Mr. Hawthorne was elected to high offices, to those of Trustee of the Brook Farm estate, and Chairman of the Committee of Finance; but he told Mr. Ripley that he could not spend another winter there. If we could inspect all the note-books of the community, supposing all to be as frank as Hawthorne, our picture of Brook Farm life would be fascinating. But his was, perhaps, the only note-book kept in the busy brotherhood, and his rather sombre view must be accepted as the impression of one peculiar mind. In the "Blithedale Romance," Hawthorne disclaimed any purpose to describe persons or events at Brook Farm, and expressed a hope that some one might yet do justice to a movement so full of earnest aspiration. But he, himself, declined the task. "The old and affectionately remembered home at Brook Farm--certainly the most romantic episode of his own life--essentially a day dream, and yet a fact--thus offering an available foothold between fiction and reality," merely supplied the scenery for the romance. More than twenty years have passed since Hawthorne's appeal to his associates, but it has not been answered. The characteristic nature of transcendental reform was exhibited in the temper of its agitation for the enfranchisement of women, and the enlargement of her sphere of duty and privilege. More definitely than any other, this reform can trace its beginnings and the source of its inspiration to the disciples of the transcendental philosophy. The transcendentalists gave it their countenance to some extent, to a man and a woman, conceding the truth of its idea even when criticising the details of its application. With almost if not quite equal unanimity, the other school regarded it with disfavor. The cause of woman, as entertained by the reformers, was not likely to commend itself to people who consulted custom, law, or institution; who accepted the authority of tradition, took history to be revelation, deferred to the decree of circumstance, or, under any other open or disguised form, bowed to the doctrine that might makes right. The philosophical conservatives and the social conservatives struck hands on this; for both, the one party in deference to established usage, the other party in deference to the opinion that mind followed organization, defended things as they were, and hoped for a better state of things, if they hoped for it at all, as a result of changes in the social environment. The disciples of the same philosophy now hold the same view of this particular reform. From them comes the charge of unsexing women and demoralizing the sex. In the belief of the transcendentalist, souls were of no sex. Men and women were alike human beings, with human capacities, longings, and destinies; and the condition of society that doomed them to hopelessness in regard to the complete and perfect justification of their being, was, in his judgment--not in his feeling, or sentiment, but in his judgment--unsound.