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The author needs great faith in his reader’s sympathy; else he musthesitate to give details so minute, and incidents apparently so trifling, asare essential to make up the idea of this garden-life. It was the Eden of athunder-smitten Adam, who had fled for refuge thither out of the same drearyand perilous wilderness into which the original Adam was expelled. By looking a little further in this direction, we might suggest an explanationof an often-suggested mystery. Why are poets so apt to choose their mates, notfor any similarity of poetic endowment, but for qualities which might make thehappiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsmanof the spirit? Because, probably, at his highest elevation, the poet needs nohuman intercourse; but he finds it dreary to descend, and be a stranger. On hearing these so hospitable offers, and such generous recognition of theclaims of kindred, Phœbe felt very much in the mood of running up to JudgePyncheon, and giving him, of her own accord, the kiss from which she had sorecently shrunk away.
The Arched Window
It would be thrown aside as carelessly, whenever he should choose to earnhis bread by some other equally digressive means. It was impossible to know Holgravewithout recognizing this to be the fact. Phœbe soon sawit likewise, and gave him the sort of confidence which such a certaintyinspires. She was startled, however, and sometimes repelled,—not by anydoubt of his integrity to whatever law he acknowledged, but by a sense that hislaw differed from her own. He made her uneasy, and seemed to unsettleeverything around her, by his lack of reverence for what was fixed, unless, ata moment’s warning, it could establish its right to hold its ground. He shuddered; he grew pale; he threw an appealinglook at Hepzibah and Phœbe, who were with him at the window.
XV: The Scowl and the Smile
Clifford begins a conversation with a fellow passenger, noting the merits of the railroad and its ability to take people away from their homes and parlors. Contrary to his previous favoring of the things of yore, Clifford expounds that the railroad is one of the greatest modern inventions for it will enable people to return to their nomadic routes. He argues that men need to be on the move rather than cooped up in their homes. Speaking of the House of the Seven Gables, Clifford deems that it should be burned because of the image of the dead man that it conjures in his mind. Hepzibah asks Clifford to be quiet for fear that the traveler may think he is crazy.
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Posted: Fri, 26 Jan 2024 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Governor Pyncheon
In one sense, this picture had almost faded into the canvas, andhidden itself behind the duskiness of age; in another, she could not but fancythat it had been growing more prominent and strikingly expressive, ever sinceher earliest familiarity with it as a child. For, while the physical outlineand substance were darkening away from the beholder’s eye, the bold,hard, and, at the same time, indirect character of the man seemed to be broughtout in a kind of spiritual relief. Such an effect may occasionally be observedin pictures of antique date. They acquire a look which an artist (if he haveanything like the complacency of artists nowadays) would never dream ofpresenting to a patron as his own characteristic expression, but which,nevertheless, we at once recognize as reflecting the unlovely truth of a humansoul. In such cases, the painter’s deep conception of his subject’sinward traits has wrought itself into the essence of the picture, and is seenafter the superficial coloring has been rubbed off by time. The sunshine might nowbe seen stealing down the front of the opposite house, from the windows ofwhich came a reflected gleam, struggling through the boughs of the elm-tree,and enlightening the interior of the shop more distinctly than heretofore.
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His watch continues to tick as the narrator inquires why he lingers. The narrator addresses him, asking if he has forgotten his appointments for the day, especially his dinner with important personages from throughout the state who he was hoping to persuade to nominate him as a candidate for governor. The narrator encourages the judge to make haste; however, he of course does not. A procession of Pyncheon spirits then enters the room, starting with Colonel Pyncheon followed by the next six generations. Noticing that Judge Pyncheon's son is among the spirits, the narrator notes that the judge's wealth will now go to Clifford, Hepzibah, and Phoebe. When the next morning comes and the judge still does not stir, the narrator gives up the address just as the shop-bell rings.
Besides, in our day, the very ABC has become a sciencegreatly too abstruse to be any longer taught by pointing a pin from letter toletter. A modern child could teach old Hepzibah more than old Hepzibah couldteach the child. So—with many a cold, deep heart-quake at the idea of atlast coming into sordid contact with the world, from which she had so long keptaloof, while every added day of seclusion had rolled another stone against thecavern door of her hermitage—the poor thing bethought herself of theancient shop-window, the rusty scales, and dusty till. She might have held backa little longer; but another circumstance, not yet hinted at, had somewhathastened her decision. Her humble preparations, therefore, were duly made, andthe enterprise was now to be commenced. As for Matthew Maule’s posterity, it was supposed now to be extinct.
