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The latter form of composition is presumed to aim at a veryminute fidelity, not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinarycourse of man’s experience. The former—while, as a work of art, itmust rigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably so far asit may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart—has fairly a rightto present that truth under circumstances, to a great extent, of thewriter’s own choosing or creation. If he think fit, also, he may somanage his atmospherical medium as to bring out or mellow the lights and deepenand enrich the shadows of the picture.
The Arched Window
House Of The Seven Gables Awarded $25K Grant For Immigrant Services - Salem, MA Patch
House Of The Seven Gables Awarded $25K Grant For Immigrant Services.
Posted: Wed, 29 Mar 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It is not probable, be it said, that he acted with any set purposeof involving Clifford in a charge of murder. Knowing that his uncle did not dieby violence, it may not have occurred to him, in the hurry of the crisis, thatsuch an inference might be drawn. It may be remarked, however, that, of all the events which constitute aperson’s biography, there is scarcely one—none, certainly, ofanything like a similar importance—to which the world so easilyreconciles itself as to his death. In most other cases and contingencies, theindividual is present among us, mixed up with the daily revolution of affairs,and affording a definite point for observation. At his decease, there is only avacancy, and a momentary eddy,—very small, as compared with the apparentmagnitude of the ingurgitated object,—and a bubble or two, ascending outof the black depth and bursting at the surface. As regarded Judge Pyncheon, itseemed probable, at first blush, that the mode of his final departure mightgive him a larger and longer posthumous vogue than ordinarily attends thememory of a distinguished man.
Characters
As Hepzibah, in order not toexpose herself to inspection from without, invariably opened a door in thismanner, Phœbe necessarily concluded that it was her cousin who now admittedher. One object, above all others, would take root in the imaginativeobserver’s memory. It was the great tuft of flowers,—weeds, youwould have called them, only a week ago,—the tuft of crimson-spottedflowers, in the angle between the two front gables. The old people used to givethem the name of Alice’s Posies, in remembrance of fair Alice Pyncheon,who was believed to have brought their seeds from Italy. They were flaunting inrich beauty and full bloom to-day, and seemed, as it were, a mystic expressionthat something within the house was consummated.
The House of the Seven Gables: Characters
At almost every stepin life, we meet with young men of just about Holgrave’s age, for whom weanticipate wonderful things, but of whom, even after much and careful inquiry,we never happen to hear another word. The effervescence of youth and passion,and the fresh gloss of the intellect and imagination, endow them with a falsebrilliancy, which makes fools of themselves and other people. Like certainchintzes, calicoes, and ginghams, they show finely in their first newness, butcannot stand the sun and rain, and assume a very sober aspect afterwashing-day. Holgrave had read very little, and that little in passing through thethoroughfare of life, where the mystic language of his books was necessarilymixed up with the babble of the multitude, so that both one and the other wereapt to lose any sense that might have been properly their own.
Maule’s Well
Angels do not toil, but let their good works grow outof them; and so did Phœbe. At the touch of those lips of light, Phœbe quietly awoke, and, for a moment,did not recognize where she was, nor how those heavy curtains chanced to befestooned around her. Nothing, indeed, was absolutely plain to her, except thatit was now early morning, and that, whatever might happen next, it was proper,first of all, to get up and say her prayers. She was the more inclined todevotion from the grim aspect of the chamber and its furniture, especially thetall, stiff chairs; one of which stood close by her bedside, and looked as ifsome old-fashioned personage had been sitting there all night, and had vanishedonly just in season to escape discovery.
Clifford’s Chamber
If permitted by the historicalconnection,—which, though slight, was essential to his plan,—theauthor would very willingly have avoided anything of this nature. Not to speakof other objections, it exposes the romance to an inflexible and exceedinglydangerous species of criticism, by bringing his fancy-pictures almost intopositive contact with the realities of the moment. It has been no part of hisobject, however, to describe local manners, nor in any way to meddle with thecharacteristics of a community for whom he cherishes a proper respect and anatural regard. He trusts not to be considered as unpardonably offending bylaying out a street that infringes upon nobody’s private rights, andappropriating a lot of land which had no visible owner, and building a house ofmaterials long in use for constructing castles in the air.
Manypersons affirmed that the history and elucidation of the facts, long somysterious, had been obtained by the daguerreotypist from one of thosemesmerical seers who, nowadays, so strangely perplex the aspect of humanaffairs, and put everybody’s natural vision to the blush, by the marvelswhich they see with their eyes shut. Phœbe, coming so suddenly from the sunny daylight, was altogether bedimmed insuch density of shadow as lurked in most of the passages of the old house. Before her eyes hadadapted themselves to the obscurity, a hand grasped her own with a firm butgentle and warm pressure, thus imparting a welcome which caused her heart toleap and thrill with an indefinable shiver of enjoyment. She felt herself drawnalong, not towards the parlor, but into a large and unoccupied apartment, whichhad formerly been the grand reception-room of the Seven Gables. The sunshinecame freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and fell upon thedusty floor; so that Phœbe now clearly saw—what, indeed, had been nosecret, after the encounter of a warm hand with hers—that it was notHepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom she owed her reception.
