Isaac Thomas Hecker writes to Thoreau:
It was not altogether the circumstance of our immediate physical nearness, tho this may [have] been the consequence of a higher affinity, that inspired us to commune with each other. This I am fully sensible since our seperation [sic]. Oftentimes we observe ourselves to be passive or cooperative agents of profounder principles than we at the time ever dream of.
I have been stimulated to write to you at this present moment on account of a certain project which I have formed in which your influence has no slight share I imagine in forming. It is to work our passage to Europe, and to walk, work, and beg, if needs be, as far when there as we are inclined to do. We wish to see how it looks. And to court difficulties, for we feel an unknown depth of untried virgin strength which we know of no better way at the present time to call into activity and so dispose of. We desire to go without purse or staff, depending upon the all embracing love of God, Humanity, and the spark of courage imprisoned in us. Have we the will we have the strong arms, and hands, to work with, and sound feet to stand upon, and walk with. The heavens shall be our vaulted roof, and the green Earth beneath our bed, and for all other furniture purposes. These are free and may be so used. What can hinder us from going but our bodies, and shall they do it. We can as well deposit them there as here. Let us take a walk over the fairest portions of the planet Earth and make it ours by seeing them. Let us see what the genius and stupidity of our honored fore fathers have heaped up. We wish to kneel at their shrines and embrace their spirits and kiss the ground which they have hallowed with their presence. We shall prove the dollar is not almighty and the impossible moonshine. The wide world is before us beckoning us to come let us accept and embrace it. Reality shall be our antagonist and our lives if sold not at a good bargain for a certainty.
How does the idea strike you? I prefer at least to go this way before going farther in the woods. The past let us take with us. We reverence; we love it, but forget not that our eyes are in our face set to the beautiful unimagined future. Let us be Janus faced with a beard and beardless face. Will you accept this invitation? Let me know what your impressions are. As soon as it is your pleasure.
Remember me to your kind family. Tomorrow I take the first step towards becoming a visible member of the Roman Catholic Church.
If you and your good family do not become greater sinners I shall claim you all as good catholics, for she claims all baptized infants; all innocent children of every religious denomination; and all grown up Christians who have preserved their baptismal innocence, though they make no outward profession of the Catholic faith; are yet claimed as her children by the Roman Catholic Church.
Yours Very Truly
Isaac Hecker
“A good deal had happened to Hecker since the last correspondence in December when Charles Lane mentioned him to Thoreau. Hecker had come to Concord in April in order to study Latin and Greek under a schoolmaster friend of his and Emerson’s, George Patridge Bradford. He had roomed at the Thoreau house at a cost of seventy-five cents a week. Hecker went back to New York in June, his religious problems settled in his mind, to join the Catholic Church.”
Thoreau replies 14 August.
Hecker also writes in his journal:
