 Section 1 of THE GREAT STONE FACE AND OTHER TAILS OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS by Nathaniel Hawthorne For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org THE GREAT STONE FACE AND OTHER TAILS OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS by Nathaniel Hawthorne Section 1 of 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? And bosomed 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 hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable farmhouses, 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 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 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 mild on him, I wished that it could speak, for it looked 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 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 passed, 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 treetops. 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 ardour 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 neighbours, concluded it to be nothing but an idle tale. At all events the great man of the prophecy had not yet appeared. Oh 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 labour 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 rumour 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 gather-gold. 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. Gather-gold 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. Gather-gold 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 with her and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in view he sent a skillful 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. Gather-gold 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. Gather-gold, in his young play days, before his fingers were gifted with a 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, in so much that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was silver or gold in this. And Mr. Gather-gold'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. Gather-gold was now so enured 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 herringers of Mr. Gather-gold, 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. Gather-gold, 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. Gather-gold! 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 mitus 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 dodged together so much wealth, poked itself out of the coach window and dropped some copper coins upon the ground, so that, though the great man's name seemed to have been gather-gold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed Scatter-copper. Still, nevertheless, with an Ernest 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, in as much 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 defected example of other human lives. Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and defections 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 down the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his appearance. By this time poor Mr. Gather Gold 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 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. Gather Gold, 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-torn veteran, being now infirm with age and wounds and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the role of the drum and the clanger 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 to 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 engazing 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 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 the old blood-and-thunders physiognomy than if it had been still blazing in 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 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 from 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 breath 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 affected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matter so. The General! The General! was now the cry. Hush! Silence! Old, blood-and-thunders going to make a speech! Even so, for the cloth being removed, the General's health had been drunk amid shouts of applause, and now he stood upon his feet to thank the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the crowd, from the two glittering epulets 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 an old, blood-and-thunders 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 the 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. End of Part 1 of The Great Stone Face Recording by Roger Moline Part 2 of The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains by Nathaniel Hawthorne This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Roger Moline The Great Stone Face and Other Tales of the White Mountains by Nathaniel Hawthorne The Great Stone Face Part 2 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 molded 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 mountainside. 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 Fizz. 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 Fizz, as he was called, sat 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 rode 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's deed 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 marvelous. 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 this 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 earnest kindled up, and he likewise threw up his hat and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, Huzzah for the great man! Huzzah for old stony fizz! But as yet he had not seen him. Here he is now! cried those who stood near earnest. There! there! look at old stony fizz, 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 fizz himself. Confess it! said one of earnest'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, earnest 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 statelyness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy that illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its pondrous granite substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been originally left out, or had departed, and therefore the marvelously 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 fizz. But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent. So 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 baroches 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 seem 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 the 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, statement, 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 fullness 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, then 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 for 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 lengths 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 judgment 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 thing else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth. The songs of this poet found their way to earnest. 