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 Priscilla--both for
their own sakes and as connected with him--were 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,
I--though probably reckoned as a friend by all--was at best but a
secondary or tertiary personage with either of them.

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 and celestial spirit.

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
high-priest, and deem it holy work to offer sacrifices of whatever is
most precious; and never once seem to suspect--so cunning has the Devil
been with them--that 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 debased into all-devouring egotism.

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 wood-walks, 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
likely to be no child's play.

Had I been as cold-hearted 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, to-day, 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 impulse that their tiptoes barely touch the ground.

Girls are incomparably wilder and more effervescent than boys, more
untamable and regardless of rule and limit, with an ever-shifting
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 foot-race, 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 incident--though it seems too
slight to think of--was 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 me in just this
way.

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; and--except with her needle, and those little wooden
instruments for purse-making--was 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 plum-cake.  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 Hollingsworth--perhaps because he had been the
means of introducing Priscilla to her new abode--appeared to recognize
her as his own especial charge.

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 harp-strings 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 thorn-tree, 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 kind of a world you imagine this to be, which you
are so merry in."

"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 me?"

"Have you nothing dismal to remember?"  I suggested.  "If not, then,
indeed, you are very fortunate!"

"Ah!" said Priscilla slowly.

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 to-day 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 set of
friends, even should they be better than those around us?"

"Not I!" said Priscilla.  "I will live and die with these!"

"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 to-day, then
to-morrow!  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.  And she rejected it!

"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
nothing else that I am afraid of."

So away she ran, and fell down on the green grass, as it was often her
luck to do, but got up again, without any harm.

"Priscilla, Priscilla!" cried Hollingsworth, who was sitting on the
doorstep; "you had better not run any more to-night.  You will weary
yourself too much.  And do not sit down out of doors, for there is a
heavy dew beginning to fall."

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
shadow-like 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 virgin-like, 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 now, with the evening
twilight a little deepened by the dusk of memory.

"Come hither, Priscilla," said Zenobia.  "I have something to say to
you."

She spoke in little more than a whisper.  But it is strange how
expressive of moods a whisper may often be.  Priscilla felt at once
that something had gone wrong.

"Are you angry with me?" she asked, rising slowly, and standing before
Zenobia in a drooping attitude.  "What have I done?  I hope you are not
angry!"

"No, no, Priscilla!" said Hollingsworth, smiling.  "I will answer for
it, she is not.  You are the one little person in the world with whom
nobody can be angry!"

"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
stand you in good stead."

"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 insist on my being angry,
come to my room this moment, and let me beat you!"

Zenobia bade Hollingsworth good-night 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 or the bowl.

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 man--poet, prophet,
or whatever he may be--readily 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
grasp!

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, self-delusive egotism, to turn
out such earnest as would develop itself in some sufficiently tragic
catastrophe, though the dagger and the bowl should go for nothing in it.

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 wood-paths: 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 their dwelling on this favorite spot.

I mentioned those rumors to Hollingsworth in a playful way.

"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 this bare slope."

"But I offer my edifice as a spectacle to the world," said
Hollingsworth, "that it may take example and build many another like
it.  Therefore, I mean to set it on the open hillside."

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,
desirable as such improvement certainly was.

Coverdale states that it is probably not advisable to look too exclusively into individual men and women. He now sees that he did Hollingsworth wrong by probing into his character too much, but at the time the man and Zenobia and Priscilla were a problem he could not solve. He loves Hollingsworth but finds in him "a stern and dreadful peculiarity" , common in a person who has a single focus, an idol to which they sacrifice themselves. He comments that young girls often come into the orbits of men like these, and fancy themselves in love. Priscilla has grown very pretty, and is now always bubbly and effervescent. She is like all young girls in their freeness, in their ever-shifting revelries and pursuits. She plays pranks and perpetrates mischief more than anyone else in the community, and occasionally meets with mishaps. Everyone loves her, though, and laughs at her. Coverdale finds her delicate like an instrument. One day he asks her what is the use of frolicking about so much, and being so merry. He asks if she has nothing dismal to think about. She gives him an unintelligible look. He says he would rather look backwards than forward, as it is unknown. She laughs that he makes her sad by talking about the past, and runs off to sit by Hollingsworth. Zenobia stares at them, and calls Priscilla over to tell her something. She tells the younger girl that she needs a duenna with experience of life, and she shall be that to her. Priscilla is a bit perturbed, and asks twice if Zenobia is mad at her; Zenobia jokes that she will beat her in her room. Coverdale notes that Hollingsworth is not unconscious of Zenobia's charms but he enjoys Priscilla's sympathy with his purposes more. Coverdale sees that Zenobia needs no help of his, but feels some interest in her and her noble traits. The community gossips that Zenobia and Hollingsworth are lovers. There is a walk they always go on, and a spot where it is assumed they might build a cottage for themselves. When Coverdale says something to Hollingsworth about building a cottage in a removed spot, he replies that his edifice must be out in the open. Coverdale is confused


Hollingsworth and I--we had been hoeing potatoes, that forenoon, while
the rest of the fraternity were engaged in a distant quarter of the
farm--sat 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 through a turnstile, and seemed to
    have a purpose of speaking with us.

