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VIII: Emerson's “foot-note person,” --Alcott
The phrase “foot-note person” was first introduced into our literature by one of the most acute and original of the anonymous writers in the Atlantic Monthly (July, 1906), one by whose consent I am permitted to borrow it for my present purpose.
Its originator himself suggests, as an illustration of what he means, the close relation which existed through life between
Ralph Waldo Emerson and his less famous
Concord neighbor,
Amos Bronson Alcott.
The latter was doubtless regarded by the world at large as a mere “foot-note” to his famous friend, while he yet was doubtless the only literary contemporary to whom
Emerson invariably and candidly deferred, regarding him, indeed, as unequivocally the leading philosophic or inspirational mind of his day. Let this “foot-note,” then, be employed as the text for frank discussion of what was, perhaps, the most unique and picturesque personality developed during the Transcendental period of our American literature.
Let us consider the career of one who was born with as little that seemed advantageous
