Early Letters of George William Curtis | Page 8

was
full of sensibility, and of an indolent turn of mind. Emerson was
attracted to him, and at one time had great expectations concerning his
genius. His paper, published in The Dial, under the title of "The Two
Dolons," was much admired by some of the Transcendentalists when it
was printed there; and it is referred to by Hawthorne in his "Hall of
Phantasy." In June, 1842, Emerson wrote to Margaret Fuller: "I wish
you to know that I have 'Dolon' in black and white, and that I account
Charles N. a true genius; his writing fills me with joy, so simple, so
subtle, and so strong is it. There are sentences in 'Dolon' worth the
printing of The Dial that they may go forth." This paper was given him
for publication at Emerson's urgent request, and it is not known that
Newcomb has published anything else. In 1850 Emerson said he had
come to doubt Newcomb's genius, having found that he did not care for
an audience.
Another person of whom Curtis speaks is Isaac Hecker, who became a
member of the Catholic Church, under the guidance of Orestes
Brownson. He was born in New York City, was brought up under
Methodist auspices, became a baker, developed a strong taste for

philosophy, and went to Brook Farm at the age of twenty-two. He
remained for a few months as a student, and then tried Alcott's
Fruitlands for a fortnight. He was naturally of an ascetic turn of mind,
loved mystic books and philosophy, and found in the Catholic Church
his true religious home. He secured at Brook Farm a kind of culture
which he much needed, and his abilities were seen by those around him.
After his return to New York, Ripley, and Charles Lane, of Fruitlands,
wrote him in a way which indicated their faith in him as a man of
judgment and liberal aims. He spent some months in Concord, had
George P. Bradford for his tutor, and he rented a room of Mrs. Thoreau,
the mother of Henry D. Thoreau. There again he met the Curtis
brothers; but soon after he went to Holland to prepare for the
priesthood, and then entered upon his life-work. A curious phase in the
life of this time was the effort of Hecker to convert Curtis to his own
way of religious thinking, as Curtis relates in his letters. Even more
singular was the attempt of Hecker to persuade Thoreau into the
Catholic Church. Mr. Sanborn has read a letter in which he proposed to
Thoreau to travel on foot with him in Europe. His real purpose seems to
have been to get Thoreau away from Protestants, and among the
influences of the Catholic churches and traditions, and thus to make a
convert of him. In a letter printed in Father Elliott's biography of Father
Hecker, Curtis gave an account of his acquaintance with the founder of
the order of the Paulist Fathers.
"WEST NEW BRIGHTON, STATEN ISLAND, _February 28, 1890._
Dear Sir,--I fear that my recollections of Father Hecker will be of little
service to you, for they are very scant. But the impression of the young
man whom I knew at Brook Farm is still vivid. It must have been in the
year 1843 that he came to the Farm in West Roxbury, near Boston. He
was a youth of twenty-three, of German aspect, and I think his face was
somewhat seamed with small-pox. But his sweet and candid expression,
his gentle and affectionate manner, were very winning. He had an air of
singular refinement and self-reliance combined with a half-eager
inquisitiveness, and upon becoming acquainted with him, I told him
that he was Ernest the Seeker, which was the title of a story of mental
unrest which William Henry Channing was then publishing in The
Dial.
Hecker, or, as I always called him and think of him, Isaac, had

apparently come to Brook Farm because it was a result of the
intellectual agitation of the time which had reached and touched him in
New York. He had been bred a baker, he told me, and I remember with
what satisfaction he said to me, 'I am sure of my livelihood, because I
can make good bread.' His powers in this way were most satisfactorily
tested at the Farm, or, as it was generally called, 'the Community,'
although it was in no other sense a community than an association of
friendly workers in common. He was drawn to Brook Farm by the
belief that its life would be at least agreeable to his convictions and
tastes, and offer him the society of those who might answer some of his
questions, even if they could not satisfy his longings.
By what influence his mind was first affected by the moral movement