The Blithedale Romance .....................................................................................................................................1

Nathaniel Hawthorne...............................................................................................................................1

I. OLD MOODIE ....................................................................................................................................1

II. BLITHEDALE ...................................................................................................................................3

III. A KNOT OF DREAMERS ...............................................................................................................5

IV. THE SUPPERTABLE ....................................................................................................................9

V. UNTIL BEDTIME ...........................................................................................................................13

VI. COVERDALE'S SICKCHAMBER .............................................................................................16

VII. THE CONVALESCENT..............................................................................................................20

VIII. A MODERN ARCADIA.............................................................................................................24

IX. HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA ............................................................................29

X. A VISITOR FROM TOWN .............................................................................................................35

XI. THE WOODPATH......................................................................................................................38

XII. COVERDALE'S HERMITAGE...................................................................................................42

XIII. ZENOBIA'S LEGEND................................................................................................................46

XIV. ELIOT'S PULPIT........................................................................................................................51

XV. A CRISIS......................................................................................................................................56

XVI. LEAVETAKINGS....................................................................................................................60

XVII. THE HOTEL..............................................................................................................................63

XVIII. THE BOARDINGHOUSE.....................................................................................................66

XIX. ZENOBIA'S DRAWINGROOM..............................................................................................69

XX. THEY VANISH ............................................................................................................................73

XXI. AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE ......................................................................................................75

XXII. FAUNTLEROY.........................................................................................................................78

XXIII. A VILLAGE HALL ..................................................................................................................83

XXIV. THE MASQUERADERS.........................................................................................................87

XXV. THE THREE TOGETHER........................................................................................................91

XXVI. ZENOBIA AND COVERDALE..............................................................................................95

XXVII. MIDNIGHT .............................................................................................................................98

XXVIII. BLITHEDALE PASTURE..................................................................................................102

XXIX. MILES COVERDALE'S CONFESSION ...............................................................................105

The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my bachelor apartments, after attending

the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an elderly man of rather shabby appearance met me in an

As I have casually alluded to the Veiled Lady, it may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my

readers as are unacquainted with her now forgotten celebrity, that she was a phenomenon in the mesmeric

line; one of the earliest that had indicated the birth of a new science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since

those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice; nor, in fact, has any

one of them come before the public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stage effect as those

which at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question. Nowadays, in

the management of his "subject," "clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and

openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the boundaries of the

spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his preternatural

conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque

disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent

miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the

interest of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, and an absurd rumor (probably

set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time very prevalent) that a beautiful young lady, of family and fortune,

was enshrouded within the misty drapery of the veil. It was white, with somewhat of a subdued silver sheen,

like the sunny side of a cloud; and, falling over the wearer from head to foot, was supposed to insulate her

from the material world, from time and space, and to endow her with many of the privileges of a disembodied

Her pretensions, however, whether miraculous or otherwise, have little to do with the present

narrativeexcept, indeed, that I had propounded, for the Veiled Lady's prophetic solution, a query as to the

success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was of the true Sibylline stamp,nonsensical

in its first aspect, yet on closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations, one of which has certainly

accorded with the event. I was turning over this riddle in my mind, and trying to catch its slippery purport by

"Mr. Coverdale!Mr. Coverdale!" said he, repeating my name twice, in order to make up for the hesitating

and ineffectual way in which he uttered it. "I ask your pardon, sir, but I hear you are going to Blithedale

I knew the pale, elderly face, with the redtipt nose, and the patch over one eye; and likewise saw something

characteristic in the old fellow's way of standing under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to

make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and the trait was

the more singular, as his mode of getting his bread necessarily brought him into the stir and hubbub of the

"Yes, Mr. Moodie," I answered, wondering what interest he could take in the fact, "it is my intention to go to

"A very great one?" repeated I, in a tone that must have expressed but little alacrity of beneficence, although I

was ready to do the old man any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "A very great

favor, do you say? My time is brief, Mr. Moodie, and I have a good many preparations to make. But be good

"Ah, sir," replied Old Moodie, "I don't quite like to do that; and, on further thoughts, Mr. Coverdale, perhaps

I had better apply to some older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kindness to make me

known to one, who may happen to be going to Blithedale. You are a young man, sir!"

"Does that fact lessen my availability for your purpose?" asked I. "However, if an older man will suit you

better, there is Mr. Hollingsworth, who has three or four years the advantage of me in age, and is a much

more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair

at that! But what can this business be, Mr. Moodie? It begins to interest me; especially since your hint that a

lady's influence might be found desirable. Come, I am really anxious to be of service to you."

But the old fellow, in his civil and demure manner, was both freakish and obstinate; and he had now taken

"Not personally," I answered, "although I expect that pleasure tomorrow, as she has got the start of the rest

of us, and is already a resident at Blithedale. But have you a literary turn, Mr. Moodie? or have you taken up

the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I

suppose you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comes before the world, retaining

all the privileges of privacy,a contrivance, in short, like the white drapery of the Veiled Lady, only a little

"Please to excuse me tonight, Mr. Coverdale," said Moodie. "You are very kind; but I am afraid I have

troubled you, when, after all, there may be no need. Perhaps, with your good leave, I will come to your

lodgings tomorrow morning, before you set out for Blithedale. I wish you a goodnight, sir, and beg pardon

And so he slipt away; and, as he did not show himself the next morning, it was only through subsequent

events that I ever arrived at a plausible conjecture as to what his business could have been. Arriving at my

room, I threw a lump of cannel coal upon the grate, lighted a cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every

hue, from the brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods

that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could

possibly be taken. It was nothing short of midnight when I went to bed, after drinking a glass of particularly

fine sherry on which I used to pride myself in those days. It was the very last bottle; and I finished it, with a

There can hardly remain for me (who am really getting to be a frosty bachelor, with another white hair, every

week or so, in my mustache), there can hardly flicker up again so cheery a blaze upon the hearth, as that

which I remember, the next day, at Blithedale. It was a wood fire, in the parlor of an old farmhouse, on an

April afternoon, but with the fitful gusts of a wintry snowstorm roaring in the chimney. Vividly does that

fireside recreate itself, as I rake away the ashes from the embers in my memory, and blow them up with a

sigh, for lack of more inspiring breath. Vividly for an instant, but anon, with the dimmest gleam, and with

just as little fervency for my heart as for my fingerends! The staunch oaken logs were long ago burnt out.

Their genial glow must be represented, if at all, by the merest phosphoric glimmer, like that which exudes,

rather than shines, from damp fragments of decayed trees, deluding the benighted wanderer through a forest.

Around such chill mockery of a fire some few of us might sit on the withered leaves, spreading out each a

palm towards the imaginary warmth, and talk over our exploded scheme for beginning the life of Paradise

Paradise, indeed! Nobody else in the world, I am bold to affirmnobody, at least, in our bleak little world of

New England,had dreamed of Paradise that day except as the pole suggests the tropic. Nor, with such

materials as were at hand, could the most skilful architect have constructed any better imitation of Eve's

bower than might be seen in the snow hut of an Esquimaux. But we made a summer of it, in spite of the wild

It was an April day, as already hinted, and well towards the middle of the month. When morning dawned

upon me, in town, its temperature was mild enough to be pronounced even balmy, by a lodger, like myself, in

one of the midmost houses of a brick block,each house partaking of the warmth of all the rest, besides the

sultriness of its individual furnaceheat. But towards noon there had come snow, driven along the street by

a northeasterly blast, and whitening the roofs and sidewalks with a businesslike perseverance that would

have done credit to our severest January tempest. It set about its task apparently as much in earnest as if it had

been guaranteed from a thaw for months to come. The greater, surely, was my heroism, when, puffing out a

final whiff of cigarsmoke, I quitted my cosey pair of bachelorrooms,with a good fire burning in the

grate, and a closet right at hand, where there was still a bottle or two in the champagne basket and a residuum

of claret in a box, quitted, I say, these comfortable quarters, and plunged into the heart of the pitiless

The better life! Possibly, it would hardly look so now; it is enough if it looked so then. The greatest obstacle

to being heroic is the doubt whether one may not be going to prove one's self a fool; the truest heroism is to

resist the doubt; and the profoundest wisdom to know when it ought to be resisted, and when to be obeyed.

Yet, after all, let us acknowledge it wiser, if not more sagacious, to follow out one's daydream to its natural

consummation, although, if the vision have been worth the having, it is certain never to be consummated

otherwise than by a failure. And what of that? Its airiest fragments, impalpable as they may be, will possess a

value that lurks not in the most ponderous realities of any practicable scheme. They are not the rubbish of the

mind. Whatever else I may repent of, therefore, let it be reckoned neither among my sins nor follies that I

once had faith and force enough to form generous hopes of the world's destinyyes!and to do what in me

lay for their accomplishment; even to the extent of quitting a warm fireside, flinging away a freshly lighted

cigar, and travelling far beyond the strike of city clocks, through a drifting snowstorm.

There were four of us who rode together through the storm; and Hollingsworth, who had agreed to be of the

number, was accidentally delayed, and set forth at a later hour alone. As we threaded the streets, I remember

how the buildings on either side seemed to press too closely upon us, insomuch that our mighty hearts found

barely room enough to throb between them. The snowfall, too, looked inexpressibly dreary (I had almost

called it dingy), coming down through an atmosphere of city smoke, and alighting on the sidewalk only to be

moulded into the impress of somebody's patched boot or overshoe. Thus the track of an old conventionalism

was visible on what was freshest from the sky. But when we left the pavements, and our muffled

hooftramps beat upon a desolate extent of country road, and were effaced by the unfettered blast as soon as

stamped, then there was better air to breathe. Air that had not been breathed once and again! air that had not

been spoken into words of falsehood, formality, and error, like all the air of the dusky city!

"How pleasant it is!" remarked I, while the snowflakes flew into my mouth the moment it was opened. "How

"Ah, Coverdale, don't laugh at what little enthusiasm you have left!" said one of my companions. "I maintain

that this nitrous atmosphere is really exhilarating; and, at any rate, we can never call ourselves regenerated

men till a February northeaster shall be as grateful to us as the softest breeze of June!"

So we all of us took courage, riding fleetly and merrily along, by stone fences that were half buried in the

wavelike drifts; and through patches of woodland, where the treetrunks opposed a snowincrusted side

towards the northeast; and within ken of deserted villas, with no footprints in their avenues; and passed

scattered dwellings, whence puffed the smoke of country fires, strongly impregnated with the pungent aroma

of burning peat. Sometimes, encountering a traveller, we shouted a friendly greeting; and he, unmuffling his

ears to the bluster and the snowspray, and listening eagerly, appeared to think our courtesy worth less than

the trouble which it cost him. The churl! He understood the shrill whistle of the blast, but had no intelligence

for our blithe tones of brotherhood. This lack of faith in our cordial sympathy, on the traveller's part, was one

among the innumerable tokens how difficult a task we had in hand for the reformation of the world. We rode

on, however, with still unflagging spirits, and made such good companionship with the tempest that, at our

journey's end, we professed ourselves almost loath to bid the rude blusterer goodby. But, to own the truth, I

was little better than an icicle, and began to be suspicious that I had caught a fearful cold.

And now we were seated by the brisk fireside of the old farmhouse, the same fire that glimmers so faintly

among my reminiscences at the beginning of this chapter. There we sat, with the snow melting out of our hair

and beards, and our faces all ablaze, what with the past inclemency and present warmth. It was, indeed, a

right good fire that we found awaiting us, built up of great, rough logs, and knotty limbs, and splintered

fragments of an oaktree, such as farmers are wont to keep for their own hearths, since these crooked and

unmanageable boughs could never be measured into merchantable cords for the market. A family of the old

Pilgrims might have swung their kettle over precisely such a fire as this, only, no doubt, a bigger one; and,

contrasting it with my coalgrate, I felt so much the more that we had transported ourselves a worldwide

Good, comfortable Mrs. Foster (the wife of stout Silas Foster, who was to manage the farm at a fair stipend,

and be our tutor in the art of husbandry) bade us a hearty welcome. At her backa back of generous

breadthappeared two young women, smiling most hospitably, but looking rather awkward withal, as not

well knowing what was to be their position in our new arrangement of the world. We shook hands

affectionately all round, and congratulated ourselves that the blessed state of brotherhood and sisterhood, at

which we aimed, might fairly be dated from this moment. Our greetings were hardly concluded when the

door opened, and Zenobiawhom I had never before seen, important as was her place in our

This (as the reader, if at all acquainted with our literary biography, need scarcely be told) was not her real

name. She had assumed it, in the first instance, as her magazine signature; and, as it accorded well with

something imperial which her friends attributed to this lady's figure and deportment, they halflaughingly

adopted it in their familiar intercourse with her. She took the appellation in good part, and even encouraged

its constant use; which, in fact, was thus far appropriate, that our Zenobia, however humble looked her new

philosophy, had as much native pride as any queen would have known what to do with.

Zenobia bade us welcome, in a fine, frank, mellow voice, and gave each of us her hand, which was very soft

and warm. She had something appropriate, I recollect, to say to every individual; and what she said to myself

was this :"I have long wished to know you, Mr. Coverdale, and to thank you for your beautiful poetry,

some of which I have learned by heart; or rather it has stolen into my memory, without my exercising any

choice or volition about the matter. Of coursepermit me to say you do not think of relinquishing an

occupation in which you have done yourself so much credit. I would almost rather give you up as an

"Ah, no; there will not be the slightest danger of that, especially after this inestimable praise from Zenobia,"

said I, smiling, and blushing, no doubt, with excess of pleasure. "I hope, on the contrary, now to produce

something that shall really deserve to be called poetry,true, strong, natural, and sweet, as is the life which

we are going to lead,something that shall have the notes of wild birds twittering through it, or a strain like

"Is it irksome to you to hear your own verses sung?" asked Zenobia, with a gracious smile. "If so, I am very

sorry, for you will certainly hear me singing them sometimes, in the summer evenings."

While this passed, and while she spoke to my companions, I was taking note of Zenobia's aspect; and it

impressed itself on me so distinctly, that I can now summon her up, like a ghost, a little wanner than the life

but otherwise identical with it. She was dressed as simply as possible, in an American print (I think the

drygoods people call it so), but with a silken kerchief, between which and her gown there was one glimpse

of a white shoulder. It struck me as a great piece of good fortune that there should be just that glimpse. Her

hair, which was dark, glossy, and of singular abundance, was put up rather soberly and primlywithout

curls, or other ornament, except a single flower. It was an exotic of rare beauty, and as fresh as if the

hothouse gardener had just clipt it from the stem. That flower has struck deep root into my memory. I can

both see it and smell it, at this moment. So brilliant, so rare, so costly as it must have been, and yet enduring

only for a day, it was more indicative of the pride and pomp which had a luxuriant growth in Zenobia's

Her hand, though very soft, was larger than most women would like to have, or than they could afford to

have, though not a whit too large in proportion with the spacious plan of Zenobia's entire development. It did

one good to see a fine intellect (as hers really was, although its natural tendency lay in another direction than

towards literature) so fitly cased. She was, indeed, an admirable figure of a woman, just on the hither verge of

her richest maturity, with a combination of features which it is safe to call remarkably beautiful, even if some

fastidious persons might pronounce them a little deficient in softness and delicacy. But we find enough of

those attributes everywhere. Preferableby way of variety, at leastwas Zenobia's bloom, health, and

vigor, which she possessed in such overflow that a man might well have fallen in love with her for their sake

only. In her quiet moods, she seemed rather indolent; but when really in earnest, particularly if there were a

"I am the first comer," Zenobia went on to say, while her smile beamed warmth upon us all; "so I take the

part of hostess for today, and welcome you as if to my own fireside. You shall be my guests, too, at supper.

Tomorrow, if you please, we will be brethren and sisters, and begin our new life from daybreak."

"Oh, we of the softer sex," responded Zenobia, with her mellow, almost broad laugh,most delectable to

hear, but not in the least like an ordinary woman's laugh,"we women (there are four of us here already)

will take the domestic and indoor part of the business, as a matter of course. To bake, to boil, to roast, to fry,

to stew,to wash, and iron, and scrub, and sweep,and, at our idler intervals, to repose ourselves on

knitting and sewing,these, I suppose, must be feminine occupations, for the present. By and by, perhaps,

when our individual adaptations begin to develop themselves, it may be that some of us who wear the

petticoat will go afield, and leave the weaker brethren to take our places in the kitchen."

"What a pity," I remarked, "that the kitchen, and the housework generally, cannot be left out of our system

altogether! It is odd enough that the kind of labor which falls to the lot of women is just that which chiefly

distinguishes artificial lifethe life of degenerated mortalsfrom the life of Paradise. Eve had no

"I am afraid," said Zenobia, with mirth gleaming out of her eyes, "we shall find some difficulty in adopting

the paradisiacal system for at least a month to come. Look at that snowdrift sweeping past the window! Are

there any figs ripe, do you think? Have the pineapples been gathered today? Would you like a breadfruit,

or a cocoanut? Shall I run out and pluck you some roses? No, no, Mr. Coverdale; the only flower hereabouts

is the one in my hair, which I got out of a greenhouse this morning. As for the garb of Eden," added she,

Assuredly Zenobia could not have intended it,the fault must have been entirely in my imagination. But

these last words, together with something in her manner, irresistibly brought up a picture of that fine,

perfectly developed figure, in Eve's earliest garment. Her free, careless, generous modes of expression often

had this effect of creating images which, though pure, are hardly felt to be quite decorous when born of a

thought that passes between man and woman. I imputed it, at that time, to Zenobia's noble courage, conscious

of no harm, and scorning the petty restraints which take the life and color out of other women's conversation.

There was another peculiarity about her. We seldom meet with women nowadays, and in this country, who

impress us as being women at all,their sex fades away and goes for nothing, in ordinary intercourse. Not so

with Zenobia. One felt an influence breathing out of her such as we might suppose to come from Eve, when

she was just made, and her Creator brought her to Adam, saying, "Behold! here is a woman!" Not that I

would convey the idea of especial gentleness, grace, modesty, and shyness, but of a certain warm and rich

characteristic, which seems, for the most part, to have been refined away out of the feminine system.

"And now," continued Zenobia, "I must go and help get supper. Do you think you can be content, instead of

figs, pineapples, and all the other delicacies of Adam's suppertable, with tea and toast, and a certain modest

supply of ham and tongue, which, with the instinct of a housewife, I brought hither in a basket? And there

The whole sisterhood now went about their domestic avocations, utterly declining our offers to assist, further

than by bringing wood for the kitchen fire from a huge pile in the back yard. After heaping up more than a

sufficient quantity, we returned to the sittingroom, drew our chairs close to the hearth, and began to talk

over our prospects. Soon, with a tremendous stamping in the entry, appeared Silas Foster, lank, stalwart,

uncouth, and grizzlybearded. He came from foddering the cattle in the barn, and from the field, where he

had been ploughing, until the depth of the snow rendered it impossible to draw a furrow. He greeted us in

pretty much the same tone as if he were speaking to his oxen, took a quid from his iron tobaccobox, pulled

off his wet cowhide boots, and sat down before the fire in his stockingfeet. The steam arose from his soaked

"Well, folks," remarked Silas, "you'll be wishing yourselves back to town again, if this weather holds."

And, true enough, there was a look of gloom, as the twilight fell silently and sadly out of the sky, its gray or

sable flakes intermingling themselves with the fastdescending snow. The storm, in its evening aspect, was

decidedly dreary. It seemed to have arisen for our especial behoof,a symbol of the cold, desolate,

distrustful phantoms that invariably haunt the mind, on the eve of adventurous enterprises, to warn us back

But our courage did not quail. We would not allow ourselves to be depressed by the snowdrift trailing past

the window, any more than if it had been the sigh of a summer wind among rustling boughs. There have been

few brighter seasons for us than that. If ever men might lawfully dream awake, and give utterance to their

wildest visions without dread of laughter or scorn on the part of the audience,yes, and speak of earthly

happiness, for themselves and mankind, as an object to be hopefully striven for, and probably attained, we

who made that little semicircle round the blazing fire were those very men. We had left the rusty iron

framework of society behind us; we had broken through many hindrances that are powerful enough to keep

most people on the weary treadmill of the established system, even while they feel its irksomeness almost as

intolerable as we did. We had stepped down from the pulpit; we had flung aside the pen; we had shut up the

ledger; we had thrown off that sweet, bewitching, enervating indolence, which is better, after all, than most of

the enjoyments within mortal grasp. It was our purposea generous one, certainly, and absurd, no doubt, in

full proportion with its generosityto give up whatever we had heretofore attained, for the sake of showing

mankind the example of a life governed by other than the false and cruel principles on which human society

And, first of all, we had divorced ourselves from pride, and were striving to supply its place with familiar

love. We meant to lessen the laboring man's great burden of toil, by performing our due share of it at the cost

of our own thews and sinews. We sought our profit by mutual aid, instead of wresting it by the strong hand

from an enemy, or filching it craftily from those less shrewd than ourselves (if, indeed, there were any such in

New England), or winning it by selfish competition with a neighbor; in one or another of which fashions

every son of woman both perpetrates and suffers his share of the common evil, whether he chooses it or no.

And, as the basis of our institution, we purposed to offer up the earnest toil of our bodies, as a prayer no less

Therefore, if we built splendid castles (phalansteries perhaps they might be more fitly called), and pictured

beautiful scenes, among the fervid coals of the hearth around which we were clustering, and if all went to

rack with the crumbling embers and have never since arisen out of the ashes, let us take to ourselves no

shame. In my own behalf, I rejoice that I could once think better of the world's improvability than it deserved.

It is a mistake into which men seldom fall twice in a lifetime; or, if so, the rarer and higher is the nature that

Stout Silas Foster mingled little in our conversation; but when he did speak, it was very much to some

practical purpose. For instance:"Which man among you," quoth he, "is the best judge of swine? Some of

Pigs! Good heavens! had we come out from among the swinish multitude for this? And again, in reference to

some discussion about raising early vegetables for the market:"We shall never make any hand at market

gardening," said Silas Foster, "unless the women folks will undertake to do all the weeding. We haven't team

enough for that and the regular farmwork, reckoning three of your city folks as worth one common

fieldhand. No, no; I tell you, we should have to get up a little too early in the morning, to compete with the

It struck me as rather odd, that one of the first questions raised, after our separation from the greedy,

struggling, selfseeking world, should relate to the possibility of getting the advantage over the outside

barbarians in their own field of labor. But, to own the truth, I very soon became sensible that, as regarded

society at large, we stood in a position of new hostility, rather than new brotherhood. Nor could this fail to be

the case, in some degree, until the bigger and better half of society should range itself on our side.

Constituting so pitiful a minority as now, we were inevitably estranged from the rest of mankind in pretty fair

This dawning idea, however, was driven back into my inner consciousness by the entrance of Zenobia. She

came with the welcome intelligence that supper was on the table. Looking at herself in the glass, and

perceiving that her one magnificent flower had grown rather languid (probably by being exposed to the

fervency of the kitchen fire), she flung it on the floor, as unconcernedly as a village girl would throw away a

faded violet. The action seemed proper to her character, although, methought, it would still more have

befitted the bounteous nature of this beautiful woman to scatter fresh flowers from her hand, and to revive

faded ones by her touch. Nevertheless, it was a singular but irresistible effect; the presence of Zenobia caused

our heroic enterprise to show like an illusion, a masquerade, a pastoral, a counterfeit Arcadia, in which we

grownup men and women were making a playday of the years that were given us to live in. I tried to

"It really vexes me," observed Zenobia, as we left the room, "that Mr. Hollingsworth should be such a

laggard. I should not have thought him at all the sort of person to be turned back by a puff of contrary wind,

"No; only as an auditorauditress, I meanof some of his lectures," said she. "What a voice he has! and

what a man he is! Yet not so much an intellectual man, I should say, as a great heart; at least, he moved me

more deeply than I think myself capable of being moved, except by the stroke of a true, strong heart against

my own. It is a sad pity that he should have devoted his glorious powers to such a grimy, unbeautiful, and

positively hopeless object as this reformation of criminals, about which he makes himself and his wretchedly

small audiences so very miserable. To tell you a secret, I never could tolerate a philanthropist before. Could

"They are, indeed, an odiously disagreeable set of mortals," continued Zenobia. "I should like Mr.

Hollingsworth a great deal better if the philanthropy had been left out. At all events, as a mere matter of taste,

I wish he would let the bad people alone, and try to benefit those who are not already past his help. Do you

suppose he will be content to spend his life, or even a few months of it, among tolerably virtuous and

"Upon my word, I doubt it," said I. "If we wish to keep him with us, we must systematically commit at least

Zenobia turned, sidelong, a strange kind of a glance upon me; but, before I could make out what it meant, we

had entered the kitchen, where, in accordance with the rustic simplicity of our new life, the suppertable was

The pleasant firelight! I must still keep harping on it. The kitchen hearth had an oldfashioned breadth, depth,

and spaciousness, far within which lay what seemed the butt of a goodsized oaktree, with the moisture

bubbling merrily out at both ends. It was now half an hour beyond dusk. The blaze from an armful of

substantial sticks, rendered more combustible by brushwood and pine, flickered powerfully on the

smokeblackened walls, and so cheered our spirits that we cared not what inclemency might rage and roar on

the other side of our illuminated windows. A yet sultrier warmth was bestowed by a goodly quantity of peat,

which was crumbling to white ashes among the burning brands, and incensed the kitchen with its not

ungrateful fragrance. The exuberance of this household fire would alone have sufficed to bespeak us no true

farmers; for the New England yeoman, if he have the misfortune to dwell within practicable distance of a

woodmarket, is as niggardly of each stick as if it were a bar of California gold.

But it was fortunate for us, on that wintry eve of our untried life, to enjoy the warm and radiant luxury of a

somewhat too abundant fire. If it served no other purpose, it made the men look so full of youth, warm blood,

and hope, and the womensuch of them, at least, as were anywise convertible by its magicso very

beautiful, that I would cheerfully have spent my last dollar to prolong the blaze. As for Zenobia, there was a

glow in her cheeks that made me think of Pandora, fresh from Vulcan's workshop, and full of the celestial

"Take your places, my dear friends all," cried she; "seat yourselves without ceremony, and you shall be made

happy with such tea as not many of the world's workingpeople, except yourselves, will find in their cups

tonight. After this one supper, you may drink buttermilk, if you please. Tonight we will quaff this nectar,

We all sat down,grizzly Silas Foster, his rotund helpmate, and the two bouncing handmaidens,

included,and looked at one another in a friendly but rather awkward way. It was the first practical trial of

our theories of equal brotherhood and sisterhood; and we people of superior cultivation and refinement (for as

such, I presume, we unhesitatingly reckoned ourselves) felt as if something were already, accomplished

towards the millennium of love. The truth is, however, that the laboring oar was with our unpolished

companions; it being far easier to condescend than to accept of condescension. Neither did I refrain from

questioning, in secret, whether some of usand Zenobia among the restwould so quietly have taken our

places among these good people, save for the cherished consciousness that it was not by necessity but choice.

Though we saw fit to drink our tea out of earthen cups tonight, and in earthen company, it was at our own

option to use pictured porcelain and handle silver forks again tomorrow. This same salvo, as to the power of

regaining our former position, contributed much, I fear, to the equanimity with which we subsequently bore

many of the hardships and humiliations of a life of toil. If ever I have deserved (which has not often been the

case, and, I think, never), but if ever I did deserve to be soundly cuffed by a fellow mortal, for secretly

putting weight upon some imaginary social advantage, it must have been while I was striving to prove myself

ostentatiously his equal and no more. It was while I sat beside him on his cobbler's bench, or clinked my hoe

against his own in the cornfield, or broke the same crust of bread, my earthgrimed hand to his, at our

noontide lunch. The poor, proud man should look at both sides of sympathy like this.

The silence which followed upon our sitting down to table grew rather oppressive; indeed, it was hardly

"I hope," said I, at last, "that our blazing windows will be visible a great way off. There is nothing so pleasant

and encouraging to a solitary traveller, on a stormy night, as a flood of firelight seen amid the gloom. These

ruddy window panes cannot fail to cheer the hearts of all that look at them. Are they not warm with the

"The blaze of that brushwood will only last a minute or two longer," observed Silas Foster; but whether he

meant to insinuate that our moral illumination would have as brief a term, I cannot say.

"There is one of the world's wayfarers," said I. "Ay, ay, just so!" quoth Silas Foster. "Our firelight will draw

Whether to enjoy a dramatic suspense, or that we were selfishly contrasting our own comfort with the chill

and dreary situation of the unknown person at the threshold, or that some of us city folk felt a little startled at

the knock which came so unseasonably, through night and storm, to the door of the lonely farmhouse,so it

happened that nobody, for an instant or two, arose to answer the summons. Pretty soon there came another

knock. The first had been moderately loud; the second was smitten so forcibly that the knuckles of the

"He knocks as if he had a right to come in," said Zenobia, laughing. "And what are we thinking of?It must

Hereupon I went to the door, unbolted, and flung it wide open. There, sure enough, stood Hollingsworth, his

shaggy greatcoat all covered with snow, so that he looked quite as much like a polar bear as a modern

"Sluggish hospitality this!" said he, in those deep tones of his, which seemed to come out of a chest as

capacious as a barrel. "It would have served you right if I had lain down and spent the night on the doorstep,

just for the sake of putting you to shame. But here is a guest who will need a warmer and softer bed."

And, stepping back to the wagon in which he had journeyed hither, Hollingsworth received into his arms and

deposited on the doorstep a figure enveloped in a cloak. It was evidently a woman; or, rather, judging from

the ease with which he lifted her, and the little space which she seemed to fill in his arms, a slim and

unsubstantial girl. As she showed some hesitation about entering the door, Hollingsworth, with his usual

directness and lack of ceremony, urged her forward not merely within the entry, but into the warm and

"Who is this?" whispered I, remaining behind with him, while he was taking off his greatcoat.

"Who? Really, I don't know," answered Hollingsworth, looking at me with some surprise. "It is a young

person who belongs here, however; and no doubt she had been expected. Zenobia, or some of the women

"I think not," said I, glancing towards the newcomer and the other occupants of the kitchen. "Nobody seems

The stranger, or whatever she were, remained standing precisely on that spot of the kitchen floor to which

Hollingsworth's kindly hand had impelled her. The cloak falling partly off, she was seen to be a very young

woman dressed in a poor but decent gown, made high in the neck, and without any regard to fashion or

smartness. Her brown hair fell down from beneath a hood, not in curls but with only a slight wave; her face

was of a wan, almost sickly hue, betokening habitual seclusion from the sun and free atmosphere, like a

flowershrub that had done its best to blossom in too scanty light. To complete the pitiableness of her aspect,

she shivered either with cold, or fear, or nervous excitement, so that you might have beheld her shadow

vibrating on the firelighted wall. In short, there has seldom been seen so depressed and sad a figure as this

young girl's; and it was hardly possible to help being angry with her, from mere despair of doing anything for

her comfort. The fantasy occurred to me that she was some desolate kind of a creature, doomed to wander

about in snowstorms; and that, though the ruddiness of our window panes had tempted her into a human

dwelling, she would not remain long enough to melt the icicles out of her hair. Another conjecture likewise

came into my mind. Recollecting Hollingsworth's sphere of philanthropic action, I deemed it possible that he

might have brought one of his guilty patients, to be wrought upon and restored to spiritual health by the pure

As yet the girl had not stirred. She stood near the door, fixing a pair of large, brown, melancholy eyes upon

Zenobiaonly upon Zenobia!she evidently saw nothing else in the room save that bright, fair, rosy,

beautiful woman. It was the strangest look I ever witnessed; long a mystery to me, and forever a memory.

Once she seemed about to move forward and greet her,I know not with what warmth or with what words,

but, finally, instead of doing so, she dropped down upon her knees, clasped her hands, and gazed piteously

I never thoroughly forgave Zenobia for her conduct on this occasion. But women are always more cautious in

"What does the girl mean?" cried she in rather a sharp tone. "Is she crazy? Has she no tongue?"

"No wonder if the poor child's tongue is frozen in her mouth," said he; and I think he positively frowned at

Zenobia. "The very heart will be frozen in her bosom, unless you women can warm it, among you, with the

Hollingsworth's appearance was very striking at this moment. He was then about thirty years old, but looked

several years older, with his great shaggy head, his heavy brow, his dark complexion, his abundant beard, and

the rude strength with which his features seemed to have been hammered out of iron, rather than chiselled or

moulded from any finer or softer material. His figure was not tall, but massive and brawny, and well befitting

his original occupation; which as the reader probably knowswas that of a blacksmith. As for external

polish, or mere courtesy of manner, he never possessed more than a tolerably educated bear; although, in his

gentler moods, there was a tenderness in his voice, eyes, mouth, in his gesture, and in every indescribable

manifestation, which few men could resist and no woman. But he now looked stern and reproachful; and it

was with that inauspicious meaning in his glance that Hollingsworth first met Zenobia's eyes, and began his

To my surprise, Zenobiaof whose haughty spirit I had been told so many examplesabsolutely changed

"You do not quite do me justice, Mr. Hollingsworth," said she almost humbly. "I am willing to be kind to the

"Have you anything to ask of this lady?" said Hollingsworth kindly to the girl. "I remember you mentioned

"Only that she will shelter me," replied the girl tremulously. "Only that she will let me be always near her."

"Well, indeed," exclaimed Zenobia, recovering herself and laughing, "this is an adventure, and wellworthy

to be the first incident in our life of love and freeheartedness! But I accept it, for the present, without further

"Priscilla," said the girl; and it appeared to me that she hesitated whether to add anything more, and decided

in the negative. "Pray do not ask me my other name,at least not yet,if you will be so kind to a forlorn

Priscilla!Priscilla! I repeated the name to myself three or four times; and in that little space, this quaint and

prim cognomen had so amalgamated itself with my idea of the girl, that it seemed as if no other name could

have adhered to her for a moment. Heretofore the poor thing had not shed any tears; but now that she found

herself received, and at least temporarily established, the big drops began to ooze out from beneath her

eyelids as if she were full of them. Perhaps it showed the iron substance of my heart, that I could not help

smiling at this odd scene of unknown and unaccountable calamity, into which our cheerful party had been

entrapped without the liberty of choosing whether to sympathize or no. Hollingsworth's behavior was

"Let us not pry further into her secrets," he said to Zenobia and the rest of us, apart; and his dark, shaggy face

looked really beautiful with its expression of thoughtful benevolence. "Let us conclude that Providence has

sent her to us, as the firstfruits of the world, which we have undertaken to make happier than we find it. Let

us warm her poor, shivering body with this good fire, and her poor, shivering heart with our best kindness.

Let us feed her, and make her one of us. As we do by this friendless girl, so shall we prosper. And, in good

time, whatever is desirable for us to know will be melted out of her, as inevitably as those tears which we see

"An old man brought her to my lodgings," answered Hollingsworth, "and begged me to convey her to

Blithedale, whereso I understood himshe had friends; and this is positively all I know about the matter."

Grim Silas Foster, all this while, had been busy at the suppertable, pouring out his own tea and gulping it

down with no more sense of its exquisiteness than if it were a decoction of catnip; helping himself to pieces

of dipt toast on the flat of his knife blade, and dropping half of it on the tablecloth; using the same

serviceable implement to cut slice after slice of ham; perpetrating terrible enormities with the butterplate; and

in all other respects behaving less like a civilized Christian than the worst kind of an ogre. Being by this time

fully gorged, he crowned his amiable exploits with a draught from the water pitcher, and then favored us with

his opinion about the business in hand. And, certainly, though they proceeded out of an unwiped mouth, his

"Give the girl a hot cup of tea and a thick slice of this firstrate bacon," said Silas, like a sensible man as he

was. "That's what she wants. Let her stay with us as long as she likes, and help in the kitchen, and take the

cowbreath at milking time; and, in a week or two, she'll begin to look like a creature of this world."

Silas Foster, by the time we concluded our meal, had stript off his coat, and planted himself on a low chair by

the kitchen fire, with a lapstone, a hammer, a piece of sole leather, and some waxedends, in order to cobble

an old pair of cowhide boots; he being, in his own phrase, "something of a dab" (whatever degree of skill that

may imply) at the shoemaking business. We heard the tap of his hammer at intervals for the rest of the

evening. The remainder of the party adjourned to the sittingroom. Good Mrs. Foster took her knittingwork,

and soon fell fast asleep, still keeping her needles in brisk movement, and, to the best of my observation,

absolutely footing a stocking out of the texture of a dream. And a very substantial stocking it seemed to be.

One of the two handmaidens hemmed a towel, and the other appeared to be making a ruffle, for her Sunday's

wear, out of a little bit of embroidered muslin which Zenobia had probably given her.

It was curious to observe how trustingly, and yet how timidly, our poor Priscilla betook herself into the

shadow of Zenobia's protection. She sat beside her on a stool, looking up every now and then with an

expression of humble delight at her new friend's beauty. A brilliant woman is often an object of the devoted

admirationit might almost be termed worship, or idolatryof some young girl, who perhaps beholds the

cynosure only at an awful distance, and has as little hope of personal intercourse as of climbing among the

stars of heaven. We men are too gross to comprehend it. Even a woman, of mature age, despises or laughs at

such a passion. There occurred to me no mode of accounting for Priscilla's behavior, except by supposing that

she had read some of Zenobia's stories (as such literature goes everywhere), or her tracts in defence of the

sex, and had come hither with the one purpose of being her slave. There is nothing parallel to this, I

believe,nothing so foolishly disinterested, and hardly anything so beautiful,in the masculine nature, at

whatever epoch of life; or, if there be, a fine and rare development of character might reasonably be looked

for from the youth who should prove himself capable of such selfforgetful affection.

Zenobia happening to change her seat, I took the opportunity, in an undertone, to suggest some such notion as

"Since you see the young woman in so poetical a light," replied she in the same tone, "you had better turn the

affair into a ballad. It is a grand subject, and worthy of supernatural machinery. The storm, the startling knock

at the door, the entrance of the sable knight Hollingsworth and this shadowy snowmaiden, who, precisely at

the stroke of midnight, shall melt away at my feet in a pool of icecold water and give me my death with a

pair of wet slippers! And when the verses are written, and polished quite to your mind, I will favor you with

"She is neither more nor less," answered Zenobia, "than a seamstress from the city; and she has probably no

more transcendental purpose than to do my miscellaneous sewing, for I suppose she will hardly expect to

"Oh, we women judge one another by tokens that escape the obtuseness of masculine perceptions!" said

Zenobia. "There is no proof which you would be likely to appreciate, except the needle marks on the tip of

her forefinger. Then, my supposition perfectly accounts for her paleness, her nervousness, and her wretched

fragility. Poor thing! She has been stifled with the heat of a salamander stove, in a small, close room, and has

drunk coffee, and fed upon doughnuts, raisins, candy, and all such trash, till she is scarcely half alive; and so,

as she has hardly any physique, a poet like Mr. Miles Coverdale may be allowed to think her spiritual."

Priscilla was gazing towards us with an inexpressible sorrow in her wan face and great tears running down

her cheeks. It was difficult to resist the impression that, cautiously as we had lowered our voices, she must

have overheard and been wounded by Zenobia's scornful estimate of her character and purposes.

"What ears the girl must have!" whispered Zenobia, with a look of vexation, partly comic and partly real. "I

will confess to you that I cannot quite make her out. However, I am positively not an illnatured person,

unless when very grievously provoked,and as you, and especially Mr. Hollingsworth, take so much interest

in this odd creature, and as she knocks with a very slight tap against my own heart likewise,why, I mean to

let her in. From this moment I will be reasonably kind to her. There is no pleasure in tormenting a person of

one's own sex, even if she do favor one with a little more love than one can conveniently dispose of; and that,

let me say, Mr. Coverdale, is the most troublesome offence you can offer to a woman."

