waistcoat pocket." At about the same time his sagacity and prudence warned these Sequesters;—"It is a sign of our times, conspicuous to the coarsest observer, that many intelligent and religious persons withdraw themselves from the common labors of and competitions of the market and caucus, and betake themselves to a solitary and critical way of living, from which no solid fruit has yet appeared to justify their separation." Reformers and individual oddities abounded and were attracted to Emerson's home in great variety. Vegetarians, spiritualists, mystics, philosophers of all degrees of earnestness and charlatanism came thither, to meet Thoreau and the other friends of Emerson, to leave behind often, as the lasting impress, the lack of that quality so well defined by Emerson as "the saving grace of common sense."
Many critics of the proposed communities, among them Dr. Ezra Ripley and Mr. Emerson, failed to understand the ultimate aim of the promoters,—not exclusion but inclusion. If these sundry settlements should prove stable, they were to furnish models, like Ruskin's "St. George's Guild," for establishment in all parts of America of agrarian communities, presided over by men of intellect and philosophical training. These experiments, so numerous in America from 1840 to 1850, had two
