“Very kindly, but from mixed and selfish motives. I suspect he wanted me because he thought I would bring money to the Community. Lane was entirely unselfish.”
“Alcott was a man of great intellectual gifts or acquirements. His knowledge came chiefly from experience and instinct. He had an insinuating and persuasive way with him.”
“What if he had been a Catholic, and thoroughly sanctified?”
“He could have been nothing but a hermit like those of the fourth century—he was naturally and constitutionally so odd. Emerson, Alcott, and Thoreau were three consecrated cranks.”
Here also are two interesting passages from the “Life of Father Hecker,” and a few memoranda of private conversations:—
“Somebody once described ‘Fruitlands’ as a place where Mr. Alcott looked benign and talked philosophy, while Mrs. Alcott and the children did the work. Still to look benign is a good deal for a man to do persistently in an adverse world, indifferent for the most part to the charms of ‘divine philosophy,’ and Mr. Alcott persevered in that exercise until his latest day.”
“He was unquestionably one of those who like to sit upon a platform,” wrote at the time of his death, one who knew Alcott well, “and he may have liked to feel that his venerable aspect had the effect of a benediction.” “But with this mild criticism, censure of him is well-nigh exhausted.”
“Fruitlands was very different from Brook Farm—far more ascetic.”
“You didn’t like it?”