How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
"This is the very man!" murmured [Hepzibah] to herself. "Let Jaffrey Pyncheon smile as he will, there is that look beneath! Put on him a skull-cap, and a band, and a black cloak, and a Bible in one hand and a sword in the other, – then let Jaffrey smile as he might, – nobody would doubt that it was the old Pyncheon come again. He has proved himself the very man to build up a new house! Perhaps, too, to draw down a new curse!" (4.9)
There is this intense sense of personal division within Hepzibah: she recognizes that Colonel Pyncheon founded the family line of which she is so proud. But she also sees his hard character and blames him for "draw[ing] down" bad fortune on the family. She's proud of her family but she has mixed feelings about its founder and his current heir, Judge Pyncheon. Why does Hepzibah seem so oddly proud of her family's cursed status? Why might family as a category still be important to Hepzibah when she knows that her family has done evil? What does Hepzibah get out of her attachment to the Pyncheon line?
Quote #5
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 the case, – she had been enriched by poverty, developed by sorrow, elevated by the strong and solitary affection of her life, and thus endowed with heroism, which never could have characterized her in what are called happier circumstances. Through dreary years Hepzibah had looked forward – for the most part despairingly, never with any confidence of hope, but always with the feeling that it was her brightest possibility – to the very position in which she now found herself. In her own behalf, she had asked nothing of Providence but the opportunity of devoting herself to this brother, whom she had so loved, – 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. (9.1)
Hepzibah's character appears ridiculous in the first couple of chapters, but we respect her more and more as we discover her completely unselfish devotion to her brother, who has been so screwed over by life. Why might Hawthorne choose to reveal the better sides of Hepzibah's character later on in the novel rather than when we first meet her? A second question jumps out at us from this passage: what effect does Hawthorne think suffering has on character? How have both Hepzibah and Clifford's essential natures been changed by their painful life experiences? Do you agree with Hawthorne's ideas of suffering and its effects on the soul?
Quote #6
To plant a family! This idea is at the bottom of most of the wrong and mischief which men do. The truth is, that, once in every half-century, at longest, a family should be merged into the great, obscure mass of humanity, and forget all about its ancestors. Human blood, in order to keep its freshness, should run in hidden streams, as the water of an aqueduct is conveyed in subterranean pipes. In the family existence of these Pyncheons, for instance, – forgive me Phoebe, but I cannot think of you as one of them, – in their brief New England pedigree, there has been time enough to infect them all with one kind of lunacy or another. (12.33)
Mr. Holgrave traces back most of the crimes men commit to their desire to build a family home for their descendants. Mr. Holgrave thinks that, instead of these heavy, burdensome inheritances, we should just break apart family lines every 50 years. What do you think of Mr. Holgrave's suggestion? How do you imagine this being carried out? Are there social systems in the world that seem to approach Mr. Holgrave's ideal of no inheritance? What new social problems can you imagine cropping up if we all tried to merge "into the great, obscure mass of humanity" and forget our ancestors?