For
this reason, and because my faith in other respects also is not
sufficiently orthodox, I have braced myself as well as I could against
the urgent importunities of my friends, and refused to take a license.
My strongest sympathies are with the cause in which you are laboring,
and I am not wholly without hope that I shall yet find something to do
in it. I am utterly alone here. I think often of what Carlyle says,
"Invisible yet impenetrable walls as of enchantment divided me from all
living."
Will you do me the kindness, sir, to answer the inquiry I have made of
you as soon as convenient?
Yours most respectfully,
D. B. COLTON.
_Letter from a Young Man._
COLCHESTER, CT., Nov. 1, 1843.
_Rev. George Ripley,_
SIR: My ideas of the principles of Industrial Association have been
obtained by reading the New York _Tribune_. I am convinced that
these principles are the elements out of which may be constructed that
true social order which shall develop man's physical well-being, and
call forth the mental and moral faculties of the soul.
My intention is to join some association of the kind now forming or
already in operation. Your Community has been spoken of as one of the
first and best in the country.
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