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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Great Stone Face, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Great Stone Face
+       And Other Tales Of The White Mountains
+
+Author: Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+Release Date: February 25, 2006 [EBook #1916]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GREAT STONE FACE ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE FACE AND OTHER TALES OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
+
+By Nathaniel Hawthorne
+
+
+1882
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+     Introduction
+     The Great Stone Face
+     The Ambitious Guest
+     The Great Carbuncle
+     Sketches From Memory
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION
+
+THE first three numbers in this collection are tales of the White Hills
+in New Hampshire. The passages from Sketches from Memory show that
+Hawthorne had visited the mountains in one of his occasional rambles
+from home, but there are no entries in his Note Books which give
+accounts of such a visit. There is, however, among these notes
+the following interesting paragraph, written in 1840 and clearly
+foreshadowing The Great Stone Face:
+
+'The semblance of a human face to be formed on the side of a mountain,
+or in the fracture of a small stone, by a lusus naturae [freak of
+nature]. The face is an object of curiosity for years or centuries, and
+by and by a boy is born whose features gradually assume the aspect of
+that portrait. At some critical juncture the resemblance is found to be
+perfect. A prophecy may be connected.'
+
+It is not impossible that this conceit occurred to Hawthorne before he
+had himself seen the Old Man of the Mountain, or the Profile, in the
+Franconia Notch which is generally associated in the minds of readers
+with The Great Stone Face.
+
+In The Ambitious Guest he has made use of the incident still told to
+travellers through the Notch, of the destruction of the Willey family
+in August, 1826. The house occupied by the family was on the slope of
+a mountain, and after a long drought there was a terrible tempest which
+not only raised the river to a great height but loosened the surface of
+the mountain so that a great landslide took place. The house was in
+the track of the slide, and the family rushed out of doors. Had they
+remained within they would have been safe, for a ledge above the house
+parted the avalanche so that it was diverted into two paths and swept
+past the house on either side. Mr. and Mrs. Willey, their five children,
+and two hired men were crushed under the weight of earth, rocks, and
+trees.
+
+In the Sketches from Memory Hawthorne gives an intimation of the tale
+which he might write and did afterward write of The Great Carbuncle. The
+paper is interesting as showing what were the actual experiences out of
+which he formed his imaginative stories.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE FACE and Other Tales Of The White Mountains
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT STONE FACE
+
+One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy
+sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.
+They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,
+though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.
+And what was the Great Stone Face? Embosomed amongst a family of
+lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many
+thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with
+the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hillsides.
+Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the
+rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Others,
+again, were congregated into populous villages, where some wild,
+highland rivulet, tumbling down from its birthplace in the upper
+mountain region, had been caught and tamed by human cunning, and
+compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories. The inhabitants of
+this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. But all
+of them, grown people and children, had a kind of familiarity with the
+Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift of distinguishing
+this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many of their
+neighbors.
+
+The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestie
+playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some
+immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as,
+when viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of
+the human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan,
+had sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad
+arch of the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long
+bridge; and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have
+rolled their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other.
+True it is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the
+outline of the gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of
+ponderous and gigantic rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another.
+Retracing his steps, however, the wondrous features would again be seen;
+and the farther he withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with
+all its original divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim
+in the distance, with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains
+clustering about it, the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.
+
+It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with
+the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,
+and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow
+of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and
+had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to
+the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this
+benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the
+clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine.
+
+As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their
+cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The
+child's name was Ernest.
+
+'Mother,' said he, while the Titanic visage miled on him, 'I wish that
+it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs
+be pleasant. If I were to See a man with such a face, I should love him
+dearly.' 'If an old prophecy should come to pass,' answered his mother,
+'we may see a man, some time for other, with exactly such a face as
+that.' 'What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?' eagerly inquired
+Ernest. 'Pray tell me all about it!'
+
+So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when
+she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that
+were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very
+old, that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had
+heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been
+murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the
+tree-tops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child should
+be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest
+personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear
+an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned
+people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still
+cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had
+seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and
+had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much
+greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but
+an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet
+appeared.
+
+'O mother, dear mother!' cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head,
+'I do hope that I shall live to see him!'
+
+His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it
+was wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So
+she only said to him, 'Perhaps you may.'
+
+And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was
+always in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face.
+He spent his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was
+dutiful to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting
+her much with his little hands, and more with his loving heart. In this
+manner, from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild,
+quiet, unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but
+with more intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads
+who have been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher,
+save only that the Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil
+of the day was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to
+imagine that those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of
+kindness and encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration.
+We must not take upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although
+the Face may have looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the
+world besides. But the secret was that the boy's tender and confiding
+simplicity discerned what other people could not see; and thus the love,
+which was meant for all, became his peculiar portion.
+
+About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the great
+man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to
+the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years
+before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a
+distant seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had
+set up as a shopkeeper. His name but I could never learn whether it was
+his real one, or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success
+in life--was Gathergold.
+
+Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that inscrutable
+faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck, he became an
+exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of bulky-bottomed
+ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to join hands for the
+mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous accumulation
+of this one man's wealth. The cold regions of the north, almost within
+the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle, sent him their tribute in the
+shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands of her rivers,
+and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out of the
+forests; the east came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices, and
+teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of large
+pearls. The ocean, not to be behindhand with the earth, yielded up her
+mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make a
+profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold
+within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas, in the fable,
+that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew
+yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited
+him still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had
+become so very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only
+to count his wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and
+resolved to go back thither, and end his days where he was born. With
+this purpose in view, he sent a skilful architect to build him such a
+palace as should be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.
+
+As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that
+Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and
+vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable
+similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to
+believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid
+edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father's
+old weather-beaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly
+white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in
+the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his
+young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of
+transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly
+ornamented portico supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty
+door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood
+that had been brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor
+to the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively
+of but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that it was
+said to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. Hardly
+anybody had been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it
+was reported, and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous
+than the outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other
+houses was silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold's bedchamber,
+especially, made such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would
+have been able to close his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr.
+Gathergold was now so inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have
+closed his eyes unless where the gleam of it was certain to find its way
+beneath his eyelids.
+
+In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with
+magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants,
+the haringers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was
+expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been
+deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of
+prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest
+to his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand
+ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform
+himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human
+affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face.
+Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said
+was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those
+wondrous features on the mountainside. While the boy was still gazing
+up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face
+returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was
+heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.
+
+'Here he comes!' cried a group of people who were assembled to witness
+the arrival. 'Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!'
+
+A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.
+Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy
+of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had
+transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about
+with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still
+thinner by pressing them forcibly together.