She went towards Priscilla, took her hand, and passed her own rosy fingertips, with a pretty, caressing

movement, over the girl's hair. The touch had a magical effect. So vivid a look of joy flushed up beneath

those fingers, that it seemed as if the sad and wan Priscilla had been snatched away, and another kind of

creature substituted in her place. This one caress, bestowed voluntarily by Zenobia, was evidently received as

a pledge of all that the stranger sought from her, whatever the unuttered boon might be. From that instant,

too, she melted in quietly amongst us, and was no longer a foreign element. Though always an object of

peculiar interest, a riddle, and a theme of frequent discussion, her tenure at Blithedale was thenceforth fixed.

We no more thought of questioning it, than if Priscilla had been recognized as a domestic sprite, who had

haunted the rustic fireside of old, before we had ever been warmed by its blaze.

She now produced, out of a workbag that she had with her, some little wooden instruments (what they are

called I never knew), and proceeded to knit, or net, an article which ultimately took the shape of a silk purse.

As the work went on, I remembered to have seen just such purses before; indeed, I was the possessor of one.

Their peculiar excellence, besides the great delicacy and beauty of the manufacture, lay in the almost

impossibility that any uninitiated person should discover the aperture; although, to a practised touch, they

would open as wide as charity or prodigality might wish. I wondered if it were not a symbol of Priscilla's own

Notwithstanding the new confidence with which Zenobia had inspired her, our guest showed herself

disquieted by the storm. When the strong puffs of wind spattered the snow against the windows and made the

oaken frame of the farmhouse creak, she looked at us apprehensively, as if to inquire whether these

tempestuous outbreaks did not betoken some unusual mischief in the shrieking blast. She had been bred up,

no doubt, in some close nook, some inauspiciously sheltered court of the city, where the uttermost rage of a

tempest, though it might scatter down the slates of the roof into the bricked area, could not shake the

casement of her little room. The sense of vast, undefined space, pressing from the outside against the black

panes of our uncurtained windows, was fearful to the poor girl, heretofore accustomed to the narrowness of

human limits, with the lamps of neighboring tenements glimmering across the street. The house probably

seemed to her adrift on the great ocean of the night. A little parallelogram of sky was all that she had hitherto

known of nature, so that she felt the awfulness that really exists in its limitless extent. Once, while the blast

was bellowing, she caught hold of Zenobia's robe, with precisely the air of one who hears her own name

We spent rather an incommunicative evening. Hollingsworth hardly said a word, unless when repeatedly and

pertinaciously addressed. Then, indeed, he would glare upon us from the thick shrubbery of his meditations

like a tiger out of a jungle, make the briefest reply possible, and betake himself back into the solitude of his

heart and mind. The poor fellow had contracted this ungracious habit from the intensity with which he

contemplated his own ideas, and the infrequent sympathy which they met with from his auditors,a

circumstance that seemed only to strengthen the implicit confidence that he awarded to them. His heart, I

imagine, was never really interested in our socialist scheme, but was forever busy with his strange, and, as

most people thought it, impracticable plan, for the reformation of criminals through an appeal to their higher

Much as I liked Hollingsworth, it cost me many a groan to tolerate him on this point. He ought to have

commenced his investigation of the subject by perpetrating some huge sin in his proper person, and

The rest of us formed ourselves into a committee for providing our infant community with an appropriate

name,a matter of greatly more difficulty than the uninitiated reader would suppose. Blithedale was neither

good nor bad. We should have resumed the old Indian name of the premises, had it possessed the

oilandhoney flow which the aborigines were so often happy in communicating to their local appellations;

but it chanced to be a harsh, illconnected, and interminable word, which seemed to fill the mouth with a

mixture of very stiff clay and very crumbly pebbles. Zenobia suggested "Sunny Glimpse," as expressive of a

vista into a better system of society. This we turned over and over for a while, acknowledging its prettiness,

but concluded it to be rather too fine and sentimental a name (a fault inevitable by literary ladies in such

attempts) for sunburnt men to work under. I ventured to whisper "Utopia," which, however, was unanimously

scouted down, and the proposer very harshly maltreated, as if he had intended a latent satire. Some were for

calling our institution "The Oasis," in view of its being the one green spot in the moral sandwaste of the

world; but others insisted on a proviso for reconsidering the matter at a twelvemonths' end, when a final

decision might be had, whether to name it "The Oasis" or "Sahara." So, at last, finding it impracticable to

hammer out anything better, we resolved that the spot should still be Blithedale, as being of good augury

The evening wore on, and the outer solitude looked in upon us through the windows, gloomy, wild, and

vague, like another state of existence, close beside the little sphere of warmth and light in which we were the

prattlers and bustlers of a moment. By and by the door was opened by Silas Foster, with a cotton

"Take my advice, brother farmers," said he, with a great, broad, bottomless yawn, "and get to bed as soon as

you can. I shall sound the horn at daybreak; and we've got the cattle to fodder, and nine cows to milk, and a

Thus ended the first evening at Blithedale. I went shivering to my fireless chamber, with the miserable

consciousness (which had been growing upon me for several hours past) that I had caught a tremendous cold,

and should probably awaken, at the blast of the horn, a fit subject for a hospital. The night proved a feverish

one. During the greater part of it, I was in that vilest of states when a fixed idea remains in the mind, like the

nail in Sisera's brain, while innumerable other ideas go and come, and flutter to and fro, combining constant

transition with intolerable sameness. Had I made a record of that night's halfwaking dreams, it is my belief

that it would have anticipated several of the chief incidents of this narrative, including a dim shadow of its

catastrophe. Starting up in bed at length, I saw that the storm was past, and the moon was shining on the

From the bank of the distant river, which was shimmering in the moonlight, came the black shadow of the

only cloud in heaven, driven swiftly by the wind, and passing over meadow and hillock, vanishing amid tufts

of leafless trees, but reappearing on the hither side, until it swept across our doorstep.

The horn sounded at daybreak, as Silas Foster had forewarned us, harsh, uproarious, inexorably drawn out,

and as sleepdispelling as if this hardhearted old yeoman had got hold of the trump of doom.

On all sides I could hear the creaking of the bedsteads, as the brethren of Blithedale started from slumber, and

thrust themselves into their habiliments, all awry, no doubt, in their haste to begin the reformation of the

world. Zenobia put her head into the entry, and besought Silas Foster to cease his clamor, and to be kind

enough to leave an armful of firewood and a pail of water at her chamber door. Of the whole household,

unless, indeed, it were Priscilla, for whose habits, in this particular, I cannot vouch,of all our apostolic

society, whose mission was to bless mankind, Hollingsworth, I apprehend, was the only one who began the

enterprise with prayer. My sleepingroom being but thinly partitioned from his, the solemn murmur of his

voice made its way to my ears, compelling me to be an auditor of his awful privacy with the Creator. It

affected me with a deep reverence for Hollingsworth, which no familiarity then existing, or that afterwards

grew more intimate between us,no, nor my subsequent perception of his own great errors,ever quite

effaced. It is so rare, in these times, to meet with a man of prayerful habits (except, of course, in the pulpit),

that such an one is decidedly marked out by the light of transfiguration, shed upon him in the divine interview

As for me, I lay abed; and if I said my prayers, it was backward, cursing my day as bitterly as patient Job

himself. The truth was, the hothouse warmth of a town residence, and the luxurious life in which I indulged

myself, had taken much of the pith out of my physical system; and the wintry blast of the preceding day,

together with the general chill of our airy old farmhouse, had got fairly into my heart and the marrow of my

bones. In this predicament, I seriously wishedselfish as it may appearthat the reformation of society had

been postponed about half a century, or, at all events, to such a date as should have put my intermeddling

What, in the name of commonsense, had I to do with any better society than I had always lived in? It had

satisfied me well enough. My pleasant bachelorparlor, sunny and shadowy, curtained and carpeted, with the

bedchamber adjoining; my centretable, strewn with books and periodicals; my writingdesk with a

halffinished poem, in a stanza of my own contrivance; my morning lounge at the readingroom or picture

gallery; my noontide walk along the cheery pavement, with the suggestive succession of human faces, and

the brisk throb of human life in which I shared; my dinner at the Albion, where I had a hundred dishes at

command, and could banquet as delicately as the wizard Michael Scott when the Devil fed him from the king

of France's kitchen; my evening at the billiard club, the concert, the theatre, or at somebody's party, if I

pleased,what could be better than all this? Was it better to hoe, to mow, to toil and moil amidst the

accumulations of a barnyard; to be the chambermaid of two yoke of oxen and a dozen cows; to eat salt beef,

and earn it with the sweat of my brow, and thereby take the tough morsel out of some wretch's mouth,

into whose vocation I had thrust myself? Above all, was it better to have a fever and die blaspheming, as I

In this wretched plight, with a furnace in my heart and another in my head, by the heat of which I was kept

constantly at the boiling point, yet shivering at the bare idea of extruding so much as a finger into the icy

atmosphere of the room, I kept my bed until breakfasttime, when Hollingsworth knocked at the door, and

"Well, Coverdale," cried he, "you bid fair to make an admirable farmer! Don't you mean to get up today?"

"Neither today nor tomorrow," said I hopelessly. "I doubt if I ever rise again!"

I told him my piteous case, and besought him to send me back to town in a close carriage.

"No, no!" said Hollingsworth with kindly seriousness. "If you are really sick, we must take care of you."

Accordingly he built a fire in my chamber, and, having little else to do while the snow lay on the ground,

established himself as my nurse. A doctor was sent for, who, being homaeopathic, gave me as much

medicine, in the course of a fortnight's attendance, as would have laid on the point of a needle. They fed me

on watergruel, and I speedily became a skeleton above ground. But, after all, I have many precious

Hollingsworth's more than brotherly attendance gave me inexpressible comfort. Most menand certainly I

could not always claim to be one of the exceptionshave a natural indifference, if not an absolutely hostile

feeling, towards those whom disease, or weakness, or calamity of any kind causes to falter and faint amid the

rude jostle of our selfish existence. The education of Christianity, it is true, the sympathy of a like experience

and the example of women, may soften and, possibly, subvert this ugly characteristic of our sex; but it is

originally there, and has likewise its analogy in the practice of our brute brethren, who hunt the sick or

disabled member of the herd from among them, as an enemy. It is for this reason that the stricken deer goes

apart, and the sick lion grimly withdraws himself into his den. Except in love, or the attachments of kindred,

or other very long and habitual affection, we really have no tenderness. But there was something of the

woman moulded into the great, stalwart frame of Hollingsworth; nor was he ashamed of it, as men often are

of what is best in them, nor seemed ever to know that there was such a soft place in his heart. I knew it well,

however, at that time, although afterwards it came nigh to be forgotten. Methought there could not be two

such men alive as Hollingsworth. There never was any blaze of a fireside that warmed and cheered me, in the

downsinkings and shiverings of my spirit, so effectually as did the light out of those eyes, which lay so deep

Happy the man that has such a friend beside him when he comes to die! and unless a friend like

Hollingsworth be at hand,as most probably there will not,he had better make up his mind to die alone.

How many men, I wonder, does one meet with in a lifetime, whom he would choose for his deathbed

companions! At the crisis of my fever I besought Hollingsworth to let nobody else enter the room, but

continually to make me sensible of his own presence by a grasp of the hand, a word, a prayer, if he thought

good to utter it; and that then he should be the witness how courageously I would encounter the worst. It still

impresses me as almost a matter of regret that I did not die then, when I had tolerably made up my mind to it;

for Hollingsworth would have gone with me to the hither verge of life, and have sent his friendly and hopeful

accents far over on the other side, while I should be treading the unknown path. Now, were I to send for him,

he would hardly come to my bedside, nor should I depart the easier for his presence.

"You are not going to die, this time," said he, gravely smiling. "You know nothing about sickness, and think

"Death should take me while I am in the mood," replied I, with a little of my customary levity.

"Have you nothing to do in life," asked Hollingsworth, "that you fancy yourself so ready to leave it?"

"Nothing," answered I; "nothing that I know of, unless to make pretty verses, and play a part, with Zenobia

and the rest of the amateurs, in our pastoral. It seems but an unsubstantial sort of business, as viewed through

a mist of fever. But, dear Hollingsworth, your own vocation is evidently to be a priest, and to spend your days

"And by which of my qualities," inquired he, "can you suppose me fitted for this awful ministry?"

"By your tenderness," I said. " It seems to me the reflection of God's own love."

"And you call me tender!" repeated Hollingsworth thoughtfully. "I should rather say that the most marked

trait in my character is an inflexible severity of purpose. Mortal man has no right to be so inflexible as it is

Probably, as Hollingsworth suggested, my disorder was never so serious as, in my ignorance of such matters,

I was inclined to consider it. After so much tragical preparation, it was positively rather mortifying to find

All the other members of the Community showed me kindness, according to the full measure of their

capacity. Zenobia brought me my gruel every day, made by her own hands (not very skilfully, if the truth

must be told), and, whenever I seemed inclined to converse, would sit by my bedside, and talk with so much

vivacity as to add several gratuitous throbs to my pulse. Her poor little stories and tracts never half did justice

to her intellect. It was only the lack of a fitter avenue that drove her to seek development in literature. She

was made (among a thousand other things that she might have been) for a stump oratress. I recognized no

severe culture in Zenobia; her mind was full of weeds. It startled me sometimes, in my state of moral as well

as bodily faintheartedness, to observe the hardihood of her philosophy. She made no scruple of oversetting

all human institutions, and scattering them as with a breeze from her fan. A female reformer, in her attacks

upon society, has an instinctive sense of where the life lies, and is inclined to aim directly at that spot.

Especially the relation between the sexes is naturally among the earliest to attract her notice.

Zenobia was truly a magnificent woman. The homely simplicity of her dress could not conceal, nor scarcely

diminish, the queenliness of her presence. The image of her form and face should have been multiplied all

over the earth. It was wronging the rest of mankind to retain her as the spectacle of only a few. The stage

would have been her proper sphere. She should have made it a point of duty, moreover, to sit endlessly to

painters and sculptors, and preferably to the latter; because the cold decorum of the marble would consist

with the utmost scantiness of drapery, so that the eye might chastely be gladdened with her material

perfection in its entireness. I know not well how to express that the native glow of coloring in her cheeks, and

even the fleshwarmth over her round arms, and what was visible of her full bust,in a word, her

womanliness incarnated,compelled me sometimes to close my eyes, as if it were not quite the privilege of

modesty to gaze at her. Illness and exhaustion, no doubt, had made me morbidly sensitive.

I noticedand wondered how Zenobia contrived itthat she had always a new flower in her hair. And still

it was a hothouse flower,an outlandish flower,a flower of the tropics, such as appeared to have sprung

passionately out of a soil the very weeds of which would be fervid and spicy. Unlike as was the flower of

each successive day to the preceding one, it yet so assimilated its richness to the rich beauty of the woman,

that I thought it the only flower fit to be worn; so fit, indeed, that Nature had evidently created this floral

gem, in a happy exuberance, for the one purpose of worthily adorning Zenobia's head. It might be that my

feverish fantasies clustered themselves about this peculiarity, and caused it to look more gorgeous and

wonderful than if beheld with temperate eyes. In the height of my illness, as I well recollect, I went so far as

"Zenobia is an enchantress!" whispered I once to Hollingsworth. "She is a sister of the Veiled Lady. That

flower in her hair is a talisman. If you were to snatch it away, she would vanish, or be transformed into

"Nothing that has an atom of sense in it," answered Hollingsworth. "He is a little beside himself, I believe,

and talks about your being a witch, and of some magical property in the flower that you wear in your hair."

"It is an idea worthy of a feverish poet," said she, laughing rather compassionately, and taking out the flower.

"I scorn to owe anything to magic. Here, Mr. Hollingsworth, you may keep the spell while it has any virtue in

it; but I cannot promise you not to appear with a new one tomorrow. It is the one relic of my more brilliant,

The most curious part of the matter was that, long after my slight delirium had passed away,as long,

indeed, as t continued to know this remarkable woman,her daily flower affected my imagination, though

more slightly, yet in very much the same way. The reason must have been that, whether intentionally on her

part or not, this favorite ornament was actually a subtile expression of Zenobia's character.

One subject, about whichvery impertinently, moreoverI perplexed myself with a great many

conjectures, was, whether Zenobia had ever been married. The idea, it must be understood, was unauthorized

by any circumstance or suggestion that had made its way to my ears. So young as I beheld her, and the

freshest and rosiest woman of a thousand, there was certainly no need of imputing to her a destiny already

accomplished; the probability was far greater that her coming years had all life's richest gifts to bring. If the

great event of a woman's existence had been consummated, the world knew nothing of it, although the world

seemed to know Zenobia well. It was a ridiculous piece of romance, undoubtedly, to imagine that this

beautiful personage, wealthy as she was, and holding a position that might fairly enough be called

distinguished, could have given herself away so privately, but that some whisper and suspicion, and by

degrees a full understanding of the fact, would eventually be blown abroad. But then, as I failed not to

consider, her original home was at a distance of many hundred miles. Rumors might fill the social

atmosphere, or might once have filled it, there, which would travel but slowly, against the wind, towards our

There was notand I distinctly repeat itthe slightest foundation in my knowledge for any surmise of the

kind. But there is a species of intuition,either a spiritual lie or the subtile recognition of a fact, which

comes to us in a reduced state of the corporeal system. The soul gets the better of the body, after wasting

illness, or when a vegetable diet may have mingled too much ether in the blood. Vapors then rise up to the

brain, and take shapes that often image falsehood, but sometimes truth. The spheres of our companions have,

at such periods, a vastly greater influence upon our own than when robust health gives us a repellent and

selfdefensive energy. Zenobia's sphere, I imagine, impressed itself powerfully on mine, and transformed me,

during this period of my weakness, into something like a mesmerical clairvoyant.

Then, also, as anybody could observe, the freedom of her deportment (though, to some tastes, it might

commend itself as the utmost perfection of manner in a youthful widow or a blooming matron) was not

exactly maidenlike. What girl had ever laughed as Zenobia did? What girl had ever spoken in her mellow

tones? Her unconstrained and inevitable manifestation, I said often to myself, was that of a woman to whom

wedlock had thrown wide the gates of mystery. Yet sometimes I strove to be ashamed of these conjectures. I

acknowledged it as a masculine grossnessa sin of wicked interpretation, of which man is often guilty

towards the other sexthus to mistake the sweet, liberal, but womanly frankness of a noble and generous

disposition. Still, it was of no avail to reason with myself nor to upbraid myself. Pertinaciously the thought,

"Zenobia is a wife; Zenobia has lived and loved! There is no folded petal, no latent dewdrop, in this perfectly

developed rose! "irresistibly that thought drove out all other conclusions, as often as my mind reverted to

Zenobia was conscious of my observation, though not, I presume, of the point to which it led me.

"Mr. Coverdale," said she one day, as she saw me watching her, while she arranged my gruel on the table, "I

have been exposed to a great deal of eyeshot in the few years of my mixing in the world, but never, I think,

to precisely such glances as you are in the habit of favoring me with. I seem to interest you very much; and

yetor else a woman's instinct is for once deceivedI cannot reckon you as an admirer. What are you

"The mystery of your life," answered I, surprised into the truth by the unexpectedness of her attack. "And you

She bent her head towards me, and let me look into her eyes, as if challenging me to drop a plummetline

"I see nothing now," said I, closing my own eyes, "unless it be the face of a sprite laughing at me from the

A bachelor always feels himself defrauded, when he knows or suspects that any woman of his acquaintance

has given herself away. Otherwise, the matter could have been no concern of mine. It was purely speculative,

for I should not, under any circumstances, have fallen in love with Zenobia. The riddle made me so nervous,

however, in my sensitive condition of mind and body, that I most ungratefully began to wish that she would

let me alone. Then, too, her gruel was very wretched stuff, with almost invariably the smell of pine smoke

upon it, like the evil taste that is said to mix itself up with a witch's best concocted dainties. Why could not

she have allowed one of the other women to take the gruel in charge? Whatever else might be her gifts,

Nature certainly never intended Zenobia for a cook. Or, if so, she should have meddled only with the richest

and spiciest dishes, and such as are to be tasted at banquets, between draughts of intoxicating wine.

As soon as my incommodities allowed me to think of past occurrences, I failed not to inquire what had

become of the odd little guest whom Hollingsworth had been the medium of introducing among us. It now

appeared that poor Priscilla had not so literally fallen out of the clouds, as we were at first inclined to

suppose. A letter, which should have introduced her, had since been received from one of the city

missionaries, containing a certificate of character and an allusion to circumstances which, in the writer's

judgment, made it especially desirable that she should find shelter in our Community. There was a hint, not

very intelligible, implying either that Priscilla had recently escaped from some particular peril or irksomeness

of position, or else that she was still liable to this danger or difficulty, whatever it might be. We should ill

have deserved the reputation of a benevolent fraternity, had we hesitated to entertain a petitioner in such

need, and so strongly recommended to our kindness; not to mention, moreover, that the strange maiden had

set herself diligently to work, and was doing good service with her needle. But a slight mist of uncertainty

still floated about Priscilla, and kept her, as yet, from taking a very decided place among creatures of flesh

The mysterious attraction, which, from her first entrance on our scene, she evinced for Zenobia, had lost

nothing of its force. I often heard her footsteps, soft and low, accompanying the light but decided tread of the

latter up the staircase, stealing along the passageway by her new friend's side, and pausing while Zenobia

entered my chamber. Occasionally Zenobia would be a little annoyed by Priscilla's too close attendance. In an

authoritative and not very kindly tone, she would advise her to breathe the pleasant air in a walk, or to go

with her work into the barn, holding out half a promise to come and sit on the hay with her, when at leisure.

Evidently, Priscilla found but scanty requital for her love. Hollingsworth was likewise a great favorite with

her. For several minutes together sometimes, while my auditory nerves retained the susceptibility of delicate

health, I used to hear a low, pleasant murmur ascending from the room below; and at last ascertained it to be

Priscilla's voice, babbling like a little brook to Hollingsworth. She talked more largely and freely with him

than with Zenobia, towards whom, indeed, her feelings seemed not so much to be confidence as involuntary

affection. I should have thought all the better of my own qualities had Priscilla marked me out for the third

place in her regards. But, though she appeared to like me tolerably well, I could never flatter myself with

One forenoon, during my convalescence, there came a gentle tap at my chamber door. I immediately said,

"Come in, Priscilla!" with an acute sense of the applicant's identity. Nor was I deceived. It was really

Priscilla,a pale, largeeyed little woman (for she had gone far enough into her teens to be, at least, on the

outer limit of girlhood), but much less wan than at my previous view of her, and far better conditioned both

as to health and spirits. As I first saw her, she had reminded me of plants that one sometimes observes doing

their best to vegetate among the bricks of an enclosed court, where there is scanty soil and never any

sunshine. At present, though with no approach to bloom, there were indications that the girl had human blood

Priscilla came softly to my bedside, and held out an article of snowwhite linen, very carefully and smoothly

ironed. She did not seem bashful, nor anywise embarrassed. My weakly condition, I suppose, supplied a

"My dear Priscilla," said I, smiling, "I never had on a nightcap in my life! But perhaps it will be better for me

to wear one, now that I am a miserable invalid. How admirably you have done it! No, no; I never can think of

wearing such an exquisitely wrought nightcap as this, unless it be in the daytime, when I sit up to receive

"It is for use, not beauty," answered Priscilla. "I could have embroidered it and made it much prettier, if I

While holding up the nightcap and admiring the fine needlework, I perceived that Priscilla had a sealed letter

which she was waiting for me to take. It had arrived from the village postoffice that morning. As I did not

immediately offer to receive the letter, she drew it back, and held it against her bosom, with both hands

clasped over it, in a way that had probably grown habitual to her. Now, on turning my eyes from the nightcap

to Priscilla, it forcibly struck me that her air, though not her figure, and the expression of her face, but not its

features, had a resemblance to what I had often seen in a friend of mine, one of the most gifted women of the

age. I cannot describe it. The points easiest to convey to the reader were a certain curve of the shoulders and a

partial closing of the eyes, which seemed to look more penetratingly into my own eyes, through the narrowed

apertures, than if they had been open at full width. It was a singular anomaly of likeness coexisting with

She started, put the letter into my hand, and quite lost the look that had drawn my notice.

"Priscilla," I inquired, "did you ever see Miss Margaret Fuller?" "No," she answered.

"Because," said I, "you reminded me of her just now,and it happens, strangely enough, that this very letter

"I wish people would not fancy such odd things in me!" she said rather petulantly. "How could I possibly

"Certainly, Priscilla, it would puzzle me to explain it," I replied; "nor do I suppose that the letter had anything

She hastened out of the room, and this was the last that I saw of Priscilla until I ceased to be an invalid.

Being much alone during my recovery, I read interminably in Mr. Emerson's Essays, "The Dial," Carlyle's

works, George Sand's romances (lent me by Zenobia), and other books which one or another of the brethren

or sisterhood had brought with them. Agreeing in little else, most of these utterances were like the cry of

some solitary sentinel, whose station was on the outposts of the advance guard of human progression; or

sometimes the voice came sadly from among the shattered ruins of the past, but yet had a hopeful echo in the

future. They were well adapted (better, at least, than any other intellectual products, the volatile essence of

which had heretofore tinctured a printed page) to pilgrims like ourselves, whose present bivouac was

considerably further into the waste of chaos than any mortal army of crusaders had ever marched before.

Fourier's works, also, in a series of horribly tedious volumes, attracted a good deal of my attention, from the

analogy which I could not but recognize between his system and our own. There was far less resemblance, it

is true, than the world chose to imagine, inasmuch as the two theories differed, as widely as the zenith from

I talked about Fourier to Hollingsworth, and translated, for his benefit, some of the passages that chiefly

"When, as a consequence of human improvement," said I, "the globe shall arrive at its final perfection, the

great ocean is to be converted into a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable at Paris in Fourier's

time. He calls it limonade a cedre. It is positively a fact! Just imagine the city docks filled, every day, with a

"Why did not the Frenchman make punch of it at once?" asked Hollingsworth. "The jacktars would be

I further proceeded to explain, as well as I modestly could, several points of Fourier's system, illustrating

them with here and there a page or two, and asking Hollingsworth's opinion as to the expediency of

"Let me hear no more of it!" cried he, in utter disgust. "I never will forgive this fellow! He has committed the

unpardonable sin; for what more monstrous iniquity could the Devil himself contrive than to choose the

selfish principle,the principle of all human wrong, the very blackness of man's heart, the portion of

ourselves which we shudder at, and which it is the whole aim of spiritual discipline to eradicate,to choose

it as the master workman of his system? To seize upon and foster whatever vile, petty, sordid, filthy, bestial,

and abominable corruptions have cankered into our nature, to be the efficient instruments of his infernal

regeneration! And his consummated Paradise, as he pictures it, would be worthy of the agency which he

"Nevertheless," remarked I, "in consideration of the promised delights of his system,so very proper, as

they certainly are, to be appreciated by Fourier's countrymen,I cannot but wonder that universal France did

not adopt his theory at a moment's warning. But is there not something very characteristic of his nation in

Fourier's manner of putting forth his views? He makes no claim to inspiration. He has not persuaded

himselfas Swedenborg did, and as any other than a Frenchman would, with a mission of like importance to

communicatethat he speaks with authority from above. He promulgates his system, so far as I can

perceive, entirely on his own responsibility. He has searched out and discovered the whole counsel of the

Almighty in respect to mankind, past, present, and for exactly seventy thousand years to come, by the mere

"Take the book out of my sight," said Hollingsworth with great virulence of expression, "or, I tell you fairly, I

shall fling it in the fire! And as for Fourier, let him make a Paradise, if he can, of Gehenna, where, as I

"And bellowing, I suppose," said I,not that I felt any illwill towards Fourier, but merely wanted to give

the finishing touch to Hollingsworth's image, "bellowing for the least drop of his beloved limonade a cedre!"

There is but little profit to be expected in attempting to argue with a man who allows himself to declaim in

But had the system at which he was so enraged combined almost any amount of human wisdom, spiritual

insight, and imaginative beauty, I question whether Hollingsworth's mind was in a fit condition to receive it. I

began to discern that he had come among us actuated by no real sympathy with our feelings and our hopes,

but chiefly because we were estranging ourselves from the world, with which his lonely and exclusive object

in life had already put him at odds. Hollingsworth must have been originally endowed with a great spirit of

benevolence, deep enough and warm enough to be the source of as much disinterested good as Providence

often allows a human being the privilege of conferring upon his fellows. This native instinct yet lived within

him. I myself had profited by it, in my necessity. It was seen, too, in his treatment of Priscilla. Such casual

circumstances as were here involved would quicken his divine power of sympathy, and make him seem,

while their influence lasted, the tenderest man and the truest friend on earth. But by and by you missed the

tenderness of yesterday, and grew drearily conscious that Hollingsworth had a closer friend than ever you

could be; and this friend was the cold, spectral monster which he had himself conjured up, and on which he

was wasting all the warmth of his heart, and of which, at last, as these men of a mighty purpose so

invariably do,he had grown to be the bondslave. It was his philanthropic theory.

This was a result exceedingly sad to contemplate, considering that it had been mainly brought about by the

very ardor and exuberance of his philanthropy. Sad, indeed, but by no means unusual: he had taught his

benevolence to pour its warm tide exclusively through one channel; so that there was nothing to spare for

other great manifestations of love to man, nor scarcely for the nutriment of individual attachments, unless

they could minister in some way to the terrible egotism which he mistook for an angel of God. Had

Hollingsworth's education been more enlarged, he might not so inevitably have stumbled into this pitfall. But

this identical pursuit had educated him. He knew absolutely nothing, except in a single direction, where he

had thought so energetically, and felt to such a depth, that no doubt the entire reason and justice of the

It is my private opinion that, at this period of his life, Hollingsworth was fast going mad; and, as with other

crazy people (among whom I include humorists of every degree), it required all the constancy of friendship to

restrain his associates from pronouncing him an intolerable bore. Such prolonged fiddling upon one

stringsuch multiform presentation of one idea! His specific object (of which he made the public more than

sufficiently aware, through the medium of lectures and pamphlets) was to obtain funds for the construction of

an edifice, with a sort of collegiate endowment. On this foundation he purposed to devote himself and a few

disciples to the reform and mental culture of our criminal brethren. His visionary edifice was Hollingsworth's

one castle in the air; it was the material type in which his philanthropic dream strove to embody itself; and he

made the scheme more definite, and caught hold of it the more strongly, and kept his clutch the more

pertinaciously, by rendering it visible to the bodily eye. I have seen him, a hundred times, with a pencil and

sheet of paper, sketching the facade, the sideview, or the rear of the structure, or planning the internal

arrangements, as lovingly as another man might plan those of the projected home where he meant to be happy

with his wife and children. I have known him to begin a model of the building with little stones, gathered at

the brookside, whither we had gone to cool ourselves in the sultry noon of hayingtime. Unlike all other

ghosts, his spirit haunted an edifice, which, instead of being timeworn, and full of storied love, and joy, and

"Dear friend," said I once to Hollingsworth, before leaving my sickchamber," I heartily wish that I could

make your schemes my schemes, because it would be so great a happiness to find myself treading the same

path with you. But I am afraid there is not stuff in me stern enough for a philanthropist,or not in this

peculiar direction,or, at all events, not solely in this. Can you bear with me, if such should prove to be the

"I will at least wait awhile," answered Hollingsworth, gazing at me sternly and gloomily. "But how can you

be my lifelong friend, except you strive with me towards the great object of my life?"

Heaven forgive me! A horrible suspicion crept into my heart, and stung the very core of it as with the fangs

of an adder. I wondered whether it were possible that Hollingsworth could have watched by my bedside, with

all that devoted care, only for the ulterior purpose of making me a proselyte to his views!

MaydayI forget whether by Zenobia s sole decree, or by the unanimous vote of our communityhad

been declared a movable festival. It was deferred until the sun should have had a reasonable time to clear

away the snowdrifts along the lee of the stone walls, and bring out a few of the readiest wild flowers. On the

forenoon of the substituted day, after admitting some of the balmy air into my chamber, I decided that it was

nonsense and effeminacy to keep myself a prisoner any longer. So I descended to the sittingroom, and

finding nobody there, proceeded to the barn, whence I had already heard Zenobia's voice, and along with it a

girlish laugh which was not so certainly recognizable. Arriving at the spot, it a little surprised me to discover

The two had been amaying together. They had found anemones in abundance, houstonias by the handful,

some columbines, a few longstalked violets, and a quantity of white everlasting flowers, and had filled up

their basket with the delicate spray of shrubs and trees. None were prettier than the maple twigs, the leaf of

which looks like a scarlet bud in May, and like a plate of vegetable gold in October. Zenobia, who showed no

conscience in such matters, had also rifled a cherrytree of one of its blossomed boughs, and, with all this

variety of sylvan ornament, had been decking out Priscilla. Being done with a good deal of taste, it made her

look more charming than I should have thought possible, with my recollection of the wan, frostnipt girl, as

heretofore described. Nevertheless, among those fragrant blossoms, and conspicuously, too, had been stuck a

weed of evil odor and ugly aspect, which, as soon as I detected it, destroyed the effect of all the rest. There

was a gleam of latent mischiefnot to call it deviltryin Zenobia's eye, which seemed to indicate a slightly

As for herself, she scorned the rural buds and leaflets, and wore nothing but her invariable flower of the

"What do you think of Priscilla now, Mr. Coverdale?" asked she, surveying her as a child does its doll. "Is not

"There is only one thing amiss," answered I. Zenobia laughed, and flung the malignant weed away.

"Yes; she deserves some verses now," said I, "and from a better poet than myself. She is the very picture of

the New England spring; subdued in tint and rather cool, but with a capacity of sunshine, and bringing us a

few Alpine blossoms, as earnest of something richer, though hardly more beautiful, hereafter. The best type

"What I find most singular in Priscilla, as her health improves," observed Zenobia, "is her wildness. Such a

quiet little body as she seemed, one would not have expected that. Why, as we strolled the woods together, I

could hardly keep her from scrambling up the trees, like a squirrel. She has never before known what it is to

live in the free air, and so it intoxicates her as if she were sipping wine. And she thinks it such a paradise

here, and all of us, particularly Mr. Hollingsworth and myself, such angels! It is quite ridiculous, and

provokes one's malice almost, to see a creature so happy, especially a feminine creature."

"You must correct that opinion, Mr. Coverdale," replied Zenobia contemptuously, "or I shall think you lack

the poetic insight. Did you ever see a happy woman in your life? Of course, I do not mean a girl, like Priscilla

and a thousand others,for they are all alike, while on the sunny side of experience,but a grown woman.

How can she be happy, after discovering that fate has assigned her but one single event, which she must

contrive to make the substance of her whole life? A man has his choice of innumerable events."

"A woman, I suppose," answered I, "by constant repetition of her one event, may compensate for the lack of

While we were talking, Priscilla caught sight of Hollingsworth at a distance, in a blue frock, and with a hoe

over his shoulder, returning from the field. She immediately set out to meet him, running and skipping, with

spirits as light as the breeze of the May morning, but with limbs too little exercised to be quite responsive;

she clapped her hands, too, with great exuberance of gesture, as is the custom of young girls when their

electricity overcharges them. But, all at once, midway to Hollingsworth, she paused, looked round about her,

towards the river, the road, the woods, and back towards us, appearing to listen, as if she heard some one

"It is no sorcery of mine," said Zenobia; "but I have seen the girl do that identical thing once or twice before.

"No; unless," said I, "she has the gift of hearing those 'airy tongues that syllable men's names,' which Milton

From whatever cause, Priscilla's animation seemed entirely to have deserted her. She seated herself on a rock,

and remained there until Hollingsworth came up; and when he took her hand and led her back to us, she

rather resembled my original image of the wan and spiritless Priscilla than the flowery Mayqueen of a few

moments ago. These sudden transformations, only to be accounted for by an extreme nervous susceptibility,

always continued to characterize the girl, though with diminished frequency as her health progressively grew

I was now on my legs again. My fit of illness had been an avenue between two existences; the lowarched

and darksome doorway, through which I crept out of a life of old conventionalisms, on my hands and knees,

as it were, and gained admittance into the freer region that lay beyond. In this respect, it was like death. And,

as with death, too, it was good to have gone through it. No otherwise could I have rid myself of a thousand

follies, fripperies, prejudices, habits, and other such worldly dust as inevitably settles upon the crowd along

the broad highway, giving them all one sordid aspect before noontime, however freshly they may have

begun their pilgrimage in the dewy morning. The very substance upon my bones had not been fit to live with

in any better, truer, or more energetic mode than that to which I was accustomed. So it was taken off me and

flung aside, like any other wornout or unseasonable garment; and, after shivering a little while in my

skeleton, I began to be clothed anew, and much more satisfactorily than in my previous suit. In literal and

physical truth, I was quite another man. I had a lively sense of the exultation with which the spirit will enter

on the next stage of its eternal progress after leaving the heavy burden of its mortality in an early grave, with

as little concern for what may become of it as now affected me for the flesh which I had lost.

Emerging into the genial sunshine, I half fancied that the labors of the brotherhood had already realized some

of Fourier's predictions. Their enlightened culture of the soil, and the virtues with which they sanctified their

life, had begun to produce an effect upon the material world and its climate. In my new enthusiasm, man

looked strong and stately,and woman, oh, how beautiful!and the earth a green garden, blossoming with

manycolored delights. Thus Nature, whose laws I had broken in various artificial ways, comported herself

towards me as a strict but loving mother, who uses the rod upon her little boy for his naughtiness, and then

gives him a smile, a kiss, and some pretty playthings to console the urchin for her severity.

In the interval of my seclusion, there had been a number of recruits to our little army of saints and martyrs.

They were mostly individuals who had gone through such an experience as to disgust them with ordinary

pursuits, but who were not yet so old, nor had suffered so deeply, as to lose their faith in the better time to

come. On comparing their minds one with another they often discovered that this idea of a Community had

been growing up, in silent and unknown sympathy, for years. Thoughtful, strongly lined faces were among

them; sombre brows, but eyes that did not require spectacles, unless prematurely dimmed by the student's

lamplight, and hair that seldom showed a thread of silver. Age, wedded to the past, incrusted over with a

stony layer of habits, and retaining nothing fluid in its possibilities, would have been absurdly out of place in

an enterprise like this. Youth, too, in its early dawn, was hardly more adapted to our purpose; for it would

behold the morning radiance of its own spirit beaming over the very same spots of withered grass and barren

sand whence most of us had seen it vanish. We had very young people with us, it is true,downy lads, rosy

girls in their first teens, and children of all heights above one's knee; but these had chiefly been sent hither for

education, which it was one of the objects and methods of our institution to supply. Then we had boarders,

from town and elsewhere, who lived with us in a familiar way, sympathized more or less in our theories, and

On the whole, it was a society such as has seldom met together; nor, perhaps, could it reasonably be expected

to hold together long. Persons of marked individualitycrooked sticks, as some of us might be calledare

not exactly the easiest to bind up into a fagot. But, so long as our union should subsist, a man of intellect and

feeling, with a free nature in him, might have sought far and near without finding so many points of attraction

as would allure him hitherward. We were of all creeds and opinions, and generally tolerant of all, on every

imaginable subject. Our bond, it seems to me, was not affirmative, but negative. We had individually found

one thing or another to quarrel with in our past life, and were pretty well agreed as to the inexpediency of

lumbering along with the old system any further. As to what should be substituted, there was much less

unanimity. We did not greatly careat least, I never didfor the written constitution under which our

millennium had commenced. My hope was, that, between theory and practice, a true and available mode of

life might be struck out; and that, even should we ultimately fail, the months or years spent in the trial would

not have been wasted, either as regarded passing enjoyment, or the experience which makes men wise.

