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The townsfolk begin to gossip about Hepzibah and Clifford's sudden disappearance. Phoebe is relieved when Hepzibah and Clifford return, having recovered their wits. In the mid-19th century, Col. Pyncheon's great-great-grandson Jaffrey Pyncheon (George Sanders) is a lawyer just embarking on his career. His elder brother, Clifford (Vincent Price), lives at home with their father, Gerald Pyncheon (Gilbert Emery). Jaffrey is obsessed with legends that say a vast sum of money is hidden in the Pyncheon house.
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First comes the ancestor himself, in his black cloak, steeple-hat, andtrunk-breeches, girt about the waist with a leathern belt, in which hangs hissteel-hilted sword; he has a long staff in his hand, such as gentlemen inadvanced life used to carry, as much for the dignity of the thing as for thesupport to be derived from it. He looks up at the portrait; a thing of nosubstance, gazing at its own painted image! The purpose of his brain has been kept sacred thus long after the manhimself has sprouted up in graveyard grass. —is it not, rather afrown of deadly import, that darkens over the shadow of his features? So decided is his look of discontent as to impartadditional distinctness to his features; through which, nevertheless, themoonlight passes, and flickers on the wall beyond. Here comeother Pyncheons, the whole tribe, in their half a dozen generations, jostlingand elbowing one another, to reach the picture.
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Children are even more apt, if possible,than grown people, to catch the contagion of a panic terror. 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. Summer as it was, the east wind set poor Hepzibah’s few remaining teethchattering in her head, as she and Clifford faced it, on their way up PyncheonStreet, and towards the centre of the town. Not merely was it the shiver whichthis pitiless blast brought to her frame (although her feet and hands,especially, had never seemed so death-a-cold as now), but there was a moralsensation, mingling itself with the physical chill, and causing her to shakemore in spirit than in body. Such, indeed, is the impression which it makes on every newadventurer, even if he plunge into it while the warmest tide of life isbubbling through his veins. What, then, must it have been to Hepzibah andClifford,—so time-stricken as they were, yet so like children in theirinexperience,—as they left the doorstep, and passed from beneath the wideshelter of the Pyncheon Elm!
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How hadHepzibah—grim, silent, and irresponsive to her overflow of cordialsentiment—contrived to win so much love? And Clifford,—in hisabortive decay, with the mystery of fearful crime upon him, and the closeprison-atmosphere yet lurking in his breath,—how had he transformedhimself into the simplest child, whom Phœbe felt bound to watch over, and be,as it were, the providence of his unconsidered hours! Everything, at thatinstant of farewell, stood out prominently to her view.
CliffsNotes study guides are written by real teachers and professors, so no matter what you're studying, CliffsNotes can ease your homework headaches and help you score high on exams. Thus Jaffrey Pyncheon’s inward criminality, as regarded Clifford, was,indeed, black and damnable; while its mere outward show and positive commissionwas the smallest that could possibly consist with so great a sin. This is justthe sort of guilt that a man of eminent respectability finds it easiest todispose of.
The wild effervescence of hismood—which had so readily supplied thoughts, fantasies, and a strangeaptitude of words, and impelled him to talk from the mere necessity of givingvent to this bubbling-up gush of ideas had entirely subsided. He caught thecolor of what was passing about him, and threw it back more vividly than hereceived it, but mixed, nevertheless, with a lurid and portentous hue.Hepzibah, on the other hand, felt herself more apart from human kind than evenin the seclusion which she had just quitted. At last, therefore, and after so long estrangement from everything that theworld acted or enjoyed, they had been drawn into the great current of humanlife, and were swept away with it, as by the suction of fate itself. As they proceeded on their strange expedition, she now and then cast a looksidelong at Clifford, and could not but observe that he was possessed andswayed by a powerful excitement. It was this, indeed, that gave him the controlwhich he had at once, and so irresistibly, established over his movements.
The Pyncheon of To-day
House of Seven Gables director to step down - The Salem News
House of Seven Gables director to step down.
Posted: Fri, 04 Feb 2022 08:00:00 GMT [source]
A susceptible observer, at any rate, might haveregarded it as affording very little evidence of the general benignity of soulwhereof it purported to be the outward reflection. And if the observer chancedto be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspectthat the smile on the gentleman’s face was a good deal akin to the shineon his boots, and that each must have cost him and his boot-black,respectively, a good deal of hard labor to bring out and preserve them. Not to speak it harshly or scornfully, it seemed Clifford’s nature to bea Sybarite. It was perceptible, even there, in the dark old parlor, in theinevitable polarity with which his eyes were attracted towards the quiveringplay of sunbeams through the shadowy foliage. It was seen in his appreciatingnotice of the vase of flowers, the scent of which he inhaled with a zest almostpeculiar to a physical organization so refined that spiritual ingredients aremoulded in with it.
