l? This is a jewel amidst the rags of a beggar.

In another way the right will be vindicated. In the midst of abuses, in
the heart of cities, in the aisles of false churches, alike in one place
and in another,--wherever, namely, a just and heroic soul finds itself,
there it will do what is next at hand, and by the new quality of
character it shall put forth it shall abrogate that old condition, law
or school in which it stands, before the law of its own mind.

If partiality was one fault of the movement party, the other defect was
their reliance on Association. Doubts such as those I have intimated
drove many good persons to agitate the questions of social reform. But
the revolt against the spirit of commerce, the spirit of aristocracy,
and the inveterate abuses of cities, did not appear possible to
individuals; and to do battle against numbers they armed themselves with
numbers, and against concert they relied on new concert.

Following or advancing beyond the ideas of St. Simon, of Fourier, and
of Owen, three communities have already been formed in Massachusetts on
kindred plans, and many more in the country at large. They aim to give
every member a share in the manual labor, to give an equal reward to
labor and to talent, and to unite a liberal culture with an education
to labor. The scheme offers, by the economies of associated labor and
expense, to make every member rich, on the same amount of property,
that, in separate families, would leave every member poor. These new
associations are composed of men and women of superior talents and
sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such a community
will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the good; whether
those who have energy will not prefer their chance of superiority
and power in the world, to the humble certainties of the association;
whether such a retreat does not promise to become an asylum to those who
have tried and failed, rather than a field to the strong; and whether
the members will not necessarily be fractions of men, because each
finds that he cannot enter it, without some compromise. Friendship and
association are very fine things, and a grand phalanx of the best of
the human race, banded for some catholic object; yes, excellent; but
remember that no society can ever be so large as one man. He, in his
friendship, in his natural and momentary associations, doubles or
multiplies himself; but in the hour in which he mortgages himself t