Journal for October 17, 1840

Yesterday George & Sophia Ripley, Margaret Fuller & Alcott discussed here the new social plans. I wished to be convinced, to be thawed, to be made nobly mad by the kindlings before my eye of a new dawn of human piety. But this scheme is arithmetic & comfort; this was a hint borrowed from the Tremont House and U.S. Hotel; a rage in our poverty & politics to live rich & gentleman like, an anchor to leeward against a change of weather; a prudent forecast on the probable issue of the great questions of pauperism and & prosperity. And not once could I be inflamed – but sat aloof & thoughtless, my voice faltered & fell. It was not the cave of persecution which is the palace of spiritual power, but only a room in the Astor House hired for the Transcendentalists. I do not wish to remove from my present prison to a prison a little larger. I wish to break all prisons. I have not yet conquered my own house. It irks & repents me. Shall I raise the siege of this hencoop & march baffled away to a pretended seige of Babylon? It seems to me that so to do were to dodge the problem I am set to solve and to hide my impotency in the thick of a crowd. I can see too afar that I should not find myself more than now, – no, not so much, in that select, but not by me selected, fraternity.