A Crisis

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.