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 benignly. Oh, 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 earnest, 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 cards at no great distance from earnest's cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gather Gold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet bag on his arm, inquired at once where earnest 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 ultimately 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 earnest, and then he added, smiling, me thinks 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 earnest talked together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like earnest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural feeling, and who made great truth so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labour 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 earnest, 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 others. 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 earnest 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 earnest 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, earnest 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 earnest, "'all through life I have awaited the fulfillment 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. Gather Gold and Old Blooden Thunder and Old Stony Fizz.' "'Yes, earnest, 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, earnest. I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic image.' "'And why?' asked earnest, 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 earnest, 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 earnest. At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, earnest was to discourse to an assemblage of the neighbouring 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 the grey 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 verder, there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with freedom for such gestures as spontaneously a company earnest thought and genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit earnest ascended, and through a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to eat, 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. earnest 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 draft. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of earnest were a nobler strain of poetry than he had ever written. His eyes glistened 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 earnest. 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 earnest 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-sided poet said was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But earnest, 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 AMBITIOUS GUEST One September night a family had gathered round their hearth and piled at high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing on the precipice. Up the chimney roared the fire and brightened the room with its broad blaze. The faces of the father and mother had a sober gladness. The children laughed. The eldest daughter was the image of happiness at seventeen, and the aged grandmother, who sat knitting in the warmest place, was the image of happiness grown old. They had found the herb, Heart's Ease, in the bleakest spot of all New England. This family were situated in the notch of the White Hills, where the wind was sharp throughout the year and pitilessly cold in the winter, giving their cottage all its fresh inclementy before it descended on the valley of the Sacco. They dwelt in a cold spot and a dangerous one, for a mountain towered above their heads, so steep that the stones would often rumble down its sides and startle them at midnight. The daughter had just uttered some simple jests that filled them all with mirth when the wind came through the notch and seemed to pause before their cottage, rattling the door with a sound of wailing and lamentation before it passed into the valley. For a moment it saddened them, though there was nothing unusual in the homes. But the family were glad again when they perceived that the latch was lifted by some traveller whose footsteps had been unheard amid the dreary blast which heralded his approach, and wailed as he was entering, and went moaning away from the door. Though they dwelt in such a solitude, these people held daily converse with the world. The romantic pass of the notch is a great artery, through which the lifeblood of internal commerce is continually throbbing between main, on one side, and the green mountains and the shores of the St. Lawrence on the other. The stagecoach always drew up before the door of the cottage. The wayfarer, with no companion but his staff, paused here to exchange a word that the sense of loneliness might not utterly overcome him ere he could pass through the cleft of the mountain or reach the first house in the valley, and here the teamster on his way to Portland Market would put up for the night, and if a bachelor might sit an hour beyond the usual bedtime and steal a kiss from the mountain made at parting. It was one of those primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and lodging, but meets with the only kindness beyond all price. When the footsteps were heard, therefore, between the outer door and the inner one, the whole family rose up, grandmother, children, and all, as if about to welcome someone who belonged to them, and whose fate was linked with theirs. The door was opened by a young man. His face at first wore the melancholy expression, almost despondency, of one who travels a wild and bleak road at nightfall and alone, but soon brightened up when he saw the kindly warmth of his reception. He felt his heart spring forward to meet them all, from the old woman, who wiped a chair with her apron, to the little child that held out its arms to him. One glance and smile placed the stranger on a footing of innocent familiarity with the eldest daughter. Ah, this fire is the right thing, cried he, especially when there is such a pleasant circle around it. I am quite benumbed, for the notch is just like the pipe of a great pair of bellows. It has blown a terrible blast in my face all the way from Bartlett. Then you are going towards Vermont, said the master of the house, as he helped to take a light knapsack off the young man's shoulders. Yes, to Burlington, and far enough beyond, replied he. I meant to have been at Ethan Crawford's tonight, but a pedestrian lingers along such a road as this. It is no matter, for when I saw this good fire, and all your cheerful faces, I felt as if you had kindled it on purpose for me, and were waiting my arrival. So I shall sit down among you and make myself at home. The frank-hearted stranger had just drawn his chair to