I: The Old Pyncheon Family
Meanwhile, looking from the window, they could see the world racing past them.At one moment, they were rattling through a solitude; the next, a village hadgrown up around them; a few breaths more, and it had vanished, as if swallowedby an earthquake. The spires of meeting-houses seemed set adrift from theirfoundations; the broad-based hills glided away. Everything was unfixed from itsage-long rest, and moving at whirlwind speed in a direction opposite to theirown. But Clifford, it seemed, though he did not make his appearance below stairs,had, after all, bestirred himself in quest of amusement. In the course of theforenoon, Hepzibah heard a note of music, which (there being no other tunefulcontrivance in the House of the Seven Gables) she knew must proceed from AlicePyncheon’s harpsichord.
XVIII: Governor Pyncheon
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House of 7 Gables gets state grant for coastal resilience plan.
Posted: Sat, 24 Sep 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
Phoebe has a strange feeling that someone else is in the room with them, and after she goes off to bed, she continues to think that she hears Hepzibah talking with someone. The first chapter opens with a description of the House of the Seven Gables, its history, and that of the Pyncheon and Maule families. In the mid-1600s, Matthew Maule (the elder) settles in the County of Essex and establishes a homestead. Soon thereafter, Colonel Pyncheon decides he would like to build his familial estate on Matthew's land. He is then put on trial for witchcraft and with Colonel Pyncheon's full support, is hung.
He looked up,—at first with a stern, keen glance, whichpenetrated at once into the obscurity behind the arched window,—then witha smile which might be conceived as diffusing a dog-day sultriness for thespace of several yards about him. Clifford, as the company partook of their little banquet, grew to be the gayestof them all. Either it was one of those up-quivering flashes of the spirit, towhich minds in an abnormal state are liable, or else the artist had subtlytouched some chord that made musical vibration. Indeed, what with the pleasantsummer evening, and the sympathy of this little circle of not unkindly souls,it was perhaps natural that a character so susceptible as Clifford’sshould become animated, and show itself readily responsive to what was saidaround him. But he gave out his own thoughts, likewise, with an airy andfanciful glow; so that they glistened, as it were, through the arbor, and madetheir escape among the interstices of the foliage. He had been as cheerful, nodoubt, while alone with Phœbe, but never with such tokens of acute, althoughpartial intelligence.
The mysterious house becomes a metaphor for the family’s struggles as the characters confront their fates and the consequences of their ancestors’ actions. Hawthorne’s rich symbolism and exploration of the human psyche make this novel a timeless exploration of the complexities of heritage and destiny. Very soon after their change of fortune, Clifford, Hepzibah, and little Phœbe,with the approval of the artist, concluded to remove from the dismal old Houseof the Seven Gables, and take up their abode, for the present, at the elegantcountry-seat of the late Judge Pyncheon.
Everything—even the old chairs and tables, that hadknown what weather was for three or four such lifetimes as her own—lookedas damp and chill as if the present were their worst experience. The house itself shivered, from everyattic of its seven gables down to the great kitchen fireplace, which served allthe better as an emblem of the mansion’s heart, because, though built forwarmth, it was now so comfortless and empty. By this time the sun had gone down, and was tinting the clouds towards thezenith with those bright hues which are not seen there until some time aftersunset, and when the horizon has quite lost its richer brilliancy.
But we deem it pardonable to recordthese mean incidents and poor delights, because they proved so greatly toClifford’s benefit. They had the earth-smell in them, and contributed togive him health and substance. He had a singular propensity, for example, to hang over Maule’swell, and look at the constantly shifting phantasmagoria of figures produced bythe agitation of the water over the mosaic-work of colored pebbles at thebottom. He said that faces looked upward to him there,—beautiful faces,arrayed in bewitching smiles,—each momentary face so fair and rosy, andevery smile so sunny, that he felt wronged at its departure, until the sameflitting witchcraft made a new one.
Gothic romances trace back to Horace Walpole's 1765 novel, The Castle of Otranto and were often mysteries that involved the supernatural. Characteristically, novels of this type take place in haunted castles or other remote and isolated locations. Often, gothic romances involve a heroine in peril and are peppered with horror and violence. Though not a castle, the House of the Seven Gables is a desolate home that has a seemingly ongoing history of violence within its walls.
She wears black-colored clothes and passes through hallways and rooms that are bleak and darkened by time. Where there once was color in the rugs, there are now only thin and worn-out shades of gray. In the novel, she represents "old Gentility" with a reverence for the past and her previously well-to-do life. The townspeople have little compassion for her and suspect her enterprise will fail.
The settings, or environments, that surround Hawthorne's characters in his novel The House of the Seven Gables are not only as fully detailed as the people in the novel are, but they make up an integral part of the story itself. For example, Hawthorne uses the rooms in which his characters sleep, the houses in which they live, as well as the light and darkness that surround them as a way to further describe and define the people he has created in this story. By exploring these environments, readers gain a deeper understanding of his characters and appreciate more fully how Hawthorne uses this technique to fully develop and enrich his story.
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