A Crisis

"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."

"You seem," said Hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you can
pour out in a breath."