The Blithedale Romance Author:Nathaniel Hawthorne Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE BLITHEDALE ROMANCE The evening before my departure for Blithedale, I was returning to my bachelor apartments,, after attending the wonderful exhibition of... more » the Veiled Lady, when an elderly man, of rather shabby appearance, met me in an obscure part of the street. " Mr. Coverdale," said he softly, " can I speak with you a moment ?" As I have casually jjliided.to.the....Vetted... Lady, it may not be amiss to mention, for the benefit of such of my readers as are unacquainted with her now-forgotten celebrity, that she was ajhenomenon in the mesmeric Jine; one of the earliest that had indicated QLJltbJ£ .A-ftew science, or the revival of an old humbug. Since those times her sisterhood have grown too numerous to attract much individual notice ; nor, in fact, has any one of them ever come before the public under such skilfully contrived circumstances of stage-effect as those which at once mystified and illuminated the remarkable performances of the lady in question. Nowadays, in the management of his " subject," " clairvoyant/' or medium," the exhibitoraffects the simplicity and openness of scientific experiment ; and even if he profess to tread a step or two across the boundaries of the spiritual world, yet carries with him the laws of our actual life, and extends them over his preternatural conquests. Twelve or fifteen years ago, on the contrary, all the arts of mysterious arrangement, of picturesque disposition, and artistically contrasted light and shade, were made available, in order to set the apparent miracle in the strongest attitude of opposition to ordinary facts. In the case of the Veiled Lady, moreover, the interest of the spectator was further wrought up by the enigma of her identity, and an absurd rumour (probably set afloat by the exhibitor, and at one time ve...« less