THE ICARIANS. Etienne Cabet had a pretty dream; this dream took hold of his mind, and he spent sixteen years of his life in trying to turn it into real life. One cannot help respecting the handful of men and women who, in the wilderness of Iowa, have for more than twenty years faithfully endeavored to work out the problem of Communism according to the system he left them; but Cabet's own writings persuade me that he was little more than a vain dreamer, without the grim patience and steadfast unselfishness which must rule the nature of one who wishes to found a successful communistic society. Cabet was born at Dijon, in France, in 1788. He was educated for the bar, but became a politician and writer. He was a leader of the Carbonari; was a member of the French Legislature; wrote a history of the French Revolution of July; established a newspaper; was condemned to two years' imprisonment for an article in it, but evaded his sentence by flying to London; in 1839 returned to France, and published a history of the French Revolution in four volumes; and the next year issued a book somewhat famous in its day--the voyage to Icaria. In this romance he described a communistic Utopia, whose terms he had dreamed out; and he began at once to try to realize his dream. He framed a constitution for an actual Icaria; sought for means and members to establish it; selected Texas as its field of operations, and early in 1848 actually persuaded a number of persons to set sail for the Red River country. Sixty-nine persons formed the advance guard of his Utopia. They were attacked by yellow fever, and suffered greatly; and by the time next year when Cabet arrived at New Orleans with a second band, the first was already disorganized. He heard, on his arrival, that the Mormons had been driven from Nauvoo, in Illinois, leaving their town deserted; and in May, 1850, he established his followers there. They bought at Nauvoo houses sufficient to accommodate them, but very little land, renting such farms as they needed. They lived there on a communal system, and ate in a great dining-room. But Cabet, I have been told, did not intend to form his colony permanently there, but regarded Nauvoo only as a rendezvous for those who should join the community, intending to draft them thence to the real settlements, which he wished to found in Iowa. If Cabet had been a leader of the right temper, he might, I believe, have succeeded; for he appears to have secured the only element indispensable to success--a large number of followers. He had at Nauvoo at one time not less than fifteen hundred people. With so many members, a wise leader with business skill ought to be able to accomplish very much in a single year; in ten years his commune, if he could keep it together, ought to be wealthy.