education, of missions foreign and domestic, in the abolition of the
slave-trade, or in the temperance society. They do not even like to
vote." A less sympathetic observer, Harriet Martineau, wrote of them:
"While Margaret Fuller and her adult pupils sat 'gorgeously dressed,'
talking about Mars and Venus, Plato and Goethe, and fancying themselves
the elect of the earth in intellect and refinement, the liberties of the
republic were running out as fast as they could go at a breach which
another sort of elect persons were devoting themselves to repair; and my
complaint against the 'gorgeous' pedants was that they regarded their
preservers as hewers of wood and drawers of water, and their work as a
less vital one than the pedantic orations which were spoiling a set of
well-meaning women in a pitiable way." Harriet Martineau, whose whole
work was practical, and who wrote her journal in 1855 and in the light
of history, was hardly able to do justice to these unpractical but
sincere spirits.

Emerson was divided from the Transcendentalists by his common sense. His
shrewd business intellect made short work of their schemes. Each one of
their social projects contained some covert economic weakness, which
always turned out to lie in an attack upon the integrity of the
individual, and which Emerson of all men could be counted on to detect.
He was divided from them also by the fact that he was a man of genius,
who had sought out and fought out his means of expression. He was a
great artist, and as such he was a complete being. No one could give to
him nor take from him. His yearnings found fruition in expression. He
was sure of his place and of his use in this world. But the
Transcendentalists were neither geniuses nor artists nor complete
beings. Nor had they found their places or uses as yet. They were men
and women seeking light. They walked in dry places, seeking rest and
finding none. The Transcendentalists are not collectively important