+
+'The very image or the Great Stone Face!' shouted the people. 'Sure
+enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come,
+at last!'
+
+And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that
+here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced
+to be an old beggar woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers
+from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held
+out their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously
+beseeching charity. A yellow claw the very same that had dawed together
+so much wealth--poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropt some
+copper coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man's name seems
+to have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed
+Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and evidently
+with as much good faith as ever, the people bellowed 'He is the very
+image of the Great Stone Face!' But Ernest turned sadly from the
+wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid visage, and gazed up the valley,
+where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by the last sunbeams, he could
+still distinguish those glorious features which had impressed themselves
+into his soul. Their aspect cheered him. What did the benign lips seem
+to say?
+
+'He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!'
+
+The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a
+young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants
+of the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save
+that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and
+gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of
+the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest
+was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the
+sake of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone
+Face had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was
+expressed in it would enlarge the young man's heart, and fill it with
+wider and deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence
+would come a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a
+better life than could be moulded on the defaced example of other human
+lives. Neither did Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which
+came to him so naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and
+wherever he communed with himself, were of a higher tone than those
+which all men shared with him. A simple soul--simple as when his mother
+first taught him the old prophecy--he beheld the marvellous features
+beaming adown the valley, and still wondered that their human
+counterpart was so long in making his appearance.
+
+By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest
+part of the matter was, that his wealth, which was the body and spirit
+of his existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of
+him but a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin.
+Since the melting away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded
+that there was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the
+ignoble features of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the
+mountainside. So the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime,
+and quietly consigned him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once in
+a while, it is true, his memory was brought up in connection with the
+magnificent palace which he had built, and which had long ago been
+turned into a hotel for the accommodation of strangers, multitudes of
+whom came, every summer, to visit that famous natural curiosity, the
+Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr. Gathergold being discredited and thrown into
+the shade, the man of prophecy was yet to come.
+
+It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,
+had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting,
+had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in
+history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname
+of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now infirm with
+age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the
+roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long been
+ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his
+native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left
+it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown-up children, were
+resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and a
+public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed
+that now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone Face had actually
+appeared. An aid-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, travelling through
+the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. Moreover
+the schoolmates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to
+testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid
+general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy,
+only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period. Great,
+therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people,
+who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years
+before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing
+exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked.
+
+On the day of the great festival, Ernest, with all the other people of
+the valley, left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan
+banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.
+Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set
+before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor
+they were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the
+woods, shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened
+eastward, and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the
+general's chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there
+was an arch of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed,
+and surmounted by his country's banner, beneath which he had won his
+victories. Our friend Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes
+to get a glimpse of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd
+about the tables anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch
+any word that might fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer
+company, doing duty as a guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets
+at any particularly quiet person among the throng. So Ernest, being of
+an unobtrusive character, was thrust quite into the background, where he
+could see no more of Old Blood-and-Thunder's physiognomy than if it had
+been still blazing on the battlefield. To console himself, he turned
+towards the Great Stone Face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered
+friend, looked back and smiled upon him through the vista of the forest.
+Meantime, however, he could overhear the remarks of various individuals,
+who were comparing the features of the hero with the face on the distant
+mountainside.
+
+''T is the same face, to a hair!' cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.
+
+'Wonderfully like, that's a fact!' responded another.
+
+'Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous
+looking-glass!' cried a third.
+
+'And why not? He's the greatest man of this or any other age, beyond a
+doubt.'
+
+And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which
+communicated electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a
+thousand voices, that went reverberating for miles among the mountains,
+until you might have supposed that the Great Stone Face had poured
+its thunder-breath into the cry. All these comments, and this vast
+enthusiasm, served the more to interest our friend; nor did he think of
+questioning that now, at length, the mountain-visage had found its human
+counterpart. It is true, Ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for
+personage would appear in the character of a man of peace, uttering
+wisdom, and doing good, and making people happy. But, taking an habitual
+breadth of view, with all his simplicity, he contended that providence
+should choose its own method of blessing mankind, and could conceive
+that this great end might be effected even by a warrior and a bloody
+sword, should inscrutable wisdom see fit to order matters SO.
+
+'The general! the general!' was now the cry. 'Hush! silence! Old
+Blood-and-Thunder's going to make a speech.'
+
+Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general's health had been
+drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to thank
+the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders of the
+crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar upward,
+beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and the banner
+drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in the same
+glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great Stone Face!
+And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had testified?
+Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and
+weather-beaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron
+will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were
+altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder's visage; and even if the
+Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder
+traits would still have tempered it.
+
+'This is not the man of prophecy,' sighed Ernest to himself, as he made
+his way out of the throng. 'And must the world wait longer yet?'
+
+The mists had congregated about the distant mountainside, and there were
+seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful but
+benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and
+enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,
+Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole
+visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of
+the lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting
+through the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and
+the object that he gazed at. But--as it always did--the aspect of his
+marvellous friend made Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in
+vain.
+
+'Fear not, Ernest,' said his heart, even as if the Great Face were
+whispering him--'fear not, Ernest; he will come.'
+
+More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in
+his native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By imperceptible
+degrees, he had become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he
+labored for his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had
+always been. But he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many
+of the best hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to
+mankind, that it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels,
+and had imbibed a portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in
+the calm and well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet
+stream of which had made a wide green margin all along its course. Not
+a day passed by, that the world was not the better because this man,
+humble as he was, had lived. He never stepped aside from his own path,
+yet would always reach a blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily,
+too, he had become a preacher. The pure and high simplicity of his
+thought, which, as one of its manifestations, took shape in the good
+deeds that dropped silently from his hand, flowed also forth in speech.
+He uttered truths that wrought upon and moulded the lives of those who
+heard him. His auditors, it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their
+own neighbor and familiar friend, was more than an ordinary man; least
+of all did Ernest himself suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of
+a rivulet, came thoughts out of his mouth that no other human lips had
+spoken.
+
+When the people's minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready
+enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between
+General Blood-and-Thunder's truculent physiognomy and the benign visage
+on the mountain-side. But now, again, there were reports and many
+paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great
+Stone Face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent
+statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold and old Blood-and-Thunder, was a
+native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up
+the trades of law and politics. Instead of the rich man's wealth and
+the warrior's sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both
+together. So wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose
+to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked like
+right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make a
+kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural
+daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes
+it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest
+music. It was the blast of war--the song of peace; and it seemed to have
+a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a
+wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable
+success--when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of
+princes and potentates--after it had made him known all over the world,
+even as a voice crying from shore to shore--it finally 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 mountainside was completely hidden from Ernest's eyes.
