It is too early yet to judge of the result of the work of the Brook Farm socialists. They were progressively ahead of their race. They lived before their time. They existed in the future as well as in the present and the future will be their judge; but these are my conclusions justified by actual contact, seeing these men and women under every variety of circumstances of daily life, for the full two and a half years of my actual sojourn at the Farm. The high ideal they carried as their standard lifted them over many of the littlenesses and annoyances of daily life without a disturbing thought. I find in the _Harbinger_ of December 20, 1845, one of the very few special allusions to Brook Farm life, and it is so much to the point that I copy it entire:-- "We speak no less for the whole associative movement in this country than for ourselves when we beseech our friends who are looking upon our operations not to judge of our principles or our purposes by any immediate results which they may have witnessed. The question is often asked of us whether our present mode of life answers our expectations--whether Association is found to be valuable in practice as it seems to be correct in theory, and the like. But all such inquiries betray an ignorance of the actual condition of the enterprise. They suppose the organizations which have gone into effect in different parts of the country are true specimens of the plans of Association. This is far from being the case. We do not profess to be able to present a true picture of associative life. We cannot give the remotest idea of the advantages which the combined order possesses over the ordinary arrangements of society. "The benefits we now actually enjoy are of another character. The life we now lead, though, to a hasty and superficial observer surrounded with so great imperfections and embarrassments, is far superior to what we have been able to attain under the most favorable circumstances in civilization. There is a freedom from the frivolities of fashion, from arbitrary restrictions, and from the frenzy of competition: we meet our fellow-men in more hearty, sincere and genial relations; kindred spirits are not separated by artificial conventional barriers; there is more personal independence and a wider sphere for its exercise; the soul is warmed in the sunshine of a true social equality; we are not brought into the rough and disgusting contact with uncongenial persons which is such a genuine source of misery in the common intercourse of society; there is a greater variety, of employment, a more constant demand for the exertion of all the faculties, and a more exquisite pleasure in effort, from the consciousness that we are not working for personal ends, but for a holy principle.