The very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live
with in any better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which
I was accustomed. So it was taken off me and flung aside, like any
other worn-out or unseasonable garment; and, after shivering a little
while in my skeleton, I began to be clothed anew, and much more
satisfactorily than in my previous suit. In literal and physical
truth, I was quite another man. I had a lively sense of the
exultation with which the spirit will enter on the next stage of its
eternal progress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in
an early grave, with as little concern for what may become of it as
now affected me for the flesh which I had lost.
Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that the labors of
the brotherhood had already realized some of Fourier's predictions.
Their enlightened culture of the soil, and the virtues with which
they sanctified their life, had begun to produce an effect upon the
material
world and its climate. In my new enthusiasm, man looked strong and
stately,--and woman, oh, how beautiful!--and the earth a green garden,
blossoming with many-colored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I
had broken in various artificial ways, comported herself towards me
as a strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy
for his naughtiness, and then gives him a smile, a kiss, and some
pretty playthings to console the urchin for her severity.
In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of recruits
to our little army of saints and martyrs.
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