Twice-told tales

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CONTENTS.

——

THE HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES.

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XX Tae Froweror Epex . 2. «Te

XXL Tue Departure . . - «eT

THE SNOW-IMAGE AND OTHER TWICE-TOLD

Istropccrorr Norz io tar a” Ce ah) Se
Prerace er)

+ 317

THE
HOUSE OF THE SEVEN GABLES

A BOMANCE.

THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY. 48

the very timbers were oozy, as with the moisture of
abeart. It was itself like a great human heart, with
a life of its own, and full of rich and sombre reminis-
cences.

The deep projection of the second story gave the
house such a meditative look, that you could not pass
it without the idea that it had secrets to keep, and an
eventful history to moralize upon. In front, just on
the edge of the unpaved sidewalk, grew the Pyncheon
Elm, which, in reference to such trees as one usually
meets with, might well be termed gigantic. It had
been planted by a great-grandson of the first Pyn-
cheon, and, though now fourscore years of age, or
perhaps nearer a hundred, was still in its strong and
broad maturity, throwing its shadow from side to side
of the street, overtopping the seven gables, and sweep-
ing the whole black roof with its pendent foliage. It
gave beauty to the old edifice, and seemed to make
it a part of nature. The street having been widened
about forty years ago, the front gable was now pre
cisely on a line with it. On either side extended a
Fuinous wooden fence of open lattice-work, through
which could be seen a grassy yard, and, especially in
the angles of the building. an enormous fertility of
burdocks, with leaves, it is hardly an exaggeration to
say. two or three feet long. Behind the house there
appeared to be a garden, which undoubtedly had once
been extensive, but was now infringed upon by other
enclosures, or shut in by habitations and outbuildings
that stood on another street. It would be an omission,
trifling, indeed, but unpardonable, were we to forget
the green moss that had long since gathered over the
Projections of the windows, and on the slopes of the
eof ; nor must we fail to direct the reader's eye to

THE OLD PYNCHEON FAMILY. 45

hereditary claim to Eastern lands, he bethought him-
self of no better avenue to wealth than by cutting a
shop-door through the side of his ancestral residence.
It was the custom of the time, indeed, for merchants
to store their goods and transact business in their own
dwellings. But there was something pitifully small
in this old Pyncheon’s mode of setting about his com-
mercial operations ; it was whispered, that, with his
own hands, all beruffled as they were, he used to give
ehange for a shilling, and would turn a half-penny
twice over, to make sure that it was a good one. Be-
yond all question, he had the blood of a petty huckster
in his veins, through whatever channel it may have
found its way there.

Immediately on his death, the shop-door had been
locked, bolted, and barred, and, down to the period of
our story, had probably never once been opened. The
old counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the little
shop remained just as he had left them. It used to
be affirmed, that the dead shop-keeper, in a white wig,
a faded velvet coat, an apron at his waist, and his
ruffles carefully turned back from his wrists, might
be seen through the chinks of the shutters, any night
of the year, ransacking his till, or poring over the
dingy pages of his day-book. From the look of un+
utterable woe upon his face, it appeared to be his
doom to spend eternity in a vain effort to make his
accounts balance.

And now— in a very humble way, as will be seen—
we proceed to oper our narrative.

THE PYNCHEON GARDEN. 191

the old family residence with the faithful Hepzibah,
and your long summer afternoons with Phebe, and
these Sabbath festivals with Uncle Venner and the
daguerreotypist, deserve to be called happiness! Why
not? If not the thing iteelf, it is marvelloualy like it,
and the more so for that ethereal and intangible qual-
ity which causes it all to vanish at too close an intro-
spection. Take it, therefore, while you may! Mur
mur not, — question not, — but make the most of it!

ALICE PYNCHEON. 251

would have bitten his own heart in twain, — the dark-
est and wofullest man that ever walked behind a
corpse! He meant to humble Alice, not to kill her ;
but he had taken a woman’s delicate soul into his rude
gripe, to play with — and she was dead!

