Coverdale is within the
sphere of a strong and noble nature, without being strengthened and
ennobled by its influence!"
This amiable remark of the fair Zenobia confirmed me in what I had
already begun to suspect, that Hollingsworth, like many other
illustrious prophets, reformers, and philanthropists, was likely to
make at least two proselytes among the women to one among the men.
Zenobia and Priscilla! These, I believe (unless my unworthy self
might be reckoned for a third), were the only disciples of his
mission; and I spent a great deal of time, uselessly, in trying to
conjecture what Hollingsworth meant to do with them--and they with
him!
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.
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