Arcadians though we were, our costume bore no resemblance to the beribboned doublets, silk breeches and

stockings, and slippers fastened with artificial roses, that distinguish the pastoral people of poetry and the

stage. In outward show, I humbly conceive, we looked rather like a gang of beggars, or banditti, than either a

company of honest laboringmen, or a conclave of philosophers. Whatever might be our points of difference,

we all of us seemed to have come to Blithedale with the one thrifty and laudable idea of wearing out our old

clothes. Such garments as had an airing, whenever we strode afield! Coats with high collars and with no

collars, broadskirted or swallowtailed, and with the waist at every point between the hip and armpit;

pantaloons of a dozen successive epochs, and greatly defaced at the knees by the humiliations of the wearer

before his ladylove,in short, we were a living epitome of defunct fashions, and the very raggedest

presentment of men who had seen better days. It was gentility in tatters. Often retaining a scholarlike or

clerical air, you might have taken us for the denizens of Grub Street, intent on getting a comfortable

livelihood by agricultural labor; or Coleridge's projected Pantisocracy in full experiment; or Candide and his

motley associates at work in their cabbage garden; or anything else that was miserably out at elbows, and

most clumsily patched in the rear. We might have been sworn comrades to Falstaff's ragged regiment. Little

skill as we boasted in other points of husbandry, every mother's son of us would have served admirably to

stick up for a scarecrow. And the worst of the matter was, that the first energetic movement essential to one

downright stroke of real labor was sure to put a finish to these poor habiliments. So we gradually flung them

all aside, and took to honest homespun and linseywoolsey, as preferable, on the whole, to the plan

recommended, I think, by Virgil, "Ara nudus; sere nudus,"which as Silas Foster remarked, when I

After a reasonable training, the yeoman life throve well with us. Our faces took the sunburn kindly; our

chests gained in compass, and our shoulders in breadth and squareness; our great brown fists looked as if they

had never been capable of kid gloves. The plough, the hoe, the scythe, and the hayfork grew familiar to our

grasp. The oxen responded to our voices. We could do almost as fair a day's work as Silas Foster himself,

sleep dreamlessly after it, and awake at daybreak with only a little stiffness of the joints, which was usually

To be sure, our next neighbors pretended to be incredulous as to our real proficiency in the business which

we had taken in hand. They told slanderous fables about our inability to yoke our own oxen, or to drive them

afield when yoked, or to release the poor brutes from their conjugal bond at nightfall. They had the face to

say, too, that the cows laughed at our awkwardness at milkingtime, and invariably kicked over the pails;

partly in consequence of our putting the stool on the wrong side, and partly because, taking offence at the

whisking of their tails, we were in the habit of holding these natural flyflappers with one hand and milking

with the other. They further averred that we hoed up whole acres of Indian corn and other crops, and drew the

earth carefully about the weeds; and that we raised five hundred tufts of burdock, mistaking them for

cabbages; and that by dint of unskilful planting few of our seeds ever came up at all, or, if they did come up,

it was sternforemost; and that we spent the better part of the month of June in reversing a field of beans,

which had thrust themselves out of the ground in this unseemly way. They quoted it as nothing more than an

ordinary occurrence for one or other of us to crop off two or three fingers, of a morning, by our clumsy use of

the haycutter. Finally, and as an ultimate catastrophe, these mendacious rogues circulated a report that we

communitarians were exterminated, to the last man, by severing ourselves asunder with the sweep of our own

But this was pure envy and malice on the part of the neighboring farmers. The peril of our new way of life

was not lest we should fail in becoming practical agriculturists, but that we should probably cease to be

anything else. While our enterprise lay all in theory, we had pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the

spiritualization of labor. It was to be our form of prayer and ceremonial of worship. Each stroke of the hoe

was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom, heretofore hidden from the sun. Pausing in the field, to let the

wind exhale the moisture from our foreheads, we were to look upward, and catch glimpses into the faroff

soul of truth. In this point of view, matters did not turn out quite so well as we anticipated. It is very true that,

sometimes, gazing casually around me, out of the midst of my toil, I used to discern a richer picturesqueness

in the visible scene of earth and sky. There was, at such moments, a novelty, an unwonted aspect, on the face

of Nature, as if she had been taken by surprise and seen at unawares, with no opportunity to put off her real

look, and assume the mask with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals. But this was all. The

clods of earth, which we so constantly belabored and turned over and over, were never etherealized into

thought. Our thoughts, on the contrary, were fast becoming cloddish. Our labor symbolized nothing, and left

us mentally sluggish in the dusk of the evening. Intellectual activity is incompatible with any large amount of

bodily exercise. The yeoman and the scholarthe yeoman and the man of finest moral culture, though not

the man of sturdiest sense and integrityare two distinct individuals, and can never be melted or welded into

Zenobia soon saw this truth, and gibed me about it, one evening, as Hollingsworth and I lay on the grass,

"I am afraid you did not make a song today, while loading the haycart," said she, "as Burns did, when he

"Burns never made a song in hayingtime," I answered very positively. "He was no poet while a farmer, and

"And on the whole, which of the two characters do you like best?" asked Zenobia. "For I have an idea that

you cannot combine them any better than Burns did. Ah, I see, in my mind's eye, what sort of an individual

you are to be, two or three years hence. Grim Silas Foster is your prototype, with his palm of soleleather, and

his joints of rusty iron (which all through summer keep the stiffness of what he calls his winter's rheumatize),

and his brain ofI don't know what his brain is made of, unless it be a Savoy cabbage; but yours may be

cauliflower, as a rather more delicate variety. Your physical man will be transmuted into salt beef and fried

pork, at the rate, I should imagine, of a pound and a half a day; that being about the average which we find

necessary in the kitchen. You will make your toilet for the day (still like this delightful Silas Foster) by

rinsing your fingers and the front part of your face in a little tin pan of water at the doorstep, and teasing your

hair with a wooden pocketcomb before a sevenbynineinch lookingglass. Your only pastime will be to

"Pray, spare me!" cried I. "But the pipe is not Silas's only mode of solacing himself with the weed."

"Your literature," continued Zenobia, apparently delighted with her description, "will be the 'Farmer's

Almanac;' for I observe our friend Foster never gets so far as the newspaper. When you happen to sit down, at

odd moments, you will fall asleep, and make nasal proclamation of the fact, as he does; and invariably you

must be jogged out of a nap, after supper, by the future Mrs. Coverdale, and persuaded to go regularly to bed.

And on Sundays, when you put on a blue coat with brass buttons, you will think of nothing else to do but to

go and lounge over the stone walls and rail fences, and stare at the corn growing. And you will look with a

knowing eye at oxen, and will have a tendency to clamber over into pigsties, and feel of the hogs, and give a

guess how much they will weigh after you shall have stuck and dressed them. Already I have noticed you

begin to speak through your nose, and with a drawl. Pray, if you really did make any poetry today, let us

"Coverdale has given up making verses now," said Hollingsworth, who never had the slightest appreciation

of my poetry. "Just think of him penning a sonnet with a fist like that! There is at least this good in a life of

toil, that it takes the nonsense and fancywork out of a man, and leaves nothing but what truly belongs to

him. If a farmer can make poetry at the ploughtail, it must be because his nature insists on it; and if that be

"And how is it with you?" asked Zenobia, in a different voice; for she never laughed at Hollingsworth, as she

often did at me. "You, I think, cannot have ceased to live a life of thought and feeling."

"I have always been in earnest," answered Hollingsworth. "I have hammered thought out of iron, after heating

the iron in my heart! It matters little what my outward toil may be. Were I a slave, at the bottom of a mine, I

should keep the same purpose, the same faith in its ultimate accomplishment, that I do now. Miles Coverdale

"You give me hard measure, Hollingsworth," said I, a little hurt. "I have kept pace with you in the field; and

my bones feel as if I had been in earnest, whatever may be the case with my brain!"

"I cannot conceive," observed Zenobia with great emphasis,and, no doubt, she spoke fairly the feeling of

the moment," I cannot conceive of being so continually as Mr. Coverdale is within the sphere of a strong

This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed me in what I had already begun to suspect, that

Hollingsworth, like many other illustrious prophets, reformers, and philanthropists, was likely to make at

least two proselytes among the women to one among the men. Zenobia and Priscilla! These, I believe (unless

my unworthy self might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his mission; and I spent a great

deal of time, uselessly, in trying to conjecture what Hollingsworth meant to do with themand they with

It is not, I apprehend, a healthy kind of mental occupation to devote ourselves too exclusively to the study of

individual men and women. If the person under examination be one's self, the result is pretty certain to be

diseased action of the heart, almost before we can snatch a second glance. Or if we take the freedom to put a

friend under our microscope, we thereby insulate him from many of his true relations, magnify his

peculiarities, inevitably tear him into parts, and of course patch him very clumsily together again. What

wonder, then, should we be frightened by the aspect of a monster, which, after all,though we can point to

every feature of his deformity in the real personage,may be said to have been created mainly by ourselves.

Thus, as my conscience has often whispered me, I did Hollingsworth a great wrong by prying into his

character; and am perhaps doing him as great a one, at this moment, by putting faith in the discoveries which

I seemed to make. But I could not help it. Had I loved him less, I might have used him better. He and Zenobia

and Priscillaboth for their own sakes and as connected with himwere separated from the rest of the

Community, to my imagination, and stood forth as the indices of a problem which it was my business to

solve. Other associates had a portion of my time; other matters amused me; passing occurrences carried me

along with them, while they lasted. But here was the vortex of my meditations, around which they revolved,

and whitherward they too continually tended. In the midst of cheerful society, I had often a feeling of

loneliness. For it was impossible not to be sensible that, while these three characters figured so largely on my

private theatre, Ithough probably reckoned as a friend by allwas at best but a secondary or tertiary

I loved Hollingsworth, as has already been enough expressed. But it impressed me, more and more, that there

was a stern and dreadful peculiarity in this man, such as could not prove otherwise than pernicious to the

happiness of those who should be drawn into too intimate a connection with him. He was not altogether

human. There was something else in Hollingsworth besides flesh and blood, and sympathies and affections

This is always true of those men who have surrendered themselves to an overruling purpose. It does not so

much impel them from without, nor even operate as a motive power within, but grows incorporate with all

that they think and feel, and finally converts them into little else save that one principle. When such begins to

be the predicament, it is not cowardice, but wisdom, to avoid these victims. They have no heart, no sympathy,

no reason, no conscience. They will keep no friend, unless he make himself the mirror of their purpose; they

will smite and slay you, and trample your dead corpse under foot, all the more readily, if you take the first

step with them, and cannot take the second, and the third, and every other step of their terribly strait path.

They have an idol to which they consecrate themselves highpriest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices

of whatever is most precious; and never once seem to suspectso cunning has the Devil been with

themthat this false deity, in whose iron features, immitigable to all the rest of mankind, they see only

benignity and love, is but a spectrum of the very priest himself, projected upon the surrounding darkness.

And the higher and purer the original object, and the more unselfishly it may have been taken up, the slighter

is the probability that they can be led to recognize the process by which godlike benevolence has been

Of course I am perfectly aware that the above statement is exaggerated, in the attempt to make it adequate.

Professed philanthropists have gone far; but no originally good man, I presume, ever went quite so far as this.

Let the reader abate whatever he deems fit. The paragraph may remain, however, both for its truth and its

exaggeration, as strongly expressive of the tendencies which were really operative in Hollingsworth, and as

exemplifying the kind of error into which my mode of observation was calculated to lead me. The issue was,

that in solitude I often shuddered at my friend. In my recollection of his dark and impressive countenance, the

features grew more sternly prominent than the reality, duskier in their depth and shadow, and more lurid in

their light; the frown, that had merely flitted across his brow, seemed to have contorted it with an adamantine

wrinkle. On meeting him again, I was often filled with remorse, when his deep eyes beamed kindly upon me,

as with the glow of a household fire that was burning in a cave. "He is a man after all," thought I; "his

Maker's own truest image, a philanthropic man!not that steel engine of the Devil's contrivance, a

philanthropist!" But in my woodwalks, and in my silent chamber, the dark face frowned at me again.

When a young girl comes within the sphere of such a man, she is as perilously situated as the maiden whom,

in the old classical myths, the people used to expose to a dragon. If I had any duty whatever, in reference to

Hollingsworth, it was to endeavor to save Priscilla from that kind of personal worship which her sex is

generally prone to lavish upon saints and heroes. It often requires but one smile out of the hero's eyes into the

girl's or woman's heart, to transform this devotion, from a sentiment of the highest approval and confidence,

into passionate love. Now, Hollingsworth smiled much upon Priscilla,more than upon any other person. If

she thought him beautiful, it was no wonder. I often thought him so, with the expression of tender human care

and gentlest sympathy which she alone seemed to have power to call out upon his features. Zenobia, I

suspect, would have given her eyes, bright as they were, for such a look; it was the least that our poor

Priscilla could do, to give her heart for a great many of them. There was the more danger of this, inasmuch as

the footing on which we all associated at Blithedale was widely different from that of conventional society.

While inclining us to the soft affections of the golden age, it seemed to authorize any individual, of either sex,

to fall in love with any other, regardless of what would elsewhere be judged suitable and prudent.

Accordingly the tender passion was very rife among us, in various degrees of mildness or virulence, but

mostly passing away with the state of things that had given it origin. This was all well enough; but, for a girl

like Priscilla and a woman like Zenobia to jostle one another in their love of a man like Hollingsworth, was

Had I been as coldhearted as I sometimes thought myself, nothing would have interested me more than to

witness the play of passions that must thus have been evolved. But, in honest truth, I would really have gone

far to save Priscilla, at least, from the catastrophe in which such a drama would be apt to terminate.

Priscilla had now grown to be a very pretty girl, and still kept budding and blossoming, and daily putting on

some new charm, which you no sooner became sensible of than you thought it worth all that she had

previously. possessed. So unformed, vague, and without substance, as she had come to us, it seemed as if we

could see Nature shaping out a woman before our very eyes, and yet had only a more reverential sense of the

mystery of a woman's soul and frame. Yesterday, her cheek was pale, today, it had a bloom. Priscilla's

smile, like a baby's first one, was a wondrous novelty. Her imperfections and shortcomings affected me with

a kind of playful pathos, which was as absolutely bewitching a sensation as ever I experienced. After she had

been a month or two at Blithedale, her animal spirits waxed high, and kept her pretty constantly in a state of

bubble and ferment, impelling her to far more bodily activity than she had yet strength to endure. She was

very fond of playing with the other girls out of doors. There is hardly another sight in the world so pretty as

that of a company of young girls, almost women grown, at play, and so giving themselves up to their airy

Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more untamable and regardless of rule and

limit, with an evershifting variety, breaking continually into new modes of fun, yet with a harmonious

propriety through all. Their steps, their voices, appear free as the wind, but keep consonance with a strain of

music inaudible to us. Young men and boys, on the other hand, play, according to recognized law, old,

traditionary games, permitting no caprioles of fancy, but with scope enough for the outbreak of savage

instincts. For, young or old, in play or in earnest, man is prone to be a brute.

Especially is it delightful to see a vigorous young girl run a race, with her head thrown back, her limbs

moving more friskily than they need, and an air between that of a bird and a young colt. But Priscilla's

peculiar charm, in a footrace, was the weakness and irregularity with which she ran. Growing up without

exercise, except to her poor little fingers, she had never yet acquired the perfect use of her legs. Setting

buoyantly forth, therefore, as if no rival less swift than Atalanta could compete with her, she ran falteringly,

and often tumbled on the grass. Such an incidentthough it seems too slight to think ofwas a thing to

laugh at, but which brought the water into one's eyes, and lingered in the memory after far greater joys and

sorrows were wept out of it, as antiquated trash. Priscilla's life, as I beheld it, was full of trifles that affected

When she had come to be quite at home among us, I used to fancy that Priscilla played more pranks, and

perpetrated more mischief, than any other girl in the Community. For example, I once heard Silas Foster, in a

very gruff voice, threatening to rivet three horseshoes round Priscilla's neck and chain her to a post, because

she, with some other young people, had clambered upon a load of hay, and caused it to slide off the cart. How

she made her peace I never knew; but very soon afterwards I saw old Silas, with his brawny hands round

Priscilla's waist, swinging her to and fro, and finally depositing her on one of the oxen, to take her first

lessons in riding. She met with terrible mishaps in her efforts to milk a cow; she let the poultry into the

garden; she generally spoilt whatever part of the dinner she took in charge; she broke crockery; she dropt our

biggest water pitcher into the well; andexcept with her needle, and those little wooden instruments for

pursemakingwas as unserviceable a member of society as any young lady in the land. There was no other

sort of efficiency about her. Yet everybody was kind to Priscilla; everybody loved her and laughed at her to

her face, and did not laugh behind her back; everybody would have given her half of his last crust, or the

bigger share of his plumcake. These were pretty certain indications that we were all conscious of a pleasant

weakness in the girl, and considered her not quite able to look after her own interests or fight her battle with

the world. And Hollingsworthperhaps because he had been the means of introducing Priscilla to her new

Her simple, careless, childish flow of spirits often made me sad. She seemed to me like a butterfly at play in a

flickering bit of sunshine, and mistaking it for a broad and eternal summer. We sometimes hold mirth to a

stricter accountability than sorrow; it must show good cause, or the echo of its laughter comes back drearily.

Priscilla's gayety, moreover, was of a nature that showed me how delicate an instrument she was, and what

fragile harpstrings were her nerves. As they made sweet music at the airiest touch, it would require but a

stronger one to burst them all asunder. Absurd as it might be, I tried to reason with her, and persuade her not

to be so joyous, thinking that, if she would draw less lavishly upon her fund of happiness, it would last the

longer. I remember doing so, one summer evening, when we tired laborers sat looking on, like Goldsmith's

old folks under the village thorntree, while the young people were at their sports.

"What is the use or sense of being so very gay?" I said to Priscilla, while she was taking breath, after a great

frolic. "I love to see a sufficient cause for everything, and I can see none for this. Pray tell me, now, what

"I never think about it at all," answered Priscilla, laughing. "But this I am sure of, that it is a world where

everybody is kind to me, and where I love everybody. My heart keeps dancing within me, and all the foolish

things which you see me do are only the motions of my heart. How can I be dismal, if my heart will not let

"Have you nothing dismal to remember?" I suggested. "If not, then, indeed, you are very fortunate!"

And then came that unintelligible gesture, when she seemed to be listening to a distant voice.

"For my part," I continued, beneficently seeking to overshadow her with my own sombre humor, "my past

life has been a tiresome one enough; yet I would rather look backward ten times than forward once. For, little

as we know of our life to come, we may be very sure, for one thing, that the good we aim at will not be

attained. People never do get just the good they seek. If it come at all, it is something else, which they never

dreamed of, and did not particularly want. Then, again, we may rest certain that our friends of today will not

be our friends of a few years hence; but, if we keep one of them, it will be at the expense of the others; and

most probably we shall keep none. To be sure, there are more to be had; but who cares about making a new

"Well; but let the future go," resumed I. "As for the present moment, if we could look into the hearts where

we wish to be most valued, what should you expect to see? One's own likeness, in the innermost, holiest

niche? Ah! I don't know! It may not be there at all. It may be a dusty image, thrust aside into a corner, and by

and by to be flung out of doors, where any foot may trample upon it. If not today, then tomorrow! And so,

Priscilla, I do not see much wisdom in being so very merry in this kind of a world."

It had taken me nearly seven years of worldly life to hive up the bitter honey which I here offered to Priscilla.

"I don't believe one word of what you say!" she replied, laughing anew. "You made me sad, for a minute, by

talking about the past; but the past never comes back again. Do we dream the same dream twice? There is

So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her luck to do, but got up again, without

"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the doorstep; "you had better not run any more

tonight. You will weary yourself too much. And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a heavy dew

At his first word, she went and sat down under the porch, at Hollingsworth's feet, entirely contented and

happy. What charm was there in his rude massiveness that so attracted and soothed this shadowlike girl? It

appeared to me, who have always been curious in such matters, that Priscilla's vague and seemingly causeless

flow of felicitous feeling was that with which love blesses inexperienced hearts, before they begin to suspect

what is going on within them. It transports them to the seventh heaven; and if you ask what brought them

thither, they neither can tell nor care to learn, but cherish an ecstatic faith that there they shall abide forever.

Zenobia was in the doorway, not far from Hollingsworth. She gazed at Priscilla in a very singular way.

Indeed, it was a sight worth gazing at, and a beautiful sight, too, as the fair girl sat at the feet of that dark,

powerful figure. Her air, while perfectly modest, delicate, and virginlike, denoted her as swayed by

Hollingsworth, attracted to him, and unconsciously seeking to rest upon his strength. I could not turn away

my own eyes, but hoped that nobody, save Zenobia and myself, was witnessing this picture. It is before me

She spoke in little more than a whisper. But it is strange how expressive of moods a whisper may often be.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked, rising slowly, and standing before Zenobia in a drooping attitude.

"No, no, Priscilla!" said Hollingsworth, smiling. "I will answer for it, she is not. You are the one little person

"Angry with you, child? What a silly idea!" exclaimed Zenobia, laughing. "No, indeed! But, my dear

Priscilla, you are getting to be so very pretty that you absolutely need a duenna; and, as I am older than you,

and have had my own little experience of life, and think myself exceedingly sage, I intend to fill the place of

a maiden aunt. Every day, I shall give you a lecture, a quarter of an hour in length, on the morals, manners,

and proprieties of social life. When our pastoral shall be quite played out, Priscilla, my worldly wisdom may

"I am afraid you are angry with me!" repeated Priscilla sadly; for, while she seemed as impressible as wax,

the girl often showed a persistency in her own ideas as stubborn as it was gentle.

"Dear me, what can I say to the child!" cried Zenobia in a tone of humorous vexation. "Well, well; since you

Zenobia bade Hollingsworth goodnight very sweetly, and nodded to me with a smile. But, just as she turned

aside with Priscilla into the dimness of the porch, I caught another glance at her countenance. It would have

made the fortune of a tragic actress, could she have borrowed it for the moment when she fumbles in her

bosom for the concealed dagger, or the exceedingly sharp bodkin, or mingles the ratsbane in her lover's bowl

of wine or her rival's cup of tea. Not that I in the least anticipated any such catastrophe,it being a

remarkable truth that custom has in no one point a greater sway than over our modes of wreaking our wild

passions. And besides, had we been in Italy, instead of New England, it was hardly yet a crisis for the dagger

It often amazed me, however, that Hollingsworth should show himself so recklessly tender towards Priscilla,

and never once seem to think of the effect which it might have upon her heart. But the man, as I have

endeavored to explain, was thrown completely off his moral balance, and quite bewildered as to his personal

relations, by his great excrescence of a philanthropic scheme. I used to see, or fancy, indications that he was

not altogether obtuse to Zenobia's influence as a woman. No doubt, however, he had a still more exquisite

enjoyment of Priscilla's silent sympathy with his purposes, so unalloyed with criticism, and therefore more

grateful than any intellectual approbation, which always involves a possible reserve of latent censure. A

manpoet, prophet, or whatever he may bereadily persuades himself of his right to all the worship that is

voluntarily tendered. In requital of so rich benefits as he was to confer upon mankind, it would have been

hard to deny Hollingsworth the simple solace of a young girl's heart, which he held in his hand, and smelled

too, like a rosebud. But what if, while pressing out its fragrance, he should crush the tender rosebud in his

As for Zenobia, I saw no occasion to give myself any trouble. With her native strength, and her experience of

the world, she could not be supposed to need any help of mine. Nevertheless, I was really generous enough to

feel some little interest likewise for Zenobia. With all her faults (which might have been a great many besides

the abundance that I knew of), she possessed noble traits, and a heart which must, at least, have been valuable

while new. And she seemed ready to fling it away as uncalculatingly as Priscilla herself. I could not but

suspect that, if merely at play with Hollingsworth, she was sporting with a power which she did not fully

estimate. Or if in earnest, it might chance, between Zenobia's passionate force and his dark, selfdelusive

egotism, to turn out such earnest as would develop itself in some sufficiently tragic catastrophe, though the

Meantime, the gossip of the Community set them down as a pair of lovers. They took walks together, and

were not seldom encountered in the woodpaths: Hollingsworth deeply discoursing, in tones solemn and

sternly pathetic; Zenobia, with a rich glow on her cheeks, and her eyes softened from their ordinary

brightness, looked so beautiful, that had her companion been ten times a philanthropist, it seemed impossible

but that one glance should melt him back into a man. Oftener than anywhere else, they went to a certain point

on the slope of a pasture, commanding nearly the whole of our own domain, besides a view of the river, and

an airy prospect of many distant hills. The bond of our Community was such, that the members had the

privilege of building cottages for their own residence within our precincts, thus laying a hearthstone and

fencing in a home private and peculiar to all desirable extent, while yet the inhabitants should continue to

share the advantages of an associated life. It was inferred that Hollingsworth and Zenobia intended to rear

"Had you consulted me," I went on to observe, "I should have recommended a site farther to the left, just a

little withdrawn into the wood, with two or three peeps at the prospect among the trees. You will be in the

shady vale of years long before you can raise any better kind of shade around your cottage, if you build it on

"But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world," said Hollingsworth, "that it may take example and build

Twist these words how I might, they offered no very satisfactory import. It seemed hardly probable that

Hollingsworth should care about educating the public taste in the department of cottage architecture,

Hollingsworth and Iwe had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while the rest of the fraternity were

engaged in a distant quarter of the farmsat under a clump of maples, eating our eleven o'clock lunch, when

we saw a stranger approaching along the edge of the field. He had admitted himself from the roadside

And, by the bye, we were favored with many visits at Blithedale, especially from people who sympathized

with our theories, and perhaps held themselves ready to unite in our actual experiment as soon as there should

appear a reliable promise of its success. It was rather ludicrous, indeed (to me, at least, whose enthusiasm had

insensibly been exhaled together with the perspiration of many a hard day's toil), it was absolutely funny,

therefore, to observe what a glory was shed about our life and labors, in the imaginations of these longing

proselytes. In their view, we were as poetical as Arcadians, besides being as practical as the hardestfisted

husbandmen in Massachusetts. We did not, it is true, spend much time in piping to our sheep, or warbling our

innocent loves to the sisterhood. But they gave us credit for imbuing the ordinary rustic occupations with a

kind of religious poetry, insomuch that our very cowyards and pigsties were as delightfully fragrant as a

flower garden. Nothing used to please me more than to see one of these lay enthusiasts snatch up a hoe, as

they were very prone to do, and set to work with a vigor that perhaps carried him through about a dozen

illdirected strokes. Men are wonderfully soon satisfied, in this day of shameful bodily enervation, when,

from one end of life to the other, such multitudes never taste the sweet weariness that follows accustomed

toil. I seldom saw the new enthusiasm that did not grow as flimsy and flaccid as the proselyte's moistened

But the person now at hand had not at all the air of one of these amiable visionaries. He was an elderly man,

dressed rather shabbily, yet decently enough, in a gray frockcoat, faded towards a brown hue, and wore a

broadbrimmed white hat, of the fashion of several years gone by. His hair was perfect silver, without a dark

thread in the whole of it; his nose, though it had a scarlet tip, by no means indicated the jollity of which a red

nose is the generally admitted symbol. He was a subdued, undemonstrative old man, who would doubtless

drink a glass of liquor, now and then, and probably more than was good for him,not, however, with a

purpose of undue exhilaration, but in the hope of bringing his spirits up to the ordinary level of the world's

cheerfulness. Drawing nearer, there was a shy look about him, as if he were ashamed of his poverty, or, at

any rate, for some reason or other, would rather have us glance at him sidelong than take a full front view. He

"I know this old gentleman," said I to Hollingsworth, as we sat observing him; "that is, I have met him a

hundred times in town, and have often amused my fancy with wondering what he was before he came to be

what he is. He haunts restaurants and such places, and has an odd way of lurking in corners or getting behind

a door whenever practicable, and holding out his hand with some little article in it which he wishes you to

buy. The eye of the world seems to trouble him, although he necessarily lives so much in it. I never expected

"Not a circumstance," I answered; "but there must be something curious in it. I take him to be a harmless sort

of a person, and a tolerably honest one; but his manners, being so furtive, remind me of those of a rat,a rat

without the mischief, the fierce eye, the teeth to bite with, or the desire to bite. See, now! He means to skulk

along that fringe of bushes, and approach us on the other side of our clump of maples."

We soon heard the old man's velvet tread on the grass, indicating that he had arrived within a few feet of

"Goodmorning, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth, addressing the stranger as an acquaintance; "you must

have had a hot and tiresome walk from the city. Sit down, and take a morsel of our bread and cheese."

The visitor made a grateful little murmur of acquiescence, and sat down in a spot somewhat removed; so that,

glancing round, I could see his gray pantaloons and dusty shoes, while his upper part was mostly hidden

behind the shrubbery. Nor did he come forth from this retirement during the whole of the interview that

followed. We handed him such food as we had, together with a brown jug of molasses and water (would that

it had been brandy, or some thing better, for the sake of his chill old heart!), like priests offering dainty

sacrifice to an enshrined and invisible idol. I have no idea that he really lacked sustenance; but it was quite

"Mr. Moodie," said I, "do you remember selling me one of those very pretty little silk purses, of which you

seem to have a monopoly in the market? I keep it to this day, I can assure you."

"Ah, thank you," said our guest. "Yes, Mr. Coverdale, I used to sell a good many of those little purses."

He spoke languidly, and only those few words, like a watch with an inelastic spring, that just ticks a moment

or two and stops again. He seemed a very forlorn old man. In the wantonness of youth, strength, and

comfortable condition,making my prey of people's individualities, as my custom was,I tried to identify

my mind with the old fellow's, and take his view of the world, as if looking through a smokeblackened glass

at the sun. It robbed the landscape of all its life. Those pleasantly swelling slopes of our farm, descending

towards the wide meadows, through which sluggishly circled the brimful tide of the Charles, bathing the long

sedges on its hither and farther shores; the broad, sunny gleam over the winding water; that peculiar

picturesqueness of the scene where capes and headlands put themselves boldly forth upon the perfect level of

the meadow, as into a green lake, with inlets between the promontories; the shadowy woodland, with

twinkling showers of light falling into its depths; the sultry heatvapor, which rose everywhere like incense,

and in which my soul delighted, as indicating so rich a fervor in the passionate day, and in the earth that was

burning with its love,I beheld all these things as through old Moodie's eyes. When my eyes are dimmer

than they have yet come to be, I will go thither again, and see if I did not catch the tone of his mind aright,

and if the cold and lifeless tint of his perceptions be not then repeated in my own.

"Gentlemen have often asked me that," said Moodie slowly; "but I shake my head, and say little or nothing,

and creep out of the way as well as I can. I am a man of few words; and if gentlemen were to be told one

thing, they would be very apt, I suppose, to ask me another. But it happens just now, Mr. Coverdale, that you

"Why do you trouble him with needless questions, Coverdale?" interrupted Hollingsworth. "You must have

known, long ago, that it was Priscilla. And so, my good friend, you have come to see her? Well, I am glad of

it. You will find her altered very much for the better, since that winter evening when you put her into my

"Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of slow wonder. "Priscilla with a bloom in her

"Then, gentlemen," said our guest apprehensively," I don't think it well for me to go any farther. I crept

hitherward only to ask about Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no

better than to creep back again. If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very

sad times which we have spent together. Some very sad times, indeed! She has forgotten them, I

know,them and me,else she could not be so happy, nor have a bloom in her cheeks. Yesyesyes,"

continued he, still with the same torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will creep

"You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie," said Hollingsworth bluffly. "Priscilla often speaks of you; and if

there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I'll venture to say it is just the sight of

"Has there been any call for Priscilla?" asked Moodie; and though his face was hidden from us, his tone gave

a sure indication of the mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question. "You know, I think, sir,

"I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie," replied Hollingsworth; "nobody, to my

knowledge, has called for Priscilla, except yourself. But come; we are losing time, and I have several things

"There is a lady here," said the old man; and his voice lost some of its wearisome hesitation. "You will

account it a very strange matter for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she was but a little

child. If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the

world, with her beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches. I should recognize this

"What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of Zenobia!" I whispered to Hollingsworth.

"But how can there possibly be any interest or connecting link between him and her?"

"The old man, for years past," whispered Hollingsworth, "has been a little out of his right mind, as you

"What I would inquire," resumed Moodie, "is whether this beautiful lady is kind to my poor Priscilla."

There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I could not resist the impulse to turn quite

round, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see another person than old

"Ah!" said Moodie more complacently, for his latter tones had harshness and acidity in them," it would

gladden my old heart to witness that. If one thing would make me happier than another, Mr. Hollingsworth, it

After a little more delay on the part of our freakish visitor, they set forth together, old Moodie keeping a step

or two behind Hollingsworth, so that the latter could not very conveniently look him in the face. I remained

under the tuft of maples, doing my utmost to draw an inference from the scene that had just passed. In spite of

Hollingsworth's offhand explanation, it did not strike me that our strange guest was really beside himself,

but only that his mind needed screwing up, like an instrument long out of tune, the strings of which have

ceased to vibrate smartly and sharply. Methought it would be profitable for us, projectors of a happy life, to

welcome this old gray shadow, and cherish him as one of us, and let him creep about our domain, in order

that he might be a little merrier for our sakes, and we, sometimes, a little sadder for his. Human destinies look

ominous without some perceptible intermixture of the sable or the gray. And then, too, should any of our

fraternity grow feverish with an overexulting sense of prosperity, it would be a sort of cooling regimen to

slink off into the woods, and spend an hour, or a day, or as many days as might be requisite to the cure, in

Going homeward to dinner, I had a glimpse of him, behind the trunk of a tree, gazing earnestly towards a

particular window of the farmhouse; and by and by Priscilla appeared at this window, playfully drawing

along Zenobia, who looked as bright as the very day that was blazing down upon us, only not, by many

degrees, so well advanced towards her noon. I was convinced that this pretty sight must have been purposely

arranged by Priscilla for the old man to see. But either the girl held her too long, or her fondness was resented

as too great a freedom; for Zenobia suddenly put Priscilla decidedly away, and gave her a haughty look, as

from a mistress to a dependant. Old Moodie shook his head; and again and again I saw him shake it, as he

withdrew along the road; and at the last point whence the farmhouse was visible, he turned and shook his

Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too constant labor out of my bones, and to

relieve my spirit of the irksomeness of a settled routine, I took a holiday. It was my purpose to spend it all

alone, from breakfasttime till twilight, in the deepest woodseclusion that lay anywhere around us. Though

fond of society, I was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, even in a life like that of

Blithedale, which was itself characterized by a remoteness from the world. Unless renewed by a yet further

withdrawal towards the inner circle of selfcommunion, I lost the better part of my individuality. My

thoughts became of little worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life is in

the shade, the rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the sunshine after long expectance of a shower. So,

with my heart full of a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to dissipate my mood by previous intercourse with

any one, I hurried away, and was soon pacing a woodpath, arched overhead with boughs, and duskybrown

At first I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of social life were roaring at my heels, and would

outstrip and overwhelm me, without all the better diligence in my escape. But, threading the more distant

windings of the track, I abated my pace, and looked about me for some sideaisle, that should admit me into

the innermost sanctuary of this green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship, a casual opening

sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the longsought intimacy of a mysterious heart. So much was I

absorbed in my reflections,or, rather, in my mood, the substance of which was as yet too shapeless to be

called thought,that footsteps rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed me by, almost without impressing

A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little distance behind me, speaking so sharply and impertinently

that it made a complete discord with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as when

"Halloo, friend!" cried this most unseasonable voice. "Stop a moment, I say! I must have a word with you!"

I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate. In the first place, the interruption, at any rate, was a grievous

injury; then, the tone displeased me. And finally, unless there be real affection in his heart, a man

cannot,such is the bad state to which the world has brought itself,cannot more effectually show his

contempt for a brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing him as

"friend." Especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which is sure to

animate peculiar sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves from

the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some dogkennel of the heart, grumbling there in the

darkness, but is never quite extinct, until the dissenting party have gained power and scope enough to treat

the world generously. For my part, I should have taken it as far less an insult to be styled" fellow," "clown,"

or "bumpkin." To either of these appellations my rustic garb (it was a linen blouse, with

checked shirt and striped pantaloons, a chip hat on my head, and a rough hickory stick in my hand) very

fairly entitled me. As the case stood, my temper darted at once to the opposite pole; not friend, but enemy!

"No," answered I. "If I can do anything for you without too much trouble to myself, say so. But recollect, if

"Upon my word, I believe not!" retorted he, looking at me with some curiosity; and, lifting his hat, he made

me a salute which had enough of sarcasm to be offensive, and just enough of doubtful courtesy to render any

resentment of it absurd. "But I ask your pardon! I recognize a little mistake. If I may take the liberty to

suppose it, you, sir, are probably one of the aestheticor shall I rather say ecstatic?laborers, who have

planted themselves hereabouts. This is your forest of Arden; and you are either the banished Duke in person,

or one of the chief nobles in his train. The melancholy Jacques, perhaps? Be it so. In that case, you can

So unexpectedly had the stranger made me sensible of his presence, that he had almost the effect of an

apparition; and certainly a less appropriate one (taking into view the dim woodland solitude about us) than if

the salvage man of antiquity, hirsute and cinctured with a leafy girdle, had started out of a thicket. He was

still young, seemingly a little under thirty, of a tall and welldeveloped figure, and as handsome a man as

ever I beheld. The style of his beauty, however, though a masculine style, did not at all commend itself to my

taste. His countenanceI hardly know how to describe the peculiarityhad an indecorum in it, a kind of

rudeness, a hard, coarse, forthputting freedom of expression, which no degree of external polish could have

abated one single jot. Not that it was vulgar. But he had no fineness of nature; there was in his eyes (although

they might have artifice enough of another sort) the naked exposure of something that ought not to be left

prominent. With these vague allusions to what I have seen in other faces as well as his, I leave the quality to

be comprehended bestbecause with an intuitive repugnanceby those who possess least of it.

