had a talk. I said my position would be too
uncertain here, as I could not work. ---- said 'they would
all like to work for a person of genius.' ... 'Yes,' I told
her; 'but where would be my repose when they were always to
be judging whether I was worth it or not?.... Each day you
must prove yourself anew.' ... We talked of the principles
of the community. I said I had not a right to come, because
all the confidence I had in it was as an _experiment_ worth
trying, and that it was part of the great wave of inspired
thought.... We had valuable discussion on these points. All
Monday morning in the woods again. Afternoon, out with the
drawing party; I felt the evils of the want of conventional
refinement, in the impudence with which one of the girls
treated me. She has since thought of it with regret, I
notice; and by every day's observation of me will see that
she ought not to have done it. In the evening a husking in
the barn ... a most picturesque scene.... I stayed and
helped about half an hour, and then took a long walk beneath
the stars. Wednesday.... In the evening a conversation on
Impulse.... I defended nature, as I always do;--the spirit
ascending through, not superseding, nature. But in the scale
of Sense, Intellect, Spirit, I advocated the claims of
Intellect, because those present were rather disposed to
postpone them. On the nature of Beauty we had good talk.
---- seemed in a much more reverent humour than the other
night, and enjoyed the large plans of the universe which
were unrolled.... Saturday,--Well, good-bye, Brook Farm. I
know more about this place than I did when I came; but the
only way to be qualified for a judge of such an experiment
would be to become an active, though unimpassioned,
associate in trying it.... The girl who was so rude to me
stood waiting, with a timid air, to bid me good-bye."

The young girl in question cannot have been Hawthorne's
charming Priscilla; nor yet another young lady, of a most
humble spirit, who communicated to Margaret's biographers
her recollections of this remarkable woman's visits to Brook
Farm; concluding with the assurance that "after a while she
seemed to lose sight of my more prominent and disagreeable
peculiarities, and treated me with affectionate regard."

Hawthorne'