登陆注册
15328300000022

第22章 A MODERN ARCADIA(2)

I was now on my legs again.My fit of illness had been an avenue between two existences; the low-arched and darksome doorway, through which Icrept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and knees, as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay beyond.In this respect, it was like death.And, as with death, too, it was good to have gone through it.No otherwise could I have rid myself of a thousand follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noon-time, however freshly they may have begun their pilgrimage in the dewy morning.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.They were mostly individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with ordinary pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to come.On comparing their minds one with another they often discovered that this idea of a Community had been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for years.Thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among them; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student's lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of silver.Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in an enterprise like this.Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren sand whence most of us had seen it vanish.We had very young people with us, it is true,--downy lads, rosy girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply.Then we had boarders, from town and elsewhere, who lived with us in a familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theories, and sometimes shared in our labors.

On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expected to hold together long.Persons of marked individuality--crooked sticks, as some of us might be called--are not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot.But, so long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without finding so many points of attraction as would allure him hitherward.We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every imaginable subject.Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative.

We had individually found one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of lumbering along with the old system any further.As to what should be substituted, there was much less unanimity.We did not greatly care--at least, I never did--for the written constitution under which our millennium had commenced.My hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available mode of life might be struck out; and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise.

同类推荐
热门推荐
  • 火焚帝君

    火焚帝君

    【玄幻重生爽文】(感谢阅文书评团提供书评支持!)曾贵为三大神帝之一的炎帝陈炎,却不料暗遭兄弟背叛,然而冥冥之中仿佛自有定意,他,重生了!什么?至高无上的体尊?很抱歉,那是我调教出来的。圣灵天后?摆脱,那是我媳妇儿!雷帝?乖,听话,蜀黍给你糖果,去帮我灭掉这群说本书不好看的。哼哼,既然重生了,那么但凡是上一世我错过的好东西,统统给我留下来!
  • 瞳空

    瞳空

    一个在日本忍者杀手集团做卧底的特工木空,莫名其妙的到了一个黑暗的空间。自己又变成了一个蓝色的丝线。一块会说话的石头突然告诉自己是他兄弟?是宇宙中极其稀少的先天之宝。在木空眼里自己的先天之物身份实际上就是一条锁链。木空现在最想的就是,离开这个黑暗无聊的空间!当他离开这虚无黑暗的空间后又会发生什么呢?已经离开地球的他又是如何生存的?面对不一样的世界,木空毅然选择了强者之路。期待木空成长的挫折奇遇与成功吧。目光所及一切成空!!
  • 糊里糊涂爱上你

    糊里糊涂爱上你

    什么?你是医生?是医生了不起啊。什么?你是我姑妈的主治医生,那可不得了。什么?不过是撞了你一下,就要我卖身?这买卖真好赚。一个浪漫的爱情故事,不管怎样,有爱就行了
  • 都市混世高手

    都市混世高手

    超级杀手薛启明因为意外失去了记忆,冰冷的心在失忆的时候被两个纯洁的姑娘所改变,从此开始了逆天的都市幸福生活。
  • 武道之绝世剑神

    武道之绝世剑神

    武者世界,傲世天下谁主宰。强者为尊,手中长剑问苍生。看白玉青如何在肉弱强食的武侠世界中闯出自己的名气,只靠一把剑一本武技而傲游天下剑指红尘路。
  • 虚无之界:两极无双

    虚无之界:两极无双

    两个误闯魔法世界的双胞胎兄弟,两条沉睡千年却失去记忆的龙。真龙小黑,嗜酒如命,阴差阳错与昊天缔结契约,一人一龙爆笑登场。奇幻世界,引发救世之说,当幻龙法师与真龙战士误闯修真界时,又会引发怎样的混乱?一切,且看《虚无之界:两极无双》为你一一解答!
  • 冒险国度:探险海底城

    冒险国度:探险海底城

    一群天赋异禀、鬼马精灵的小学生,身怀探险梦组织了一个团体,得到神秘邀请,勇闯神秘古老的海底城……嗜血变异的美人鱼,千古绝响的海王之声,不死的古老诅咒……这一切厄运缠身,还是人类探索古老的极限?待你来开拓这片神秘的海底城。
  • 商极天下

    商极天下

    假如让你回到九零年代,那个有着无限机会的年代,你会怎么选择?陈云青决定去改变世界,让世界变得更加的美好。这是一位浪漫的理想主义者的一场大梦,梦中有大家熟悉的人生经历,喜怒哀乐。
  • 傲娇狂妃鬼帝来娶妻

    傲娇狂妃鬼帝来娶妻

    她堂堂雇佣兵女王兼著名钢琴演奏家,著名医师。一朝穿越却不想有了许多第一,第一丑女,第一废材,第一傻女…没关系,姐能改变,打渣姐,骂渣男,连皇上都被惊艳了一番。什么狗屁长老,王爷都给我去死吧!“是么?我的王妃?”“当当然不是了,王爷是尊贵的象征呢!怎么能死呢?”他,是被世人称为玉面战神的王爷,也是鬼帝,连皇上都要让他几分,却不想为了一个废材而上刀山火海…
  • 你说我听

    你说我听

    陪伴是最长期的告白相识是最美丽的意外结婚时也给我张请柬吧开心的难过的愤怒的温柔的你所有的样子我都见过了这次想最后看看你不属于我的样子看着你们互相说余生请指教