Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four.

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"Here he comes!" cried a group of people who were assembled to witness the
arrival. "Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!" A carriage, drawn by four
horses, dashed round the turn of the road. Within it, thrust partly out of
the window, appeared the physiognomy of the old man, with a skin as yellow
as if his own Midas-hand had transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small,
sharp eyes, puckered about with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips,
which he made still thinner by pressing them forcibly together.

"The very image 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 Pace!"

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
sun beams, 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 marvelous features
beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human counterpart
was so long in making his appearance.

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

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

On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of the
valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan banquet
was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr. Battleblast
was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set before them, and on
the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they were assembled. The
tables were arranged in a cleared space of the woods, shut in by the
surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward, and afforded a
distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the general's chair, which was a
relic from the home of Washington, there was an arch of verdant boughs,
with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted by his country's
banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our friend Ernest raised
himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest;
but there was a mighty crowd about the tables anxious to hear the toasts
and speeches, and to catch any word that might fall from the general in
reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly
with their bayonets at any particularly quiet person among the throng. So
Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the
background, where he could see no more of Old Blood-and-Thunder's
physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on the 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. Meanwhile, 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
recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and weather-beaten countenance, full of
energy, and expressive of an iron will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep,
broad, tender sympathies, were altogether wanting in Old
Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if the Great Stone Face had assumed
his look of stern command, the milder traits would still have tempered it.

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

The mists had congregated about the distant 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 marvelous friend made Ernest as
hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.

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

When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
General Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage on
the mountain-side. But now, again, there were reports and many paragraphs
in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great Stone Face had
appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent statesman. He, like
Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a native of the valley, but
had left it in his early days, and taken up the trades of law and politics.
Instead of the rich man's wealth and the warrior's sword, he had but a
tongue, and it was mightier than both together. So wonderfully eloquent was
he, that whatever he might choose to say, his auditors had no choice but to
believe him; wrong looked like right, and right like wrong; for when it
pleased him, he could make a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath,
and obscure the natural daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic
instrument: sometimes it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled
like the sweetest music. It was the blast of war,--the song of peace; and
it seemed to have a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good
truth, he was a wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all
other imaginable success,--when it had been heard in halls of state, and in
the courts of princes and potentates,--after it had made him known all over
the world, even as a voice crying from shore to shore,--it finally
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 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 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 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 his native valley had found a
voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was when
the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the Great
Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.

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

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

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

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

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which
was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a
resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the 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
etherealized its ponderous granite substance into spirit, might here be
sought in vain. Something had been originally left out, or had departed.
And therefore the 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 Phiz.

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

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

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

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

The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were the
subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust of
life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in it,
were glorified if 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 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 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 carpetbag on his arm,
inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his
guest.

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

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

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