+All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback; militia
+officers, in uniform; the member of Congress; the sheriff of the county;
+the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted his
+patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was a very
+brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners flaunting
+over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits of the
+illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly at
+one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted, the
+mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvellous. We must not
+forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the echoes
+of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its
+strains; so that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all
+the heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found
+a voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was
+when the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the
+Great Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in
+acknowledgment, that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.
+
+All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting, with
+enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he
+likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, 'Huzza
+for the great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!' But as yet he had not seen
+him.
+
+'Here he is, now!' cried those who stood near Ernest. 'There! There!
+Look at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see
+if they are not as like as two twin brothers!'
+
+In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by
+four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered,
+sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.
+
+'Confess it,' said one of Ernest's neighbors to him, 'the Great Stone
+Face has met its match at last!'
+
+Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance
+which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that
+there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the
+mountainside. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all
+the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in
+emulation of a more than heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity
+and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that
+illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite
+substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been
+originally left out, or had departed. And therefore the marvellously
+gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of his
+eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty
+faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high performances,
+was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it with
+reality.
+
+Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and
+pressing him for an answer.
+
+'Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the
+Mountain?'
+
+'No!' said Ernest, bluntly, 'I see little or no likeness.'
+
+'Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!' answered his
+neighbor; and again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.
+
+But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for this
+was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have
+fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the
+cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him,
+with the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down,
+and the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it
+had worn for untold centuries.
+
+'Lo, here I am, Ernest!' the benign lips seemed to say. 'I have waited
+longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come.'
+
+The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another's
+heels. And now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over
+the head of Ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and
+furrows in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown
+old: more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his
+mind; his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved,
+and in which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by
+the tenor of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for,
+undesired, had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in
+the great world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt
+so quietly. College professors, and even the active men of cities, came
+from far to see and converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad
+that this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men,
+not gained from books, but of a higher tone--a tranquil and familiar
+majesty, as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends.
+Whether it were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received
+these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from
+boyhood, and spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay
+deepest in his heart or their own. While they talked together, his face
+would kindle, unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening
+light. Pensive with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave
+and went their way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the
+Great Stone Face, imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human
+countenance, but could not remember where.
+
+While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence
+had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the
+valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from
+that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and
+din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar
+to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere
+of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet
+had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered
+by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had come down
+from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the
+eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast,
+or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. If his theme
+were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to
+gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea, even the deep
+immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by
+the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better
+aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The
+Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork.
+Creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so
+complete it.
+
+The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were
+the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust
+of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in
+it, were glorified if they beheld him in his mood of poetic faith. He
+showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an
+angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth
+that made them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who thought
+to show the soundness of their 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 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 traveller a night's
+lodging?'
+
+'Willingly,' answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, 'Methinks I
+never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger.'
+
+The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked
+together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and
+the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts
+and feelings gushed up with such a natural feeling, and who made great
+truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had
+been so often said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in
+the fields; angels seemed to have sat with him by the fireside;
+and, dwelling with angels as friend with friends, he had imbibed the
+sublimity of their ideas, and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm
+of household words. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand,
+was moved and agitated by the living images which the poet flung out
+of his mind, and which peopled all the air about the cottage-door with
+shapes of beauty, both gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men
+instructed them with a profounder sense than either could have attained
+alone. Their minds accorded into one strain, and made delightful
+music which neither of them could have claimed as all his own, nor
+distinguished his own share from the other's. They led one another, as
+it were, into a high pavilion of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto
+so dim, that they had never entered it before, and so beautiful that
+they desired to be there always.
+
+As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face
+was bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet's
+glowing eyes.
+
+'Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?' he said.
+
+The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.
+
+'You have read these poems,' said he. 'You know me, then--for I wrote
+them.'
+
+Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet's
+features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back, with an
+uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his
+head, and sighed.
+
+'Wherefore are you sad?' inquired the poet. 'Because,' replied Ernest,
+'all through life I have awaited the fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when
+I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you.'
+
+'You hoped,' answered the poet, faintly smiling, 'to find in me the
+likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly
+with Mr. Gathergold, and old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,
+Ernest, it is my doom.
+
+You must add my name to the illustrious three, and record another
+failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I speak it,
+Ernest--I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic
+image.'
+
+'And why?' asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. 'Are not those
+thoughts divine?'
+
+'They have a strain of the Divinity,' replied the poet. 'You can hear in
+them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest, has
+not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they have
+been only dreams, because I have lived--and that, too, by my own choice
+among poor and mean realities. Sometimes, even--shall I dare to say
+it?---I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which
+my own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human
+life. Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to
+find me, in yonder image of the divine?'
+
+The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,
+were those of Ernest.
+
+At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was
+to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open
+air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went
+along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with
+a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the
+pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the
+naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a
+small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,
+there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with
+freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought and
+genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and threw a
+look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood, or sat,
+or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the departing
+sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued
+cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and
+amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In
+another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer,
+combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.
+
+Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart
+and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts;
+and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with
+the life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this
+preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good
+deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had
+been dissolved into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened,
+felt that the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of
+poetry than he had ever written.
+
+His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially at the venerable
+man, and said within himself that never was there an aspect so worthy of
+a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful countenance, with
+the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a distance, but distinctly
+to be seen, high up in the golden light of the setting sun, appeared
+the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around it, like the white hairs
+around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand beneficence seemed to
+embrace the world.
+
+At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,
+the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with
+benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms
+aloft and shouted--
+
+'Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone
+Face!'
+
+Then all the people looked and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said
+was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what
+he had to say, took the poet's arm, and walked slowly homeward, still
+hoping that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by
+appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE AMBITIOUS GUEST
+
+One September night a family had gathered round their hearth, and piled
+it high with the driftwood of mountain streams, the dry cones of the
+pine, and the splintered ruins of great trees that had come crashing
+down 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 inclemency before it descended on the
+valley of the Saco) 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 jest 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 tones. 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 life-blood of internal commerce is continually
+throbbing between Maine, on one side, and the Green Mountains and the
+shores of the St. Lawrence, on the other. The stage-coach 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 maid at parting. It was one of those
+primitive taverns where the traveller pays only for food and lodging,
+but meets with a homely 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 some one 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 round 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 sure 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, though 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 Saco, 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 as 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
+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, tonight,' 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'm, 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 choral 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 mien, the high-browed youth,
+the budding girl, and the good old grandam, 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 too. 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 ruff, 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 ruff were not smooth, or the cap did not set right,
+the corpse in 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 fated
+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 peal 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 smouldering 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-souled 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?
