wie gestalte ich meine fenster mit gardinen

chapter viiithe pyncheon of to-day phoebe, on entering the shop, beheld therethe already familiar face of the little devourer--if we can reckon his mighty deedsaright--of jim crow, the elephant, the camel, the dromedaries, and the locomotive. having expended his private fortune, on thetwo preceding days, in the purchase of the above unheard-of luxuries, the younggentleman's present errand was on the part of his mother, in quest of three eggs andhalf a pound of raisins. these articles phoebe accordingly supplied,and, as a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight super-added morsel after breakfast, put likewise

into his hand a whale! the great fish, reversing his experiencewith the prophet of nineveh, immediately began his progress down the same redpathway of fate whither so varied a caravan had preceded him. this remarkable urchin, in truth, was thevery emblem of old father time, both in respect of his all-devouring appetite formen and things, and because he, as well as time, after ingulfing thus much of creation, looked almost as youthful as ifhe had been just that moment made. after partly closing the door, the childturned back, and mumbled something to

phoebe, which, as the whale was but halfdisposed of, she could not perfectly understand. "what did you say, my little fellow?" askedshe. "mother wants to know" repeated ned higginsmore distinctly, "how old maid pyncheon's brother does? folks say he has got home.""my cousin hepzibah's brother?" exclaimed phoebe, surprised at this suddenexplanation of the relationship between hepzibah and her guest. "her brother!and where can he have been?"

the little boy only put his thumb to hisbroad snub-nose, with that look of shrewdness which a child, spending much ofhis time in the street, so soon learns to throw over his features, howeverunintelligent in themselves. then as phoebe continued to gaze at him,without answering his mother's message, he took his departure. as the child went down the steps, agentleman ascended them, and made his entrance into the shop. it was the portly, and, had it possessedthe advantage of a little more height, would have been the stately figure of a manconsiderably in the decline of life,

dressed in a black suit of some thin stuff, resembling broadcloth as closely aspossible. a gold-headed cane, of rare oriental wood,added materially to the high respectability of his aspect, as did also a neckcloth ofthe utmost snowy purity, and the conscientious polish of his boots. his dark, square countenance, with itsalmost shaggy depth of eyebrows, was naturally impressive, and would, perhaps,have been rather stern, had not the gentleman considerately taken upon himself to mitigate the harsh effect by a look ofexceeding good-humor and benevolence.

owing, however, to a somewhat massiveaccumulation of animal substance about the lower region of his face, the look was,perhaps, unctuous rather than spiritual, and had, so to speak, a kind of fleshly effulgence, not altogether so satisfactoryas he doubtless intended it to be. a susceptible observer, at any rate, mighthave regarded it as affording very little evidence of the general benignity of soulwhereof it purported to be the outward reflection. and if the observer chanced to be ill-natured, as well as acute and susceptible, he would probably suspect that the smile onthe gentleman's face was a good deal akin

to the shine on 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. as the stranger entered the little shop,where the projection of the second story and the thick foliage of the elm-tree, aswell as the commodities at the window, created a sort of gray medium, his smile grew as intense as if he had set his hearton counteracting the whole gloom of the atmosphere (besides any moral gloompertaining to hepzibah and her inmates) by the unassisted light of his countenance.

on perceiving a young rose-bud of a girl,instead of the gaunt presence of the old maid, a look of surprise was manifest.he at first knit his brows; then smiled with more unctuous benignity than ever. "ah, i see how it is!" said he in a deepvoice,--a voice which, had it come from the throat of an uncultivated man, would havebeen gruff, but, by dint of careful training, was now sufficiently agreeable,-- "i was not aware that miss hepzibahpyncheon had commenced business under such favorable auspices.you are her assistant, i suppose?" "i certainly am," answered phoebe, andadded, with a little air of lady-like

assumption (for, civil as the gentlemanwas, he evidently took her to be a young person serving for wages), "i am a cousinof miss hepzibah, on a visit to her." "her cousin?--and from the country? pray pardon me, then," said the gentleman,bowing and smiling, as phoebe never had been bowed to nor smiled on before; "inthat case, we must be better acquainted; for, unless i am sadly mistaken, you are myown little kinswoman likewise! let me see,--mary?--dolly?--phoebe?--yes,phoebe is the name! is it possible that you are phoebepyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and classmate, arthur?ah, i see your father now, about your

mouth! yes, yes! we must be better acquainted!i am your kinsman, my dear. surely you must have heard of judgepyncheon?" as phoebe curtsied in reply, the judge bentforward, with the pardonable and even praiseworthy purpose--considering thenearness of blood and the difference of age--of bestowing on his young relative a kiss of acknowledged kindred and naturalaffection. unfortunately (without design, or only withsuch instinctive design as gives no account of itself to the intellect) phoebe, just atthe critical moment, drew back; so that her

highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the counter and his lipsprotruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd predicament of kissing the emptyair. it was a modern parallel to the case ofixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous as the judge pridedhimself on eschewing all airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. the truth was,--and it is phoebe's onlyexcuse,--that, although judge pyncheon's glowing benignity might not be absolutelyunpleasant to the feminine beholder, with the width of a street, or even an ordinary-

sized room, interposed between, yet itbecame quite too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so roughly bearded,too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought to bring itself into actualcontact with the object of its regards. the man, the sex, somehow or other, wasentirely too prominent in the judge's demonstrations of that sort. phoebe's eyes sank, and, without knowingwhy, she felt herself blushing deeply under his look. yet she had been kissed before, and withoutany particular squeamishness, by perhaps half a dozen different cousins, younger aswell as older than this dark-browned,

grisly-bearded, white-neck-clothed, andunctuously-benevolent judge! then, why not by him?on raising her eyes, phoebe was startled by the change in judge pyncheon's face. it was quite as striking, allowing for thedifference of scale, as that betwixt a landscape under a broad sunshine and justbefore a thunder-storm; not that it had the passionate intensity of the latter aspect, but was cold, hard, immitigable, like aday-long brooding cloud. "dear me! what is to be done now?" thoughtthe country-girl to herself. "he looks as if there were nothing softerin him than a rock, nor milder than the

east wind!i meant no harm! since he is really my cousin, i would havelet him kiss me, if i could!" then, all at once, it struck phoebe thatthis very judge pyncheon was the original of the miniature which the daguerreotypisthad shown her in the garden, and that the hard, stern, relentless look, now on his face, was the same that the sun had soinflexibly persisted in bringing out. was it, therefore, no momentary mood, but,however skilfully concealed, the settled temper of his life? and not merely so, but was it hereditary inhim, and transmitted down, as a precious

heirloom, from that bearded ancestor, inwhose picture both the expression and, to a singular degree, the features of the modernjudge were shown as by a kind of prophecy? a deeper philosopher than phoebe might havefound something very terrible in this idea. it implied that the weaknesses and defects,the bad passions, the mean tendencies, and the moral diseases which lead to crime arehanded down from one generation to another, by a far surer process of transmission than human law has been able to establish inrespect to the riches and honors which it seeks to entail upon posterity. but, as it happened, scarcely had phoebe'seyes rested again on the judge's

countenance than all its ugly sternnessvanished; and she found herself quite overpowered by the sultry, dog-day heat, as it were, of benevolence, which thisexcellent man diffused out of his great heart into the surrounding atmosphere,--very much like a serpent, which, as a preliminary to fascination, is said to fillthe air with his peculiar odor. "i like that, cousin phoebe!" cried he,with an emphatic nod of approbation. "i like it much, my little cousin! you are a good child, and know how to takecare of yourself. a young girl--especially if she be a verypretty one--can never be too chary of her

lips." "indeed, sir," said phoebe, trying to laughthe matter off, "i did not mean to be unkind." nevertheless, whether or no it wereentirely owing to the inauspicious commencement of their acquaintance, shestill acted under a certain reserve, which was by no means customary to her frank andgenial nature. the fantasy would not quit her, that theoriginal puritan, of whom she had heard so many sombre traditions,--the progenitor ofthe whole race of new england pyncheons, the founder of the house of the seven

gables, and who had died so strangely init,--had now stept into the shop. in these days of off-hand equipment, thematter was easily enough arranged. on his arrival from the other world, he hadmerely found it necessary to spend a quarter of an hour at a barber's, who hadtrimmed down the puritan's full beard into a pair of grizzled whiskers, then, patronizing a ready-made clothingestablishment, he had exchanged his velvet doublet and sable cloak, with the richlyworked band under his chin, for a white collar and cravat, coat, vest, and pantaloons; and lastly, putting aside hissteel-hilted broadsword to take up a gold-

headed cane, the colonel pyncheon of twocenturies ago steps forward as the judge of the passing moment! of course, phoebe was far too sensible agirl to entertain this idea in any other way than as matter for a smile. possibly, also, could the two personageshave stood together before her eye, many points of difference would have beenperceptible, and perhaps only a general resemblance. the long lapse of intervening years, in aclimate so unlike that which had fostered the ancestral englishman, must inevitablyhave wrought important changes in the

physical system of his descendant. the judge's volume of muscle could hardlybe the same as the colonel's; there was undoubtedly less beef in him. though looked upon as a weighty man amonghis contemporaries in respect of animal substance, and as favored with a remarkabledegree of fundamental development, well adapting him for the judicial bench, we conceive that the modern judge pyncheon, ifweighed in the same balance with his ancestor, would have required at least anold-fashioned fifty-six to keep the scale in equilibrio.

then the judge's face had lost the ruddyenglish hue that showed its warmth through all the duskiness of the colonel's weather-beaten cheek, and had taken a sallow shade, the established complexion of hiscountrymen. if we mistake not, moreover, a certainquality of nervousness had become more or less manifest, even in so solid a specimenof puritan descent as the gentleman now under discussion. as one of its effects, it bestowed on hiscountenance a quicker mobility than the old englishman's had possessed, and keenervivacity, but at the expense of a sturdier something, on which these acute endowmentsseemed to act like dissolving acids.

this process, for aught we know, may belongto the great system of human progress, which, with every ascending footstep, as itdiminishes the necessity for animal force, may be destined gradually to spiritualize us, by refining away our grosser attributesof body. if so, judge pyncheon could endure acentury or two more of such refinement as well as most other men. the similarity, intellectual and moral,between the judge and his ancestor appears to have been at least as strong as theresemblance of mien and feature would afford reason to anticipate.

in old colonel pyncheon's funeral discoursethe clergyman absolutely canonized his deceased parishioner, and opening, as itwere, a vista through the roof of the church, and thence through the firmament above, showed him seated, harp in hand,among the crowned choristers of the spiritual world. on his tombstone, too, the record is highlyeulogistic; nor does history, so far as he holds a place upon its page, assail theconsistency and uprightness of his character. so also, as regards the judge pyncheon ofto-day, neither clergyman, nor legal

critic, nor inscriber of tombstones, norhistorian of general or local politics, would venture a word against this eminent person's sincerity as a christian, orrespectability as a man, or integrity as a judge, or courage and faithfulness as theoften-tried representative of his political party. but, besides these cold, formal, and emptywords of the chisel that inscribes, the voice that speaks, and the pen that writes,for the public eye and for distant time,-- and which inevitably lose much of their truth and freedom by the fatalconsciousness of so doing,--there were

traditions about the ancestor, and privatediurnal gossip about the judge, remarkably accordant in their testimony. it is often instructive to take thewoman's, the private and domestic, view of a public man; nor can anything be morecurious than the vast discrepancy between portraits intended for engraving and the pencil-sketches that pass from hand to handbehind the original's back. for example: tradition affirmed that thepuritan had been greedy of wealth; the judge, too, with all the show of liberalexpenditure, was said to be as close-fisted as if his gripe were of iron.

