The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 14 Page 17

parasite, the soft reflection of a more powerful existence — sat there at his feet.

I looked at Zenobia, however, fully expecting her to resent — as I felt, by the indignant ebullition of my own blood, that she ought this outrageous affirmation of what struck me as the intensity of masculine egotism. It centred everything in itself, and deprived woman of her very soul, her inexpressible and unfathomable all, to make it a mere incident in the great sum of man. Hollingsworth had boldly uttered what he, and millions of despots like him, really felt. Without intending it, he had disclosed the wellspring of all these troubled waters.

Now, if ever, it surely behooved Zenobia to be the champion of her sex.

But, to my surprise, and indignation too,