Produced by Judith Boss. HTML version by Al Haines.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES
by
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTORY NOTE AUTHOR'S PREFACE I. THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY II. THE LITTLE SHOP-WINDOW III. THE FIRST CUSTOMER IV. A DAY BEHIND THE COUNTER V. MAY AND NOVEMBER VI. MAULE'S WELL VII. THE GUEST VIII. THE PYNCHEON OF TO-DAY IX. CLIFFORD AND PHOEBE X. THE PYNCHEON GARDEN XI. THE ARCHED WINDOW XII. THE DAGUERREOTYPIST XIII. ALICE PYNCHEON XIV. PHOEBE'S GOOD-BYE XV. THE SCOWL AND SMILE XVI. CLIFFORD'S CHAMBER XVII. THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS XVIII. GOVERNOR PYNCHEON XIX. ALICE'S POSIES XX. THE FLOWER OF EDEN XXI. THE DEPARTURE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE.
THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.
IN September of the year during the February of which Hawthorne hadcompleted "The Scarlet Letter," he began "The House of the SevenGables." Meanwhile, he had removed from Salem to Lenox, in BerkshireCounty, Massachusetts, where he occupied with his family a small redwooden house, still standing at the date of this edition, near theStockbridge Bowl.
"I sha'n't have the new story ready by November," he explained to hispublisher, on the 1st of October, "for I am never good for anything inthe literary way till after the first autumnal frost, which hassomewhat such an effect on my imagination that it does on the foliagehere about me-multiplying and brightening its hues." But by vigorousapplication he was able to complete the new work about the middle ofthe January following.
Since research has disclosed the manner in which the romance isinterwoven with incidents from the history of the Hawthorne family,"The House of the Seven Gables" has acquired an interest apart fromthat by which it first appealed to the public. John Hathorne (as thename was then spelled), the great-grandfather of Nathaniel Hawthorne,was a magistrate at Salem in the latter part of the seventeenthcentury, and officiated at the famous trials for witchcraft held there.It is of record that he used peculiar severity towards a certain womanwho was among the accused; and the husband of this woman prophesiedthat God would take revenge upon his wife's persecutors. Thiscircumstance doubtless furnished a hint for that piece of tradition inthe book which represents a Pyncheon of a former generation as havingpersecuted one Maule, who declared that God would give his enemy "bloodto drink." It became a conviction with the Hawthorne family that acurse had been pronounced upon its members, which continued in force inthe time of the romancer; a conviction perhaps derived from therecorded prophecy of the injured woman's husband, just mentioned; and,here again, we have a correspondence with Maule's malediction in thestory. Furthermore, there occurs in the "American Note-Books" (August27, 1837), a reminiscence of the author's family, to the followingeffect. Philip English, a character well-known in early Salem annals,was among those who suffered from John Hathorne's magisterialharshness, and he maintained in consequence a lasting feud with the oldPuritan official. But at his death English left daughters, one of whomis said to have married the son of Justice John Hathorne, whom Englishhad declared he would never forgive. It is scarcely necessary to pointout how clearly this foreshadows the final union of those hereditaryfoes, the Pyncheons and Maules, through the marriage of Phoebe andHolgrave. The romance, however, describes the Maules as possessing someof the traits known to have been characteristic of the Hawthornes: forexample, "so long as any of the race were to be found, they had beenmarked out from other men--not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line,but with an effect that was felt rather than spoken of--by anhereditary characteristic of reserve." Thus, while the generalsuggestion of the Hawthorne line and its fortunes was followed in theromance, the Pyncheons taking the place of the author's family, certaindistinguishing marks of the Hawthornes were assigned to the imaginaryMaule posterity.
There are one or two other points which indicate Hawthorne's method ofbasing his compositions, the result in the main of pure invention, onthe solid ground of particular facts. Allusion is made, in the firstchapter of the "Seven Gables," to a grant of lands in Waldo County,Maine, owned by the Pyncheon family. In the "American Note-Books"there is an entry, dated August 12, 1837, which speaks of theRevolutionary general, Knox, and his land-grant in Waldo County, byvirtue of which the owner had hoped to establish an estate on theEnglish plan, with a tenantry to make it profitable for him. Anincident of much greater importance in the story is the supposed murderof one of the Pyncheons by his nephew, to whom we are introduced asClifford Pyncheon. In all probability Hawthorne connected with this,in his mind, the murder of Mr. White, a wealthy gentleman of Salem,killed by a man whom his nephew had hired. This took place a few yearsafter Hawthorne's graduation from college, and was one of thecelebrated cases of the day, Daniel Webster taking part prominently inthe trial. But it should be observed here that such resemblances asthese between sundry elements in the work of Hawthorne's fancy anddetails of reality are only fragmentary, and are rearranged to suit theauthor's purposes.
