“[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 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 passages 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.]”[9] Footnote 9: Walter Elliott’s _Life of Father Hecker_. * * * * * 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 places 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 want of will to follow, or light 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 done 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.