Intro and Preface

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

　　IN September of the year during the February of which Hawthorne hadcompleted "The Scarlet Letter," he began "The House of the Seven Gables."Meanwhile, he had removed from Salem to Lenox, in Berkshire County,Massachusetts, where he occupied with his family a small red wooden house,still standing at the date of this edition, near the Stockbridge Bowl."I sha'n't have the new story ready by November," he explainedto his publisher, on the 1st of October, "for I am never good foranything in the literary way till after the first autumnal frost,which has somewhat such an effect on my imagination that it doeson the foliage here about me-multiplying and brightening its hues."But by vigorous application he was able to complete the new workabout the middle of the January following.Since research has disclosed the manner in which the romance isinterwoven with incidents from the history of the Hawthorne family,"The House of the Seven Gables" has acquired an interest apartfrom that by which it first appealed to the public. John Hathorne(as the name was then spelled), the great-grandfather of NathanielHawthorne, was a magistrate at Salem in the latter part of theseventeenth century, and officiated at the famous trials forwitchcraft held there. It is of record that he used peculiarseverity towards a certain woman who was among the accused;and the husband of this woman prophesied that God would takerevenge upon his wife's persecutors. This circumstance doubtlessfurnished a hint for that piece of tradition in the book whichrepresents a Pyncheon of a former generation as having persecutedone Maule, who declared that God would give his enemy "blood to drink."It became a conviction with The Hawthorne family that a curse had beenpronounced upon its members, which continued in force in the time ofThe romancer; a conviction perhaps derived from the recorded prophecyof The injured woman's husband, just mentioned; and, here again,we have a correspondence with Maule's malediction in The story.Furthermore, there occurs in The "American Note-Books" (August 27,1837), a reminiscence of The author's family, to the following effect.Philip English, a character well-known in early Salem annals, was amongthose who suffered from John Hathorne's magisterial harshness, and hemaintained in consequence a lasting feud with the old Puritan official.But at his death English left daughters, one of whom is said to havemarried the son of Justice John Hathorne, whom English had declaredhe would never forgive. It is scarcely necessary to point out howclearly this foreshadows the final union of those hereditary foes,the Pyncheons and Maules, through the marriage of Phoebe and Holgrave.The romance, however, describes the Maules as possessing some of thetraits known to have been characteristic of the Hawthornes: for example,"so long as any of the race were to be found, they had been marked outfrom other men--not strikingly, nor as with a sharp line, but with aneffect that was felt rather than spoken of--by an hereditarycharacteristic of reserve." Thus, while the general suggestionof the Hawthorne line and its fortunes was followed in the romance,the Pyncheons taking the place of The author's family,certain distinguishing marks of the Hawthornes were assignedto the imaginary Maule posterity.There are one or two other points which indicate Hawthorne'smethod of basing his compositions, the result in the mainof pure invention, on the solid ground of particular facts.Allusion is made, in the first chapter of the "Seven Gables,"to a grant of lands in Waldo County, Maine, owned by thePyncheon family. In the "American Note-Books" there is an entry,dated August 12, 1837, which speaks of the Revolutionary general,Knox, and his land-grant in Waldo County, by virtue of which theowner had hoped to establish an estate on the English plan,with a tenantry to make it profitable for him. An incident ofmuch greater importance in the story is the supposed murder ofone of the Pyncheons by his nephew, to whom we are introduced asClifford Pyncheon. In all probability Hawthorne connected withthis, in his mind, the murder of Mr. White, a wealthy gentlemanof Salem, killed by a man whom his nephew had hired. This tookplace a few years after Hawthorne's gradation from college,and was one of the celebrated cases of the day, Daniel Webstertaking part prominently in the trial. But it should be observedhere that such resemblances as these between sundry elements inthe work of Hawthorne's fancy and details of reality are onlyfragmentary, and are rearranged to suit the author's purposes.In the same way he has made his description of Hepzibah Pyncheon'sseven-gabled mansion conform so nearly to several old dwellingsformerly or still extant in Salem, that strenuous efforts havebeen made to fix upon some one of them as the veritable edificeof the romance. A paragraph