Table Of Content

We heard the turning of a key in a small lock; she has opened asecret drawer of an escritoire, and is probably looking at a certain miniature,done in Malbone’s most perfect style, and representing a face worthy ofno less delicate a pencil. Itis a likeness of a young man, in a silken dressing-gown of an old fashion, thesoft richness of which is well adapted to the countenance of reverie, with itsfull, tender lips, and beautiful eyes, that seem to indicate not so muchcapacity of thought, as gentle and voluptuous emotion. Of the possessor of suchfeatures we shall have a right to ask nothing, except that he would take therude world easily, and make himself happy in it. —nor ever knew, by her own experience, what love technically means.And yet, her undying faith and trust, her fresh remembrance, and continualdevotedness towards the original of that miniature, have been the onlysubstance for her heart to feed upon.
Characters
Again and again, however, and half a dozen otheragains, with the inexorable pertinacity of a child intent upon some objectimportant to itself, did he renew his efforts for admittance. He had,doubtless, set his heart upon an elephant; or, possibly, with Hamlet, he meantto eat a crocodile. In response to his more violent attacks, the bell gave, nowand then, a moderate tinkle, but could not be stirred into clamor by anyexertion of the little fellow’s childish and tiptoe strength.
Maule’s Well
Still the young Italian’s eye turned sidelong upward; and it reallyseemed as if the touch of genuine, though slight and almost playful, emotioncommunicated a juicier sweetness to the dry, mechanical process of hisminstrelsy. These wanderers are readily responsive to any naturalkindness—be it no more than a smile, or a word itself not understood, butonly a warmth in it—which befalls them on the roadside of life. Theyremember these things, because they are the little enchantments which, for theinstant,—for the space that reflects a landscape in asoap-bubble,—build up a home about them.
Camino Real Sumiya
Collaboration seen key to facing climate change threats - The Salem News
Collaboration seen key to facing climate change threats.
Posted: Thu, 14 Sep 2023 07:00:00 GMT [source]
It is indescribable what a sense of remote, dim, unattainable distancebetwixt himself and Alice was impressed on the father by this impossibility ofreaching her with his voice. Turning half around, he caught a glimpse of Maule’s figure in thelooking-glass. At some paces from Alice, with his arms uplifted in the air, thecarpenter made a gesture as if directing downward a slow, ponderous, andinvisible weight upon the maiden. Setting aside all advantages of rank, thisfair girl deemed herself conscious of a power—combined of beauty, high,unsullied purity, and the preservative force of womanhood—that could makeher sphere impenetrable, unless betrayed by treachery within. She instinctivelyknew, it may be, that some sinister or evil potency was now striving to passher barriers; nor would she decline the contest.
injured in crash that left vehicle nearly split in half in Sylmar
Ouracquaintance with the whole subject is derived chiefly from tradition. It wouldbe bold, therefore, and possibly unjust, to venture a decisive opinion as toits merits; although it appears to have been at least a matter of doubt,whether Colonel Pyncheon’s claim were not unduly stretched, in order tomake it cover the small metes and bounds of Matthew Maule. What greatlystrengthens such a suspicion is the fact that this controversy between twoill-matched antagonists—at a period, moreover, laud it as we may, whenpersonal influence had far more weight than now—remained for yearsundecided, and came to a close only with the death of the party occupying thedisputed soil. The mode of his death, too, affects the mind differently, in ourday, from what it did a century and a half ago.

Not merely wasthere a delight in the flower’s perfume, or pleasure in its beautifulform, and the delicacy or brightness of its hue; but Clifford’s enjoymentwas accompanied with a perception of life, character, and individuality, thatmade him love these blossoms of the garden, as if they were endowed withsentiment and intelligence. This affection and sympathy for flowers is almostexclusively a woman’s trait. Men, if endowed with it by nature, soonlose, forget, and learn to despise it, in their contact with coarser thingsthan flowers.
The two Maule spirits prevent Colonel Pyncheon’s ghost from telling Gervayse and the younger Matthew where the deed is, so the carpenter cancels the deal. He is elated to find that Alice has remained under his spell, and torments her in cruel and petty ways. On his wedding night, the young Maule forces Alice to serve his new bride. When Alice awakens from her trance, she rushes home through the snow, catches pneumonia, and dies. Halfway down a by-street of one of our New England towns stands a rusty wooden house, with seven acutely peaked gables, facing towards various points of the compass, and a huge, clustered chimney in the midst.
