"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