THE HOUSE OF SEVEN GABLES by Nathaniel Hawthorne


I. The Old Pyncheon Family


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. The street is Pyncheon Street; the house
is the old Pyncheon House; and an elm-tree, of wide circumference,
rooted before the door, is familiar to every town-born child by
the title of the Pyncheon Elm. On my occasional visits to the
town aforesaid, I seldom failed to turn down Pyncheon Street,
for the sake of passing through the shadow of these two antiquities,
--the great elm-tree and the weather-beaten edifice.

The aspect of the venerable mansion has always affected me like
a human countenance, bearing the traces not merely of outward
storm and sunshine, but expressive also, of the long lapse of
mortal life, and accompanying vicissitudes that have passed
within. Were these to be worthily recounted, they would form a
narrative of no small interest and instruction, and possessing,
moreover, a certain remarkable unity, which might almost seem
the result of artistic arrangement. But the story would include
a chain of events extending over the better part of two centuries,
and, written out with reasonable amplitude, would fill a bigger
folio volume, or a longer series of duodecimos, than could prudently
be appropriated to the annals of all New England during a similar
period. It consequently becomes imperative to make short work