planting orchards and vineyards, and growing pasturage for a profitable
dairy.

If the amateur farmers were dismayed on finding what a hard row they had
to hoe on this impoverished estate, they never complained, so far as I
have heard, but resolutely set about the work they had to do. They came
out to try a certain social experiment; an experiment in living a higher
kind of life than that of their day and generation, resting on the faith
that such a life can be lived here and now as well as heretofore in the
legendary "Golden Age" of the past, or as hereafter in the "good time
coming" of the future. The one purpose they entertained was to dwell
together in unity "near to the heart of nature," a phrase attributed to
Margaret Fuller. All other considerations, whether of hardship, or bad
beginnings or disappointments were but secondary if they could succeed
in demonstrating the practicability of their high ideals.

Perhaps it is not a matter of much interest to the present generation
but to us it has always seemed that these Brook Farmers deserve to be
favorably remembered. They were not martyrs, being, on the contrary, an
unusually joyous and happy company, but, all the same, they gave the
best of their lives to the service of humanity. They honestly and
earnestly believed they could demonstrate the practicability of their
theories, to the advantage of their fellow-beings, and they faithfully
tried to accomplish that purpose. If the Pilgrims of Plymouth deserve
honor for unselfish devotion to religious reform, why should not the
Brook Farm pioneers of social reform receive correspondingly suitable
recognition. It is true they did not immediately attain the ends they
sought but neither did the Pilgrims; and the end is not yet.

It should be said that not all the Transcendentalists joined Doctor