full sympathy with the best spirit of his time. He had all the
distinctive American interest in public affairs. His conscience was as
sensitive to public wrongs and perilous tendencies as to private and
personal conduct. He voted with strong convictions, and wondered
sometimes that the course so plain to him was not equally plain to
others.

"It was a life with nothing of what we call achievement, and yet a life
beneficent to every other life that it touched, like a summer wind
laden with a thousand invisible seeds that, dropping everywhere, spring
up into flowers and fruit. It is a name which to most readers of these
words is wholly unknown, and which will not be written, like that of so
many of the friends of him who bore it, in our literature and upon the
memory of his countrymen. But to those who knew him well, and who
therefore loved him, it recalls the most essential human worth and
purest charm of character, the truest manhood, the most affectionate
fidelity. To those who hear of him now, and perhaps never again, these
words may suggest that the personal influences which most envelop and
sweeten life may escape fame, but live immortal in the best part of
other lives."

Among the signers was also Nathaniel Hawthorne, the writer, and it may
not be out of place to make here a few comments on his relation to the
Brook Farm life, so often alluded to by writers.

Hawthorne was an idealist in its broad sense. The idea of a juster and
more rational social state pleased him. He felt himself honored, and
was very grateful for the appreciation of the men and women by whom he
was surrounded in the literary circle of the Transcendental Club, but
he never surrendered the well-matured plan of his youth, to be a writer