Once embarked in it, he gave his whole mind to its accomplishment,--all his industry, all his organizing talent, all his high sense of duty. He worked day and night; he wrote letters; he answered inquiries; he mastered the science of agriculture; he did the labor of a practical farmer; he maintained the supervision of the strange family that gathered about him. Very remarkable was his success in keeping the intellectual side uppermost, in keeping clear of the temptations to give way to instinctive leanings. His associations were with books and study and bright people. He brought the most brilliant men and women of the day to the place. He awakened the interest of the general community. He diffused an atmosphere of cheerful hope around the experiment. It is easy to make sport of Brook Farm; to laugh at the odd folks who came there; to ridicule their motives and actions; to repeat stories of extravagant conduct; to tell of the eccentric behavior of men and maidens who were right-minded but impulsive; to follow spontaneousness to its results; to trace the course of unrestricted liberty. But it is not fair to remember these things as peculiarities of Brook Farm, as incidents of its conception, or as incidents that were agreeable to Mr. Ripley. He exerted the whole weight of his character against them. He watched and guarded. We do not hear of him in connection with the scandals, the laxities, or the frolics. His efforts were directed to the supremacy of ideas over instinct, the idea of a regenerated society, something very different from joyousness, or merriment, or the fun of having a good time. He, too, was gay; he felt the delight of freedom; but his gayety was born of happy confidence in the principle at stake, his delight was connected with the advent of a new method of intercourse among men. I remember hearing him once deliver a speech in Boston. In it he spoke of the "foolishness of preaching," and avowed his willingness to be a pioneer in the task of breaking out a new future for humanity, a ditcher and delver in the work of constructing the new building of God. He had the coming time continually in view. Others might enjoy themselves, others might grow tired of waiting, but he held smiling on his way, determined to carry out the idea to the end. There was something grand in the steady intellectual force with which he did his best to carry through a principle that commanded more and more the assent of his reason. When the demonstration of Charles Fourier was laid before him, no argument was required to persuade him to adopt it. He took it up with all his energy; his enthusiasm rose to a higher pitch than ever; the rationale of the movement was revealed to him, and apparently he saw for the first time the full significance of the scheme he had been conducting. The impelling power of an intellectual conviction was never more splendidly illustrated. Nobody discerned so clearly as he did the financial hopelessness of the experiment.