Life of Father Hecker Part 7

"Our purposes, as far as we know them at present, are briefly these:

"First, to obtain the free use of a spot of land adequate by our own labor to our support; including, of course, a convenient plain house, and offices, wood-lot, garden, and orchard.

"Secondly, to live independently of foreign aids by being sufficiently elevated to procure all articles for subsistence in the productions of the spot, under a regimen of healthful labor and recreation; with benignity towards all creatures, human and inferior; with beauty and refinement in all economies; and the purest charity throughout our demeanor.

"Should this kind of life attract parties towards us--individuals of like aims and issues--that state of being itself determines the law of a.s.sociation; and the particular mode may be spoken of more definitely as individual cases may arise; but, in no case, could inferior ends compromise the principles laid down.

"Doubtless such a household, with our library, our services and manner of life, may attract young men and women, possibly also families with children, desirous of access to the channels and fountain of wisdom and purity; and we are not without hope that Providence will use us progressively for beneficial effects in the great work of human regeneration, and the restoration of the highest life on earth.

"With the humane wish that yourself and little ones may be led to confide in providential Love,

"I am, dear friend, very truly yours,

"A. BRONSON ALCOTT."

It must be admitted that there is something delightful in the _navete_ of this undertaking to be "sufficiently elevated to live independently of foreign aids," after first getting "the _free use_ of a spot of land, . . . including, _of course,_ a convenient plain house, and offices, wood-lot, garden, and orchard." Establishments which would tolerably approximate to this description, and to the really essential needs of its prospective founder, have long existed in every civilized community. There are certain restrictions placed upon their inmates, however, and Mr. Alcott's desire was to make sure of his basis of earthly supplies, while left entirely free to persuade himself that he had arrived at an elevation which made him independent of them. Still, though "a charlatan," it must not be forgotten that he was "an innocent" one. He was plainly born great in that way, and had no need to achieve greatness in it. As Father Hecker said of him long afterwards, "Diogenes and his tub would have been Alcott's ideal if he had carried it out. But he never carried it out." Diogenes himself, it may be supposed, had his ideal included a family and an audience as well as a tub, might finally have come to hold that the finding of the latter was a mere detail, which could be entrusted indifferently to either of the two former or to both combined. 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. There was nothing of the Patriarch of Bleeding Heart Yard about him except that "venerable aspect," for which nature was responsible, and not he.

Fruitlands was the caricature of Brook Farm. Just as the fanatic is the caricature of the true reformer, so was Alcott the caricature of Ripley. This is not meant as disparaging either Alcott's sincerity or his intelligence, but to affirm that he lacked judgment, that he miscalculated means and ends, that he jumped from theory to practice without a moment's interval, preferred to be guided by instinct rather than by processes of reasoning, and deemed this to be the philosopher's way.

In the memoranda of private conversations with Father Hecker we find several references to Mr. Alcott. The first bears date February 4, 1882, and occurs in a conversation ranging over the whole of his experience between his first and second departures from home. We give it as it stands:

"Fruitlands was very different from Brook Farm--far more ascetic."

"You didn't like it?"

"Yes; but they did not begin to satisfy me. I said to them: 'If you had the Eternal here, all right. I would be with you.'"

"Had they no notion of the hereafter?"

"No; nothing definite. Their idea was human perfection. They set out to demonstrate what man can do in the way of the supremacy of the spiritual over the animal. 'All right,' I said, 'I agree with you fully. I admire your asceticism; it is nothing new to me; I have practised it a long time myself. If you can get the Everlasting out of my mind, I'm yours. But I know' (here Father Hecker thumped the table at his bedside) 'that I am going to live for ever.'"

"What did Alcott say when you left?"

"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 G.o.d?"

"Not the G.o.d that we know. He believed in the Bronson Alcott G.o.d. He was his own G.o.d."

"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 Emerson's master. Whatever principles Emerson had, Alcott gave him.

And Emerson was a good pupil; he was faithful to his master to the end.

"When did I know him first? Hard to remember. He was the head of Fruitlands, as Ripley was of Brook Farm. They were entirely different men. Diogenes and his tub would have been Alcott's ideal if he had carried it out. But he never carried it out. Ripley's ideal would have been Epictetus. Ripley would have taken with him the good things of this life; Alcott would have rejected them all."

"How did he receive you at Fruitlands?"

"Very kindly, but from mixed and selfish motives. I suspected he wanted me because he thought I would bring money to the community.

Lane was entirely unselfish.

"Alcott was a man of no great intellectual gifts or acquirements. His knowledge came chiefly from experience and instinct. He had an insinuating and persuasive way with him--he must have been an ideal pedler."