+
+
+
+
+THE GREAT CARBUNCLE
+
+A MYSTERY OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
+
+(The Indian tradition, on which this somewhat extravagant tale is
+founded, is both too wild and too beautiful to be adequately wrought
+up in prose. Sullivan, in his History of Maine, written since the
+Revolution, remarks, that even then the existence of the Great Carbuncle
+was not entirely discredited.)
+
+AT nightfall, once in the olden time, on the rugged side of one of the
+Crystal Hills, a party of adventurers were refreshing themselves, after
+a toilsome and fruitless quest for the Great Carbuncle. They had come
+thither, not as friends nor partners in the enterprise, but each, save
+one youthful pair, impelled by his own selfish and solitary longing for
+this wondrous gem. Their feeling of brotherhood, however, was strong
+enough to induce them to contribute a mutual aid in building a rude
+hut of branches, and kindling a great fire of shattered pines, that had
+drifted down the headlong current of the Amonoosuck, on the lower bank
+of which they were to pass the night. There was but one of their number,
+perhaps, who had become so estranged from natural sympathies, by the
+absorbing spell of the pursuit, as to acknowledge no satisfaction at the
+sight of human faces, in the remote and solitary region whither they had
+ascended. A vast extent of wilderness lay between them and the nearest
+settlement, while scant a mile above their heads was that black verge
+where the hills throw off their shaggy mantle of forest trees, and
+either robe themselves in clouds or tower naked into the sky. The roar
+of the Amonoosuck would have been too awful for endurance if only a
+solitary man had listened, while the mountain stream talked with the
+wind.
+
+The adventurers, therefore, exchanged hospitable greetings, and welcomed
+one another to the hut, where each man was the host, and all were the
+guests of the whole company. They spread their individual supplies of
+food on the flat surface of a rock, and partook of a general repast; at
+the close of which, a sentiment of good fellowship was perceptible among
+the party, though repressed by the idea, that the renewed search for the
+Great Carbuncle must make them strangers again in the morning. Seven men
+and one young woman, they warmed themselves together at the fire, which
+extended its bright wall along the whole front of their wigwam. As they
+observed the various and contrasted figures that made up the assemblage,
+each man looking like a caricature of himself, in the unsteady light
+that flickered over him, they came mutually to the conclusion, that
+an odder society had never met, in city or wilderness, on mountain or
+plain.
+
+The eldest of the group, a tall, lean, weather-beaten man, some sixty
+years of age, was clad in the skins of wild animals, whose fashion of
+dress he did well to imitate, since the deer, the wolf, and the
+bear, had long been his most intimate companions. He was one of those
+ill-fated mortals, such as the Indians told of, whom, in their early
+youth, the Great Carbuncle smote with a peculiar madness, and became the
+passionate dream of their existence. All who visited that region knew
+him as the Seeker and by no other name. As none could remember when he
+first took up the search, there went a fable in the valley of the Saco,
+that for his inordinate lust after the Great Carbuncle, he had been
+condemned to wander among the mountains till the end of time, still with
+the same feverish hopes at sunrise--the same despair at eve. Near this
+miserable Seeker sat a little elderly personage, wearing a high-crowned
+hat, shaped somewhat like a crucible. He was from beyond the sea, a
+Doctor Cacaphodel, who had wilted and dried himself into a mummy by
+continually stooping over charcoal furnaces, and inhaling unwholesome
+fumes during his researches in chemistry and alchemy. It was told of
+him, whether truly or not, that, at the commencement of his studies, he
+had drained his body of all its richest blood, and wasted it, with other
+inestimable ingredients, in an unsuccessful experiment--and had never
+been a well man since. Another of the adventurers was Master bod
+Pigsnort, a weighty merchant and selector Boston, and an elder of the
+famous Mr. Norton's church. His enemies had a ridiculous story that
+Master Pigsnort was accustomed to spend a whole hour after prayer time,
+every morning and evening, in wallowing naked among an immense quantity
+of pine-tree shillings, which were the earliest silver coinage of
+Massachusetts. The fourth whom we shall notice had no name that his
+companions knew of, and was chiefly distinguished by a sneer that always
+contorted his thin visage, and by a prodigious pair of spectacles, which
+were supposed to deform and discolor the whole face of nature, to this
+gentleman's perception. The fifth adventurer likewise lacked a name,
+which was the greater pity, as he appeared to be a poet. He was a
+bright-eyed man, but woefully pined away, which was no more than
+natural, if, as some people affirmed, his ordinary diet was fog, morning
+mist, and a slice of the densest cloud within his reach, sauced with
+moonshine, whenever he could get it. Certain it is, that the poetry
+which flowed from him had a smack of all these dainties. The sixth of
+the party was a young man of haughty mien, and sat somewhat apart from
+the rest, wearing his plumed hat loftily among his elders, while the
+fire glittered on the rich embroidery of his dress and gleamed intensely
+on the jewelled pommel of his sword. This was the Lord de Vere, who,
+when at home, was said to spend much of his time in the burial vault of
+his dead progenitors, rummaging their mouldy coffins in search of all
+the earthly pride and vainglory that was hidden among bones and dust;
+so that, besides his own share, he had the collected haughtiness of his
+whole line of ancestry.
+
+Lastly, there was a handsome youth in rustic garb, and by his side a
+blooming little person, in whom a delicate shade of maiden reserve was
+just melting into the rich glow of a young wife's affection. Her name
+was Hannah, and her husband's Matthew; two homely names, yet well enough
+adapted to the simple pair, who seemed strangely out of place among
+the whimsical fraternity whose wits had been set agog by the Great
+Carbuncle.
+
+Beneath the shelter of one hut, in the bright blaze of the same fire,
+sat this varied group of adventurers, all so intent upon a single
+object, that, of whatever else they began to speak, their closing words
+were sure to be illuminated with the Great Carbuncle. Several related
+the circumstances that brought them thither. One had listened to a
+traveller's tale of this marvellous stone in his own distant country,
+and had immediately been seized with such a thirst for beholding it as
+could only, be quenched in its intensest lustre. Another, so long ago as
+when the famous Captain Smith visited these coasts, had seen it blazing
+far at sea, and had felt no rest in all the intervening years till
+now that he took up the search. A third, being camped on a hunting
+expedition full forty miles south of the White Mountains, awoke at
+midnight, and beheld the Great Carbuncle gleaming like a meteor, so
+that the shadows of the trees fell backward from it. They spoke of the
+innumerable attempts which had been made to reach the spot, and of
+the singular fatality which had hitherto withheld success from all
+adventurers, though it might seem so easy to follow to its source a
+light that overpowered the moon, and almost matched the sun. It was
+observable that each smiled scornfully at the madness of every other
+in anticipating better fortune than the past, yet nourished a scarcely
+hidden conviction that he would himself be the favored one. As if to
+allay their too sanguine hopes, they recurred to the Indian traditions
+that a spirit kept watch about the gem, and bewildered those who sought
+it either by removing it from peak to peak of the higher hills, or by
+calling up a mist from the enchanted lake over which it hung. But these
+tales were deemed unworthy of credit, all professing to believe that
+the search had been baffled by want of sagacity or perseverance in
+the adventurers, or such other causes as might naturally obstruct the
+passage to any given point among the intricacies of forest, valley, and
+mountain.
