 | The snow-image |  |
THE GREAT STONE FACE.
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 contained many thousand
inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log
huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep
and difficult hill-sides. 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 virulet, 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 majestic 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 further 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
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 smiled
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 or 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,
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
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
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
farm-house. 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
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 bed-chamber,
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 harbingers 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 mountain
side. 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
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 a little 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 of 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 road-side 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 clawed 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
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
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 mountain side. 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 battle-field 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
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 Reverend Doctor
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
and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath
which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest
raised himself on his tip-toes, 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 battle-field. 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 mountain side.
“'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
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
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 mountain
side, 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 degree, 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
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
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 persuaded 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
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
mountain side 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,
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 mountain
side. 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
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
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 visiters
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
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 he beheld them 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
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 having plastered them up out of her
refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects
all things else, the poet'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 carpet-bag on his arm, inquired at once
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 freedom, 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
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 frame-work 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
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
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.
| The snow-image | |