NE J VFO UNDLAND. 8 7 



'^ you will be willing to cast in your lot with us. Wc 

 " would have all things common ; we could entomologizc 

 " together in the noble forest, and, in the peaceful and 

 " happy pursuits of agriculture, forget the toils and 

 " anxieties of commerce.* Not that our lives will be 

 " idle, for we shall have to work with our own hands, 

 " but there will be the pleasing and stirring consciousness 

 ** that our labour is for ourselves, and not for an unkind, 

 " ungrateful master. The land where I go is exceeding 

 " fertile and productive, and, with little more than half 

 " the toil necessary on an English farm, it will yield not 

 " only the necessaries, but even the luxuries of life. I 

 " want you to bring no money with you ; yourself I 

 " desire. ... I shall not leave this country until the 

 " middle of May. I take for granted that you will join 

 " me ; do not let me be disappointed. Well then, this 

 *' ensuing summer do all you can in procuring insects for 

 " your cabinet, even oi those which you have already, as 

 " it will probably be your last opportunity of ever get- 

 " ting English insects. If you have not time to set 

 '' them, never mind, only pin them ; it is not of the least 

 " consequence, as I can do them again at any length of 

 ** time, and however dry they may have got. . . . Mr. 

 " and Mrs. Jaques know that I am inviting you to join 

 " us, and they earnestly desire you to come. I have 

 " learned to stuff birds, and there are beauties in Canada. 

 " We could make a nice museum." 



It was the old story, the familiar and pathetic optimism 

 of the emigrant, but that they had to comprehend from 

 sad experience. For the moment, everything favoured the 



* All this unconscious Fourierism curiously foreshadows the coming co-opera- 

 tive projects in America. What my father proposed in 1834 was attempted 

 at Fruitlands by Alcott in 1839, and carried out, after a fashion, at Brook Farm 

 in 1840. 



