He is as ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic, though courteous, manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior.

But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty." Alcott helped build the hut at Walden, and he and Emerson spent many an evening there in conversation that must have delighted the gods--in so far as they understood it.
Of Alcott and their winter evenings, Thoreau has said, "One of the last of the philosophers.

Connecticut gave him to the world,--he peddled first his wares, afterwards, as he declares, his brains; these he peddles still, prompting God and disgracing man, bearing for fruit his brain only, like the nut in the kernel.

His words and attitude always suppose a better state of things than other men are acquainted with, and he will be the last man to be disappointed as the ages revolve.

A true friend of man, almost the only friend of human progress.