"
The matter here alluded to threatened to give Hawthorne almost as much
inconvenience as the tribulation which followed the appearance of "The
Custom-House." One of the complainants in this case, though objecting to
the use of the name Pyncheon, "respectfully suggests," with an ill-timed
passion for accuracy, that it should in future editions be printed with
the _e_ left out, because this was the proper mode in use by the
family.
There has been some slight controversy as to the original of the
visionary mansion described in this romance. Mr. Hawthorne himself said
distinctly that he had no particular house in mind, and it is also a
fact that none is recalled which fulfils all the conditions of that of
the "Seven Gables." Nevertheless, one party has maintained that the old
Philip English house, pulled down many years since, was the veritable
model; and others support the Ingersoll house, which still stands. The
Curwin, called the "Witch House," appears, by an antique painting from
which photographs have been made, to have had the requisite number of
peaks at a remote date; but one side of the structure being perforce
left out of the picture, there is room for a doubt. [Footnote: It is
from one of these photographs that the cut in the new edition of
Hawthorne's Works has been developed.]
In "The House of the Seven Gables" Hawthorne attained a connection of
parts and a masterly gradation of tones which did not belong, in the
same fulness, to "The Scarlet Letter.
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