These goblins, if they exist at all, are but the
shadows of past mortality, outcasts, mere refuse stuff, adjudged
unworthy of the eternal world, and, on the most favorable supposition,
dwindling gradually into nothingness. The less we have to say to
them the better, lest we share their fate!
The audience now began to be impatient; they signified their desire
for the entertainment to commence by thump of sticks and stamp of
boot-heels. Nor was it a great while longer before, in response to
their call, there appeared a bearded personage in Oriental robes,
looking like one of the enchanters of the Arabian Nights. He came
upon the platform from a side door, saluted the spectators, not with
a salaam, but a bow, took his station at the desk, and first blowing
his nose with a white handkerchief, prepared to speak. The
environment of the homely village hall, and the absence of many
ingenious contrivances of stage effect with which the exhibition had
heretofore been set off, seemed to bring the artifice of this
character more openly upon the surface. No sooner did I behold the
bearded enchanter, than, laying my hand again on Hollingsworth's
shoulder, I whispered in his ear, "Do you know him?"
"I never saw the man before," he muttered, without turning his head.
But I had seen him three times already.
Once, on occasion of my first visit to the Veiled Lady; a second time,
in the wood-path at Blithedale; and lastly, in Zenobia's
drawing-room. It was Westervelt.
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