The Blithedale Romance - Page 89/170

Thus the summer was passing away,--a summer of toil, of interest, of

something that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart, and

there became a rich experience. I found myself looking forward to

years, if not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. The

Community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. One of our

purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we called it, after

Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in my

remembrance), where the great and general family should have its

abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of

religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting

sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or

in the sheltered nook of some little valley, according as their taste

might lean towards snugness or the picturesque.

Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to

existence, and contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our

feet had not been fathom-deep with the dust of deluded generations, on

every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a

hitherto unwedded bride.

Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. It was

easy to perceive, however, that he spoke with little or no fervor, but

either as questioning the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at any

rate, with a quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern of

his. Shortly after the scene at Eliot's pulpit, while he and I were

repairing an old stone fence, I amused myself with sallying forward

into the future time.

"When we come to be old men," I said, "they will call us uncles, or

fathers,--Father Hollingsworth and Uncle Coverdale,--and we will look

back cheerfully to these early days, and make a romantic story for the

young People (and if a little more romantic than truth may warrant, it

will be no harm) out of our severe trials and hardships. In a century

or two, we shall, every one of us, be mythical personages, or

exceedingly picturesque and poetical ones, at all events. They will

have a great public hall, in which your portrait, and mine, and twenty

other faces that are living now, shall be hung up; and as for me, I

will be painted in my shirtsleeves, and with the sleeves rolled up, to

show my muscular development.

What stories will be rife among them

about our mighty strength!" continued I, lifting a big stone and

putting it into its place, "though our posterity will really be far

stronger than ourselves, after several generations of a simple,

natural, and active life. What legends of Zenobia's beauty, and

Priscilla's slender and shadowy grace, and those mysterious qualities

which make her seem diaphanous with spiritual light! In due course of

ages, we must all figure heroically in an epic poem; and we will

ourselves--at least, I will--bend unseen over the future poet, and lend

him inspiration while he writes it."