IN September of the year
          during the February
         of which Hawthorne had completed
           "The Scarlet Letter,"
            he began "The House
               of the Seven Gables."

    Meanwhile,
           he had
              removed from Salem to Lenox,
         in Berkshire County,
           Massachusetts,
         where he occupied
               with his family
                   a small red wooden house,
           still standing
               at the date
                   of this edition,
         near the Stockbridge Bowl.

    "I sha'n't
       have the new story
          ready by November,"
          he explained to his publisher,
               on the 1st of October,
             "for I
                am never good
                       for anything
                     in the literary way
                 till after
                       the first autumnal frost,
               which has
                  somewhat such an effect
                       on my imagination
                 that it
                    does on the foliage here
                           about me-multiplying and
                          brightening its hues."

    But by vigorous application
         he was able
              to complete the new work
                   about the middle
                       of the January following.

    Since research
        has disclosed the manner
         in which the romance
            is interwoven
                   with incidents
                 from the history
                       of the Hawthorne family,
         "The House
               of the Seven Gables"
            has acquired an interest
               apart from that
             by which it first
                appealed to the public.

    John Hathorne
         (as the name
            was then spelled),
          the great-grandfather
               of Nathaniel Hawthorne,
             was a magistrate
                   at Salem
                 in the latter part
                       of the seventeenth century,
             and officiated
                   at the famous trials
                 for witchcraft
                  held there.

    It is of record
         that he used
               peculiar severity
                   towards a certain woman
         who was among the accused;
        and the husband
               of this woman prophesied
             that God would take
                 revenge upon his wife's persecutors.

    This circumstance doubtless
          furnished a hint for
         that piece of tradition
               in the book
              which represents a Pyncheon
                   of a former generation as
                having persecuted one Maule,
           who declared
             that God
                would give his enemy
         "blood to drink."

    It became a conviction
           with The Hawthorne family
         that a curse
            had been
                  pronounced upon its members,
           which continued
               in force
             in the time
                   of The romancer;
        a conviction perhaps
              derived from the recorded prophecy
                   of The
                  injured woman's husband,
           just mentioned;
        and,
           here again,
         we have a correspondence
               with Maule's malediction
             in The story.

    Furthermore,
           there occurs
               in The "American Note-Books"
         (August 27,
           1837),
          a reminiscence
               of The author's family,
             to the following effect.

    Philip English,
           a character well-known
               in early Salem annals,
         was among those
             who suffered
                from John Hathorne's magisterial
                              harshness,
           and he maintained
               in consequence a lasting
                   feud with
                       the old Puritan official.

    But at his death English
          left daughters,
           one of whom is said
              to have
                  married the son
                       of Justice John Hathorne,
         whom English had declared
             he would never forgive.

    It is scarcely necessary
          to point out
         how clearly
               this foreshadows
             the final union of
               those hereditary foes,
           the Pyncheons and Maules,
         through the marriage
               of Phoebe and Holgrave.

    The romance,
           however,
         describes the Maules as
              possessing some
                   of the traits known
              to have been
                 characteristic
                    of the Hawthornes:
         for example,
         "so long
               as any of the race
            were to be found,
               they had been marked
                   out from other men
              --not strikingly,
               nor as
                   with a sharp line,
             but with an effect
                 that was felt
                   rather than
                      spoken of--by an hereditary
                         characteristic
                            of reserve."

    Thus,
           while the general suggestion
               of the Hawthorne line
             and its fortunes
            was followed in the romance,
         the Pyncheons
              taking the place
                   of The author's family,
           certain distinguishing marks
               of the Hawthornes
            were assigned
                   to the imaginary Maule posterity.

    There are one
          or two other points