    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 hardest-fisted 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 cow-yards and pig-sties 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 ill-directed 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 shirt-collar, with a quarter of an hour's active labor under
    a July sun.

    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 frock-coat, faded towards a brown hue,
    and wore a broad-brimmed 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 had a queer appearance of hiding himself behind the
    patch on his left eye.

    "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 to see
    him in an open field."

    "Have you learned anything of his history?" asked Hollingsworth.

    "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 where we Sat.

    "Good-morning, 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 touching, nevertheless, to hear him
    nibbling away at our crusts.

    "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 smoke-blackened
    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
    heat-vapor, 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.

    Yet it was unaccountable to myself, the interest that I felt in him.

    "Have you any objection," said I, "to telling me who made those little
    purses?"

    "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 can tell me more about the
    maker of those little purses than I can tell 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 charge. Why,
    Priscilla has a bloom in her cheeks, now!"

    "Has my pale little girl a bloom?" repeated Moodie with a kind of slow
    wonder.  "Priscilla with a bloom in her cheeks!  Ah, I am afraid I
    shall not know my little girl.  And is she happy?"

    "Just as happy as a bird," answered Hollingsworth.

    "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.  Yes--yes--yes," continued he, still with the same
    torpid utterance; "with many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will
    creep back to town again."

    "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 your face.  Come,--we will go and find her."

    "Mr. Hollingsworth!" said the old man in his hesitating way.

    "Well," answered Hollingsworth.

    "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, what I mean."

    "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 to say to you by the way."

    "And, Mr. Hollingsworth!" repeated Moodie.

    "Well, again!" cried my friend rather impatiently.  "What now?"

    "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 lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in her
    hair."

    "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 probably see."

    "What I would inquire," resumed Moodie, "is whether this beautiful lady
    is kind to my poor Priscilla."

    "Very kind," said Hollingsworth.

    "Does she love her?" asked Moodie.

    "It should seem so," answered my friend.  "They are always together."

    "Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?" suggested the old
    man.

    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
    Moodie.  But there he sat, with the patched side of his face towards me.

    "Like an elder and younger sister, rather," replied Hollingsworth.

    "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
    would be to see that beautiful lady holding my little girl by the hand."

    "Come along," said Hollingsworth, "and perhaps you may."

    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
    off-hand 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 over-exulting 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 uninterrupted communion with this deplorable
    old Moodie!

    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 uplifted staff.

One day Hollingsworth and Coverdale see a stranger approaching. This is not odd, as many people come to gawk at the glorious people "as poetical as Arcadians". It is an elderly man, dressed decently but shabbily, with a patch on his left eye. Coverdale recognizes him as Mr. Moodie, of whom he tells Hollingsworth is a bit furtive like a rat. The visitor joins them and breaks bread. Coverdale asks him if he remembers giving him a little purse, which it is revealed Priscilla actually made. Coverdale sees Moodie as forlorn and bleak. Moodie asks after his Priscilla, saying he would not know his little girl with a bloom now. He says he came to ask about her, but will now creep back to town knowing that she is well. Hollingsworth briskly says he must come see her. Enigmatically, Moodie asks if a call ever came for Priscilla. The men say no. Moodie then says there is a lady here at Blithedale that he knew when she was younger and guesses that she has grown very fine. He asks if she is kind to his Priscilla, and the men say yes. He asks if they are like gentlewoman and maidservant, a question that Coverdale finds odd; Hollingsworth says they are more like older and younger sister. Moodie goes near the farmhouse with them. Through a window he sees Priscilla pull Zenobia across the room. Zenobia looks haughty, and Moodie sighs

