None of us
must die young. Yet, should Providence ordain it so, the event shall
not be sorrowful, but affect us with a tender, delicious, only
half-melancholy, and almost smiling pathos!"
"That is to say," muttered Hollingsworth, "you will die like a
heathen, as you certainly live like one. But, listen to me,
Coverdale. Your fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more
forcibly what a wretched, unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we
have wasted a precious summer of our lives. Do you seriously imagine
that any such realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of,
will ever be brought to pass?"
"Certainly I do," said I. "Of course, when the reality comes, it will
wear the every-day, commonplace, dusty, and rather homely garb that
reality always does put on. But, setting aside the ideal charm, I
hold that our highest anticipations have a solid footing on common
sense."
"You only half believe what you say," rejoined Hollingsworth; "and as
for me, I neither have faith in your dream, nor would care the value
of this pebble for its realization, were that possible. And what
more do you want of it? It has given you a theme for poetry. Let
that content you. But now I ask you to be, at last, a man of
sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth
all our strength, and the strength of a thousand mightier than we."
There can be no need of giving in detail the conversation that ensued.
It is enough to say that Hollingsworth once more brought forward
his rigid and unconquerable idea,--a scheme for the reformation of
the wicked by methods moral, intellectual, and industrial, by the
sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds, and by opening to
his pupils the possibility of a worthier life than that which had
become their fate.
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