His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coalblack; his eyes, too, were black and sparkling, and his

teeth remarkably brilliant. He was rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a summermorning

costume. There was a gold chain, exquisitely wrought, across his vest. I never saw a smoother or whiter gloss

than that upon his shirtbosom, which had a pin in it, set with a gem that glimmered, in the leafy shadow

where he stood, like a living tip of fire. He carried a stick with a wooden head, carved in vivid imitation of

that of a serpent. I hated him, partly, I do believe, from a comparison of my own homely garb with his

"Well, sir," said I, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but still with no waste of civility, "be pleased to

"I regret that my mode of addressing you was a little unfortunate," said the stranger, smiling; for he seemed a

very acute sort of person, and saw, in some degree, how I stood affected towards him. "I intended no offence,

and shall certainly comport myself with due ceremony hereafter. I merely wish to make a few inquiries

respecting a lady, formerly of my acquaintance, who is now resident in your Community, and, I believe,

"That is her name in literature," observed I; "a name, too, which possibly she may permit her private friends

to know and address her by, but not one which they feel at liberty to recognize when used of her

"Indeed!" answered this disagreeable person; and he turned aside his face for an instant with a brief laugh,

which struck me as a noteworthy expression of his character. "Perhaps I might put forward a claim, on your

own grounds, to call the lady by a name so appropriate to her splendid qualities. But I am willing to know her

Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive, or a good deal less so, or break off our

"True," said he; "and in general society I have never heard her called otherwise. And, after all, our discussion

of the point has been gratuitous. My object is only to inquire when, where, and how this lady may most

"At her present residence, of course," I replied. "You have but to go thither and ask for her. This very path

"One moment, if you please," said the stranger. "The course you indicate would certainly be the proper one,

in an ordinary morning call. But my business is private, personal, and somewhat peculiar. Now, in a

community like this, I should judge that any little occurrence is likely to be discussed rather more minutely

than would quite suit my views. I refer solely to myself, you understand, and without intimating that it would

be other than a matter of entire indifference to the lady. In short, I especially desire to see her in private. If her

habits are such as I have known them, she is probably often to be met with in the woods, or by the riverside;

and I think you could do me the favor to point out some favorite walk, where, about this hour, I might be

I reflected that it would be quite a supererogatory piece of Quixotism in me to undertake the guardianship of

Zenobia, who, for my pains, would only make me the butt of endless ridicule, should the fact ever come to

her knowledge. I therefore described a spot which, as often as any other, was Zenobia's resort at this period of

the day; nor was it so remote from the farmhouse as to leave her in much peril, whatever might be the

"A single word more," said he; and his black eyes sparkled at me, whether with fun or malice I knew not, but

certainly as if the Devil were peeping out of them. "Among your fraternity, I understand, there is a certain

holy and benevolent blacksmith; a man of iron, in more senses than one; a rough, crossgrained,

wellmeaning individual, rather boorish in his manners, as might be expected, and by no means of the highest

intellectual cultivation. He is a philanthropical lecturer, with two or three disciples, and a scheme of his own,

the preliminary step in which involves a large purchase of land, and the erection of a spacious edifice, at an

expense considerably beyond his means; inasmuch as these are to be reckoned in copper or old iron much

more conveniently than in gold or silver. He hammers away upon his one topic as lustily as ever he did upon

a horseshoe! Do you know such a person?" I shook my head, and was turning away. "Our friend," he

continued, "is described to me as a brawny, shaggy, grim, and illfavored personage, not particularly well

calculated, one would say, to insinuate himself with the softer sex. Yet, so far has this honest fellow

succeeded with one lady whom we wot of, that he anticipates, from her abundant resources, the necessary

Here the stranger seemed to be so much amused with his sketch of Hollingsworth's character and purposes,

that he burst into a fit of merriment, of the same nature as the brief, metallic laugh already alluded to, but

immensely prolonged and enlarged. In the excess of his delight, he opened his mouth wide, and disclosed a

gold band around the upper part of his teeth, thereby making it apparent that every one of his brilliant

I felt as if the whole man were a moral and physical humbug; his wonderful beauty of face, for aught I knew,

might be removable like a mask; and, tall and comely as his figure looked, he was perhaps but a wizened

little elf, gray and decrepit, with nothing genuine about him save the wicked expression of his grin. The

fantasy of his spectral character so wrought upon me, together with the contagion of his strange mirth on my

By and by, he paused all at once; so suddenly, indeed, that my own cachinnation lasted a moment longer.

"Ah, excuse me!" said he. "Our interview seems to proceed more merrily than it began."

"It ends here," answered I. "And I take shame to myself that my folly has lost me the right of resenting your

"Pray allow me," said the stranger, approaching a step nearer, and laying his gloved hand on my sleeve. "One

other favor I must ask of you. You have a young person here at Blithedale, of whom I have heard,whom,

perhaps, I have known,and in whom, at all events, I take a peculiar interest. She is one of those delicate,

nervous young creatures, not uncommon in New England, and whom I suppose to have become what we find

them by the gradual refining away of the physical system among your women. Some philosophers choose to

glorify this habit of body by terming it spiritual; but, in my opinion, it is rather the effect of unwholesome

food, bad air, lack of outdoor exercise, and neglect of bathing, on the part of these damsels and their female

progenitors, all resulting in a kind of hereditary dyspepsia. Zenobia, even with her uncomfortable surplus of

vitality, is far the better model of womanhood. Butto revert again to this young personshe goes among

you by the name of Priscilla. Could you possibly afford me the means of speaking with her?"

"You have made so many inquiries of me," I observed, "that I may at least trouble you with one. What is your

He offered me a card, with "Professor Westervelt" engraved on it. At the same time, as if to vindicate his

claim to the professorial dignity, so often assumed on very questionable grounds, he put on a pair of

spectacles, which so altered the character of his face that I hardly knew him again. But I liked the present

"I must decline any further connection with your affairs," said I, drawing back. "I have told you where to find

Zenobia. As for Priscilla, she has closer friends than myself, through whom, if they see fit, you can gain

"In that case," returned the Professor, ceremoniously raising his hat, "goodmorning to you."

He took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings of the woodpath. But after a little

reflection, I could not help regretting that I had so peremptorily broken off the interview, while the stranger

seemed inclined to continue it. His evident knowledge of matters affecting my three friends might have led to

disclosures or inferences that would perhaps have been serviceable. I was particularly struck with the fact

that, ever since the appearance of Priscilla, it had been the tendency of events to suggest and establish a

connection between Zenobia and her. She had come, in the first instance, as if with the sole purpose of

claiming Zenobia's protection. Old Moodie's visit, it appeared, was chiefly to ascertain whether this object

had been accomplished. And here, today, was the questionable Professor, linking one with the other in his

Meanwhile, my inclination for a ramble having been balked, I lingered in the vicinity of the farm, with

perhaps a vague idea that some new event would grow out of Westervelt's proposed interview with Zenobia.

My own part in these transactions was singularly subordinate. It resembled that of the Chorus in a classic

play, which seems to be set aloof from the possibility of personal concernment, and bestows the whole

measure of its hope or fear, its exultation or sorrow, on the fortunes of others, between whom and itself this

sympathy is the only bond. Destiny, it may be,the most skilful of stage managers,seldom chooses to

arrange its scenes, and carry forward its drama, without securing the presence of at least one calm observer. It

is his office to give applause when due, and sometimes an inevitable tear, to detect the final fitness of incident

to character, and distil in his longbrooding thought the whole morality of the performance.

Not to be out of the way in case there were need of me in my vocation, and, at the same time, to avoid

thrusting myself where neither destiny nor mortals might desire my presence, I remained pretty near the verge

of the woodlands. My position was off the track of Zenobia's customary walk, yet not so remote but that a

Long since, in this part of our circumjacent wood, I had found out for myself a little hermitage. It was a kind

of leafy cave, high upward into the air, among the midmost branches of a whitepine tree. A wild grapevine,

of unusual size and luxuriance, had twined and twisted itself up into the tree, and, after wreathing the

entanglement of its tendrils around almost every bough, had caught hold of three or four neighboring trees,

and married the whole clump with a perfectly inextricable knot of polygamy. Once, while sheltering myself

from a summer shower, the fancy had taken me to clamber up into this seemingly impervious mass of foliage.

The branches yielded me a passage, and closed again beneath, as if only a squirrel or a bird had passed. Far

aloft, around the stem of the central pine, behold a perfect nest for Robinson Crusoe or King Charles! A

hollow chamber of rare seclusion had been formed by the decay of some of the pine branches, which the vine

had lovingly strangled with its embrace, burying them from the light of day in an aerial sepulchre of its own

leaves. It cost me but little ingenuity to enlarge the interior, and open loopholes through the verdant walls.

Had it ever been my fortune to spend a honeymoon, I should have thought seriously of inviting my bride up

thither, where our next neighbors would have been two orioles in another part of the clump.

It was an admirable place to make verses, tuning the rhythm to the breezy symphony that so often stirred

among the vine leaves; or to meditate an essay for "The Dial," in which the many tongues of Nature

whispered mysteries, and seemed to ask only a little stronger puff of wind to speak out the solution of its

riddle. Being so pervious to aircurrents, it was just the nook, too, for the enjoyment of a cigar. This

hermitage was my one exclusive possession while I counted myself a brother of the socialists. It symbolized

my individuality, and aided me in keeping it inviolate. None ever found me out in it, except, once, a squirrel.

I brought thither no guest, because, after Hollingsworth failed me, there was no longer the man alive with

whom I could think of sharing all. So there I used to sit, owllike, yet not without liberal and hospitable

thoughts. I counted the innumerable clusters of my vine, and forereckoned the abundance of my vintage. It

gladdened me to anticipate the surprise of the Community, when, like an allegorical figure of rich October, I

should make my appearance, with shoulders bent beneath the burden of ripe grapes, and some of the crushed

Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn out of several of its small windows. The pinetree, being

ancient, rose high above the rest of the wood, which was of comparatively recent growth. Even where I sat,

about midway between the root and the topmost bough, my position was lofty enough to serve as an

observatory, not for starry investigations, but for those sublunary matters in which lay a lore as infinite as that

of the planets. Through one loophole I saw the river lapsing calmly onward, while in the meadow, near its

brink, a few of the brethren were digging peat for our winter's fuel. On the interior cartroad of our farm I

discerned Hollingsworth, with a yoke of oxen hitched to a drag of stones, that were to be piled into a fence,

on which we employed ourselves at the odd intervals of other labor. The harsh tones of his voice, shouting to

the sluggish steers, made me sensible, even at such a distance, that he was ill at ease, and that the balked

"Haw, Buck!" quoth he. "Come along there, ye lazy ones! What are ye about, now? Gee!"

"Mankind, in Hollingsworth's opinion," thought I, "is but another yoke of oxen, as stubborn, stupid, and

sluggish as our old Brown and Bright. He vituperates us aloud, and curses us in his heart, and will begin to

prick us with the goadstick, by and by. But are we his oxen? And what right has he to be the driver? And

why, when there is enough else to do, should we waste our strength in dragging home the ponderous load of

his philanthropic absurdities? At my height above the earth, the whole matter looks ridiculous!"

Turning towards the farmhouse, I saw Priscilla (for, though a great way off, the eye of faith assured me that it

was she) sitting at Zenobia's window, and making little purses, I suppose; or, perhaps, mending the

Community's old linen. A bird flew past my tree; and, as it clove its way onward into the sunny atmosphere, I

"Tell her," said I, "that her fragile thread of life has inextricably knotted itself with other and tougher threads,

and most likely it will be broken. Tell her that Zenobia will not be long her friend. Say that Hollingsworth's

heart is on fire with his own purpose, but icy for all human affection; and that, if she has given him her love,

it is like casting a flower into a sepulchre. And say that if any mortal really cares for her, it is myself; and not

even I for her realities,poor little seamstress, as Zenobia rightly called her!but for the fancywork with

The pleasant scent of the wood, evolved by the hot sun, stole up to my nostrils, as if I had been an idol in its

niche. Many trees mingled their fragrance into a thousandfold odor. Possibly there was a sensual influence

in the broad light of noon that lay beneath me. It may have been the cause, in part, that I suddenly found

myself possessed by a mood of disbelief in moral beauty or heroism, and a conviction of the folly of

attempting to benefit the world. Our especial scheme of reform, which, from my observatory, I could take in

with the bodily eye, looked so ridiculous that it was impossible not to laugh aloud.

"But the joke is a little too heavy," thought I. "If I were wise, I should get out of the scrape with all diligence,

While thus musing, I heard with perfect distinctness, somewhere in the wood beneath, the peculiar laugh

which I have described as one of the disagreeable characteristics of Professor Westervelt. It brought my

thoughts back to our recent interview. I recognized as chiefly due to this man's influence the sceptical and

sneering view which just now had filled my mental vision in regard to all life's better purposes. And it was

through his eyes, more than my own, that I was looking at Hollingsworth, with his glorious if impracticable

dream, and at the noble earthliness of Zenobia's character, and even at Priscilla, whose impalpable grace lay

so singularly between disease and beauty. The essential charm of each had vanished. There are some spheres

the contact with which inevitably degrades the high, debases the pure, deforms the beautiful. It must be a

mind of uncommon strength, and little impressibility, that can permit itself the habit of such intercourse, and

not be permanently deteriorated; and yet the Professor's tone represented that of worldly society at large,

where a cold scepticism smothers what it can of our spiritual aspirations, and makes the rest ridiculous. I

detested this kind of man; and all the more because a part of my own nature showed itself responsive to him.

Voices were now approaching through the region of the wood which lay in the vicinity of my tree. Soon I

a woman and a manZenobia and the strangerearnestly talking together as they advanced.

Zenobia had a rich though varying color. It was, most of the while, a flame, and anon a sudden paleness. Her

eyes glowed, so that their light sometimes flashed upward to me, as when the sun throws a dazzle from some

bright object on the ground. Her gestures were free, and strikingly impressive. The whole woman was alive

with a passionate intensity, which I now perceived to be the phase in which her beauty culminated. Any

passion would have become her well; and passionate love, perhaps, the best of all. This was not love, but

anger, largely intermixed with scorn. Yet the idea strangely forced itself upon me, that there was a sort of

familiarity between these two companions, necessarily the result of an intimate love,on Zenobia's part, at

least,in days gone by, but which had prolonged itself into as intimate a hatred, for all futurity. As they

passed among the trees, reckless as her movement was, she took good heed that even the hem of her garment

should not brush against the stranger's person. I wondered whether there had always been a chasm, guarded

As for Westervelt, he was not a whit more warmed by Zenobia's passion than a salamander by the heat of its

native furnace. He would have been absolutely statuesque, save for a look of slight perplexity, tinctured

strongly with derision. It was a crisis in which his intellectual perceptions could not altogether help him out.

He failed to comprehend, and cared but little for comprehending, why Zenobia should put herself into such a

fume; but satisfied his mind that it was all folly, and only another shape of a woman's manifold absurdity,

which men can never understand. How many a woman's evil fate has yoked her with a man like this! Nature

thrusts some of us into the world miserably incomplete on the emotional side, with hardly any sensibilities

except what pertain to us as animals. No passion, save of the senses; no holy tenderness, nor the delicacy that

results from this. Externally they bear a close resemblance to other men, and have perhaps all save the finest

grace; but when a woman wrecks herself on such a being, she ultimately finds that the real womanhood

within her has no corresponding part in him. Her deepest voice lacks a response; the deeper her cry, the more

dead his silence. The fault may be none of his; he cannot give her what never lived within his soul. But the

wretchedness on her side, and the moral deterioration attendant on a false and shallow life, without strength

enough to keep itself sweet, are among the most pitiable wrongs that mortals suffer.

Now, as I looked down from my upper region at this man and woman, outwardly so fair a sight, and

wandering like two lovers in the wood, I imagined that Zenobia, at an earlier period of youth, might have

fallen into the misfortune above indicated. And when her passionate womanhood, as was inevitable, had

discovered its mistake, here had ensued the character of eccentricity and defiance which distinguished the

Seeing how aptly matters had chanced thus far, I began to think it the design of fate to let me into all

Zenobia's secrets, and that therefore the couple would sit down beneath my tree, and carry on a conversation

Which would leave me nothing to inquire. No doubt, however, had it so happened, I should have deemed

myself honorably bound to warn them of a listener's presence by flinging down a handful of unripe grapes, or

by sending an unearthly groan out of my hidingplace, as if this were one of the trees of Dante's ghostly

forest. But real life never arranges itself exactly like a romance. In the first place, they did not sit down at all.

Secondly, even while they passed beneath the tree, Zenobia's utterance was so hasty and broken, and

Westervelt's so cool and low, that I hardly could make out an intelligible sentence on either side. What I seem

to remember, I yet suspect, may have been patched together by my fancy, in brooding over the matter

"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia. "I neither know nor care what it is in me that so attaches

"The poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia. "She can do me neither good nor harm. How should she?"

I know not what reply Westervelt whispered; nor did Zenobia's subsequent exclamation give me any clew,

"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she. "If my Creator cares aught for my soul, let him release

And then I heard her utter a helpless sort of moan; a sound which, struggling out of the heart of a person of

her pride and strength, affected me more than if she had made the wood dolorously vocal with a thousand

Other mysterious words, besides what are above written, they spoke together; but I understood no more, and

even question whether I fairly understood so much as this. By long brooding over our recollections, we

subtilize them into something akin to imaginary stuff, and hardly capable of being distinguished from it. In a

few moments they were completely beyond earshot. A breeze stirred after them, and awoke the leafy

tongues of the surrounding trees, which forthwith began to babble, as if innumerable gossips had all at once

got wind of Zenobia's secret. But, as the breeze grew stronger, its voice among the branches was as if it said,

"Hush! Hush!" and I resolved that to no mortal would I disclose what I had heard. And, though there might

be room for casuistry, such, I conceive, is the most equitable rule in all similar conjunctures.

The illustrious Society of Blithedale, though it toiled in downright earnest for the good of mankind, yet not

unfrequently illuminated its laborious life with an afternoon or evening of pastime. Picnics under the trees

were considerably in vogue; and, within doors, fragmentary bits of theatrical performance, such as single acts

of tragedy or comedy, or dramatic proverbs and charades. Zenobia, besides, was fond of giving us readings

from Shakespeare, and often with a depth of tragic power, or breadth of comic effect, that made one feel it an

intolerable wrong to the world that she did not at once go upon the stage. Tableaux vivants were another of

our occasional modes of amusement, in which scarlet shawls, old silken robes, ruffs, velvets, furs, and all

kinds of miscellaneous trumpery converted our familiar companions into the people of a pictorial world. We

had been thus engaged on the evening after the incident narrated in the last chapter. Several splendid works of

arteither arranged after engravings from the old masters, or original illustrations of scenes in history or

She stood with a meditative air, holding a large piece of gauze, or some such ethereal stuff, as if considering

what picture should next occupy the frame; while at her feet lay a heap of manycolored garments, which her

quick fancy and magic skill could so easily convert into gorgeous draperies for heroes and princesses.

"I am getting weary of this," said she, after a moment's thought. "Our own features, and our own figures and

airs, show a little too intrusively through all the characters we assume. We have so much familiarity with one

another's realities, that we cannot remove ourselves, at pleasure, into an imaginary sphere. Let us have no

more pictures tonight; but, to make you what poor amends I can, how would you like to have me trump up a

Zenobia had the gift of telling a fanciful little story, offhand, in a way that made it greatly more effective

than it was usually found to be when she afterwards elaborated the same production with her pen. Her

"Oh, a story, a story, by all means!" cried the young girls. "No matter how marvellous; we will believe it,

"No, not exactly a ghost story," answered Zenobia; "but something so nearly like it that you shall hardly tell

the difference. And, Priscilla, stand you before me, where I may look at you, and get my inspiration out of

I know not whether the following version of her story will retain any portion of its pristine character; but, as

Zenobia told it wildly and rapidly, hesitating at no extravagance, and dashing at absurdities which I am too

timorous to repeat,giving it the varied emphasis of her inimitable voice, and the pictorial illustration of her

mobile face, while through it all we caught the freshest aroma of the thoughts, as they came bubbling out of

her mind,thus narrated, and thus heard, the legend seemed quite a remarkable affair. I scarcely knew, at the

time, whether she intended us to laugh or be more seriously impressed. From beginning to end, it was

You have heard, my dear friends, of the Veiled Lady, who grew suddenly so very famous, a few months ago.

And have you never thought how remarkable it was that this marvellous creature should vanish, all at once,

while her renown was on the increase, before the public had grown weary of her, and when the enigma of her

character, instead of being solved, presented itself more mystically at every exhibition? Her last appearance,

as you know, was before a crowded audience. The next evening,although the bills had announced her, at

the corner of every street, in red letters of a gigantic size,there was no Veiled Lady to be seen! Now, listen

to my simple little tale, and you shall hear the very latest incident in the known life(if life it may be called,

which seemed to have no more reality than the candlelight image of one's self which peeps at us outside of a

A party of young gentlemen, you are to understand, were enjoying themselves, one afternoon,as young

gentlemen are sometimes fond of doing,over a bottle or two of champagne; and, among other ladies less

mysterious, the subject of the Veiled Lady, as was very natural, happened to come up before them for

discussion. She rose, as it were, with the sparkling effervescence of their wine, and appeared in a more airy

and fantastic light on account of the medium through which they saw her. They repeated to one another,

between jest and earnest, all the wild stories that were in vogue; nor, I presume, did they hesitate to add any

small circumstance that the inventive whim of the moment might suggest, to heighten the marvellousness of

"But what an audacious report was that," observed one, "which pretended to assert the identity of this strange

creature with a young lady,"and here he mentioned her name,"the daughter of one of our most

"Ah, there is more in that story than can well be accounted for," remarked another. "I have it on good

authority, that the young lady in question is invariably out of sight, and not to be traced, even by her own

family, at the hours when the Veiled Lady is before the public; nor can any satisfactory explanation be given

of her disappearance. And just look at the thing: Her brother is a young fellow of spirit. He cannot but be

aware of these rumors in reference to his sister. Why, then, does he not come forward to defend her character,

It is essential to the purposes of my legend to distinguish one of these young gentlemen from his companions;

so, for the sake of a soft and pretty name (such as we of the literary sisterhood invariably bestow upon our

"Pshaw!" exclaimed Theodore; "her brother is no such fool! Nobody, unless his brain be as full of bubbles as

this wine, can seriously think of crediting that ridiculous rumor. Why, if my senses did not play me false

(which never was the case yet), I affirm that I saw that very lady, last evening, at the exhibition, while this

veiled phenomenon was playing off her juggling tricks! What can you say to that?"

"Oh, it was a spectral illusion that you saw!" replied his friends, with a general laugh. "The Veiled Lady is

However, as the abovementioned fable could not hold its ground against Theodore's downright refutation,

they went on to speak of other stories which the wild babble of the town had set afloat. Some upheld that the

veil covered the most beautiful countenance in the world; others,and certainly with more reason,

considering the sex of the Veiled Lady, that the face was the most hideous and horrible, and that this was

her sole motive for hiding it. It was the face of a corpse; it was the head of a skeleton; it was a monstrous

visage, with snaky locks, like Medusa's, and one great red eye in the centre of the forehead. Again, it was

affirmed that there was no single and unchangeable set of features beneath the veil; but that whosoever

should be bold enough to lift it would behold the features of that person, in all the world, who was destined to

be his fate; perhaps he would be greeted by the tender smile of the woman whom he loved, or, quite as

probably, the deadly scowl of his bitterest enemy would throw a blight over his life. They quoted, moreover,

this startling explanation of the whole affair: that the magician who exhibited the Veiled Ladyand who, by

the bye, was the handsomest man in the whole worldhad bartered his own soul for seven years' possession

of a familiar fiend, and that the last year of the contract was wearing towards its close.

If it were worth our while, I could keep you till an hour beyond midnight listening to a thousand such

absurdities as these. But finally our friend Theodore, who prided himself upon his commonsense, found the

"I offer any wager you like," cried he, setting down his glass so forcibly as to break the stem of it, "that this

Young men, I am told, boggle at nothing over their wine; so, after a little more talk, a wager of considerable

amount was actually laid, the money staked, and Theodore left to choose his own method of settling the

How he managed it I know not, nor is it of any great importance to this veracious legend. The most natural

way, to be sure, was by bribing the doorkeeper,or possibly he preferred clambering in at the window. But,

at any rate, that very evening, while the exhibition was going forward in the hall, Theodore contrived to gain

admittance into the private withdrawingroom whither the Veiled Lady was accustomed to retire at the close

of her performances. There he waited, listening, I suppose, to the stifled hum of the great audience; and no

doubt he could distinguish the deep tones of the magician, causing the wonders that he wrought to appear

more dark and intricate, by his mystic pretence of an explanation. Perhaps, too, in the intervals of the wild

breezy music which accompanied the exhibition, he might hear the low voice of the Veiled Lady, conveying

her sibylline responses. Firm as Theodore's nerves might be, and much as he prided himself on his sturdy

perception of realities, I should not be surprised if his heart throbbed at a little more than its ordinary rate.

Theodore concealed himself behind a screen. In due time the performance was brought to a close, and

whether the door was softly opened, or whether her bodiless presence came through the wall, is more than I

can say, but, all at once, without the young man's knowing how it happened, a veiled figure stood in the

centre of the room. It was one thing to be in presence of this mystery in the hall of exhibition, where the

warm, dense life of hundreds of other mortals kept up the beholder's courage, and distributed her influence

among so many; it was another thing to be quite alone with her, and that, too, with a hostile, or, at least, an

unauthorized and unjustifiable purpose. I father imagine that Theodore now began robe sensible of something

more serious in his enterprise than he had been quite aware of while he sat with his booncompanions over

Very strange, it must be confessed, was the movement with which the figure floated to and fro over the

carpet, with the silvery veil covering her from head to foot; so impalpable, so ethereal, so without substance,

as the texture seemed, yet hiding her every outline in an impenetrability like that of midnight. Surely, she did

not walk! She floated, and flitted, and hovered about the room; no sound of a footstep, no perceptible motion

of a limb; it was as if a wandering breeze wafted her before it, at its own wild and gentle pleasure. But, by

and by, a purpose began to be discernible, throughout the seeming vagueness of her unrest. She was in quest

of something. Could it be that a subtile presentiment had informed her of the young man's presence? And if

so, did the Veiled Lady seek or did she shun him? The doubt in Theodore's mind was speedily resolved; for,

after a moment or two of these erratic flutterings, she advanced more decidedly, and stood motionless before

"Thou art here!" said a soft, low voice. "Come forth, Theodore!" Thus summoned by his name, Theodore, as

a man of courage, had no choice. He emerged from his concealment, and presented himself before the Veiled

"What wouldst thou with me?" she inquired, with the same gentle composure that was in her former

And Theodore, partly recovering his audacity, stept forward on the instant, to do as the Veiled Lady had

suggested. But she floated backward to the opposite side of the room, as if the young man's breath had

" Pause, one little instant," said the soft, low voice, "and learn the conditions of what thou art so bold to

undertake? Thou canst go hence, and think of me no more; or, at thy option, thou canst lift this mysterious

veil, beneath which I am a sad and lonely prisoner, in a bondage which is worse to me than death. But, before

raising it, I entreat thee, in all maiden modesty, to bend forward and impress a kiss where my breath stirs the

veil; and my virgin lips shall come forward to meet thy lips; and from that instant, Theodore, thou shalt be

mine, and I thine, with never more a veil between us. And all the felicity of earth and of the future world shall

be thine and mine together. So much may a maiden say behind the veil. If thou shrinkest from this, there is

yet another way." "And what is that?" asked Theodore. "Dost thou hesitate," said the Veiled Lady, "to pledge

thyself to me, by meeting these lips of mine, while the veil yet hides my face? Has not thy heart recognized

me? Dost thou come hither, not in holy faith, nor with a pure and generous purpose, but in scornful

scepticism and idle curiosity? Still, thou mayest lift the veil! But, from that instant, Theodore, I am doomed

There was a shade of inexpressible sadness in the utterance of these last words. But Theodore, whose natural

tendency was towards scepticism, felt himself almost injured and insulted by the Veiled Lady's proposal that

he should pledge himself, for life and eternity, to so questionable a creature as herself; or even that she should

suggest an inconsequential kiss, taking into view the probability that her face was none of the most

bewitching. A delightful idea, truly, that he should salute the lips of a dead girl, or the jaws of a skeleton, or

the grinning cavity of a monster's mouth! Even should she prove a comely maiden enough in other respects,

the odds were ten to one that her teeth were defective; a terrible drawback on the delectableness of a kiss.

"Excuse me, fair lady," said Theodore, and I think he nearly burst into a laugh, "if I prefer to lift the veil first;

"Thou hast made thy choice," said the sweet, sad voice behind the veil; and there seemed a tender but

unresentful sense of wrong done to womanhood by the young man's contemptuous interpretation of her offer.

"I must not counsel thee to pause, although thy fate is still in thee own hand!"

Grasping at the veil, he flung it upward, and caught a glimpse of a pale, lovely face beneath; just one

momentary glimpse, and then the apparition vanished, and the silvery veil fluttered slowly down and lay

upon the floor. Theodore was alone. Our legend leaves him there. His retribution was, to pine forever and

ever for another sight of that dim, mournful face,which might have been his lifelong household fireside

But what, in good sooth, had become of the Veiled Lady? Had all her existence been comprehended within

that mysterious veil, and was she now annihilated? Or was she a spirit, with a heavenly essence, but which

might have been tamed down to human bliss, had Theodore been brave and true enough to claim her?

Hearken, my sweet friends,and hearken, dear Priscilla,and you shall learn the little more that Zenobia

Just at the moment, so far as can be ascertained, when the Veiled Lady vanished, a maiden, pale and

shadowy, rose up amid a knot of visionary people, who were seeking for the better life. She was so gentle and

so sad,a nameless melancholy gave her such hold upon their sympathies, that they never thought of

questioning whence she came. She might have heretofore existed, or her thin substance might have been

moulded out of air at the very instant when they first beheld her. It was all one to them; they took her to their

hearts. Among them was a lady to whom, more than to all the rest, this pale, mysterious girl attached herself.

But one morning the lady was wandering in the woods, and there met her a figure in an Oriental robe, with a

dark beard, and holding in his hand a silvery veil. He motioned her to stay. Being a woman of some nerve,

she did not shriek, nor run away, nor faint, as many ladies would have been apt to do, but stood quietly, and

bade him speak. The truth was, she had seen his face before, but had never feared it, although she knew him

"Lady," said he, with a warning gesture, "you are in peril!" "Peril!" she exclaimed. "And of what nature?"

"There is a certain maiden," replied the magician, "who has come out of the realm of mystery, and made

herself your most intimate companion. Now, the fates have so ordained it, that, whether by her own will or

no, this stranger is your deadliest enemy. In love, in worldly fortune, in all your pursuit of happiness, she is

doomed to fling a blight over your prospects. There is but one possibility of thwarting her disastrous

"Take this veil," he answered, holding forth the silvery texture. "It is a spell; it is a powerful enchantment,

which I wrought for her sake, and beneath which she was once my prisoner. Throw it, at unawares, over the

head of this secret foe, stamp your foot, and cry, 'Arise, Magician! Here is the Veiled Lady!' and immediately

I will rise up through the earth, and seize her; and from that moment you are safe!"

So the lady took the silvery veil, which was like woven air, or like some substance airier than nothing, and

that would float upward and be lost among the clouds, were she once to let it go. Returning homeward, she

found the shadowy girl amid the knot of visionary transcendentalists, who were still seeking for the better

life. She was joyous now, and had a rosebloom in her cheeks, and was one of the prettiest creatures, and

seemed one of the happiest, that the world could show. But the lady stole noiselessly behind her and threw

the veil over her head. As the slight, ethereal texture sank inevitably down over her figure, the poor girl

strove to raise it, and met her dear friend's eyes with one glance of mortal terror, and deep, deep reproach. It

"Arise, Magician!" she exclaimed, stamping her foot upon the earth. "Here is the Veiled Lady!"

At the word, up rose the bearded man in the Oriental robes,the beautiful, the dark magician, who had

bartered away his soul! He threw his arms around the Veiled Lady, and she was his bondslave for evermore!

Zenobia, all this while, had been holding the piece of gauze, and so managed it as greatly to increase the

dramatic effect of the legend at those points where the magic veil was to be described. Arriving at the

catastrophe, and uttering the fatal words, she flung the gauze over Priscilla's head; and for an instant her

auditors held their breath, half expecting, I verily believe, that the magician would start up through the floor,

As for Priscilla, she stood droopingly in the midst of us, making no attempt to remove the veil.

"How do you find yourself, my love?" said Zenobia, lifting a corner of the gauze, and peeping beneath it with

a mischievous smile. "Ah, the dear little soul! Why, she is really going to faint! Mr. Coverdale, Mr.

Her nerves being none of the strongest, Priscilla hardly recovered her equanimity during the rest of the

evening. This, to be sure, was a great pity; but, nevertheless, we thought it a very bright idea of Zenobia's to

Our Sundays at Blithedale were not ordinarily kept with such rigid observance as might have befitted the

descendants of the Pilgrims, whose high enterprise, as we sometimes flattered ourselves, we had taken up,

and were carrying it onward and aloft, to a point which they never dreamed of attaining.

On that hallowed day, it is true, we rested from our labors. Our oxen, relieved from their weekday yoke,

roamed at large through the pasture; each yokefellow, however, keeping close beside his mate, and

continuing to acknowledge, from the force of habit and sluggish sympathy, the union which the taskmaster

had imposed for his own hard ends. As for us human yokefellows, chosen companions of toil, whose hoes

had clinked together throughout the week, we wandered off, in various directions, to enjoy our interval of

repose. Some, I believe, went devoutly to the village church. Others, it may be, ascended a city or a country

pulpit, wearing the clerical robe with so much dignity that you would scarcely have suspected the yeoman's

frock to have been flung off only since milkingtime. Others took long rambles among the rustic lanes and

bypaths, pausing to look at black old farmhouses, with their sloping roofs; and at the modern cottage, so like

a plaything that it seemed as if real joy or sorrow could have no scope within; and at the more pretending

villa, with its range of wooden columns supporting the needless insolence of a great portico. Some betook

themselves into the wide, dusky barn, and lay there for hours together on the odorous hay; while the

sunstreaks and the shadows strove together,these to make the barn solemn, those to make it cheerful,and

both were conquerors; and the swallows twittered a cheery anthem, flashing into sight, or vanishing as they

darted to and fro among the golden rules of sunshine. And others went a little way into the woods, and threw

themselves on mother earth, pillowing their heads on a heap of moss, the green decay of an old log; and,

dropping asleep, the bumblebees and mosquitoes sung and buzzed about their ears, causing the slumberers to

With Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla, and myself, it grew to be a custom to spend the Sabbath afternoon at

a certain rock. It was known to us under the name of Eliot's pulpit, from a tradition that the venerable Apostle

Eliot had preached there, two centuries gone by, to an Indian auditory. The old pine forest, through which the

Apostle's voice was wont to sound, had fallen an immemorial time ago. But the soil, being of the rudest and

most broken surface, had apparently never been brought under tillage; other growths, maple and beech and

birch, had succeeded to the primeval trees; so that it was still as wild a tract of woodland as the

greatgreatgreatgreatgrandson of one of Eliot's Indians (had any such posterity been in existence) could

have desired for the site and shelter of his wigwam. These aftergrowths, indeed, lose the stately solemnity of

the original forest. If left in due neglect, however, they run into an entanglement of softer wildness, among

the rustling leaves of which the sun can scatter cheerfulness as it never could among the darkbrowed pines.

The rock itself rose some twenty or thirty feet, a shattered granite bowlder, or heap of bowlders, with an

irregular outline and many fissures, out of which sprang shrubs, bushes, and even trees; as if the scanty soil

within those crevices were sweeter to their roots than any other earth. At the base of the pulpit, the broken

bowlders inclined towards each other, so as to form a shallow cave, within which our little party had

sometimes found protection from a summer shower. On the threshold, or just across it, grew a tuft of pale

columbines, in their season, and violets, sad and shadowy recluses, such as Priscilla was when we first knew

her; children of the sun, who had never seen their father, but dwelt among damp mosses, though not akin to

them. At the summit, the rock was overshadowed by the canopy of a birchtree, which served as a

soundingboard for the pulpit. Beneath this shade (with my eyes of sense half shut and those of the

imagination widely opened) I used to see the holy Apostle of the Indians, with the sunlight flickering down

upon him through the leaves, and glorifying his figure as with the halfperceptible glow of a transfiguration.

I the more minutely describe the rock, and this little Sabbath solitude, because Hollingsworth, at our

solicitation, often ascended Eliot's pulpit, and not exactly preached, but talked to us, his few disciples, in a

strain that rose and fell as naturally as the wind's breath among the leaves of the birchtree. No other speech

of man has ever moved me like some of those discourses. It seemed most pitifula positive calamity to the

worldthat a treasury of golden thoughts should thus be scattered, by the liberal handful, down among us

three, when a thousand hearers might have been the richer for them; and Hollingsworth the richer, likewise,

by the sympathy of multitudes. After speaking much or little, as might happen, he would descend from his

gray pulpit, and generally fling himself at full length on the ground, face downward. Meanwhile, we talked

Since her interview with Westervelt, Zenobia's continual inequalities of temper had been rather difficult for

her friends to bear. On the first Sunday after that incident, when Hollingsworth had clambered down from

Eliot's pulpit, she declaimed with great earnestness and passion, nothing short of anger, on the injustice which

the world did to women, and equally to itself, by not allowing them, in freedom and honor, and with the

"It shall not always be so!" cried she. "If I live another year, I will lift up my own voice in behalf of woman's

"What matter of ridicule do you find in this, Miles Coverdale?" exclaimed Zenobia, with a flash of anger in

her eyes. "That smile, permit me to say, makes me suspicious of a low tone of feeling and shallow thought. It

is my beliefyes, and my prophecy, should I die before it happensthat, when my sex shall achieve its

rights, there will be ten eloquent women where there is now one eloquent man. Thus far, no woman in the

world has ever once spoken out her whole heart and her whole mind. The mistrust and disapproval of the vast

bulk of society throttles us, as with two gigantic hands at our throats! We mumble a few weak words, and

leave a thousand better ones unsaid. You let us write a little, it is true, on a limited range of subjects. But the

pen is not for woman. Her power is too natural and immediate. It is with the living voice alone that she can

compel the world to recognize the light of her intellect and the depth of her heart!"

Now,though I could not well say so to Zenobia,I had not smiled from any unworthy estimate of woman,

or in denial of the claims which she is beginning to put forth. What amused and puzzled me was the fact, that

women, however intellectually superior, so seldom disquiet themselves about the rights or wrongs of their

sex, unless their own individual affections chance to lie in idleness, or to be ill at ease. They are not natural

reformers, but become such by the pressure of exceptional misfortune. I could measure Zenobia's inward

trouble by the animosity with which she now took up the general quarrel of woman against man.

"I will give you leave, Zenobia," replied I, "to fling your utmost scorn upon me, if you ever hear me utter a

sentiment unfavorable to the widest liberty which woman has yet dreamed of. I would give her all she asks,

and add a great deal more, which she will not be the party to demand, but which men, if they were generous

and wise, would grant of their own free motion. For instance, I should love dearlyfor the next thousand

years, at leastto have all government devolve into the hands of women. I hate to be ruled by my own sex; it

excites my jealousy, and wounds my pride. It is the iron sway of bodily force which abases us, in our

compelled submission. But how sweet the free, generous courtesy with which I would kneel before a

"Yes, if she were young and beautiful," said Zenobia, laughing. "But how if she were sixty, and a fright?"

"Ah! it is you that rate womanhood low," said I. "But let me go on. I have never found it possible to suffer a

bearded priest so near my heart and conscience as to do me any spiritual good. I blush at the very thought!

Oh, in the better order of things, Heaven grant that the ministry of souls may be left in charge of women! The

gates of the Blessed City will be thronged with the multitude that enter in, when that day comes! The task

belongs to woman. God meant it for her. He has endowed her with the religious sentiment in its utmost depth

and purity, refined from that gross, intellectual alloy with which every masculine theologistsave only One,

who merely veiled himself in mortal and masculine shape, but was, in truth, divinehas been prone to

mingle it. I have always envied the Catholics their faith in that sweet, sacred Virgin Mother, who stands

between them and the Deity, intercepting somewhat of his awful splendor, but permitting his love to stream

upon the worshipper more intelligibly to human comprehension through the medium of a woman's

"I cannot think that this is true," observed Priscilla, who had been gazing at me with great, disapproving eyes.

"Poor child!" exclaimed Zenobia, rather contemptuously. "She is the type of womanhood, such as man has

spent centuries in making it. He is never content unless he can degrade himself by stooping towards what he

loves. In denying us our rights, he betrays even more blindness to his own interests than profligate disregard

"Is this true?" asked Priscilla with simplicity, turning to Hollingsworth. "Is it all true, that Mr. Coverdale and

"No, Priscilla!" answered Hollingsworth with his customary bluntness. "They have neither of them spoken

"Despise her? No!" cried Hollingsworth, lifting his great shaggy head and shaking it at us, while his eyes

glowed almost fiercely. "She is the most admirable handiwork of God, in her true place and character. Her

place is at man's side. Her office, that of the sympathizer; the unreserved, unquestioning believer; the

recognition, withheld in every other manner, but given, in pity, through woman's heart, lest man should

utterly lose faith in himself; the echo of God's own voice, pronouncing, 'It is well done!' All the separate

action of woman is, and ever has been, and always shall be, false, foolish, vain, destructive of her own best

and holiest qualities, void of every good effect, and productive of intolerable mischiefs! Man is a wretch

without woman; but woman is a monsterand, thank Heaven, an almost impossible and hitherto imaginary

monsterwithout man as her acknowledged principal! As true as I had once a mother whom I loved, were

there any possible prospect of woman's taking the social stand which some of them,poor, miserable,

abortive creatures, who only dream of such things because they have missed woman's peculiar happiness, or

because nature made them really neither man nor woman!if there were a chance of their attaining the end

which these petticoated monstrosities have in view, I would call upon my own sex to use its physical force,

that unmistakable evidence of sovereignty, to scourge them back within their proper bounds! But it will not

be needful. The heart of time womanhood knows where its own sphere is, and never seeks to stray beyond

Never was mortal blessedif blessing it werewith a glance of such entire acquiescence and unquestioning

faith, happy in its completeness, as our little Priscilla unconsciously bestowed on Hollingsworth. She seemed

to take the sentiment from his lips into her heart, and brood over it in perfect content. The very woman whom

he picturedthe gentle parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existencesat there at his feet.

