Before following him thither, it may be well to give at once such further references to this period of his life as are contained in the memoranda.

The following extract is undated: _"A propos_ of Emerson's death, Father Hecker said: 'I knew him well.
When I resolved to become a Catholic I was boarding at the house of Henry Thoreau's mother, a stone's-throw from Emerson's at Concord.'" "What did Thoreau say about it ?" "'What's the use of your joining the Catholic Church?
Can't you get along without hanging to her skirts ?' I suppose Emerson found it out from Thoreau, so he tried his best to get me out of the notion.

He invited me to tea with him, and he kept leading up to the subject and I leading away from it.

The next day he asked me to drive over with him to the Shakers, some fifteen miles.

We stayed over night, and all the way there and back he was fishing for my reasons, with the plain purpose of dissuading me.