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In the story that unfolds, Colonel Pyncheon's portrait still hangs in the house and the legend of the Pyncheon and Maule conflict serves as the basis for one of Hawthorne's themes, which is that the sins of the past are carried down through successive generations. Like the Colonel, two other Pyncheon men die of apoplexy, an unexpected hemorrhage. Holgrave reads Phoebe a short story he has written about Alice Pyncheon, a descendant of the Colonel, who lived in the House 37 years after the Colonel’s death. In the story, the then-head of the Pyncheons, Gervayse, summons a carpenter named Matthew Maule.
Clifford Pyncheon
Then, in a gust of anger at her insensibility,he shook her maiden form with a violence which, the next moment, it affrightedhim to remember. He withdrew his encircling arms, and Alice—whose figure,though flexible, had been wholly impassive—relapsed into the sameattitude as before these attempts to arouse her. Maule having shifted hisposition, her face was turned towards him slightly, but with what seemed to bea reference of her very slumber to his guidance. The wild, chimney-corner legend (which, without copying all its extravagances,my narrative essentially follows) here gives an account of some very strangebehavior on the part of Colonel Pyncheon’s portrait.
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon (The Younger)
The daguerreotypist comes to the store to offer Hepzibah help with her preparations. He congratulates Hepzibah on her endeavor, noting that this venture is a promising new beginning for her that will give her a "sense of healthy and natural effort for a purpose." Hepzibah views the situation quite differently and laments that she is no longer a lady. Holgrave counters that no Pyncheon lady has ever acted more heroically or nobly.
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At some uncertain period in the depths of night, and, as it were,through the thin veil of a dream, she was conscious of a footstep mounting thestairs heavily, but not with force and decision. The voice of Hepzibah, with ahush through it, was going up along with the footsteps; and, again, responsiveto her cousin’s voice, Phœbe heard that strange, vague murmur, whichmight be likened to an indistinct shadow of human utterance. Fewer words than before, but with the same mysterious music in them!
Enduring Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables - Salem Maritime National Historic Site (U.S - National Park Service
Enduring Hawthorne: The House of the Seven Gables - Salem Maritime National Historic Site (U.S.
Posted: Sun, 30 Jun 2019 06:23:44 GMT [source]
It seems(although Mr. Pyncheon had some hesitation in referring to stories soexceedingly absurd in their aspect) that the popular belief pointed to somemysterious connection and dependence, existing between the family of the Maulesand these vast unrealized possessions of the Pyncheons. It was an ordinarysaying that the old wizard, hanged though he was, had obtained the best end ofthe bargain in his contest with Colonel Pyncheon; inasmuch as he had gotpossession of the great Eastern claim, in exchange for an acre or two ofgarden-ground. A very aged woman, recently dead, had often used themetaphorical expression, in her fireside talk, that miles and miles of thePyncheon lands had been shovelled into Maule’s grave; which, by the bye,was but a very shallow nook, between two rocks, near the summit of GallowsHill. Again, when the lawyers were making inquiry for the missing document, itwas a by-word that it would never be found, unless in the wizard’sskeleton hand. So much weight had the shrewd lawyers assigned to these fables,that (but Mr. Pyncheon did not see fit to inform the carpenter of the fact)they had secretly caused the wizard’s grave to be searched.
Like this antiquated piece of furniture, Hepzibah creaks and groans, her joints cracking and her loud sighs filling the room with noise. Also like her furniture, or more specifically like the drawers of the dresser, Hepzibah has a hard time opening her heart and soul. She has closed herself off to the outside world and only with difficulty will she open up, even to her soon-to-arrive relative, Phoebe.
XVIII: Governor Pyncheon
Hastening down thecreaking and carpetless staircase, she found her way into the garden, gatheredsome of the most perfect of the roses, and brought them to her chamber. Several times, moreover, besides the above instance, her lady-likesensibilities were seriously infringed upon by the familiar, if not rude, tonewith which people addressed her. They evidently considered themselves notmerely her equals, but her patrons and superiors.
After a successful day in the shop, Phoebe meets Holgrave in the garden and is puzzled by his forthright manner. That night, she thinks she hears an odd voice and halting footsteps on the stairs. The shock of Judge Pyncheon’s death had a permanently invigorating andultimately beneficial effect on Clifford. There was no free breath to be drawn, withinthe sphere of so malevolent an influence. The first effect of freedom, as wehave witnessed in Clifford’s aimless flight, was a tremulousexhilaration. Subsiding from it, he did not sink into his former intellectualapathy.
