.]

[Footnote C: The Dorr rebellion.]

VIII.

SOCIALISM.

* * * * *

In the preceding extracts will have been noticed frequent reference
to the Association Movement, which, during the winter of 1840-41, was
beginning to appear simultaneously at several points in New England.
In Boston and its vicinity several friends, for whose characters
Margaret felt the highest honor, and with many of whose views,
theoretic and practical, she accorded, were earnestly considering
the possibility of making such industrial, social, and educational
arrangements, as would simplify economies, combine leisure for study
with healthful and honest toil, avert unjust collisions of caste,
equalize refinements, awaken generous affections, diffuse courtesy,
and sweeten and sanctify life as a whole. Chief among these was the
Rev. George Ripley, who, convinced by his experience in a faithful
ministry, that the need was urgent for a thorough application of the
professed principles of Fraternity to actual relations, was about
staking his all of fortune, reputation, position, and influence, in
an attempt to organize a joint-stock community at Brook Farm. How
Margaret was inclined to regard this movement has been already
indicated. While at heart sympathizing with the heroism that prompted
it, in judgment she considered it premature. But true to her noble
self, though regretting the seemingly gratuitous sacrifice of her
friends, she gave them without stint the cheer of her encouragement
and the light of her counsel. She visited them often; entering
genially into their trials and pleasures, and missing no chance to
drop good seed in every furrow upturned by the ploughshare or softened
by the rain. In the secluded yet intensely animated circle of these
co-workers I frequently met her during several succeeding years,
and rejoice to bear testimony to the justice, magnanimity, wisdom,
patience, and many-sided good-will, that governed her every thought
and deed. The feelings with which she watched the progress of this
experiment are thus exhibited in her journals:--

'My hopes might lead to Association, too,--an association, if
not of efforts, yet of destinies. In such an one I live with
several already, feeling that each one, by acting out his own,
casts light upon a mutual destiny, and illustrates the thought
of a mastermind. It is a constellation, not a phalanx, to
which I would belong