THE GREAT STONE FACE

Sketches from Memory

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

THE GREAT STONE FACE, SKETCHES FROM MEMORY by Nathaniel Hawthorne

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little
boy sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone
Face. They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be
seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its
features. And what was the Great Stone Face? Embosomed amongst a
family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it con-
tained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt
in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and
difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-
houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level
surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous
villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its
birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed
by human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-
factories. The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and
of many modes of life. But all of them, grown people and children,
had a kind of familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some
possessed the gift of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon
more perfectly than many of their neighbors.

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of
majestie playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain
by some immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a
position as, when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble
the features of the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous
giant, or a Titan, had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice.
There was the broad arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height;
the nose, with its long bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could
have spoken, would have rolled their thunder accents from one end of
the valley to the other. True it is, that if the spectator approached too
near, he lost the outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only
a heap of ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one
upon another. Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features
would again be seen; and the farther he withdrew from them, the
more like a human face, with all its original divinity intact, did they
appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance, with the clouds and
glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it, the Great Stone
Face seemed positively to be alive.

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood
with the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were
noble, and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were
the glow of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its
affections, and had room for more. It was an education only to look
at it. According to the belief of many people, the valley owed much of
its fertility to this benign aspect that was continually beaming over
it, illuminating the clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the
sunshine.

As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
child's name was Ernest.

'Mother,' said he, while the Titanic visage miled on him, 'I wish that it
could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs be
pleasant. If I were to See a man with such a face, I should love him
dearly.' 'If an old prophecy should come to pass,' answered his
mother, 'we may see a man, some time for other, with exactly such a
face as that.' 'What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?' eagerly
inquired Ernest. 'Pray tell me all about it!'

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her,
when she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things
that were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so
very old, that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley,
had heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had
been murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among
the tree-tops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child
should be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and
noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood,
should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few
old-fashioned people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their
hopes, still cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But
others, who had seen more of the world, had watched and waited till
they were weary, and had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man
that proved to be much greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded
it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the
prophecy had not yet appeared."

O mother, dear mother!' cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his
head, 'I do hope that I shall live to see him!

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it
was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So
she only said to him, 'Perhaps you may.'

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face.
He spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was
dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her
much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a
mild, quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the
fields, but with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen
in many lads who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had
had no teacher, save only that the Great Stone Face became one to
him. When the toil of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours,
until he began to imagine that those vast features recognized him, and
gave him a smile of kindness and encouragement, responsive to his
own look of veneration. We must not take upon us to affirm that this
was a mistake, although the Face may have looked no more kindly at
Ernest than at all the world besides. But the secret was that the boy's
tender and confiding simplicity discerned what other people could not
see; and thus the love, which was meant for all, became his peculiar
portion.

About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the
great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a
resemblance to the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems
that, many years before, a young man had migrated from the valley
and settled at a distant seaport, where, after getting together a little
money, he had set up as a shopkeeper. His name but I could never
learn whether it was his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of
his habits and success in life--was Gathergold.

Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that
inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck,
he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet
of bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to
join hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the
mountainous accumulation of this one man's wealth. The cold regions
of the north, almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic
Circle, sent him their tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for
him the golden sands of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of
her great elephants out of the forests; the east came bringing him the
rich shawls, and spices, and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and
the gleaming purity of large pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand
with the earth, yielded up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold
might sell their oil, and make a profit on it. Be the original
commodity what it might, it was gold within his grasp. It might be
said of him, as of Midas, in the fable, that whatever he touched with
his finger immediately glistened, and grew yellow, and was changed
at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him still better, into piles
of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so very rich that it
would have taken him a hundred years only to count his wealth, he
bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go back
thither, and end his days where he was born. With this
purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a palace
as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.

As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the' valley that
Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long
and vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and
undeniable similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more
ready to believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the
splendid edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his
father's old weather-beaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so
dazzlingly white that it seemed as though the whole structure might
melt away in the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr.
Gathergold, in his young play-days, before his fingers were gifted
with the touch of transmutation, had been accustomed to build of
snow. It had a richly ornamented portico supported by tall pillars,
beneath which was a lofty door, studded with silver knobs, and made
of a kind of variegated wood that had been brought from beyond the
sea. The windows, from the floor to the ceiling of each stately
apartment, were composed, respectively' of but one enormous pane of
glass, so transparently pure that it was said to be a finer medium than
even the vacant atmosphere. Hardly anybody had been permitted to
see the interior of this palace; but it was reported, and with good
semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the outside,
insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver
or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber, especially, made
such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been
able to close his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold
was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed
his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way
beneath his eyelids.

