- end_line
- 1791
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T07:57:45.581Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 1722
- text
- as I somehow cling to the strange fancy, that, in all men, hiddenly
reside certain wondrous, occult properties--as in some plants and
minerals--which by some happy but very rare accident (as bronze was
discovered by the melting of the iron and brass at the burning of
Corinth) may chance to be called forth here on earth; not entirely
waiting for their better discovery in the more congenial, blessed
atmosphere of heaven.
Once more--for it is hard to be finite upon an infinite subject, and
all subjects are infinite. By some people this entire scrawl of mine
may be esteemed altogether unnecessary, inasmuch "as years ago" (they
may say) "we found out the rich and rare stuff in this Hawthorne, who
you now parade forth, as if only you _yourself_ were the discoverer
of this Portuguese diamond in your literature." But even granting all
this--and adding to it, the assumption that the books of Hawthorne have
sold by the five thousand,--what does that signify? They should be sold
by the hundred thousand; and read by the million; and admired by every
one who is capable of admiration.
JIMMY ROSE
A time ago, no matter how long precisely, I, an old man, removed from
the country to the city, having become unexpected heir to a great old
house in a narrow street of one of the lower wards, once the haunt of
style and fashion, full of gay parlors and bridal chambers, but now,
for the most part, transformed into counting-rooms and warehouses.
There bales and boxes usurp the place of sofas; daybooks and ledgers
are spread where once the delicious breakfast toast was buttered. In
those old wards the glorious old soft-warfle days are over.
Nevertheless, in this old house of mine, so strangely spared, some
monument of departed days survived. Nor was this the only one. Amidst
the warehouse ranges some few other dwellings likewise stood. The
street's transmutation was not yet complete. Like those old English
friars and nuns, long haunting the ruins of their retreats after
they had been despoiled, so some few strange old gentlemen and ladies
still lingered in the neighborhood, and would not, could not, might
not quit it. And I thought that when, one spring, emerging from my
white-blossoming orchard, my own white hairs and white ivory-headed
cane were added to their loitering census, that those poor old souls
insanely fancied the ward was looking up--the tide of fashion setting
back again.
For many years the old house had been occupied by an owner; those
into whose hands it from time to time had passed having let it out to
various shifting tenants; decayed old townspeople, mysterious recluses,
or transient, ambiguous-looking foreigners.
While from certain cheap furbishings to which the exterior had been
subjected, such as removing a fine old pulpit-like porch crowning
the summit of six lofty steps, and set off with a broad-brimmed
sounding-board overshadowing the whole, as well as replacing the
original heavy window shutters (each pierced with a crescent in the
upper panel to admit an Oriental and moony light into the otherwise
shut-up rooms of a sultry morning in July) with frippery Venetian
blinds; while, I repeat, the front of the house hereby presented an
incongruous aspect, as if the graft of modernness had not taken in its
ancient stock; still, however it might fare without, within little or
nothing had been altered. The cellars were full of great grim, arched
bins of blackened brick, looking like the ancient tombs of Templars,
while overhead were shown the first-floor timbers, huge, square, and
massive, all red oak, and through long eld, of a rich and Indian color.
So large were those timbers, and so thickly ranked, that to walk in
those capacious cellars was much like walking along a line-of-battle
ship's gun-deck.
- title
- Chunk 14