Table Of Content
The carpenter who builds the house of the seven gables on land stolen from his own family. It is believed that he steals the Pyncheons’ deed to the Maine land and hides it somewhere within the house. A bastion of the town’s Puritan community two centuries before the action of the novel unfolds. Colonel Pyncheon’s greed and heartlessness are responsible for the Pyncheon curse.
Characters
Phoebe ultimately teams with Holgrave to be a liberating force to end the curse, while Judge Pyncheon remains enslaved to the family's dream of aristocratic standing to the last—dying just as the governor's post seems within his grasp. Furthering the relationship between Hepzibah and the shop, Hawthorne informs his readers that a change is taking place. The shop, which had been heavily curtained to keep its interior out of sight, has been recently transformed. The shelves and bins have been filled with "merchantable goods." Likewise, Hepzibah is experiencing a transformation.
X: The Pyncheon-Garden
It would be an ugly business, indeed, if Judge Pyncheon (whowould not have cared a fig for Paganini’s fiddle in his most harmoniousmood) should make his appearance at the door, with a bloody shirt-bosom, and agrim frown on his swarthily white visage, and motion the foreign vagabond away! Was ever before such a grinding out of jigs and waltzes, where nobody was inthe cue to dance? This contrast, or intermingling of tragedywith mirth, happens daily, hourly, momently.
Alice’s Posies
When the customer was gone, Hepzibah talked rather vaguely, and at greatlength, about a certain Alice Pyncheon, who had been exceedingly beautiful andaccomplished in her lifetime, a hundred years ago. The fragrance of her richand delightful character still lingered about the place where she had lived, asa dried rose-bud scents the drawer where it has withered and perished. Thislovely Alice had met with some great and mysterious calamity, and had grownthin and white, and gradually faded out of the world. But, even now, she wassupposed to haunt the House of the Seven Gables, and, a great manytimes,—especially when one of the Pyncheons was to die,—she hadbeen heard playing sadly and beautifully on the harpsichord. One of thesetunes, just as it had sounded from her spiritual touch, had been written downby an amateur of music; it was so exquisitely mournful that nobody, to thisday, could bear to hear it played, unless when a great sorrow had made themknow the still profounder sweetness of it.
The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so orderly and obedient tocommon rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was widely in contrast, atthat moment, with everything about her. The sordid and ugly luxuriance ofgigantic weeds that grew in the angle of the house, and the heavy projectionthat overshadowed her, and the time-worn framework of the door,—none ofthese things belonged to her sphere. But, even as a ray of sunshine, fall intowhat dismal place it may, instantaneously creates for itself a propriety inbeing there, so did it seem altogether fit that the girl should be standing atthe threshold. It was no less evidently proper that the door should swing opento admit her. The maiden lady herself, sternly inhospitable in her firstpurposes, soon began to feel that the door ought to be shoved back, and therusty key be turned in the reluctant lock.
Holgrave continues the discussion by saying that it has been impossible for him to create a pleasing rendering of the judge despite more than one attempt. Pictures apparently cannot cover up the truth of a man's character as a subjective painter might. Holgrave asks Phoebe if she would care to tend to the flowers and the hens while he cared for the vegetables. Although her reticence about Holgrave remains in tact, she complies with the request and weeds the flower-bed. As Holgrave leaves, he warns Phoebe not to drink or bathe in the fountain, which is called Maule's well, because the water is believed to be bewitched.
So wise, as well asantique, was their aspect, as to give color to the idea, not merely that theywere the descendants of a time-honored race, but that they had existed, intheir individual capacity, ever since the House of the Seven Gables wasfounded, and were somehow mixed up with its destiny. They were a species oftutelary sprite, or Banshee; although winged and feathered differently frommost other guardian angels. Hepzibah brought out some old silver spoons with the family crest upon them,and a china tea-set painted over with grotesque figures of man, bird, andbeast, in as grotesque a landscape.
She thrust herself past Clifford, anddisappeared into the room; but almost immediately returned, with a cry chokingin her throat. Gazing at her brother with an affrighted glance of inquiry, shebeheld him all in a tremor and a quake, from head to foot, while, amid thesecommoted elements of passion or alarm, still flickered his gusty mirth. It was no other than JudgePyncheon, who, after in vain trying the front door, had now effected hisentrance into the shop. He spoke, and Alice responded, with a soft, subdued, inward acquiescence, and abending of her form towards him, like the flame of a torch when it indicates agentle draught of air. He beckoned with his hand, and, rising from herchair,—blindly, but undoubtingly, as tending to her sure and inevitablecentre,—the proud Alice approached him. Setting aside all advantages of rank, thisfair girl deemed herself conscious of a power—combined of beauty, high,unsullied purity, and the preservative force of womanhood—that could makeher sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed by treachery within.