House of Seven Gables on historic tour - WiscNews
House of Seven Gables on historic tour.
Posted: Fri, 24 Jun 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The 340-year-old house that inspired the classic Nathaniel Hawthorne novel.
But her heart never frowned.It was naturally tender, sensitive, and full of little tremors andpalpitations; all of which weaknesses it retained, while her visage was growingso perversely stern, and even fierce. Nor had Hepzibah ever any hardihood,except what came from the very warmest nook in her affections. The reader may deem it singular that the head carpenter of the new edifice wasno other than the son of the very man from whose dead gripe the property of thesoil had been wrested. Not improbably he was the best workman of his time; or,perhaps, the Colonel thought it expedient, or was impelled by some betterfeeling, thus openly to cast aside all animosity against the race of his fallenantagonist.
A Day Behind the Counter
It caused the poorest member of the raceto feel as if he inherited a kind of nobility, and might yet come into thepossession of princely wealth to support it. In the better specimens of thebreed, this peculiarity threw an ideal grace over the hard material of humanlife, without stealing away any truly valuable quality. In the baser sort, itseffect was to increase the liability to sluggishness and dependence, and inducethe victim of a shadowy hope to remit all self-effort, while awaiting therealization of his dreams. Years and years after their claim had passed out ofthe public memory, the Pyncheons were accustomed to consult the Colonel’sancient map, which had been projected while Waldo County was still an unbrokenwilderness.
The haste, and, as it were, the galvanicimpulse of the movement, were really quite startling. The Pyncheons, in brief, lived along, for the better part of two centuries,with perhaps less of outward vicissitude than has attended most other NewEngland families during the same period of time. During the Revolution, the Pyncheon of that epoch, adopting the royalside, became a refugee; but repented, and made his reappearance, just at thepoint of time to preserve the House of the Seven Gables from confiscation. Forthe last seventy years the most noted event in the Pyncheon annals had beenlikewise the heaviest calamity that ever befell the race; no less than theviolent death—for so it was adjudged—of one member of the family bythe criminal act of another. Certain circumstances attending this fataloccurrence had brought the deed irresistibly home to a nephew of the deceasedPyncheon.
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. So this oddly composed little social party used to assemble under the ruinousarbor. Hepzibah—stately as ever at heart, and yielding not an inch of herold gentility, but resting upon it so much the more, as justifying aprincess-like condescension—exhibited a not ungraceful hospitality. Shetalked kindly to the vagrant artist, and took sage counsel—lady as shewas—with the wood-sawyer, the messenger of everybody’s pettyerrands, the patched philosopher.
There, after a glass of brandy and water, anda mutton-chop, a beefsteak, a broiled fowl, or some such hasty little dinnerand supper all in one, he had better spend the evening by the fireside. He musttoast his slippers a long while, in order to get rid of the chilliness whichthe air of this vile old house has sent curdling through his veins. 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.
Still,there will be a connection with the long past—a reference to forgottenevents and personages, and to manners, feelings, and opinions, almost or whollyobsolete—which, if adequately translated to the reader, would serve toillustrate how much of old material goes to make up the freshest novelty ofhuman life. But, as the little personage could not be induced to approach near enough toexplain himself, Phœbe concluded that he had been frightened, on some of hisvisits to the shop, by her cousin Hepzibah; for the good lady’smanifestations, in truth, ran about an equal chance of scaring children out oftheir wits, or compelling them to unseemly laughter. Still, she felt the more,for this incident, how unaccountably silent and impenetrable the house hadbecome. The arbor was vacant, and its floor, table, and circular bench werestill damp, and bestrewn with twigs and the disarray of the past storm.
Be that as it might, the hens were now scarcelylarger than pigeons, and had a queer, rusty, withered aspect, and a gouty kindof movement, and a sleepy and melancholy tone throughout all the variations oftheir clucking and cackling. It was evident that the race had degenerated, likemany a noble race besides, in consequence of too strict a watchfulness to keepit pure. These feathered people had existed too long in their distinct variety;a fact of which the present representatives, judging by their lugubriousdeportment, seemed to be aware.
” As for UncleVenner, as a mark of friendship and approbation, he readily consented to affordthe young man his countenance in the way of his profession,—notmetaphorically, be it understood, but literally, by allowing a daguerreotype ofhis face, so familiar to the town, to be exhibited at the entrance ofHolgrave’s studio. The vibrations of the Judge’s voice had reached theold gentlewoman in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted, waiting on herbrother’s slumber. She now issued forth, as would appear, to defend theentrance, looking, we must needs say, amazingly like the dragon which, in fairytales, is wont to be the guardian over an enchanted beauty. The habitual scowlof her brow was undeniably too fierce, at this moment, to pass itself off onthe innocent score of near-sightedness; and it was bent on Judge Pyncheon in away that seemed to confound, if not alarm him, so inadequately had he estimatedthe moral force of a deeply grounded antipathy.
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