Converting from a xml parsed list to character in R

I have read and parsed a url using htmlParse().

I have used xpathApply to filter out and get the exact content that I want.

I want to convert the list created into character. When I try to convert I get this error:

"<pointer: 0x000000001673db70>"

I am assuming that the parsed content is pointed in the main object using pointers.

The content that I want might have some some XML syntax in it, so xmlValue will do no good.