the ancestor had clothed himself in a grimassumption of kindliness, a rough heartiness of word and manner, which mostpeople took to be the genuine warmth of nature, making its way through the thickand inflexible hide of a manly character. his descendant, in compliance with therequirements of a nicer age, had etherealized this rude benevolence intothat broad benignity of smile wherewith he shone like a noonday sun along the streets, or glowed like a household fire in thedrawing-rooms of his private acquaintance. the puritan--if not belied by some singularstories, murmured, even at this day, under the narrator's breath--had fallen intocertain transgressions to which men of his

great animal development, whatever their faith or principles, must continue liable,until they put off impurity, along with the gross earthly substance that involves it. we must not stain our page with anycontemporary scandal, to a similar purport, that may have been whispered against thejudge. the puritan, again, an autocrat in his ownhousehold, had worn out three wives, and, merely by the remorseless weight andhardness of his character in the conjugal relation, had sent them, one after another,broken-hearted, to their graves. here the parallel, in some sort, fails.

the judge had wedded but a single wife, andlost her in the third or fourth year of their marriage. there was a fable, however,--for such wechoose to consider it, though, not impossibly, typical of judge pyncheon'smarital deportment,--that the lady got her death-blow in the honeymoon, and never smiled again, because her husband compelledher to serve him with coffee every morning at his bedside, in token of fealty to herliege-lord and master. but it is too fruitful a subject, this ofhereditary resemblances,--the frequent recurrence of which, in a direct line, istruly unaccountable, when we consider how

large an accumulation of ancestry lies behind every man at the distance of one ortwo centuries. we shall only add, therefore, that thepuritan--so, at least, says chimney-corner tradition, which often preserves traits ofcharacter with marvellous fidelity--was bold, imperious, relentless, crafty; laying his purposes deep, and following them outwith an inveteracy of pursuit that knew neither rest nor conscience; trampling onthe weak, and, when essential to his ends, doing his utmost to beat down the strong. whether the judge in any degree resembledhim, the further progress of our narrative

may show. scarcely any of the items in the above-drawn parallel occurred to phoebe, whose country birth and residence, in truth, hadleft her pitifully ignorant of most of the family traditions, which lingered, like cobwebs and incrustations of smoke, aboutthe rooms and chimney-corners of the house of the seven gables. yet there was a circumstance, very triflingin itself, which impressed her with an odd degree of horror. she had heard of the anathema flung bymaule, the executed wizard, against colonel

pyncheon and his posterity,--that god wouldgive them blood to drink,--and likewise of the popular notion, that this miraculous blood might now and then be heard gurglingin their throats. the latter scandal--as became a person ofsense, and, more especially, a member of the pyncheon family--phoebe had set downfor the absurdity which it unquestionably was. but ancient superstitions, after beingsteeped in human hearts and embodied in human breath, and passing from lip to earin manifold repetition, through a series of generations, become imbued with an effectof homely truth.

the smoke of the domestic hearth hasscented them through and through. by long transmission among household facts,they grow to look like them, and have such a familiar way of making themselves at homethat their influence is usually greater than we suspect. thus it happened, that when phoebe heard acertain noise in judge pyncheon's throat,-- rather habitual with him, not altogethervoluntary, yet indicative of nothing, unless it were a slight bronchial complaint, or, as some people hinted, anapoplectic symptom,--when the girl heard this queer and awkward ingurgitation (whichthe writer never did hear, and therefore

cannot describe), she very foolishlystarted, and clasped her hands. of course, it was exceedingly ridiculous inphoebe to be discomposed by such a trifle, and still more unpardonable to show herdiscomposure to the individual most concerned in it. but the incident chimed in so oddly withher previous fancies about the colonel and the judge, that, for the moment, it seemedquite to mingle their identity. "what is the matter with you, young woman?"said judge pyncheon, giving her one of his harsh looks."are you afraid of anything?" "oh, nothing, sir--nothing in the world!"answered phoebe, with a little laugh of

vexation at herself."but perhaps you wish to speak with my cousin hepzibah. shall i call her?""stay a moment, if you please," said the judge, again beaming sunshine out of hisface. "you seem to be a little nervous thismorning. the town air, cousin phoebe, does not agreewith your good, wholesome country habits. or has anything happened to disturb you?--anything remarkable in cousin hepzibah's family?-- an arrival, eh?i thought so! no wonder you are out of sorts, my littlecousin.

to be an inmate with such a guest may wellstartle an innocent young girl!" "you quite puzzle me, sir," replied phoebe,gazing inquiringly at the judge. "there is no frightful guest in the house,but only a poor, gentle, childlike man, whom i believe to be cousin hepzibah'sbrother. i am afraid (but you, sir, will know betterthan i) that he is not quite in his sound senses; but so mild and quiet he seems tobe, that a mother might trust her baby with him; and i think he would play with the baby as if he were only a few years olderthan itself. he startle me!--oh, no indeed!"

"i rejoice to hear so favorable and soingenuous an account of my cousin clifford," said the benevolent judge. "many years ago, when we were boys andyoung men together, i had a great affection for him, and still feel a tender interestin all his concerns. you say, cousin phoebe, he appears to beweak minded. heaven grant him at least enough ofintellect to repent of his past sins!" "nobody, i fancy," observed phoebe, "canhave fewer to repent of." "and is it possible, my dear," rejoined thejudge, with a commiserating look, "that you have never heard of clifford pyncheon?--that you know nothing of his history?

well, it is all right; and your mother hasshown a very proper regard for the good name of the family with which she connectedherself. believe the best you can of thisunfortunate person, and hope the best! it is a rule which christians should alwaysfollow, in their judgments of one another; and especially is it right and wise amongnear relatives, whose characters have necessarily a degree of mutual dependence. but is clifford in the parlor?i will just step in and see." "perhaps, sir, i had better call my cousinhepzibah," said phoebe; hardly knowing, however, whether she ought to obstruct theentrance of so affectionate a kinsman into

the private regions of the house. "her brother seemed to be just fallingasleep after breakfast; and i am sure she would not like him to be disturbed.pray, sir, let me give her notice!" but the judge showed a singulardetermination to enter unannounced; and as phoebe, with the vivacity of a person whosemovements unconsciously answer to her thoughts, had stepped towards the door, he used little or no ceremony in putting heraside. "no, no, miss phoebe!" said judge pyncheonin a voice as deep as a thunder-growl, and with a frown as black as the cloud whenceit issues.

"stay you here! i know the house, and know my cousinhepzibah, and know her brother clifford likewise.--nor need my little countrycousin put herself to the trouble of announcing me!"--in these latter words, by the bye, there were symptoms of a changefrom his sudden harshness into his previous benignity of manner."i am at home here, phoebe, you must recollect, and you are the stranger. i will just step in, therefore, and see formyself how clifford is, and assure him and hepzibah of my kindly feelings and bestwishes.

it is right, at this juncture, that theyshould both hear from my own lips how much i desire to serve them.ha! here is hepzibah herself!" such was the case. the vibrations of the judge's voice hadreached the old gentlewoman in the parlor, where she sat, with face averted, waitingon her brother's slumber. she now issued forth, as would appear, todefend the entrance, looking, we must needs say, amazingly like the dragon which, infairy tales, is wont to be the guardian over an enchanted beauty. the habitual scowl of her brow wasundeniably too fierce, at this moment, to

pass itself off on the innocent score ofnear-sightedness; and it was bent on judge pyncheon in a way that seemed to confound, if not alarm him, so inadequately had heestimated the moral force of a deeply grounded antipathy. she made a repelling gesture with her hand,and stood a perfect picture of prohibition, at full length, in the dark frame of thedoorway. but we must betray hepzibah's secret, andconfess that the native timorousness of her character even now developed itself in aquick tremor, which, to her own perception, set each of her joints at variance with itsfellows.

possibly, the judge was aware how littletrue hardihood lay behind hepzibah's formidable front. at any rate, being a gentleman of steadynerves, he soon recovered himself, and failed not to approach his cousin withoutstretched hand; adopting the sensible precaution, however, to cover his advance with a smile, so broad and sultry, that,had it been only half as warm as it looked, a trellis of grapes might at once haveturned purple under its summer-like exposure. it may have been his purpose, indeed, tomelt poor hepzibah on the spot, as if she

were a figure of yellow wax. "hepzibah, my beloved cousin, i amrejoiced!" exclaimed the judge most emphatically."now, at length, you have something to live for. yes, and all of us, let me say, yourfriends and kindred, have more to live for than we had yesterday. i have lost no time in hastening to offerany assistance in my power towards making clifford comfortable.he belongs to us all. i know how much he requires,--how much heused to require,--with his delicate taste,

and his love of the beautiful. anything in my house,--pictures, books,wine, luxuries of the table,--he may command them all!it would afford me most heartfelt gratification to see him! shall i step in, this moment?""no," replied hepzibah, her voice quivering too painfully to allow of many words."he cannot see visitors!" "a visitor, my dear cousin!--do you call meso?" cried the judge, whose sensibility, it seems, was hurt by the coldness of thephrase. "nay, then, let me be clifford's host, andyour own likewise.

come at once to my house. the country air, and all the conveniences,--i may say luxuries,--that i have gathered about me, will do wonders for him. and you and i, dear hepzibah, will consulttogether, and watch together, and labor together, to make our dear clifford happy. come! why should we make more words aboutwhat is both a duty and a pleasure on my part?come to me at once!" on hearing these so hospitable offers, andsuch generous recognition of the claims of kindred, phoebe felt very much in the moodof running up to judge pyncheon, and giving

him, of her own accord, the kiss from whichshe had so recently shrunk away. it was quite otherwise with hepzibah; thejudge's smile seemed to operate on her acerbity of heart like sunshine uponvinegar, making it ten times sourer than ever. "clifford," said she,--still too agitatedto utter more than an abrupt sentence,-- "clifford has a home here!" "may heaven forgive you, hepzibah," saidjudge pyncheon,--reverently lifting his eyes towards that high court of equity towhich he appealed,--"if you suffer any ancient prejudice or animosity to weighwith you in this matter.

i stand here with an open heart, willingand anxious to receive yourself and clifford into it. do not refuse my good offices,--my earnestpropositions for your welfare! they are such, in all respects, as itbehooves your nearest kinsman to make. it will be a heavy responsibility, cousin,if you confine your brother to this dismal house and stifled air, when the delightfulfreedom of my country-seat is at his command." "it would never suit clifford," saidhepzibah, as briefly as before. "woman!" broke forth the judge, giving wayto his resentment, "what is the meaning of

all this? have you other resources?nay, i suspected as much! take care, hepzibah, take care!clifford is on the brink of as black a ruin as ever befell him yet! but why do i talk with you, woman as youare? make way!--i must see clifford!" hepzibah spread out her gaunt figure acrossthe door, and seemed really to increase in bulk; looking the more terrible, also,because there was so much terror and agitation in her heart.