I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resentas I felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own

blood, that she ought this outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine egotism. It

centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to

make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered what he, and millions of

despots like him, really felt. Without intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled waters.

But, to my surprise, and indignation too, she only looked humbled. Some tears sparkled in her eyes, but they

"Well, be it so," was all she said. "I, at least, have deep cause to think you right. Let man be but manly and

I smiledsomewhat bitterly, it is truein contemplation of my own illluck. How little did these two

women care for me, who had freely conceded all their claims, and a great deal more, out of the fulness of my

heart; while Hollingsworth, by some necromancy of his horrible injustice, seemed to have brought them both

"Women almost invariably behave thus," thought I. "What does the fact mean? Is it their nature? Or is it, at

last, the result of ages of compelled degradation? And, in either case, will it be possible ever to redeem

An intuition now appeared to possess all the party, that, for this time, at least, there was no more to be said.

With one accord, we arose from the ground, and made our way through the tangled undergrowth towards one

of those pleasant woodpaths that wound among the overarching trees. Some of the branches hung so low as

partly to conceal the figures that went before from those who followed. Priscilla had leaped up more lightly

than the rest of us, and ran along in advance, with as much airy activity of spirit as was typified in the motion

of a bird, which chanced to be flitting from tree to tree, in the same direction as herself. Never did she seem

so happy as that afternoon. She skipt, and could not help it, from very playfulness of heart.

Zenobia and Hollingsworth went next, in close contiguity, but not with arm in arm. Now, just when they had

passed the impending bough of a birchtree, I plainly saw Zenobia take the hand of Hollingsworth in both

The gesture was sudden, and full of passion; the impulse had evidently taken her by surprise; it expressed all!

Had Zenobia knelt before him, or flung herself upon his breast, and gasped out," I love you, Hollingsworth!"

I could not have been more certain of what it meant. They then walked onward, as before. But, methought, as

the declining sun threw Zenobia's magnified shadow along the path, I beheld it tremulous; and the delicate

stem of the flower which she wore in her hair was likewise responsive to her agitation.

Priscillathrough the medium of her eyes, at least could not possibly have been aware of the gesture above

described. Yet, at that instant, I saw her droop. The buoyancy, which just before had been so birdlike, was

utterly departed; the life seemed to pass out of her, and even the substance of her figure to grow thin and

gray. I almost imagined her a shadow, tiding gradually into the dimness of the wood. Her pace became so

slow that Hollingsworth and Zenobia passed by, and I, without hastening my footsteps, overtook her.

"Come, Priscilla," said I, looking her intently in the face, which was very pale and sorrowful, "we must make

haste after our friends. Do you feel suddenly ill? A moment ago, you flitted along so lightly that I was

comparing you to a bird. Now, on the contrary, it is as if you had a heavy heart, and a very little strength to

"No," said Priscilla, "I do not think it would help me. It is my heart, as you say, that makes me heavy; and I

No doubt it was a kind of sacrilege in me to attempt to come within her maidenly mystery; but, as she

appeared to be tossed aside by her other friends, or carelessly let fall, like a flower which they had done with,

"Zenobia and yourself are dear friends of late," I remarked. "At first, that first evening when you came to

"I remember it," said Priscilla. "No wonder she hesitated to love me, who was then a stranger to her, and a

"But she loves you now, of course?" suggested I. "And at this very instant you feel her to be your dearest

"Why do you ask me that question?" exclaimed Priscilla, as if frightened at the scrutiny into her feelings

which I compelled her to make. "It somehow puts strange thoughts into my mind. But I do love Zenobia

"How is it possible to doubt that, Priscilla?" I rejoined. "But observe how pleasantly and happily Zenobia and

Hollingsworth are walking together. I call it a delightful spectacle. It truly rejoices me that Hollingsworth has

found so fit and affectionate a friend! So many people in the world mistrust him,so many disbelieve and

ridicule, while hardly any do him justice, or acknowledge him for the wonderful man he is,that it is really a

blessed thing for him to have won the sympathy of such a woman as Zenobia. Any man might be proud of

that. Any man, even if he be as great as Hollingsworth, might love so magnificent a woman. How very

There may have been some petty malice in what I said. Generosity is a very fine thing, at a proper time and

within due limits. But it is an insufferable bore to see one man engrossing every thought of all the women,

and leaving his friend to shiver in outer seclusion, without even the alternative of solacing himself with what

the more fortunate individual has rejected. Yes, it was out of a foolish bitterness of heart that I had spoken.

"Go on before," said Priscilla abruptly, and with true feminine imperiousness, which heretofore I had never

seen her exercise. "It pleases me best to loiter along by myself. I do not walk so fast as you. "

With her hand she made a little gesture of dismissal. It provoked me; yet, on the whole, was the most

bewitching thing that Priscilla had ever done. I obeyed her, and strolled moodily homeward, wonderingas I

had wondered a thousand times alreadyhow Hollingsworth meant to dispose of these two hearts, which

(plainly to my perception, and, as I could not but now suppose, to his) he had engrossed into his own huge

There was likewise another subject hardly less fruitful of speculation. In what attitude did Zenobia present

herself to Hollingsworth? Was it in that of a free woman, with no mortgage on her affections nor claimant to

her hand, but fully at liberty to surrender both, in exchange for the heart and hand which she apparently

expected to receive? But was it a vision that I had witnessed in the wood? Was Westervelt a goblin? Were

those words of passion and agony, which Zenobia had uttered in my hearing, a mere stage declamation? Were

they formed of a material lighter than common air? Or, supposing them to bear sterling weight, was it a

perilous and dreadful wrong which she was meditating towards herself and Hollingsworth?

Arriving nearly at the farmhouse, I looked back over the long slope of pasture land, and beheld them standing

together, in the light of sunset, just on the spot where, according to the gossip of the Community, they meant

to build their cottage. Priscilla, alone and forgotten, was lingering in the shadow of the wood.

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 abidingplace. 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 woodside, or on the breezy swells, or in the

sheltered nook of some little valley, according as their taste might lean towards snugness or the picturesque.

Altogether, by projecting our minds outward, we had imparted a show of novelty to existence, and

contemplated it as hopefully as if the soil beneath our feet had not been fathomdeep with the dust of deluded

generations, on every one of which, as on ourselves, the world had imposed itself as a hitherto unwedded

Hollingsworth and myself had often discussed these prospects. It was easy to perceive, however, that he

spoke with little or no fervor, but either as questioning the fulfilment of our anticipations, or, at any rate, with

a quiet consciousness that it was no personal concern of his. Shortly after the scene at Eliot's pulpit, while he

and I were repairing an old stone fence, I amused myself with sallying forward into the future time.

"When we come to be old men," I said, "they will call us uncles, or fathers,Father Hollingsworth and

Uncle Coverdale,and we will look back cheerfully to these early days, and make a romantic story for the

young People (and if a little more romantic than truth may warrant, it will be no harm) out of our severe trials

and hardships. In a century or two, we shall, every one of us, be mythical personages, or exceedingly

picturesque and poetical ones, at all events. They will have a great public hall, in which your portrait, and

mine, and twenty other faces that are living now, shall be hung up; and as for me, I will be painted in my

shirtsleeves, and with the sleeves rolled up, to show my muscular development. What stories will be rife

among them about our mighty strength!" continued I, lifting a big stone and putting it into its place, "though

our posterity will really be far stronger than ourselves, after several generations of a simple, natural, and

active life. What legends of Zenobia's beauty, and Priscilla's slender and shadowy grace, and those

mysterious qualities which make her seem diaphanous with spiritual light! In due course of ages, we must all

figure heroically in an epic poem; and we will ourselvesat least, I willbend unseen over the future poet,

"You seem," said Hollingsworth, "to be trying how much nonsense you can pour out in a breath."

"I wish you would see fit to comprehend," retorted I, "that the profoundest wisdom must be mingled with

nine tenths of nonsense, else it is not worth the breath that utters it. But I do long for the cottages to be built,

that the creeping plants may begin to run over them, and the moss to gather on the walls, and the

treeswhich we will set outto cover them with a breadth of shadow. This spickandspan novelty does

not quite suit my taste. It is time, too, for children to be born among us. The firstborn child is still to come.

And I shall never feel as if this were a real, practical, as well as poetical system of human life, until

"As good as any other," I replied. "I wonder, Hollingsworth, who, of all these strong men, and fair women

and maidens, is doomed the first to die. Would it not be well, even before we have absolute need of it, to fix

upon a spot for a cemetery? Let us choose the rudest, roughest, most uncultivable spot, for Death's garden

ground; and Death shall teach us to beautify it, grave by grave. By our sweet, calm way of dying, and the airy

elegance out of which we will shape our funeral rites, and the cheerful allegories which we will model into

tombstones, the final scene shall lose its terrors; so that hereafter it may be happiness to live, and bliss to die.

None of us must die young. Yet, should Providence ordain it so, the event shall not be sorrowful, but affect us

"That is to say," muttered Hollingsworth, "you will die like a heathen, as you certainly live like one. But,

listen to me, Coverdale. Your fantastic anticipations make me discern all the more forcibly what a wretched,

unsubstantial scheme is this, on which we have wasted a precious summer of our lives. Do you seriously

imagine that any such realities as you, and many others here, have dreamed of, will ever be brought to pass?"

"Certainly I do," said I. "Of course, when the reality comes, it will wear the everyday, commonplace, dusty,

and rather homely garb that reality always does put on. But, setting aside the ideal charm, I hold that our

"You only half believe what you say," rejoined Hollingsworth; "and as for me, I neither have faith in your

dream, nor would care the value of this pebble for its realization, were that possible. And what more do you

want of it? It has given you a theme for poetry. Let that content you. But now I ask you to be, at last, a man of

sobriety and earnestness, and aid me in an enterprise which is worth all our strength, and the strength of a

There can be no need of giving in detail the conversation that ensued. It is enough to say that Hollingsworth

once more brought forward his rigid and unconquerable idea,a scheme for the reformation of the wicked

by methods moral, intellectual, and industrial, by the sympathy of pure, humble, and yet exalted minds, and

by opening to his pupils the possibility of a worthier life than that which had become their fate. It appeared,

unless he overestimated his own means, that Hollingsworth held it at his choice (and he did so choose) to

obtain possession of the very ground on which we had planted our Community, and which had not yet been

made irrevocably ours, by purchase. It was just the foundation that he desired. Our beginnings might readily

be adapted to his great end. The arrangements already completed would work quietly into his system. So

plausible looked his theory, and, more than that, so practical,such an air of reasonableness had he, by

patient thought, thrown over it,each segment of it was contrived to dovetail into all the rest with such a

complicated applicability, and so ready was he with a response for every objection, that, really, so far as logic

"But," said I, "whence can you, having no means of your own, derive the enormous capital which is essential

to this experiment? State Street, I imagine, would not draw its purser strings very liberally in aid of such a

"I have the fundsas much, at least, as is needed for a commencementat command," he answered. "They

My thoughts reverted to Zenobia. It could only be her wealth which Hollingsworth was appropriating so

lavishly. And on what conditions was it to be had? Did she fling it into the scheme with the uncalculating

generosity that characterizes a woman when it is her impulse to be generous at all? And did she fling herself

"And have you no regrets," I inquired, "in overthrowing this fair system of our new life, which has been

planned so deeply, and is now beginning to flourish so hopefully around us? How beautiful it is, and, so far

as we can yet see, how practicable! The ages have waited for us, and here we are, the very first that have

essayed to carry on our mortal existence in love and mutual help! Hollingsworth, I would be loath to take the

"Then let it rest wholly upon mine!" he answered, knitting his black brows. "I see through the system. It is

full of defects,irremediable and damning ones!from first to last, there is nothing else! I grasp it in my

"Why are you so secret in your operations?" I asked. "God forbid that I should accuse you of intentional

wrong; but the besetting sin of a philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His sense of

honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At some point of his courseI know not exactly when

or wherehe is tempted to palter with the right, and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the

importance of his public ends renders it allowable to throw aside his private conscience. Oh, my dear friend,

beware this error! If you meditate the overthrow of this establishment, Call together our companions, state

your design, support it with all your eloquence, but allow them an opportunity of defending themselves."

"It does not suit me," said Hollingsworth. "Nor is it my duty to do so." "I think it is," replied I.

"I will not argue the point," said he. "What I desire to know of you is, and you can tell me in one

word,whether I am to look for your cooperation in this great scheme of good? Take it up with me! Be my

brother in it! It offers you (what you have told me, over and over again, that you most need) a purpose in life,

worthy of the extremest selfdevotion,worthy of martyrdom, should God so order it! In this view, I present

it to you. You can greatly benefit mankind. Your peculiar faculties, as I shall direct them, are capable of

being so wrought into this enterprise that not one of them need lie idle. Strike hands with me, and from this

moment you shall never again feel the languor and vague wretchedness of an indolent or halfoccupied man.

There may be no more aimless beauty in your life; but, in its stead, there shall be strength, courage,

immitigable will,everything that a manly and generous nature should desire! we shall succeed! We shall

have done our best for this miserable world; and happiness (which never comes but incidentally) will come to

It seemed his intention to say no more. But, after he had quite broken off, his deep eyes filled with tears, and

"Coverdale," he murmured, "there is not the man in this wide world whom I can love as I could you. Do not

As I look back upon this scene, through the coldness and dimness of so many years, there is still a sensation

as if Hollingsworth had caught hold of my heart, and were pulling it towards him with an almost irresistible

force. It is a mystery to me how I withstood it. But, in truth, I saw in his scheme of philanthropy nothing but

what was odious. A loathsomeness that was to be forever in my daily work! A great black ugliness of sin,

which he proposed to collect out of a thousand human hearts, and that we should spend our lives in an

experiment of transmuting it into virtue! Had I but touched his extended hand, Hollingsworth's magnetism

would perhaps have penetrated me with his own conception of all these matters. But I stood aloof. I fortified

myself with doubts whether his strength of purpose had not been too gigantic for his integrity, impelling him

"She!the beautiful!the gorgeous!" I exclaimed. "And how have you prevailed with such a woman to

"Through no base methods, as you seem to suspect," he answered; "but by addressing whatever is best and

Hollingsworth was looking on the ground. But, as he often did so, generally, indeed, in his habitual moods

of thought,I could not judge whether it was from any special unwillingness now to meet my eyes. What it

was that dictated my next question, I cannot precisely say. Nevertheless, it rose so inevitably into my mouth,

and, as it were, asked itself so involuntarily, that there must needs have been an aptness in it.

"What is to become of Priscilla? " Hollingsworth looked at me fiercely, and with glowing eyes. He could not

have shown any other kind of expression than that, had he meant to strike me with a sword.

"Why do you bring in the names of these women?" said he, after a moment of pregnant silence. "What have

they to do with the proposal which I make you? I must have your answer! Will you devote yourself, and

"In Heaven's name, Hollingsworth," cried I, getting angry, and glad to be angry, because so only was it

possible to oppose his tremendous concentrativeness and indomitable will, "cannot you conceive that a man

may wish well to the world, and struggle for its good, on some other plan than precisely that which you have

laid down? And will you cast off a friend for no unworthiness, but merely because he stands upon his right as

an individual being, and looks at matters through his own optics, instead of yours?"

"Be with me," said Hollingsworth, "or be against me! There is no third choice for you."

"Take this, then, as my decision," I answered. "I doubt the wisdom of your scheme. Furthermore, I greatly

fear that the methods by which you allow yourself to pursue it are such as cannot stand the scrutiny of an

I never said the wordand certainly can never have it to say hereafterthat cost me a thousandth part so

hard an effort as did that one syllable. The heartpang was not merely figurative, but an absolute torture of

the breast. I was gazing steadfastly at Hollingsworth. It seemed to me that it struck him, too, like a bullet. A

ghastly palenessalways so terrific on a swarthy faceoverspread his features. There was a convulsive

movement of his throat, as if he were forcing down some words that struggled and fought for utterance.

Whether words of anger, or words of grief, I cannot tell; although many and many a time I have vainly

tormented myself with conjecturing which of the two they were. One other appeal to my friendship,such as

once, already, Hollingsworth had made,taking me in the revulsion that followed a strenuous exercise of

opposing will, would completely have subdued me. But he left the matter there. "Well!" said he.

And that was all! I should have been thankful for one word more, even had it shot me through the heart, as

mine did him. But he did not speak it; and, after a few moments, with one accord, we set to work again,

repairing the stone fence. Hollingsworth, I observed, wrought like a Titan; and, for my own part, I lifted

stones which at this dayor, in a calmer mood, at that oneI should no more have thought it possible to stir

A few days after the tragic passageatarms between Hollingsworth and me, I appeared at the dinnertable

actually dressed in a coat, instead of my customary blouse; with a satin cravat, too, a white vest, and several

other things that made me seem strange and outlandish to myself. As for my companions, this unwonted

spectacle caused a great stir upon the wooden benches that bordered either side of our homely board.

"Yes, for a week or two," said I. "It strikes me that my health demands a little relaxation of labor, and a short

"You look like it!" grumbled Silas Foster, not greatly pleased with the idea of losing an efficient laborer

before the stress of the season was well over. "Now, here's a pretty fellow! His shoulders have broadened a

matter of six inches since he came among us; he can do his day's work, if he likes, with any man or ox on the

farm; and yet he talks about going to the seashore for his health! Well, well, old woman," added he to his

wife, "let me have a plateful of that pork and cabbage! I begin to feel in a very weakly way. When the others

"Breath!" retorted the old yeoman. "Your lungs have the play of a pair of blacksmith's bellows already. What

on earth do you want more? But go along! I understand the business. We shall never see your face here again.

Here ends the reformation of the world, so far as Miles Coverdale has a hand in it!"

"By no means," I replied. "I am resolute to die in the last ditch, for the good of the cause."

"Die in a ditch!" muttered gruff Silas, with genuine Yankee intolerance of any intermission of toil, except on

Sunday, the Fourth of July, the autumnal cattleshow, Thanksgiving, or the annual Fast,"die in a ditch! I

believe, in my conscience, you would, if there were no steadier means than your own labor to keep you out of

The truth was, that an intolerable discontent and irksomeness had come over me. Blithedale was no longer

what it had been. Everything was suddenly faded. The sunburnt and arid aspect of our woods and pastures,

beneath the August sky, did but imperfectly symbolize the lack of dew and moisture, that, since yesterday, as

it were, had blighted my fields of thought, and penetrated to the innermost and shadiest of my contemplative

recesses. The change will be recognized by many, who, after a period of happiness, have endeavored to go on

with the same kind of life, in the same scene, in spite of the alteration or withdrawal of some principal

circumstance. They discover (what heretofore, perhaps, they had not known) that it was this which gave the

I stood on other terms than before, not only with Hollingsworth, but with Zenobia and Priscilla. As regarded

the two latter, it was that dreamlike and miserable sort of change that denies you the privilege to complain,

because you can assert no positive injury, nor lay your finger on anything tangible. It is a matter which you

do not see, but feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very existence, and resolve itself

into a sickly humor of your own. Your understanding, possibly, may put faith in this denial. But your heart

will not so easily rest satisfied. It incessantly remonstrates, though, most of the time, in a bassnote, which

you do not separately distinguish; but, now and then, with a sharp cry, importunate to be heard, and resolute

to claim belief. "Things are not as they were!" it keeps saying. "You shall not impose on me! I will never be

quiet! I will throb painfully! I will be heavy, and desolate, and shiver with cold! For I, your deep heart, know

when to be miserable, as once I knew when to be happy! All is changed for us! You are beloved no more!"

And were my life to be spent over again, I would invariably lend my ear to this Cassandra of the inward

depths, however clamorous the music and the merriment of a more superficial region.

My outbreak with Hollingsworth, though never definitely known to our associates, had really an effect upon

the moral atmosphere of the Community. It was incidental to the closeness of relationship into which we had

brought ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling could not occur between any two members without the

whole society being more or less commoted and made uncomfortable thereby. This species of nervous

sympathy (though a pretty characteristic enough, sentimentally considered, and apparently betokening an

actual bond of love among us) was yet found rather inconvenient in its practical operation, mortal tempers

being so infirm and variable as they are. If one of us happened to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the

tingle was immediately felt on the same side of everybody's head. Thus, even on the supposition that we were

far less quarrelsome than the rest of the world, a great deal of time was necessarily wasted in rubbing our

Musing on all these matters, I felt an inexpressible longing for at least a temporary novelty. I thought of

going across the Rocky Mountains, or to Europe, or up the Nile; of offering myself a volunteer on the

Exploring Expedition; of taking a ramble of years, no matter in what direction, and coming back on the other

side of the world. Then, should the colonists of Blithedale have established their enterprise on a permanent

basis, I might fling aside my pilgrim staff and dusty shoon, and rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. Or, in

case Hollingsworth should occupy the ground with his School of Reform, as he now purposed, I might plead

earthly guilt enough, by that time, to give me what I was inclined to think the only trustworthy hold on his

affections. Meanwhile, before deciding on any ultimate plan, I determined to remove myself to a little

In truth, it was dizzy work, amid such fermentation of opinions as was going on in the general brain of the

Community. It was a kind of Bedlam, for the time being, although out of the very thoughts that were wildest

and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm, and pure, and that should incarnate itself with the

substance of a noble and happy life. But, as matters now were, I felt myself (and, having a decided tendency

towards the actual, I never liked to feel it) getting quite out of my reckoning, with regard to the existing state

of the world. I was beginning to lose the sense of what kind of a world it was, among innumerable schemes of

what it might or ought to be. It was impossible, situated as we were, not to imbibe the idea that everything in

nature and human existence was fluid, or fast becoming so; that the crust of the earth in many places was

broken, and its whole surface portentously upheaving; that it was a day of crisis, and that we ourselves were

in the critical vortex. Our great globe floated in the atmosphere of infinite space like an unsubstantial bubble.

No sagacious man will long retain his sagacity, if he live exclusively among reformers and progressive

people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new

It was now time for me, therefore, to go and hold a little talk with the conservatives, the writers of "The North

American Review," the merchants, the politicians, the Cambridge men, and all those respectable old

blockheads who still, in this intangibility and mistiness of affairs, kept a deathgrip on one or two ideas

The brethren took leave of me with cordial kindness; and as for the sisterhood, I had serious thoughts of

kissing them all round, but forbore to do so, because, in all such general salutations, the penance is fully equal

to the pleasure. So I kissed none of them; and nobody, to say the truth, seemed to expect it.

"Do you wish me," I said to Zenobia, "to announce in town, and at the wateringplaces, your purpose to

"Women possess no rights," said Zenobia, with a halfmelancholy smile; "or, at all events, only little girls

She gave me her hand freely and kindly, and looked at me, I thought, with a pitying expression in her eyes;

nor was there any settled light of joy in them on her own behalf, but a troubled and passionate flame,

"I regret, on the whole, that you are leaving us," she said; "and all the more, since I feel that this phase of our

life is finished, and can never be lived over again. Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, that I have been several

times on the point of making you my confidant, for lack of a better and wiser one? But you are too young to

be my father confessor; and you would not thank me for treating you like one of those good little

"I would, at least, be loyal and faithful," answered I; "and would counsel you with an honest purpose, if not

"Yes," said Zenobia, "you would be only too wise, too honest. Honesty and wisdom are such a delightful

"By no means," she replied, "especially when you have just resumed the whole series of social

conventionalisms, together with that straitbodied coat. I would as lief open my heart to a lawyer or a

clergyman! No, no, Mr. Coverdale; if I choose a counsellor, in the present aspect of my affairs, it must be

either an angel or a madman; and I rather apprehend that the latter would be likeliest of the two to speak the

fitting word. It needs a wild steersman when we voyage through chaos! The anchor is up, farewell!"

Priscilla, as soon as dinner was over, had betaken herself into a corner, and set to work on a little purse. As I

approached her, she let her eyes rest on me with a calm, serious look; for, with all her delicacy of nerves,

there was a singular selfpossession in Priscilla, and her sensibilities seemed to lie sheltered from ordinary

"I must not wait, even for that," I replied. "Shall I find you here, on my return?"

"I have sometimes thought," observed I, smiling, "that you, Priscilla, are a little prophetess, or, at least, that

you have spiritual intimations respecting matters which are dark to us grosser people. If that be the case, I

should like to ask you what is about to happen; for I am tormented with a strong foreboding that, were I to

return even so soon as tomorrow morning, I should find everything changed. Have you any impressions of

"Ah, no," said Priscilla, looking at me apprehensively. "If any such misfortune is coming, the shadow has not

reached me yet. Heaven forbid! I should be glad if there might never be any change, but one summer follow

"No summer ever came back, and no two summers ever were alike," said I, with a degree of Orphic wisdom

that astonished myself. "Times change, and people change; and if our hearts do not change as readily, so

I gave her hand a pressure, which, I think, she neither resisted nor returned. Priscilla's heart was deep, but of

small compass; it had room but for a very few dearest ones, among whom she never reckoned me.

On the doorstep I met Hollingsworth. I had a momentary impulse to hold out my hand, or at least to give a

parting nod, but resisted both. When a real and strong affection has come to an end, it is not well to mock the

sacred past with any show of those commonplace civilities that belong to ordinary intercourse. Being dead

henceforth to him, and he to me, there could be no propriety in our chilling one another with the touch of two

corpselike hands, or playing at looks of courtesy with eyes that were impenetrable beneath the glaze and the

I can nowise explain what sort of whim, prank, or perversity it was, that, after all these leavetakings,

induced me to go to the pigsty, and take leave of the swine! There they lay, buried as deeply among the straw

as they could burrow, four huge black grunters, the very symbols of slothful ease and sensual comfort. They

were asleep, drawing short and heavy breaths, which heaved their big sides up and down. Unclosing their

eyes, however, at my approach, they looked dimly forth at the outer world, and simultaneously uttered a

gentle grunt; not putting themselves to the trouble of an additional breath for that particular purpose, but

grunting with their ordinary inhalation. They were involved, and almost stifled and buried alive, in their own

corporeal substance. The very unreadiness and oppression wherewith these greasy citizens gained breath

enough to keep their lifemachinery in sluggish movement appeared to make them only the more sensible of

the ponderous and fat satisfaction of their existence. Peeping at me an instant out of their small, red, hardly

perceptible eyes, they dropt asleep again; yet not so far asleep but that their unctuous bliss was still present to

"You must come back in season to eat part of a sparerib," said Silas Foster, giving my hand a mighty

squeeze. "I shall have these fat fellows hanging up by the heels, heads downward, pretty soon, I tell you!"

"O cruel Silas, what a horrible ideal" cried I. "All the rest of us, men, women, and livestock, save only these

four porkers, are bedevilled with one grief or another; they alone are happy,and you mean to cut their

throats and eat them! It would be more for the general comfort to let them eat us; and bitter and sour morsels

Arriving in town (where my bachelorrooms, long before this time, had received some other occupant), I

established myself, for a day or two, in a certain, respectable hotel. It was situated somewhat aloof from my

former track in life; my present mood inclining me to avoid most of my old companions, from whom I was

now sundered by other interests, and who would have been likely enough to amuse themselves at the expense

of the amateur workingman. The hotelkeeper put me into a back room of the third story of his spacious

establishment. The day was lowering, with occasional gusts of rain, and an ugly tempered east wind, which

seemed to come right off the chill and melancholy sea, hardly mitigated by sweeping over the roofs, and

amalgamating itself with the dusky element of city smoke. All the effeminacy of past days had returned upon

me at once. Summer as it still was, I ordered a coal fire in the rusty grate, and was glad to find myself

My sensations were those of a traveller, long sojourning in remote regions, and at length sitting down again

amid customs once familiar. There was a newness and an oldness oddly combining themselves into one

impression. It made me acutely sensible how strange a piece of mosaicwork had lately been wrought into

my life. True, if you look at it in one way, it had been only a summer in the country. But, considered in a

profounder relation, it was part of another age, a different state of society, a segment of an existence peculiar

in its aims and methods, a leaf of some mysterious volume interpolated into the current history which time

was writing off. At one moment, the very circumstances now surrounding memy coal fire and the dingy

room in the bustling hotelappeared far off and intangible; the next instant Blithedale looked vague, as if it

were at a distance both in time and space, and so shadowy that a question might be raised whether the whole

affair had been anything more than the thoughts of a speculative man. I had never before experienced a mood

that so robbed the actual world of its solidity. It nevertheless involved a charm, on whicha devoted epicure

of my own emotionsI resolved to pause, and enjoy the moral sillabub until quite dissolved away.

Whatever had been my taste for solitude and natural scenery, yet the thick, foggy, stifled element of cities,

the entangled life of many men together, sordid as it was, and empty of the beautiful, took quite as strenuous

a hold upon my mind. I felt as if there could never be enough of it. Each characteristic sound was too

suggestive to be passed over unnoticed. Beneath and around me, I heard the stir of the hotel; the loud voices

of guests, landlord, or barkeeper; steps echoing on the staircase; the ringing of a bell, announcing arrivals or

departures; the porter lumbering past my door with baggage, which he thumped down upon the floors of

neighboring chambers; the lighter feet of chambermaids scudding along the passages;it is ridiculous to

think what an interest they had for me! From the street came the tumult of the pavements, pervading the

whole house with a continual uproar, so broad and deep that only an unaccustomed ear would dwell upon it.

A company of the city soldiery, with a full military band, marched in front of the hotel, invisible to me, but

stirringly audible both by its foottramp and the clangor of its instruments. Once or twice all the city bells

jangled together, announcing a fire, which brought out the enginemen and their machines, like an army with

its artillery rushing to battle. Hour by hour the clocks in many steeples responded one to another.

In some public hall, not a great way off, there seemed to be an exhibition of a mechanical diorama; for three

times during the day occurred a repetition of obstreperous music, winding up with the rattle of imitative

cannon and musketry, and a huge final explosion. Then ensued the applause of the spectators, with clap of

hands and thump of sticks, and the energetic pounding of their heels. All this was just as valuable, in its way,

as the sighing of the breeze among the birchtrees that overshadowed Eliot's pulpit.

Yet I felt a hesitation about plunging into this muddy tide of human activity and pastime. It suited me better,

for the present, to linger on the brink, or hover in the air above it. So I spent the first day, and the greater part

of the second, in the laziest manner possible, in a rockingchair, inhaling the fragrance of a series of cigars,

with my legs and slippered feet horizontally disposed, and in my hand a novel purchased of a railroad

bibliopolist. The gradual waste of my cigar accomplished itself with an easy and gentle expenditure of breath.

My book was of the dullest, yet had a sort of sluggish flow, like that of a stream in which your boat is as

often aground as afloat. Had there been a more impetuous rush, a more absorbing passion of the narrative, I

should the sooner have struggled out of its uneasy current, and have given myself up to the swell and

subsidence of my thoughts. But, as it was, the torpid life of the book served as an unobtrusive

accompaniment to the life within me and about me. At intervals, however, when its effect grew a little too

soporific,not for my patience, but for the possibility of keeping my eyes open, I bestirred myself, started

A gray sky; the weathercock of a steeple that rose beyond the opposite range of buildings, pointing from the

eastward; a sprinkle of small, spitefullooking raindrops on the windowpane. In that ebbtide of my

energies, had I thought of venturing abroad, these tokens would have checked the abortive purpose.

After several such visits to the window, I found myself getting pretty well acquainted with that little portion

of the backside of the universe which it presented to my view. Over against the hotel and its adjacent houses,

at the distance of forty or fifty yards, was the rear of a range of buildings which appeared to be spacious,

modern, and calculated for fashionable residences. The interval between was apportioned into grassplots,

and here and there an apology for a garden, pertaining severally to these dwellings. There were appletrees,

and pear and peach trees, too, the fruit on which looked singularly large, luxuriant, and abundant, as well it

might, in a situation so warm and sheltered, and where the soil had doubtless been enriched to a more than

natural fertility. In two or three places grapevines clambered upon trellises, and bore clusters already purple,

and promising the richness of Malta or Madeira in their ripened juice. The blighting winds of our rigid

climate could not molest these trees and vines; the sunshine, though descending late into this area, and too

early intercepted by the height of the surrounding houses, yet lay tropically there, even when less than

temperate in every other region. Dreary as was the day, the scene was illuminated by not a few sparrows and

other birds, which spread their wings, and flitted and fluttered, and alighted now here, now there, and busily

scratched their food out of the wormy earth. Most of these winged people seemed to have their domicile in a

robust and healthy buttonwoodtree. It aspired upward, high above the roofs of the houses, and spread a

There was a catas there invariably is in such placeswho evidently thought herself entitled to the

privileges of forest life in this close heart of city conventionalisms. I watched her creeping along the low, flat

roofs of the offices, descending a flight of wooden steps, gliding among the grass, and besieging the

buttonwoodtree, with murderous purpose against its feathered citizens. But, after all, they were birds of city

breeding, and doubtless knew how to guard themselves against the peculiar perils of their position.

Bewitching to my fancy are all those nooks and crannies where Nature, like a stray partridge, hides her head

among the longestablished haunts of men! It is likewise to be remarked, as a general rule, that there is far

more of the picturesque, more truth to native and characteristic tendencies, and vastly greater suggestiveness

in the back view of a residence, whether in town or country, than in its front. The latter is always artificial; it

is meant for the world's eye, and is therefore a veil and a concealment. Realities keep in the rear, and put

forward an advance guard of show and humbug. The posterior aspect of any old farmhouse, behind which a

railroad has unexpectedly been opened, is so different from that looking upon the immemorial highway, that

the spectator gets new ideas of rural life and individuality in the puff or two of steambreath which shoots

him past the premises. In a city, the distinction between what is offered to the public and what is kept for the

But, to return to my window at the back of the hotel. Together with a due contemplation of the fruittrees, the

grapevines, the buttonwoodtree, the cat, the birds, and many other particulars, I failed not to study the row

of fashionable dwellings to which all these appertained. Here, it must be confessed, there was a general

sameness. From the upper story to the first floor, they were so much alike, that I could only conceive of the

inhabitants as cut out on one identical pattern, like little wooden toypeople of German manufacture. One

long, united roof, with its thousands of slates glittering in the rain, extended over the whole. After the

distinctness of separate characters to which I had recently been accustomed, it perplexed and annoyed me not

to be able to resolve this combination of human interests into welldefined elements. It seemed hardly worth

while for more than one of those families to be in existence, since they all had the same glimpse of the sky,

all looked into the same area, all received just their equal share of sunshine through the front windows, and

all listened to precisely the same noises of the street on which they boarded. Men are so much alike in their

Just about this time a waiter entered my room. The truth was, I had rung the bell and ordered a

"Can you tell me," I inquired, "what families reside in any of those houses opposite?"

"The one right opposite is a rather stylish boardinghouse," said the waiter. "Two of the gentlemen boarders

keep horses at the stable of our establishment. They do things in very good style, sir, the people that live

I might have found out nearly as much for myself, on examining the house a little more closely, in one of the

upper chambers I saw a young man in a dressinggown, standing before the glass and brushing his hair for a

quarter of an hour together. He then spent an equal space of time in the elaborate arrangement of his cravat,

and finally made his appearance in a dresscoat, which I suspected to be newly come from the tailor's, and

now first put on for a dinnerparty. At a window of the next story below, two children, prettily dressed, were

looking out. By and by a middleaged gentleman came softly behind them, kissed the little girl, and playfully

pulled the little boy's ear. It was a papa, no doubt, just come in from his countingroom or office; and anon

appeared mamma, stealing as softly behind papa as he had stolen behind the children, and laying her hand on

his shoulder to surprise him. Then followed a kiss between papa and mamma; but a noiseless one, for the

"I bless God for these good folks!" thought I to myself. "I have not seen a prettier bit of nature, in all my

summer in the country, than they have shown me here, in a rather stylish boardinghouse. I will pay them a

On the first floor, an iron balustrade ran along in front of the tall and spacious windows, evidently belonging

to a back drawingroom; and far into the interior, through the arch of the slidingdoors, I could discern a

gleam from the windows of the front apartment. There were no signs of present occupancy in this suite of

rooms; the curtains being enveloped in a protective covering, which allowed but a small portion of their

crimson material to be seen. But two housemaids were industriously at work; so that there was good prospect

that the boardinghouse might not long suffer from the absence of its most expensive and profitable guests.

