Blithedale, and he has described "a select party" which he attended at
a castle in the air.

Prue has not yet looked over the list. In fact I am not quite sure
that she knows my intention. For I wish to surprise her, and I think
it would be generous to ask Bourne to lead her out in the bridal
quadrille. I think that I shall try the first waltz with the girl I
sometimes seem to see in my fairest castle, but whom I very vaguely
remember. Titbottom will come with old Burton and Jaques. But I have
not prepared half my invitations. Do you not guess it, seeing that I
did not name, first of all, Elia, who assisted at the "Rejoicings upon
the new year's coming of age"?

And yet, if Adoniram should never marry?--or if we could not get to
Spain?--or if the company would not come?

What then? Shall I betray a secret? I have already entertained this
party in my humble little parlor at home; and Prue presided as
serenely as Semiramis over her court. Have I not said that I defy
time, and shall space hope to daunt me? I keep books by day, but by
night books keep me. They leave me to dreams and reveries. Shall I
confess, that sometimes when I have been sitting, reading to my Prue,
Cymbeline, perhaps, or a Canterbury tale, I have seemed to see clearly
before me the broad highway to my castles in Spain; and as she looked
up from her work, and smiled in sympathy, I have even fancied that I
was already there.



SEA FROM SHORE