but judge pyncheon's evident purpose offorcing a passage was interrupted by a voice from the inner room; a weak,tremulous, wailing voice, indicating helpless alarm, with no more energy for self-defence than belongs to a frightenedinfant. "hepzibah, hepzibah!" cried the voice; "godown on your knees to him! kiss his feet! entreat him not to come in!oh, let him have mercy on me! mercy! mercy!" for the instant, it appeared doubtfulwhether it were not the judge's resolute

purpose to set hepzibah aside, and stepacross the threshold into the parlor, whence issued that broken and miserablemurmur of entreaty. it was not pity that restrained him, for,at the first sound of the enfeebled voice, a red fire kindled in his eyes, and he madea quick pace forward, with something inexpressibly fierce and grim darkeningforth, as it were, out of the whole man. to know judge pyncheon was to see him atthat moment. after such a revelation, let him smile withwhat sultriness he would, he could much sooner turn grapes purple, or pumpkinsyellow, than melt the iron-branded impression out of the beholder's memory.

and it rendered his aspect not the less,but more frightful, that it seemed not to express wrath or hatred, but a certain hotfellness of purpose, which annihilated everything but itself. yet, after all, are we not slandering anexcellent and amiable man? look at the judge now! he is apparently conscious of having erred,in too energetically pressing his deeds of loving-kindness on persons unable toappreciate them. he will await their better mood, and holdhimself as ready to assist them then as at this moment.

as he draws back from the door, an all-comprehensive benignity blazes from his visage, indicating that he gathershepzibah, little phoebe, and the invisible clifford, all three, together with the whole world besides, into his immenseheart, and gives them a warm bath in its flood of affection. "you do me great wrong, dear cousinhepzibah!" said he, first kindly offering her his hand, and then drawing on his glovepreparatory to departure. "very great wrong! but i forgive it, and will study to makeyou think better of me.

of course, our poor clifford being in sounhappy a state of mind, i cannot think of urging an interview at present. but i shall watch over his welfare as if hewere my own beloved brother; nor do i at all despair, my dear cousin, ofconstraining both him and you to acknowledge your injustice. when that shall happen, i desire no otherrevenge than your acceptance of the best offices in my power to do you." with a bow to hepzibah, and a degree ofpaternal benevolence in his parting nod to phoebe, the judge left the shop, and wentsmiling along the street.

as is customary with the rich, when theyaim at the honors of a republic, he apologized, as it were, to the people, forhis wealth, prosperity, and elevated station, by a free and hearty manner towards those who knew him; putting off themore of his dignity in due proportion with the humbleness of the man whom he saluted,and thereby proving a haughty consciousness of his advantages as irrefragably as if he had marched forth preceded by a troop oflackeys to clear the way. on this particular forenoon, so excessivewas the warmth of judge pyncheon's kindly aspect, that (such, at least, was the rumorabout town) an extra passage of the water-

carts was found essential, in order to lay the dust occasioned by so much extrasunshine! no sooner had he disappeared than hepzibahgrew deadly white, and, staggering towards phoebe, let her head fall on the younggirl's shoulder. "o phoebe!" murmured she, "that man hasbeen the horror of my life! shall i never, never have the courage,--will my voice never cease from trembling long enough to let me tell him what he is?" "is he so very wicked?" asked phoebe."yet his offers were surely kind!" "do not speak of them,--he has a heart ofiron!" rejoined hepzibah.

"go, now, and talk to clifford! amuse and keep him quiet!it would disturb him wretchedly to see me so agitated as i am.there, go, dear child, and i will try to look after the shop." phoebe went accordingly, but perplexedherself, meanwhile, with queries as to the purport of the scene which she had justwitnessed, and also whether judges, clergymen, and other characters of that eminent stamp and respectability, couldreally, in any single instance, be otherwise than just and upright men.

a doubt of this nature has a mostdisturbing influence, and, if shown to be a fact, comes with fearful and startlingeffect on minds of the trim, orderly, and limit-loving class, in which we find ourlittle country-girl. dispositions more boldly speculative mayderive a stern enjoyment from the discovery, since there must be evil in theworld, that a high man is as likely to grasp his share of it as a low one. a wider scope of view, and a deeperinsight, may see rank, dignity, and station, all proved illusory, so far asregards their claim to human reverence, and yet not feel as if the universe werethereby tumbled headlong into chaos.

but phoebe, in order to keep the universein its old place, was fain to smother, in some degree, her own intuitions as to judgepyncheon's character. and as for her cousin's testimony indisparagement of it, she concluded that hepzibah's judgment was embittered by oneof those family feuds which render hatred the more deadly by the dead and corrupted love that they intermingle with its nativepoison. > chapter ixclifford and phoebe truly was there something high, generous,and noble in the native composition of our

poor old hepzibah! or else,--and it was quite as probably thecase,--she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strongand solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in what arecalled happier circumstances. through dreary years hepzibah had lookedforward--for the most part despairingly, never with any confidence of hope, butalways with the feeling that it was her brightest possibility--to the very positionin which she now found herself. in her own behalf, she had asked nothing ofprovidence but the opportunity of devoting

herself to this brother, whom she had soloved,--so admired for what he was, or might have been,--and to whom she had kept her faith, alone of all the world, wholly,unfalteringly, at every instant, and throughout life. and here, in his late decline, the lost onehad come back out of his long and strange misfortune, and was thrown on her sympathy,as it seemed, not merely for the bread of his physical existence, but for everythingthat should keep him morally alive. she had responded to the call. she had come forward,--our poor, gaunthepzibah, in her rusty silks, with her

rigid joints, and the sad perversity of herscowl,--ready to do her utmost; and with affection enough, if that were all, to do ahundred times as much! there could be few more tearful sights,--and heaven forgive us if a smile insist on mingling with our conception of it!--fewsights with truer pathos in them, than hepzibah presented on that first afternoon. how patiently did she endeavor to wrapclifford up in her great, warm love, and make it all the world to him, so that heshould retain no torturing sense of the coldness and dreariness without! her little efforts to amuse him!how pitiful, yet magnanimous, they were!

remembering his early love of poetry andfiction, she unlocked a bookcase, and took down several books that had been excellentreading in their day. there was a volume of pope, with the rapeof the lock in it, and another of the tatler, and an odd one of dryden'smiscellanies, all with tarnished gilding on their covers, and thoughts of tarnishedbrilliancy inside. they had no success with clifford. these, and all such writers of society,whose new works glow like the rich texture of a just-woven carpet, must be content torelinquish their charm, for every reader, after an age or two, and could hardly be

supposed to retain any portion of it for amind that had utterly lost its estimate of modes and manners. hepzibah then took up rasselas, and beganto read of the happy valley, with a vague idea that some secret of a contented lifehad there been elaborated, which might at least serve clifford and herself for thisone day. but the happy valley had a cloud over it. hepzibah troubled her auditor, moreover, byinnumerable sins of emphasis, which he seemed to detect, without any reference tothe meaning; nor, in fact, did he appear to take much note of the sense of what she

read, but evidently felt the tedium of thelecture, without harvesting its profit. his sister's voice, too, naturally harsh,had, in the course of her sorrowful lifetime, contracted a kind of croak,which, when it once gets into the human throat, is as ineradicable as sin. in both sexes, occasionally, this lifelongcroak, accompanying each word of joy or sorrow, is one of the symptoms of a settledmelancholy; and wherever it occurs, the whole history of misfortune is conveyed inits slightest accent. the effect is as if the voice had been dyedblack; or,--if we must use a more moderate simile,--this miserable croak, runningthrough all the variations of the voice, is

like a black silken thread, on which the crystal beads of speech are strung, andwhence they take their hue. such voices have put on mourning for deadhopes; and they ought to die and be buried along with them! discerning that clifford was not gladdenedby her efforts, hepzibah searched about the house for the means of more exhilaratingpastime. at one time, her eyes chanced to rest onalice pyncheon's harpsichord. it was a moment of great peril; for,--despite the traditionary awe that had gathered over this instrument of music, andthe dirges which spiritual fingers were

said to play on it,--the devoted sister had solemn thoughts of thrumming on its chordsfor clifford's benefit, and accompanying the performance with her voice.poor clifford! poor hepzibah! poor harpsichord!all three would have been miserable together. by some good agency,--possibly, by theunrecognized interposition of the long- buried alice herself,--the threateningcalamity was averted. but the worst of all--the hardest stroke offate for hepzibah to endure, and perhaps

for clifford, too was his invincibledistaste for her appearance. her features, never the most agreeable, andnow harsh with age and grief, and resentment against the world for his sake;her dress, and especially her turban; the queer and quaint manners, which had unconsciously grown upon her in solitude,--such being the poor gentlewoman's outward characteristics, it is no great marvel,although the mournfullest of pities, that the instinctive lover of the beautiful wasfain to turn away his eyes. there was no help for it.it would be the latest impulse to die within him.

in his last extremity, the expiring breathstealing faintly through clifford's lips, he would doubtless press hepzibah's hand,in fervent recognition of all her lavished love, and close his eyes,--but not so much to die, as to be constrained to look nolonger on her face! she took counsel with herself what might bedone, and thought of putting ribbons on her turban; but, by the instant rush of severalguardian angels, was withheld from an experiment that could hardly have proved less than fatal to the beloved object ofher anxiety. to be brief, besides hepzibah'sdisadvantages of person, there was an

uncouthness pervading all her deeds; aclumsy something, that could but ill adapt itself for use, and not at all forornament. she was a grief to clifford, and she knewit. in this extremity, the antiquated virginturned to phoebe. no grovelling jealousy was in her heart. had it pleased heaven to crown the heroicfidelity of her life by making her personally the medium of clifford'shappiness, it would have rewarded her for all the past, by a joy with no bright tints, indeed, but deep and true, and wortha thousand gayer ecstasies.

