Page:Thoreau - His Home, Friends and Books (1902).djvu/131

Rh the intuitive, transcendent life. When these "disciples of the newness" met in Boston for the symposium, compared by Emerson to "going to heaven in a swing," the public gave them the name of "The Transcendental Club," though it is still questioned if any real organization existed. James Freeman Clarke once said that they called themselves "the club of the like-minded, because no two thought alike." To their discussions were admitted Alcott, Hawthorne, the Peabody sisters, Margaret Fuller, Thoreau, Weiss, Bartol, and others, in addition to the leaders of the movement, the Ripleys, Emerson, Brownson, Hedge and James Freeman Clarke. As an evident outcome of the discussions for simplifying daily routine and reforming educational methods, came the Brook Farm community, with its varied history from 1841-1847. Here the Transcendental Club divided. Emerson, assured that the individual, not the community, must be basal in all reform, never eager for special scheme or method, was indifferent to such communities, as already shown. Ripley, however, determined to apply the theories which he had imbibed, purchased the famous farm in West Roxbury in 1840, planned for a corporate association, and attracted thither, during the next few years, many noted reformers and authors. Emerson enjoyed visits at