regarded as the rule, and as the logical masquerade of this foul fiend
Transcendentalism, which was evidently unappeasable, and was about to
devour manners, morals, religion, and common-sense. If Father Lamson or
Abby Folsom were borne by main force from an antislavery meeting, and the
non-resistants pleaded that these protestants had as good right to speak
as anybody, and that what was called their senseless babble was probably
inspired wisdom, if people were only heavenly minded enough to understand
it, it was but another sign of the impending anarchy. And what was to be
said--for you could not call them old dotards--when the younger
protestants of the time came walking through the sober streets of Boston
and seated themselves in concert-halls and lecture-rooms with hair parted
in the middle and falling upon their shoulders, and clad in garments such
as no known human being ever wore before--garments which seemed to be a
compromise between the blouse of the Paris workman and the peignoir of a
possible sister? For tailoring underwent the same revision to which the
whole philosophy of life was subjected, and one ardent youth, asserting
that the human form itself suggested the proper shape of its garments,
caused trowsers to be constructed that closely fitted the leg, and bore
his testimony to the truth in coarse crash breeches.

"These were the ludicrous aspects of the intellectual and moral
fermentation or agitation that was called Transcendentalism. And these
were foolishly accepted by many as its chief and only signs. It was
supposed that the folly was complete at Brook Farm, and it was
indescribably ludicrous to observe reverend Doctors and other Dons coming
out to gaze upon the extraordinary spectacle, and going about as dainty
ladies hold their skirts and daintily step from stone to stone in a muddy
street, lest they be soiled. The Dons seemed to doubt whether the mere
contact had not smirched them. But droll in itself, it was a thousandfold
droller when Theodore Parker came through the woods and described it.