this could not be. she therefore turned to phoebe, andresigned the task into the young girl's hands. the latter took it up cheerfully, as shedid everything, but with no sense of a mission to perform, and succeeding all thebetter for that same simplicity. by the involuntary effect of a genialtemperament, phoebe soon grew to be absolutely essential to the daily comfort,if not the daily life, of her two forlorn companions. the grime and sordidness of the house ofthe seven gables seemed to have vanished

since her appearance there; the gnawingtooth of the dry-rot was stayed among the old timbers of its skeleton frame; the dust had ceased to settle down so densely, fromthe antique ceilings, upon the floors and furniture of the rooms below,--or, at anyrate, there was a little housewife, as light-footed as the breeze that sweeps a garden walk, gliding hither and thither tobrush it all away. the shadows of gloomy events that hauntedthe else lonely and desolate apartments; the heavy, breathless scent which death hadleft in more than one of the bedchambers, ever since his visits of long ago,--these

were less powerful than the purifyinginfluence scattered throughout the atmosphere of the household by the presenceof one youthful, fresh, and thoroughly wholesome heart. there was no morbidness in phoebe; if therehad been, the old pyncheon house was the very locality to ripen it into incurabledisease. but now her spirit resembled, in itspotency, a minute quantity of ottar of rose in one of hepzibah's huge, iron-boundtrunks, diffusing its fragrance through the various articles of linen and wrought-lace, kerchiefs, caps, stockings, folded dresses,gloves, and whatever else was treasured

there. as every article in the great trunk was thesweeter for the rose-scent, so did all the thoughts and emotions of hepzibah andclifford, sombre as they might seem, acquire a subtle attribute of happinessfrom phoebe's intermixture with them. her activity of body, intellect, and heartimpelled her continually to perform the ordinary little toils that offeredthemselves around her, and to think the thought proper for the moment, and to sympathize,--now with the twittering gayetyof the robins in the pear-tree, and now to such a depth as she could with hepzibah'sdark anxiety, or the vague moan of her

brother. this facile adaptation was at once thesymptom of perfect health and its best preservative. a nature like phoebe's has invariably itsdue influence, but is seldom regarded with due honor. its spiritual force, however, may bepartially estimated by the fact of her having found a place for herself, amidcircumstances so stern as those which surrounded the mistress of the house; and also by the effect which she produced on acharacter of so much more mass than her

own. for the gaunt, bony frame and limbs ofhepzibah, as compared with the tiny lightsomeness of phoebe's figure, wereperhaps in some fit proportion with the moral weight and substance, respectively,of the woman and the girl. to the guest,--to hepzibah's brother,--orcousin clifford, as phoebe now began to call him,--she was especially necessary. not that he could ever be said to conversewith her, or often manifest, in any other very definite mode, his sense of a charm inher society. but if she were a long while absent hebecame pettish and nervously restless,

pacing the room to and fro with theuncertainty that characterized all his movements; or else would sit broodingly in his great chair, resting his head on hishands, and evincing life only by an electric sparkle of ill-humor, wheneverhepzibah endeavored to arouse him. phoebe's presence, and the contiguity ofher fresh life to his blighted one, was usually all that he required. indeed, such was the native gush and playof her spirit, that she was seldom perfectly quiet and undemonstrative, anymore than a fountain ever ceases to dimple and warble with its flow.

she possessed the gift of song, and that,too, so naturally, that you would as little think of inquiring whence she had caughtit, or what master had taught her, as of asking the same questions about a bird, in whose small strain of music we recognizethe voice of the creator as distinctly as in the loudest accents of his thunder.so long as phoebe sang, she might stray at her own will about the house. clifford was content, whether the sweet,airy homeliness of her tones came down from the upper chambers, or along the passagewayfrom the shop, or was sprinkled through the foliage of the pear-tree, inward from thegarden, with the twinkling sunbeams.

he would sit quietly, with a gentlepleasure gleaming over his face, brighter now, and now a little dimmer, as the songhappened to float near him, or was more remotely heard. it pleased him best, however, when she saton a low footstool at his knee. it is perhaps remarkable, considering hertemperament, that phoebe oftener chose a strain of pathos than of gayety. but the young and happy are not ill pleasedto temper their life with a transparent shadow. the deepest pathos of phoebe's voice andsong, moreover, came sifted through the

golden texture of a cheery spirit, and wassomehow so interfused with the quality thence acquired, that one's heart felt allthe lighter for having wept at it. broad mirth, in the sacred presence of darkmisfortune, would have jarred harshly and irreverently with the solemn symphony thatrolled its undertone through hepzibah's and her brother's life. therefore, it was well that phoebe so oftenchose sad themes, and not amiss that they ceased to be so sad while she was singingthem. becoming habituated to her companionship,clifford readily showed how capable of imbibing pleasant tints and gleams ofcheerful light from all quarters his nature

must originally have been. he grew youthful while she sat by him. a beauty,--not precisely real, even in itsutmost manifestation, and which a painter would have watched long to seize and fixupon his canvas, and, after all, in vain,-- beauty, nevertheless, that was not a mere dream, would sometimes play upon andilluminate his face. it did more than to illuminate; ittransfigured him with an expression that could only be interpreted as the glow of anexquisite and happy spirit. that gray hair, and those furrows,--withtheir record of infinite sorrow so deeply

written across his brow, and so compressed,as with a futile effort to crowd in all the tale, that the whole inscription was made illegible,--these, for the moment,vanished. an eye at once tender and acute might havebeheld in the man some shadow of what he was meant to be. anon, as age came stealing, like a sadtwilight, back over his figure, you would have felt tempted to hold an argument withdestiny, and affirm, that either this being should not have been made mortal, or mortal existence should have been tempered to hisqualities.

there seemed no necessity for his havingdrawn breath at all; the world never wanted him; but, as he had breathed, it oughtalways to have been the balmiest of summer air. the same perplexity will invariably hauntus with regard to natures that tend to feed exclusively upon the beautiful, let theirearthly fate be as lenient as it may. phoebe, it is probable, had but a veryimperfect comprehension of the character over which she had thrown so beneficent aspell. nor was it necessary. the fire upon the hearth can gladden awhole semicircle of faces round about it,

but need not know the individuality of oneamong them all. indeed, there was something too fine anddelicate in clifford's traits to be perfectly appreciated by one whose spherelay so much in the actual as phoebe's did. for clifford, however, the reality, andsimplicity, and thorough homeliness of the girl's nature were as powerful a charm asany that she possessed. beauty, it is true, and beauty almostperfect in its own style, was indispensable. had phoebe been coarse in feature, shapedclumsily, of a harsh voice, and uncouthly mannered, she might have been rich with allgood gifts, beneath this unfortunate

exterior, and still, so long as she wore the guise of woman, she would have shockedclifford, and depressed him by her lack of beauty. but nothing more beautiful--nothingprettier, at least--was ever made than phoebe. and, therefore, to this man,--whose wholepoor and impalpable enjoyment of existence heretofore, and until both his heart andfancy died within him, had been a dream,-- whose images of women had more and more lost their warmth and substance, and beenfrozen, like the pictures of secluded

artists, into the chillest ideality,--tohim, this little figure of the cheeriest household life was just what he required tobring him back into the breathing world. persons who have wandered, or beenexpelled, out of the common track of things, even were it for a better system,desire nothing so much as to be led back. they shiver in their loneliness, be it on amountain-top or in a dungeon. now, phoebe's presence made a home abouther,--that very sphere which the outcast, the prisoner, the potentate,--the wretchbeneath mankind, the wretch aside from it, or the wretch above it,--instinctivelypines after,--a home! she was real!

holding her hand, you felt something; atender something; a substance, and a warm one: and so long as you should feel itsgrasp, soft as it was, you might be certain that your place was good in the wholesympathetic chain of human nature. the world was no longer a delusion. by looking a little further in thisdirection, we might suggest an explanation of an often-suggested mystery. why are poets so apt to choose their mates,not for any similarity of poetic endowment, but for qualities which might make thehappiness of the rudest handicraftsman as well as that of the ideal craftsman of thespirit?

because, probably, at his highestelevation, the poet needs no human intercourse; but he finds it dreary todescend, and be a stranger. there was something very beautiful in therelation that grew up between this pair, so closely and constantly linked together, yetwith such a waste of gloomy and mysterious years from his birthday to hers. on clifford's part it was the feeling of aman naturally endowed with the liveliest sensibility to feminine influence, but whohad never quaffed the cup of passionate love, and knew that it was now too late. he knew it, with the instinctive delicacythat had survived his intellectual decay.

thus, his sentiment for phoebe, withoutbeing paternal, was not less chaste than if she had been his daughter. he was a man, it is true, and recognizedher as a woman. she was his only representative ofwomankind. he took unfailing note of every charm thatappertained to her sex, and saw the ripeness of her lips, and the virginaldevelopment of her bosom. all her little womanly ways, budding out ofher like blossoms on a young fruit-tree, had their effect on him, and sometimescaused his very heart to tingle with the keenest thrills of pleasure.

at such moments,--for the effect was seldommore than momentary,--the half-torpid man would be full of harmonious life, just as along-silent harp is full of sound, when the musician's fingers sweep across it. but, after all, it seemed rather aperception, or a sympathy, than a sentiment belonging to himself as an individual. he read phoebe as he would a sweet andsimple story; he listened to her as if she were a verse of household poetry, whichgod, in requital of his bleak and dismal lot, had permitted some angel, that mostpitied him, to warble through the house. she was not an actual fact for him, but theinterpretation of all that he lacked on

earth brought warmly home to hisconception; so that this mere symbol, or life-like picture, had almost the comfortof reality. but we strive in vain to put the idea intowords. no adequate expression of the beauty andprofound pathos with which it impresses us is attainable. this being, made only for happiness, andheretofore so miserably failing to be happy,--his tendencies so hideouslythwarted, that, some unknown time ago, the delicate springs of his character, never morally or intellectually strong, had givenway, and he was now imbecile,--this poor,

forlorn voyager from the islands of theblest, in a frail bark, on a tempestuous sea, had been flung, by the last mountain-wave of his shipwreck, into a quiet harbor. there, as he lay more than half lifeless onthe strand, the fragrance of an earthly rose-bud had come to his nostrils, and, asodors will, had summoned up reminiscences or visions of all the living and breathing beauty amid which he should have had hishome. with his native susceptibility of happyinfluences, he inhales the slight, ethereal rapture into his soul, and expires! and how did phoebe regard clifford?the girl's was not one of those natures

which are most attracted by what is strangeand exceptional in human character. the path which would best have suited herwas the well-worn track of ordinary life; the companions in whom she would most havedelighted were such as one encounters at every turn. the mystery which enveloped clifford, sofar as it affected her at all, was an annoyance, rather than the piquant charmwhich many women might have found in it. still, her native kindliness was broughtstrongly into play, not by what was darkly picturesque in his situation, nor so much,even, by the finer graces of his character, as by the simple appeal of a heart so

forlorn as his to one so full of genuinesympathy as hers. she gave him an affectionate regard,because he needed so much love, and seemed to have received so little. with a ready tact, the result of ever-active and wholesome sensibility, she discerned what was good for him, and didit. whatever was morbid in his mind andexperience she ignored; and thereby kept their intercourse healthy, by theincautious, but, as it were, heaven- directed freedom of her whole conduct. the sick in mind, and, perhaps, in body,are rendered more darkly and hopelessly so

by the manifold reflection of theirdisease, mirrored back from all quarters in the deportment of those about them; they are compelled to inhale the poison of theirown breath, in infinite repetition. but phoebe afforded her poor patient asupply of purer air. she impregnated it, too, not with a wild-flower scent,--for wildness was no trait of hers,--but with the perfume of garden-roses, pinks, and other blossoms of much sweetness, which nature and man have consented together in making grow fromsummer to summer, and from century to century.

such a flower was phoebe in her relationwith clifford, and such the delight that he inhaled from her. yet, it must be said, her petals sometimesdrooped a little, in consequence of the heavy atmosphere about her.she grew more thoughtful than heretofore. looking aside at clifford's face, andseeing the dim, unsatisfactory elegance and the intellect almost quenched, she wouldtry to inquire what had been his life. was he always thus? had this veil been over him from hisbirth?--this veil, under which far more of his spirit was hidden than revealed, andthrough which he so imperfectly discerned

the actual world,--or was its gray texturewoven of some dark calamity? phoebe loved no riddles, and would havebeen glad to escape the perplexity of this one. nevertheless, there was so far a goodresult of her meditations on clifford's character, that, when her involuntaryconjectures, together with the tendency of every strange circumstance to tell its own story, had gradually taught her the fact,it had no terrible effect upon her. let the world have done him what vast wrongit might, she knew cousin clifford too well--or fancied so--ever to shudder at thetouch of his thin, delicate fingers.