The gentleman then ordered wine, which he and thecarpenter drank together, in confirmation of their bargain. During the wholepreceding discussion and subsequent formalities, the old Puritan’sportrait seems to have persisted in its shadowy gestures of disapproval; butwithout effect, except that, as Mr. Pyncheon set down the emptied glass, hethought he beheld his grandfather frown. At a small table, before a fire of English sea-coal, sat Mr. Pyncheon, sippingcoffee, which had grown to be a very favorite beverage with him in France. Hewas a middle-aged and really handsome man, with a wig flowing down upon hisshoulders; his coat was of blue velvet, with lace on the borders and at thebutton-holes; and the firelight glistened on the spacious breadth of hiswaistcoat, which was flowered all over with gold. On the entrance of Scipio,ushering in the carpenter, Mr. Pyncheon turned partly round, but resumed hisformer position, and proceeded deliberately to finish his cup of coffee,without immediate notice of the guest whom he had summoned to his presence.
He used tothrust his head softly out of the arbor to see them the better; all the while,too, motioning Phœbe to be quiet, and snatching glimpses of the smile upon herface, so as to heap his enjoyment up the higher with her sympathy. Becoming habituated to her companionship, Clifford readily showed how capableof imbibing pleasant tints and gleams of cheerful light from all quarters hisnature must originally have been. Abeauty,—not precisely real, even in its utmost manifestation, and which apainter would have watched long to seize and fix upon his canvas, and, afterall, in vain,—beauty, nevertheless, that was not a mere dream, wouldsometimes play upon and illuminate his face. It did more than to illuminate; ittransfigured him with an expression that could only be interpreted as the glowof an exquisite and happy spirit. That gray hair, and those furrows,—withtheir record of infinite sorrow so deeply written across his brow, and socompressed, as with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that the wholeinscription was made illegible,—these, for the moment, vanished.
He will be wise, no doubt, to make avery moderate use of the privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle theMarvelous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as anyportion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public. He canhardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even if he disregard thiscaution. Soon after Maule’s death, Colonel Pyncheon begins building an elaborate mansion on Maule’s old property; Maule’s son, Thomas, is the architect and head carpenter. After the house is finished, Colonel Pyncheon holds a feast for the whole town. When the lieutenant governor, followed by the rest of the guests, barges into the Colonel’s study, he finds the Colonel dead, with blood on his collar and beard.
Hepzibah cannot find Clifford in his room, but when she comes back downstairs she finds her brother pointing gleefully to the slumped figure of Judge Pyncheon. Worried that Clifford will be blamed for the murder, the brother and sister flee. He excitedly shows her a daguerreotype of the dead Judge and tells her that the curse has been lifted.
The white doublerosebush had evidently been propped up anew against the house since thecommencement of the season; and a pear-tree and three damson-trees, which,except a row of currant-bushes, constituted the only varieties of fruit, boremarks of the recent amputation of several superfluous or defective limbs. Therewere also a few species of antique and hereditary flowers, in no veryflourishing condition, but scrupulously weeded; as if some person, either outof love or curiosity, had been anxious to bring them to such perfection as theywere capable of attaining. The remainder of the garden presented awell-selected assortment of esculent vegetables, in a praiseworthy state ofadvancement. The young girl, so fresh, so unconventional, and yet so orderly and obedient tocommon rules, as you at once recognized her to be, was widely in contrast, atthat moment, with everything about her. The sordid and ugly luxuriance ofgigantic weeds that grew in the angle of the house, and the heavy projectionthat overshadowed her, and the time-worn framework of the door,—none ofthese things belonged to her sphere.
The baker’s cart,with the harsh music of its bells, had a pleasant effect on Clifford, because,as few things else did, it jingled the very dissonance of yore. One afternoon ascissor-grinder chanced to set his wheel a-going under the Pyncheon Elm, andjust in front of the arched window. Children came running with theirmothers’ scissors, or the carving-knife, or the paternal razor, oranything else that lacked an edge (except, indeed, poor Clifford’s wits),that the grinder might apply the article to his magic wheel, and give it backas good as new.
Neither wasthe little old shop any longer empty of merchantable goods. A curious eye,privileged to take an account of stock and investigate behind the counter,would have discovered a barrel, yea, two or three barrels and halfditto,—one containing flour, another apples, and a third, perhaps, Indianmeal. There was likewise a square box of pine-wood, full of soap in bars; also,another of the same size, in which were tallow candles, ten to the pound.
