‘Marble and mud’

The House of the Seven Gables, in Salem, Mass., made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his 1851 novel. The earliest part of the house was built in 1668. The building is now a non-profit museum, with an admission fee for tours, and has programs for children. It was built for Captain John Turner, in whose family it remained for three generations.

“Life is made up of marble and mud.’’

— Nathaniel Hawthorne, in his novel House of Seven Gables

'Alms house to Gallows Hill'

The House of the Seven Gables, built in Salem in 1668, in a 1915 photo. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s famous novel of the same name derives in part from his ruminations on the Puritan past of his family.

“Follow its lazy main street lounging
from the alms house to Gallows Hill
along a flat, unvaried surface
covered with wooden houses
aged by yellow drain
like the unhealthy hair of an old dog.
You’ll walk to no purpose
in Hawthorne’s Salem.’’

— From ‘Hawthorne,’’ by Robert Lowell