House of 7 Gables gets state grant for coastal resilience plan - The Salem News
House of 7 Gables gets state grant for coastal resilience plan.
Posted: Sat, 24 Sep 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
The mere smell of such festivity, making its way toeverybody’s nostrils, was at once an invitation and an appetite. The next morning, a man named Clifford with long, graying hair appears at the breakfast table—it was his voice and step Phoebe heard the night before. Clifford appears disoriented and bewildered by his surroundings, but there’s also a graceful air about him, suggesting that he must have been handsome once.
In the morning, very shortly after breakfast, it wasClifford’s custom to fall asleep in his chair; nor, unless accidentallydisturbed, would he emerge from a dense cloud of slumber or the thinner miststhat flitted to and fro, until well towards noonday. 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 girl’s was not one of thosenatures which are most attracted by what is strange and exceptional in humancharacter.
Towards noon, Hepzibah saw an elderly gentleman, large and portly, and ofremarkably dignified demeanor, passing slowly along on the opposite side of thewhite and dusty street. On coming within the shadow of the Pyncheon Elm, hestopt, and (taking off his hat, meanwhile, to wipe the perspiration from hisbrow) seemed to scrutinize, with especial interest, the dilapidated andrusty-visaged House of the Seven Gables. He himself, in a very different style,was as well worth looking at as the house. No better model need be sought, norcould have been found, of a very high order of respectability, which, by someindescribable magic, not merely expressed itself in his looks and gestures, buteven governed the fashion of his garments, and rendered them all proper andessential to the man. Without appearing to differ, in any tangible way, fromother people’s clothes, there was yet a wide and rich gravity about themthat must have been a characteristic of the wearer, since it could not bedefined as pertaining either to the cut or material.
He at first knit hisbrows; then smiled with more unctuous benignity than ever. At one of these moments of less torpid, yet still imperfect animation, Phœbebecame convinced of what she had at first rejected as too extravagant andstartling an idea. She saw that the person before her must have been theoriginal of the beautiful miniature in her cousin Hepzibah’s possession.Indeed, with a feminine eye for costume, she had at once identified the damaskdressing-gown, which enveloped him, as the same in figure, material, andfashion, with that so elaborately represented in the picture.
Had Clifford attained the balcony,he would probably have leaped into the street; but whether impelled by thespecies of terror that sometimes urges its victim over the very precipice whichhe shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism, tending towards the great centre ofhumanity, it were not easy to decide. Doubtless, more than one New-Englander—or, let him be of what country hemight, it is as likely to be the case—passed by, and threw a look at themonkey, and went on, without imagining how nearly his own moral condition washere exemplified. He had takenchildish delight in the music, and smiled, too, at the figures which it set inmotion. Yet, it must be said, her petals sometimes drooped a little, in consequence ofthe heavy atmosphere about her. She grew more thoughtful than heretofore.Looking aside at Clifford’s face, and seeing the dim, unsatisfactoryelegance and the intellect almost quenched, she would try to inquire what hadbeen his life.
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. She peeped from the window into the garden, and felt herself more regretful atleaving this spot of black earth, vitiated with such an age-long growth ofweeds, than joyful at the idea of again scenting her pine forests and freshclover-fields. She called Chanticleer, his two wives, and the venerablechicken, and threw them some crumbs of bread from the breakfast-table.
Inevitably, by the pressure of theseclusion about them, they had been brought into habits of some familiarity.Had they met under different circumstances, neither of these young personswould have been likely to bestow much thought upon the other, unless, indeed,their extreme dissimilarity should have proved a principle of mutualattraction. Both, it is true, were characters proper to New England life, andpossessing a common ground, therefore, in their more external developments; butas unlike, in their respective interiors, as if their native climes had been atworld-wide distance. During the early part of their acquaintance, Phœbe hadheld back rather more than was customary with her frank and simple manners fromHolgrave’s not very marked advances. Nor was she yet satisfied that sheknew him well, although they almost daily met and talked together, in a kind,friendly, and what seemed to be a familiar way. On raising her eyes, Phœbe was startled by the change in JudgePyncheon’s face. It was quite as striking, allowing for the difference ofscale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and just before athunder-storm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the latter aspect,but was cold, hard, immitigable, like a day-long brooding cloud.
No comments:
Post a Comment