In truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation of opinions as was going on in the general brain of the Community.It was a kind of Bedlam, for the time being, although out of the very thoughts that were wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm, and pure, and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a noble and happy life.But, as matters now were, I felt myself (and, having a decided tendency towards the actual, I never liked to feel it) getting quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the existing state of the world.I was beginning to lose the sense of what kind of a world it was, among innumerable schemes of what it might or ought to be.It was impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything in nature and human existence was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving; that it was a day of crisis, and that we ourselves were in the critical vortex.Our great globe floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an unsubstantial bubble.No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old standpoint.
It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with the conservatives, the writers of "The North American Review," the merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those respectable old blockheads who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, kept a death-grip on one or two ideas which had not come into vogue since yesterday morning.
The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of kissing them all round, but forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance is fully equal to the pleasure.So I kissed none of them; and nobody, to say the truth, seemed to expect it.
"Do you wish me," I said to Zenobia, "to announce in town, and at the watering-places, your purpose to deliver a course of lectures on the rights of women?""Women possess no rights," said Zenobia, with a half-melancholy smile;"or, at all events, only little girls and grandmothers would have the force to exercise them."She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes; nor was there any settled light of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame, flickering and fitful.
"I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us," she said; "and all the more, since I feel that this phase of our life is finished, and can never be lived over again.Do you know, Mr.Coverdale, that I have been several times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack of a better and wiser one? But you are too young to be my father confessor;and you would not thank me for treating you like one of those good little handmaidens who share the bosom secrets of a tragedy-queen.""I would, at least, be loyal and faithful," answered I; "and would counsel you with an honest purpose, if not wisely.""Yes," said Zenobia, "you would be only too wise, too honest.Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful pastime, at another person's expense!""Ah, Zenobia," I exclaimed, "if you would but let me speak!""By no means," she replied, "especially when you have just resumed the whole series of social conventionalisms, together with that strait-bodied coat.I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a clergyman! No, no, Mr.Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be either an angel or a madman; and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the fitting word.