In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers,
with magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white
servants, the haringers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic
person, was expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest,
meanwhile, had been deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the
noble man, the man of prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at
length to be made manifest to his native valley. He knew, boy as he
was, that there were a thousand ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with
his vast wealth, might transform himself into an angel of beneficence,
and assume a control over human affairs as wide and benignant as the
smile of the Great Stone Face. Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted
not that what the people said was true, and that now he was to behold
the living likeness of those wondrous features on the mountainside.
While the boy was still gazing up the valley, and fancying, as he
always did, that the Great Stone Face returned his gaze and looked
kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was heard, approaching swiftly
along the winding road.

'Here he comes!' cried a group of people who were assembled to
witness the arrival. 'Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!'

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy
of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had
transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered
about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made
still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.

The very image or the Great Stone Face!' shouted the people. 'Sure
enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man
come, at last!'

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe
that here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there
chanced to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar-children,
stragglers from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled
onward, held out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most
piteously beseeching charity. A yellow claw the very same that had
dawed together so much wealth- poked itself out of the coach-
window, and dropt some copper coins upon the ground; so that,
though the great man's name seems to have been Gathergold, he
might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scattercopper. Still,
nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently with as much good
faith as ever, the people bellowed 'He is the very image of the Great
Stone Face!' But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of
that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering
mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those
glorious features which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their
aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem to say?

'He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come! '

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be
a young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants
of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea
of the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as
Ernest was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty
for the sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great
Stone Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment
which was expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and
fill it with wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew
not that thence would come a better wisdom than could be learned
from books, and a better life than could be moulded on the defaced
example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest know that the
thoughts and affections which came to him so naturally, in the fields
and at the fireside, and wherever he communed with himself, were of
a higher tone than those which all men shared with him. A simple
soul -- simple as when his mother first taught him the old prophecy--
he beheld the marvellous features beaming adown the valley, and still
wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his
appearance.

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the
oddest part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and
spirit of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving
nothing of him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled,
yellow skin. Since the melting away of his gold, it had been very
generally conceded that there was no such striking resemblance, after
all, betwixt the ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that
majestic face upon the mountainside. So the people ceased to honor
him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness
after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his memory was brought
up in connection with the magnificent palace which he had
built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the
accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every
summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face.
Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade,
the man of prophecy was yet to come.

It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years
before, had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard
fighting, had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he
may be called in history, he was known in camps and on the
battlefield under the nickname of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-
worn veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds, and weary of
the turmoil of a military life, and of the roll of the drum and the
clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been ringing in his ears, had
lately signified a purpose of returning to his native valley, hoping to
find repose where he remembered to have left it. The inhabitants, his
old neighbors and their grown-up children, were resolved to welcome
the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a public dinner; and
all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed that now, at last, the
likeness of the Great Stone Face had actually appeared. An aid-de-
camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelling through the valley, was
said to have been struck with the resemblance. Moreover the
schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready
to testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid
general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a
boy, only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period.
Great, therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many
people, who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone
Face for years before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake
of knowing exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked.

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of
the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan
banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev.
Dr. Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things
set before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose
honor they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared
space of the woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a
vista opened eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone
Face. Over the general's chair, which was a relic from the home of
Washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel
profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's banner,
beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised
himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated
guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear
the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from
the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard,
pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person
among the throng. So Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was
thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old
Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on
the battlefield. To console himself, he turned towards the Great Stone
Face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back
and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Meantime,
however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who
were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant
mountainside.

"T is the same face, to a hair!' cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.

'Wonderfully like, that's a fact!' responded another.

'Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
looking-glass!' cried a third.

'And why not? He's the greatest man of this or any other age, beyond
a doubt.'

And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which
communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a
thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the
mountains, until you might have supposed that the Great Stone Face
had poured its thunder-breath into the cry. All these comments, and
this vast enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he
think of questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had
found its human counterpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this
long-looked-for personage would appear in the character of a man of
peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy.
But, taking an habitual breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he
contended that providence should choose its own method of blessing
mankind, and could conceive that this great end might be effected
even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see
fit to order matters SO.

'The general! the general!' was now the cry. ' Hush! silence! Old
Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech.'

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to
thank the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders
of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar
upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and
the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in
the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great
Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd
had testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-
worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive
of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender
sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's
visage; and even if the Great Stone Face had assumed his look of
stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it.

' This is not the man of prophecy,' sighed Ernest to himself, as he
made his way out of the throng. 'And must the world wait longer yet?'

The mists had congregated about the distant mountainside, and there
were seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful
but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and
enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and
the object that he gazed at. But- as it always did- the aspect of his
marvellous friend made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in
vain.

