“I will not write to you of these conventions and communities unless they bear better fruit than yet. This convention was a total failure, as might be expected from a movement so forced. … O Christopher Columbus! how art thou admired when we see how other men go to work with their lesser enterprises.”[1]
Again, she writes of an interview with Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, when Brook Farm was being organized (October 28, 1840): —
“In town I saw the Ripleys. Mr. R. more and more wrapt in his new project. He is too sanguine, and does not take time to let things ripen in his mind; yet his aim is worthy, and with his courage and clear mind his experiment will not, I think, to him at least, be a failure. I will not throw any cold water, yet I would wish him the aid of some equal and faithful friend in the beginning, the rather that his own mind, though that of a captain, is not that of a conqueror. I feel more hopeful as he builds less wide, but cannot feel that I have anything to do at present, except to look on and see the coral insects at work.
“Ballou was with him to-night; he seems a downright person, clear as to his own purposes, and not unwilling to permit others the pursuit of theirs.”[2]
It appears from Mr. Alcott’s MS. diary that in October, 1840, while the whole matter was taking form, he met George Ripley and Miss Fuller at Mr. Emerson’s in Concord, for the pur-
