The House of the Seven Gables: Full Book Summary
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Human finger was hardly known to have touched its chords sincethe days of Alice Pyncheon, who had learned the sweet accomplishment of melodyin Europe. Hepzibah fancied that there was something peculiar in her venerablefriend’s look and tone; insomuch, that she gazed into his face withconsiderable earnestness, endeavoring to discover what secret meaning, if any,might be lurking there. Individuals whose affairs have reached an utterlydesperate crisis almost invariably keep themselves alive with hopes, so muchthe more airily magnificent as they have the less of solid matter within theirgrasp whereof to mould any judicious and moderate expectation of good. Thus,all the while Hepzibah was perfecting the scheme of her little shop, she hadcherished an unacknowledged idea that some harlequin trick of fortune wouldintervene in her favor. For example, an uncle—who had sailed for Indiafifty years before, and never been heard of since—might yet return, andadopt her to be the comfort of his very extreme and decrepit age, and adorn herwith pearls, diamonds, and Oriental shawls and turbans, and make her theultimate heiress of his unreckonable riches. But, for reasons the most imperative, she could not yield tohis request.
By Nathaniel HawthorneIntroduction by Katherine HoweAfterword by Brenda Wineapple
Let us, therefore,—whatever his defectsof nature and education, and in spite of his scorn for creeds andinstitutions,—concede to the daguerreotypist the rare and high quality ofreverence for another’s individuality. Let us allow him integrity, also,forever after to be confided in; since he forbade himself to twine that onelink more which might have rendered his spell over Phœbe indissoluble. The carpenter was standing erect in front ofAlice’s chair, and pointing his finger towards the maiden with anexpression of triumphant power, the limits of which could not be defined, as,indeed, its scope stretched vaguely towards the unseen and the infinite.
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon
In the late 17th century, Colonel Jaffrey Pyncheon falsely accused a poor carpenter, Matthew Maule, of witchcraft. The family has lived during the next 160 years desperately afraid of the "Maule curse". (the younger) The grandson of the original Matthew Maule and the son of Thomas Maule, who built the house of the seven gables, the young Matthew Maule nurses a powerful grudge against the Pyncheon family. The young Maule’s imprudence with his hypnotic powers unintentionally causes the death of young Alice Pyncheon.
I: The Old Pyncheon Family
There had been something soinnately characteristic in this look, that all the dusky years, and the burdenof unfit calamity which had fallen upon him, did not suffice utterly to destroyit. Throughout this preparation there had been a constant tremor inHepzibah’s frame; an agitation so powerful that Phœbe could see thequivering of her gaunt shadow, as thrown by the firelight on the kitchen wall,or by the sunshine on the parlor floor. Its manifestations were so various, andagreed so little with one another, that the girl knew not what to make of it.Sometimes it seemed an ecstasy of delight and happiness. At such moments,Hepzibah would fling out her arms, and infold Phœbe in them, and kiss hercheek as tenderly as ever her mother had; she appeared to do so by aninevitable impulse, and as if her bosom were oppressed with tenderness, ofwhich she must needs pour out a little, in order to gain breathing-room. Towards Phœbe, as we have said, she was affectionate,—fartenderer than ever before, in their brief acquaintance, except for that onekiss on the preceding night,—yet with a continually recurring pettishnessand irritability. She would speak sharply to her; then, throwing aside all thestarched reserve of her ordinary manner, ask pardon, and the next instant renewthe just-forgiven injury.
No longer masculine or mature, he is characterized by the narrator as feminine and childlike. When readers first meet Clifford, he is described as elderly and spiritless. The narrator writes "It was the spirit of the man, that could not walk" as though he "must have suffered some miserable wrong from its earthly experience." Early in the novel, Clifford is enamored of the past and watches wistfully from the arched window as modern inventions pass. He wishes to recover the life that is symbolized by the "antique fashions of the street." His past, however, is lost.
The House of the Seven Gables - Trailers From Hell
The House of the Seven Gables.