'Fear not, Ernest,' said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
whispering him- 'fear not, Ernest; he will come.'

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his
native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By imperceptible
degrees, he had become known among the people. Now, as
heretofore, he labored for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted
man that he had always been. But he had thought and felt so much, he
had given so many of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for
some great good to mankind, that it seemed as though he had been
talking with the angels, and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom
unawares. It was visible in the calm and well-considered beneficence
of his daily life, the quiet stream of which had made a wide green
margin all along its course. Not a day passed by, that the world was
not the better because this man, humble as he was, had lived. He
never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach a
blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a
preacher. The pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one
of its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped
silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. He uttered truths
that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who heard him. His
auditors, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor
and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did
Ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet,
came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken.

When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity
between General Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and
the benign visage on the mountain-side. But now, again, there were
reports and many paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the
likeness of the Great Stone Face had appeared upon the broad
shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold and
old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the valley, but had left it in
his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics. Instead of
the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue,
and it was mightier than both together. So wonderfully eloquent was
he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice
but to believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for
when it pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his
mere breath, and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue,
indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the
thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest music. It was the
blast of war -- the song of peace; and it seemed to have a heart in it,
when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a wondrous
man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable
success- when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of
princes and potentates--after it had made him known all over the
world, even as a voice crying from shore to shore--it finally per-
suaded his countrymen to select him for the Presidency. Before this
time- indeed, as soon as he began to grow celebrated--his admirers
had found out the resemblance between him and the Great Stone
Face; and so much were they struck by it, that throughout the country
this distinguished gentleman was known by the name of Old Stony
Phiz. The phrase was considered as giving a highly favorable aspect
to his political prospects; for, as is likewise the case with the
Popedom, nobody ever becomes President without taking a name
other than his own.

While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old
Stony Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he
was born. Of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with
his fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect
which his progress through the country might have upon the election.
Magnificent preparations were made to receive the illustrious
statesman; a cavalcade of horsemen set forth to meet him at the
boundary line of the State, and all the people left their business and
gathered along the wayside to see him pass. Among these was Ernest.
Though more than once disappointed, as we have seen, he had such a
hopeful and confiding nature, that he was always ready to believe in
whatever seemed beautiful and good.

He kept his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the
blessing from on high when it should come. So now again, as
buoyantly as ever, he went forth to behold the likeness of the Great
Stone Face.

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering
of hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high
that the visage of the mountainside was completely hidden from
Ernest's eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on
horseback; militia officers, in uniform; the member of Congress; the
sheriff of the county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer,
too, had mounted his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his
back. It really was a very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were
numerous banners flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which
were gorgeous portraits of the illustrious statesman and the Great
Stone Face, smiling familiarly at one another, like two brothers. If the
pictures were to be trusted, the mutual resemblance, it must be
confessed, was marvellous. We must not forget to mention that there
was a band of music, which made the echoes of the mountains ring
and reverberate with the loud triumph of its strains; so that airy and
soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the heights and hollows,
as if every nook of his native valley had found a voice, to welcome
the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when the far-off
mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great Stone
Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
acknowledgment, that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.

All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting,
with enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and
he likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest,
'Huzza for the great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!' But as yet he
had not seen him.

'Here he is, now!' cried those who stood near Ernest. 'There! There!
Look at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and
see if they are not as like as two twin brothers!'

In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by
four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head
uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.

'Confess it,' said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, 'the Great Stone
Face has met its match at last!'

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy
that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face
upon the mountainside. The brow, with its massive depth and
loftiness, and all the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly
hewn, as if in emulation of a more than heroic, of a Titanic model.
But the sublimity and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine
sympathy, that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its
ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain.
Something had been originally left out, or had departed. And
therefore the marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary
gloom in the deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown
its playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose life,
with all its high performances, was vague and empty, because no high
purpose had endowed it with reality.

Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
pressing him for an answer.

'Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
Mountain?'

'No!' said Ernest, bluntly, 'I see little or no likeness.'

'Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!' answered his
neighbor; and again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this
was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might
have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime,
the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past
him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle
down, and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the
grandeur that it had worn for untold centuries.

'Lo, here I am, Ernest!' the benign lips seemed to say. 'I have waited
longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come.'