in The opening chapter has perhapsassisted this delusion that there must have been a single originalHouse of the Seven Gables, framed by flesh-and-blood carpenters;for it runs thus:-"Familiar as it stands in the writer's recollection--for it hasbeen an object of curiosity with him from boyhood, both as aspecimen of the best and stateliest architecture of a long-pastepoch, and as the scene of events more full of interest perhapsthan those of a gray feudal castle--familiar as it stands, in itsrusty old age, it is therefore only the more difficult to imaginethe bright novelty with which it first caught the sunshine."Hundreds of pilgrims annually visit a house in Salem, belongingto one branch of the Ingersoll family of that place, which isstoutly maintained to have been The model for Hawthorne'svisionary dwelling. Others have supposed that the now vanishedhouse of The identical Philip English, whose blood, as we havealready noticed, became mingled with that of the Hawthornes,supplied the pattern; and still a third building, known as theCurwen mansion, has been declared the only genuine establishment.Notwithstanding persistent popular belief, The authenticity ofall these must positively be denied; although it is possible thatisolated reminiscences of all three may have blended with theideal image in the mind of Hawthorne. He, it will be seen,remarks in the Preface, alluding to himself in the third person,that he trusts not to be condemned for "laying out a street thatinfringes upon nobody's private rights... and building a houseof materials long in use for constructing castles in the air."More than this, he stated to persons still living that the house ofthe romance was not copied from any actual edifice, but was simply ageneral reproduction of a style of architecture belonging to colonial days,examples of which survived into the period of his youth, but have sincebeen radically modified or destroyed. Here, as elsewhere, he exercisedthe liberty of a creative mind to heighten the probability of his pictureswithout confining himself to a literal description of something he had seen.While Hawthorne remained at Lenox, and during the compositionof this romance, various other literary personages settled orstayed for a time in the vicinity; among them, Herman Melville,whose intercourse Hawthorne greatly enjoyed, Henry James, Sr.,Doctor Holmes, J. T. Headley, James Russell Lowell, Edwin P.Whipple, Frederika Bremer, and J. T. Fields; so that there wasno lack of intellectual society in the midst of the beautifuland inspiring mountain scenery of the place. "In the afternoons,nowadays," he records, shortly before beginning the work, "thisvalley in which I dwell seems like a vast basin filled with goldenSunshine as with wine;" and, happy in the companionship of hiswife and their three children, he led a simple, refined, idylliclife, despite the restrictions of a scanty and uncertain income.A letter written by Mrs. Hawthorne, at this time, to a member ofher family, gives incidentally a glimpse of the scene, which mayproperly find a place here. She says: "I delight to think thatyou also can look forth, as I do now, upon a broad valley and afine amphitheater of hills, and are about to watch the statelyceremony of the sunset from your piazza. But you have not thislovely lake, nor, I suppose, the delicate purple mist which foldsthese slumbering mountains in airy veils. Mr. Hawthorne hasbeen lying down in the sun shine, slightly fleckered with theshadows of a tree, and Una and Julian have been making him looklike the mighty Pan, by covering his chin and breast with longgrass-blades, that looked like a verdant and venerable beard."The pleasantness and peace of his surroundings and of his modesthome, in Lenox, may be taken into account as harmonizing with themellow serenity of the romance then produced. Of the work, whenit appeared in the early spring of 1851, he wrote to Horatio Bridgethese words, now published for the first time:-"`The House of the Seven Gables' in my opinion, is better than`The Scarlet Letter:' but I should not wonder if I had refinedupon the principal character a little too much for popularappreciation, nor if the romance of the book should be somewhatat odds with the humble and familiar scenery in which I invest it.But I feel that portions of it are as good as anything I can hopeto write, and the publisher speaks encouragingly of its success."From England, especially, came many warm expressions of praise,--a fact which Mrs. Hawthorne, in a private letter, commented on asthe fulfillment of a possibility which Hawthorne, writing in boyhoodto his mother, had looked forward to. He had asked her if she wouldnot like him to become an author and have his books read in England.G. P. L.PREFACE.WHEN a writer calls his work a Romance, it need hardly be observedthat he wishes to claim a certain latitude, both as to its fashionand material, which he would not have felt