the fire, when something like a heavy footstep was heard without, rushing down the steep side of the mountain, as with long and rapid strides, and taking such a leap in passing the cottage as to strike the opposite precipice. The family held their breath, because they knew the sound, and their guest held his by instinct. The old mountain has thrown a stone at us for fear we should forget him, said the landlord, recovering himself. He sometimes nods his head and threatens to come down, but we are old neighbors, and agree together pretty well upon the whole. Besides, we have a short place of refuge hard by, if he should be coming in good earnest. Let us now suppose the stranger to have finished his supper of bear's meat, and by his natural felicity of manner, to have placed himself on a footing of kindness with the whole family, so that they talked as freely together as if he belonged to their mountain brood. He was of a proud yet gentle spirit, haughty and reserved among the rich and great, but ever ready to stoop his head to the lowly cottage door, and be like a brother or a son at the poor man's fireside. In the household of the notch he found warmth and simplicity of feeling, the pervading intelligence of New England, and a poetry of native growth, which they had gathered when they little thought of it from the mountain peaks and chasms, and at the very threshold of their romantic and dangerous abode. He had travelled far and alone. His whole life, indeed, had been a solitary path, for with the lofty caution of his nature he had kept himself apart from those who might otherwise have been his companions. The family, too, thought so kind and hospitable, had that consciousness of unity among themselves, and separation from the world at large, which in every domestic circle should still keep a holy place where no stranger may intrude. But this evening a prophetic sympathy impelled the refined and educated youth to pour out his heart before the simple mountaineers, and constrained them to answer him with the same free confidence. And thus it should have been. Is not the kindred of a common fate a closer tie than that of birth? The secret of the young man's character was a high and abstracted ambition. He could have borne to live an undistinguished life, but not to be forgotten in the grave. Yearning desire had been transformed to hope, and hope, long cherished, had become like certainty that, obscurely as he journeyed now, a glory was to beam on all his pathway, though not perhaps while he was treading it. But when posterity should gaze back into the gloom of what was now the present, they would trace the brightness of his footsteps, brightening as meaner glories faded, and confess that a gifted one had passed from his cradle to his tomb with none to recognize him. As yet, cried the stranger, his cheek glowing and his eye flashing with enthusiasm, as yet I have done nothing. Were I to vanish from the earth tomorrow, none would know so much of me as you. That a nameless youth came up at nightfall from the valley of the sacco, and opened his heart to you in the evening, and passed through the notch by sunrise, and was seen no more. Not a soul would ask, who was he, whither did the wanderer go? But I cannot die till I have achieved my destiny. Then let death come. I shall have built my monument. There was a continual flow of natural emotion gushing forth amid abstracted reverie, which enabled the family to understand this young man's sentiments, though so foreign from their own. With quick sensibility of the ludicrous, he blushed at the ardor into which he had been betrayed. You laugh at me," said he, taking the eldest daughter's hand and laughing himself. You think my ambition is nonsensical as if I were to freeze myself to death on the top of Mount Washington, only that people might spy at me from the country round about. And truly that would be a noble pedestal for a man's statue. It is better to sit here by this fire," answered the girl, blushing, and be comfortable and contented, though nobody thinks about us. I suppose," said her father, after a fit of musing, there is something natural in what the young man says, and if my mind had been turned that way I might have felt just the same. It is strange, wife, how his talk has set my head running on things that are pretty certain never to come to pass. Perhaps they may," observed the wife, is the man thinking what he will do when he is a widower? No, no," cried he, repelling the idea with reproachful kindness. When I think of your death, Esther, I think of mine, too. But I was wishing we had a good farm in Bartlett or Bethlehem or Littleton or some other township round the White Mountains, but not where they could tumble on our heads. I should want to stand well with my neighbors and to be called squire, and sent to general court for a term or two. For a plain honest man may do as much good there as a lawyer, and when I should be grown quite an old man, and you an old woman, so as not to be long apart, I might die happy enough in my bed and leave you all crying around me. A slate gravestone would suit me as well as a marble one, with just my name and age, and a verse of a hymn, and something to let people know that I lived an honest man and died a Christian. There now, exclaimed the stranger, it is our nature to desire a monument, be it slate or marble, or a pillar of granite, or a glorious memory in the universal heart of man. We're in a strange way to-night, said the wife, with tears in her eyes. They say it's a sign of something, when folks' minds go a wandering so. Hark to the children! They listened accordingly. The younger children had been put to bed in another room, but with an open door between, so that they could be heard talking busily among themselves. One and all seemed to have caught the infection from the fireside circle, and were outvying each other in wild wishes and childish projects of what they would do when they came to be men and women. At length a little boy, instead of addressing his brothers and sisters, called out to his mother. "'I'll tell you what I wish, mother,' cried he. "'I want you and father and grandma and all of us and the stranger, too, to start right away and go and take a drink out of the basin of the flume.' Nobody could help laughing at the child's notion of leaving a warm bed and dragging them from a cheerful fire to visit the basin of the flume, a brook which tumbles over the precipice deep within the notch. The boy had hardly spoken when a wagon rattled along the road and stopped a moment before the door. It appeared to contain two or three men who were cheering their hearts with the rough chorus of a song which resounded, in broken notes, between the cliffs, while the singers hesitated whether to continue their journey or put up here for the night. "'Father,' said the girl, "'they are calling you by name.' But the good man doubted whether they had