One of the most picturesque figures of Concord in those days was A. Bronson Alcott. I knew him well as a friend of the family, but on looking back I visualize him in two places. He was very long, slab sided and lean, and what you would call pasty faced, with hair that fell to his shoulders. I can see him sitting in his abominable rustic chairs—with a disease that happens to trees making lumps all over them. He made this furniture himself and used to be very proud of it, but I used to run by like mad for fear of being asked to go in and sit on one of those benches, which I felt might make lumps all over me.
The other picture is Mr. Alcott sitting beside our teacher, a woman, at school. It was one of those first afternoons of spring when all outdoors is calling to boyhood and you can think of a thousand interesting things to do. But this strange creature took up a whole afternoon in reading Bunyan to us! Needless to say, I have sidestepped Bunyan ever since.
They tell a story of Mr. Alcott being accosted, in his youth, by a farmer in Bellows Falls, who asked:
“What do you do for a living, Mr. Alcott?”
“I write.”
“Hell! What?”
“Thoughts.”
“What for?”
“For posterity.”
Exit farmer.