The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 15 Page 1

A CRISIS

Thus the summer was passing away, — a summer of toil, of interest, of something that was not pleasure, but which went deep into my heart, and there became a rich experience.

I found myself looking forward to years, if not to a lifetime, to be spent on the same system. The Community were now beginning to form their permanent plans. One of our purposes was to erect a Phalanstery (as I think we called it, after Fourier; but the phraseology of those days is not very fresh in my remembrance), where the great and general family should have its abiding-place. Individual members, too, who made it a point of religion to preserve the sanctity of an exclusive home, were selecting sites for their cottages, by the wood-side, or on the breezy swells, or in the sheltered nook of