within a few days after the appearance ofthis remarkable inmate, the routine of life had established itself with a good deal ofuniformity in the old house of our narrative. in the morning, very shortly afterbreakfast, it was clifford's custom to fall asleep in his chair; nor, unlessaccidentally disturbed, would he emerge from a dense cloud of slumber or the thinner mists that flitted to and fro,until well towards noonday. these hours of drowsihead were the seasonof the old gentlewoman's attendance on her brother, while phoebe took charge of theshop; an arrangement which the public

speedily understood, and evinced their decided preference of the younger shopwomanby the multiplicity of their calls during her administration of affairs. dinner over, hepzibah took her knitting-work,--a long stocking of gray yarn, for her brother's winter wear,--and with asigh, and a scowl of affectionate farewell to clifford, and a gesture enjoining watchfulness on phoebe, went to take herseat behind the counter. it was now the young girl's turn to be thenurse,--the guardian, the playmate,--or whatever is the fitter phrase,--of thegray-haired man.

chapter xthe pyncheon garden clifford, except for phoebe's more activeinstigation would ordinarily have yielded to the torpor which had crept through allhis modes of being, and which sluggishly counselled him to sit in his morning chairtill eventide. but the girl seldom failed to propose aremoval to the garden, where uncle venner and the daguerreotypist had made suchrepairs on the roof of the ruinous arbor, or summer-house, that it was now a sufficient shelter from sunshine and casualshowers. the hop-vine, too, had begun to growluxuriantly over the sides of the little

edifice, and made an interior of verdantseclusion, with innumerable peeps and glimpses into the wider solitude of thegarden. here, sometimes, in this green play-placeof flickering light, phoebe read to clifford. her acquaintance, the artist, who appearedto have a literary turn, had supplied her with works of fiction, in pamphlet form,--and a few volumes of poetry, in altogether a different style and taste from thosewhich hepzibah selected for his amusement. small thanks were due to the books,however, if the girl's readings were in any degree more successful than her elderlycousin's.

phoebe's voice had always a pretty music init, and could either enliven clifford by its sparkle and gayety of tone, or soothehim by a continued flow of pebbly and brook-like cadences. but the fictions--in which the country-girl, unused to works of that nature, often became deeply absorbed--interested herstrange auditor very little, or not at all. pictures of life, scenes of passion orsentiment, wit, humor, and pathos, were all thrown away, or worse than thrown away, onclifford; either because he lacked an experience by which to test their truth, or because his own griefs were a touch-stoneof reality that few feigned emotions could

withstand. when phoebe broke into a peal of merrylaughter at what she read, he would now and then laugh for sympathy, but oftenerrespond with a troubled, questioning look. if a tear--a maiden's sunshiny tear overimaginary woe--dropped upon some melancholy page, clifford either took it as a token ofactual calamity, or else grew peevish, and angrily motioned her to close the volume. and wisely too!is not the world sad enough, in genuine earnest, without making a pastime of mocksorrows? with poetry it was rather better.

he delighted in the swell and subsidence ofthe rhythm, and the happily recurring rhyme. nor was clifford incapable of feeling thesentiment of poetry,--not, perhaps, where it was highest or deepest, but where it wasmost flitting and ethereal. it was impossible to foretell in whatexquisite verse the awakening spell might lurk; but, on raising her eyes from thepage to clifford's face, phoebe would be made aware, by the light breaking through it, that a more delicate intelligence thanher own had caught a lambent flame from what she read.

one glow of this kind, however, was oftenthe precursor of gloom for many hours afterward; because, when the glow left him,he seemed conscious of a missing sense and power, and groped about for them, as if a blind man should go seeking his losteyesight. it pleased him more, and was better for hisinward welfare, that phoebe should talk, and make passing occurrences vivid to hismind by her accompanying description and remarks. the life of the garden offered topicsenough for such discourse as suited clifford best.he never failed to inquire what flowers had

bloomed since yesterday. his feeling for flowers was very exquisite,and seemed not so much a taste as an emotion; he was fond of sitting with one inhis hand, intently observing it, and looking from its petals into phoebe's face, as if the garden flower were the sister ofthe household maiden. not merely was there a delight in theflower's perfume, or pleasure in its beautiful form, and the delicacy orbrightness of its hue; but clifford's enjoyment was accompanied with a perception of life, character, and individuality, thatmade him love these blossoms of the garden,

as if they were endowed with sentiment andintelligence. this affection and sympathy for flowers isalmost exclusively a woman's trait. men, if endowed with it by nature, soonlose, forget, and learn to despise it, in their contact with coarser things thanflowers. clifford, too, had long forgotten it; butfound it again now, as he slowly revived from the chill torpor of his life. it is wonderful how many pleasant incidentscontinually came to pass in that secluded garden-spot when once phoebe had setherself to look for them. she had seen or heard a bee there, on thefirst day of her acquaintance with the

place. and often,--almost continually, indeed,--since then, the bees kept coming thither, heaven knows why, or by what pertinaciousdesire, for far-fetched sweets, when, no doubt, there were broad clover-fields, and all kinds of garden growth, much nearerhome than this. thither the bees came, however, and plungedinto the squash-blossoms, as if there were no other squash-vines within a long day'sflight, or as if the soil of hepzibah's garden gave its productions just the very quality which these laborious littlewizards wanted, in order to impart the

hymettus odor to their whole hive of newengland honey. when clifford heard their sunny, buzzingmurmur, in the heart of the great yellow blossoms, he looked about him with a joyfulsense of warmth, and blue sky, and green grass, and of god's free air in the wholeheight from earth to heaven. after all, there need be no question whythe bees came to that one green nook in the dusty town. god sent them thither to gladden our poorclifford. they brought the rich summer with them, inrequital of a little honey. when the bean-vines began to flower on thepoles, there was one particular variety

which bore a vivid scarlet blossom. the daguerreotypist had found these beansin a garret, over one of the seven gables, treasured up in an old chest of drawers bysome horticultural pyncheon of days gone by, who doubtless meant to sow them the next summer, but was himself first sown indeath's garden-ground. by way of testing whether there were stilla living germ in such ancient seeds, holgrave had planted some of them; and theresult of his experiment was a splendid row of bean-vines, clambering, early, to the full height of the poles, and arrayingthem, from top to bottom, in a spiral

profusion of red blossoms. and, ever since the unfolding of the firstbud, a multitude of humming-birds had been attracted thither. at times, it seemed as if for every one ofthe hundred blossoms there was one of these tiniest fowls of the air,--a thumb'sbigness of burnished plumage, hovering and vibrating about the bean-poles. it was with indescribable interest, andeven more than childish delight, that clifford watched the humming-birds. he used to thrust his head softly out ofthe arbor to see them the better; all the

while, too, motioning phoebe to be quiet,and snatching glimpses of the smile upon her face, so as to heap his enjoyment upthe higher with her sympathy. he had not merely grown young;--he was achild again. hepzibah, whenever she happened to witnessone of these fits of miniature enthusiasm, would shake her head, with a strangemingling of the mother and sister, and of pleasure and sadness, in her aspect. she said that it had always been thus withclifford when the humming-birds came,-- always, from his babyhood,--and that hisdelight in them had been one of the earliest tokens by which he showed his lovefor beautiful things.

and it was a wonderful coincidence, thegood lady thought, that the artist should have planted these scarlet-flowering beans--which the humming-birds sought far and wide, and which had not grown in the pyncheon garden before for forty years--onthe very summer of clifford's return. then would the tears stand in poorhepzibah's eyes, or overflow them with a too abundant gush, so that she was fain tobetake herself into some corner, lest clifford should espy her agitation. indeed, all the enjoyments of this periodwere provocative of tears. coming so late as it did, it was a kind ofindian summer, with a mist in its balmiest

sunshine, and decay and death in itsgaudiest delight. the more clifford seemed to taste thehappiness of a child, the sadder was the difference to be recognized. with a mysterious and terrible past, whichhad annihilated his memory, and a blank future before him, he had only thisvisionary and impalpable now, which, if you once look closely at it, is nothing. he himself, as was perceptible by manysymptoms, lay darkly behind his pleasure, and knew it to be a baby-play, which he wasto toy and trifle with, instead of thoroughly believing.

clifford saw, it may be, in the mirror ofhis deeper consciousness, that he was an example and representative of that greatclass of people whom an inexplicable providence is continually putting at cross- purposes with the world: breaking whatseems its own promise in their nature; withholding their proper food, and settingpoison before them for a banquet; and thus- -when it might so easily, as one would think, have been adjusted otherwise--makingtheir existence a strangeness, a solitude, and torment. all his life long, he had been learning howto be wretched, as one learns a foreign

tongue; and now, with the lesson thoroughlyby heart, he could with difficulty comprehend his little airy happiness. frequently there was a dim shadow of doubtin his eyes. "take my hand, phoebe," he would say, "andpinch it hard with your little fingers! give me a rose, that i may press itsthorns, and prove myself awake by the sharp touch of pain!" evidently, he desired this prick of atrifling anguish, in order to assure himself, by that quality which he best knewto be real, that the garden, and the seven weather-beaten gables, and hepzibah's

scowl, and phoebe's smile, were reallikewise. without this signet in his flesh, he couldhave attributed no more substance to them than to the empty confusion of imaginaryscenes with which he had fed his spirit, until even that poor sustenance wasexhausted. the author needs great faith in hisreader's sympathy; else he must hesitate to give details so minute, and incidentsapparently so trifling, as are essential to make up the idea of this garden-life. it was the eden of a thunder-smitten adam,who had fled for refuge thither out of the same dreary and perilous wilderness intowhich the original adam was expelled.