+
+In a pause of the conversation the wearer of the prodigious spectacles
+looked round upon the party, making each individual, in turn, the object
+of the sneer which invariably dwelt upon his countenance.
+
+'So, fellow-pilgrims,' said he, 'here we are, seven wise men, and one
+fair damsel--who, doubtless, is as wise as any graybeard of the company:
+here we are, I say, all bound on the same goodly enterprise. Methinks,
+now, it were not amiss that each of us declare what he proposes to do
+with the Great Carbuncle, provided he have the good hap to clutch it.
+What says our friend in the bear skin? How mean you, good sir, to enjoy
+the prize which you have been seeking, the Lord knows how long, among
+the Crystal Hills?'
+
+'How enjoy it!' exclaimed the aged Seeker, bitterly. 'I hope for no
+enjoyment from it; that folly has passed long ago! I keep up the search
+for this accursed stone because the vain ambition of my youth has become
+a fate upon me in old age. The pursuit alone is my strength--the energy
+of my soul--the warmth of my blood--and the pith and marrow of my bones!
+Were I to turn my back upon it I should fall down dead on the hither
+side of the Notch, which is the gateway of this mountain region. Yet not
+to have my wasted lifetime back again would I give up my hopes of the
+Great Carbuncle! Having found it, I shall bear it to a certain cavern
+that I wot of, and there, grasping it in my arms, lie down and die, and
+keep it buried with me forever.'
+
+'O wretch, regardless of the interests of science!' cried Doctor
+Cacaphodel, with philosophic indignation. 'Thou art not worthy to
+behold, even from afar off, the lustre of this most precious gem that
+ever was concocted in the laboratory of Nature. Mine is the sole purpose
+for which a wise man may desire the possession of the Great Carbuncle.
+
+'Immediately on obtaining it--for I have a presentiment, good people,
+that the prize is reserved to crown my scientific reputation--I shall
+return to Europe, and employ my remaining years in reducing it to
+its first elements. A portion of the stone will I grind to impalpable
+powder; other parts shall be dissolved in acids, or whatever solvents
+will act upon so admirable a composition; and the remainder I design
+to melt in the crucible, or set on fire with the blow-pipe. By these
+various methods I shall gain an accurate analysis, and finally bestow
+the result of my labors upon the world in a folio volume.'
+
+'Excellent!' quoth the man with the spectacles. 'Nor need you hesitate,
+learned sir, on account of the necessary destruction of the gem; since
+the perusal of your folio may teach every mother's son of us to concoct
+a Great Carbuncle of his own.'
+
+'But, verily,' said Master Ichabod Pigsnort, 'for mine own part I object
+to the making of these counterfeits, as being calculated to reduce the
+marketable value of the true gem. I tell ye frankly, sirs, I have
+an interest in keeping up the price. Here have I quitted my regular
+traffic, leaving my warehouse in the care of my clerks, and putting my
+credit to great hazard, and, furthermore, have put myself in peril of
+death or captivity by the accursed heathen savages--and all this without
+daring to ask the prayers of the congregation, because the quest for
+the Great Carbuncle is deemed little better than a traffic with the Evil
+One. Now think ye that I would have done this grievous wrong to my soul,
+body, reputation, and estate, without a reasonable chance of profit?'
+
+'Not I, pious Master Pigsnort,' said the man with the spectacles. 'I
+never laid such a great folly to thy charge.'
+
+'Truly, I hope not,' said the merchant. 'Now, as touching this Great
+Carbuncle, I am free to own that I have never had a glimpse of it; but
+be it only the hundredth part so bright as people tell, it will
+surely outvalue the Great Mogul's best diamond, which he holds at an
+incalculable sum. Wherefore, I am minded to put the Great Carbuncle on
+shipboard, and voyage with it to England, France, Spain, Italy, or
+into Heathendom, if Providence should send me thither, and, in a word,
+dispose of the gem to the best bidder among the potentates of the earth,
+that he may place it among his crown jewels. If any of ye have a wiser
+plan, let him expound it.'
+
+'That have I, thou sordid man!' exclaimed the poet. 'Dost thou desire
+nothing brighter than gold that thou wouldst transmute all this ethereal
+lustre into such dross as thou wallowest in already? For myself, hiding
+the jewel under my cloak, I shall hie me back to my attic chamber, in
+one of the darksome alleys of London. There, night and day, will I
+gaze upon it; my soul shall drink its radiance; it shall be diffused
+throughout my intellectual powers, and gleam brightly in every line of
+poesy that I indite. Thus, long ages after I am gone, the splendor of
+the Great Carbuncle will blaze around my name?'
+
+'Well said, Master Poet!' cried he of the spectacles. 'Hide it under thy
+cloak, sayest thou? Why, it will gleam through the holes, and make thee
+look like a jack-o'-lantern!'
+
+'To think!' ejaculated the Lord de Vere, rather to himself than
+his companions, the best of whom he held utterly unworthy of his
+intercourse--'to think that a fellow in a tattered cloak should talk
+of conveying the Great Carbuncle to a garret in Grub Street! Have not I
+resolved within myself that the whole earth contains no fitter ornament
+for the great hall of my ancestral castle? There shall it flame for
+ages, making a noonday of midnight, glittering on the suits of armor,
+the banners, and escutcheons, that hang around the wall, and keeping
+bright the memory of heroes. Wherefore have all other adventurers sought
+the prize in vain but that I might win it, and make it a symbol of
+the glories of our lofty line? And never, on the diadem of the White
+Mountains, did the Great Carbuncle hold a place half so honored as is
+reserved for it in the hall of the De Veres!'
+
+'It is a noble thought,' said the Cynic, with an obsequious sneer. 'Yet,
+might I presume to say so, the gem would make a rare sepulchral lamp,
+and would display the glories of your lordship's progenitors more truly
+in the ancestral vault than in the castle hall.'
+
+'Nay, forsooth,' observed Matthew, the young rustic, who sat hand
+in hand with his bride, 'the gentleman has bethought himself of a
+profitable use for this bright stone. Hannah here and I are seeking it
+for a like purpose.'
+
+'How, fellow!' exclaimed his lordship, in surprise. 'What castle hall
+hast thou to hang it in?'
