I stood on other terms than before, not only with Hollingsworth, but
with Zenobia and Priscilla. As regarded the two latter, it was that
dreamlike and miserable sort of change that denies you the privilege to
complain, because you can assert no positive injury, nor lay your
finger on anything tangible. It is a matter which you do not see, but
feel, and which, when you try to analyze it, seems to lose its very
existence, and resolve itself into a sickly humor of your own. Your
understanding, possibly, may put faith in this denial. But your heart
will not so easily rest satisfied. It incessantly remonstrates,
though, most of the time, in a bass-note, which you do not separately
distinguish; but, now and then, with a sharp cry, importunate to be
heard, and resolute to claim belief. "Things are not as they were!" it
keeps saying. "You shall not impose on me! I will never be quiet! I
will throb painfully! I will be heavy, and desolate, and shiver with
cold! For I, your deep heart, know when to be miserable, as once I
knew when to be happy! All is changed for us! You are beloved no
more!" And were my life to be spent over again, I would invariably
lend my ear to this Cassandra of the inward depths, however clamorous
the music and the merriment of a more superficial region.
My outbreak with Hollingsworth, though never definitely known to our
associates, had really an effect upon the moral atmosphere of the
Community. It was incidental to the closeness of relationship into
which we had brought ourselves, that an unfriendly state of feeling
could not occur between any two members without the whole society being
more or less commoted and made uncomfortable thereby. This species of
nervous sympathy (though a pretty characteristic enough, sentimentally
considered, and apparently betokening an actual bond of love among us)
was yet found rather inconvenient in its practical operation, mortal
tempers being so infirm and variable as they are. If one of us happened
to give his neighbor a box on the ear, the tingle was immediately felt
on the same side of everybody's head. Thus, even on the supposition
that we were far less quarrelsome than the rest of the world, a great
deal of time was necessarily wasted in rubbing our ears.
Musing on all these matters, I felt an inexpressible longing for at
least a temporary novelty. I thought of going across the Rocky
Mountains, or to Europe, or up the Nile; of offering myself a volunteer
on the Exploring Expedition; of taking a ramble of years, no matter in
what direction, and coming back on the other side of the world. Then,
should the colonists of Blithedale have established their enterprise on
a permanent basis, I might fling aside my pilgrim staff and dusty
shoon, and rest as peacefully here as elsewhere. Or, in case
Hollingsworth should occupy the ground with his School of Reform, as he
now purposed, I might plead earthly guilt enough, by that time, to give
me what I was inclined to think the only trustworthy hold on his
affections. Meanwhile, before deciding on any ultimate plan, I
determined to remove myself to a little distance, and take an exterior
view of what we had all been about.