Inspiration for Hawthorne
They said to themselves, perhaps, that,before his hair was gray and the crow’s-feet tracked his temples, thisnow decaying man must have stamped the impress of his features on many awoman’s heart. Thus far the Judge’s countenance had expressed mildforbearance,—grave and almost gentle deprecation of his cousin’sunbecoming violence,—free and Christian-like forgiveness of the wronginflicted by her words. But when those words were irrevocably spoken, his lookassumed sternness, the sense of power, and immitigable resolve; and this withso natural and imperceptible a change, that it seemed as if the iron man hadstood there from the first, and the meek man not at all. The effect was as whenthe light, vapory clouds, with their soft coloring, suddenly vanish from thestony brow of a precipitous mountain, and leave there the frown which you atonce feel to be eternal. Hepzibah almost adopted the insane belief that it washer old Puritan ancestor, and not the modern Judge, on whom she had just beenwreaking the bitterness of her heart. Never did a man show stronger proof ofthe lineage attributed to him than Judge Pyncheon, at this crisis, by hisunmistakable resemblance to the picture in the inner room.
These last, if they ever heard of the Pyncheon title, wouldhave laughed at the idea of any man’s asserting a right—on thestrength of mouldy parchments, signed with the faded autographs of governorsand legislators long dead and forgotten—to the lands which they or theirfathers had wrested from the wild hand of nature by their own sturdy toil. Thisimpalpable claim, therefore, resulted in nothing more solid than to cherish,from generation to generation, an absurd delusion of family importance, whichall along characterized the Pyncheons. 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.
Anon, there was an encounter, just at the door-step, betwixt two laboring men,as their rough voices denoted them to be. After some slight talk about theirown affairs, one of them chanced to notice the shop-window, and directed theother’s attention to it. Accordingly, with such a tramp of his ponderous riding-boots as might of itselfhave been audible in the remotest of the seven gables, he advanced to the door,which the servant pointed out, and made its new panels reecho with a loud, freeknock.
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Secret Rooms Revealed At The House Of The Seven Gables.
Posted: Tue, 16 Feb 2016 08:00:00 GMT [source]
In the frontgable, under the impending brow of the second story, and contiguous to thestreet, was a shop-door, divided horizontally in the midst, and with a windowfor its upper segment, such as is often seen in dwellings of a somewhat ancientdate. This same shop-door had been a subject of no slight mortification to thepresent occupant of the august Pyncheon House, as well as to some of herpredecessors. The matter is disagreeably delicate to handle; but, since thereader must needs be let into the secret, he will please to understand, that,about a century ago, the head of the Pyncheons found himself involved inserious financial difficulties. The fellow (gentleman, as he styled himself)can hardly have been other than a spurious interloper; for, instead of seekingoffice from the king or the royal governor, or urging his hereditary claim toEastern lands, he bethought himself of no better avenue to wealth than bycutting a shop-door through the side of his ancestral residence. It was thecustom of the time, indeed, for merchants to store their goods and transactbusiness in their own dwellings. But there was something pitifully small inthis old Pyncheon’s mode of setting about his commercial operations; itwas whispered, that, with his own hands, all beruffled as they were, he used togive change for a shilling, and would turn a half-penny twice over, to makesure that it was a good one.
She seems to have put aside the miniature, and is standing again before thetoilet-glass. A few more footsteps to and fro;and here, at last,—with another pitiful sigh, like a gust of chill, dampwind out of a long-closed vault, the door of which has accidentally been set,ajar—here comes Miss Hepzibah Pyncheon! Forth she steps into the dusky,time-darkened passage; a tall figure, clad in black silk, with a long andshrunken waist, feeling her way towards the stairs like a near-sighted person,as in truth she is. A descriptive paragraph or two, treating of the seven-gabled mansion in itsmore recent aspect, will bring this preliminary chapter to a close. The streetin which it upreared its venerable peaks has long ceased to be a fashionablequarter of the town; so that, though the old edifice was surrounded byhabitations of modern date, they were mostly small, built entirely of wood, andtypical of the most plodding uniformity of common life. Doubtless, however, thewhole story of human existence may be latent in each of them, but with nopicturesqueness, externally, that can attract the imagination or sympathy toseek it there.
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