These were the ludicrous aspects of the intellectual and moral fermentation or agitation that was called Transcendentalism. And these were foolishly accepted by many as its chief and only signs. It was supposed that the folly was complete at Brook Farm, and it was indescribably ludicrous to observe reverend doctors and other dons coming out to gaze upon the extraordinary spectacle, and going as dainty ladies hold their skirts and daintily step from stone to stone in a muddy street, lest they be soiled. The dons seemed to doubt whether the mere contact had not smirched them. But droll in itself, it was a thousandfold droller when Theodore Parker came through the woods and described it. With his head set low upon his gladiatorial shoulders, and his nasal voice in subtle and exquisite mimicry reproducing what was truly laughable, yet all with infinite _bonhommie_ and a genuine superiority to small malice, he was as humorous as he was learned, and as excellent a mimic as he was noble and fervent and humane a preacher. On Sundays a party always went from Brook Farm to Mr. Parker's little country church. He was there just exactly what he was afterwards, when he preached to thousands of eager people at the Boston Music Hall--the same plain, simple, rustic, racy man. His congregation were his personal friends. They loved him and were proud of him; and his geniality and tender sympathy, his ample knowledge of things as well as of books, his jovial manliness and sturdy independence, drew to him all ages and sexes and conditions.