himself entitled toassume had he professed to be writing a Novel. The latter formof composition is presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity,not merely to the possible, but to the probable and ordinary courseof man's experience. The former--while, as a work of art, it mustrigidly subject itself to laws, and while it sins unpardonably sofar as it may swerve aside from the truth of the human heart--hasfairly a right to present that truth under circumstances, to agreat extent, of the writer's own choosing or creation. If he thinkfit, also, he may so manage his atmospherical medium as to bringout or mellow the lights and deepen and enrich the shadows of thepicture. He will be wise, no doubt, to make a very moderate use ofthe privileges here stated, and, especially, to mingle the Marvelousrather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as anyportion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the public.He can hardly be said, however, to commit a literary crime even ifhe disregard this caution.In the present work, the author has proposed to himself--but withwhat success, fortunately, it is not for him to judge--to keepundeviatingly within his immunities. The point of view in whichthis tale comes under the Romantic definition lies in the attemptto connect a bygone time with the very present that is flittingaway from us. It is a legend prolonging itself, from an epoch nowgray in the distance, down into our own broad daylight, and bringingalong with it some of its legendary mist, which the reader, accordingto his pleasure, may either disregard, or allow it to float almostimperceptibly about the characters and events for the sake of apicturesque effect. The narrative, it may be, is woven of sohumble a texture as to require this advantage, and, at the sametime, to render it the more difficult of attainment.Many writers lay very great stress upon some definite moralpurpose, at which they profess to aim their works. Not to bedeficient in this particular, the author has provided himselfwith a moral,--the truth, namely, that the wrong-doing of onegeneration lives into the successive ones, and, divesting itselfof every temporary advantage, becomes a pure and uncontrollablemischief; and he would feel it a singular gratification if thisromance might effectually convince mankind--or, indeed, any oneman--of the folly of tumbling down an avalanche of ill-gotten gold,or real estate, on the heads of an unfortunate posterity, therebyto maim and crush them, until the accumulated mass shall bescattered abroad in its original atoms. In good faith, however,he is not sufficiently imaginative to flatter himself with theslightest hope of this kind. When romances do really teachanything, or produce any effective operation, it is usuallythrough a far more subtile process than the ostensible one.The author has considered it hardly worth his while, therefore,relentlessly to impale the story with its moral as with an ironrod,--or, rather, as by sticking a pin through a butterfly,--thus at once depriving it of life, and causing it to stiffenin an ungainly and unnatural attitude. A high truth, indeed,fairly, finely, and skilfully wrought out, brightening at everystep, and crowning the final development of a work of fiction,may add an artistic glory, but is never any truer, and seldomany more evident, at the last page than at the first.The reader may perhaps choose to assign an actual locality to theimaginary events of this narrative. If permitted by the historicalconnection,--which, though slight, was essential to his plan,--theauthor would very willingly have avoided anything of this nature.Not to speak of other objections, it exposes the romance to aninflexible and exceedingly dangerous species of criticism, bybringing his fancy-pictures almost into positive contact withthe realities of the moment. It has been no part of his object,however, to describe local manners, nor in any way to meddlewith the characteristics of a community for whom he cherishesa proper respect and a natural regard. He trusts not to beconsidered as unpardonably offending by laying out a street thatinfringes upon nobody's private rights, and appropriating a lot ofland which had no visible owner, and building a house of materialslong in use for constructing castles in the air. The personagesof the tale--though they give themselves out to be of ancientstability and considerable prominence--are really of the author'sown making, or at all events, of his own mixing; their virtues canshed no lustre, nor their defects redound, in the remotest degree,to the discredit of the venerable town of which they profess to beinhabitants. He would be glad, therefore, if-especially in thequarter to which he alludes-the book may be read strictly as aRomance, having a great deal more to do with the clouds overheadthan with any portion of the actual soil of the County of Essex.LENOX, January 27, 1851.