Concord named the strangers “the English Mystics” and received them cordially into the inner circle of literary men which formed the group now spoken of as the “Concord Philosophers.” Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Ellery Channing, and others became their friends, and listened to their plans for forming universal brotherhood. Emerson’s description of Charles Lane was this:— * * * * * “A man of fine intellectual nature, inspired and hallowed by a profound faith. This is no man of letters, but a man of ideas. Deep opens below deep in his thought, and for the solution of each new problem, he recurs, with new success to the highest truth, to that which is most generous, most simple, and most powerful; to that which cannot be comprehended, or overseen, or exhausted. His words come to us like the voices of home out of a far country.” * * * * * In the mean time the trunks containing the books chosen in England with so much care were opened, and lists were made of their contents. It was either Emerson or Thoreau who inserted a notice of them in “The Dial,” the famous periodical to which the literary men and women of this noted circle contributed. It ran thus: “Mr. Alcott and Mr. Lane have recently brought from England a small, but valuable library, amounting to about 1000 volumes, containing undoubtedly a richer collection of mystical writers than any other library in this country. To the select library of the late J. P. Greaves, ‘held by Mr. Lane in trust for universal ends,’ they have added many works of a like character, by purchase or received as gifts. In their Catalogue ... they say, ‘The titles of these books are now submitted, in the expectation that this Library is the commencement of an Institution for the nurture of men in universal freedom of action, thought, and being. We print this list, not only because our respect is engaged to views so liberal, but because the arrival of this cabinet of mystic and theosophic lore is a remarkable fact in our literary history.’” Mr. Sanborn, referring to this library in his “Bronson Alcott,” says: “It was this collection which, in the summer of 1843, occupied a hundred feet of shelving in the old red farmhouse at Fruitlands.” [Illustration: THE SMALL ENTRY WHERE THE VALUABLE BOOKS WERE KEPT ] * * * * *