Meanwhile, until they should appear, I cast my eyes downward to the lower regions. There, in the dusk that

so early settles into such places, I saw the red glow of the kitchen range. The hot cook, or one of her

subordinates, with a ladle in her hand, came to draw a cool breath at the back door. As soon as she

disappeared, an Irish manservant, in a white jacket, crept slyly forth, and threw away the fragments of a

china dish, which, unquestionably, he had just broken. Soon afterwards, a lady, showily dressed, with a

curling front of what must have been false hair, and reddishbrown, I suppose, in hue,though my

remoteness allowed me only to guess at such particulars,this respectable mistress of the boardinghouse

made a momentary transit across the kitchen window, and appeared no more. It was her final, comprehensive

glance, in order to make sure that soup, fish, and flesh were in a proper state of readiness, before the serving

There was nothing else worth noticing about the house, unless it be that on the peak of one of the dormer

windows which opened out of the roof sat a dove, looking very dreary and forlorn; insomuch that I wondered

why she chose to sit there, in the chilly rain, while her kindred were doubtless nestling in a warm and

comfortable dovecote. All at once this dove spread her wings, and, launching herself in the air, came flying

so straight across the intervening space, that I fully expected her to alight directly on my windowsill. In the

latter part of her course, however, she swerved aside, flew upward, and vanished, as did, likewise, the slight,

The next day, as soon as I thought of looking again towards the opposite house, there sat the dove again, on

the peak of the same dormer window! It was by no means an early hour, for the preceding evening I had

ultimately mustered enterprise enough to visit the theatre, had gone late to bed, and slept beyond all limit, in

my remoteness from Silas Foster's awakening horn. Dreams had tormented me throughout the night. The

train of thoughts which, for months past, had worn a track through my mind, and to escape which was one of

my chief objects in leaving Blithedale, kept treading remorselessly to and fro in their old footsteps, while

slumber left me impotent to regulate them. It was not till I had quitted my three friends that they first began to

encroach upon my dreams. In those of the last night, Hollingsworth and Zenobia, standing on either side of

my bed, had bent across it to exchange a kiss of passion. Priscilla, beholding this,for she seemed to be

peeping in at the chamber window, had melted gradually away, and left only the sadness of her expression

in my heart. There it still lingered, after I awoke; one of those unreasonable sadnesses that you know not how

It was a gray and dripping forenoon; gloomy enough in town, and still gloomier in the haunts to which my

recollections persisted in transporting me. For, in spite of my efforts to think of something else, I thought

how the gusty rain was drifting over the slopes and valleys of our farm; how wet must be the foliage that

overshadowed the pulpit rock; how cheerless, in such a day, my hermitagethe treesolitude of my

owllike humorsin the vineencircled heart of the tall pine! It was a phase of homesickness. I had

wrenched myself too suddenly out of an accustomed sphere. There was no choice, now, but to bear the pang

of whatever heartstrings were snapt asunder, and that illusive torment (like the ache of a limb long ago cut

off) by which a past mode of life prolongs itself into the succeeding one. I was full of idle and shapeless

regrets. The thought impressed itself upon me that I had left duties unperformed. With the power, perhaps, to

act in the place of destiny and avert misfortune from my friends, I had resigned them to their fate. That cold

tendency, between instinct and intellect, which made me pry with a speculative interest into people's passions

But a man cannot always decide for himself whether his own heart is cold or warm. It now impresses me that,

if I erred at all in regard to Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla, it was through too much sympathy, rather

To escape the irksomeness of these meditations, I resumed my post at the window. At first sight, there was

nothing new to be noticed. The general aspect of affairs was the same as yesterday, except that the more

decided inclemency of today had driven the sparrows to shelter, and kept the cat within doors; whence,

however, she soon emerged, pursued by the cook, and with what looked like the better half of a roast chicken

in her mouth. The young man in the dresscoat was invisible; the two children, in the story below, seemed to

be romping about the room, under the superintendence of a nurserymaid. The damask curtains of the

drawingroom, on the first floor, were now fully displayed, festooned gracefully from top to bottom of the

windows, which extended from the ceiling to the carpet. A narrower window, at the left of the

drawingroom, gave light to what was probably a small boudoir, within which I caught the faintest

imaginable glimpse of a girl's figure, in airy drapery. Her arm was in regular movement, as if she were busy

While intent upon making out this girlish shape, I became sensible that a figure had appeared at one of the

windows of the drawingroom. There was a presentiment in my mind; or perhaps my first glance, imperfect

and sidelong as it was, had sufficed to convey subtile information of the truth. At any rate, it was with no

positive surprise, but as if I had all along expected the incident, that, directing my eyes thitherward, I

beheldlike a fulllength picture, in the space between the heavy festoons of the window curtainsno

other than Zenobia! At the same instant, my thoughts made sure of the identity of the figure in the boudoir. It

Zenobia was attired, not in the almost rustic costume which she had heretofore worn, but in a fashionable

morningdress. There was, nevertheless, one familiar point. She had, as usual, a flower in her hair, brilliant

and of a rare variety, else it had not been Zenobia. After a brief pause at the window, she turned away,

exemplifying, in the few steps that removed her out of sight, that noble and beautiful motion which

characterized her as much as any other personal charm. Not one woman in a thousand could move so

admirably as Zenobia. Many women can sit gracefully; some can stand gracefully; and a few, perhaps, can

assume a series of graceful positions. But natural movement is the result and expression of the whole being,

and cannot be well and nobly performed unless responsive to something in the character. I often used to think

that musiclight and airy, wild and passionate, or the full harmony of stately marches, in accordance with

I waited for her reappearance. It was one peculiarity, distinguishing Zenobia from most of her sex, that she

needed for her moral wellbeing, and never would forego, a large amount of physical exercise. At Blithedale,

no inclemency of sky or muddiness of earth had ever impeded her daily walks. Here in town, she probably

preferred to tread the extent of the two drawingrooms, and measure out the miles by spaces of forty feet,

rather than bedraggle her skirts over the sloppy pavements. Accordingly, in about the time requisite to pass

through the arch of the slidingdoors to the front window, and to return upon her steps, there she stood again,

between the festoons of the crimson curtains. But another personage was now added to the scene. Behind

Zenobia appeared that face which I had first encountered in the woodpath; the man who had passed, side by

side with her, in such mysterious familiarity and estrangement, beneath my vine curtained hermitage in the

tall pinetree. It was Westervelt. And though he was looking closely over her shoulder, it still seemed to me,

as on the former occasion, that Zenobia repelled him,that, perchance, they mutually repelled each other, by

This impression, however, might have been altogether the result of fancy and prejudice in me. The distance

was so great as to obliterate any play of feature by which I might otherwise have been made a partaker of

There now needed only Hollingsworth and old Moodie to complete the knot of characters, whom a real

intricacy of events, greatly assisted by my method of insulating them from other relations, had kept so long

upon my mental stage, as actors in a drama. In itself, perhaps, it was no very remarkable event that they

should thus come across me, at the moment when I imagined myself free. Zenobia, as I well knew, had

retained an establishment in town, and had not unfrequently withdrawn herself from Blithedale during brief

intervals, on one of which occasions she had taken Priscilla along with her. Nevertheless, there seemed

something fatal in the coincidence that had borne me to this one spot, of all others in a great city, and

transfixed me there, and compelled me again to waste my already wearied sympathies on affairs which were

none of mine, and persons who cared little for me. It irritated my nerves; it affected me with a kind of

heartsickness. After the effort which it cost me to fling them off,after consummating my escape, as I

thought, from these goblins of flesh and blood, and pausing to revive myself with a breath or two of an

atmosphere in which they should have no share,it was a positive despair to find the same figures arraying

themselves before me, and presenting their old problem in a shape that made it more insoluble than ever.

I began to long for a catastrophe. If the noble temper of Hollingsworth's soul were doomed to be utterly

corrupted by the too powerful purpose which had grown out of what was noblest in him; if the rich and

generous qualities of Zenobia's womanhood might not save her; if Priscilla must perish by her tenderness and

faith, so simple and so devout, then be it so! Let it all come! As for me, I would look on, as it seemed my part

to do, understandingly, if my intellect could fathom the meaning and the moral, and, at all events, reverently

and sadly. The curtain fallen, I would pass onward with my poor individual life, which was now attenuated of

Meanwhile, Zenobia and her companion had retreated from the window. Then followed an interval, during

which I directed my eves towards the figure in the boudoir. Most certainly it was Priscilla, although dressed

with a novel and fanciful elegance. The vague perception of it, as viewed so far off, impressed me as if she

had suddenly passed out of a chrysalis state and put forth wings. Her hands were not now in motion. She had

dropt her work, and sat with her head thrown back, in the same attitude that I had seen several times before,

Again the two figures in the drawingroom became visible. They were now a little withdrawn from the

window, face to face, and, as I could see by Zenobia's emphatic gestures, were discussing some subject in

which she, at least, felt a passionate concern. By and by she broke away, and vanished beyond my ken.

Westervelt approached the window, and leaned his forehead against a pane of glass, displaying the sort of

smile on his handsome features which, when I before met him, had let me into the secret of his

goldbordered teeth. Every human being, when given over to the Devil, is sure to have the wizard mark upon

him, in one form or another. I fancied that this smile, with its peculiar revelation, was the Devil's signet on

This man, as I had soon reason to know, was endowed with a catlike circumspection; and though precisely

the most unspiritual quality in the world, it was almost as effective as spiritual insight in making him

acquainted with whatever it suited him to discover. He now proved it, considerably to my discomfiture, by

detecting and recognizing me, at my post of observation. Perhaps I ought to have blushed at being caught in

such an evident scrutiny of Professor Westervelt and his affairs. Perhaps I did blush. Be that as it might, I

retained presence of mind enough not to make my position yet more irksome by the poltroonery of drawing

Westervelt looked into the depths of the drawingroom, and beckoned. Immediately afterwards Zenobia

appeared at the window, with color much heightened, and eyes which, as my conscience whispered me, were

shooting bright arrows, barbed with scorn, across the intervening space, directed full at my sensibilities as a

gentleman. If the truth must be told, far as her flightshot was, those arrows hit the mark. She signified her

recognition of me by a gesture with her head and hand, comprising at once a salutation and dismissal. The

next moment she administered one of those pitiless rebukes which a woman always has at hand, ready for any

offence (and which she so seldom spares on due occasion), by letting down a white linen curtain between the

festoons of the damask ones. It fell like the dropcurtain of a theatre, in the interval between the acts.

Priscilla had disappeared from the boudoir. But the dove still kept her desolate perch on the peak of the attic

The remainder of the day, so far as I was concerned, was spent in meditating on these recent incidents. I

contrived, and alternately rejected, innumerable methods of accounting for the presence of Zenobia and

Priscilla, and the connection of Westervelt with both. It must be owned, too, that I had a keen, revengeful

sense of the insult inflicted by Zenobia's scornful recognition, and more particularly by her letting down the

curtain; as if such were the proper barrier to be interposed between a character like hers and a perceptive

faculty like mine. For, was mine a mere vulgar curiosity? Zenobia should have known me better than to

suppose it. She should have been able to appreciate that quality of the intellect and the heart which impelled

me (often against my own will, and to the detriment of my own comfort) to live in other lives, and to

endeavorby generous sympathies, by delicate intuitions, by taking note of things too slight for record, and

by bringing my human spirit into manifold accordance with the companions whom God assigned meto

Of all possible observers, methought a woman like Zenobia and a man like Hollingsworth should have

selected me. And now when the event has long been past, I retain the same opinion of my fitness for the

office. True, I might have condemned them. Had I been judge as well as witness, my sentence might have

been stern as that of destiny itself. But, still, no trait of original nobility of character, no struggle against

temptation, no iron necessity of will, on the one hand, nor extenuating circumstance to be derived from

passion and despair, on the other,no remorse that might coexist with error, even if powerless to prevent it,

no proud repentance that should claim retribution as a meed,would go unappreciated. True, again, I

might give my full assent to the punishment which was sure to follow. But it would be given mournfully, and

with undiminished love. And, after all was finished, I would come as if to gather up the white ashes of those

who had perished at the stake, and to tell the worldthe wrong being now atoned forhow much had

I sat in my rockingchair, too far withdrawn from the window to expose myself to another rebuke like that

already inflicted. My eyes still wandered towards the opposite house, but without effecting any new

discoveries. Late in the afternoon, the weathercock on the church spire indicated a change of wind; the sun

shone dimly out, as if the golden wine of its beams were mingled halfandhalf with water. Nevertheless,

they kindled up the whole range of edifices, threw a glow over the windows, glistened on the wet roofs, and,

slowly withdrawing upward, perched upon the chimneytops; thence they took a higher flight, and lingered

an instant on the tip of the spire, making it the final point of more cheerful light in the whole sombre scene.

The next moment, it was all gone. The twilight fell into the area like a shower of dusky snow, and before it

When I returned to my chamber, the glow of an astral lamp was penetrating mistily through the white curtain

of Zenobia's drawingroom. The shadow of a passing figure was now and then cast upon this medium, but

with too vague an outline for even my adventurous conjectures to read the hieroglyphic that it presented.

All at once, it occurred to me how very absurd was my behavior in thus tormenting myself with crazy

hypotheses as to what was going on within that drawingroom, when it was at my option to be personally

present there, My relations with Zenobia, as yet unchanged,as a familiar friend, and associated in the same

lifelong enterprise,gave me the right, and made it no more than kindly courtesy demanded, to call on her.

Nothing, except our habitual independence of conventional rules at Blithedale, could have kept me from

In compliance with this sudden impulse, I soon found myself actually within the house, the rear of which, for

two days past, I had been so sedulously watching. A servant took my card, and, immediately returning,

ushered me upstairs. On the way, I heard a rich, and, as it were, triumphant burst of music from a piano, in

which I felt Zenobia's character, although heretofore I had known nothing of her skill upon the instrument.

Two or three canarybirds, excited by this gush of sound, sang piercingly, and did their utmost to produce a

kindred melody. A bright illumination streamed through, the door of the front drawingroom; and I had

barely, stept across the threshold before Zenobia came forward to meet me, laughing, and with an extended

"Ah, Mr. Coverdale," said she, still smiling, but, as I thought, with a good deal of scornful anger underneath,

"it has gratified me to see the interest which you continue to take in my affairs! I have long recognized you as

a sort of transcendental Yankee, with all the native propensity of your countrymen to investigate matters that

come within their range, but rendered almost poetical, in your case, by the refined methods which you adopt

for its gratification. After all, it was an unjustifiable stroke, on my part,was it not?to let down the

"I cannot call it a very wise one," returned I, with a secret bitterness, which, no doubt, Zenobia appreciated.

"It is really impossible to hide anything in this world, to say nothing of the next. All that we ought to ask,

therefore, is, that the witnesses of our conduct, and the speculators on our motives, should be capable of

taking the highest view which the circumstances of the case may admit. So much being secured, I, for one,

would be most happy in feeling myself followed everywhere by an indefatigable human sympathy."

"We must trust for intelligent sympathy to our guardian angels, if any there be," said Zenobia. "As long as the

only spectator of my poor tragedy is a young man at the window of his hotel, I must still claim the liberty to

While this passed, as Zenobia's hand was extended, I had applied the very slightest touch of my fingers to her

own. In spite of an external freedom, her manner made me sensible that we stood upon no real terms of

confidence. The thought came sadly across me, how great was the contrast betwixt this interview and our first

meeting. Then, in the warm light of the country fireside, Zenobia had greeted me cheerily and hopefully, with

a full sisterly grasp of the hand, conveying as much kindness in it as other women could have evinced by the

pressure of both arms around my neck, or by yielding a cheek to the brotherly salute. The difference was as

complete as between her appearance at that timeso simply attired, and with only the one superb flower in

her hairand now, when her beauty was set off by all that dress and ornament could do for it. And they did

much. Not, indeed, that they created or added anything to what Nature had lavishly done for Zenobia. But,

those costly robes which she had on, those flaming jewels on her neck, served as lamps to display the

personal advantages which required nothing less than such an illumination to be fully seen. Even her

characteristic flower, though it seemed to be still there, had undergone a cold and bright transfiguration; it

was a flower exquisitely imitated in jeweller's work, and imparting the last touch that transformed Zenobia

"I scarcely feel," I could not forbear saying, "as if we had ever met before. How many years ago it seems

since we last sat beneath Eliot's pulpit, with Hollingsworth extended on the fallen leaves, and Priscilla at his

feet! Can it be, Zenobia, that you ever really numbered yourself with our little band of earnest, thoughtful,

"Those ideas have their time and place," she answered coldly. "But I fancy it must be a very circumscribed

Her manner bewildered me. Literally, moreover, I was dazzled by the brilliancy of the room. A chandelier

hung down in the centre, glowing with I know not how many lights; there were separate lamps, also, on two

or three tables, and on marble brackets, adding their white radiance to that of the chandelier. The furniture

was exceedingly rich. Fresh from our old farmhouse, with its homely board and benches in the diningroom,

and a few wicker chairs in the best parlor, it struck me that here was the fulfilment of every fantasy of an

imagination revelling in various methods of costly selfindulgence and splendid ease. Pictures, marbles,

vases,in brief, more shapes of luxury than there could be any object in enumerating, except for an

auctioneer's advertisement,and the whole repeated and doubled by the reflection of a great mirror, which

showed me Zenobia's proud figure, likewise, and my own. It cost me, I acknowledge, a bitter sense of shame,

to perceive in myself a positive effort to bear up against the effect which Zenobia sought to impose on me. I

reasoned against her, in my secret mind, and strove so to keep my footing. In the gorgeousness with which

she had surrounded herself,in the redundance of personal ornament, which the largeness of her physical

nature and the rich type of her beauty caused to seem so suitable,I malevolently beheld the true character

of the woman, passionate, luxurious, lacking simplicity, not deeply refined, incapable of pure and perfect

taste. But, the next instant, she was too powerful for all my opposing struggles. I saw how fit it was that she

should make herself as gorgeous as she pleased, and should do a thousand things that would have been

ridiculous in the poor, thin, weakly characters of other women. To this day, however, I hardly know whether I

then beheld Zenobia in her truest attitude, or whether that were the truer one in which she had presented

herself at Blithedale. In both, there was something like the illusion which a great actress flings around her.

"I cannot tell," answered I; "except that it appears all like a dream that we were ever there together."

"It is not so to me," said Zenobia. "I should think it a poor and meagre nature that is capable of but one set of

forms, and must convert all the past into a dream merely because the present happens to be unlike it. Why

should we be content with our homely life of a few months past, to the exclusion of all other modes? It was

good; but there are other lives as good, or better. Not, you will understand, that I condemn those who give

themselves up to it more entirely than I, for myself, should deem it wise to do."

It irritated me, this selfcomplacent, condescending, qualified approval and criticism of a system to which

many individualsperhaps as highly endowed as our gorgeous Zenobiahad contributed their all of earthly

endeavor, and their loftiest aspirations. I determined to make proof if there were any spell that would exorcise

her out of the part which she seemed to be acting. She should be compelled to give me a glimpse of

something true; some nature, some passion, no matter whether right or wrong, provided it were real.

"Your allusion to that class of circumscribed characters who can live only in one mode of life," remarked I

coolly, "reminds me of our poor friend Hollingsworth. Possibly he was in your thoughts when you spoke

thus. Poor fellow! It is a pity that, by the fault of a narrow education, he should have so completely

immolated himself to that one idea of his, especially as the slightest modicum of commonsense would teach

him its utter impracticability. Now that I have returned into the world, and can look at his project from a

distance, it requires quite all my real regard for this respectable and wellintentioned man to prevent me

Zenobia's eyes darted lightning, her cheeks flushed, the vividness of her expression was like the effect of a

powerful light flaming up suddenly within her. My experiment had fully succeeded. She had shown me the

true flesh and blood of her heart, by thus involuntarily resenting my slight, pitying, halfkind, halfscornful

mention of the man who was all in all with her. She herself probably felt this; for it was hardly a moment

before she tranquillized her uneven breath, and seemed as proud and selfpossessed as ever.

"I rather imagine," said she quietly, "that your appreciation falls short of Mr. Hollingsworth's just claims.

Blind enthusiasm, absorption in one idea, I grant, is generally ridiculous, and must be fatal to the

respectability of an ordinary man; it requires a very high and powerful character to make it otherwise. But a

great manas, perhaps, you do not knowattains his normal condition only through the inspiration of one

great idea. As a friend of Mr. Hollingsworth, and, at the same time, a calm observer, I must tell you that he

seems to me such a man. But you are very pardonable for fancying him ridiculous. Doubtless, he is so to

you! There can be no truer test of the noble and heroic, in any individual, than the degree in which he

I dared make no retort to Zenobia's concluding apothegm. In truth, I admired her fidelity. It gave me a new

sense of Hollingsworth's native power, to discover that his influence was no less potent with this beautiful

woman here, in the midst of artificial life, than it had been at the foot of the gray rock, and among the wild

birchtrees of the woodpath, when she so passionately pressed his hand against her heart. The great, rude,

"Did you bring Priscilla with you?" I resumed. "Do you know I have sometimes fancied it not quite safe,

considering the susceptibility of her temperament, that she should be so constantly within the sphere of a man

like Hollingsworth. Such tender and delicate natures, among your sex, have often, I believe, a very adequate

appreciation of the heroic element in men. But then, again, I should suppose them as likely as any other

women to make a reciprocal impression. Hollingsworth could hardly give his affections to a person capable

of taking an independent stand, but only to one whom he might absorb into himself. He has certainly shown

Zenobia had turned aside. But I caught the reflection of her face in the mirror, and saw that it was very

"Priscilla is here," said she, her voice a little lower than usual. "Have not you learnt as much from your

She made a step or two into the back drawingroom, and called, "Priscilla! Dear Priscilla!"

Priscilla immediately answered the summons, and made her appearance through the door of the boudoir. I

had conceived the idea, which I now recognized as a very foolish one, that Zenobia would have taken

measures to debar me from an interview with this girl, between whom and herself there was so utter an

opposition of their dearest interests, that, on one part or the other, a great grief, if not likewise a great wrong,

seemed a matter of necessity. But, as Priscilla was only a leaf floating on the dark current of events, without

influencing them by her own choice or plan, as she probably guessed not whither the stream was bearing her,

nor perhaps even felt its inevitable movement,there could be no peril of her communicating to me any

On perceiving me, she came forward with great quietude of manner; and when I held out my hand, her own

"I am glad to see you, my dear Priscilla," said I, still holding her hand; "but everything that I meet with

nowadays makes me wonder whether I am awake. You, especially, have always seemed like a figure in a

"Oh, there is substance in these fingers of mine," she answered, giving my hand the faintest possible pressure,

and then taking away her own. "Why do you call me a dream? Zenobia is much more like one than I; she is

so very, very beautiful! And, I suppose," added Priscilla, as if thinking aloud, "everybody sees it, as I do."

But, for my part, it was Priscilla's beauty, not Zenobia's, of which I was thinking at that moment. She was a

person who could be quite obliterated, so far as beauty went, by anything unsuitable in her attire; her charm

was not positive and material enough to bear up against a mistaken choice of color, for instance, or fashion. It

was safest, in her case, to attempt no art of dress; for it demanded the most perfect taste, or else the happiest

accident in the world, to give her precisely the adornment which she needed. She was now dressed in pure

white, set off with some kind of a gauzy fabric, whichas I bring up her figure in my memory, with a faint

gleam on her shadowy hair, and her dark eyes bent shyly on mine, through all the vanished yearsseems to

be floating about her like a mist. I wondered what Zenobia meant by evolving so much loveliness out of this

poor girl. It was what few women could afford to do; for, as I looked from one to the other, the sheen and

splendor of Zenobia's presence took nothing from Priscilla's softer spell, if it might not rather be thought to

I could not understand the look of melancholy kindness with which Zenobia regarded her. She advanced a

step, and beckoning Priscilla near her, kissed her cheek; then, with a slight gesture of repulse, she moved to

"She is a wonderful creature," I said. "Ever since she came among us, I have been dimly sensible of just this

charm which you have brought out. But it was never absolutely visible till now. She is as lovely as a flower!"

"Well, say so if you like," answered Zenobia. "You are a poet,at least, as poets go nowadays,and must

be allowed to make an operaglass of your imagination, when you look at women. I wonder, in such

Arcadian freedom of falling in love as we have lately enjoyed, it never occurred to you to fall in love with

Priscilla. In society, indeed, a genuine American never dreams of stepping across the inappreciable airline

which separates one class from another. But what was rank to the colonists of Blithedale?"

"There were other reasons," I replied, "why I should have demonstrated myself an ass, had I fallen in love

"Why do you bring up his name at every turn?" asked Zenobia in an undertone, and with a malign look which

wandered from my face to Priscilla's. "You know not what you do! It is dangerous, sir, believe me, to tamper

thus with earnest human passions, out of your own mere idleness, and for your sport. I will endure it no

"You partly wrong me, if not wholly," I responded. "It is an uncertain sense of some duty to perform, that

"Oh, this stale excuse of duty!" said Zenobia, in a whisper so full of scorn that it penetrated me like the hiss

of a serpent. "I have often heard it before, from those who sought to interfere with me, and I know precisely

what it signifies. Bigotry; selfconceit; an insolent curiosity; a meddlesome temper; a coldblooded

criticism, founded on a shallow interpretation of halfperceptions; a monstrous scepticism in regard to any

conscience or any wisdom, except one's own; a most irreverent propensity to thrust Providence aside, and

substitute one's self in its awful place,out of these, and other motives as miserable as these, comes your

idea of duty! But, beware, sir! With all your fancied acuteness, you step blindfold into these affairs. For any

It was evident that, with but a little further provocation, the lioness would turn to bay; if, indeed, such were

not her attitude already. I bowed, and not very well knowing what else to do, was about to withdraw. But,

glancing again towards Priscilla, who had retreated into a corner, there fell upon my heart an intolerable

burden of despondency, the purport of which I could not tell, but only felt it to bear reference to her. I

approached and held out my hand; a gesture, however, to which she made no response. It was always one of

her peculiarities that she seemed to shrink from even the most friendly touch, unless it were Zenobia's or

Hollingsworth's. Zenobia, all this while, stood watching us, but with a careless expression, as if it mattered

"Priscilla," I inquired, lowering my voice, "when do you go back to Blithedale?"

She looked at me, I thought, with an air of surprise, as if the idea were incomprehensible that she should have

"What a gripe this man has laid upon her whole being!" muttered I between my teeth.

"Well, as Zenobia so kindly intimates, I have no more business here. I wash my hands of it all. On

Hollingsworth's head be the consequences! Priscilla," I added aloud, "I know not that ever we may meet

As I spoke the word, a carriage had rumbled along the street, and stopt before the house. The doorbell rang,

and steps were immediately afterwards heard on the staircase. Zenobia had thrown a shawl over her dress.

"Mr. Coverdale," said she, with cool courtesy, "you will perhaps excuse us. We have an engagement, and are

"Is not that a little more than you are entitled to inquire?" said she, with a smile.

The door of the drawingroom opened, and Westervelt appeared. I observed that he was elaborately dressed,

as if for some grand entertainment. My dislike for this man was infinite. At that moment it amounted to

nothing less than a creeping of the flesh, as when, feeling about in a dark place, one touches something cold

and slimy, and questions what the secret hatefulness may be. And still I could not but acknowledge that, for

personal beauty, for polish of manner, for all that externally befits a gentleman, there was hardly another like

him. After bowing to Zenobia, and graciously saluting Priscilla in her corner, he recognized me by a slight

"Priscilla," said I, in the hearing of them all, "do you know whither you are going?"

"Is it wise to go, and is it your choice to go?" I asked. "If not, I am your friend, and Hollingsworth's friend.

"Possibly," observed Westervelt, smiling, "Priscilla sees in me an older friend than either Mr. Coverdale or

While thus speaking, he made a gesture of kindly invitation, and Priscilla passed me, with the gliding

movement of a sprite, and took his offered arm. He offered the other to Zenobia; but she turned her proud and

beautiful face upon him with a look whichjudging from what I caught of it in profilewould undoubtedly

have smitten the man dead, had he possessed any heart, or had this glance attained to it. It seemed to rebound,

however, from his courteous visage, like an arrow from polished steel. They all three descended the stairs;

and when I likewise reached the street door, the carriage was already rolling away.

Thus excluded from everybody's confidence, and attaining no further, by my most earnest study, than to an

uncertain sense of something hidden from me, it would appear reasonable that I should have flung off all

these alien perplexities. Obviously, my best course was to betake myself to new scenes. Here I was only an

intruder. Elsewhere there might be circumstances in which I could establish a personal interest, and people

who would respond, with a portion of their sympathies, for so much as I should bestow of mine.

Nevertheless, there occurred to me one other thing to be done. Remembering old Moodie, and his relationship

with Priscilla, I determined to seek an interview, for the purpose of ascertaining whether the knot of affairs

was as inextricable on that side as I found it on all others. Being tolerably well acquainted with the old man's

haunts, I went, the next day, to the saloon of a certain establishment about which he often lurked. It was a

reputable place enough, affording good entertainment in the way of meat, drink, and fumigation; and there, in

my young and idle days and nights, when I was neither nice nor wise, I had often amused myself with

At my first entrance, old Moodie was not there. The more patiently to await him, I lighted a cigar, and

establishing myself in a corner, took a quiet, and, by sympathy, a boozy kind of pleasure in the customary life

that was going forward. The saloon was fitted up with a good deal of taste. There were pictures on the walls,

and among them an oilpainting of a beefsteak, with such an admirable show of juicy tenderness, that the

beholder sighed to think it merely visionary, and incapable of ever being put upon a gridiron. Another work

of high art was the lifelike representation of a noble sirloin; another, the hindquarters of a deer, retaining the

hoofs and tawny fur; another, the head and shoulders of a salmon; and, still more exquisitely finished, a brace

of canvasback ducks, in which the mottled feathers were depicted with the accuracy of a daguerreotype.

Some very hungry painter, I suppose, had wrought these subjects of stilllife, heightening his imagination

with his appetite, and earning, it is to be hoped, the privilege of a daily dinner off whichever of his pictorial

viands he themselves to plain brandyandwater, gin, or West India rum; and, oftentimes, they prefaced their

dram with some medicinal remark as to the wholesomeness and stomachic qualities of that particular drink.

Two or three appeared to have bottles of their own behind the counter; and, winking one red eye to the

barkeeper, he forthwith produced these choicest and peculiar cordials, which it was a matter of great interest

Agreeably to the Yankee habit, under whatever circumstances, the deportment of all these good fellows, old

or young, was decorous and thoroughly correct. They grew only the more sober in their cups; there was no

confused babble nor boisterous laughter. They sucked in the joyous fire of the decanters and kept it

smouldering in their inmost recesses, with a bliss known only to the heart which it warmed and comforted.

Their eyes twinkled a little, to be sure; they hemmed vigorously after each glass, and laid a hand upon the pit

of the stomach, as if the pleasant titillation there was what constituted the tangible part of their enjoyment. In

that spot, unquestionably, and not in the brain, was the acme of the whole affair. But the true purpose of their

drinkingand one that will induce men to drink, or do something equivalent, as long as this weary world

shall endurewas the renewed youth and vigor, the brisk, cheerful sense of things present and to come, with

which, for about a quarter of an hour, the dram permeated their systems. And when such quarters of an hour

can be obtained in some mode less baneful to the great sum of a man's life,but, nevertheless, with a little

spice of impropriety, to give it a wild flavor,we temperance people may ring out our bells for victory!

The prettiest object in the saloon was a tiny fountain, which threw up its feathery jet through the counter, and

sparkled down again into an oval basin, or lakelet, containing several goldfishes. There was a bed of bright

sand at the bottom, strewn with coral and rockwork; and the fishes went gleaming about, now turning up the

sheen of a golden side, and now vanishing into the shadows of the water, like the fanciful thoughts that

coquet with a poet in his dream. Never before, I imagine, did a company of waterdrinkers remain so entirely

uncontaminated by the bad example around them; nor could I help wondering that it had not occurred to any

freakish inebriate to empty a glass of liquor into their lakelet. What a delightful idea! Who would not be a

I had begun to despair of meeting old Moodie, when, all at once, I recognized his hand and arm protruding

from behind a screen that was set up for the accommodation of bashful topers. As a matter of course, he had

one of Priscilla's little purses, and was quietly insinuating it under the notice of a person who stood near. This

was always old Moodie's way. You hardly ever saw him advancing towards you, but became aware of his

proximity without being able to guess how he had come thither. He glided about like a spirit, assuming

visibility close to your elbow, offering his petty trifles of merchandise, remaining long enough for you to

purchase, if so disposed, and then taking himself off, between two breaths, while you happened to be thinking

By a sort of sympathetic impulse that often controlled me in those more impressible days of my life, I was

induced to approach this old man in a mode as undemonstrative as his own. Thus, when, according to his

"Ah!" said he, with more emphasis than was usual with him. "It is Mr. Coverdale!"

"Yes, Mr. Moodie, your old acquaintance," answered I. "It is some time now since we ate luncheon together

at Blithedale, and a good deal longer since our little talk together at the street corner."

And he seemed inclined to say not a word more. His existence looked so colorless and torpid,so very

faintly shadowed on the canvas of reality, that I was half afraid lest he should altogether disappear, even

while my eyes were fixed full upon his figure. He was certainly the wretchedest old ghost in the world, with

his crazy hat, the dingy handkerchief about his throat, his suit of threadbare gray, and especially that patch

over his right eye, behind which he always seemed to be hiding himself. There was one method, however, of

bringing him out into somewhat stronger relief. A glass of brandy would effect it. Perhaps the gentler

influence of a bottle of claret might do the same. Nor could I think it a matter for the recording angel to write

down against me, ifwith my painful consciousness of the frost in this old man's blood, and the positive ice

that had congealed about his heartI should thaw him out, were it only for an hour, with the summer

warmth of a little wine. What else could possibly be done for him? How else could he be imbued with energy

enough to hope for a happier state hereafter? How else be inspired to say his prayers? For there are states of

our spiritual system when the throb of the soul's life is too faint and weak to render us capable of religious

"Mr. Moodie," said I, "shall we lunch together? And would you like to drink a glass of wine?"

His one eye gleamed. He bowed; and it impressed me that he grew to be more of a man at once, either in

anticipation of the wine, or as a grateful response to my good fellowship in offering it.

The barkeeper, at my request, showed us into a private room, and soon afterwards set some fried oysters and

a bottle of claret on the table; and I saw the old man glance curiously at the label of the bottle, as if to learn

"You cannot suppose, sir," said Moodie, with a sigh, "that a poor old fellow like me knows any difference in

And yet, in his way of handling the glass, in his preliminary snuff at the aroma, in his first cautious sip of the

wine, and the gustatory skill with which he gave his palate the full advantage of it, it was impossible not to

"I fancy, Mr. Moodie," said I, "you are a much better judge of wines than I have yet learned to be. Tell me

"How should that have been, Mr. Coverdale?" answered old Moodie shyly; but then he took courage, as it

were, and uttered a feeble little laugh. "The flavor of this wine," added he, "and its perfume still more than its

"I wish, Mr. Moodie," suggested I,not that I greatly cared about it, however, but was only anxious to draw

him into some talk about Priscilla and Zenobia,"I wish, while we sit over our wine, you would favor me

"Ah," said he, shaking his head, "they might interest you more than you suppose. But I had better be silent,

Mr. Coverdale. If this good wine, though claret, I suppose, is not apt to play such a trick,but if it should

"You never did look me in the face, Mr. Moodie," I replied, "until this very moment."

It was wonderful, however, what an effect the mild grapejuice wrought upon him. It was not in the wine, but

in the associations which it seemed to bring up. Instead of the mean, slouching, furtive, painfully depressed

air of an old city vagabond, more like a gray kennelrat than any other living thing, he began to take the

aspect of a decayed gentleman. Even his garmentsespecially after I had myself quaffed a glass or

twolooked less shabby than when we first sat down. There was, by and by, a certain exuberance and

elaborateness of gesture and manner, oddly in contrast with all that I had hitherto seen of him. Anon, with

hardly any impulse from me, old Moodie began to talk. His communications referred exclusively to a

longpast and more fortunate period of his life, with only a few unavoidable allusions to the circumstances

that had reduced him to his present state. But, having once got the clew, my subsequent researches acquainted

me with the main facts of the following narrative; although, in writing it out, my pen has perhaps allowed

itself a trifle of romantic and legendary license, worthier of a small poet than of a grave biographer.

Fiveandtwenty years ago, at the epoch of this story, there dwelt in one of the Middle States a man whom

we shall call Fauntleroy; a man of wealth, and magnificent tastes, and prodigal expenditure. His home might

almost be styled a palace; his habits, in the ordinary sense, princely. His whole being seemed to have

crystallized itself into an external splendor, wherewith he glittered in the eyes of the world, and had no other

life than upon this gaudy surface. He had married a lovely woman, whose nature was deeper than his own.

But his affection for her, though it showed largely, was superficial, like all his other manifestations and

developments; he did not so truly keep this noble creature in his heart, as wear her beauty for the most

brilliant ornament of his outward state. And there was born to him a child, a beautiful daughter, whom he

took from the beneficent hand of God with no just sense of her immortal value, but as a man already rich in

After Fauntleroy had thus spent a few empty years, coruscating continually an unnatural light, the source of

itwhich was merely his goldbegan to grow more shallow, and finally became exhausted. He saw himself

in imminent peril of losing all that had heretofore distinguished him; and, conscious of no innate worth to fall

back upon, he recoiled from this calamity with the instinct of a soul shrinking from annihilation. To avoid

it,wretched man!or rather to defer it, if but for a month, a day, or only to procure himself the life of a

few breaths more amid the false glitter which was now less his own than ever,he made himself guilty of a

crime. It was just the sort of crime, growing out of its artificial state, which society (unless it should change

its entire constitution for this man's unworthy sake) neither could nor ought to pardon. More safely might it

pardon murder. Fauntleroy's guilt was discovered. He fled; his wife perished, by the necessity of her innate

nobleness, in its alliance with a being so ignoble; and betwixt her mother's death and her father's ignominy,

There was no pursuit after Fauntleroy. His family connections, who had great wealth, made such

arrangements with those whom he had attempted to wrong as secured him from the retribution that would

have overtaken an unfriended criminal. The wreck of his estate was divided among his creditors: His name, in

a very brief space, was forgotten by the multitude who had passed it so diligently from mouth to mouth.

Seldom, indeed, was it recalled, even by his closest former intimates. Nor could it have been otherwise. The

man had laid no real touch on any mortal's heart. Being a mere image, an optical delusion, created by the

sunshine of prosperity, it was his law to vanish into the shadow of the first intervening cloud. He seemed to

leave no vacancy; a phenomenon which, like many others that attended his brief career, went far to prove the

Not, however, that the physical substance of Fauntleroy had literally melted into vapor. He had fled

northward to the New England metropolis, and had taken up his abode, under another name, in a squalid

street or court of the older portion of the city. There he dwelt among povertystricken wretches, sinners, and

forlorn good people, Irish, and whomsoever else were neediest. Many families were clustered in each house

together, above stairs and below, in the little peaked garrets, and even in the dusky cellars. The house where

Fauntleroy paid weekly rent for a chamber and a closet had been a stately habitation in its day. An old

colonial governor had built it, and lived there, long ago, and held his levees in a great room where now slept

twenty Irish bedfellows; and died in Fauntleroy's chamber, which his embroidered and whitewigged ghost

still haunted. Tattered hangings, a marble hearth, traversed with many cracks and fissures, a richly carved

oaken mantelpiece, partly hacked away for kindlingstuff, a stuccoed ceiling, defaced with great, unsightly

patches of the naked laths,such was the chamber's aspect, as if, with its splinters and rags of dirty splendor,

At first, and at irregular intervals, his relatives allowed Fauntleroy a little pittance to sustain life; not from any

love, perhaps, but lest poverty should compel him, by new offences, to add more shame to that with which he

had already stained them. But he showed no tendency to further guilt. His character appeared to have been

radically changed (as, indeed, from its shallowness, it well might) by his miserable fate; or, it may be, the

traits now seen in him were portions of the same character, presenting itself in another phase. Instead of any

longer seeking to live in the sight of the world, his impulse was to shrink into the nearest obscurity, and to be

unseen of men, were it possible, even while standing before their eyes. He had no pride; it was all trodden in

the dust. No ostentation; for how could it survive, when there was nothing left of Fauntleroy, save penury and

shame! His very gait demonstrated that he would gladly have faded out of view, and have crept about

invisibly, for the sake of sheltering himself from the irksomeness of a human glance. Hardly, it was averred,

within the memory of those who knew him now, had he the hardihood to show his full front to the world. He

skulked in corners, and crept about in a sort of noonday twilight, making himself gray and misty, at all hours,

In his torpid despair, however, he had done an act which that condition of the spirit seems to prompt almost

as often as prosperity and hope. Fauntleroy was again married. He had taken to wife a forlorn, meekspirited,

feeble young woman, a seamstress, whom he found dwelling with her mother in a contiguous chamber of the

old gubernatorial residence. This poor phantomas the beautiful and noble companion of his former life had

done brought him a daughter. And sometimes, as from one dream into another, Fauntleroy looked forth out of

his present grimy environment into that past magnificence, and wondered whether the grandee of yesterday

or the pauper of today were real. But, in my mind, the one and the other were alike impalpable. In truth, it

was Fauntleroy's fatality to behold whatever he touched dissolve. After a few years, his second wife (dim

shadow that she had always been) faded finally out of the world, and left Fauntleroy to deal as he might with

their pale and nervous child. And, by this time, among his distant relatives,with whom he had grown a

weary thought, linked with contagious infamy, and which they were only too willing to get rid of,he was

The younger child, like his elder one, might be considered as the true offspring of both parents, and as the

reflection of their state. She was a tremulous little creature, shrinking involuntarily from all mankind, but in

timidity, and no sour repugnance. There was a lack of human substance in her; it seemed as if, were she to

stand up in a sunbeam, it would pass right through her figure, and trace out the cracked and dusty

windowpanes upon the naked floor. But, nevertheless, the poor child had a heart; and from her mother's

gentle character she had inherited a profound and still capacity of affection. And so her life was one of love.

