"
Hawthorne wins his effect by presenting the idea to our minds
from different points of view, until we are obsessed by the curse
that broods heavily over the old house. Even the aristocratic
breed of fowls, of "queer, rusty, withered aspect," are an emblem
of the decay of the Pyncheon family. The people are apt to be
merged into the dense shadows that lurk in the gloomy passages,
but when the sun shines on them they stand out with arresting
distinctness. The heroic figure of Hepzibah Pyncheon, a little
ridiculous and a little forbidding of aspect, but cherishing
through weary years a passionate devotion to her brother, is
described with a gentle blending of humour and pathos. Clifford
Pyncheon--the sybarite made for happiness and hideously cheated
of his destiny--is delineated with curious insight and sympathy.
It is Judge Jaffery Pyncheon, with his "sultry" smile of
"elaborate benevolence"--unrelenting and crafty as his infamous
ancestor--who lends to _The House of Seven Gables_ the element of
terror. Hour after hour, Hawthorne, with grim and bitter irony,
mocks and taunts the dead body of the hypocritical judge until
the ghostly pageantry of dead Pyncheons--including at last Judge
Jaffery himself with the fatal crimson stain on his
neckcloth--fades away with the oncoming of daylight.
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