the memoranda of private conversations with Father Hecker
we find several references to Mr. Alcott. The first bears date
February 4, 1882, and occurs in a conversation ranging over the
whole of his experience between his first and second departures
from home. We give it as it stands:

"Fruitlands was very different from Brook Farm--far more ascetic."

"You didn't like it?"

"Yes; but they did not begin to satisfy me. I said to them:
'If you had the Eternal here, all right. I would be with you.'"

"Had they no notion of the hereafter?"

"No; nothing definite. Their idea was human perfection. They set out
to demonstrate what man can do in the way of the supremacy of the
spiritual over the animal. 'All right,' I said, 'I agree with you
fully. I admire your asceticism; it is nothing new to me; I have
practised it a long time myself. If you can get the Everlasting out
of my mind, I'm yours. But I know' (here Father Hecker thumped the
table at his bedside) 'that I am going to live for ever.'"

"What did Alcott say when you left?"

"He went to Lane and said, 'Well, Hecker has flunked out. He hadn't
the courage to persevere. He's a coward.' But Lane said, 'No; you're
mistaken. Hecker's right. He wanted more than we had to give him.'"

Mr. Alcott's death in 1888 was the occasion of the reminiscences
which follow:

"March 5, 1888.--Bronson Alcott dead! I saw him coming from Rochester
on the cars. I had been a Catholic missionary for I don't know how
many years. We sat together. 'Father Hecker,' said he, 'why can't you
make a Catholic of me?' 'Too much rust here,' said I, clapping him on
the knee. He got very angry because I said that was the obstacle. I
never saw him angry at any other time. He was too proud.

"But he was a great natural man. He was faithful to pure, natural
conscience. His virtues came from that. He never had any virtue
beyond what a good pagan has. He never aimed at anything more, nor
claimed to. He maintained that to be all.

"I don't believe he ever prayed. Whom could he pray to? Was not
Bronson Alcott the greatest of all?"

"Did he believe in God?"

"Not the God that we know. He believed in the Bronson Alcott God. He
was his own God."

"You say he was Emerson's master: what do you mean by that?"

"He taught Emerson. He began life as a pedler. The Yankee pedler was
Emerson's master. Whatever principles Emerson had, Alcott gave him.
And Emerson was a good pupil; he was faithful to his master