University of Virginia Library

9. IX.
HOLLINGSWORTH, ZENOBIA, PRISCILLA.

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
straight 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 short-comings 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
swept 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 pitcher into the well; and — except with her
needle, and those little wooden instruments for pursemaking
— 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 door-step; “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 door-way, 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, were 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 to, 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 hearth-stone 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 these rumors to Hollingsworth, in a playful
way.

“Had you consulted me,” I went on to observe, “I
should have recommended a site further 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 hill-side.”

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.