “the family cares and peculiar trials.” She had, as she later put it, taken up a cross for her family, and from that hour it began to grow.
¹¹

Bronson had conceived Fruitlands as an escape from the world's depravity. Louisa craved an escape from Fruitlands. In secret ways, she found it, but not by physically running away. Her retreats were less obvious than they had once been, though they were evidently more necessary than ever. One was physical exercise; few things lifted her spirits better than a “splendid run,” and running remained a favorite recreation as long as her health allowed her to enjoy it.
¹²
Her other preferred escapes gave her solace for the rest of her life. They were her imagination and her pen. In addition to her journal, Louisa kept an Imagination Book at Fruitlands. Now lost, it was, at the time, one of her most important possessions. One day after writing in it, she wrote in her journal, “Life is pleasanter than it used to be, and I don't care about dying any more.” She also was writing poetry, “in a thin but copious stream,” as she later recollected.
¹³
In her mind, in the word, and on the run, she was separate from the world and safe in a realm of light.

Meanwhile, Fruitlands was winding itself into paradox. The commune's retreat from the world of iniquity had seemingly made denunciations of sin all the more necessary. The Alcotts, the Lanes, and their tiny band of followers had fled into nature, immersing themselves in a life that left no distance between themselves and the land and sky. Nature, they had thought, would cure them and set them free. At the same time, however, Alcott and Lane felt compelled to guard against one of the most natural of all impulses: the urge toward selfish pleasure. The wilderness into which the Fruitlanders had escaped was supposed to restore their authentic spirits and bring them closer to communion with God. Nevertheless, it was still potentially a place of temptation. If they allowed the wilderness to speak to the wildness within themselves, then the entire enterprise would be threatened with moral collapse. Alcott and Lane hoped to discover a nature in which it was unnatural to want to procreate or to caress one's children. It is in no way surprising that they did not find it.

Around Independence Day, Emerson visited the farm. His first impressions were generally positive: “The sun & evening sky do not look calmer than Alcott & his family at Fruitlands. They seemed to have arrived at the fact, to have got rid of the show, & so to be serene.”
¹⁴
Throughout his career, Emerson felt most comfortable with transcendentalism in his study and his parlor. He sincerely admired, but could never bring himself to imitate, men like Thoreau and Alcott who carried the doctrine into the field. For him, to see Alcott arrive at the fact was a thing of wonder. Nevertheless, Emerson seemed to know better than Alcott and Lane themselves the kinds of obstacles that lay ahead. For one thing, he already sensed that transcendentalism was a naturally introspective, solipsistic idea. One could practice it well enough as an individual, but converting it into a social philosophy was almost as great a miracle as changing water into wine. He added:

Emerson's statement about seeing the Fruitlanders in December proved prophetic, but his most discerning insight came in his prediction that the community would stand or fall according to its capacity to “in very deed be lovers & not selfish” and to benefit their neighbors in Harvard “wherever they touch them.” Charles Lane stood staunchly for the idea that love, as people typically feel it toward spouses or children, was the epitome of selfishness. Moreover, the act of touching caused Lane profound discomfort. Alcott was imbibing similar notions. Emerson's observations that love requires selflessness and that, to benefit the world, one must touch it, would seem obvious everywhere but at Fruitlands. At Fruitlands, however, the ability to observe the obvious was strangely wanting.