The Blithedale Romance - Page 37/170

On this foundation he

purposed to devote himself and a few disciples to the reform and mental

culture of our criminal brethren. His visionary edifice was

Hollingsworth's one castle in the air; it was the material type in

which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he made the

scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept

his clutch the more pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the

bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and sheet

of paper, sketching the facade, the side-view, or the rear of the

structure, or planning the internal arrangements, as lovingly as

another man might plan those of the projected home where he meant to be

happy with his wife and children. I have known him to begin a model of

the building with little stones, gathered at the brookside, whither we

had gone to cool ourselves in the sultry noon of haying-time. Unlike

all other ghosts, his spirit haunted an edifice, which, instead of

being time-worn, and full of storied love, and joy, and sorrow, had

never yet come into existence.

"Dear friend," said I once to Hollingsworth, before leaving my

sick-chamber, "I heartily wish that I could make your schemes my

schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself

treading the same path with you. But I am afraid there is not stuff in

me stern enough for a philanthropist,--or not in this peculiar

direction,--or, at all events, not solely in this. Can you bear with

me, if such should prove to be the case?"

"I will at least wait awhile," answered Hollingsworth, gazing at me

sternly and gloomily. "But how can you be my life-long friend, except

you strive with me towards the great object of my life?"

Heaven forgive me! A horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and stung

the very core of it as with the fangs of an adder. I wondered whether

it were possible that Hollingsworth could have watched by my bedside,

with all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose of making me

a proselyte to his views!