+
+'No castle,' replied Matthew, 'but as neat a cottage as any within sight
+of the Crystal Hills. Ye must know, friends, that Hannah and I, being
+wedded the last week, have taken up the search of the Great Carbuncle,
+because we shall need its light in the long winter evenings; and it will
+be such a pretty thing to show the neighbors when they visit us. It will
+shine through the house so that we may pick up a pin in any corner, and
+will set all the windows aglowing as if there were a great fire of pine
+knots in the chimney. And then how pleasant, when we awake in the night,
+to be able to see one another's faces!'
+
+There was a general smile among the adventurers at the simplicity of the
+young couple's project in regard to this wondrous and invaluable stone,
+with which the greatest monarch on earth might have been proud to adorn
+his palace. Especially the man with spectacles, who had sneered at all
+the company in turn, now twisted his visage into such an expression of
+ill-natured mirth, that Matthew asked him, rather peevishly, what he
+himself meant to do with the Great Carbuncle.
+
+'The Great Carbuncle!' answered the Cynic, with ineffable scorn. 'Why,
+you blockhead, there is no such thing in rerum natura. I have come three
+thousand miles, and am resolved to set my foot on every peak of these
+mountains, and poke my head into every chasm, for the sole purpose of
+demonstrating to the satisfaction of any man one whit less an ass than
+thyself that the Great Carbuncle is all a humbug!'
+
+Vain and foolish were the motives that had brought most of the
+adventurers to the Crystal Hills; but none so vain, so foolish, and so
+impious too, as that of the scoffer with the prodigious spectacles. He
+was one of those wretched and evil men whose yearnings are downward to
+the darkness, instead of heavenward, and who, could they but distinguish
+the lights which God hath kindled for us, would count the midnight gloom
+their chiefest glory. As the Cynic spoke, several of the party were
+startled by a gleam of red splendor, that showed the huge shapes of the
+surrounding mountains and the rock-bed of the turbulent river with an
+illumination unlike that of their fire on the trunks and black boughs
+of the forest trees. They listened for the roll of thunder, but heard
+nothing, and were glad that the tempest came not near them. The stars,
+those dial-points of heaven, now warned the adventurers to close their
+eyes on the blazing logs, and open them, in dreams, to the glow of the
+Great Carbuncle.
+
+The young married couple had taken their lodgings in the farthest
+corner of the wigwam, and were separated from the rest of the party by
+a curtain of curiously-woven twigs, such as might have hung, in deep
+festoons, around the bridal-bower of Eve. The modest little wife had
+wrought this piece of tapestry while the other guests were talking. She
+and her husband fell asleep with hands tenderly clasped, and awoke from
+visions of unearthly radiance to meet the more blessed light of one
+another's eyes. They awoke at the same instant, and with one happy
+smile beaming over their two faces, which grew brighter with their
+consciousness of the reality of life and love. But no sooner did she
+recollect where they were, than the bride peeped through the interstices
+of the leafy curtain, and saw that the outer room of the hut was
+deserted.
+
+'Up, dear Matthew!' cried she, in haste. 'The strange folk are all gone!
+Up, this very minute, or we shall loose the Great Carbuncle!'
+
+In truth, so little did these poor young people deserve the mighty prize
+which had lured them thither, that they had slept peacefully all night,
+and till the summits of the hills were glittering with sunshine; while
+the other adventurers had tossed their limbs in feverish wakefulness, or
+dreamed of climbing precipices, and set off to realize their dreams
+with the earliest peep of dawn. But Matthew and Hannah, after their calm
+rest, were as light as two young deer, and merely stopped to say their
+prayers and wash themselves in a cold pool of the Amonoosuck, and
+then to taste a morsel of food, ere they turned their faces to the
+mountainside. It was a sweet emblem of conjugal affection, as they
+toiled up the difficult ascent, gathering strength from the mutual aid
+which they afforded. After several little accidents, such as a torn
+robe, a lost shoe, and the entanglement of Hannah's hair in a bough,
+they reached the upper verge of the forest, and were now to pursue a
+more adventurous course. The innumerable trunks and heavy foliage of the
+trees had hitherto shut in their thoughts, which now shrank affrighted
+from the region of wind and cloud and naked rocks and desolate sunshine,
+that rose immeasurably above them. They gazed back at the obscure
+wilderness which they had traversed, and longed to be buried again
+in its depths rather than trust themselves to so vast and visible a
+solitude.
+
+'Shall we go on?' said Matthew, throwing his arm round Hannah's waist,
+both to protect her and to comfort his heart by drawing her close to it.
+
+But the little bride, simple as she was, had a woman's love of jewels,
+and could not forego the hope of possessing the very brightest in the
+world, in spite of the perils with which it must be won.
+
+'Let us climb a little higher,' whispered she, yet tremulously, as she
+turned her face upward to the lonely sky.
+
+'Come, then,' said Matthew, mustering his manly courage and drawing her
+along with him, for she became timid again the moment that he grew bold.
+
+And upward, accordingly, went the pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, now
+treading upon the tops and thickly-interwoven branches of dwarf pines,
+which, by the growth of centuries, though mossy with age, had barely
+reached three feet in altitude. Next, they came to masses and fragments
+of naked rock heaped confusedly together, like a cairn reared by giants
+in memory of a giant chief. In this bleak realm of upper air nothing
+breathed, nothing grew; there was no life but what was concentrated in
+their two hearts; they had climbed so high that Nature herself seemed no
+longer to keep them company. She lingered beneath them, within the verge
+of the forest trees, and sent a farewell glance after her children as
+they strayed where her own green footprints had never been. But soon
+they were to be hidden from her eye. Densely and dark the mists began to
+gather below, casting black spots of shadow on the vast landscape, and
+sailing heavily to one centre, as if the loftiest mountain peak had
+summoned a council of its kindred clouds. Finally, the vapors welded
+themselves, as it were, into a mass, presenting the appearance of a
+pavement over which the wanderers might have trodden, but where they
+would vainly have sought an avenue to the blessed earth which they had
+lost. And the lovers yearned to behold that green earth again, more
+intensely, alas! than, beneath a clouded sky, they had ever desired a
+glimpse of heaven. They even felt it a relief to their desolation when
+the mists, creeping gradually up the mountain, concealed its lonely
+peak, and thus annihilated, at least for them, the whole region
+of visible space. But they drew closely together, with a fond and
+melancholy gaze, dreading lest the universal cloud should snatch them
+from each other's sight.
+
+Still, perhaps, they would have been resolute to climb as far and as
+high, between earth and heaven, as they could find foothold, if Hannah's
+strength had not begun to fail, and with that, her courage also. Her
+breath grew short. She refused to burden her husband with her weight,
+but often tottered against his side, and recovered herself each time by
+a feebler effort. At last, she sank down on one of the rocky steps of
+the acclivity.
