’Newbury, Oct. 18, 1840.—­It rained, and the day was pale and sorrowful, the thick-fallen leaves even shrouded the river.  We went out in the boat, and sat under the bridge.  The pallid silence, the constant fall of the rain and leaves, were most soothing, life had been for many weeks so crowded with thought and feeling, pain and pleasure, rapture and care.  Nature seemed gently to fold us in her matron’s mantle.  On such days the fall of the leaf does not bring sadness, only meditation.  Earth seemed to loose the record of past summer hours from her permanent life, as lightly, and spontaneously, as the great genius casts behind him a literature,—­the Odyssey he has outgrown.  In the evening the rain ceased, the west wind came, and we went out in the boat again for some hours; indeed, we staid till the last clouds passed from the moon.  Then we climbed the hill to see the full light in solemn sweetness over fields, and trees, and river.

’I never enjoyed anything more in its way than the three days alone with ——­ in her boat, upon the little river.  Not without reason was it that Goethe limits the days of intercourse to three, in the Wanderjahre.  If you have lived so long in uninterrupted communion with any noble being, and with nature, a remembrance of man’s limitations seems to call on Polycrates to cast forth his ring.  She seemed the very genius of the scene, so calm, so lofty, and so secluded.  I never saw any place that seemed to me so much like home.  The beauty, though so great, is so unobtrusive.

’As we glided along the river, I could frame my community far more naturally and rationally than ——.  A few friends should settle upon the banks of a stream like this, planting their homesteads.  Some should be farmers, some woodmen, others bakers, millers, &c.  By land, they should carry to one another the commodities; on the river they should meet for society.  At sunset many, of course, would be out in their boats, but they would love the hour too much ever to disturb one another.  I saw the spot where we should discuss the high mysteries that Milton speaks of.  Also, I saw the spot where I would invite select friends to live through the noon of night, in silent communion.  When we wished to have merely playful chat, or talk on politics or social reform, we would gather in the mill, and arrange those affairs while grinding the corn.  What a happy place for children to grow up in!  Would it not suit little ——­ to go to school to the cardinal flowers in her boat, beneath the great oak-tree?  I think she would learn more than in a phalanx of juvenile florists.  But, truly, why has such a thing never been?  One of these valleys so immediately suggests an image of the fair company that might fill it, and live so easily, so naturally, so wisely.  Can we not people the banks of some such affectionate little stream?  I distrust ambitious plans, such as Phalansterian organizations!