for me. Alas! him I must leave
to go."

In this final sentence, as it now stands in the diary and as we have
transcribed it, occurs one of those efforts of which we have spoken,
to obliterate the traces of this early attachment. "Him" was
originally written "her," but the _r_ has been lengthened to an _m,_
and the _e_ dotted, both with a care which overshot their mark by an
almost imperceptible hair's-breadth. If the nature of this attachment
were not so evident from other sources, we should have left such
passages unquoted; fearing lest they might be misunderstood. As it
is, the light they cast seems to us to throw up into fuller
proportions the kind and extent of the renunciations to which Isaac
Hecker was called before he had arrived at any clear view of the end
to which they tended.

"Fruitlands, July 12.--Last evening I arrived here. After tea I went
out in the fields and raked hay for an hour in company with the
persons here. We returned and had a conversation on Clothing. Some
very fine things were said by Mr. Alcott and Mr. Lane. In most of
their thoughts I coincide; they are the same which of late have much
occupied my mind. Alcott said that to Emerson the world was a
lecture-room, to Brownson a rostrum.

"This morning after breakfast a conversation was held on Friendship
and its laws and conditions. Mr. Alcott placed Innocence first;
Larned, Thoughtfulness; I, Seriousness; Lane, Fidelity.

"July 13.--This morning after breakfast there was held a conversation
on The Highest Aim. Mr. Alcott said it was Integrity; I, Harmonic
being; Lane, Progressive being; Larned, Annihilation of self; Bower,
Repulsion of the evil in us. Then there was a confession of the
obstacles which prevent us from attaining the highest aim. Mine was
the doubt whether the light is light; not the want of will to follow,
or the sight to see."

"July 17.--I cannot understand what it is that leads me, or what I am
after. Being is incomprehensible.

"What shall I be led to? Is there a being whom I may marry and who
would be the means of opening my eyes? Sometimes I think so--but it
appears impossible. Why should others tell me that it is so, and will
be so, in an unconscious way, as Larned did on Sunday last, and as
others have before him? Will I be led home? It strikes me these
people here, Alcott and Lane, will be a great deal to me. I do not
know but they may be what I am looking for, or the answer to that in
me which is asking.

"