The Blithedale Romance

partments, after attending the wonderful exhibition of the Veiled Lady, when an

he softly, "can I sp

y in question. Nowadays, in the management of his "subject," "clairvoyant," or "medium," the exhibitor affects the simplicity and openness of scientific experiment; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life and extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to

to the success of our Blithedale enterprise. The response, by the bye, was of the true Sibylline stamp - nonsensical in its first aspect, yet on closer study unfolding a variety of interpretations

r to make up for the hesitating and ineffectual way in which he uttered it

ng under the arch of a gate, only revealing enough of himself to make me recognize him as an acquaintance. He was a very shy personage, this Mr. Moodie; and t

ld take in the fact, "it is my intention to go to Blithedale

dale," said he, "you might

eady to do the old man any amount of kindness involving no special trouble to myself. "A very great favor, do you say?

ale, perhaps I had better apply to some older gentleman, or to some lady, if you would have the kin

antage of me in age, and is a much more solid character, and a philanthropist to boot. I am only a poet, and, so the critics tell me, no great affair at that! But what can this b

freakish and obstinate; and he had now taken some notion or o

"whether you know a lady

you taken up the advocacy of women's rights? or what else can have interested you in this lady? Zenobia, by the bye, as I suppose you know, is merely her public name; a sort of mask in which she comes before

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

cigar, and spent an hour in musings of every hue, from the brightest to the most sombre; being, in truth, not so very confident as at some former periods that this final step, which would mix me up irrevocably with the Blithedale affair, was the wisest that could possibly b