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 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 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 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 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
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 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 labour 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 neighbourly, 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 mountain-side. So the people ceased to honour 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 clangour 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 neighbours 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 aide-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 honour 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 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.
"'Tis 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 recognise 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 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 vapours 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
laboured 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 neighbour. 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 neighbour 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 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 favourable 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 mountain-side was completely hidden from Ernest's
eyes. All the great men of the neighbourhood 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 neighbours 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 the mountain visage, and etherealised 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 neighbour 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
neighbour; 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 characterised 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