How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #4
This natural tunefulness made Phoebe seem like a bird in a shadowy tree; or conveyed the idea that the stream of life warbled through her heart as a brook sometimes warbles through a pleasant little dell. It betokened the cheeriness of an active temperament, finding joy in its activity, and, therefore, rendering it beautiful; it was a New England trait, – the stern old stuff of Puritanism with a gold thread in the web. (5.26)
We've talked about the pride of the Pyncheon family in the novel, but what about the pride of Nathaniel Hawthorne as a writer? Hawthorne was a New Englander born and bred. While he may be very critical of his Puritan forebears, with their hypocrisy and the whole witchcraft thing, he is also really proud of the strength and energy that he identifies as Puritan traits. Like Hepzibah, Hawthorne seems caught between admiration and distaste for his origins.
Quote #5
As for Clifford, an absolute palsy of fear came over him. Apart from any definite cause of dread which his past experience might have given him, he felt that native and original horror of the excellent Judge which is proper to a weak, delicate, and apprehensive character in the presence of massive 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. (11.32)
Clifford starts to physically tremble with fear at the sight of Judge Pyncheon. And it isn't just because Judge Pyncheon once put him away unjustly for murder – it's also because he is weak. The weak don't understand the strong, so they are afraid of them, according to Hawthorne. But we wonder whether "the strong" really understand what it is to be weak. If Judge Pyncheon understood the vulnerability and uncertainty of weakness, surely he wouldn't be so cruel to his relatives?
Quote #6
Holgrave had read very little, and that little in passing through the thoroughfare of life, where the mystic language of his books was necessarily mixed up with the babble of the multitude, so that both one and the other were apt to lose any sense that might have been properly their own. He considered himself a thinker, and was certainly of a thoughtful turn, but, with his own path to discover, had perhaps hardly yet reached the point where an educated man begins to think. The true value of his character lay in that deep consciousness of inward strength, which made all his past vicissitudes seem merely like a change of garments; in that enthusiasm, so quiet that he scarcely knew of its existence, but which gave a warmth to everything that he laid his hand on; in that personal ambition, hidden—from his own as well as other eyes—among his more generous impulses, but in which lurked a certain efficacy, that might solidify him from a theorist into the champion of some practicable cause. Altogether in his culture and want of culture, – in his crude, wild, and misty philosophy, and the practical experience that counteracted some of its tendencies; in his magnanimous zeal for man's welfare, and his recklessness of whatever the ages had established in man's behalf; in his faith, and in his infidelity; in what he had, and in what he lacked, – the artist might fitly enough stand forth as the representative of many compeers in his native land. (12.19)
Mr. Holgrave represents "many compeers in his native land" according to Hawthorne – in other words, he's like a lot of Americans. He isn't formally educated, but he has a lot of life experience, and he has a deep "inward strength" that keeps him going through hard times. How does Mr. Holgrave's strength compare or contrast with Judge Pyncheon's? How do the two of them use their strength of character differently? And what do you think of Hawthorne's assessment of the American character? What individual characteristics of Mr. Holgrave's do you think Hawthorne is trying to apply to Americans as a group? How accurate do you find Hawthorne's observations? Are Americans truly so filled with "crude, wild, and misty philosophy"?