one of the available means of amusement, ofwhich phoebe made the most in clifford's behalf, was that feathered society, thehens, a breed of whom, as we have already said, was an immemorial heirloom in thepyncheon family. in compliance with a whim of clifford, asit troubled him to see them in confinement, they had been set at liberty, and nowroamed at will about the garden; doing some little mischief, but hindered from escape by buildings on three sides, and thedifficult peaks of a wooden fence on the other. they spent much of their abundant leisureon the margin of maule's well, which was

haunted by a kind of snail, evidently atitbit to their palates; and the brackish water itself, however nauseous to the rest of the world, was so greatly esteemed bythese fowls, that they might be seen tasting, turning up their heads, andsmacking their bills, with precisely the air of wine-bibbers round a probationarycask. their generally quiet, yet often brisk, andconstantly diversified talk, one to another, or sometimes in soliloquy,--asthey scratched worms out of the rich, black soil, or pecked at such plants as suited their taste,--had such a domestic tone,that it was almost a wonder why you could

not establish a regular interchange ofideas about household matters, human and gallinaceous. all hens are well worth studying for thepiquancy and rich variety of their manners; but by no possibility can there have beenother fowls of such odd appearance and deportment as these ancestral ones. they probably embodied the traditionarypeculiarities of their whole line of progenitors, derived through an unbrokensuccession of eggs; or else this individual chanticleer and his two wives had grown to be humorists, and a little crack-brainedwithal, on account of their solitary way of

life, and out of sympathy for hepzibah,their lady-patroness. queer, indeed, they looked! chanticleer himself, though stalking on twostilt-like legs, with the dignity of interminable descent in all his gestures,was hardly bigger than an ordinary partridge; his two wives were about the size of quails; and as for the one chicken,it looked small enough to be still in the egg, and, at the same time, sufficientlyold, withered, wizened, and experienced, to have been founder of the antiquated race. instead of being the youngest of thefamily, it rather seemed to have aggregated

into itself the ages, not only of theseliving specimens of the breed, but of all its forefathers and foremothers, whose united excellences and oddities weresqueezed into its little body. its mother evidently regarded it as the onechicken of the world, and as necessary, in fact, to the world's continuance, or, atany rate, to the equilibrium of the present system of affairs, whether in church orstate. no lesser sense of the infant fowl'simportance could have justified, even in a mother's eyes, the perseverance with whichshe watched over its safety, ruffling her small person to twice its proper size, and

flying in everybody's face that so much aslooked towards her hopeful progeny. no lower estimate could have vindicated theindefatigable zeal with which she scratched, and her unscrupulousness indigging up the choicest flower or vegetable, for the sake of the fatearthworm at its root. her nervous cluck, when the chickenhappened to be hidden in the long grass or under the squash-leaves; her gentle croakof satisfaction, while sure of it beneath her wing; her note of ill-concealed fear and obstreperous defiance, when she saw herarch-enemy, a neighbor's cat, on the top of the high fence,--one or other of thesesounds was to be heard at almost every

moment of the day. by degrees, the observer came to feelnearly as much interest in this chicken of illustrious race as the mother-hen did. phoebe, after getting well acquainted withthe old hen, was sometimes permitted to take the chicken in her hand, which wasquite capable of grasping its cubic inch or two of body. while she curiously examined its hereditarymarks,--the peculiar speckle of its plumage, the funny tuft on its head, and aknob on each of its legs,--the little biped, as she insisted, kept giving her asagacious wink.

the daguerreotypist once whispered her thatthese marks betokened the oddities of the pyncheon family, and that the chickenitself was a symbol of the life of the old house, embodying its interpretation, likewise, although an unintelligible one,as such clews generally are. it was a feathered riddle; a mysteryhatched out of an egg, and just as mysterious as if the egg had been addle! the second of chanticleer's two wives, eversince phoebe's arrival, had been in a state of heavy despondency, caused, as itafterwards appeared, by her inability to lay an egg.

one day, however, by her self-importantgait, the sideways turn of her head, and the cock of her eye, as she pried into oneand another nook of the garden,--croaking to herself, all the while, with inexpressible complacency,--it was madeevident that this identical hen, much as mankind undervalued her, carried somethingabout her person the worth of which was not to be estimated either in gold or preciousstones. shortly after, there was a prodigiouscackling and gratulation of chanticleer and all his family, including the wizenedchicken, who appeared to understand the matter quite as well as did his sire, hismother, or his aunt.

that afternoon phoebe found a diminutiveegg,--not in the regular nest, it was far too precious to be trusted there,--butcunningly hidden under the currant-bushes, on some dry stalks of last year's grass. hepzibah, on learning the fact, tookpossession of the egg and appropriated it to clifford's breakfast, on account of acertain delicacy of flavor, for which, as she affirmed, these eggs had always beenfamous. thus unscrupulously did the old gentlewomansacrifice the continuance, perhaps, of an ancient feathered race, with no better endthan to supply her brother with a dainty that hardly filled the bowl of a tea-spoon!

it must have been in reference to thisoutrage that chanticleer, the next day, accompanied by the bereaved mother of theegg, took his post in front of phoebe and clifford, and delivered himself of a harangue that might have proved as long ashis own pedigree, but for a fit of merriment on phoebe's part. hereupon, the offended fowl stalked away onhis long stilts, and utterly withdrew his notice from phoebe and the rest of humannature, until she made her peace with an offering of spice-cake, which, next to snails, was the delicacy most in favor withhis aristocratic taste.

we linger too long, no doubt, beside thispaltry rivulet of life that flowed through the garden of the pyncheon house. but we deem it pardonable to record thesemean incidents and poor delights, because they proved so greatly to clifford'sbenefit. they had the earth-smell in them, andcontributed to give him health and substance.some of his occupations wrought less desirably upon him. he had a singular propensity, for example,to hang over maule's well, and look at the constantly shifting phantasmagoria offigures produced by the agitation of the

water over the mosaic-work of coloredpebbles at the bottom. he said that faces looked upward to himthere,--beautiful faces, arrayed in bewitching smiles,--each momentary face sofair and rosy, and every smile so sunny, that he felt wronged at its departure, until the same flitting witchcraft made anew one. but sometimes he would suddenly cry out,"the dark face gazes at me!" and be miserable the whole day afterwards. phoebe, when she hung over the fountain byclifford's side, could see nothing of all this,--neither the beauty nor theugliness,--but only the colored pebbles,

looking as if the gush of the waters shookand disarranged them. and the dark face, that so troubledclifford, was no more than the shadow thrown from a branch of one of the damson-trees, and breaking the inner light of maule's well. the truth was, however, that his fancy--reviving faster than his will and judgment, and always stronger than they--createdshapes of loveliness that were symbolic of his native character, and now and then a stern and dreadful shape that typified hisfate. on sundays, after phoebe had been atchurch,--for the girl had a church-going

conscience, and would hardly have been atease had she missed either prayer, singing, sermon, or benediction,--after church-time, therefore, there was, ordinarily, a soberlittle festival in the garden. in addition to clifford, hepzibah, andphoebe, two guests made up the company. one was the artist holgrave, who, in spiteof his consociation with reformers, and his other queer and questionable traits,continued to hold an elevated place in hepzibah's regard. the other, we are almost ashamed to say,was the venerable uncle venner, in a clean shirt, and a broadcloth coat, morerespectable than his ordinary wear,

inasmuch as it was neatly patched on each elbow, and might be called an entiregarment, except for a slight inequality in the length of its skirts. clifford, on several occasions, had seemedto enjoy the old man's intercourse, for the sake of his mellow, cheerful vein, whichwas like the sweet flavor of a frost-bitten apple, such as one picks up under the treein december. a man at the very lowest point of thesocial scale was easier and more agreeable for the fallen gentleman to encounter thana person at any of the intermediate degrees; and, moreover, as clifford's young

manhood had been lost, he was fond offeeling himself comparatively youthful, now, in apposition with the patriarchal ageof uncle venner. in fact, it was sometimes observable thatclifford half wilfully hid from himself the consciousness of being stricken in years,and cherished visions of an earthly future still before him; visions, however, too indistinctly drawn to be followed bydisappointment--though, doubtless, by depression--when any casual incident orrecollection made him sensible of the withered leaf. so this oddly composed little social partyused to assemble under the ruinous arbor.

hepzibah--stately as ever at heart, andyielding not an inch of her old gentility, but resting upon it so much the more, asjustifying a princess-like condescension-- exhibited a not ungraceful hospitality. she talked kindly to the vagrant artist,and took sage counsel--lady as she was-- with the wood-sawyer, the messenger ofeverybody's petty errands, the patched philosopher. and uncle venner, who had studied the worldat street-corners, and other posts equally well adapted for just observation, was asready to give out his wisdom as a town-pump to give water.

"miss hepzibah, ma'am," said he once, afterthey had all been cheerful together, "i really enjoy these quiet little meetings ofa sabbath afternoon. they are very much like what i expect tohave after i retire to my farm!" "uncle venner" observed clifford in adrowsy, inward tone, "is always talking about his farm. but i have a better scheme for him, by andby. we shall see!" "ah, mr. clifford pyncheon!" said the manof patches, "you may scheme for me as much as you please; but i'm not going to give upthis one scheme of my own, even if i never

bring it really to pass. it does seem to me that men make awonderful mistake in trying to heap up property upon property. if i had done so, i should feel as ifprovidence was not bound to take care of me; and, at all events, the city wouldn'tbe! i'm one of those people who think thatinfinity is big enough for us all--and eternity long enough." "why, so they are, uncle venner," remarkedphoebe after a pause; for she had been trying to fathom the profundity andappositeness of this concluding apothegm.

"but for this short life of ours, one wouldlike a house and a moderate garden-spot of one's own." "it appears to me," said thedaguerreotypist, smiling, "that uncle venner has the principles of fourier at thebottom of his wisdom; only they have not quite so much distinctness in his mind asin that of the systematizing frenchman." "come, phoebe," said hepzibah, "it is timeto bring the currants." and then, while the yellow richness of thedeclining sunshine still fell into the open space of the garden, phoebe brought out aloaf of bread and a china bowl of currants, freshly gathered from the bushes, andcrushed with sugar.

these, with water,--but not from thefountain of ill omen, close at hand,-- constituted all the entertainment. meanwhile, holgrave took some pains toestablish an intercourse with clifford, actuated, it might seem, entirely by animpulse of kindliness, in order that the present hour might be cheerfuller than most which the poor recluse had spent, or wasdestined yet to spend. nevertheless, in the artist's deep,thoughtful, all-observant eyes, there was, now and then, an expression, not sinister,but questionable; as if he had some other interest in the scene than a stranger, a

youthful and unconnected adventurer, mightbe supposed to have. with great mobility of outward mood,however, he applied himself to the task of enlivening the party; and with so muchsuccess, that even dark-hued hepzibah threw off one tint of melancholy, and made whatshift she could with the remaining portion. phoebe said to herself,--"how pleasant hecan be!" as for uncle venner, as a mark offriendship and approbation, he readily consented to afford the young man hiscountenance in the way of his profession,-- not metaphorically, be it understood, but literally, by allowing a daguerreotype ofhis face, so familiar to the town, to be

exhibited at the entrance of holgrave'sstudio. clifford, as the company partook of theirlittle banquet, grew to be the gayest of them all. either it was one of those up-quiveringflashes of the spirit, to which minds in an abnormal state are liable, or else theartist had subtly touched some chord that made musical vibration. indeed, what with the pleasant summerevening, and the sympathy of this little circle of not unkindly souls, it wasperhaps natural that a character so susceptible as clifford's should become

animated, and show itself readilyresponsive to what was said around him. but he gave out his own thoughts, likewise,with an airy and fanciful glow; so that they glistened, as it were, through thearbor, and made their escape among the interstices of the foliage. he had been as cheerful, no doubt, whilealone with phoebe, but never with such tokens of acute, although partialintelligence. but, as the sunlight left the peaks of theseven gables, so did the excitement fade out of clifford's eyes. he gazed vaguely and mournfully about him,as if he missed something precious, and

missed it the more drearily for not knowingprecisely what it was. "i want my happiness!" at last he murmuredhoarsely and indistinctly, hardly shaping out the words."many, many years have i waited for it! it is late! it is late!i want my happiness!" alas, poor clifford!you are old, and worn with troubles that ought never to have befallen you. you are partly crazy and partly imbecile; aruin, a failure, as almost everybody is,-- though some in less degree, or lessperceptibly, than their fellows.

