n considerably
excited and exclaimed, 'Matt, do you want to hear the best short poem
in the English language?' 'Faith, Hartley, I do,' was my reply. He
then read a poem _To a Waterfowl_ in his best manner. And he was a
good reader. As soon as he had done he asked, 'What do you think of
that?' 'I am not sure but you are right, Hartley, is it your
father's?' was my reply. 'No,' he rejoined, 'father has written
nothing like that.' Some days after he might be heard muttering to
himself,

The desert and illimitable air,
Lone wandering but not lost."

LIII

CURTIS AND HAWTHORNE AT THE BROOK FARM

The social experiment known as the Brook Farm enterprise is one of the
most interesting episodes in American literature. Mrs. Ora G. Sedgwick
is one of the many writers who have written about the place and its
inhabitants. She went there in June, 1841, and lived for some time at
the Hive, the principal community edifice. She was then but a girl of
sixteen, but the impressions on her youthful mind were strong enough
to enable her recently to describe her life there. As to Curtis she
has this to say:

"The arrival of George William Curtis, then a youth of eighteen, and
his brother Burrill, two years his senior, was a noteworthy event in
the annals of Brook Farm, at least in the estimation of the younger
members. I shall never forget the flutter of excitement caused by Mr.
Ripley's announcing their expected coming in these words: 'Now we're
going to have two young Greek gods among us.' ... On a bright morning
in May, 1842, soon after Mr. Ripley's announcement, as I was coming
down from the Eyrie to the Hive, I saw Charles A. Dana with two
strange young men approaching my 'magic gate' from the direction of
the Hive. Arriving at the gate before me, Mr. Dana threw it open with
the flourish peculiar to his manner, and stood holding it back. His
companions stood beside him, and all three waited for me to pass
through. I saw at a glance that these must be 'the two young Greek
gods.' They stood disclosed, not like Virgil's Venus, by their step,
but by their beauty and bearing. Burrill Curtis was at that time the
more beautiful. He had a Greek face, of great purity of expression,
and curling hair. George too was very handsome--not so remarkably as
in later life, but already with a man's virile expression.

"About George William Curtis there was a peculiar personal elegance
and an air of great deference in listening to o