yet see, how
practicable! The Ages have waited for us, and here we are - the very first that
have essayed to carry on our mortal existence, in love, and mutual help!
Hollingsworth, I would be loth to take the ruin of this enterprise upon my
conscience!«
    »Then let it rest wholly upon mine!« he answered, knitting his black brows.
»I see through the system. It is full of defects - irremediable and damning
ones! - from first to last, there is nothing else! I grasp it in my hand, and
find no substance whatever. There is not human nature in it!«
    »Why are you so secret in your operations?« I asked. »God forbid that I
should accuse you of intentional wrong; but the besetting sin of a
philanthropist, it appears to me, is apt to be a moral obliquity. His sense of
honor ceases to be the sense of other honorable men. At some point of his course
- I know not exactly when nor where - he is tempted to palter with the right,
and can scarcely forbear persuading himself that the importance of his public
ends renders it allowable to throw aside his private conscience. Oh, my dear
friend, beware this error! If you meditate the overthrow of this establishment,
call together our companions, state your design, support it with all your
eloquence, but allow them an opportunity of defending themselves!«
    »It does not suit me,« said Hollingsworth. »Nor is it my duty to do so.«
    »I think it is!« replied I.
    Hollingsworth frowned; not in passion, but like Fate, inexorably.
    »I will not argue the point,« said he. »What I desire to know of you is -
and you can tell me in one word - whether I am to look for your co-operation in
this great scheme of good. Take it up with me! Be my brother in it! It offers
you (what you have told me, over and over again, that you most need) a purpose
in life, worthy of the extremest self-devotion - worthy of martyrdom, should God
so order it! In this view, I present it to you. You can greatly benefit mankind.
Your peculiar faculties, as I shall direct them, are capable of being so wrought
into this enterprise, that not one of them need lie idle. Strike hands with me;
and, from this moment, you shall never again feel the languor and vague
wretchedness of an indolent or half-occupied man