is not settled, or as it used to be, is no reason to be troubled, for
I hope it is not changing for the worse, and I look forward to
brighter days than we have seen in those that are gone. I was
conscious my last letter was not written in a manner to give you
ease; but to break those old habits of our accustomed communion was
to me a serious task, and done under a sense of duty, to let you know
the cause of the disease I was supposed to labor under. That is past
now, and I hope we shall understand each other, and that our future
will be smooth and easy. The ice has been broken. That caused me some
pain but no regret, and instead of feeling sorrow, you will, I hope,
be contented that I should continue the path that will make me
better."

Concerning Isaac Hecker's residence at Brook Farm, which was begun
about the middle of the following January, we shall have more to say
hereafter. At present our concern is chiefly with those explanations
of his conduct and motives which the anxieties of his family
continually forced him to attempt. There is, however, among the
papers belonging to this period one which, although found with the
letters, was evidently so included by mistake, and at some later
date. It is an outpouring still more intimate than he was able to
make for the enlightenment of others, and is the first vestige of a
diary which has been found. But it seems plain that his longing for
what he continually calls "communion," and the effort to divine the
will of Providence in his regard, must frequently have urged him to
that introspective self-contemplation so common to natures like his
before their time for action has arrived. We make some brief extracts
from this document which illustrates, still more plainly than any of
the letters, the fact that the interior pressure to which he was
subjected had for its uniform tendency and result his vivid