fate has no happiness in store for you;unless your quiet home in the old family residence with the faithful hepzibah, andyour long summer afternoons with phoebe, and these sabbath festivals with uncle venner and the daguerreotypist, deserve tobe called happiness! why not? if not the thing itself, it is marvellouslylike it, and the more so for that ethereal and intangible quality which causes it allto vanish at too close an introspection. take it, therefore, while you may. murmur not,--question not,--but make themost of it!

chapter xithe arched window from the inertness, or what we may term thevegetative character, of his ordinary mood, clifford would perhaps have been content tospend one day after another, interminably -,-or, at least, throughout the summer-time -,-in just the kind of life described in thepreceding pages. fancying, however, that it might be for hisbenefit occasionally to diversify the scene, phoebe sometimes suggested that heshould look out upon the life of the street. for this purpose, they used to mount thestaircase together, to the second story of

the house, where, at the termination of awide entry, there was an arched window, of uncommonly large dimensions, shaded by apair of curtains. it opened above the porch, where there hadformerly been a balcony, the balustrade of which had long since gone to decay, andbeen removed. at this arched window, throwing it open,but keeping himself in comparative obscurity by means of the curtain, cliffordhad an opportunity of witnessing such a portion of the great world's movement as might be supposed to roll through one ofthe retired streets of a not very populous city.

but he and phoebe made a sight as wellworth seeing as any that the city could exhibit. the pale, gray, childish, aged, melancholy,yet often simply cheerful, and sometimes delicately intelligent aspect of clifford,peering from behind the faded crimson of the curtain,--watching the monotony of every-day occurrences with a kind ofinconsequential interest and earnestness, and, at every petty throb of hissensibility, turning for sympathy to the eyes of the bright young girl! if once he were fairly seated at thewindow, even pyncheon street would hardly

be so dull and lonely but that, somewhereor other along its extent, clifford might discover matter to occupy his eye, andtitillate, if not engross, his observation. things familiar to the youngest child thathad begun its outlook at existence seemed strange to him. a cab; an omnibus, with its populousinterior, dropping here and there a passenger, and picking up another, and thustypifying that vast rolling vehicle, the world, the end of whose journey is everywhere and nowhere; these objects hefollowed eagerly with his eyes, but forgot them before the dust raised by the horsesand wheels had settled along their track.

as regarded novelties (among which cabs andomnibuses were to be reckoned), his mind appeared to have lost its proper gripe andretentiveness. twice or thrice, for example, during thesunny hours of the day, a water-cart went along by the pyncheon house, leaving abroad wake of moistened earth, instead of the white dust that had risen at a lady's lightest footfall; it was like a summershower, which the city authorities had caught and tamed, and compelled it into thecommonest routine of their convenience. with the water-cart clifford could nevergrow familiar; it always affected him with just the same surprise as at first.

his mind took an apparently sharpimpression from it, but lost the recollection of this perambulatory shower,before its next reappearance, as completely as did the street itself, along which theheat so quickly strewed white dust again. it was the same with the railroad. clifford could hear the obstreperous howlof the steam-devil, and, by leaning a little way from the arched window, couldcatch a glimpse of the trains of cars, flashing a brief transit across theextremity of the street. the idea of terrible energy thus forcedupon him was new at every recurrence, and seemed to affect him as disagreeably, andwith almost as much surprise, the hundredth

time as the first. nothing gives a sadder sense of decay thanthis loss or suspension of the power to deal with unaccustomed things, and to keepup with the swiftness of the passing moment. it can merely be a suspended animation;for, were the power actually to perish, there would be little use of immortality.we are less than ghosts, for the time being, whenever this calamity befalls us. clifford was indeed the most inveterate ofconservatives. all the antique fashions of the street weredear to him; even such as were

characterized by a rudeness that wouldnaturally have annoyed his fastidious senses. he loved the old rumbling and joltingcarts, the former track of which he still found in his long-buried remembrance, asthe observer of to-day finds the wheel- tracks of ancient vehicles in herculaneum. the butcher's cart, with its snowy canopy,was an acceptable object; so was the fish- cart, heralded by its horn; so, likewise,was the countryman's cart of vegetables, plodding from door to door, with long pauses of the patient horse, while hisowner drove a trade in turnips, carrots,

summer-squashes, string-beans, green peas,and new potatoes, with half the housewives of the neighborhood. the baker's cart, with the harsh music ofits bells, had a pleasant effect on clifford, because, as few things else did,it jingled the very dissonance of yore. one afternoon a scissor-grinder chanced toset his wheel a-going under the pyncheon elm, and just in front of the archedwindow. children came running with their mothers'scissors, or the carving-knife, or the paternal razor, or anything else thatlacked an edge (except, indeed, poor clifford's wits), that the grinder might

apply the article to his magic wheel, andgive it back as good as new. round went the busily revolving machinery,kept in motion by the scissor-grinder's foot, and wore away the hard steel againstthe hard stone, whence issued an intense and spiteful prolongation of a hiss as fierce as those emitted by satan and hiscompeers in pandemonium, though squeezed into smaller compass. it was an ugly, little, venomous serpent ofa noise, as ever did petty violence to human ears.but clifford listened with rapturous delight.

the sound, however disagreeable, had verybrisk life in it, and, together with the circle of curious children watching therevolutions of the wheel, appeared to give him a more vivid sense of active, bustling, and sunshiny existence than he had attainedin almost any other way. nevertheless, its charm lay chiefly in thepast; for the scissor-grinder's wheel had hissed in his childish ears. he sometimes made doleful complaint thatthere were no stage-coaches nowadays. and he asked in an injured tone what hadbecome of all those old square-topped chaises, with wings sticking out on eitherside, that used to be drawn by a plough-

horse, and driven by a farmer's wife and daughter, peddling whortle-berries andblackberries about the town. their disappearance made him doubt, hesaid, whether the berries had not left off growing in the broad pastures and along theshady country lanes. but anything that appealed to the sense ofbeauty, in however humble a way, did not require to be recommended by these oldassociations. this was observable when one of thoseitalian boys (who are rather a modern feature of our streets) came along with hisbarrel-organ, and stopped under the wide and cool shadows of the elm.

with his quick professional eye he tooknote of the two faces watching him from the arched window, and, opening his instrument,began to scatter its melodies abroad. he had a monkey on his shoulder, dressed ina highland plaid; and, to complete the sum of splendid attractions wherewith hepresented himself to the public, there was a company of little figures, whose sphere and habitation was in the mahogany case ofhis organ, and whose principle of life was the music which the italian made it hisbusiness to grind out. in all their variety of occupation,--thecobbler, the blacksmith, the soldier, the lady with her fan, the toper with hisbottle, the milk-maid sitting by her cow--

this fortunate little society might truly be said to enjoy a harmonious existence,and to make life literally a dance. the italian turned a crank; and, behold!every one of these small individuals started into the most curious vivacity. the cobbler wrought upon a shoe; theblacksmith hammered his iron, the soldier waved his glittering blade; the lady raiseda tiny breeze with her fan; the jolly toper swigged lustily at his bottle; a scholar opened his book with eager thirst forknowledge, and turned his head to and fro along the page; the milkmaid energeticallydrained her cow; and a miser counted gold

into his strong-box,--all at the sameturning of a crank. yes; and, moved by the self-same impulse, alover saluted his mistress on her lips! possibly some cynic, at once merry andbitter, had desired to signify, in this pantomimic scene, that we mortals, whateverour business or amusement,--however serious, however trifling,--all dance to one identical tune, and, in spite of ourridiculous activity, bring nothing finally to pass. for the most remarkable aspect of theaffair was, that, at the cessation of the music, everybody was petrified at once,from the most extravagant life into a dead

torpor. neither was the cobbler's shoe finished,nor the blacksmith's iron shaped out; nor was there a drop less of brandy in thetoper's bottle, nor a drop more of milk in the milkmaid's pail, nor one additional coin in the miser's strong-box, nor was thescholar a page deeper in his book. all were precisely in the same condition asbefore they made themselves so ridiculous by their haste to toil, to enjoy, toaccumulate gold, and to become wise. saddest of all, moreover, the lover wasnone the happier for the maiden's granted kiss!

but, rather than swallow this last tooacrid ingredient, we reject the whole moral of the show. the monkey, meanwhile, with a thick tailcurling out into preposterous prolixity from beneath his tartans, took his stationat the italian's feet. he turned a wrinkled and abominable littlevisage to every passer-by, and to the circle of children that soon gatheredround, and to hepzibah's shop-door, and upward to the arched window, whence phoebeand clifford were looking down. every moment, also, he took off hishighland bonnet, and performed a bow and scrape.

sometimes, moreover, he made personalapplication to individuals, holding out his small black palm, and otherwise plainlysignifying his excessive desire for whatever filthy lucre might happen to be inanybody's pocket. the mean and low, yet strangely man-likeexpression of his wilted countenance; the prying and crafty glance, that showed himready to gripe at every miserable advantage; his enormous tail (too enormous to be decently concealed under hisgabardine), and the deviltry of nature which it betokened,--take this monkey justas he was, in short, and you could desire no better image of the mammon of copper

coin, symbolizing the grossest form of thelove of money. neither was there any possibility ofsatisfying the covetous little devil. phoebe threw down a whole handful of cents,which he picked up with joyless eagerness, handed them over to the italian forsafekeeping, and immediately recommenced a series of pantomimic petitions for more. doubtless, more than one new-englander--or,let him be of what country he might, it is as likely to be the case--passed by, andthrew a look at the monkey, and went on, without imagining how nearly his own moralcondition was here exemplified. clifford, however, was a being of anotherorder.

he had taken childish delight in the music,and smiled, too, at the figures which it set in motion. but, after looking awhile at the long-tailed imp, he was so shocked by his horrible ugliness, spiritual as well asphysical, that he actually began to shed tears; a weakness which men of merely delicate endowments, and destitute of thefiercer, deeper, and more tragic power of laughter, can hardly avoid, when the worstand meanest aspect of life happens to be presented to them. pyncheon street was sometimes enlivened byspectacles of more imposing pretensions

than the above, and which brought themultitude along with them. with a shivering repugnance at the idea ofpersonal contact with the world, a powerful impulse still seized on clifford, wheneverthe rush and roar of the human tide grew strongly audible to him. this was made evident, one day, when apolitical procession, with hundreds of flaunting banners, and drums, fifes,clarions, and cymbals, reverberating between the rows of buildings, marched all through town, and trailed its length oftrampling footsteps, and most infrequent uproar, past the ordinarily quiet house ofthe seven gables.

as a mere object of sight, nothing is moredeficient in picturesque features than a procession seen in its passage throughnarrow streets. the spectator feels it to be fool's play,when he can distinguish the tedious commonplace of each man's visage, with theperspiration and weary self-importance on it, and the very cut of his pantaloons, and the stiffness or laxity of his shirt-collar, and the dust on the back of his black coat. in order to become majestic, it should beviewed from some vantage point, as it rolls its slow and long array through the centreof a wide plain, or the stateliest public

square of a city; for then, by its remoteness, it melts all the pettypersonalities, of which it is made up, into one broad mass of existence,--one greatlife,--one collected body of mankind, with a vast, homogeneous spirit animating it. but, on the other hand, if an impressibleperson, standing alone over the brink of one of these processions, should behold it,not in its atoms, but in its aggregate,--as a mighty river of life, massive in its tide, and black with mystery, and, out ofits depths, calling to the kindred depth within him,--then the contiguity would addto the effect.

