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diff --git a/old/haw8010.txt b/old/haw8010.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8910d0e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/haw8010.txt @@ -0,0 +1,504 @@ +Project Gutenberg EBook, Browne's Folly, by Nathaniel Hawthorne +From "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches" +#80 in our series by Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**EBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These EBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers***** + + + +Title: Browne's Folly + (From: "The Doliver Romance and Other Pieces: Tales and Sketches") + +Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne + +Release Date: Nov, 2005 [EBook #9253] +[This file was first posted on September 25, 2003] +[Last updated on February 6, 2007] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + + + + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BROWNE'S FOLLY *** + + + + +This eBook was produced by David Widger + + + + + + THE DOLIVER ROMANCE AND OTHER PIECES + + TALES AND SKETCHES + + By Nathaniel Hawthorne + + + "BROWNE'S FOLLY." + + + +The Wayside, August 28, 1860. + +MY DEAR COUSIN:--I should be very glad to write a story, as you request, +for the benefit of the Essex Institute, or for any other purpose that +might be deemed desirable by my native townspeople. But it is now many +years since the epoch of the "Twice-Told Tales," and the "Mosses from an +Old Manse"; and my mind seems to have lost the plan and measure of those +little narratives, in which it was once so unprofitably fertile. I can +write no story, therefore; but (rather than be entirely wanting to the +occasion) I will endeavor to describe a spot near Salem, on which it was +once my purpose to locate such a dreamy fiction as you now demand of me. + +It is no other than that conspicuous hill (I really know not whether it +lies in Salem, Danvers, or Beverly) which used in my younger days to be +known by the name of "Brown's Folly." This eminence is a long ridge +rising out of the level country around, like a whale's back out of a +calm sea, with the head and tail beneath the surface. Along its base +ran a green and seldom-trodden lane, with which I was very familiar in +my boyhood; and there was a little brook, which I remember to have +dammed up till its overflow made a mimic ocean. When I last looked for +this tiny streamlet, which was still rippling freshly through my memory, +I found it strangely shrunken; a mere ditch indeed, and almost a dry +one. But the green lane was still there, precisely as I remembered it; +two wheel-tracks, and the beaten path of the horses' feet, and grassy +strips between; the whole overshadowed by tall locust-trees, and the +prevalent barberry-bushes, which are rooted so fondly into the +recollections of every Essex man. + +From this lane there is a steep ascent up the side of the hill, the +ridge of which affords two views of very wide extent and variety. On +one side is the ocean, and Salem and Beverly on its shores; on the other +a rural scene, almost perfectly level, so that each man's metes and +bounds can be traced out as on a map. The beholder takes in at a glance +the estates on which different families have long been situated, and the +houses where they have dwelt, and cherished their various interests, +intermarrying, agreeing together, or quarrelling, going to live, +annexing little bits of real estate, acting out their petty parts in +life, and sleeping quietly under the sod at last. A man's individual +affairs look not so very important, when we can climb high enough to get +the idea of a complicated neighborhood. + +But what made the hill particularly interesting to me, were the traces +of an old and long-vanished edifice, midway on the curving ridge, and at +its highest point. A pre-revolutionary magnate, the representative of a +famous old Salem family, had here built himself a pleasure house, on a +scale of magnificence, which, combined with its airy site and difficult +approach, obtained for it and for the entire hill on which it stood, the +traditionary title of "Browne's Folly." Whether a folly or no, the +house was certainly an unfortunate one. While still in its glory, it +was so tremendously shaken by the earthquake of 1755 that the owner +dared no longer reside in it; and practically acknowledging that its +ambitious site rendered it indeed a Folly, he proceeded to locate it on +--humbler ground. The great house actually took up its march along the +declining ridge of the bill, and came safely to the bottom, where it +stood till within the memory of men now alive. + +The proprietor, meanwhile, had adhered to the Royalist side, and fled to +England during the Revolution. The mansion was left under the care of +Richard Derby (an ancestor of the present Derby family), who had a claim +to the Browne property through his wife, but seems to have held the +premises precisely as the refugee left them, for a long term of years, +in the expectation of his eventual return. The house remained, with all +its furniture in its spacious rooms and chambers, ready for the exile's +occupancy, as soon as he should reappear. As time went on, however, it +began to be neglected, and was accessible to whatever vagrant, or idle +school-boy, or berrying party might choose to enter through its ill- +secured windows. + +But there was one closet in the house, which everybody was afraid to +enter, it being supposed that an evil spirit--perhaps a domestic Demon +of the Browne family--was confined in it. One day, three or four score +years ago, some school-boys happened to be playing in the deserted +chambers, and took it into their heads to develop the secrets of this +mysterious closet. With great difficulty and tremor they succeeded in +forcing the door. As it flew open, there was a vision of people in +garments of antique magnificence,--gentlemen in curled wigs and +tarnished gold-lace, and ladies in brocade and quaint head-dresses, +rushing tumultuously forth and tumbling upon the floor. The urchins +took to their heels, in huge dismay, but crept back, after a while, and +discovered that the apparition was composed of a mighty pile of family +portraits. I had the story, the better part of a hundred years +afterwards, from the very school-boy who pried open the closet door. + +After standing many years at the foot of the hill, the house was again +removed in three portions, and was fashioned into three separate +dwellings, which, for aught I know, are yet extant in Danvers. + +The ancient site of this proud mansion may still be traced (or could +have been ten years ago) upon the summit of the hill. It consisted of +two spacious wings, connected by an intermediate hall of entrance, which +fronted lengthwise upon the ridge. Two shallow and grass-grown cavities +remain, of what were once the deep and richly stored cellars under the +two wings; and between them is the outline of the connecting hall, about +as deep as a plough furrow, and somewhat greener than the surrounding +sod. The two cellars are still deep enough to shelter a visitor from +the fresh breezes that haunt the summit of the hill; and barberry-hushes +clustering within them offer the harsh acidity of their fruits, instead +of the rich wines which the colonial magnate was wont to store there for +his guests. There I have sometimes sat and tried to rebuild, in my +imagination, the stately house, or to fancy what a splendid show it must +have made even so far off as in the streets of Salem, when the old +proprietor illuminated his many windows to celebrate the King's +birthday. + +I have quite forgotten what story I once purposed writing about "Brown's +Folly," and I freely offer the theme and site to any of my young +townsmen, who may be addicted with the same tendency towards fanciful +narratives which haunted me in my youth and long afterwards. + +Truly yours, + +NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, BROWNE'S FOLLY *** +By Nathaniel Hawthorne + +** This file should be named haw8010.txt or haw8010.zip ** + +Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, haw8011.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, haw8010a.txt + +This eBook was produced by David Widger [widger@cecomet.net] + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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