really called him and was unwilling to show himself too solicitous of gain by inviting people to patronize his house. He, therefore, did not hurry to the door and the lash being soon applied the travellers plunged into the notch, still singing and laughing, though their music and mirth came back drearily from the heart of the mountain. "'There, mother,' cried the boy again, "'they'd have given us a ride to the flume?' Again they laughed at the child's pertinacious fancy for a night ramble. But it happened that a light cloud passed over the daughter's spirit. She looked gravely into the fire and drew a breath that was almost a sigh. It forced its way, in spite of a little struggle to repress it. Then, starting and blushing, she looked quickly round the circle, as if they had caught a glimpse into her bosom. The stranger asked what she had been thinking of. "'Nothing,' answered she, with a downcast smile. "'Only I felt lonesome just then.' "'Oh, I have always had a gift of feeling what is in other people's hearts,' said he, half seriously. "'Shall I tell the secrets of yours? For I know what to think when a young girl shivers by a warm hearth and complains of lonesomeness at her mother's side. Shall I put these feelings into words?' "'They would not be a girl's feelings any longer if they could be put into words,' replied the mountain nymph, laughing, but avoiding his eye. All this was said apart. Perhaps a germ of love was springing in their hearts, so pure that it might blossom in paradise, since it could not be matured on earth. For women worship such gentle dignity as his, and the proud, contemplative yet kindly soul is oftenest captivated by simplicity like hers. But while they spoke softly, and he was watching the happy sadness, the lightsome shadows, the shy yearnings of a maiden's nature, the wind through the notch took a deeper and drearier sound. It seemed, as the fanciful stranger said, like the coral strain of the spirits of the blast, who in old Indian times had their dwelling among these mountains, and made their heights and recesses a sacred region. There was a wail along the road, as if a funeral were passing. To chase away the gloom, the family threw pine branches on their fire, till the dry leaves crackled and the flame arose, discovering once again a scene of peace and humble happiness. The light hovered about them fondly and caressed them all. There were the little faces of the children, peeping from their bed apart, and here the father's frame of strength, the mother's subdued and careful mean, the high-browed youth, the budding girl, and the good old grandum still knitting in the warmest place. The aged woman looked up from her task, and with fingers ever busy was the next to speak. "'Old folks have their notions,' said she, as well as young ones. "'You've been wishing and planning, and letting your heads run on one thing and another, till you've set my mind a wandering two. Now, what should an old woman wish for, when she can go but a step or two before she comes to her grave? Children, it will haunt me night and day till I tell you!' "'What is it, mother?' cried the husband and wife at once. Then the old woman, with an air of mystery which drew the circle closer round the fire, informed them that she had provided her grave-clothes some years before, a nice linen shroud, a cap with a muslin rough, and everything of a finer sort than she had worn since her wedding-day. But this evening an old superstition had strangely recurred to her. It used to be said, in her younger days, that if anything were amiss with a corpse, if only the rough were not smooth, or the cap did not set right, the corpse and the coffin, and beneath the clods, would strive to put up its cold hands and arrange it. The bare thought made her nervous. "'Don't talk so, grandmother!' said the girl, shuddering. "'Now!' continued the old woman, with singular earnestness, yet smiling strangely at her own folly. "'I want one of you, my children, when your mother is dressed and in the coffin. I want one of you to hold a looking-glass over my face. Who knows, but I may take a glimpse at myself and see whether all's right?' "'Old and young, we dream of graves and monuments,' murmured the stranger youth. "'I wonder how mariners feel when the ship is sinking, and they, unknown and undistinguished, are to be buried together in the ocean, that wide and nameless sepulchre.' For a moment the old woman's ghastly conception so engrossed the minds of her hearers that a sound abroad in the night, rising like the roar of a blast, had grown broad, deep and terrible, before the faded group were conscious of it. The house and all within it trembled, the foundations of the earth seemed to be shaken, as if this awful sound were the peel of the last trump. Young and old exchanged one wild glance, and remained an instant pale, affrighted, without utterance or power to move. Then the same shriek burst simultaneously from all their lips. "'The slide! The slide!' The simplest words must intimate but not portray the unutterable horror of the catastrophe. The victims rushed from their cottage and sought refuge in what they deemed a safer spot, where, in contemplation of such an emergency, a sort of barrier had been reared. Alas! they had quitted their security, and fled right into the pathway of destruction. Down came the whole side of the mountain in a cataract of ruin. Just before it reached the house the stream broke into two branches, shivered not a window there, but overwhelmed the whole vicinity, blocked up the road, and annihilated everything in its dreadful course. Long ere the thunder of the great slide had ceased to roar among the mountains, the mortal agony had been endured, and the victims were at peace. Their bodies were never found. The next morning the light smoke was seen stealing from the cottage chimney up the mountain side. Within the fire was yet smoldering on the hearth, and the chairs in a circle round it, as if the inhabitants had but gone forth to view the devastation of the slide and would shortly return to thank heaven for their miraculous escape. All had left separate tokens by which those who had known the family were made to shed a tear for each. Who has not heard their name? The story has been told far and wide, and will forever be a legend of these mountains. Poets have sung their fate. There were circumstances which led some to suppose that a stranger had been received into the cottage on this awful night, and had shared the catastrophe of all its inmates. Others denied that there were sufficient grounds for such a conjecture. Woe for the high-sold youth with his dream of earthly immortality! His name and person utterly unknown. His history, his way of life, his plans, a mystery never to be solved. His death and his existence equally a doubt. Whose was the agony of that death moment? End of The Ambitious Guest. End of Section 3, recording by Roger Maline.