For Fauntleroy, as they sat by their cheerless fireside,which was no fireside, in truth, but only a rusty

stove,had often talked to the little girl about his former wealth, the noble loveliness of his first wife, and

the beautiful child whom she had given him. Instead of the fairy tales which other parents tell, he told

Priscilla this. And, out of the loneliness of her sad little existence, Priscilla's love grew, and tended upward,

and twined itself perseveringly around this unseen sister; as a grapevine might strive to clamber out of a

gloomy hollow among the rocks, and embrace a young tree standing in the sunny warmth above. It was

almost like worship, both in its earnestness and its humility; nor was it the less humblethough the more

earnestbecause Priscilla could claim human kindred with the being whom she, so devoutly loved. As with

worship, too, it gave her soul the refreshment of a purer atmosphere. Save for this singular, this melancholy,

and yet beautiful affection, the child could hardly have lived; or, had she lived, with a heart shrunken for lack

of any sentiment to fill it, she must have yielded to the barren miseries of her position, and have grown to

womanhood characterless and worthless. But now, amid all the sombre coarseness of her father's outward

life, and of her own, Priscilla had a higher and imaginative life within. Some faint gleam thereof was often

visible upon her face. It was as if, in her spiritual visits to her brilliant sister, a portion of the latter's

brightness had permeated our dim Priscilla, and still lingered, shedding a faint illumination through the

As the child grew up, so pallid and so slender, and with much unaccountable nervousness, and all the

weaknesses of neglected infancy still haunting her, the gross and simple neighbors whispered strange things

about Priscilla. The big, red, Irish matrons, whose innumerable progeny swarmed out of the adjacent doors,

used to mock at the pale Western child. They fanciedor, at least, affirmed it, between jest and

earnestthat she was not so solid flesh and blood as other children, but mixed largely with a thinner

element. They called her ghostchild, and said that she could indeed vanish when she pleased, but could

never, in her densest moments, make herself quite visible. The sun at midday would shine through her; in the

first gray of the twilight, she lost all the distinctness of her outline; and, if you followed the dim thing into a

dark corner, behold! she was not there. And it was true that Priscilla had strange ways; strange ways, and

stranger words, when she uttered any words at all. Never stirring out of the old governor's dusky house, she

sometimes talked of distant places and splendid rooms, as if she had just left them. Hidden things were

visible to her (at least so the people inferred from obscure hints escaping unawares out of her mouth), and

silence was audible. And in all the world there was nothing so difficult to be endured, by those who had any

Her peculiarities were the theme of continual gossip among the other inhabitants of the gubernatorial

mansion. The rumor spread thence into a wider circle. Those who knew old Moodie, as he was now called,

used often to jeer him, at the very streetcorners, about his daughter's gift of secondsight and prophecy. It

was a period when science (though mostly through its empirical professors) was bringing forward, anew, a

hoard of facts and imperfect theories, that had partially won credence in elder times, but which modern

scepticism had swept away as rubbish. These things were now tossed up again, out of the surging ocean of

human thought and experience. The story of Priscilla's preternatural manifestations, therefore, attracted a kind

of notice of which it would have been deemed wholly unworthy a few years earlier. One day a gentleman

ascended the creaking staircase, and inquired which was old Moodie's chamber door. And, several times, he

came again. He was a marvellously handsome man,still youthful, too, and fashionably dressed. Except that

Priscilla, in those days, had no beauty, and, in the languor of her existence, had not yet blossomed into

womanhood, there would have been rich food for scandal in these visits; for the girl was unquestionably their

sole object, although her father was supposed always to be present. But, it must likewise be added, there was

something about Priscilla that calumny could not meddle with; and thus far was she privileged, either by the

preponderance of what was spiritual, or the thin and watery blood that left her cheek so pallid.

Yet, if the busy tongues of the neighborhood spared Priscilla in one way, they made themselves amends by

renewed and wilder babble on another score. They averred that the strange gentleman was a wizard, and that

he had taken advantage of Priscilla's lack of earthly substance to subject her to himself, as his familiar spirit,

through whose medium he gained cognizance of whatever happened, in regions near or remote. The

boundaries of his power were defined by the verge of the pit of Tartarus on the one hand, and the third sphere

of the celestial world on the other. Again, they declared their suspicion that the wizard, with all his show of

manly beauty, was really an aged and wizened figure, or else that his semblance of a human body was only a

necromantic, or perhaps a mechanical contrivance, in which a demon walked about. In proof of it, however,

they could merely instance a gold band around his upper teeth, which had once been visible to several old

women, when he smiled at them from the top of the governor's staircase. Of course this was all absurdity, or

mostly so. But, after every possible deduction, there remained certain very mysterious points about the

stranger's character, as well as the connection that he established with Priscilla. Its nature at that period was

even less understood than now, when miracles of this kind have grown so absolutely stale, that I would

We must now glance backward, in quest of the beautiful daughter of Fauntleroy's prosperity. What had

become of her? Fauntleroy's only brother, a bachelor, and with no other relative so near, had adopted the

forsaken child. She grew up in affluence, with native graces clustering luxuriantly about her. In her

triumphant progress towards womanhood, she was adorned with every variety of feminine accomplishment.

But she lacked a mother's care. With no adequate control, on any hand (for a man, however stern, however

wise, can never sway and guide a female child), her character was left to shape itself. There was good in it,

and evil. Passionate, selfwilled, and imperious, she had a warm and generous nature; showing the richness

of the soil, however, chiefly by the weeds that flourished in it, and choked up the herbs of grace. In her

girlhood her uncle died. As Fauntleroy was supposed to be likewise dead, and no other heir was known to

exist, his wealth devolved on her, although, dying suddenly, the uncle left no will. After his death there were

obscure passages in Zenobia's history. There were whispers of an attachment, and even a secret marriage,

with a fascinating and accomplished but unprincipled young man. The incidents and appearances, however,

Nor was her reputation seriously affected by the report. In fact, so great was her native power and influence,

and such seemed the careless purity of her nature, that whatever Zenobia did was generally acknowledged as

right for her to do. The world never criticised her so harshly as it does most women who transcend its rules. It

almost yielded its assent, when it beheld her stepping out of the common path, and asserting the more

extensive privileges of her sex, both theoretically and by her practice. The sphere of ordinary womanhood

A portion of Zenobia's more recent life is told in the foregoing pages. Partly in earnest,and, I imagine, as

was her disposition, half in a proud jest, or in a kind of recklessness that had grown upon her, out of some

hidden grief,she had given her countenance, and promised liberal pecuniary aid, to our experiment of a

better social state. And Priscilla followed her to Blithedale. The sole bliss of her life had been a dream of this

beautiful sister, who had never so much as known of her existence. By this time, too, the poor girl was

enthralled in an intolerable bondage, from which she must either free herself or perish. She deemed herself

One evening, months after Priscilla's departure, when Moodie (or shall we call him Fauntleroy?) was sitting

alone in the statechamber of the old governor, there came footsteps up the staircase. There was a pause on

the landingplace. A lady's musical yet haughty accents were heard making an inquiry from some denizen of

the house, who had thrust a head out of a contiguous chamber. There was then a knock at Moodie's door.

And Zenobia entered. The details of the interview that followed being unknown to me,while,

notwithstanding, it would be a pity quite to lose the picturesqueness of the situation,I shall attempt to

sketch it, mainly from fancy, although with some general grounds of surmise m regard to the old man's

She gazed wonderingly at the dismal chamber. Dismal to her, who beheld it only for an instant; and how

much more so to him, into whose brain each bare spot on the ceiling, every tatter of the paperhangings, and

all the splintered carvings of the mantelpiece, seen wearily through long years, had worn their several prints!

Inexpressibly miserable is this familiarity with objects that have been from the first disgustful.

"I have received a strange message," said Zenobia, after a moment's silence, "requesting, or rather enjoining it

upon me, to come hither. Rather from curiosity than any other motive,and because, though a woman, I

have not all the timidity of one,I have complied. Can it be you, sir, who thus summoned me?"

"And what was your purpose?" she continued. "You require charity, perhaps? In that case, the message might

have been more fitly worded. But you are old and poor, and age and poverty should be allowed their

"Put up your purse," said the supposed mendicant, with an inexplicable smile. "Keep it,keep all your

wealth,until I demand it all, or none! My message had no such end in view. You are beautiful, they tell me;

He took the one lamp that showed the discomfort and sordidness of his abode, and approaching Zenobia held

it up, so as to gain the more perfect view of her, from top to toe. So obscure was the chamber, that you could

see the reflection of her diamonds thrown upon the dingy wall, and flickering with the rise and fall of

Zenobia's breath. It was the splendor of those jewels on her neck, like lamps that burn before some fair

temple, and the jewelled flower in her hair, more than the murky, yellow light, that helped him to see her

beauty. But he beheld it, and grew proud at heart; his own figure, in spite of his mean habiliments, assumed

"It is well," cried old Moodie. "Keep your wealth. You are right worthy of it. Keep it, therefore, but with one

"Have you none to care for you?" asked she. "No daughter?no kindhearted neighbor?no means of

procuring the attendance which you need? Tell me once again, can I do nothing for you?"

"Nothing," he replied. "I have beheld what I wished. Now leave me. Linger not a moment longer, or I may be

tempted to say what would bring a cloud over that queenly brow. Keep all your wealth, but with only this one

And, it may be, after Zenobia withdrew, Fauntleroy paced his gloomy chamber, and communed with himself

as follows,or, at all events, it is the only solution which I can offer of the enigma presented in his

character:"I am unchanged,the same man as of yore!" said he. "True, my brother's wealthhe dying

intestateis legally my own. I know it; yet of my own choice, I live a beggar, and go meanly clad, and hide

myself behind a forgotten ignominy. Looks this like ostentation? Ah! but in Zenobia I live again! Beholding

her, so beautiful,so fit to be adorned with all imaginable splendor of outward state,the cursed vanity,

which, half a lifetime since, dropt off like tatters of once gaudy apparel from my debased and ruined person,

is all renewed for her sake. Were I to reappear, my shame would go with me from darkness into daylight.

Zenobia has the splendor, and not the shame. Let the world admire her, and be dazzled by her, the brilliant

child of my prosperity! It is Fauntleroy that still shines through her!" But then, perhaps, another thought

"My poor Priscilla! And am I just to her, in surrendering all to this beautiful Zenobia? Priscilla! I love her

best,I love her only!but with shame, not pride. So dim, so pallid, so shrinking,the daughter of my

long calamity! Wealth were but a mockery in Priscilla's hands. What is its use, except to fling a golden

radiance around those who grasp it? Yet let Zenobia take heed! Priscilla shall have no wrong!" But, while the

man of show thus meditated,that very evening, so far as I can adjust the dates of these strange

incidents,Priscilla poor, pallid flower!was either snatched from Zenobia's hand, or flung wilfully away!

Well, I betook myself away, and wandered up and down, like an exorcised spirit that had been driven from its

old haunts after a mighty struggle. It takes down the solitary pride of man, beyond most other things, to find

the impracticability of flinging aside affections that have grown irksome. The bands that were silken once are

apt to become iron fetters when we desire to shake them off. Our souls, after all, are not our own. We convey

a property in them to those with whom we associate; but to what extent can never be known, until we feel the

tug, the agony, of our abortive effort to resume an exclusive sway over ourselves. Thus, in all the weeks of

my absence, my thoughts continually reverted back, brooding over the bygone months, and bringing up

incidents that seemed hardly to have left a trace of themselves in their passage. I spent painful hours in

recalling these trifles, and rendering them more misty and unsubstantial than at first by the quantity of

speculative musing thus kneaded in with them. Hollingsworth, Zenobia, Priscilla! These three had absorbed

my life into themselves. Together with an inexpressible longing to know their fortunes, there was likewise a

morbid resentment of my own pain, and a stubborn reluctance to come again within their sphere.

All that I learned of them, therefore, was comprised in a few brief and pungent squibs, such as the

newspapers were then in the habit of bestowing on our socialist enterprise. There was one paragraph, which if

I rightly guessed its purport bore reference to Zenobia, but was too darkly hinted to convey even thus much

of certainty. Hollingsworth, too, with his philanthropic project, afforded the pennyaliners a theme for some

savage and bloody minded jokes; and, considerably to my surprise, they affected me with as much

Thus passed several weeks; time long enough for my brown and toilhardened hands to reaccustom

themselves to gloves. Old habits, such as were merely external, returned upon me with wonderful

promptitude. My superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly tone. Meeting former acquaintances, who

showed themselves inclined to ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of human welfare, I spoke of the

recent phase of my life as indeed fair matter for a jest. But, I also gave them to understand that it was, at

most, only an experiment, on which I had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear. It had enabled me to

pass the summer in a novel and agreeable way, had afforded me some grotesque specimens of artificial

simplicity, and could not, therefore, so far as I was concerned, be reckoned a failure. In no one instance,

however, did I voluntarily speak of my three friends. They dwelt in a profounder region. The more I consider

myself as I then was, the more do I recognize how deeply my connection with those three had affected all my

As it was already the epoch of annihilated space, I might in the time I was away from Blithedale have

snatched a glimpse at England, and been back again. But my wanderings were confined within a very limited

sphere. I hopped and fluttered, like a bird with a string about its leg, gyrating round a small circumference,

and keeping up a restless activity to no purpose. Thus it was still in our familiar Massachusettsin one of its

The scene was one of those lyceum halls, of which almost every village has now its own, dedicated to that

sober and pallid, or rather drabcolored, mode of winterevening entertainment, the lecture. Of late years this

has come strangely into vogue, when the natural tendency of things would seem to be to substitute lettered for

oral methods of addressing the public. But, in halls like this, besides the winter course of lectures, there is a

rich and varied series of other exhibitions. Hither comes the ventriloquist, with all his mysterious tongues; the

thaumaturgist, too, with his miraculous transformations of plates, doves, and rings, his pancakes smoking in

your hat, and his cellar of choice liquors represented in one small bottle. Here, also, the itinerant professor

instructs separate classes of ladies and gentlemen in physiology, and demonstrates his lessons by the aid of

real skeletons, and manikins in wax, from Paris. Here is to be heard the choir of Ethiopian melodists, and to

be seen the diorama of Moscow or Bunker Hill, or the moving panorama of the Chinese wall. Here is

displayed the museum of wax figures, illustrating the wide catholicism of earthly renown, by mixing up

heroes and statesmen, the pope and the Mormon prophet, kings, queens, murderers, and beautiful ladies;

every sort of person, in short, except authors, of whom I never beheld even the most famous done in wax.

And here, in this manypurposed hall (unless the selectmen of the village chance to have more than their

share of the Puritanism, which, however diversified with later patchwork, still gives its prevailing tint to New

England character),here the company of strolling players sets up its little stage, and claims patronage for

But, on the autumnal evening which I speak of, a number of printed handbillsstuck up in the barroom,

and on the signpost of the hotel, and on the meetinghouse porch, and distributed largely through the

villagehad promised the inhabitants an interview with that celebrated and hitherto inexplicable

The hall was fitted up with an amphitheatrical descent of seats towards a platform, on which stood a desk,

two lights, a stool, and a capacious antique chair. The audience was of a generally decent and respectable

character: old farmers, in their Sunday black coats, with shrewd, hard, sundried faces, and a cynical humor,

oftener than any other expression, in their eyes; pretty girls, in manycolored attire; pretty young men, the

schoolmaster, the lawyer, or student at law, the shopkeeper,all looking rather suburban than rural. In

these days, there is absolutely no rusticity, except when the actual labor of the soil leaves its earthmould on

the person. There was likewise a considerable proportion of young and middleaged women, many of them

stern in feature, with marked foreheads, and a very definite line of eyebrow; a type of womanhood in which a

bold intellectual development seems to be keeping pace with the progressive delicacy of the physical

constitution. Of all these people I took note, at first, according to my custom. But I ceased to do so the

moment that my eyes fell on an individual who sat two or three seats below me, immovable, apparently deep

in thought, with his back, of course, towards me, and his face turned steadfastly upon the platform.

After sitting awhile in contemplation of this person's familiar contour, I was irresistibly moved to step over

the intervening benches, lay my hand on his shoulder, put my mouth close to his ear, and address him in a

His nerves, however, were proof against my attack. He turned half around, and looked me in the face with

great sad eyes, in which there was neither kindness nor resentment, nor any perceptible surprise.

He said no more. But there was a great deal of talk going on near me, among a knot of people who might be

considered as representing the mysticism, or rather the mystic sensuality, of this singular age. The nature of

the exhibition that was about to take place had probably given the turn to their conversation.

I heard, from a pale man in blue spectacles, some stranger stories than ever were written in a romance; told,

too, with a simple, unimaginative steadfastness, which was terribly efficacious in compelling the auditor to

receive them into the category of established facts. He cited instances of the miraculous power of one human

being over the will and passions of another; insomuch that settled grief was but a shadow beneath the

influence of a man possessing this potency, and the strong love of years melted away like a vapor. At the

bidding of one of these wizards, the maiden, with her lover's kiss still burning on her lips, would turn from

him with icy indifference; the newly made widow would dig up her buried heart out of her young husband's

grave before the sods had taken root upon it; a mother with her babe's milk in her bosom would thrust away

her child. Human character was but soft wax in his hands; and guilt, or virtue, only the forms into which he

should see fit to mould it. The religious sentiment was a flame which he could blow up with his breath, or a

spark that he could utterly extinguish. It is unutterable, the horror and disgust with which I listened, and saw

that, if these things were to be believed, the individual soul was virtually annihilated, and all that is sweet and

pure in our present life debased, and that the idea of man's eternal responsibility was made ridiculous, and

immortality rendered at once impossible, and not worth acceptance. But I would have perished on the spot

The epoch of rapping spirits, and all the wonders that have followed in their train,such as tables upset by

invisible agencies, bells selftolled at funerals, and ghostly music performed on jew'sharps,had not yet

arrived. Alas, my countrymen, methinks we have fallen on an evil age! If these phenomena have not humbug

at the bottom, so much the worse for us. What can they indicate, in a spiritual way, except that the soul of

man is descending to a lower point than it has ever before reached while incarnate? We are pursuing a

downward course in the eternal march, and thus bring ourselves into the same range with beings whom death,

in requital of their gross and evil lives, has degraded below humanity! To hold intercourse with spirits of this

order, we must stoop and grovel in some element more vile than earthly dust. These goblins, if they exist at

all, are but the shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere refuse stuff, adjudged unworthy of the eternal world,

and, on the most favorable supposition, dwindling gradually into nothingness. The less we have to say to

The audience now began to be impatient; they signified their desire for the entertainment to commence by

thump of sticks and stamp of bootheels. Nor was it a great while longer before, in response to their call,

there appeared a bearded personage in Oriental robes, looking like one of the enchanters of the Arabian

Nights. He came upon the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with a salaam, but a bow,

took his station at the desk, and first blowing his nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. The

environment of the homely village hall, and the absence of many ingenious contrivances of stage effect with

which the exhibition had heretofore been set off, seemed to bring the artifice of this character more openly

upon the surface. No sooner did I behold the bearded enchanter, than, laying my hand again on

Once, on occasion of my first visit to the Veiled Lady; a second time, in the woodpath at Blithedale; and

lastly, in Zenobia's drawingroom. It was Westervelt. A quick association of ideas made me shudder from

head to foot; and again, like an evil spirit, bringing up reminiscences of a man's sins, I whispered a question

He gave a convulsive start, as if I had thrust a knife into him, writhed himself round on his seat, glared

The Professor began his discourse, explanatory of the psychological phenomena, as he termed them, which it

was his purpose to exhibit to the spectators. There remains no very distinct impression of it on my memory. It

was eloquent, ingenious, plausible, with a delusive show of spirituality, yet really imbued throughout with a

cold and dead materialism. I shivered, as at a current of chill air issuing out of a sepulchral vault, and

bringing the smell of corruption along with it. He spoke of a new era that was dawning upon the world; an era

that would link soul to soul, and the present life to what we call futurity, with a closeness that should finally

convert both worlds into one great, mutually conscious brotherhood. He described (in a strange, philosophical

guise, with terms of art, as if it were a matter of chemical discovery) the agency by which this mighty result

was to be effected; nor would it have surprised me, had he pretended to hold up a portion of his universally

At the close of his exordium, the Professor beckoned with his hand,once, twice, thrice,and a figure

came gliding upon the platform, enveloped in a long veil of silvery whiteness. It fell about her like the texture

of a summer cloud, with a kind of vagueness, so that the outline of the form beneath it could not be accurately

discerned. But the movement of the Veiled Lady was graceful, free, and unembarrassed, like that of a person

accustomed to be the spectacle of thousands; or, possibly, a blindfold prisoner within the sphere with which

this dark earthly magician had surrounded her, she was wholly unconscious of being the central object to all

Pliant to his gesture (which had even an obsequious courtesy, but at the same time a remarkable

decisiveness), the figure placed itself in the great chair. Sitting there, in such visible obscurity, it was,

perhaps, as much like the actual presence of a disembodied spirit as anything that stage trickery could devise.

The hushed breathing of the spectators proved how highwrought were their anticipations of the wonders to

be performed through the medium of this incomprehensible creature. I, too, was in breathless suspense, but

"You see before you the Veiled Lady, said the bearded Professor, advancing to the verge of the platform. "By

the agency of which I have just spoken, she is at this moment in communion with the spiritual world. That

silvery veil is, in one sense, an enchantment, having been dipped, as it were, and essentially imbued, through

the potency of my art, with the fluid medium of spirits. Slight and ethereal as it seems, the limitations of time

and space have no existence within its folds. This hallthese hundreds of faces, encompassing her within so

narrow an amphitheatreare of thinner substance, in her view, than the airiest vapor that the clouds are

As preliminary to other and far more wonderful psychological experiments, the exhibitor suggested that some

of his auditors should endeavor to make the Veiled Lady sensible of their presence by such

methodsprovided only no touch were laid upon her personas they might deem best adapted to that end.

Accordingly, several deeplunged country fellows, who looked as if they might have blown the apparition

away with a breath, ascended the platform. Mutually encouraging one another, they shouted so close to her

ear that the veil stirred like a wreath of vanishing mist; they smote upon the floor with bludgeons; they

perpetrated so hideous a clamor, that methought it might have reached, at least, a little way into the eternal

sphere. Finally, with the assent of the Professor, they laid hold of the great chair, and were startled,

apparently, to find it soar upward, as if lighter than the air through which it rose. But the Veiled Lady

remained seated and motionless, with a composure that was hardly less than awful, because implying so

"These efforts are wholly without avail," observed the Professor, who had been looking on with an aspect of

serene indifference. "The roar of a battery of cannon would be inaudible to the Veiled Lady. And yet, were I

to will it, sitting in this very hall, she could hear the desert wind sweeping over the sands as far off as Arabia;

the icebergs grinding one against the other in the polar seas; the rustle of a leaf in an East Indian forest; the

lowest whispered breath of the bashfullest maiden in the world, uttering the first confession of her love. Nor

does there exist the moral inducement, apart from my own behest, that could persuade her to lift the silvery

Greatly to the Professor's discomposure, however, just as he spoke these words, the Veiled Lady arose. There

was a mysterious tremor that shook the magic veil. The spectators, it may be, imagined that she was about to

take flight into that invisible sphere, and to the society of those purely spiritual beings with whom they

reckoned her so near akin. Hollingsworth, a moment ago, had mounted the platform, and now stood gazing at

the figure, with a sad intentness that brought the whole power of his great, stern, yet tender soul into his

She threw off the veil, and stood before that multitude of people pale, tremulous, shrinking, as if only then

had she discovered that a thousand eyes were gazing at her. Poor maiden! How strangely had she been

betrayed! Blazoned abroad as a wonder of the world, and performing what were adjudged as miracles,in

the faith of many, a seeress and a prophetess; in the harsher judgment of others, a mountebank,she had

kept, as I religiously believe, her virgin reserve and sanctity of soul throughout it all. Within that encircling

veil, though an evil hand had flung it over her, there was as deep a seclusion as if this forsaken girl had, all

the while, been sitting under the shadow of Eliot's pulpit, in the Blithedale woods, at the feet of him who now

summoned her to the shelter of his arms. And the true heartthrob of a woman's affection was too powerful

for the jugglery that had hitherto environed her. She uttered a shriek, and fled to Hollingsworth, like one

Two nights had passed since the foregoing occurrences, when, in a breezy September forenoon, I set forth

from town, on foot, towards Blithedale. It was the most delightful of all days for a walk, with a dash of

invigorating icetemper in the air, but a coolness that soon gave place to the brisk glow of exercise, while the

vigor remained as elastic as before. The atmosphere had a spirit and sparkle in it. Each breath was like a sip

of ethereal wine, tempered, as I said, with a crystal lump of ice. I had started on this expedition in an

exceedingly sombre mood, as well befitted one who found himself tending towards home, but was conscious

that nobody would be quite overjoyed to greet him there. My feet were hardly off the pavement, however,

when this morbid sensation began to yield to the lively influences of air and motion. Nor had I gone far, with

fields yet green on either side, before my step became as swift and light as if Hollingsworth were waiting to

exchange a friendly handgrip, and Zenobia's and Priscilla's open arms would welcome the wanderer's

reappearance. It has happened to me on other occasions, as well as this, to prove how a state of physical

wellbeing can create a kind of joy, in spite of the profoundest anxiety of mind.

The pathway of that walk still runs along, with sunny freshness, through my memory. I know not why it

should be so. But my mental eye can even now discern the September grass, bordering the pleasant roadside

with a brighter verdure than while the summer heats were scorching it; the trees, too, mostly green, although

here and there a branch or shrub has donned its vesture of crimson and gold a week or two before its fellows.

I see the tufted barberrybushes, with their small clusters of scarlet fruit; the toadstools, likewise,some

spotlessly white, others yellow or red, mysterious growths, springing suddenly from no root or seed, and

growing nobody can tell how or wherefore. In this respect they resembled many of the emotions in my breast.

And I still see the little rivulets, chill, clear, and bright, that murmured beneath the road, through subterranean

rocks, and deepened into mossy pools, where tiny fish were darting to and fro, and within which lurked the

hermit frog. But no,I never can account for it, that, with a yearning interest to learn the upshot of all my

story, and returning to Blithedale for that sole purpose, I should examine these things so like a

peacefulbosomed naturalist. Nor why, amid all my sympathies and fears, there shot, at times, a wild

Thus I pursued my way along the line of the ancient stone wall that Paul Dudley built, and through white

villages, and past orchards of ruddy apples, and fields of ripening maize, and patches of woodland, and all

such sweet rural scenery as looks the fairest, a little beyond the suburbs of a town. Hollingsworth, Zenobia,

Priscilla! They glided mistily before me, as I walked. Sometimes, in my solitude, I laughed with the

bitterness of selfscorn, remembering how unreservedly I had given up my heart and soul to interests that

were not mine. What had I ever had to do with them? And why, being now free, should I take this thraldom

on me once again? It was both sad and dangerous, I whispered to myself, to be in too close affinity with the

passions, the errors, and the misfortunes of individuals who stood within a circle of their own, into which, if I

stept at all, it must be as an intruder, and at a peril that I could not estimate.

Drawing nearer to Blithedale, a sickness of the spirits kept alternating with my flights of causeless buoyancy.

I indulged in a hundred odd and extravagant conjectures. Either there was no such place as 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 potatofields, the rootcrops, 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 posterityand, curse or blessing be it, it gives

substance to the life around ushad 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

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 wellknown faces round the

supperboard. 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 hand the cream, and others help me to the bread and butter. Being one of them again, the

knowledge of what had happened would come to me without a shock. For still, at every turn of my shifting

fantasies, the thought stared me in the face that some evil thing had befallen us, or was ready to befall.

Yielding to this ominous impression, I now turned aside into the woods, resolving to spy out the posture of

the Community as craftily as the wild Indian before he makes his onset. I would go wandering about the

outskirts of the farm, and, perhaps, catching sight of a solitary acquaintance, would approach him amid the

brown shadows of the trees (a kind of medium fit for spirits departed and revisitant, like myself), and entreat

The first living creature that I met was a partridge, which sprung up beneath my feet, and whirred away; the

next was a squirrel, who chattered angrily at me from an overhanging bough. I trod along by the dark,

sluggish river, and remember pausing on the bank, above one of its blackest and most placid pools (the very

spot, with the barkless stump of a tree aslantwise over the water, is depicting itself to my fancy at this

instant), and wondering how deep it was, and if any overladen soul had ever flung its weight of mortality in

thither, and if it thus escaped the burden, or only made it heavier. And perhaps the skeleton of the drowned

wretch still lay beneath the inscrutable depth, clinging to some sunken log at the bottom with the gripe of its

old despair. So slight, however, was the track of these gloomy ideas, that I soon forgot them in the

contemplation of a brood of wild ducks, which were floating on the river, and anon took flight, leaving each a

bright streak over the black surface. By and by, I came to my hermitage, in the heart of the whitepine tree,

and clambering up into it, sat down to rest. The grapes, which I had watched throughout the summer, now

dangled around me in abundant clusters of the deepest purple, deliciously sweet to the taste, and, though wild,

yet free from that ungentle flavor which distinguishes nearly all our native and uncultivated grapes.

Methought a wine might be pressed out of them possessing a passionate zest, and endowed with a new kind

of intoxicating quality, attended with such bacchanalian ecstasies as the tamer grapes of Madeira, France, and

the Rhine are inadequate to produce. And I longed to quaff a great goblet of it that moment!

While devouring the grapes, I looked on all sides out of the peepholes of my hermitage, and saw the

farmhouse, the fields, and almost every part of our domain, but not a single human figure in the landscape.

Some of the windows of the house were open, but with no more signs of life than in a dead man's unshut

eyes. The barndoor was ajar, and swinging in the breeze. The big old dog,he was a relic of the former

dynasty of the farm,that hardly ever stirred out of the yard, was nowhere to be seen. What, then, had

become of all the fraternity and sisterhood? Curious to ascertain this point, I let myself down out of the tree,

and going to the edge of the wood, was glad to perceive our herd of cows chewing the cud or grazing not far

off. I fancied, by their manner, that two or three of them recognized me (as, indeed, they ought, for I had

milked them and been their chamberlain times without number); but, after staring me in the face a little while,

they phlegmatically began grazing and chewing their cuds again. Then I grew foolishly angry at so cold a

reception, and flung some rotten fragments of an old stump at these unsentimental cows.

Skirting farther round the pasture, I heard voices and much laughter proceeding from the interior of the wood.

Voices, male and feminine; laughter, not only of fresh young throats, but the bass of grown people, as if

solemn organpipes should pour out airs of merriment. Not a voice spoke, but I knew it better than my own;

not a laugh, but its cadences were familiar. The wood, in this portion of it, seemed as full of jollity as if

Comus and his crew were holding their revels in one of its usually lonesome glades. Stealing onward as far as

I durst, without hazard of discovery, I saw a concourse of strange figures beneath the overshadowing

branches. They appeared, and vanished, and came again, confusedly with the streaks of sunlight glimmering

Among them was an Indian chief, with blanket, feathers, and warpaint, and uplifted tomahawk; and near

him, looking fit to be his woodland bride, the goddess Diana, with the crescent on her head, and attended by

our big lazy dog, in lack of any fleeter hound. Drawing an arrow from her quiver, she let it fly at a venture,

and hit the very tree behind which I happened to be lurking. Another group consisted of a Bavarian

broomgirl, a negro of the Jim Crow order, one or two foresters of the Middle Ages, a Kentucky woodsman

in his trimmed huntingshirt and deerskin leggings, and a Shaker elder, quaint, demure, broadbrimmed, and

squareskirted. Shepherds of Arcadia, and allegoric figures from the "Faerie Queen," were oddly mixed up

with these. Arm in arm, or otherwise huddled together in strange discrepancy, stood grim Puritans, gay

Cavaliers, and Revolutionary officers with threecornered cocked hats, and queues longer than their swords.

A brightcomplexioned, darkhaired, vivacious little gypsy, with a red shawl over her head, went from one

group to another, telling fortunes by palmistry; and Moll Pitcher, the renowned old witch of Lynn,

broomstick in hand, showed herself prominently in the midst, as if announcing all these apparitions to be the

offspring of her necromantic art. But Silas Foster, who leaned against a tree near by, in his customary blue

frock and smoking a short pipe, did more to disenchant the scene, with his look of shrewd, acrid, Yankee

observation, than twenty witches and necromancers could have done in the way of rendering it weird and

A little farther off, some oldfashioned skinkers and drawers, all with portentously red noses, were spreading

a banquet on the leafstrewn earth; while a horned and longtailed gentleman (in whom I recognized the

fiendish musician erst seen by Tam O'Shanter) tuned his fiddle, and summoned the whole motley rout to a

dance, before partaking of the festal cheer. So they joined hands in a circle, whirling round so swiftly, so

madly, and so merrily, in time and tune with the Satanic music, that their separate incongruities were blended

all together, and they became a kind of entanglement that went nigh to turn one's brain with merely looking at

it. Anon they stopt all of a sudden, and staring at one another's figures, set up a roar of laughter; whereat a

shower of the September leaves (which, all day long, had been hesitating whether to fall or no) were shaken

Then, for lack of breath, ensued a silence, at the deepest point of which, tickled by the oddity of surprising

my grave associates in this masquerading trim, I could not possibly refrain from a burst of laughter on my

"Some profane intruder!" said the goddess Diana. "I shall send an arrow through his heart, or change him into

"Me take his scalp!" cried the Indian chief, brandishing his tomahawk, and cutting a great caper in the air.

"I'll root him in the earth with a spell that I have at my tongue's end!" squeaked Moll Pitcher. "And the green

"The voice was Miles Coverdale's," said the fiendish fiddler, with a whisk of his tail and a toss of his horns.

"My music has brought him hither. He is always ready to dance to the Devil's tune!"

Thus put on the right track, they all recognized the voice at once, and set up a simultaneous shout.

"Miles! Miles! Miles Coverdale, where are you?" they cried. "Zenobia! Queen Zenobia! here is one of your

The whole fantastic rabble forthwith streamed off in pursuit of me, so that I was like a mad poet hunted by

chimeras. Having fairly the start of them, however, I succeeded in making my escape, and soon left their

merriment and riot at a good distance in the rear. Its fainter tones assumed a kind of mournfulness, and were

finally lost in the hush and solemnity of the wood. In my haste, I stumbled over a heap of logs and sticks that

had been cut for firewood, a great while ago, by some former possessor of the soil, and piled up square, in

order to be carted or sledded away to the farmhouse. But, being forgotten, they had lain there perhaps fifty

years, and possibly much longer; until, by the accumulation of moss, and the leaves falling over them, and

decaying there, from autumn to autumn, a green mound was formed, in which the softened outline of the

woodpile was still perceptible. In the fitful mood that then swayed my mind, I found something strangely

affecting in this simple circumstance. I imagined the longdead woodman, and his longdead wife and

children, coming out of their chill graves, and essaying to make a fire with this heap of mossy fuel!

From this spot I strayed onward, quite lost in reverie, and neither knew nor cared whither I was going, until a

"Miles Coverdale!" said another voice,and its tones were very stern. "Let him come forward, then!"

"Yes, Mr. Coverdale," cried a woman's voice,clear and melodious, but, just then, with something unnatural

in its chord,"you are welcome! But you come half an hour too late, and have missed a scene which you

I looked up and found myself nigh Eliot's pulpit, at the base of which sat Hollingsworth, with Priscilla at his

Hollingsworth was in his ordinary workingdress. Priscilla wore a pretty and simple gown, with a kerchief

about her neck, and a calash, which she had flung back from her head, leaving it suspended by the strings.

But Zenobia (whose part among the maskers, as may be supposed, was no inferior one) appeared in a

costume of fanciful magnificence, with her jewelled flower as the central ornament of what resembled a leafy

crown, or coronet. She represented the Oriental princess by whose name we were accustomed to know her.

Her attitude was free and noble; yet, if a queen's, it was not that of a queen triumphant, but dethroned, on trial

for her life, or, perchance, condemned already. The spirit of the conflict seemed, nevertheless, to be alive in

her. Her eyes were on fire; her cheeks had each a crimson spot, so exceedingly vivid, and marked with so

definite an outline, that I at first doubted whether it were not artificial. In a very brief space, however, this

idea was shamed by the paleness that ensued, as the blood sunk suddenly away. Zenobia now looked like

One always feels the fact, in an instant, when he has intruded on those who love, or those who hate, at some

acme of their passion that puts them into a sphere of their own, where no other spirit can pretend to stand on

equal ground with them. I was confused,affected even with a species of terror,and wished myself away.

The intenseness of their feelings gave them the exclusive property of the soil and atmosphere, and left me no

"Hollingsworth,Zenobia,I have just returned to Blithedale," said I, "and had no thought of finding you

"As free as to ourselves," added Zenobia. "This long while past, you have been following up your game,

groping for human emotions in the dark corners of the heart. Had you been here a little sooner, you might

have seen them dragged into the daylight. I could even wish to have my trial over again, with you standing by

to see fair play! Do you know, Mr. Coverdale, I have been on trial for my life?"

She laughed, while speaking thus. But, in truth, as my eyes wandered from one of the group to another, I saw

in Hollingsworth all that an artist could desire for the grim portrait of a Puritan magistrate holding inquest of

life and death in a case of witchcraft; in Zenobia, the sorceress herself, not aged, wrinkled, and decrepit, but

fair enough to tempt Satan with a force reciprocal to his own; and, in Priscilla, the pale victim, whose soul

and body had been wasted by her spells. Had a pile of fagots been heaped against the rock, this hint of

"It was too hard upon me," continued Zenobia, addressing Hollingsworth, "that judge, jury, and accuser

should all be comprehended in one man! I demur, as I think the lawyers say, to the jurisdiction. But let the

learned Judge Coverdale seat himself on the top of the rock, and you and me stand at its base, side by side,

pleading our cause before him! There might, at least, be two criminals instead of one."

"You forced this on me," replied Hollingsworth, looking her sternly in the face. "Did I call you hither from

among the masqueraders yonder? Do I assume to be your judge? No; except so far as I have an

unquestionable right of judgment, in order to settle my own line of behavior towards those with whom the

events of life bring me in contact. True, I have already judged you, but not on the world's part,neither do I

"Ah, this is very good!" cried Zenobia with a smile. "What strange beings you men are, Mr. Coverdale!is it

not so? It is the simplest thing in the world with you to bring a woman before your secret tribunals, and judge

and condemn her unheard, and then tell her to go free without a sentence. The misfortune is, that this same

secret tribunal chances to be the only judgmentseat that a true woman stands in awe of, and that any verdict

The more I looked at them, and the more I heard, the stronger grew my impression that a crisis had just come

and gone. On Hollingsworth's brow it had left a stamp like that of irrevocable doom, of which his own will

was the instrument. In Zenobia's whole person, beholding her more closely, I saw a riotous agitation; the

almost delirious disquietude of a great struggle, at the close of which the vanquished one felt her strength and

courage still mighty within her, and longed to renew the contest. My sensations were as if I had come upon a

And what subjects had been discussed here? All, no doubt, that for so many months past had kept my heart

and my imagination idly feverish. Zenobia's whole character and history; the true nature of her mysterious

connection with Westervelt; her later purposes towards Hollingsworth, and, reciprocally, his in reference to

her; and, finally, the degree in which Zenobia had been cognizant of the plot against Priscilla, and what, at

last, had been the real object of that scheme. On these points, as before, I was left to my own conjectures.

One thing, only, was certain. Zenobia and Hollingsworth were friends no longer. If their heartstrings were

ever intertwined, the knot had been adjudged an entanglement, and was now violently broken.

But Zenobia seemed unable to rest content with the matter in the posture which it had assumed.

"And why not?" said he, with almost rude abruptness. "What is there further to be said between us?"

"Well, perhaps nothing," answered Zenobia, looking him in the face, and smiling. "But we have come many

times before to this gray rock, and we have talked very softly among the whisperings of the birchtrees. They

were pleasant hours! I love to make the latest of them, though not altogether so delightful, loiter away as

slowly as may be. And, besides, you have put many queries to me at this, which you design to be our last

interview; and being driven, as I must acknowledge, into a corner, I have responded with reasonable

frankness. But now, with your free consent, I desire the privilege of asking a few questions, in my turn."

"We shall see," answered Zenobia. "I would first inquire whether you have supposed me to be wealthy?"

"On that point," observed Hollingsworth, "I have had the opinion which the world holds."

