How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"I cannot see [Clifford's] thoughts! How should I?" replied Phoebe with simple piquancy. "Very often his humor changes without any reason that can be guessed at, just as a cloud comes over the sun. Latterly, since I have begun to know him better, I feel it to be not quite right to look closely into his moods. He has had such a great sorrow, that his heart is made all solemn and sacred by it. When he is cheerful, – when the sun shines into his mind, – then I venture to peep in, just as far as the light reaches, but no further. It is holy ground where the shadow falls!"
"How prettily you express this sentiment!" said the artist. "I can understand the feeling, without possessing it. Had I your opportunities, no scruples would prevent me from fathoming Clifford to the full depth of my plummet-line!" (12.13-4)
Phoebe feels that it is only right to leave Clifford his privacy. Why should she poke into his private problems? But Mr. Holgrave views all people as fascinating subjects of study and wants to get inside their minds. What do you think of these two positions? Are you curious about what makes people tick, or do you leave people to their own thoughts? How much privacy are you willing to allow your friends and family? Could you stop yourself from trying to find out more about where Clifford has been all these years if you were in Phoebe's place?
Quote #5
Some said that he could look into people's minds; others, that, by the marvellous power of this eye, he could draw people into his own mind, or send them, if he pleased, to do errands to his grandfather, in the spiritual world; others, again, that it was what is termed an Evil Eye, and possessed the valuable faculty of blighting corn, and drying children into mummies with the heartburn. But, after all, what worked most to the young carpenter's disadvantage was, first, the reserve and sternness of his natural disposition, and next, the fact of his not being a church-communicant, and the suspicion of his holding heretical tenets in matters of religion and polity. (13.10)
Mr. Holgrave's short story adds a new dimension to this whole drama: he shows how the Maules fared in the village after their ancestor was executed for witchcraft. The Pyncheons aren't the only ones with the stain of guilt on their name; the villagers still suspect Matthew Maule (and now his grandson, the younger Matthew Maule) of strange powers and "heretical tenets in matters of religion and polity." In other words, even though gossip says that Colonel Pyncheon cooked up this witchcraft charge against Matthew Maule, gossip also says that Matthew Maule was a witch. And why do you think Hawthorne chose to present this particular story through the mouthpiece of Mr. Holgrave? What differences of style are there between Holgrave's writing and the rest of the narration of the novel?
Quote #6
"In the name of Heaven," cried Hepzibah, provoked only to intenser indignation by this outgush of the inestimable tenderness of a stern nature, – "in God's name, whom you insult, and whose power I could almost question, since he hears you utter so many false words without palsying your tongue, – give over, I beseech you, this loathsome pretence of affection for your victim! You hate him! Say so, like a man! You cherish, at this moment, some black purpose against him in your heart! Speak it out, at once!—or, if you hope so to promote it better, hide it till you can triumph in its success! But never speak again of your love for my poor brother. I cannot bear it! It will drive me beyond a woman's decency! It will drive me mad! Forbear! Not another word! It will make me spurn you!" (15.14)
Judge Jaffrey Pyncheon has such a habit of lying that he seems to have trouble letting it go – even though he knows that Hepzibah knows it was him who framed Clifford for murdering his uncle all of those years before. He is so hypocritical that even when there is no advantage to be had in lying, he just keeps doing it. But we are also intrigued by Hepzibah's insistence that, if you have "some black purpose" against someone, it is better to "say so, like a man!" What really seems to outrage Hepzibah – and perhaps the narrator as well – is not that Judge Pyncheon is a bad man but that he is so good at pretending to be a good man. The success of Judge Pyncheon's hypocrisy is a subtle critique of the system that will give a man like Judge Pyncheon so much power.