It would be another spot, and an utter strangeness.
These vagaries were of the spectral throng so apt to steal out of an
unquiet heart. They partly ceased to haunt me, on my arriving at a
point whence, through the trees, I began to catch glimpses of the
Blithedale farm. That surely was something real. There was hardly a
square foot of all those acres on which I had not trodden heavily, in
one or another kind of toil. The curse of Adam's posterity--and,
curse or blessing be it, it gives substance to the life around
us--had first come upon me there. In the sweat of my brow I had
there earned bread and eaten it, and so established my claim to be on
earth, and my fellowship with all the sons of labor. I could have
knelt down, and have laid my breast against that soil. The red clay
of which my frame was moulded seemed nearer akin to those crumbling
furrows than to any other portion of the world's dust. There was my
home, and there might be my grave.
I felt an invincible reluctance, nevertheless, at the idea of
presenting myself before my old associates, without first
ascertaining the state in which they were. A nameless foreboding
weighed upon me. Perhaps, should I know all the circumstances that
had occurred, I might find it my wisest course to turn back,
unrecognized, unseen, and never look at Blithedale more. Had it been
evening, I would have stolen softly to some lighted window of the old
farmhouse, and peeped darkling in, to see all their well-known faces
round the supper-board.
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