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As one of her nearest kindred, she had naturallybetaken herself to Hepzibah, with no idea of forcing herself on hercousin’s protection, but only for a visit of a week or two, which mightbe indefinitely extended, should it prove for the happiness of both. Somebody, at all events, was passing from the farthest interior of the omnibustowards its entrance. A gentleman alighted; but it was only to offer his handto a young girl whose slender figure, nowise needing such assistance, nowlightly descended the steps, and made an airy little jump from the final one tothe sidewalk. She rewarded her cavalier with a smile, the cheery glow of whichwas seen reflected on his own face as he reentered the vehicle. The girl thenturned towards the House of the Seven Gables, to the door of which,meanwhile,—not the shop-door, but the antique portal,—theomnibus-man had carried a light trunk and a bandbox. First giving a sharp rapof the old iron knocker, he left his passenger and her luggage at thedoor-step, and departed.
As the brother and sister make their way home, Hawthorne turns the reader's attention to young Holgrave, who shares the house of the seven gables. It is interesting to note that although Holgrave lives in this house, he does so only precariously. He stays in a wing of the house that is shut off from the main portion by doors, locks, and deadbolts.
Governor Pyncheon
These hours of drowsiheadwere the season of the old gentlewoman’s attendance on her brother, whilePhœbe took charge of the shop; an arrangement which the public speedilyunderstood, and evinced their decided preference of the younger shopwoman bythe multiplicity of their calls during her administration of affairs. Dinnerover, Hepzibah took her knitting-work,—a long stocking of gray yarn, forher brother’s winter wear,—and with a sigh, and a scowl ofaffectionate farewell to Clifford, and a gesture enjoining watchfulness onPhœbe, went to take her seat behind the counter. It was now the younggirl’s turn to be the nurse,—the guardian, the playmate,—orwhatever is the fitter phrase,—of the gray-haired man.
The Pyncheon of To-day
Now, probably, they were felt to be in keeping with the dismal andbitter weather, and therefore did not stand out in strong relief, as if the sunwere shining on them, but melted into the gray gloom and were forgotten as soonas gone. It being her first day of complete estrangement from rural objects, Phœbefound an unexpected charm in this little nook of grass, and foliage, andaristocratic flowers, and plebeian vegetables. The eye of Heaven seemed to lookdown into it pleasantly, and with a peculiar smile, as if glad to perceive thatnature, elsewhere overwhelmed, and driven out of the dusty town, had here beenable to retain a breathing-place.
This was observablewhen one of those Italian boys (who are rather a modern feature of our streets)came along with his barrel-organ, and stopped under the wide and cool shadowsof the elm. With his quick professional eye he took note of the two faceswatching him from the arched window, and, opening his instrument, began toscatter its melodies abroad. In all their variety of occupation,—the cobbler, the blacksmith, thesoldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with his bottle, the milk-maidsitting by her cow—this fortunate little society might truly be said toenjoy a harmonious existence, and to make life literally a dance.
Old Hepzibah Pyncheon lives in her family's decaying mansion, a reportedly cursed house built about 200 years earlier. The Pyncheon family no longer has the riches it once did, and Hepzibah struggles to support herself and her brother Clifford. Their niece Phoebe arrives and asks to live with them, bringing hope back into the house. But another visitor—the conniving Judge Pyncheon—launches his plot to uncover a lost family fortune.
He is not a man of great wealth or power, yet he stands up against Colonel Pyncheon and refuses to give him his land. As a result, Maule is put on trial for practicing witchcraft and is ultimately convicted and hung. Just before his death, Maule curses Colonel Pyncheon, who watches the proceedings from horseback. Maule says, "God will give him blood to drink." When Pyncheon dies mysteriously after building a home on Maule's land, the curse is believed by some to be the reason.
There appeared to be qualitiesin Holgrave, such as, in a country where everything is free to the hand thatcan grasp it, could hardly fail to put some of the world’s prizes withinhis reach. 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.
For the rest ofthe day, the more timid went whole streets about, for the sake of avoiding theSeven Gables; while the bolder signalized their hardihood by challenging theircomrades to race past the mansion at full speed. A foot was heard scraping itself on thethreshold, and thence somewhat ponderously stepping on the floor. Hepzibahdelayed a moment, while muffling herself in a faded shawl, which had been herdefensive armor in a forty years’ warfare against the east wind. Acharacteristic sound, however,—neither a cough nor a hem, but a kind ofrumbling and reverberating spasm in somebody’s capacious depth ofchest;—impelled her to hurry forward, with that aspect of fiercefaint-heartedness so common to women in cases of perilous emergency.
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