fare, and a routine with little aesthetic aspect. Individual whims in
dress and conduct, however, were exceptional in the golden age or early
days at Brook Farm, and those are wholly in error who suppose it to have
been a grotesque colony of idealogues. It was originally a company of
highly educated and refined persons, who felt that the immense disparity
of condition and opportunity in the world was a practical injustice, full
of peril for society, and that the vital and fundamental principle of
Christianity was universally rejected by Christendom as impracticable.
Every person, they held, is entitled to mental and moral culture, but it
is impossible that he should enjoy his rights as long as all the hard
physical work of the world is done by a part only of its inhabitants. Were
that work limited to what is absolutely necessary, and shared by all, all
would find an equal opportunity for higher cultivation and development,
and the evil of an unnatural and cruelly artificial system of society
would disappear. It was a thought and a hope as old as humanity, and as
generous as old. No common mind would have cherished such a purpose, no
mean nature have attempted to make the dream real. The practical effort
failed in its immediate object, but, in the high purposes it confirmed and
strengthened, it had remote and happy effects which are much more than
personal.

"It is an error to suppose that many of the more famous
'Transcendentalists' were of the Brook Farm company. Mr. Emerson, for
instance, was never there except as a visitor. Margaret Fuller was often a
visitor, and passed many days together as a guest, but she was never,
except in sympathy, one of the Brook Farmers. Theodore Parker was a
neighbor, and had friendly relations with many of the fraternity, but he
seldom came to the farm. Meanwhile the enterprise was considered an
unspeakable folly, or worse, by the conservative circle of Boston. In
Boston, where a very large part of the 'leaders' of society in every way