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236 nature. To her also, he complained of his unfitness for practical work; again, in a letter to her, already mentioned, he wrote one of his very few references to the death of his brother, John.

The names of Thoreau and Alcott have been often linked as vague idealists; both have also been called imitators of Emerson. It was once said of Alcott, with more wit than justice, "Emerson is the seer,—and Alcott the seer-sucker." While Alcott and Thoreau were friends, while both were extreme idealists, while both placed the soul-nourishment far superior to the body-maintenance, while both contended for reform from the drudgery and extravagance of society, they had wholly dissimilar natal traits. Alcott's serene, unanxious acceptance of practical perplexities caused Thoreau grave speculation; the artistic and improvident nature of Alcott, always impractical and easily duped, was in marked contrast to the exact, shrewd, busy temperament of Thoreau, who was a model of Yankee in genuity and thrift, no less than type of nature-poet and philosopher. Reference has been made to the Emerson garden-study, designed by Alcott and condemned by Thoreau for its geometric and mechanical defects. Thoreau, however, always had a tender regard for the mystical, Platonic philosopher, whose idea of heaven was "a place