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It was very faint and low; so indistinct thatthere seemed but half a will to shape out the words, and too undefined apurport to be intelligible. —his consciencenever doubted it;—and, little more than a whisper to his ear, it was adismal shriek, and long reechoed so, in the region round his heart! It was then hisdaughter’s will, in opposition to his own, that the experiment should befully tried. And was itnot for her sake far more than for his own that he desired its success? Thatlost parchment once restored, the beautiful Alice Pyncheon, with the rich dowrywhich he could then bestow, might wed an English duke or a Germanreigning-prince, instead of some New England clergyman or lawyer!
The most beautiful Los Angeles churches and temples
No less than five persons, during the forenoon, inquired for ginger-beer, orroot-beer, or any drink of a similar brewage, and, obtaining nothing of thekind, went off in an exceedingly bad humor. Three of them left the door open,and the other two pulled it so spitefully in going out that the little bellplayed the very deuce with Hepzibah’s nerves. A round, bustling,fire-ruddy housewife of the neighborhood burst breathless into the shop,fiercely demanding yeast; and when the poor gentlewoman, with her cold shynessof manner, gave her hot customer to understand that she did not keep thearticle, this very capable housewife took upon herself to administer a regularrebuke. 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. Theold counter, shelves, and other fixtures of the little shop remained just as hehad left them.
The Arched Window
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. He vanished; and Phœbe, lingering a moment, saw a glimmering light, and thenthe steady beam of a lamp, in a chamber of the gable.
by Nathaniel Hawthorne
It was itself likea great human heart, with a life of its own, and full of rich and sombrereminiscences. Maule’s Lane, or Pyncheon Street, as it were now more decorous to callit, was thronged, at the appointed hour, as with a congregation on its way tochurch. All, as they approached, looked upward at the imposing edifice, whichwas henceforth to assume its rank among the habitations of mankind.
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That night, she thinks she hears an odd voice and halting footsteps on the stairs. Even Phoebe’s presence cannot free Clifford and Hepzibah from the terror inspired by a visit from their cousin, Judge Pyncheon. He greets Hepzibah warmly and offers her financial support, but she furiously blocks the Judge’s way into the house, while, from inside, Clifford begs him to go away. Even the normally unflappable Phoebe experiences a moment of revulsion when the Judge greets her.
With a ready tact, the result ofever-active and wholesome sensibility, she discerned what was good for him, anddid it. Whatever was morbid in his mind and experience she ignored; and therebykept their intercourse healthy, by the incautious, but, as it were,heaven-directed freedom of her whole conduct. The sick in mind, and, perhaps,in body, are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so by the manifold reflectionof their disease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of thoseabout them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of their own breath, ininfinite repetition. She impregnated it, too, not with a wild-flower scent,—for wildnesswas no trait of hers,—but with the perfume of garden-roses, pinks, andother blossoms of much sweetness, which nature and man have consented togetherin making grow from summer to summer, and from century to century. Such aflower was Phœbe in her relation with Clifford, and such the delight that heinhaled from her.
” He put intoher hand a daguerreotype; the same that he had shown her at their firstinterview in the garden, and which so strikingly brought out the hard andrelentless traits of the original. There being no answer to several repetitions of the summons, Ned began to growimpatient; and his little pot of passion quickly boiling over, he picked up astone, with a naughty purpose to fling it through the window; at the same timeblubbering and sputtering with wrath. A man—one of two who happened to bepassing by—caught the urchin’s arm. As forhim that has died to-day, his morrow will be the resurrection morn.
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.
The House of the Seven Gables - Destination Salem
The House of the Seven Gables.
Posted: Wed, 17 Oct 2018 04:33:29 GMT [source]
Continually, as we may express it, he faded away out ofhis place; or, in other words, his mind and consciousness took their departure,leaving his wasted, gray, and melancholy figure—a substantial emptiness,a material ghost—to occupy his seat at table. Again, after a blankmoment, there would be a flickering taper-gleam in his eyeballs. It betokenedthat his spiritual part had returned, and was doing its best to kindle theheart’s household fire, and light up intellectual lamps in the dark andruinous mansion, where it was doomed to be a forlorn inhabitant. Soon, with a deep sigh, she put aside the savory volume, and inquired of Phœbewhether old Speckle, as she called one of the hens, had laid an egg thepreceding day. Phœbe ran to see, but returned without the expected treasure inher hand.
Holding bythe door-handle, he peeped through a crevice of the curtain, and saw that theinner door, communicating with the passage towards the parlor, was closed. As regards Judge Pyncheon’s invisibility, however, that matter will soonbe remedied. Through its panes, moreover, we dimly catch the sweep of thedark, clustering foliage outside, fluttering with a constant irregularity ofmovement, and letting in a peep of starlight, now here, now there.
With the cool hardihood that always pertained to him,the young man continued his search of the drawers, and found a will, of recentdate, in favor of Clifford,—which he destroyed,—and an older one,in his own favor, which he suffered to remain. But before retiring, Jaffreybethought himself of the evidence, in these ransacked drawers, that some onehad visited the chamber with sinister purposes. In the very presence of the dead man,therefore, he laid a scheme that should free himself at the expense ofClifford, his rival, for whose character he had at once a contempt and arepugnance.
If wemistake not, moreover, a certain quality of nervousness had become more or lessmanifest, even in so solid a specimen of Puritan descent as the gentleman nowunder discussion. As one of its effects, it bestowed on his countenance aquicker mobility than the old Englishman’s had possessed, and keenervivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something, on which these acuteendowments seemed to act like dissolving acids. This process, for aught weknow, may belong to the great system of human progress, which, with everyascending footstep, as it diminishes the necessity for animal force, may bedestined gradually to spiritualize us, by refining away our grosser attributesof body. If so, Judge Pyncheon could endure a century or two more of suchrefinement as well as most other men. The guest seated himself in the place assigned him, and looked strangelyaround.
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