Isaac Thomas Hecker writes in reply to Thoreau’s letter of 14 August:
I know not but that I shall receive an answer to the letter I sent you a fortnight ago before you will receive this one, however as the idea of making an indefinite pedestrian tour on the other side of the Atlantic has in all possible ways increased in my imagination and given me a desire to add a few more words on the project I will do it in the hope of stimulating you to a decision. How the thought has struck you I know not, its impractibility or impossibility in the judgment of others would not I feel assured deter you in any way from the undertaking, it would rather be a stimulus to the purpose I think in you as it is in me. Tis impossible; Sir, therefore we do it. The conceivable is possible, it is in harmony with the inconceivable, we should act. Our true life is in the can-not, to do what we can do is to do nothing, is death. Silence is much more respectable than repetition. The idea of making such a tour I have opened to one or two who I thought might throw some light on the subject. I asked the opinion of the Catholic Bishop [John McCloskey] who has travelled considerable in Europe but I find that in every man there are certain things within him which are beyond the ken & counsel of others. The age is so effeminate that it is too timid to give heroic counsel. It neither will enter the kingdom of heaven or have others to do so. I feel, and believe you feel so too, that to doubt the ability to realize such a thought is only worthy of a smile & pity. We feel ourself mean in conceiving such a feasable [sic] thing and would keep it silent. This is not sufficient self abandonment for our being, scarce enough to affect it. To die is easy, scarce worth a thought, but to be and live is an inconceivable greatness. It would be folly to sit still and starve from mere emptiness, but to leave behind the casement in battling for some hidden idea is an attitude beyond conception a monument more durable than the chisel can sculptor. I imagine us walking among the past and present greatness of our ancestors (for the present in fact the present of the old world to us is ancient) doing reverence to their remaining glory. If tho I am inclined to bow more lowly to the spiritual hero than the exhibition of great physical strength still not all of that primitive heroic blood of our forefathers has been lost before it reached our veins. We feel it exult some times as tho it were cased in steel and the huge broad axe of Co[e]ur de Lion seems glitter[i]ng before us and we awake in another world as in a dream. I know of no other person but you that would be induced to go on such an excursion. The idea and yourself were almost instantaneous. If needs be for a few dollars we can get across the ocean. The ocean, if but to cross this being like being it were not unprofitable. The Bishop thought it might be done with a certain amount of funds to depend on. If this makes it practible for others to us it will be but sport. It is useless for me to speak thus to you for if there are reasons for your not going they are others than these.
You will inform me how you are inclined as soon as practible. Half inclined I sometimes feel to go alone if I cannot get your company. I do not know now what could have directed my steps to Concord other than this. May it prove so. It is only the fear of death makes us reason of impossibilities. We shall possess all if we but abandon ourselves.
Yours sincerely
Isaac-
