"You seem," said Hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you can
pour out in a breath."
"I wish you would see fit to comprehend," retorted I, "that the
profoundest wisdom must be mingled with nine tenths of nonsense, else
it is not worth the breath that utters it. But I do long for the
cottages to be built, that the creeping plants may begin to run over
them, and the moss to gather on the walls, and the trees--which we will
set out--to cover them with a breadth of shadow. This spick-and-span
novelty does not quite suit my taste. It is time, too, for children to
be born among us. The first-born child is still to come. And I shall
never feel as if this were a real, practical, as well as poetical
system of human life, until somebody has sanctified it by death."
"A pretty occasion for martyrdom, truly!" said Hollingsworth.
"As good as any other," I replied. "I wonder, Hollingsworth, who, of
all these strong men, and fair women and maidens, is doomed the first
to die. Would it not be well, even before we have absolute need of it,
to fix upon a spot for a cemetery? Let us choose the rudest, roughest,
most uncultivable spot, for Death's garden ground; and Death shall
teach us to beautify it, grave by grave. By our sweet, calm way of
dying, and the airy elegance out of which we will shape our funeral
rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model into tombstones,
the final scene shall lose its terrors; so that hereafter it may be
happiness to live, and bliss to die. 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."