The Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne Chapter 20 Page 5

“Ever since she came among us, I have been dimly sensible of just this charm which you have brought out. But it was never absolutely visible till now. She is as lovely as a flower!”

“Well, say so if you like,” answered Zenobia. “You are a poet, — at least, as poets go nowadays, — and must be allowed to make an opera-glass of your imagination, when you look at women. I wonder, in such Arcadian freedom of falling in love as we have lately enjoyed, it never occurred to you to fall in love with Priscilla.

In society, indeed, a genuine American never dreams of stepping across the inappreciable air-line which separates one class from another. But what was rank to the colonists of Blithedale?”

“There were other reasons,”