In this next set of chapters, Hawthorne proffers more questions and a few answers. We find out that Priscilla is Moodie's daughter, but that is all; we do not know his relationship with Zenobia, or anything else about Priscilla's past. We find out Hollingsworth's true purpose in being at Blithedale. We meet Westervelt, a dapper but insidious and mysterious young man whom Coverdale assumes has an indiscreet relationship with Zenobia. And we are left wondering at the relationships springing up between Hollingsworth, Zenobia, and Priscilla. While it is hinted that Zenobia and Hollingsworth are involved, Priscilla's role complicates it. In terms of Priscilla, she is a much more enigmatic character than commonly assumed. Critics tend to focus on Hawthorne's "dark ladies" - Hester, Zenobia - and their various mysteries, and pay less attention to the virginal young woman that also populate his pages. Priscilla is certainly described in ways that indicate purity, as in her paleness, quietness, and slight stature, but Hawthorne complicates this by associating her with wildness and by placing clues about her probably less-than-moral past. Coverdale continues to act the part of the voyeur. He has his "hermitage," a lofty hideout where he can sit alone and watch those perambulating below. Hawthorne always associates Coverdale with these sorts of spaces; later in the novel his room at the hotel is a perfect, 19th century version of Rear Window in which he can spy on those in the boardinghouse across the way. He also articulates his growing obsession, commenting that he knows it is perhaps better not to pry into people's characters too much, lest you find something you never should have seen, but that he could not help it. He is also apt to refer to his three friends as a problem he cannot solve, indicating just how concerned he is with them. It is probably during this time in the narrative that the three of them begin to be suspicious of Coverdale and his interest in them, although the actual break is never officially known. Some readers may wonder about Charles Fourier and his place within the novel. The French social theorist wrote of an alternative social organization based on independent cooperative units, with each unit containing 1620 individuals who took care of each others needs from the material to the social to the sexual. It was assumed that Brook Farm incorporated some of Fourier's principles, although it was not the case when Hawthorne participated. As Annette Kolodny writes in her annotations to the novel, Hollingsworth grows angry in his discussion about Fourier with Coverdale because the theorist "proposed satisfying, rather than repressing, individuals' instinctive and selfish needs, including the sexual. Only when gratified, Fourier argued, would self-interest and instinctual desires cease to disrupt and distort human relations; a unrepressed society, in his view, fostered harmony and cooperation." Most characters in Blithedale are nowhere near this progressive perspective; Zenobia is the only one who would espouse this degree of comfort with sexual freedom. Coverdale maintains the position of judge, while Hollingsworth's singular focus on his philanthropic endeavors precludes him from fully engaging with these sorts of complications. Another real-world personage to note briefly is Margaret Fuller, a contemporary of Hawthorne's. Fuller, a women's rights activist and writer, is usually associated with Zenobia, but Hawthorne playfully confuses his readers by suggesting Priscilla's resemblance to her.


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 breakfast-time till twilight, in the
deepest wood-seclusion 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 self-communion, 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
wood-path, arched overhead with boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet.

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 side-aisle, 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 long-sought
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 either the
sound or sight upon my consciousness.

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 you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble.

"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 dog-kennel 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!

"What do you want with me?" said I, facing about.

"Come a little nearer, friend," said the stranger, beckoning.

"No," answered I. "If I can do anything for you without too much
trouble to myself, say so.  But recollect, if you please, that you are
not speaking to an acquaintance, much less a friend!"

"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 aesthetic--or 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 probably do me a favor."

I never, in my life, felt less inclined to confer a favor on any man.

"I am busy," said I.

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 well-developed 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 countenance--I hardly know how to describe the
peculiarity--had an indecorum in it, a kind of rudeness, a hard,
coarse, forth-putting 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 best--because with an intuitive
repugnance--by those who possess least of it.

His hair, as well as his beard and mustache, was coal-black; his eyes,
too, were black and sparkling, and his teeth remarkably brilliant. He
was rather carelessly but well and fashionably dressed, in a
summer-morning costume.  There was a gold chain, exquisitely wrought,
across his vest.  I never saw a smoother or whiter gloss than that upon
his shirt-bosom, 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-ordered foppishness.

"Well, sir," said I, a little ashamed of my first irritation, but still
with no waste of civility, "be pleased to speak at once, as I have my
own business in hand."

"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, largely concerned in your social enterprise.  You call
her, I think, Zenobia."

"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 personally by a stranger or casual acquaintance."

"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 by any cognomen that
you may suggest."

Heartily wishing that he would be either a little more offensive, or a
good deal less so, or break off our intercourse altogether, I mentioned
Zenobia's real name.

"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 conveniently be seen."

"At her present residence, of course," I replied.  "You have but to go
thither and ask for her.  This very path will lead you within sight of
the house; so I wish you good-morning."

"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 river-side; and I think
you could do me the favor to point out some favorite walk, where, about
this hour, I might be fortunate enough to gain an interview."

