record of his impressions made by Isaac Hecker while at Fruitlands.
Our first extract, however, was written at Brook Farm, a few days
before going thither:

"July 7, 1843.--I go to Mr. Alcott's next Tuesday, if nothing
happens. I have had three pairs of coarse pants and a coat made for
me. It is my intention to commence work as soon as I get there. I
will gradually simplify my dress without making any sudden
difference, although it would be easier to make a radical and
thorough change at once than piece by piece. But this will be a
lesson in patient perseverance to me. All our difficulties should be
looked at in such a light as to improve and elevate our minds.

"I can hardly prevent myself from saying how much I shall miss the
company of those whom I love and associate with here. But I must go.
I am called with a stronger voice. This is a different trial from any
I have ever had. I have had that of leaving kindred, but now I have
that of leaving those whom I love from affinity. If I wished to live
a life the most gratifying to me, and in agreeable company, I
certainly would remain here. Here are refining amusements, cultivated
persons--and one whom I have not spoken of, one who is too much to me
to speak of, one who would leave all 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