I felt was a dark, irresistible influence upon me that led
me away from home. What it was I know not. What keeps me here I
cannot tell. It is only when I struggle against it that a spell comes
over me. If I give up to it, nothing is the matter with me. But when
I look to my past, my duty toward you all, and consider what this may
lead me to, and then attempt to return, I get into a state which I
cannot speak of . . .

"By attempt to return I mean an attempt to return to my old life, for
so I have to call it--that is, to get clear of this influence. And
yet I have no will to will against it. I do not desire it, or its
mode of living, and I am opposed to its tendency.

"What bearing this has upon the question of my coming home you will
perceive. As soon as I can come, I will. If I should do so now, it
would throw me back to the place from which I started. Is this fancy
on my part? All I can say is that if so the last nine or ten months
of my life have been a fancy which is too deep for me to control."

After paying his family a visit in April, he writes to them on his
return:

"Brook Farm, April 14, 1843.--Here I am alone in my room once more.
I feel settled, and begin to live again, separated from everything
but my studies and thoughts, and the feeling of gratitude toward you
all for treating me so much better than I am aware of ever having
treated you. May I ever keep this sense of obligation and
indebtedness. My prayer is, that the life I have been led to live
these few months back may prove to the advantage of us all in the
end. I sometimes feel guilty because I did not attempt again to try
and labor with you. But the power that kept me back, its hold upon
me, its strength over me, all that I am unable to communicate, makes
my situation appear strange to others, and to myself irreconcilable
with my former state. Still, I trust that, in a short period, all
things will take their peaceful and orderly course."

TO GEORGE HECKER.--"Brook Farm, May 12, 1843.--How much nearer to
you I feel on account of your good letter you cannot estimate--nearer
than when we slept in the same bed. Nearness of body is no evidence
of the distance between souls, for I imagine Christ loved His mother
very tenderly when He said, 'Woman, what have I to do with thee?'"

"I have felt, time and again, that either I would have to give up the
life that was struggling in me, or withdraw from business in the way
that we pursue it. This I had lo