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.
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