Old Ticonderoga, a Picture of the Past (From: "The Snow Image and Other Twice-Told Tales") — Reading Companion

Two Ways of Seeing

The core tension in the sketch is between Hawthorne’s own romantic sensibility and the technical precision of a young lieutenant of engineers, fresh from West Point. Hawthorne describes the lieutenant’s account of the fortress as 'as accurate as a geometrical theorem, and as barren of the poetry that has clustered round its decay.' The contrast is sharp: where Hawthorne sees 'a place of ancient strength, in ruins for half a century,' the lieutenant sees 'ravelins, counterscarps, angles, and covered ways.' The narrator explicitly wishes for 'a hoary veteran to totter by my side' who might tell stories of the French and Indian allies, rather than a lecture on military mathematics. This juxtaposition of perspectives—the poetic versus the technical—drives the narrative forward, forcing the reader to consider which view is more truthful to the site’s history.

The Language of Disappointment and Discovery

Hawthorne’s prose is marked by a careful modulation between disillusionment and wonder. He notes that Mount Defiance 'is merely a long and wooded ridge' that once bore 'the gentle name of Sugar Hill,' undercutting its martial reputation. Yet he also finds moments of genuine awe: a pine-tree that 'has rooted itself, and grown tall and strong, since the banner-staff was levelled' on an artificial hillock. The language here is precise and evocative—'turf-covered hills of stone'—and the image of nature reclaiming military works recurs throughout. The narrator’s voice shifts from the disappointed tourist to the reflective observer, and this change in pace mirrors the way the ruins themselves alternate between confusion and clarity. The reader is invited to share in the process of looking, of trying to see past the surface.

Structure as a Mirror of Memory

The sketch’s structure mirrors its subject: it begins with a broad view, narrows to the fortress’s details, and then pulls back again. Hawthorne describes seeing 'nothing but confusion' in the ruins until the lieutenant imposes order, but that order feels alien. The narrative itself resists neat organization, moving from the disappointment of the landscape to the technical description of the fortifications, then to the wish for a veteran’s stories. This ebb and flow—between the general and the specific, the poetic and the prosaic—creates a rhythm that echoes the way memory works. The past is not a single story but a series of competing images, and Hawthorne’s sketch captures that fragmentation without resolving it. The reader is left with the sense that Ticonderoga is less a place than an idea, one that shifts with each observer.

Readers approaching this sketch should attend to the way Hawthorne uses the lieutenant as a foil, not a villain. The engineer’s perspective is not dismissed but set alongside the narrator’s own, and the tension between them is left unresolved. Notice also how the author’s voice changes when he moves from describing the landscape to imagining the past—the sentences lengthen, the diction becomes more lyrical. This is a piece about the act of seeing, and the best way to read it is to watch how Hawthorne himself sees, and how he lets us see through his eyes.