Assonance

assonance: repetition of a vowel sound within two or more words in close proximity

"appeared to give him a more vivid sense of active..."
                                                        -The House of the Seven Gables
                                                                 by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hawthorne uses repetition of the "I" sound in this section to help the story flow. Prose during this time period was not quite as cut and dried as it is nowadays. Readers expected to be told everything; a book would not have shown, but rather told. When Hawthorne uses the technique of assonance he is helping the prose flow, easing the reader through the story. Making the phrase choppy would have changed the tone, and made the passage more difficult to read. The tone would have changed from the dark romantic to a reporter like autobiographical tone, likely ruining the passage. Hawthorne's use of assonance makes reading easier and more enjoyable for the reader.