+
+'We are lost, dear Matthew,' said she, mournfully. 'We shall never find
+our way to the earth again. And oh how happy we might have been in our
+cottage!'
+
+'Dear heart! we will yet be happy there,' answered Matthew. 'Look! In
+this direction, the sunshine penetrates the dismal mist. By its aid, I
+can direct our course to the passage of the Notch. Let us go back, love,
+and dream no more of the Great Carbuncle!'
+
+'The sun cannot be yonder,' said Hannah, with despondence. 'By this time
+it must be noon. If there could ever be any sunshine here, it would come
+from above our heads.'
+
+'But look!' repeated Matthew, in a somewhat altered tone. 'It is
+brightening every moment. If not sunshine, what can it be?'
+
+Nor could the young bride any longer deny that a radiance was breaking
+through the mist, and changing its dim hue to a dusky red, which
+continually grew more vivid, as if brilliant particles were interfused
+with the gloom. Now, also, the cloud began to roll away from the
+mountain, while, as it heavily withdrew, one object after another
+started out of its impenetrable obscurity into sight, with precisely the
+effect of a new creation, before the indistinctness of the old chaos
+had been completely swallowed up. As the process went on, they saw the
+gleaming of water close at their feet, and found themselves on the very
+border of a mountain lake, deep, bright, clear, and calmly beautiful,
+spreading from brim to brim of a basin that had been scooped out of
+the solid rock. A ray of glory flashed across its surface. The pilgrims
+looked whence it should proceed, but closed their eyes with a thrill of
+awful admiration, to exclude the fervid splendor that glowed from the
+brow of a cliff impending over the enchanted lake. For the simple pair
+had reached that lake of mystery, and found the long-sought shrine of
+the Great Carbuncle!
+
+They threw their arms around each other, and trembled at their own
+success; for, as the legends of this wondrous gem rushed thick
+upon their memory, they felt themselves marked out by fate and the
+consciousness was fearful. Often, from childhood upward, they had seen
+it shining like a distant star. And now that star was throwing its
+intensest lustre on their hearts. They seemed changed to one another's
+eyes, in the red brilliancy that flamed upon their cheeks, while it lent
+the same fire to the lake, the rocks, and sky, and to the mists which
+had rolled back before its power. But, with their next glance, they
+beheld an object that drew their attention even from the mighty stone.
+At the base of the cliff, directly beneath the Great Carbuncle, appeared
+the figure of a man, with his arms extended in the act of climbing, and
+his face turned upward, as if to drink the full gush of splendor. But he
+stirred not, no more than if changed to marble.
+
+'It is the Seeker,' whispered Hannah, convulsively grasping her
+husband's arm. 'Matthew, he is dead.'
+
+'The joy of success has killed him,' replied Matthew, trembling
+violently. 'Or, perhaps, the very light of the Great Carbuncle was
+death!'
+
+'The Great Carbuncle,' cried a peevish voice behind them. 'The Great
+Humbug! If you have found it, prithee point it out to me.'
+
+They turned their heads, and there was the Cynic, with his prodigious
+spectacles set carefully on his nose, staring now at the lake, now at
+the rocks, now at the distant masses of vapor, now right at the Great
+Carbuncle itself, yet seemingly as unconscious of its light as if
+all the scattered clouds were condensed about his person. Though its
+radiance actually threw the shadow of the unbeliever at his own feet,
+as he turned his back upon the glorious jewel, he would not be convinced
+that there was the least glimmer there.
+
+'Where is your Great Humbug?' he repeated. 'I challenge you to make me
+see it!'
+
+'There,' said Matthew, incensed at such perverse blindness, and
+turning the Cynic round towards the illuminated cliff. 'Take off those
+abominable spectacles, and you cannot help seeing it!'
+
+Now these colored spectacles probably darkened the Cynic's sight, in at
+least as great a degree as the smoked glasses through which people gaze
+at an eclipse. With resolute bravado, however, he snatched them from
+his nose, and fixed a bold stare full upon the ruddy blaze of the
+Great Carbuncle. But scarcely had he encountered it, when, with a deep,
+shuddering groan, he dropped his head, and pressed both hands across his
+miserable eyes. Thenceforth there was, in very truth, no light of the
+Great Carbuncle, nor any other light on earth, nor light of heaven
+itself, for the poor Cynic. So long accustomed to View all objects
+through a medium that deprived them of every glimpse of brightness,
+a single flash of so glorious a phenomenon, striking upon his naked
+vision, had blinded him forever.
+
+'Matthew,' said Hannah, clinging to him, 'let us go hence!'
+
+Matthew saw that she was faint, and kneeling down, supported her in his
+arms, while he threw some of the thrillingly cold water of the enchanted
+lake upon her face and bosom. It revived her, but could not renovate her
+courage.
+
+'Yes, dearest!' cried Matthew, pressing her tremulous form to his
+breast--'we will go hence, and return to our humble cottage. The blessed
+sunshine and the quiet moonlight shall come through our window. We will
+kindle the cheerful glow of our hearth, at eventide, and be happy in its
+light. But never again will we desire more light than all the world may
+share with us.'
+
+'No,' said his bride, 'for how could we live by day, or sleep by night,
+in this awful blaze of the Great Carbuncle!'
+
+Out of the hollow of their hands, they drank each a draught from the
+lake, which presented them its waters uncontaminated by an earthly lip.
+Then, lending their guidance to the blinded Cynic, who uttered not a
+word, and even stifled his groans in his own most wretched heart, they
+began to descend the mountain. Yet, as they left the shore, till then
+untrodden, of the spirit's lake, they threw a farewell glance towards
+the cliff, and beheld the vapors gathering in dense volumes, through
+which the gem burned duskily.
+
+As touching the other pilgrims of the Great Carbuncle, the legend goes
+on to tell, that the worshipful Master Ichabod Pigsnort soon gave up the
+quest as a desperate speculation, and wisely resolved to betake himself
+again to his warehouse, near the town dock, in Boston. But, as he passed
+through the Notch of the mountains, a war party of Indians captured
+our unlucky merchant, and carried him to Montreal, there holding him
+in bondage, till, by the payment of a heavy ransom, he had woefully
+subtracted from his hoard of pine-tree shillings. By his long absence,
+moreover, his affairs had become so disordered that, for the rest of his
+life, instead of wallowing in silver, he had seldom a sixpence worth
+of copper. Doctor Cacaphodel, the alchemist, returned to his laboratory
+with a prodigious fragment of granite, which he ground to powder,
+dissolved in acids, melted in the crucible, and burned with the
+blow-pipe, and published the result of his experiments in one of the
+heaviest folios of the day. And, for all these purposes, the gem itself
+could not have answered better than the granite. The poet, by a somewhat
+similar mistake, made prize of a great piece of ice, which he found in
+a sunless chasm of the mountains, and swore that it corresponded, in all
+points, with his idea of the Great Carbuncle. The critics say, that, if
+his poetry lacked the splendor of the gem, it retained all the coldness
+of the ice. The Lord de Vere went back to his ancestral hall, where
+he contented himself with a wax-lighted chandelier, and filled, in due
+course of time, another coffin in the ancestral vault. As the funeral
+torches gleamed within that dark receptacle, there was no need of the
+Great Carbuncle to show the vanity of earthly pomp.
