of goodness. I do not think that the impression made by him forecast his
career, or, in any degree, the leadership which he afterwards held in his
Church. But everybody who knew him at that time must recall his charming
amiability.

I think that he did not remain at Brook Farm for a whole year, and when
later he went to Belgium to study theology at the seminary of Mons he
wrote me many letters, which, I am sorry to say, have disappeared. I
remember that he labored with friendly zeal to draw me to his Church, and
at his request I read some writing of St. Alphonse of Liguori. Gradually
our correspondence declined when I was in Europe, and was never resumed;
nor do I remember seeing him again more than once, many years ago. There
was still in the clerical figure, which was very strange to me, the old
sweetness of smile and address; there was some talk of the idyllic days,
some warm words of hearty good-will, but our interests were very
different, and, parting, we went our separate ways. For a generation we
lived in the same city, yet we never met. But I do not lose the bright
recollection of Ernest the Seeker, nor forget the frank, ardent, generous,
manly youth, Isaac Hecker.

Very truly yours,

George William Curtis."

One of the teachers at Brook Farm was George P. Bradford, who left there
at about the same time Curtis did, and was then a tutor in Concord. When
the account of philosophy in Boston was left uncompleted by Ripley,
Bradford finished it for the "Memorial History of Boston." While living in
the Old Manse in Concord, Hawthorne wrote to Margaret Fuller: "I have
thought of receiving a personal friend, and a man of delicacy, into my