The chimney of the new house,in short, belching forth its kitchen smoke, impregnated the whole air with thescent of meats, fowls, and fishes, spicily concocted with odoriferous herbs,and onions in abundance. The mere smell of such festivity, making its way toeverybody’s nostrils, was at once an invitation and an appetite. A battered house with seven gables stands in a small New England town. (Gables are the triangular structures formed by two intersecting points of a roof.) The house, which belongs to the Pyncheon family, has a long and controversial history. In the mid-1600s, a local farmer named Matthew Maule builds a house on fertile land near a pleasant spring.
A recluse, like Hepzibah, usually displays remarkablefrankness, and at least temporary affability, on being absolutely cornered, andbrought to the point of personal intercourse; like the angel whom Jacobwrestled with, she is ready to bless you when once overcome. She went in quest of the miniature already described, and returned with it inher hand. Giving it to Phœbe, she watched her features narrowly, and with acertain jealousy as to the mode in which the girl would show herself affectedby the picture. People in difficulty and distress, or in any manner at odds with the world, canendure a vast amount of harsh treatment, and perhaps be only the stronger forit; whereas they give way at once before the simplest expression of what theyperceive to be genuine sympathy. So it proved with poor Hepzibah; for, when shesaw the young man’s smile,—looking so much the brighter on athoughtful face,—and heard his kindly tone, she broke first into ahysteric giggle and then began to sob. All this time, however, we are loitering faintheartedly on the threshold of ourstory.
This year’s Community Conversations series will focus on the history of the Settlement movement, the cultures of the groups with whom Settlement Association works, and what Settlement and Salem looks like today. In 1668, wealthy merchant and shipowner John Turner I, and his wife Elizabeth Robinson Turner, built the house that is now one of the oldest timber-framed mansions in continental North America. Jaffrey visits the house and tells Clifford that he intends to have him committed. Clifford responds by asking Jaffrey to sign a document that clears Clifford's name.
Salem Landmark To Host Fusion Fest Free Cultural Event - Patch
Salem Landmark To Host Fusion Fest Free Cultural Event.
Posted: Fri, 04 Aug 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
She stole on tiptoe to the window, as cautiously as if she conceived somebloody-minded villain to be watching behind the elm-tree, with intent to takeher life. Stretching out her long, lank arm, she put a paper of pearl-buttons,a jew’s-harp, or whatever the small article might be, in its destinedplace, and straightway vanished back into the dusk, as if the world need neverhope for another glimpse of her. It might have been fancied, indeed, that sheexpected to minister to the wants of the community unseen, like a disembodieddivinity or enchantress, holding forth her bargains to the reverential andawe-stricken purchaser in an invisible hand. She was well aware that she must ultimately come forward, andstand revealed in her proper individuality; but, like other sensitive persons,she could not bear to be observed in the gradual process, and chose rather toflash forth on the world’s astonished gaze at once.
Forthirty years past, neither town-record, nor gravestone, nor the directory, northe knowledge or memory of man, bore any trace of Matthew Maule’sdescendants. His blood might possibly exist elsewhere; here, where its lowlycurrent could be traced so far back, it had ceased to keep an onward course. Efforts, it is true, were made by the Pyncheons, not only then, but at variousperiods for nearly a hundred years afterwards, to obtain what they stubbornlypersisted in deeming their right. But, in course of time, the territory waspartly regranted to more favored individuals, and partly cleared and occupiedby actual settlers.
She was aware that Clifford, in his youth, hadpossessed a cultivated taste for music, and a considerable degree of skill inits practice. It was difficult, however, to conceive of his retaining anaccomplishment to which daily exercise is so essential, in the measureindicated by the sweet, airy, and delicate, though most melancholy strain, thatnow stole upon her ear. Nor was it less marvellous that the long-silentinstrument should be capable of so much melody. Hepzibah involuntarily thoughtof the ghostly harmonies, prelusive of death in the family, which wereattributed to the legendary Alice. But it was, perhaps, proof of the agency ofother than spiritual fingers, that, after a few touches, the chords seemed tosnap asunder with their own vibrations, and the music ceased. To a disposition like Holgrave’s, at once speculative and active, thereis no temptation so great as the opportunity of acquiring empire over the humanspirit; nor any idea more seductive to a young man than to become the arbiterof a young girl’s destiny.
Ahundred mysterious years were whispering among the leaves, whenever the slightsea-breeze found its way thither and stirred them. Through the foliage thatroofed the little summer-house the moonlight flickered to and fro, and fellsilvery white on the dark floor, the table, and the circular bench, with acontinual shift and play, according as the chinks and wayward crevices amongthe twigs admitted or shut out the glimmer. Two or three times, and more, Hepzibah repeated his name, without result; till,thinking her brother’s sleep unwontedly profound, she undid the door, andentering, found the chamber vacant.
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