The idealist among idealists.
I found him frank and decided in his conversation; expressing his opinions of men and things with a modest firmness, but often in the most striking manner. I think it was in his second call on me that he used the language, “I believe in the Golden Rule, sir, and the Declaration of Independence. I think they both mean the same thing; and it is better that a whole generation should pass off the face of the earth — men, women, and children — by a violent death, than that one jot of either should fail in this country. I mean exactly so, sir.” I have twice or thrice heard him repeat this sentiment, which I particularly noticed at the time. He staid but a short time in Boston; but returned in February, and soon after appeared before a committee of the Massachusetts Legislature. .... In March he visited Concord, and spoke at a public meeting in the Town Hall, where, I am told, he exhibited the chain worn by his son John in Kansas, and, with a gesture and voice never to be forgotten by those who heard him, denounced the administration [191] and the South for their work in Kansas. He spent several days in Concord, and made the acquaintance of many of its citizens; among others, of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry D. Thoreau, who have testified so clearly to his nobility of character.Near the end of March, 1857, being on my way to Washington, I met Capt. Brown in New York City, and spent a night with him at the Metropolitan Hotel. Capt. Brown objected to the show and extravagance of such an establishment, and said he preferred a plain tavern, where drovers and farmers lodged in a plain way. We went on to Philadelphia, and while there I was taken unwell, and could scarcely sit up. Capt. Brown nursed me as much as I had need of, and showed great skill and tenderness. In May he set out for Kansas, and I lost sight of him for nearly a year.