PHGBE'S GOOD-BY. 265

Thus parted the old man and the rosy girl; and
Phebe took the wings of the morning, and was soon
flitting almost as rapidly away as if endowed with the
aerial locomotion of the angels to whom Uncle Venner
had so graciously compared her. ~

XVI.
CLIFFORD'S CHAMBER.

Never had the old house appeared so dismal to
poor Hepzibah as when she departed on that wretched
errand. There was a strange aspect in it. As she
trode along the foot-worn passages, and opened one
crazy door after another, and ascended the creaking
staircase, she gazed wistfully and fearfully around. It
would have been no marvel, to her excited mind, if,
behind or beside her, there had been the rustle of dead
people's garments, or pale visages awaiting her on the
landing-place above. Her nerves were set all ajar by
the scene of passion and terror through which she had
just struggled. Her colloquy with Judge Pyncheon,
who so perfectly represented the person and attributes
of the founder of the family, had called back the dreary
past. It weighed upon her heart. Whatever she had
heard, from legendary aunts and grandmothers, con-
cerning the good or evil fortunes of the Pyncheons, —
stories which had heretofore been kept warm in her
remembrance by the chimney-corner glow that was as-
sociated with them, — now recurred to her, sombre.
ghastly, cold, like most passages of family history,
when brooded over in melancholy mood. The whole
seemed little else but a series of calamity, reproducing
itself in successive generations, with one general hue,
and varying in little, save the outline. But Hepzibah
now felt as if the Judge, and Clifford, and herself, —

CLIFFORD’S CHAMBER. 299

come; make haste! or he will start up, like Giant
Despair in pursuit of ‘Christian and Hopeful, and
éateh us yet!”

‘As they passed into the street, Clifford directed
Hepzibah’s attention to something on one of the posts
of the front door. It was merely the initials of his
own name, which, with somewhat of his characteristic
grace about the forms of the letters, he had cut there
when a boy. The brother and sister departed, and
left Judge Pyncheon sitting in the old home of his
forefathers, all by himself ; so heavy and lumpish that
we can liken him to nothing better than a defunct
nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its
wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of
the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might!

THE FLIGHT OF TWO OWLS. 313

“ Then there is electricity, — the demon, the angel,
the mighty physical power, the all-pervading intelli-
gence!” exclaimed Clifford. “Is that a humbug, too?
Is it a fact — or have I dreamt it — that, by means of
electricity, the world of matter has become a great
nerve, vibrating thousands of miles in a breathless
point of time? Rather, the round globe is a vast
head, a brain, instinct with intelligence! Or, shall
we say, it is itself a thought, nothing but thought,
and no longer the substance which we deemed it!”

“Tf you mean the telegraph,” said the old gentle-
man, glancing his eye toward its wire, alongside the
rail-track, “it is an excellent thing, —that is, of
course, if the speculators in cotton and politics don’t
get possession of it. A great thing, indeed, sir, par-
ticularly as regards the detection of bank-robbers and
murderers.”

“I don’t quite like it, in that point of view,” replied
Clifford. “ A bank-robber, and what you call a mur-
derer. likewise, has his rights, which men of enlight-
ened humanity and conscience should regard in so
much the more liberal spirit, because the bulk of so-
ciety is prone to controvert their existence. An al-
most spiritual medium, like the electric telegraph,
should be consecrated to high, deep, joyful, and holy
missions. Lovers, day by day, — hour by hour, if so
often moved to do it, — might send their heart-throbs
from Maine to Florida, with some such words as these,
‘I love you forever!’ —‘My heart runs over with
love!’ —‘I love you more than I can!’ and, again, at
the next message, ‘I have lived an hour longer, and
Jove you twice as much!’ Or, when a good man has
departed, his distant friend should be conscious of an
electric thrill, as from the world of happy spirits, tel

GOVERNOR PYNCHEON. 335

bridge of his nose, towards the would-be chief-magis-
trate’s wide-open eyes! Canst thou not brush the fly
away? Art thou too sluggish? Thou man, that hadst
80 many busy projects yesterday! Art thou too weak,
that wast so powerful? Not brush away a fly? Nay,
then, we give thee up!

And hark! the shop-bell rings. After hours like
these latter ones, through which we have borne our
heavy tale, it is good to be made sensible that there is
a living world, and that even this old, lonely mansion
retains some manner of connection with it.. We breathe
more freely, emerging from Judge Pyncheon’s pres-
ence into the street before the Seven Gables.

THE FLOWER OF EDEN. 365

in truth, they were lingering in the entry, with the list-
lessness of an accomplished purpose, uncertain what
to do next, — when Phebe ran to meet them. On be-
holding her, Hepzibah burst into tears. With all her
might, abe had staggered onward beneath the burden
of grief and responsibility, until now that it was safe
to fling it down. Indeed, she had not energy to fling
it down, but had ceased to uphold it, and suffered
it to press her to the earth. Clifford appeared the
stronger of the two.

“ It is our own little Phoebe !— Ah! and Holgrave
with her,” exclaimed he, with a glance of keen and
delicate insight, and a smile, beautiful, kind, but mel-
ancholy. “I thought of you both, as we came down
the street, and beheld Alice’s Posies in full bloom.
And so the flower of Eden has bloomed, likewise, in
this old, darksome house to-day.”

INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 3883

he took a trip through western Massachusetts, by way
of enlarging his horizon. In the Note-Books are some-
what extended accounts of the people he encountered
there, or of other matters which struck him ; and it is
very instructive to notice how he has transferred sun-
dry objects and persons bodily — with but few changes
from the wording of his journals — into the romantic
fabric of “Ethan Brand” (in the Snow-Image vol-
ume). Such are the broken-down and crippled lawyer
who has taken to soap-boiling ; the travelling German
peep-show proprietor ; and even an old dog who had a
whimsical habit of pursuing his own tail. He had seen
them in the neighborhood of Pittsfield, only a few miles
from Lenox ; and on coming to Lenox, after an inter-
val of thirteen years since his former stay in the Berk-
shire Valley, his interest in this old “ material” may
have been revived.

The circumstance that Hawthorne was known in col-
lege as “Oberon,” and that he burned the manuscript
of his first book, indicate clearly on what foundation
the sketch entitled “The Devil In Manuscript,” in
the present series, was based. It refers, obviously, to
his own experience.

G.P.L.

PREFACE. 889

T have nothing further, I think, to say; unless it be
that the public need not dread my again trespassing
on its kindness, with any more of these musty and
mouse-nibbled leaves of old periodicals, transformed,
by the magic arts of my friendly publishers, into a
new book. These are the last. Or, if a few still re-
main, they are either such as no paternal partiality
could induce the author to think worth preserving, or
else they have got into some very dark and dusty hid-
ing-place, quite out of my own remembrance, and
whence no researches can avail to unearth them. So
there let them rest.

Very sincerely yours,
N.H.

Lxwox, November 1, 1851.

~ see what a quantity of snow the cl
in on their feet! It has made qui
fore the stove. Pray tell Dora to
od vop it up!”

MAIN STREET. 457

office it is to‘cry the hour at the street-corners, rings
the last peal upom his hand-bell, and goes wearily
homewards, with the owls, the bats, and other crea-
tares of the night. Lattices are thrust back on their
hinges, as if the town were opening its eyes, in the
summer morning. Forth stumbles the still drowsy
cowherd, with his horn ; putting which to his lips, it
emits a bellowing bray, impossible to be represented
in the picture, but which reaches the pricked-up ears
of every cow in the settlement, and tells her that the
dewy pasture-hour is come. House after house awakes,
and sends the smoke up curling from its chimney, like
frosty breath from living nostrils; and as those white
wreaths of smoke, though impregnated with earthy ad-
mixtures, climb skyward, so, from each dwelling, does
the morning worship — its spiritual essence bearing
up its human imperfection — find its way to the heav-
enly Father's throne.

The breakfast-hour being passed, the inhabitants do
not, as usual, go to their fields or workshops, but re-
main within doors; or perhaps walk the street, with
a grave sobriety, yet a disengaged and unburdened
aspect, that belongs neither to a holiday nor a Sab-
bath. And, indeed, this passing day is neither, nor
is it a common week-day, although partaking of all
the three. It is the Thursday Lecture: an institution

* which New England has long ago relinquished, and
almost forgotten, yet which it would have been better
to retain, as bearing relations to both the spiritual
and ordinary life, and bringing each acquainted with
the other. The tokens of its observance, however,
which here meet our eyes, are of rather a question-
able cast. It is, in one sense, a day of public shame ;
the day on which transgressors, who have made them-

“ “Then give me mine,”
out his palm. “I said t
prove a humbug, and 0 it
over my quarter!”

& profound bow, « Be
Your arrival, and trust
Fine town here, sir, bea!

Robin replied to the oon
an 288umption of confidene
Telative, My honest frien:
Xie Point to patroniat i

MY KINSMAN, MAJOR MOLINEUX. 641

Robin started, and withdrew his arm from the stone
post to which he had instinctively clung, as the living
stream rolled by him. His cheek was somewhat pale,
and his eye not quite as lively as in the earlier part of
the evening.

“ Will you be kind enough to show me the way to
the ferry?” said he, after a moment’s pause.

“You have, then, adopted a new subject of in-
quiry?” observed his companion, with a smile.

“ Why, yes, sir,” replied Robin, rather dryly.
“ Thanks to you, and to my other friends, I have at
last met my kinsman, and he will scarce desire to see
my face again. I begin to .grow weary of a town life,
sir. Will you show me the way to the ferry?”

“No, my good friend Robin, — not to-night, at
least,” said the gentleman. “Some few days hence,
if you wish it, I will speed you on your journey. Or,
if you prefer to remain with us, perhaps, as you are a
shrewd youth, you may rise in the world without the
help of your kinsman, Major Molineux.”

vou. 1. a