"And I held it likewise," said Zenobia. "Had I not, Heaven is my witness the knowledge should have been as

free to you as me. It is only three days since I knew the strange fact that threatens to make me poor; and your

own acquaintance with it, I suspect, is of at least as old a date. I fancied myself affluent. You are aware, too,

of the disposition which I purposed making of the larger portion of my imaginary opulence,nay, were it all,

I had not hesitated. Let me ask you, further, did I ever propose or intimate any terms of compact, on which

"Nor meant any," she responded. "I was willing to realize your dream freely,generously, as some might

think,but, at all events, fully, and heedless though it should prove the ruin of my fortune.

If, in your own thoughts, you have imposed any conditions of this expenditure, it is you that must be held

responsible for whatever is sordid and unworthy in them. And now one other question. Do you love this

"O Zenobia!" exclaimed Priscilla, shrinking back, as if longing for the rock to topple over and hide her.

"Had you asked me that question a short time since," replied Hollingsworth, after a pause, during which, it

seemed to me, even the birchtrees held their whispering breath, "I should have told you'No!' My feelings

for Priscilla differed little from those of an elder brother, watching tenderly over the gentle sister whom God

"I do love her!" said Hollingsworth, uttering the words with a deep inward breath, instead of speaking them

"Now, God be judge between us," cried Zenobia, breaking into sudden passion, "which of us two has most

mortally offended Him! At least, I am a woman, with every fault, it may be, that a woman ever had,weak,

vain, unprincipled (like most of my sex; for our virtues, when we have any, are merely impulsive and

intuitive), passionate, too, and pursuing my foolish and unattainable ends by indirect and cunning, though

absurdly chosen means, as an hereditary bondslave must; false, moreover, to the whole circle of good, in my

reckless truth to the little good I saw before me, but still a woman! A creature whom only a little change of

earthly fortune, a little kinder smile of Him who sent me hither, and one true heart to encourage and direct

me, might have made all that a woman can be! But how is it with you? Are you a man? No; but a monster! A

"With what, then, do you charge me!" asked Hollingsworth, aghast, and greatly disturbed by this attack.

"Show me one selfish end, in all I ever aimed at, and you may cut it out of my bosom with a knife!"

"It is all self!" answered Zenobia with still intenser bitterness. "Nothing else; nothing but self, self, self! The

fiend, I doubt not, has made his choicest mirth of you these seven years past, and especially in the mad

summer which we have spent together. I see it now! I am awake, disenchanted, disinthralled! Self, self, self!

You have embodied yourself in a project. You are a better masquerader than the witches and gypsies yonder;

for your disguise is a selfdeception. See whither it has brought you! First, you aimed a deathblow, and a

treacherous one, at this scheme of a purer and higher life, which so many noble spirits had wrought out. Then,

because Coverdale could not be quite your slave, you threw him ruthlessly away. And you took me, too, into

your plan, as long as there was hope of my being available, and now fling me aside again, a broken tool! But,

foremost and blackest of your sins, you stifled down your inmost consciousness!you did a deadly wrong to

your own heart!you were ready to sacrifice this girl, whom, if God ever visibly showed a purpose, He put

"This is a woman's view," said Hollingsworth, growing deadly pale,"a woman's, whose whole sphere of

"Be silent!" cried Zenobia imperiously. "You know neither man nor woman! The utmost that can be said in

your behalfand because I would not be wholly despicable in my own eyes, but would fain excuse my

wasted feelings, nor own it wholly a delusion, therefore I say itis, that a great and rich heart has been

ruined in your breast. Leave me, now. You have done with me, and I with you. Farewell!"

"Priscilla," said Hollingsworth, "come." Zenobia smiled; possibly I did so too. Not often, in human life, has a

gnawing sense of injury found a sweeter morsel of revenge than was conveyed in the tone with which

Hollingsworth spoke those two words. It was the abased and tremulous tone of a man whose faith in himself

was shaken, and who sought, at last, to lean on an affection. Yes; the strong man bowed himself and rested on

this poor Priscilla! Oh, could she have failed him, what a triumph for the lookerson!

And, at first, I half imagined that she was about to fail him. She rose up, stood shivering like the birch leaves

that trembled over her head, and then slowly tottered, rather than walked, towards Zenobia. Arriving at her

feet, she sank down there, in the very same attitude which she had assumed on their first meeting, in the

"Ah, Priscilla!" said she, shaking her head, "how much is changed since then! You kneel to a dethroned

princess. You, the victorious one! But he is waiting for you. Say what you wish, and leave me."

I fancied that I understood the word and action. It meant the offering of herself, and all she had, to be at

"True, we are sisters!" she replied; and, moved by the sweet word, she stooped down and kissed Priscilla; but

not lovingly, for a sense of fatal harm received through her seemed to be lurking in Zenobia's heart. "We had

one father! You knew it from the first; I, but a little while,else some things that have chanced might have

been spared you. But I never wished you harm. You stood between me and an end which I desired. I wanted a

"No, no, poor little thing!" said Zenobia, with a sort of contempt. "You have been my evil fate, but there

never was a babe with less strength or will to do an injury. Poor child! Methinks you have but a melancholy

lot before you, sitting all alone in that wide, cheerless heart, where, for aught you know,and as I, alas!

believe,the fire which you have kindled may soon go out. Ah, the thought makes me shiver for you! What

"That was well said!" responded Zenobia, with an approving smile. "There is all a woman in your little

She waved her away with a queenly gesture, and turned her own face to the rock. I watched Priscilla,

wondering what judgment she would pass between Zenobia and Hollingsworth; how interpret his behavior,

so as to reconcile it with true faith both towards her sister and herself; how compel her love for him to keep

any terms whatever with her sisterly affection! But, in truth, there was no such difficulty as I imagined. Her

engrossing love made it all clear. Hollingsworth could have no fault. That was the one principle at the centre

of the universe. And the doubtful guilt or possible integrity of other people, appearances, selfevident facts,

the testimony of her own senses,even Hollingsworth's selfaccusation, had he volunteered it,would

have weighed not the value of a mote of thistledown on the other side. So secure was she of his right, that she

never thought of comparing it with another's wrong, but left the latter to itself.

Hollingsworth drew her arm within his, and soon disappeared with her among the trees. I cannot imagine how

Zenobia knew when they were out of sight; she never glanced again towards them. But, retaining a proud

attitude so long as they might have thrown back a retiring look, they were no sooner departed,utterly

departed,than she began slowly to sink down. It was as if a great, invisible, irresistible weight were

pressing her to the earth. Settling upon her knees, she leaned her forehead against the rock, and sobbed

convulsively; dry sobs they seemed to be, such as have nothing to do with tears.

Zenobia had entirely forgotten me. She fancied herself alone with her great grief. And had it been only a

common pity that I felt for her, the pity that her proud nature would have repelled, as the one worst wrong

which the world yet held in reserve,the sacredness and awfulness of the crisis might have impelled me to

steal away silently, so that not a dry leaf should rustle under my feet. I would have left her to struggle, in that

solitude, with only the eye of God upon her. But, so it happened, I never once dreamed of questioning my

right to be there now, as I had questioned it just before, when I came so suddenly upon Hollingsworth and

herself, in the passion of their recent debate. It suits me not to explain what was the analogy that I saw or

imagined between Zenobia's situation and mine; nor, I believe, will the reader detect this one secret, hidden

beneath many a revelation which perhaps concerned me less. In simple truth, however, as Zenobia leaned her

forehead against the rock, shaken with that tearless agony, it seemed to me that the selfsame pang, with

hardly mitigated torment, leaped thrilling from her heartstrings to my own. Was it wrong, therefore, if I felt

myself consecrated to the priesthood by sympathy like this, and called upon to minister to this woman's

But, indeed, what could mortal do for her? Nothing! The attempt would be a mockery and an anguish. Time,

it is true, would steal away her grief, and bury it and the best of her heart in the same grave. But Destiny

itself, methought, in its kindliest mood, could do no better for Zenobia, in the way of quick relief; than to

cause the impending rock to impend a little farther, and fall upon her head. So I leaned against a tree, and

listened to her sobs, in unbroken silence. She was half prostrate, half kneeling, with her forehead still pressed

against the rock. Her sobs were the only sound; she did not groan, nor give any other utterance to her distress.

At length she sat up, put back her hair, and stared about her with a bewildered aspect, as if not distinctly

recollecting the scene through which she had passed, nor cognizant of the situation in which it left her. Her

face and brow were almost purple with the rush of blood. They whitened, however, by and by, and for some

time retained this deathlike hue. She put her hand to her forehead, with a gesture that made me forcibly

Her glance, wandering wildly to and fro, passed over me several times, without appearing to inform her of

my presence. But, finally, a look of recognition gleamed from her eyes into mine.

"Is it you, Miles Coverdale?" said she, smiling. "Ah, I perceive what you are about! You are turning this

whole affair into a ballad. Pray let me hear as many stanzas as you happen to have ready."

"It is genuine tragedy, is it not?" rejoined Zenobia, with a sharp, light laugh. "And you are willing to allow,

perhaps, that I have had hard measure. But it is a woman's doom, and I have deserved it like a woman; so let

there be no pity, as, on my part, there shall be no complaint. It is all right, now, or will shortly be so. But, Mr.

Coverdale, by all means write this ballad, and put your soul's ache into it, and turn your sympathy to good

account, as other poets do, and as poets must, unless they choose to give us glittering icicles instead of lines

of fire. As for the moral, it shall be distilled into the final stanza, in a drop of bitter honey."

"Oh, a very old one will serve the purpose," she replied. "There are no new truths, much as we have prided

ourselves on finding some. A moral? Why, this: That, in the battlefield of life, the downright stroke, that

would fall only on a man's steel headpiece, is sure to light on a woman's heart, over which she wears no

breastplate, and whose wisdom it is, therefore, to keep out of the conflict. Or, this: That the whole universe,

her own sex and yours, and Providence, or Destiny, to boot, make common cause against the woman who

swerves one hair'sbreadth out of the beaten track. Yes; and add (for I may as well own it, now) that, with

that one hair'sbreadth, she goes all astray, and never sees the world in its true aspect afterwards."

"Do it if you like, at your own peril, not on my responsibility," she answered. Then, with a sudden change of

subject, she went on: "After all, he has flung away what would have served him better than the poor, pale

flower he kept. What can Priscilla do for him? Put passionate warmth into his heart, when it shall be chilled

with frozen hopes? Strengthen his hands, when they are weary with much doing and no performance? No!

but only tend towards him with a blind, instinctive love, and hang her little, puny weakness for a clog upon

his arm! She cannot even give him such sympathy as is worth the name. For will he never, in many an hour

of darkness, need that proud intellectual sympathy which he might have had from me?the sympathy that

would flash light along his course, and guide, as well as cheer him? Poor Hollingsworth! Where will he find

"Do him no wrong," interrupted Zenobia, turning haughtily upon me. "Presume not to estimate a man like

Hollingsworth. It was my fault, all along, and none of his. I see it now! He never sought me. Why should he

seek me? What had I to offer him? Amiserable, bruised, and battered heart, spoilt long before he met me. A

life, too, hopelessly entangled with a villain's! He did well to cast me off. God be praised, he did it! And yet,

had he trusted me, and borne with me a little longer, I would have saved him all this trouble."

She was silent for a time, and stood with her eyes fixed on the ground. Again raising them, her look was more

"Very little," she replied. "But it is my purpose, as you may well imagine, to remove from Blithedale; and,

most likely, I may not see Hollingsworth again. A woman in my position, you understand, feels scarcely at

her ease among former friends. New faces,unaccustomed looks,those only can she tolerate. She would

pine among familiar scenes; she would be apt to blush, too, under the eyes that knew her secret; her heart

might throb uncomfortably; she would mortify herself, I suppose, with foolish notions of having sacrificed

the honor of her sex at the foot of proud, contumacious man. Poor womanhood, with its rights and wrongs!

Here will be new matter for my course of lectures, at the idea of which you smiled, Mr. Coverdale, a month

or two ago. But, as you have really a heart and sympathies, as far as they go, and as I shall depart without

"Willingly," said I, wondering at the strange way in which her mind seemed to vibrate from the deepest

"True,what is it?" exclaimed Zenobia. "After all, I hardly know. On better consideration, I have no

message. Tell him,tell him something pretty and pathetic, that will come nicely and sweetly into your

ballad, anything you please, so it be tender and submissive enough. Tell him he has murdered me! Tell

him that I'll haunt him!"She spoke these words with the wildest energy."And give himno, give

Thus saying, she took the jewelled flower out of her hair; and it struck me as the act of a queen, when

worsted in a combat, discrowning herself, as if she found a sort of relief in abasing all her pride.

"Bid her wear this for Zenobia's sake," she continued. "She is a pretty little creature, and will make as soft

and gentle a wife as the veriest Bluebeard could desire. Pity that she must fade so soon! These delicate and

puny maidens always do. Ten years hence, let Hollingsworth look at my face and Priscilla's, and then choose

How magnificently Zenobia looked as she said this! The effect of her beauty was even heightened by the

overconsciousness and selfrecognition of it, into which, I suppose, Hollingsworth's scorn had driven her.

She understood the look of admiration in my face; andZenobia to the lastit gave her pleasure.

"It is an endless pity," said she, "that I had not bethought myself of winning your heart, Mr. Coverdale,

instead of Hollingsworth's. I think I should have succeeded, and many women would have deemed you the

worthier conquest of the two. You are certainly much the handsomest man. But there is a fate in these things.

And beauty, in a man, has been of little account with me since my earliest girlhood, when, for once, it turned

"No matter where," said she. "But I am weary of this place, and sick to death of playing at philanthropy and

progress. Of all varieties of mocklife, we have surely blundered into the very emptiest mockery in our effort

to establish the one true system. I have done with it; and Blithedale must find another woman to superintend

the laundry, and you, Mr. Coverdale, another nurse to make your gruel, the next time you fall ill. It was,

indeed, a foolish dream! Yet it gave us some pleasant summer days, and bright hopes, while they lasted. It

can do no more; nor will it avail us to shed tears over a broken bubble. Here is my hand! Adieu!"

She gave me her hand with the same free, wholesouled gesture as on the first afternoon of our acquaintance,

and, being greatly moved, I bethought me of no better method of expressing my deep sympathy than to carry

it to my lips. In so doing, I perceived that this white handso hospitably warm when I first touched it, five

"How very cold!" I exclaimed, holding it between both my own, with the vain idea of warming it. "What can

"The extremities die first, they say," answered Zenobia, laughing. "And so you kiss this poor, despised,

rejected hand! Well, my dear friend, I thank you. You have reserved your homage for the fallen. Lip of man

will never touch my hand again. I intend to become a Catholic, for the sake of going into a nunnery. When

you next hear of Zenobia, her face will be behind the black veil; so look your last at it now,for all is over.

She withdrew her hand, yet left a lingering pressure, which I felt long afterwards. So intimately connected as

I had been with perhaps the only man in whom she was ever truly interested, Zenobia looked on me as the

representative of all the past, and was conscious that, in bidding me adieu, she likewise took final leave of

Hollingsworth, and of this whole epoch of her life. Never did her beauty shine out more lustrously than in the

last glimpse that I had of her. She departed, and was soon hidden among the trees. But, whether it was the

strong impression of the foregoing scene, or whatever else the cause, I was affected with a fantasy that

Zenobia had not actually gone, but was still hovering about the spot and haunting it. I seemed to feel her eyes

upon me. It was as if the vivid coloring of her character had left a brilliant stain upon the air. By degrees,

however, the impression grew less distinct. I flung myself upon the fallen leaves at the base of Eliot's pulpit.

The sunshine withdrew up the tree trunks and flickered on the topmost boughs; gray twilight made the wood

obscure; the stars brightened out; the pendent boughs became wet with chill autumnal dews. But I was

listless, worn out with emotion on my own behalf and sympathy for others, and had no heart to leave my

I must have fallen asleep, and had a dream, all the circumstances of which utterly vanished at the moment

when they converged to some tragical catastrophe, and thus grew too powerful for the thin sphere of slumber

that enveloped them. Starting from the ground, I found the risen moon shining upon the rugged face of the

It could not have been far from midnight when I came beneath Hollingsworth's window, and, finding it open,

flung in a tuft of grass with earth at the roots, and heard it fall upon the floor. He was either awake or sleeping

very lightly; for scarcely a moment had gone by before he looked out and discerned me standing in the

The strange tone of my own voice startled me, and him, probably, no less. He lost no time, and soon issued

Hardly had he spoken, when Silas Foster thrust his head, done up in a cotton handkerchief, out of another

"Well, folks, what are ye about here?" he demanded. "Aha! are you there, Miles Coverdale? You have been

turning night into day since you left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come prowling about the

house at this time o' night, frightening my old woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out

I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my voice. Silas Foster, obtuse as were his

sensibilities, seemed to feel the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as Hollingsworth did. He

immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily,

while he hurried on his clothes. Meanwhile I showed Hollingsworth a delicate handkerchief, marked with a

wellknown cipher, and told where I had found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a

suspicion so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out for himself. By the time my brief explanation

Hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath betwixt his teeth. He steadied himself,

however, and, looking the matter more firmly in the face than I had done, explained to Foster my suspicions,

and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which, in spite of my utmost efforts, my words had

swerved aside. The toughnerved yeoman, in his comment, put a finish on the business, and brought out the

hideous idea in its full terror, as if he were removing the napkin from the face of a corpse.

"What on earth should the young woman do that for?" exclaimed Silas, his eyes half out of his head with

mere surprise. "Why, she has more means than she can use or waste, and lacks nothing to make her

comfortable, but a husband, and that's an article she could have, any day. There's some mistake about this, I

"Well, well," answered Silas Foster; "just as you say. We'll take the long pole, with the hook at the end, that

serves to get the bucket out of the drawwell when the rope is broken. With that, and a couple of

longhandled hayrakes, I'll answer for finding her, if she's anywhere to be found. Strange enough! Zenobia

drown herself! No, no; I don't believe it. She had too much sense, and too much means, and enjoyed life a

When our few preparations were completed, we hastened, by a shorter than the customary route, through

fields and pastures, and across a portion of the meadow, to the particular spot on the riverbank which I had

paused to contemplate in the course of my afternoon's ramble. A nameless presentiment had again drawn me

thither, after leaving Eliot's pulpit. I showed my companions where I had found the handkerchief, and pointed

to two or three footsteps, impressed into the clayey margin, and tending towards the water. Beneath its

shallow verge, among the waterweeds, there were further traces, as yet unobliterated by the sluggish

current, which was there almost at a standstill. Silas Foster thrust his face down close to these footsteps, and

picked up a shoe that had escaped my observation, being half imbedded in the mud.

"There's a kid shoe that never was made on a Yankee last," observed he. "I know enough of shoemaker's craft

to tell that. French manufacture; and see what a high instep! and how evenly she trod in it! There never was a

woman that stept handsomer in her shoes than Zenobia did. Here," he added, addressing Hollingsworth,

I dabbled it in the water, to rinse off the mud, and have kept it ever since. Not far from this spot lay an old,

leaky punt, drawn up on the oozy riverside, and generally half full of water. It served the angler to go in

quest of pickerel, or the sportsman to pick up his wild ducks. Setting this crazy bark afloat, I seated myself in

the stern with the paddle, while Hollingsworth sat in the bows with the hooked pole, and Silas Foster

"It puts me in mind of my young days," remarked Silas, "when I used to steal out of bed to go bobbing for

hornpouts and eels. Heighho!well, life and death together make sad work for us all! Then I was a boy,

bobbing for fish; and now I am getting to be an old fellow, and here I be, groping for a dead body! I tell you

what, lads; if I thought anything had really happened to Zenobia, I should feel kind o' sorrowful."

The moon, that night, though past the full, was still large and oval, and having risen between eight and nine

o'clock, now shone aslantwise over the river, throwing the high, opposite bank, with its woods, into deep

shadow, but lighting up the hither shore pretty effectually. Not a ray appeared to fall on the river itself. It

lapsed imperceptibly away, a broad, black, inscrutable depth, keeping its own secrets from the eye of man, as

"Well, Miles Coverdale," said Foster, "you are the helmsman. How do you mean to manage this business?"

"I shall let the boat drift, broadside foremost, past that stump," I replied. "I know the bottom, having sounded

it in fishing. The shore, on this side, after the first step or two, goes off very abruptly; and there is a pool, just

by the stump, twelve or fifteen feet deep. The current could not have force enough to sweep any sunken

"Come, then," said Silas; "but I doubt whether I can touch bottom with this hayrake, if it's as deep as you

say. Mr. Hollingsworth, I think you'll be the lucky man tonight, such luck as it is."

We floated past the stump. Silas Foster plied his rake manfully, poking it as far as he could into the water,

and immersing the whole length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with the hooked

pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the

blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were

stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the side of the boat. So obscure, however, so awfully mysterious, was

that dark stream, thatand the thought made me shiver like a leafI might as well have tried to look into

the enigma of the eternal world, to discover what had become of Zenobia's soul, as into the river's depths, to

find her body. And there, perhaps, she lay, with her face upward, while the shadow of the boat, and my own

Once, twice, thrice, I paddled the boat upstream, and again suffered it to glide, with the river's slow, funereal

motion, downward. Silas Foster had raked up a large mass of stuff, which, as it came towards the surface,

looked somewhat like a flowing garment, but proved to be a monstrous tuft of waterweeds. Hollingsworth,

with a gigantic effort, upheaved a sunken log. When once free of the bottom, it rose partly out of water, all

weedy and slimy, a devilishlooking object, which the moon had not shone upon for half a hundred

years,then plunged again, and sullenly returned to its old restingplace, for the remnant of the century.

"That looked ugly!" quoth Silas. "I half thought it was the Evil One, on the same errand as

"That's not for you to say, my boy," retorted the yeoman. "Pray God he never has, and never may. Slow work

this, however! I should really be glad to find something! Pshaw! What a notion that is, when the only good

luck would be to paddle, and drift, and poke, and grope, hereabouts, till morning, and have our labor for our

pains! For my part, I shouldn't wonder if the creature had only lost her shoe in the mud, and saved her soul

It is indescribable what an image of Zenobiaat the breakfasttable, full of warm and mirthful lifethis

surmise of Silas Foster's brought before my mind. The terrible phantasm of her death was thrown by it into

the remotest and dimmest background, where it seemed to grow as improbable as a myth.

"Yes, Silas, it may be as you say," cried I. The drift of the stream had again borne us a little below the stump,

when I feltyes, felt, for it was as if the iron hook had smote my breastfelt Hollingsworth's pole strike

Putting a fury of strength into the effort, Hollingsworth heaved amain, and up came a white swash to the

surface of the river. It was the flow of a woman's garments. A little higher, and we saw her dark hair

streaming down the current. Black River of Death, thou hadst yielded up thy victim! Zenobia was found!

Silas Foster laid hold of the body; Hollingsworth likewise grappled with it; and I steered towards the bank,

gazing all the while at Zenobia, whose limbs were swaying in the current close at the boat's side. Arriving

near the shore, we all three stept into the water, bore her out, and laid her on the ground beneath a tree.

"Poor child!" said Foster,and his dry old heart, I verily believe, vouchsafed a tear, "I'm sorry for her!"

Were I to describe the perfect horror of the spectacle, the reader might justly reckon it to me for a sin and

shame. For more than twelve long years I have borne it in my memory, and could now reproduce it as freshly

as if it were still before my eyes, Of all modes of death, methinks it is the ugliest. Her wet garments swathed

limbs of terrible inflexibility. She was the marble image of a deathagony. Her arms had grown rigid in the

act of struggling, and were bent before her with clenched hands; her knees, too, were bent, andthank God

for it!in the attitude of prayer. Ah, that rigidity! It is impossible to bear the terror of it. It seemed,I must

needs impart so much of my own miserable idea,it seemed as if her body must keep the same position in

the coffin, and that her skeleton would keep it in the grave; and that when Zenobia rose at the day of

One hope I had, and that too was mingled half with fear. She knelt as if in prayer. With the last, choking

consciousness, her soul, bubbling out through her lips, it may be, had given itself up to the Father, reconciled

and penitent. But her arms! They were bent before her, as if she struggled against Providence in

neverending hostility. Her hands! They were clenched in immitigable defiance. Away with the hideous

thought. The flitting moment after Zenobia sank into the dark poolwhen her breath was gone, and her soul

at her lips was as long, in its capacity of God's infinite forgiveness, as the lifetime of the world!

"You have wounded the poor thing's breast," said he to Hollingsworth, "close by her heart, too!"

"See!" said Foster. "That's the place where the iron struck her. It looks cruelly, but she never felt it!"

He endeavored to arrange the arms of the corpse decently by its side. His utmost strength, however, scarcely

sufficed to bring them down; and rising again, the next instant, they bade him defiance, exactly as before. He

"In God's name, Silas Foster," cried I with bitter indignation. "let that dead woman alone!"

"Why, man, it's not decent!" answered he, staring at me in amazement. "I can't bear to see her looking so!

Well, well," added he, after a third effort, "'t is of no use, sure enough; and we must leave the women to do

their best with her, after we get to the house. The sooner that's done, the better."

We took two rails from a neighboring fence, and formed a bier by laying across some boards from the bottom

of the boat. And thus we bore Zenobia homeward. Six hours before, how beautiful! At midnight, what a

horror! A reflection occurs to me that will show ludicrously, I doubt not, on my page, but must come in for its

sterling truth. Being the woman that she was, could Zenobia have foreseen all these ugly circumstances of

death, how ill it would become her, the altogether unseemly aspect which she must put on, and especially

old Silas Foster's efforts to improve the matter,she would no more have committed the dreadful act than

have exhibited herself to a public assembly in a badly fitting garment! Zenobia, I have often thought, was not

quite simple in her death. She had seen pictures, I suppose, of drowned persons in lithe and graceful attitudes.

And she deemed it well and decorous to die as so many village maidens have, wronged in their first love, and

seeking peace in the bosom of the old familiar stream,so familiar that they could not dread it, where, in

childhood, they used to bathe their little feet, wading midleg deep, unmindful of wet skirts. But in Zenobia's

case there was some tint of the Arcadian affectation that had been visible enough in all our lives for a few

This, however, to my conception, takes nothing from the tragedy. For, has not the world come to an awfully

sophisticated pass, when, after a certain degree of acquaintance with it, we cannot even put ourselves to death

in wholehearted simplicity? Slowly, slowly, with many a dreary pause,resting the bier often on some rock

or balancing it across a mossy log, to take fresh hold,we bore our burden onward through the moonlight,

and at last laid Zenobia on the floor of the old farmhouse. By and by came three or four withered women and

stood whispering around the corpse, peering at it through their spectacles, holding up their skinny hands,

shaking their nightcapped heads, and taking counsel of one another's experience what was to be done.

Blithedale, thus far in its progress, had never found the necessity of a burialground. There was some

consultation among us in what spot Zenobia might most fitly be laid. It was my own wish that she should

sleep at the base of Eliot's pulpit, and that on the rugged front of the rock the name by which we familiarly

knew her, Zenobia,and not another word, should be deeply cut, and left for the moss and lichens to fill up

at their long leisure. But Hollingsworth (to whose ideas on this point great deference was due) made it his

request that her grave might be dug on the gently sloping hillside, in the wide pasture, where, as we once

supposed, Zenobia and he had planned to build their cottage. And thus it was done, accordingly.

She was buried very much as other people have been for hundreds of years gone by. In anticipation of a

death, we Blithedale colonists had sometimes set our fancies at work to arrange a funereal ceremony, which

should be the proper symbolic expression of our spiritual faith and eternal hopes; and this we meant to

substitute for those customary rites which were moulded originally out of the Gothic gloom, and by long use,

like an old velvet pall, have so much more than their first deathsmell in them. But when the occasion came

we found it the simplest and truest thing, after all, to content ourselves with the old fashion, taking away what

we could, but interpolating no novelties, and particularly avoiding all frippery of flowers and cheerful

emblems. The procession moved from the farmhouse. Nearest the dead walked an old man in deep mourning,

his face mostly concealed in a white handkerchief, and with Priscilla leaning on his arm. Hollingsworth and

myself came next. We all stood around the narrow niche in the cold earth; all saw the coffin lowered in; all

heard the rattle of the crumbly soil upon its lid,that final sound, which mortality awakens on the utmost

verge of sense, as if in the vain hope of bringing an echo from the spiritual world.

I noticed a stranger,a stranger to most of those present, though known to me,who, after the coffin had

descended, took up a handful of earth and flung it first into the grave. I had given up Hollingsworth's arm,

"It was an idle thinga foolish thingfor Zenobia to do," said he. "She was the last woman in the world to

whom death could have been necessary. It was too absurd! I have no patience with her."

"Why so?" I inquired, smothering my horror at his cold comment, in my eager curiosity to discover some

tangible truth as to his relation with Zenobia. "If any crisis could justify the sad wrong she offered to herself,

it was surely that in which she stood. Everything had failed her; prosperity in the world's sense, for her

opulence was gone,the heart's prosperity, in love. And there was a secret burden on her, the nature of

which is best known to you. Young as she was, she had tried life fully, had no more to hope, and something,

perhaps, to fear. Had Providence taken her away in its own holy hand, I should have thought it the kindest

"Her mind was active, and various in its powers," said he. "Her heart had a manifold adaptation; her

constitution an infinite buoyancy, which (had she possessed only a little patience to await the reflux of her

troubles) would have borne her upward triumphantly for twenty years to come. Her beauty would not have

wanedor scarcely so, and surely not beyond the reach of art to restore itin all that time. She had life's

summer all before her, and a hundred varieties of brilliant success. What an actress Zenobia might have been!

It was one of her least valuable capabilities. How forcibly she might have wrought upon the world, either

directly in her own person, or by her influence upon some man, or a series of men, of controlling genius!

Every prize that could be worth a woman's havingand many prizes which other women are too timid to

"In all this," I observed, "there would have been nothing to satisfy her heart."

"Her heart!" answered Westervelt contemptuously. "That troublesome organ (as she had hitherto found it)

would have been kept in its due place and degree, and have had all the gratification it could fairly claim. She

would soon have established a control over it. Love had failed her, you say. Had it never failed her before?

Yet she survived it, and loved again,possibly not once alone, nor twice either. And now to drown herself

"Who are you," I exclaimed indignantly, "that dare to speak thus of the dead? You seem to intend a eulogy,

yet leave out whatever was noblest in her, and blacken while you mean to praise. I have long considered you

as Zenobia's evil fate. Your sentiments confirm me in the idea, but leave me still ignorant as to the mode in

which you have influenced her life. The connection may have been indissoluble, except by death. Then,

indeed, always in the hope of God's infinite mercy,I cannot deem it a misfortune that she sleeps in

"No matter what I was to her," he answered gloomily, yet without actual emotion. "She is now beyond my

reach. Had she lived, and hearkened to my counsels, we might have served each other well. But there

Zenobia lies in yonder pit, with the dull earth over her. Twenty years of a brilliant lifetime thrown away for a

Heaven deal with Westervelt according to his nature and deserts!that is to say, annihilate him. He was

altogether earthy, worldly, made for time and its gross objects, and incapableexcept by a sort of dim

reflection caught from other mindsof so much as one spiritual idea. Whatever stain Zenobia had was

caught from him; nor does it seldom happen that a character of admirable qualities loses its better life because

the atmosphere that should sustain it is rendered poisonous by such breath as this man mingled with

Zenobia's. Yet his reflections possessed their share of truth. It was a woeful thought, that a woman of

Zenobia's diversified capacity should have fancied herself irretrievably defeated on the broad battlefield of

life, and with no refuge, save to fall on her own sword, merely because Love had gone against her. It is

nonsense, and a miserable wrong,the result, like so many others, of masculine egotism, that the success

or failure of woman's existence should be made to depend wholly on the affections, and on one species of

affection, while man has such a multitude of other chances, that this seems but an incident. For its own sake,

if it will do no more, the world should throw open all its avenues to the passport of a woman's bleeding heart.

As we stood around the grave, I looked often towards Priscilla, dreading to see her wholly overcome with

grief. And deeply grieved, in truth, she was. But a character so simply constituted as hers has room only for a

single predominant affection. No other feeling can touch the heart's inmost core, nor do it any deadly

mischief. Thus, while we see that such a being responds to every breeze with tremulous vibration, and

imagine that she must be shattered by the first rude blast, we find her retaining her equilibrium amid shocks

that might have overthrown many a sturdier frame. So with Priscilla; her one possible misfortune was

Hollingsworth's unkindness; and that was destined never to befall her, never yet, at least, for Priscilla has not

But Hollingsworth! After all the evil that he did, are we to leave him thus, blest with the entire devotion of

this one true heart, and with wealth at his disposal to execute the longcontemplated project that had led him

so far astray? What retribution is there here? My mind being vexed with precisely this query, I made a

journey, some years since, for the sole purpose of catching a last glimpse of Hollingsworth, and judging for

myself whether he were a happy man or no. I learned that he inhabited a small cottage, that his way of life

was exceedingly retired, and that my only chance of encountering him or Priscilla was to meet them in a

secluded lane, where, in the latter part of the afternoon, they were accustomed to walk. I did meet them,

accordingly. As they approached me, I observed in Hollingsworth's face a depressed and melancholy look,

that seemed habitual; the powerfully built man showed a selfdistrustful weakness, and a childlike or childish

tendency to press close, and closer still, to the side of the slender woman whose arm was within his. In

Priscilla's manner there was a protective and watchful quality, as if she felt herself the guardian of her

companion; but, likewise, a deep, submissive, unquestioning reverence, and also a veiled happiness in her fair

Drawing nearer, Priscilla recognized me, and gave me a kind and friendly smile, but with a slight gesture,

which I could not help interpreting as an entreaty not to make myself known to Hollingsworth. Nevertheless,

"I have come, Hollingsworth," said I, "to view your grand edifice for the reformation of criminals. Is it

"No, nor begun," answered he, without raising his eyes. "A very small one answers all my purposes."

Priscilla threw me an upbraiding glance. But I spoke again, with a bitter and revengeful emotion, as if

"Not one," said Hollingsworth, with his eyes still fixed on the ground. "Ever since we parted, I have been

Then the tears gushed into my eyes, and I forgave him; for I remembered the wild energy, the passionate

shriek, with which Zenobia had spoken those words, "Tell him he has murdered me! Tell him that I'll haunt

him!" and I knew what murderer he meant, and whose vindictive shadow dogged the side where Priscilla

The moral which presents itself to my reflections, as drawn from Hollingsworth's character and errors, is

simply this, that, admitting what is called philanthropy, when adopted as a profession, to be often useful by

its energetic impulse to society at large, it is perilous to the individual whose ruling passion, in one exclusive

channel, it thus becomes. It ruins, or is fearfully apt to ruin, the heart, the rich juices of which God never

meant should be pressed violently out and distilled into alcoholic liquor by an unnatural process, but should

render life sweet, bland, and gently beneficent, and insensibly influence other hearts and other lives to the

same blessed end. I see in Hollingsworth an exemplification of the most awful truth in Bunyan's book of

But, all this while, we have been standing by Zenobia's grave. I have never since beheld it, but make no

question that the grass grew all the better, on that little parallelogram of pasture land, for the decay of the

beautiful woman who slept beneath. How Nature seems to love us! And how readily, nevertheless, without a

sigh or a complaint, she converts us to a meaner purpose, when her highest onethat of a conscious

intellectual life and sensibility has been untimely balked! While Zenobia lived, Nature was proud of her, and

directed all eyes upon that radiant presence, as her fairest handiwork. Zenobia perished. Will not Nature shed

a tear? Ah, no!she adopts the calamity at once into her system, and is just as well pleased, for aught we can

see, with the tuft of ranker vegetation that grew out of Zenobia's heart, as with all the beauty which has

bequeathed us no earthly representative except in this crop of weeds. It is because the spirit is inestimable that

It remains only to say a few words about myself. Not improbably, the reader might be willing to spare me the

trouble; for I have made but a poor and dim figure in my own narrative, establishing no separate interest, and

suffering my colorless life to take its hue from other lives. But one still retains some little consideration for

one's self; so I keep these last two or three pages for my individual and sole behoof.

But what, after all, have I to tell? Nothing, nothing, nothing! I left Blithedale within the week after Zenobia's

death, and went back thither no more. The whole soil of our farm, for a long time afterwards, seemed but the

sodded earth over her grave. I could not toil there, nor live upon its products. Often, however, in these years

that are darkening around me, I remember our beautiful scheme of a noble and unselfish life; and how fair, in

that first summer, appeared the prospect that it might endure for generations, and be perfected, as the ages

rolled away, into the system of a people and a world! Were my former associates now there, were there

only three or four of those truehearted men still laboring in the sun,I sometimes fancy that I should direct

my worldweary footsteps thitherward, and entreat them to receive me, for old friendship's sake. More and

more I feel that we had struck upon what ought to be a truth. Posterity may dig it up, and profit by it. The

experiment, so far as its original projectors were concerned, proved, long ago, a failure; first lapsing into

Fourierism, and dying, as it well deserved, for this infidelity to its own higher spirit. Where once we toiled

with our whole hopeful hearts, the town paupers, aged, nerveless, and disconsolate, creep sluggishly afield.

Alas, what faith is requisite to bear up against such results of generous effort!

My subsequent life has passed,I was going to say happily, but, at all events, tolerably enough. I am now at

middle age, well, well, a step or two beyond the midmost point, and I care not a fig who knows it!a

bachelor, with no very decided purpose of ever being otherwise. I have been twice to Europe, and spent a

year or two rather agreeably at each visit. Being well to do in the world, and having nobody but myself to

care for, I live very much at my ease, and fare sumptuously every day. As for poetry, I have given it up,

notwithstanding that Dr. Griswoldas the reader, of course, knowshas placed me at a fair elevation

among our minor minstrelsy, on the strength of my pretty little volume, published ten years ago. As regards

human progress (in spite of my irrepressible yearnings over the Blithedale reminiscences), let them believe in

it who can, and aid in it who choose. If I could earnestly do either, it might be all the better for my comfort.

As Hollingsworth once told me, I lack a purpose. How strange! He was ruined, morally, by an overplus of the

very same ingredient, the want of which, I occasionally suspect, has rendered my own life all an emptiness. I

by no means wish to die. Yet, were there any cause, in this whole chaos of human struggle, worth a sane

man's dying for, and which my death would benefit, thenprovided, however, the effort did not involve an

unreasonable amount of troublemethinks I might be bold to offer up my life. If Kossuth, for example,

would pitch the battlefield of Hungarian rights within an easy ride of my abode, and choose a mild, sunny

morning, after breakfast, for the conflict, Miles Coverdale would gladly be his man, for one brave rush upon

I exaggerate my own defects. The reader must not take my own word for it, nor believe me altogether

changed from the young man who once hoped strenuously, and struggled not so much amiss. Frostier heads

than mine have gained honor in the world; frostier hearts have imbibed new warmth, and been newly happy.

Life, however, it must be owned, has come to rather an idle pass with me. Would my friends like to know

what brought it thither? There is one secret,I have concealed it all along, and never meant to let the least

whisper of it escape,one foolish little secret, which possibly may have had something to do with these

inactive years of meridian manhood, with my bachelorship, with the unsatisfied retrospect that I fling back on

life, and my listless glance towards the future. Shall I reveal it? It is an absurd thing for a man in his

afternoon,a man of the world, moreover, with these three white hairs in his brown mustache and that

deepening track of a crow'sfoot on each temple,an absurd thing ever to have happened, and quite the

absurdest for an old bachelor, like me, to talk about. But it rises to my throat; so let it come.

I perceive, moreover, that the confession, brief as it shall be, will throw a gleam of light over my behavior

throughout the foregoing incidents, and is, indeed, essential to the full understanding of my story. The reader,

therefore, since I have disclosed so much, is entitled to this one word more. As I write it, he will charitably