fe
might not, by themselves, be sufficient to explain the discontent of
a poetic and aspiring nature such as his.

He was at Brook Farm when that community was at its pleasantest. The
shadow of care and the premonition of failure were, indeed, already
looming up before those who bore the chief responsibilities of the
undertaking, but the group by virtue of whose presence it became
famous had hardly begun to dwindle. And besides those whose names
have since become well known, there were others, young, gay,
intelligent, and well bred, acquaintance and familiarity with whom
were in many ways attractive to a susceptible youth like Isaac
Hecker. What impression he made upon the circle he entered, how
cordially he was received and held in high esteem, our readers
already know. And if he gave pleasure, he received it also. At first
the new circumstances were a little strange and embarrassing to him.
After a fortnight, or thereabouts, we find him noting that he is "not
one of their spirits. They say 'Mr. Hecker' in a tone they do not use
in speaking to each other." But the strangeness soon wore off and he
yielded to the influence of the place with a wholeness which would
have been entire but for the stronger drawing which never let him
free.

On this point, too, the witness of the journal is peremptory. So it
is as to the unity and consistence of his interior experiences from
first to last. Child, and boy, and man, there was always the same
ardent sincerity of purpose in him, the same docility to the Voice
that spoke within, the same attitude toward "the life that now is"
which Mr. Curtis, in the letter given in the preceding chapter, has
described, with so fine an insight, as one of reserve and
observation. "He was the dove floating in the air, not yet finding
the spot on which his foot might rest," writes Mr. Curtis of Isaac
Hecker at that period of his youth when his surroundings and
companions were for the first time, and very possibly for the last,
wholly congenial to his natural inclinations. And again: "There was
nothing ascetic or severe in him; but I have often thought since that
his feeling was probably what he might have afterward described as a
consciousness that he must be about his Father's business."

These words are significant testimony to the nobility of the
impression made on others by Father Hecker's personality in early
manhood. Even if our only addition to such scanty knowledge of his
life at Brook Fa