Interiorly his heart had been sinking steadily during the journey.  He had mixed freely with the emigrants, and had done his best to make friends; yet there was something not only in their attitude to him—­for though they were respectful enough, they were absolutely impervious to any advances, seeming to regard him as independent but rather timid children might look upon a strange schoolmaster—­but in their whole atmosphere and outlook that was a very depressing change from the curious, impassive, but alert and confident air to which he had grown accustomed among the priests and people with whom he mixed.  The one thing that seemed to interest them was to discuss methods of government and the internal politics of their future life in Massachusetts.  They asked a few questions about crops and soil; he even heard one group in animated conversation on the subject of schools, but the talk dropped as soon as he attempted to join in it.  They all talked English too, he noticed.

Yet though the atmosphere seemed to him very ungenial, it appeared to him not altogether new; there appeared, somewhere in the back of his mind, to be even an element of sympathy.  He felt almost like one who, having climbed out of a pit to the fresh air, looks back at others who not only live in the pit, but are content to live there.

For the world in which he had now consciously lived for the last twelve months was, in spite of the sharp rigidity and certitude and inexorable logic from which he shrank, undoubtedly a place of large horizons.  In fact it seemed as if there were no horizons.  On all sides there stretched out illimitable space, for eternity (with its corollaries) was fully as effective in it as was time.  Those with whom he mixed, however little he might share their emotions, at any rate talked as if death was no more than an incident in life.  Secretly he distrusted the reality of this confidence; but at least it appeared to be there.  But with these folks all was different.  These frankly made their plans for this world, and this world only.  Good government, stability, good bodily health, the propagation and education of children, equality in possessions and opportunities—­these were their ideas of good; and better government, greater stability, more perfect health, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and more uniform equality, their ideals.

So he pondered, over and over again, trying to understand why it was that he was at home with neither party.  With his old friends he felt himself incapable of their certitudes and aspirations; with these new people, viewed for the first time en masse, he felt life resting on him like a stifling blanket.  He told himself bitterly that he resembled the child’s Amphibian, which could not live on the land and died in the water.

He watched mechanically the vault of heaven broaden and brighten with the sunrise behind, and the waste beneath presently to show lines and patches and enclosures as they approached Boston harbour.  And his heart sank as each mile was passed, and as presently against the clear sky there stood up the roofs and domes and chimneys of the socialistic Canaan.