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Updated: June 22, 2025
Holgrave had been by turns a schoolmaster, clerk in a store, editor, pedler, lecturer on Mesmerism, and daguerreotypist, but "amid all these personal vicissitudes," says Hawthorne, "he had never lost his identity.... He had never violated the innermost man, but had carried his conscience along with him."
The sound of footsteps was not harsh, bold, decided, and intrusive, as the gait of strangers would naturally be, making authoritative entrance into a dwelling where they knew themselves unwelcome. It was feeble, as of persons either weak or weary; there was the mingled murmur of two voices, familiar to both the listeners. "Can it be?" whispered Holgrave. "It is they!" answered Phoebe.
This is a fairly sympathetic portrait, and it largely represents the class of young men who went to hear Emerson and supported Charles Sumner. In the story, Holgrave achieves the reward of a veracious nature by winning the heart of the purest and loveliest young woman in American fiction.
A recess in the wall was thus brought to light, in which lay an object so covered with a century's dust that it could not immediately be recognized as a folded sheet of parchment. Holgrave opened it, and displayed an ancient deed, signed with the hieroglyphics of several Indian sagamores, and conveying to Colonel Pyncheon and his heirs, forever, a vast extent of territory at the Eastward.
He appears to take the same view of reform that is sometimes found in respect to prayer, that it has great subjective advantages and is good for the soul, but is futile in the world of fact. It was well for Holgrave, he says, to think as he did; this enthusiasm "would serve to keep his youth pure and make his aspirations high," and he goes on with his own judgment on the matter:
The sunshine came freely into all the uncurtained windows of this room, and fell upon the dusty floor; so that Phoebe now clearly saw what, indeed, had been no secret, after the encounter of a warm hand with hers that it was not Hepzibah nor Clifford, but Holgrave, to whom she owed her reception.
"But," said Phoebe, apart to Holgrave, "how came you to know the secret?" "My dearest Phoebe," said Holgrave, "how will it please you to assume the name of Maule? As for the secret, it is the only inheritance that has come down to me from my ancestors.
But, to their surprise, before they could reach the street door, even before they quitted the room in which the foregoing interview had passed, they heard footsteps in the farther passage. The door, therefore, which they supposed to be securely locked, which Holgrave, indeed, had seen to be so, and at which Phoebe had vainly tried to enter, must have been opened from without.
"Oh, no, I am very weak!" replied Phoebe, trembling. "But tell me what has happened!" "You are strong!" persisted Holgrave. "You must be both strong and wise; for I am all astray, and need your counsel. It may be you can suggest the one right thing to do!" "Tell me! tell me!" said Phoebe, all in a tremble. "It oppresses, it terrifies me, this mystery! Anything else I can bear!"
I have a presentiment that, hereafter, it will be my lot to set out trees, to make fences, perhaps, even, in due time, to build a house for another generation, in a word, to conform myself to laws and the peaceful practice of society. Your poise will be more powerful than any oscillating tendency of mine." "I would not have it so!" said Phoebe earnestly. "Do you love me?" asked Holgrave.
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