Alcott visited Concord first in October, 1835, and found that he and Emerson had many things in common, but he entered in his diary, “Mr. Emerson’s fine literary taste is sometimes in the way of a clear and hearty acceptance of the spiritual.”  Again, he naively congratulates himself that he has found a man who could appreciate his theories.  “Emerson sees me, knows me, and, more than all others, helps me,—­not by noisy praise, not by low appeals to interest and passion, but by turning the eye of others to my stand in reason and the nature of things.  Only men of like vision can apprehend and counsel each other.”

With the exception of Hawthorne, there was among the men of Concord a tendency to over-estimate one another.  For the most part, they took themselves and each other very seriously; even Emerson’s subtle sense of humor did not save him from yielding to this tendency, which is illustrated in the following page from Hawthorne’s journal: 

“About nine o’clock (Sunday) Hilliard and I set out on a walk to Walden Pond, calling by the way at Mr. Emerson’s to obtain his guidance or directions.  He, from a scruple of his eternal conscience, detained us until after the people had got into church, and then he accompanied us in his own illustrious person.  We turned aside a little from our way to visit Mr. Hosmer, a yeoman, of whose homely and self-acquired wisdom Mr. Emerson has a very high opinion.”  “He had a fine flow of talk, and not much diffidence about his own opinions.  I was not impressed with any remarkable originality in his views, but they were sensible and characteristic.  Methought, however, the good yeoman was not quite so natural as he may have been at an earlier period.  The simplicity of his character has probably suffered by his detecting the impression he makes on those around him.  There is a circle, I suppose, who look up to him as an oracle, and so he inevitably assumes the oracular manner, and speaks as if truth and wisdom were attiring themselves by his voice.  Mr. Emerson has risked the doing him much mischief by putting him in print,—­a trial few persons can sustain without losing their unconsciousness.  But, after all, a man gifted with thought and expression, whatever his rank in life and his mode of uttering himself, whether by pen or tongue, cannot be expected to go through the world without finding himself out; and, as all such discoveries are partial and imperfect, they do more harm than good to the character.  Mr. Hosmer is more natural than ninety-nine men out of a hundred, and is certainly a man of intellectual and moral substance.  It would be amusing to draw a parallel between him and his admirer,—­Mr. Emerson, the mystic, stretching his hand out of cloudland in vain search for something real; and the man of sturdy sense, all whose ideas seem to be dug out of his mind, hard and substantial, as he digs his potatoes, carrots, beets, and turnips out of the earth.  Mr. Emerson is a great searcher for facts, but they seem to melt away and become unsubstantial in his grasp.”