Blithedale, nor ever had been, nor any brotherhood of
thoughtful laborers, like what I seemed to recollect there, or else it
was all changed during my absence. It had been nothing but dream work
and enchantment. I should seek in vain for the old farmhouse, and for
the greensward, the potato-fields, the root-crops, and acres of Indian
corn, and for all that configuration of the land which I had imagined.
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. Then,
were there a vacant seat, I might noiselessly unclose the door, glide
in, and take my place among them, without a word. My entrance might be
so quiet, my aspect so familiar, that they would forget how long I had
been away, and suffer me to melt into the scene, as a wreath of vapor
melts into a larger cloud. I dreaded a boisterous greeting. Beholding
me at table, Zenobia, as a matter of course, would send me a cup of
tea, and Hollingsworth fill my plate from the great dish of pandowdy,
and Priscilla, in her quiet way, would