g tales, a disembodied spirit,
imprisoned in the haunted chamber of his own contemplations, but a
particular man, with a certain human grossness.

Of Miles Coverdale I have already spoken, and of its being natural to
assume that in so far as we may measure this lightly indicated
identity of his, it has a great deal in common with that of his
creator. Coverdale is a picture of the contemplative, observant,
analytic nature, nursing its fancies, and yet, thanks to an element of
strong good sense, not bringing them up to be spoiled children; having
little at stake in life, at any given moment, and yet indulging, in
imagination, in a good many adventures; a portrait of a man, in a
word, whose passions are slender, whose imagination is active, and
whose happiness lies, not in doing, but in perceiving--half a poet,
half a critic, and all a spectator. He is contrasted, excellently,
with the figure of Hollingsworth, the heavily treading Reformer, whose
attitude with regard to the world is that of the hammer to the anvil,
and who has no patience with his friend's indifferences and
neutralities. Coverdale is a gentle sceptic, a mild cynic; he would
agree that life is a little worth living--or worth living a little;
but would remark that, unfortunately, to live little enough, we have
to live a great deal. He confesses to a want of earnestness, but in
reality he is evidently an excellent fellow, to whom one might look,
not for any personal performance on a great scale, but for a good deal
of generosity of detail. "As Hollingsworth once told me, I lack a
purpose," he writes, at the close of his story. "How strange! He was
ruined, morally, by an over plus of the same ingredient the want of
which, I occasionally suspect, has rendered my own life all an
emptiness. I by no means wish to die. Yet were there any cause in this
whole chaos of human struggle, worth a sane man's dying for, and which
my death would benefit, then--provided, however, the effort did not
involve an unreasonable amount of trouble--methinks I might be bold to
offer up my life. If Kossuth, for example, would pitch the
battle-field of Hungarian rights within an easy ride of my abode, and
choose a mild sunny morning, after breakfast, for the conflict, Miles
Coverdale would gladly be his man, for one brave rush upon the
levelled bayonets. Further than that I should be loth to pledge
myself."

The finest thing in _The Blithdale Romance_ is the character of
Zenobia, whi