Not long after the preceding incident, in order to get the ache of too constant labor out of my bones, and to relieve my spirit of the irksomeness of a settled routine, I took a holiday.  It was my purpose to spend it all alone, from breakfast-time till twilight, in the deepest wood-seclusion that lay anywhere around us.  Though fond of society, I was so constituted as to need these occasional retirements, even in a life like that of Blithedale, which was itself characterized by a remoteness from the world.  Unless renewed by a yet further withdrawal towards the inner circle of self-communion, I lost the better part of my individuality.  My thoughts became of little worth, and my sensibilities grew as arid as a tuft of moss (a thing whose life is in the shade, the rain, or the noontide dew), crumbling in the sunshine after long expectance of a shower.  So, with my heart full of a drowsy pleasure, and cautious not to dissipate my mood by previous intercourse with any one, I hurried away, and was soon pacing a wood-path, arched overhead with

boughs, and dusky-brown beneath my feet.

At first I walked very swiftly, as if the heavy flood tide of social life were roaring at my heels, and would outstrip and overwhelm me, without all the better diligence in my escape.  But, threading the more distant windings of the track, I abated my pace, and looked about me for some side-aisle, that should admit me into the innermost sanctuary of this green cathedral, just as, in human acquaintanceship, a casual opening sometimes lets us, all of a sudden, into the long-sought intimacy of a mysterious heart.  So much was I absorbed in my reflections,—­or, rather, in my mood, the substance of which was as yet too shapeless to be called thought,—­that footsteps rustled on the leaves, and a figure passed me by, almost without impressing either the sound or sight upon my consciousness.

A moment afterwards, I heard a voice at a little distance behind me, speaking so sharply and impertinently that it made a complete discord with my spiritual state, and caused the latter to vanish as abruptly as when you thrust a finger into a soap-bubble.

“Halloo, friend!” cried this most unseasonable voice.  “Stop a moment, I say!  I must have a word with you!”

I turned about, in a humor ludicrously irate.  In the first place, the interruption, at any rate, was a grievous injury; then, the tone displeased me.  And finally, unless there be real affection in his heart, a man cannot,—­such is the bad state to which the world has brought itself,—­cannot more effectually show his contempt for a brother mortal, nor more gallingly assume a position of superiority, than by addressing him as “friend.”  Especially does the misapplication of this phrase bring out that latent hostility which is sure to animate peculiar sects, and those who, with however generous a purpose, have sequestered themselves from the crowd; a feeling, it is true, which may be hidden in some