"He was the life of the family circle," says one who knew the Hecker household intimately; "he loved his people, and was loved by them with great intensity, and his going away must have been most painful to him as well as to them." On this point the memoranda, so often to be referred to, contain some words of his own to the same purport.

They were spoken early in 1882: "You know I had to leave my business--a good business it was getting to be, too.

I tell you, it was agony to give everything up--friends, prospects in life and old associates; things for which by nature I had a very strong attachment.

But I could not help it; I was driven from it.

I wanted something more; something I had not been able to find.