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's
heels. And now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over
the head of Ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead,
and furrows in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had
he grown old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage
thoughts in his mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that
Time had graved, and in which he had written legends of wisdom that
had been tested by the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be
obscure. Unsought for, undesired, had come the fame which so many
seek, and made him known in the great world, beyond the limits of
the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly. College professors, and
even the active men of cities, came from far to see and converse with
Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that this simple husbandman
had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained from books, but of a
higher tone- a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if he had been talking
with the angels as his daily friends. Whether it were sage, statesman,
or philanthropist, Ernest received these visitors with the gentle
sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood, and spoke freely
with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his heart or
their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle,
unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. Pensive
with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went
their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the Great
Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human
countenance, but could not remember where.

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful
Providence had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a
native of the valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a
distance from that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid
the bustle and din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which
had been familiar to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into
the clear atmosphere of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face
forgotten, for the poet had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand
enough to have been uttered by its own majestic lips. This man of
genius, we may say, had come down from heaven with wonderful
endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the eyes of all mankind beheld
a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast, or soaring to its summit,
than had before been seen there. If his theme were a lovely lake, a
celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to gleam forever on its
surface. If it were the vast old sea, even the deep immensity of its
dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by the emotions
of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better aspect from
the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The Creator had
bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork. Creation
was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so complete it.

The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren
were the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the
common dust of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child
who played in it, were glorified if they beheld him in his mood of
poetic faith. He showed the golden links of the great chain that
intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden
traits of a celestial birth that made them worthy of such kin. Some,
indeed, there were, who thought to show the soundness of their judg-
ment by affirming that all the beauty and dignity of the natural world
existed only in the poet's fancy. Let such men speak for themselves,
who undoubtedly appear to have been spawned forth by Nature with a
contemptuous bitterness; she plastered them up out of her refuse stuff,
after all the swine were made. As respects all things else, the peet's
ideal was the truest truth.

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after
his customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where
for such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by
gazing at the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that
caused the soul to thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast
countenance beaming on him so benignantly.

'O majestic friend,' he murmured, addressing the Great Stone Face, 'is
not this man worthy to resemble thee?'

The face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not
only heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character,
until he deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose
untaught wisdom walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of
his life.

One
summer morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in
the decline of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great
distance from Ernest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly
been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet,
with his carpetbag on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt,
and was resolved to be accepted as his guest.

Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a
volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger
between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

'Good evening,' said the poet. 'Can you give a traveller a night's
lodging?'

'Willingly,' answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, 'Methinks I
never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger.'

The poet sat down on"the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the
wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and
feelings gushed up with such a natural feeling, and who made great
truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had
been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in
the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and,
dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the
sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly
charm of household words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the
other hand, was moved and agitated by the living images which the
poet flung out of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the
cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The
sympathies of these two men instructed them with a profounder sense
than either could have attained alone. Their minds accorded into one
strain, and made delightful music which neither of them could have
claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share from the
other's. They led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion of their
thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never entered
it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always.

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
was bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
glowing eyes.

'Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?' he said.

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.

'You have read these poems,' said he. 'You know me, then - for I
wrote them.'

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the
poet's features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back,
with an uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he
shook his head, and sighed.

'Wherefore are you sad?' inquired the poet. 'Because,' replied Ernest,
'all through life I have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and,
when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you.'

'You hoped,' answered the poet, faintly smiling, 'to find in me the
likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as
formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old
Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom.

You must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another
failure of your hopes. For- in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest-
-I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image.'

'And why?' asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. 'Are not those
thoughts divine?'

'They have a strain of the Divinity,' replied the poet. 'You can hear in
them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest,
has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but
they have been only dreams, because I have lived -- and that, too, by
my own choice among poor and mean realities. Sometimes, even --
shall I dare to say it?-- I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the
goodness, which my own works are said to have made more evident
in nature and in human life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and
true, shouldst thou hope to find me, in yonder image of the divine?'

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
were those of Ernest.

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest
was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in
the open air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they
went along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the
hills, with a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was
relieved by the pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a
tapestry for the naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its
rugged angles. At a small elevation above the ground, set in a rich
framework of verdure, there appeared a niche, spacious enough to
admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as
spontaneously accompany earnest thought and genuine emotion. Into
this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a look of familiar
kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined
upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing sunshine
falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued cheerfulness
with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and amid the
boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In another
direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer,
combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.

"Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart
and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his
thoughts; and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they
harmonized with the life which he had always lived. It was not mere
breath that this preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because
a life of good deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure
and rich, had been dissolved into this precious draught. The poet, as
he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler
strain of poetry than he had ever written.

His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable
man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy
of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance,
with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but
distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun,
appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the
white hairs around .the brow' of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence
seemed to embrace the world.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to
utter, the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued
with benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his
arms aloft and shouted-

'Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
Face!'

Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet
said was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished
what he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly
homeward, still hoping that some wiser and better man than himself
would by and by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT
STONE FACE.