"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 const.i.tutionally so odd. Emerson, Alcott, and Th.o.r.eau were three consecrated cranks: rather be crank than president. All the cranks look up to them."

Beside these later reminiscences we shall now place the contemporary 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 coa.r.s.e 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 a.s.sociate 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 were not so evident from other sources, we should have left such pa.s.sages unquoted; fearing lest they might be misunderstood. As it is, the light they cast seems to us to throw up into fuller proportions the kind and extent of the renunciations to which Isaac Hecker was called before he had arrived at any clear view of the end to which they tended.

"Fruitlands, July 12.--Last evening I arrived here. After tea I went out in the fields and raked hay for an hour in company with the persons here. We returned and had a conversation on Clothing. Some very fine things were said by Mr. Alcott and Mr. Lane. In most of their thoughts I coincide; they are the same which of late have much occupied my mind. Alcott said that to Emerson the world was a lecture-room, to Brownson a rostrum.

"This morning after breakfast a conversation was held on Friendship and its laws and conditions. Mr. Alcott placed Innocence first; Larned, Thoughtfulness; I, Seriousness; Lane, Fidelity.

"July 13.--This morning after breakfast there was held a conversation on The Highest Aim. Mr. Alcott said it was Integrity; I, Harmonic being; Lane, Progressive being; Larned, Annihilation of self; Bower, Repulsion of the evil in us. Then there was a confession of the obstacles which prevent us from attaining the highest aim. Mine was the doubt whether the light is light; not the want of will to follow, or the sight to see."

"July 17.--I cannot understand what it is that leads me, or what I am after. Being is incomprehensible.

"What shall I be led to? Is there a being whom I may marry and who would be the means of opening my eyes? Sometimes I think so--but it appears impossible. Why should others tell me that it is so, and will be so, in an unconscious way, as Larned did on Sunday last, and as others have before him? Will I be led home? It strikes me these people here, Alcott and Lane, will be a great deal to me. I do not know but they may be what I am looking for, or the answer to that in me which is asking.

"Can I say it? I believe it should be said. Here I cannot end. They are too near me; they do not awaken in me that sense of their high superiority which would keep me here to be bettered, to be elevated.

They have much, very much. I desire Mr. Alcott's strength of self-denial, and the unselfishness of Mr. Lane in money matters. In both these they are far my superiors. I would be meek, humble, and sit at their feet that I might be as they are. They do not understand me, but if I am what my consciousness, my heart, lead me to feel--if I am not deceived--why then I can wait. Yes, patiently wait. Is not this the first time since I have been here that I have recovered myself? Do I not feel that I have something to receive here, to add to, to increase my highest life, which I have never felt anywhere else?

"Is this sufficient to keep me here? If I can prophesy, I must say no. I feel that it will not fill my capacity. O G.o.d! strengthen my resolution. Let me not waver, and continue my life. But I am sinful.

Oh, forgive my sins! What shall I do, O Lord! that they may be blotted out? Lord, could I only blot them from my memory, nothing would be too great or too much."

"July 18.--I have thought of my family this afternoon, and the happiness and love with which I might return to them. To leave them, to give up the thought of living with them again--can I entertain that idea? Still, I cannot conceive how I can engage in business, share the practices, and indulge myself with the food and garmenture (_sic_) of our home and city. To return home, were it possible for me, would most probably not only stop my progress, but put me back.

"It is useless for me to speculate upon my future. Put dependence on the spirit which leads me, be faithful to it; work, and leave results to G.o.d. If the question should be asked me, whether I would give up my kindred and business and follow out this spirit-life, or return and enjoy them both, I could not hesitate a moment, for they would not compare--there would be no room for choice. What I do I must do, for it is not I that do it; it is the spirit. What that spirit may be is a question I cannot answer, What it leads me to do will be the only evidence of its character. I feel as impersonal as a stranger to it. I ask, Who are you? Where are you going to take me? Why me? Why not some one else? I stand amazed, astonished to see myself. Alas! I cry, who am I and what does this mean? and I am lost in wonder."

"Sat.u.r.day, July 21.--Yesterday, after supper, a conversation took place between Mr. Alcott, Mr. Lane, and myself; the subject was my position with regard to my family, my duty, and my position here. Mr.

Alcott asked for my first impressions as regards the hindrances I have noted since coming here. I told him candidly they were: 1st, his want of frankness; 2d, his disposition to separateness rather than win co-operators with the aims in his own mind; 3d, his family, who prevent his immediate plans of reformation; 4th, the fact that this place has very little fruit on it, while it was and is their desire that fruit should be the princ.i.p.al part of their diet; 5th, my fear that they have too decided a tendency toward literature and writing for the prosperity and success of their enterprise.