it might so fascinate him that he wouldhardly be restrained from plunging into the surging stream of human sympathies.so it proved with clifford. he shuddered; he grew pale; he threw anappealing look at hepzibah and phoebe, who were with him at the window. they comprehended nothing of his emotions,and supposed him merely disturbed by the unaccustomed tumult. at last, with tremulous limbs, he startedup, set his foot on the window-sill, and in an instant more would have been in theunguarded balcony. as it was, the whole procession might haveseen him, a wild, haggard figure, his gray

locks floating in the wind that waved theirbanners; a lonely being, estranged from his race, but now feeling himself man again, by virtue of the irrepressible instinct thatpossessed him. had clifford attained the balcony, he wouldprobably have leaped into the street; but whether impelled by the species of terrorthat sometimes urges its victim over the very precipice which he shrinks from, or by a natural magnetism, tending towards thegreat centre of humanity, it were not easy to decide.both impulses might have wrought on him at once.

but his companions, affrighted by hisgesture,--which was that of a man hurried away in spite of himself,--seizedclifford's garment and held him back. hepzibah shrieked. phoebe, to whom all extravagance was ahorror, burst into sobs and tears. "clifford, clifford! are you crazy?" criedhis sister. "i hardly know, hepzibah," said clifford,drawing a long breath. "fear nothing,--it is over now,--but had itaken that plunge, and survived it, methinks it would have made me anotherman!" possibly, in some sense, clifford may havebeen right.

he needed a shock; or perhaps he requiredto take a deep, deep plunge into the ocean of human life, and to sink down and becovered by its profoundness, and then to emerge, sobered, invigorated, restored tothe world and to himself. perhaps again, he required nothing lessthan the great final remedy--death! a similar yearning to renew the brokenlinks of brotherhood with his kind sometimes showed itself in a milder form;and once it was made beautiful by the religion that lay even deeper than itself. in the incident now to be sketched, therewas a touching recognition, on clifford's part, of god's care and love towards him,--towards this poor, forsaken man, who, if

any mortal could, might have been pardoned for regarding himself as thrown aside,forgotten, and left to be the sport of some fiend, whose playfulness was an ecstasy ofmischief. it was the sabbath morning; one of thosebright, calm sabbaths, with its own hallowed atmosphere, when heaven seems todiffuse itself over the earth's face in a solemn smile, no less sweet than solemn. on such a sabbath morn, were we pure enoughto be its medium, we should be conscious of the earth's natural worship ascendingthrough our frames, on whatever spot of ground we stood.

the church-bells, with various tones, butall in harmony, were calling out and responding to one another,--"it is thesabbath!--the sabbath!--yea; the sabbath!"- -and over the whole city the bells scattered the blessed sounds, now slowly,now with livelier joy, now one bell alone, now all the bells together, cryingearnestly,--"it is the sabbath!"--and flinging their accents afar off, to melt into the air and pervade it with the holyword. the air with god's sweetest and tenderestsunshine in it, was meet for mankind to breathe into their hearts, and send itforth again as the utterance of prayer.

clifford sat at the window with hepzibah,watching the neighbors as they stepped into the street. all of them, however unspiritual on otherdays, were transfigured by the sabbath influence; so that their very garments--whether it were an old man's decent coat well brushed for the thousandth time, or a little boy's first sack and trousersfinished yesterday by his mother's needle-- had somewhat of the quality of ascension-robes. forth, likewise, from the portal of the oldhouse stepped phoebe, putting up her small green sunshade, and throwing upward aglance and smile of parting kindness to the

faces at the arched window. in her aspect there was a familiargladness, and a holiness that you could play with, and yet reverence it as much asever. she was like a prayer, offered up in thehomeliest beauty of one's mother-tongue. fresh was phoebe, moreover, and airy andsweet in her apparel; as if nothing that she wore--neither her gown, nor her smallstraw bonnet, nor her little kerchief, any more than her snowy stockings--had ever been put on before; or, if worn, were allthe fresher for it, and with a fragrance as if they had lain among the rosebuds.

the girl waved her hand to hepzibah andclifford, and went up the street; a religion in herself, warm, simple, true,with a substance that could walk on earth, and a spirit that was capable of heaven. "hepzibah," asked clifford, after watchingphoebe to the corner, "do you never go to church?""no, clifford!" she replied,--"not these many, many years!" "were i to be there," he rejoined, "itseems to me that i could pray once more, when so many human souls were praying allaround me!" she looked into clifford's face, and beheldthere a soft natural effusion; for his

heart gushed out, as it were, and ran overat his eyes, in delightful reverence for god, and kindly affection for his humanbrethren. the emotion communicated itself tohepzibah. she yearned to take him by the hand, and goand kneel down, they two together,--both so long separate from the world, and, as shenow recognized, scarcely friends with him above,--to kneel down among the people, andbe reconciled to god and man at once. "dear brother," said she earnestly, "let usgo! we belong nowhere. we have not a foot of space in any churchto kneel upon; but let us go to some place

of worship, even if we stand in the broadaisle. poor and forsaken as we are, some pew-doorwill be opened to us!" so hepzibah and her brother madethemselves, ready--as ready as they could in the best of their old-fashionedgarments, which had hung on pegs, or been laid away in trunks, so long that the dampness and mouldy smell of the past wason them,--made themselves ready, in their faded bettermost, to go to church. they descended the staircase together,--gaunt, sallow hepzibah, and pale, emaciated, age-stricken clifford!

they pulled open the front door, andstepped across the threshold, and felt, both of them, as if they were standing inthe presence of the whole world, and with mankind's great and terrible eye on themalone. the eye of their father seemed to bewithdrawn, and gave them no encouragement. the warm sunny air of the street made themshiver. their hearts quaked within them at the ideaof taking one step farther. "it cannot be, hepzibah!--it is too late,"said clifford with deep sadness. "we are ghosts! we have no right among human beings,--noright anywhere but in this old house, which

has a curse on it, and which, therefore, weare doomed to haunt! and, besides," he continued, with afastidious sensibility, inalienably characteristic of the man, "it would not befit nor beautiful to go! it is an ugly thought that i should befrightful to my fellow-beings, and that children would cling to their mothers'gowns at sight of me!" they shrank back into the dusky passage-way, and closed the door. but, going up the staircase again, theyfound the whole interior of the house tenfold more dismal, and the air closer andheavier, for the glimpse and breath of freedom which they had just snatched.

they could not flee; their jailer had butleft the door ajar in mockery, and stood behind it to watch them stealing out.at the threshold, they felt his pitiless gripe upon them. for, what other dungeon is so dark as one'sown heart! what jailer so inexorable as one's self! but it would be no fair picture ofclifford's state of mind were we to represent him as continually orprevailingly wretched. on the contrary, there was no other man inthe city, we are bold to affirm, of so much as half his years, who enjoyed so manylightsome and griefless moments as himself.

he had no burden of care upon him; therewere none of those questions and contingencies with the future to be settledwhich wear away all other lives, and render them not worth having by the very processof providing for their support. in this respect he was a child,--a childfor the whole term of his existence, be it long or short. indeed, his life seemed to be standingstill at a period little in advance of childhood, and to cluster all hisreminiscences about that epoch; just as, after the torpor of a heavy blow, the sufferer's reviving consciousness goes backto a moment considerably behind the

accident that stupefied him. he sometimes told phoebe and hepzibah hisdreams, in which he invariably played the part of a child, or a very young man. so vivid were they, in his relation ofthem, that he once held a dispute with his sister as to the particular figure or printof a chintz morning-dress which he had seen their mother wear, in the dream of thepreceding night. hepzibah, piquing herself on a woman'saccuracy in such matters, held it to be slightly different from what clifforddescribed; but, producing the very gown from an old trunk, it proved to beidentical with his remembrance of it.

had clifford, every time that he emergedout of dreams so lifelike, undergone the torture of transformation from a boy intoan old and broken man, the daily recurrence of the shock would have been too much tobear. it would have caused an acute agony tothrill from the morning twilight, all the day through, until bedtime; and even thenwould have mingled a dull, inscrutable pain and pallid hue of misfortune with the visionary bloom and adolescence of hisslumber. but the nightly moonshine interwove itselfwith the morning mist, and enveloped him as in a robe, which he hugged about hisperson, and seldom let realities pierce

through; he was not often quite awake, but slept open-eyed, and perhaps fanciedhimself most dreaming then. thus, lingering always so near hischildhood, he had sympathies with children, and kept his heart the fresher thereby,like a reservoir into which rivulets were pouring not far from the fountain-head. though prevented, by a subtile sense ofpropriety, from desiring to associate with them, he loved few things better than tolook out of the arched window and see a little girl driving her hoop along thesidewalk, or schoolboys at a game of ball. their voices, also, were very pleasant tohim, heard at a distance, all swarming and

intermingling together as flies do in asunny room. clifford would, doubtless, have been gladto share their sports. one afternoon he was seized with anirresistible desire to blow soap-bubbles; an amusement, as hepzibah told phoebeapart, that had been a favorite one with her brother when they were both children. behold him, therefore, at the archedwindow, with an earthen pipe in his mouth! behold him, with his gray hair, and a wan,unreal smile over his countenance, where still hovered a beautiful grace, which hisworst enemy must have acknowledged to be spiritual and immortal, since it hadsurvived so long!

behold him, scattering airy spheres abroadfrom the window into the street! little impalpable worlds were those soap-bubbles, with the big world depicted, in hues bright as imagination, on the nothingof their surface. it was curious to see how the passers-byregarded these brilliant fantasies, as they came floating down, and made the dullatmosphere imaginative about them. some stopped to gaze, and perhaps, carrieda pleasant recollection of the bubbles onward as far as the street-corner; somelooked angrily upward, as if poor clifford wronged them by setting an image of beautyafloat so near their dusty pathway. a great many put out their fingers or theirwalking-sticks to touch, withal; and were

perversely gratified, no doubt, when thebubble, with all its pictured earth and sky scene, vanished as if it had never been. at length, just as an elderly gentleman ofvery dignified presence happened to be passing, a large bubble sailed majesticallydown, and burst right against his nose! he looked up,--at first with a stern, keenglance, which penetrated at once into the obscurity behind the arched window,--thenwith a smile which might be conceived as diffusing a dog-day sultriness for thespace of several yards about him. "aha, cousin clifford!" cried judgepyncheon. "what!

still blowing soap-bubbles!"the tone seemed as if meant to be kind and soothing, but yet had a bitterness ofsarcasm in it. as for clifford, an absolute palsy of fearcame over him. apart from any definite cause of dreadwhich his past experience might have given him, he felt that native and originalhorror of the excellent judge which is proper to a weak, delicate, and apprehensive character in the presence ofmassive strength. strength is incomprehensible by weakness,and, therefore, the more terrible. there is no greater bugbear than a strong-willed relative in the circle of his own

connections.

wie gestalte ich meine fenster mit gardinen 2018-04-20T05:15:00-07:00 Rating: 4.5 Diposkan Oleh: ika