Born in the upper echelons of society, he worked alongside immigrant laborers in the Pennsylvania mine run by his grandfather. This was a formative experience that resulted in his speaking publicly in his early twenties on liberal reform. '''Even before I began the study of economics,' he said in an early lecture, 'I was impressed by the monstrous inequality which exists between the rich and the poor in modern society. The rich enjoy wealth, leisure, and boundless opportunity. The poor are overwhelmed by misery, overwork, and insanitation. The rich have a heaven of opportunity; the poor a hell of misery, and the heaven of the rich is founded upon the hell of the poor. If I was impressed by these conditions before I had studied them, I was appalled after having given them careful consideration. I had heard of poverty; I believed that misery and vice existed, but I was not aware that they were prevalent in every town and city of the land. Ability and capacity were suppressed; together with the progress which might well be attained, were opportunity more universal ... The poor are ignorant of the fact that by standing together at the ballot box, they might revolutionize conditions in a decade.'"

Very soon he had offended the powers that be with his outspoken views and he would never teach again in the United States. From that point Scott's life can be summed up in these sentences: "The living of an ideal involves payment of a certain price ... the further the ideal is removed from the common practice, the higher the price that must be paid for it ... If your ideal is to live a mentally active, mentally honest life, to seek the truth, then you may have to sacrifice even food, clothing, and shelter to get it." and "The majority will always be for caution, hesitation, and the status quo - always against creation and innovation. The innovator - he who leaves the beaten track - must therefore always be a minoritarian - always be an object of opposition, scorn, hatred. It is part of the price he must pay for the ecstasy that accompanies creative thinking and acting." Scott was aware of the price he would have to pay for his convictions; he regretted enormously the loss of the day-to-day contact with his university students who lost an outstanding educator; but he never regretted standing alone. One of his file cards clearly defined the problem: "If a man is one step ahead of the crowd he is a leader; if two steps ahead, he is a disturber; if three steps, he is a fanatic and not to be trusted." Scott was too many steps ahead of those in authority and he was a danger who had to be removed. At the age of 34 his chosen career was in ruins; his books that had been standard textbooks in public schools were banned and royalty income ceased. He was at the low point of his life and that was when he met Helen.

Helen, born in 1904 into a family of high principles and adequate means was the unconventional child, always reading and addicted to the twelve volumes of the Book of Knowledge at a young age. She had a talent for the violin, preferred the company of trees and rocks, drew and wrote poetry. She did not accept unquestioningly the world in which she lived. As a teenager she felt there was a power and a purpose in the universe and queried what we are here for and what life is all about. At seventeen, she sailed to Rotterdam to study the violin, met up with the Theosophists and the young Krishnamurti who she followed for several years on his mission to be a world teacher. But she saw the vast abyss between the ultra rich and the homeless in Bombay and Calcutta while Krishnamurti surrounded himself with the well to do, the famous and the influential. It was time for her to strike out on her own path. She returned to Ridgewood and there received a phone call from Scott.

The formative years for both of them were over; they were ready for each other; they were ready to build a life together; they were ready to create their version of the good life. We have much to learn from this couple because their life together was built on high principles. We are indeed fortunate that Helen left us this book.

We must own a good five hundred books that we love, but this book is amongst a handful that get read and re-read over and over, with something new being learned each time. I also think the book like all their books is a must read, because it reminds us how fascists this country (united states) has been and can be and the price sincere patriots often pay. As well as the value of taking the path less traveled and not relinquishing ones personal integrity or perseverance. And that in the end the good guy can win.

The two lived lives singularly devoid of apologies, half-efforts, or excuses, living it largely on their own terms, based on their own labors and ingenuity. Early in the 1930s they struck out from New York City to escape the Depression and social convention by starting a revolutionary experiment in rural Vermont. In many respects the experiment succeeded, yet they were never able to transform it from a personal adventure to one more largely social and community-based in the Vermont setting. With the coming of ski resorts and encroaching exurbia in the early 1950s, the Nearings moved once again to rural Penobscot Bay in Maine to start again.

Of course, in due time they were suddenly "discovered" by the baby boomers and the counterculture in the late 1960s, and became the elder statesmen of the `back-to-the-land' movement of the late sixties and early seventies. In all this, Scott and Helen continued in their commitment to a socially aware, civically responsible, and environmentally sustainable way of living. By the time Scott died at age 100 in the early 1980s, thousands of curious counterculture hopefuls made the pilgrimage to visit with the Nearings at their celebrated farm in rural coastal Maine.

This is a lovely, thoughtful, and wise book, full of the almost endless love and care and compassion Helen Nearing brought to all of her endeavors for her many decades of purposeful and socially responsible living. This book is no small treasure; it looms large and lovely for those who are aware of the incredible journey the Nearings made as fellow citizens, and also of the loving and special relationship these two rugged individualists shared. I have read it several times, and love having it on my bookshelf. I suspect you will too.