the worldly.

"Here at Brook Farm I become acquainted with persons who have moved
in a higher rank in society than I--persons of good education and
fine talents; all of which has an improving influence on me. And I
meet with those to whom I can speak, and feel that, to a great
degree, I am understood and responded to. In New York I am alone in
the midst of people. I am not in any internal sense _en rapport_ with
them.

"I suppose the reason why I do not, in my present state, feel
disposed to connect myself with any being, and would rather avoid a
person whom I was conscious I might or could love, is that I feel my
life to be in a rapid progress, and that no step now would be a
permanent one. I am afraid the choice I would have made some time
since (_if there had not been something deeply secret in my being
which prevented me_) would now be very unsatisfactory. I feel
conscious there could not have been an equal and mutual advance,
because the natures of some are not capable of much growth. And I
mistrust whether there would not have been an inequality, hence
disharmony and unhappiness.

"To be required to accept your past is most unpleasant. Perhaps the
society with which I was surrounded did not afford a being that
unified with mine own. And I have faith that there are spiritual laws
beneath all this outward framework of sight and sense, which will, if
rightly believed in and trusted, lead to the goal of eternal life,
harmony of being, and union with God. So I accept my being led here.
Am I superstitious or egoistic in believing this? This is, no doubt,
disputed territory. Have we any objective rule to compare our faith
with which would give us the measure of our superstition? How much of
to-day would have seemed miraculous or superstitious to the past? I
confess I have no rule or measure to judge the faith of any man.

"The past is always the state of infancy. The present is an eternal
youth, aspiring after manhood; hoping wistfully, intensely desiring,
listfully listening, dimly seeing the bright star of hope in the
future, beckoning him to move rapidly on, while his strong heart
beats with enthusiasm and glowing joy. The past is dead. Wish me not
the dead from the grave, for that would be death re-enacted. . . .

"Oh, were our wishes in harmony with heaven, how changed would be the
scenes of our life! . . . This accordance would be music which only
the angels now hear--too delicate for beings such as we are at