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 stranger's character.

"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, cross-grained, well-meaning 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
ill-favored 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 funds for realizing his plan
in brick and mortar!"

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 grinders and incisors was a sham.  This discovery
affected me very oddly.

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 sympathies, that I soon began to laugh as loudly as
himself.

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 ridicule of a friend."

"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.  But--to revert again to this young person--she
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 name?"

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 aspect no better than
the former one.

"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 access to her."

"In that case," returned the Professor, ceremoniously raising his hat,
"good-morning to you."

He took his departure, and was soon out of sight among the windings of
the wood-path.  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, to-day, was the questionable
Professor, linking one with the other in his inquiries, and seeking
communication with both.

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
long-brooding 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 recognized occasion might speedily
have brought me thither.

Coverdale decides to take a long walk through the woods, which is something he likes to do to get away from routine and community. He walks slowly. Suddenly someone addresses him as "friend" and asks to have a word with him, which irks him immeasurably. Coverdale rebukes the man, but he just salutes him sarcastically and asks if he is one of the Aesthetic or ecstatic at the farm. He is young, tall, and handsome, but somewhat rude and indecorous. He is carelessly but fashionably dressed and has a gold chain across his vest. Coverdale is a little ashamed of his rudeness and apologizes. The man says he met no offense and asks after Zenobia. Coverdale mentions her true name and says that if he wants to find her he knows where to go. The man says he wants to see her in private and asks if Coverdale knows her habits and could tell him where she might walk. Anticipating Zenobia's mockery, Coverdale assents to the man's request and tells him. The man then describes Hollingsworth and asks if he knows him. His behavior makes Coverdale a little wary, and he thinks the man's face like a removable mask. Then the man asks after young Priscilla, a delicate creature of New England as he calls her. Coverdale demurs, and asks his name. The man hands him a card with "Professor Westervelt" on it. Westervelt puts on spectacles that render him unrecognizable. After he leaves, Coverdale wishes he had stayed longer because he may have found out more about his friends. He stays out near the woods where Zenobia may meet her companion


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 white-pine 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
air-currents, 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, owl-like, yet not
without liberal and hospitable thoughts.  I counted the innumerable
clusters of my vine, and fore-reckoned 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 ones crimsoning my brow as with a bloodstain.

Ascending into this natural turret, I peeped in turn out of several of
its small windows.  The pine-tree, 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
cart-road 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 philanthropist had the battle-spirit in his heart.

"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 goad-stick, 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 flung it a message for
Priscilla.

"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
fancy-work with which I have idly decked her out!"

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 thousand-fold 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, and then laugh at my
companions for remaining in it."

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 caught glimpses of two figures--a
woman and a man--Zenobia and the stranger--earnestly 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 so religiously, betwixt
these two.

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 more public portion of her life.

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 hiding-place, 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 afterwards.

"Why not fling the girl off," said Westervelt, "and let her go?"

"She clung to me from the first," replied Zenobia.  "I neither know nor
care what it is in me that so attaches her.  But she loves me, and I
will not fail her."

"She will plague you, then," said he, "in more ways than one."

"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, except that it evidently
inspired her with horror and disgust.

"With what kind of a being am I linked?" cried she.  "If my Creator
cares aught for my soul, let him release me from this miserable bond!"

"I did not think it weighed so heavily," said her companion..

"Nevertheless," answered Zenobia, "it will strangle me at last!"

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 shrieks and wails.

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 ear-shot.  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.

Coverdale describes his leafy hidden cave up in a tree that he likes to spend time in. He likes to make verses there and smoke a cigar, and he saw it as "my one exclusive possession, while I counted myself a brother of the socialists. It symbolized my individuality". It was an observatory for earthly matters. Today he watches Priscilla at the farmhouse from afar. He sees a bird nearby and gives it a message for Priscilla: Zenobia will not be her friend for long, and Hollingsworth is too self-interested. He hears the laugh of Professor Westervelt and is struck by how the man represents the cold skepticism that can quash their noble experiment. He sees him walking below with Zenobia, who seems passionate with anger and scorn. He wonders about the familiarity between the two. Westervelt for his part looks cold and derisive towards her. Coverdale wonders if in her youth Zenobia fell into an indiscretion. He tries to hear their conversation but can only pick up small parts, which he later says he is not sure about. Westervelt asks Zenobia why she does not fling off the girl, and Zenobia says she is a poor girl who can do no good or harm. She hears something and then moans in duress. The rest is hushed. Coverdale vows to tell no mortal of what he saw and heard