There was one paragraph,
which if I rightly guessed its purport bore reference to Zenobia, but
was too darkly hinted to convey even thus much of certainty.
Hollingsworth, too, with his philanthropic project, afforded the
penny-a-liners a theme for some savage and bloody minded jokes; and,
considerably to my surprise, they affected me with as much
indignation as if we had still been friends.
Thus passed several weeks; time long enough for my brown and
toil-hardened hands to reaccustom themselves to gloves. Old habits,
such as were merely external, returned upon me with wonderful
promptitude. My superficial talk, too, assumed altogether a worldly
tone. Meeting former acquaintances, who showed themselves inclined
to ridicule my heroic devotion to the cause of human welfare, I spoke
of the recent phase of my life as indeed fair matter for a jest. But,
I also gave them to understand that it was, at most, only an
experiment, on which I had staked no valuable amount of hope or fear.
It had enabled me to pass the summer in a novel and agreeable way,
had afforded me some grotesque specimens of artificial simplicity,
and could not, therefore, so far as I was concerned, be reckoned a
failure. In no one instance, however, did I voluntarily speak of my
three friends. They dwelt in a profounder region. The more I
consider myself as I then was, the more do I recognize how deeply my
connection with those three had affected all my being.
As it was already the epoch of annihilated space, I might in the time
I was away from Blithedale have snatched a glimpse at England, and
been back again.
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