The Blithedale Romance

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

n allusion to circumstances which, in the writer's judgment, made it especially desirable that she should find shelter in our Community. There was

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

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

or 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 tha

ery carefully and smoothly ironed. She did not seem bashful, nor anywise embarrasse

ked she. "I have made it f

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

riscilla. "I could have embroidered it

r 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 canno

e the letter, Pr

to my hand, and quite lost the

ed, "did you ever see

she an

r just now - and it happens, strangely en

ver reason, looked v

said rather petulantly. "How could I possibly make myself r

I replied; "nor do I suppose that the letter had anythin

is was the last that I saw of Prisci

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

and translated, for his benefit, some o

be converted into a particular kind of lemonade, such as was fashionable at Paris in Fourier's time. He calls it limonade a

sked Hollingsworth. "The jack-tars would be delighted t

destly could, several points of Fourier's syste

as to the expediency of introducing these b

, 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, bes

r 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 make

y. He has searched out and discovered the whole counsel of the Almighty in respect to mankind, past, present

I tell you fairly, I shall fling it in the fire! And as for Fourier, let him make a Paradise,

Fourier, but merely wanted to give the finishing touch to Hollingsworth

o argue with a man who allows himself to declaim in this

een 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 influe

hing 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 h

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 th

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 phil

me sternly and gloomily. "But how can you be my life-long frien

fangs of an adder. I wondered whether it were possible that Hollingsworth could have watched by my be