use_
of a spot of land, . . . including, _of course,_ a convenient plain
house, and offices, wood-lot, garden, and orchard." Establishments
which would tolerably approximate to this description, and to the
really essential needs of its prospective founder, have long existed
in every civilized community. There are certain restrictions placed
upon their inmates, however, and Mr. Alcott's desire was to make sure
of his basis of earthly supplies, while left entirely free to
persuade himself that he had arrived at an elevation which made him
independent of them. Still, though "a charlatan," it must not be
forgotten that he was "an innocent" one. He was plainly born great in
that way, and had no need to achieve greatness in it. As Father
Hecker said of him long afterwards, "Diogenes and his tub would have
been Alcott's ideal if he had carried it out. But he never carried it
out." Diogenes himself, it may be supposed, had his ideal included a
family and an audience as well as a tub, might finally have come to
hold that the finding of the latter was a mere detail, which could be
entrusted indifferently to either of the two former or to both
combined. Somebody once described Fruitlands as a place where Mr.
Alcott looked benign and talked philosophy, while Mrs. Alcott and the
children did the work. Still, to look benign is a good deal for a man
to do persistently in an adverse world, indifferent for the most part
to the charms of "divine philosophy," and Mr. Alcott persevered in
that exercise until his latest day. "He was unquestionably one of
those who like to sit upon a platform," wrote, at the time of his
death, one who knew Alcott well, "and he may have liked to feel that
his venerable aspect had the effect of a benediction." But with this
mild criticism, censure of him is well-nigh exhausted. There was
nothing of the Patriarch of Bleeding Heart Yard about him except that
"venerable aspect," for which nature was responsible, and not he.

Fruitlands was the caricature of Brook Farm. Just as the
fanatic is the caricature of the true reformer, so was Alcott the
caricature of Ripley. This is not meant as disparaging either
Alcott's sincerity or his intelligence, but to affirm that he lacked
judgment, that he miscalculated means and ends, that he jumped
from theory to practice without a moment's interval, preferred
to be guided by instinct rather than by processes of reasoning,
and deemed this to be the philosopher's way.

In