NP but Hawthorne

[alice wellintown]

As Tanner explains in his essay on M&D, the use of the subjunctive is
quite important in Hawthorne and in American Romance generally. So,
what is hinted at, suggested, seems to be, may be, is probable, is
rumored, is said to be, is cast about and spun into competing
narrative yarns, some doubtful, others apocryphal.......and given
biblical allusiveness or typology...is, given the latitude of Romance,
when exposed to the sun, to the light, as primitive photography, often
reveals, if only in haunted shadows and ghosts of a walking candle, an
Ahab and his wife and a man who is accused of blashpemy, his land
coveted and taken...and a God whose Wrath seems to exceed his
Providence.

> Reading into The House of the Seven Gables for the first time since my
> forced youth, I discover this: Early, Chapter 1, when Matthew Maule is
> introduced > we are told that he had long inhabited his shaggy thatched hut but that
> Colonel Pyncheon, > a man with an iron energy of purpose had asserted proprietary claims on that
> land > (and a larger tract adjacent to it) when it became desirable through
> legislative action and >
> "It appears to be at least a matter of doubt whether Colonel Pyncheon's
> claim were not > unduly stretched to make it cover the small metes and bounds of Matthew
> Maule." > No written records. a matter of Tradition.
>
> Right here the probable theft of property for development.