The Blithedale Romance - Page 5/170

The better life! Possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is enough

if it looked so then. The greatest obstacle to being heroic is the

doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the

truest heroism is to resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom to

know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.

Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to

follow out one's daydream to its natural consummation, although, if the

vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be

consummated otherwise than by a failure. And what of that? Its

airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a value that

lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable scheme.

They are not the rubbish of the mind. Whatever else I may repent of,

therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I

once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world's

destiny--yes!--and to do what in me lay for their accomplishment; even

to the extent of quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly

lighted cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city clocks,

through a drifting snowstorm.

There were four of us who rode together through the storm; and

Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the number, was accidentally

delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. As we threaded the

streets, I remember how the buildings on either side seemed to press

too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found barely room

enough to throb between them.

The snowfall, too, looked inexpressibly

dreary (I had almost called it dingy), coming down through an

atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk only to be

moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or overshoe. Thus

the track of an old conventionalism was visible on what was freshest

from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and our muffled

hoof-tramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were

effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as stamped, then there was

better air to breathe. Air that had not been breathed once and again!

air that had not been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and

error, like all the air of the dusky city!

"How pleasant it is!" remarked I, while the snowflakes flew into my

mouth the moment it was opened. "How very mild and balmy is this

country air!"

"Ah, Coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusiasm you have left!"

said one of my companions. "I maintain that this nitrous atmosphere is

really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves

regenerated men till a February northeaster shall be as grateful to us

as the softest breeze of June!"