In the same way he has made his description of Hepzibah Pyncheon'sseven-gabled mansion conform so nearly to several old dwellingsformerly or still extant in Salem, that strenuous efforts have beenmade to fix upon some one of them as the veritable edifice of theromance. A paragraph in the opening chapter has perhaps assisted thisdelusion that there must have been a single original House of the SevenGables, framed by flesh-and-blood carpenters; for it runs thus:--
"Familiar as it stands in the writer's recollection--for it has been anobject of curiosity with him from boyhood, both as a specimen of thebest and stateliest architecture of a long-past epoch, and as the sceneof events more full of interest perhaps than those of a gray feudalcastle--familiar as it stands, in its rusty old age, it is thereforeonly the more difficult to imagine the bright novelty with which itfirst caught the sunshine."
Hundreds of pilgrims annually visit a house in Salem, belonging to onebranch of the Ingersoll family of that place, which is stoutlymaintained to have been the model for Hawthorne's visionary dwelling.Others have supposed that the now vanished house of the identicalPhilip English, whose blood, as we have already noticed, became mingledwith that of the Hawthornes, supplied the pattern; and still a thirdbuilding, known as the Curwen mansion, has been declared the onlygenuine establishment. Notwithstanding persistent popular belief, theauthenticity of all these must positively be denied; although it ispossible that isolated reminiscences of all three may have blended withthe ideal image in the mind of Hawthorne. He, it will be seen, remarksin the Preface, alluding to himself in the third person, that he trustsnot to be condemned for "laying out a street that infringes uponnobody's private rights... and building a house of materials long inuse for constructing castles in the air." More than this, he stated topersons still living that the house of the romance was not copied fromany actual edifice, but was simply a general reproduction of a style ofarchitecture belonging to colonial days, examples of which survivedinto the period of his youth, but have since been radically modified ordestroyed. Here, as elsewhere, he exercised the liberty of a creativemind to heighten the probability of his pictures without confininghimself to a literal description of something he had seen.
While Hawthorne remained at Lenox, and during the composition of thisromance, various other literary personages settled or stayed for a timein the vicinity; among them, Herman Melville, whose intercourseHawthorne greatly enjoyed, Henry James, Sr., Doctor Holmes, J. T.Headley, James Russell Lowell, Edwin P. Whipple, Frederika Bremer, andJ. T. Fields; so that there was no lack of intellectual society inthe midst of the beautiful and inspiring mountain scenery of the place."In the afternoons, nowadays," he records, shortly before beginning thework, "this val
ley in which I dwell seems like a vast basin filled withgolden Sunshine as with wine;" and, happy in the companionship of hiswife and their three children, he led a simple, refined, idyllic life,despite the restrictions of a scanty and uncertain income. A letterwritten by Mrs. Hawthorne, at this time, to a member of her family,gives incidentally a glimpse of the scene, which may properly find aplace here. She says: "I delight to think that you also can lookforth, as I do now, upon a broad valley and a fine amphitheater ofhills, and are about to watch the stately ceremony of the sunset fromyour piazza. But you have not this lovely lake, nor, I suppose, thedelicate purple mist which folds these slumbering mountains in airyveils. Mr. Hawthorne has been lying down in the sun shine, slightlyfleckered with the shadows of a tree, and Una and Julian have beenmaking him look like the mighty Pan, by covering his chin and breastwith long grass-blades, that looked like a verdant and venerablebeard." The pleasantness and peace of his surroundings and of hismodest home, in Lenox, may be taken into account as harmonizing withthe mellow serenity of the romance then produced. Of the work, when itappeared in the early spring of 1851, he wrote to Horatio Bridge thesewords, now published for the first time:--
"'The House of the Seven Gables' in my opinion, is better than 'TheScarlet Letter:' but I should not wonder if I had refined upon theprincipal character a little too much for popular appreciation, nor ifthe romance of the book should be somewhat at odds with the humble andfamiliar scenery in which I invest it. But I feel that portions of itare as good as anything I can hope to write, and the publisher speaksencouragingly of its success."
From England, especially, came many warm expressions of praise,--a factwhich Mrs. Hawthorne, in a private letter, commented on as thefulfillment of a possibility which Hawthorne, writing in boyhood to hismother, had looked forward to. He had asked her if she would not likehim to become an author and have his books read in England.
G. P. L.
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