Question

The House of the Seven Gables, an excerpt

By Nathaniel Hawthorne

Thus the great house was built. Familiar as it stands in the writer's recollection,—for it has been an object of curiosity with him from boyhood, both as a specimen of the best and stateliest architecture of a longpast epoch, and as the scene of events more full of human interest, perhaps, than those of a gray feudal castle,—familiar as it stands, in its rusty old age, it is therefore only the more difficult to imagine the bright novelty with which it first caught the sunshine.

Which aspects of the house are most important to the writer mentioned in the text?

A. Its early shine and its recent rust

B. Its past and its reconstruction

C. Its resemblance to a castle and its people

D. Its structure and its history

Answer 1

D.

Step-by-step explanation:

The correct answer is D. Its structure and its history. He states, "the best and stateliest architecture of a longpast epoch"(referring to hits structure) and "rusty old age" (referring to its history). Also, it was correct on the test.

Answer 2

The best answer would be A.
The entire excerpt describes the speaker's admiration of the structure, not just of its physical beauty but the history that came with it. This first part of the excerpt details the "recent rust". It is old and a bit rundown, but still very familiar to the speaker. The last part describes how the speaker is trying hard to imagine what the great house looked like when it was newly built --"early shine".