Farcical fools, trying to idealize labour. You'll never succeed in idealizing hard work. Before you can dig mother earth you've got to take off your ideal jacket. The harder a man works, at brute labour, the thinner becomes his idealism, the darker his mind. And the harder a man works at mental labour, at idealism, at transcendental occupations, the thinner becomes his blood, and the more brittle his nerves. Oh, the brittle-nerved brookfarmers! You've got to be able to do both: the mental work, and the brute work. But be prepared to step from one pair of shoes into another. Don't try and make it all one pair of shoes. The attempt to idealize the blood! Nathaniel knew he was a fool, attempting it. He went home to his amiable spouse and his sanctum sanctorum of a study. Nathaniel! But the _Blithedale Romance._ It has a beautiful, wintry-evening farm-kitchen sort of opening. _Dramatis Personæ_: 1. _I._--The narrator: whom we will call Nathaniel. A wisp of a sensitive, withal deep, literary young man no longer so very young. 2. _Zenobia_: a dark, proudly voluptuous clever woman with a tropical flower in her hair. Said to be sketched from Margaret Fuller, in whom Hawthorne saw some "evil nature." Nathaniel was more aware of Zenobia's voluptuousness than of her "mind." 3. _Hollingsworth_: a black-bearded blacksmith with a deep-voiced lust for saving criminals. Wants to build a great Home for these unfortunates. 4. _Priscilla_: a sort of White Lily, a clinging little mediumistic sempstress who has been made use of in public seances. A sort of prostitute soul. 5. _Zenobia's Husband_: an unpleasant decayed person with magnetic powers and teeth full of gold--or set in gold. It is he who has given public spiritualist demonstrations, with Priscilla for the medium. He is of the dark, sensual, decayed-handsome sort, and comes in unexpectedly by the back door. _Plot I._--I, Nathaniel, at once catch cold, and have to be put to bed. Am nursed with inordinate tenderness by the black-smith, whose great hands are gentler than a woman's, etc. The two men love one another with a love surpassing the love of women, so long as the healing-and-salvation business lasts. When Nathaniel wants to get well and have a soul of his own, he turns with hate to this black-bearded, booming Salvationist, Hephæstos of the underworld. Hates him for tryrannous monomaniac. _Plot II._--Zenobia, that clever lustrous woman, is fascinated by the criminal-saving black-smith, and would have him at any price. Meanwhile she has the subtlest current of understanding with the frail but deep Nathaniel. And she takes the White Lily half-pityingly, half contemptuously under a rich and glossy dark wing. _Plot III._--The blacksmith is after Zenobia, to get her money for his criminal asylum: of which of course he will be the first inmate. _Plot IV._--Nathaniel also feels his mouth watering for the dark-luscious Zenobia.