About two thirds into Nathaniel Hawthorne's romance about a man seeking to produce an elixir of life, Septimius, the protagonist, finally encounters that singular flower he hopes will enable him to realize his pursuit. When his friends examine it, they find it is spotted with dewdrops or some moisture oozing out of its heart that "resemble drops of blood."1 The flower has, indeed, grown out of the grave of a young Englishman whom Septimius kills at the onset of the story, which is also the onset of the American Revolutionary War, a circumstance the narrator subtly underlines.