+
+The Cynic, having cast aside his spectacles, wandered about the world,
+a miserable object, and was punished with an agonizing desire of light,
+for the wilful blindness of his former life. The whole night long, he
+would lift his splendor-blasted orbs to the moon and stars; he turned
+his face eastward, at sunrise, as duly as a Persian idolater; he made
+a pilgrimage to Rome, to witness the magnificent illumination of St.
+Peter's Church; and finally perished in the great fire of London, into
+the midst of which he had thrust himself, with the desperate idea of
+catching one feeble ray from the blaze that was kindling earth and
+heaven.
+
+Matthew and his bride spent many peaceful years, and were fond of
+telling the legend of the Great Carbuncle. The tale, however, towards
+the close of their lengthened lives, did not meet with the full credence
+that had been accorded to it by those who remembered the ancient lustre
+of the gem. For it is affirmed that, from the hour when two mortals had
+shown themselves so simply wise as to reject a jewel which would have
+dimmed all earthly things, its splendor waned. When other pilgrims
+reached the cliff, they found only an opaque stone, with particles of
+mica glittering on its surface. There is also a tradition that, as the
+youthful pair departed, the gem was loosened from the forehead of the
+cliff, and fell into the enchanted lake, and that, at noontide, the
+Seeker's form may still be seen to bend over its quenchless gleam.
+
+Some few believe that this inestimable stone is blazing as of old,
+and say that they have caught its radiance, like a flash of summer
+lightning, far down the valley of the Saco. And be it owned that, many
+a mile from the Crystal Hills, I saw a wondrous light around their
+summits, and was lured, by the faith of poesy, to be the latest pilgrim
+of the GREAT CARBUNCLE.
+
+
+
+
+
+SKETCHES FROM MEMORY
+
+THE NOTCH OF THE WHITE MOUNTAINS
+
+IT was now the middle of September. We had come since sunrise from
+Bartlett, passing up through the valley of the Saco, which extends
+between mountainous walls, sometimes with a steep ascent, but often as
+level as a church aisle. All that day and two preceding ones we had been
+loitering towards the heart of the White Mountains--those old crystal
+hills, whose mysterious brilliancy had gleamed upon our distant
+wanderings before we thought of visiting them. Height after height had
+risen and towered one above another till the clouds began to hang below
+the peaks. Down their slopes were the red pathways of the slides, those
+avalanches of earth, stones and trees, which descend into the hollows,
+leaving vestiges of their track hardly to be effaced by the vegetation
+of ages. We had mountains behind us and mountains on each side, and a
+group of mightier ones ahead. Still our road went up along the Saco,
+right towards the centre of that group, as if to climb above the clouds
+in its passage to the farther region.
+
+In old times the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the
+northern Indians coming down upon them from this mountain rampart
+through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous
+path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling
+up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed, till
+at length a great mountain took its stand directly across his intended
+road. He tarries not for such an obstacle, but, rending it asunder
+a thousand feet from peak to base, discloses its treasures of hidden
+minerals, its sunless waters, all the secrets of the mountain's inmost
+heart, with a mighty fracture of rugged precipices on each side. This
+is the Notch of the White Hills. Shame on me that I have attempted to
+describe it by so mean an image--feeling, as I do, that it is one of
+those symbolic scenes which lead the mind to the sentiment, though not
+to the conception, of Omnipotence.
+
+We had now reached a narrow passage, which showed almost the appearance
+of having been cut by human strength and artifice in the solid rock.
+There was a wall of granite on each side, high and precipitous,
+especially on our right, and so smooth that a few evergreens could
+hardly find foothold enough to grow there. This is the entrance, or, in
+the direction we were going, the extremity, of the romantic defile of
+the Notch. Before emerging from it, the rattling of wheels approached
+behind us, and a stage-coach rumbled out of the mountain, with seats on
+top and trunks behind, and a smart driver, in a drab greatcoat, touching
+the wheel horses with the whipstock and reining in the leaders. To my
+mind there was a sort of poetry in such an incident, hardly inferior
+to what would have accompanied the painted array of an Indian war party
+gliding forth from the same wild chasm. All the passengers, except a
+very fat lady on the back seat, had alighted. One was a mineralogist,
+a scientific, green-spectacled figure in black, bearing a heavy hammer,
+with which he did great damage to the precipices, and put the fragments
+in his pocket. Another was a well-dressed young man, who carried an
+opera glass set in gold, and seemed to be making a quotation from some
+of Byron's rhapsodies on mountain scenery. There was also a trader,
+returning from Portland to the upper part of Vermont; and a fair young
+girl, with a very faint bloom like one of those pale and delicate
+flowers which sometimes occur among alpine cliffs.
+
+They disappeared, and we followed them, passing through a deep pine
+forest, which for some miles allowed us to see nothing but its own
+dismal shade. Towards nightfall we reached a level amphitheatre,
+surrounded by a great rampart of hills, which shut out the sunshine
+long before it left the external world. It was here that we obtained our
+first view, except at a distance, of the principal group of mountains.
+They are majestic, and even awful, when contemplated in a proper mood,
+yet, by their breadth of base and the long ridges which support them,
+give the idea of immense bulk rather than of towering height. Mount
+Washington, indeed, looked near to heaven: he was white with snow a mile
+downward, and had caught the only cloud that was sailing through the
+atmosphere to veil his head. Let us forget the other names of American
+statesmen that have been stamped upon these hills, but still call the
+loftiest Washington. Mountains are Earth's undecaying monuments. They
+must stand while she endures, and never should be consecrated to the
+mere great men of their own age and country, but to the mighty
+ones alone, whose glory is universal, and whom all time will render
+illustrious.
+
+The air, not often sultry in this elevated region, nearly two thousand
+feet above the sea, was now sharp and cold, like that of a clear
+November evening in the lowlands. By morning, probably, there would be a
+frost, if not a snowfall, on the grass and rye, and an icy surface over
+the standing water. I was glad to perceive a prospect of comfortable
+quarters in a house which we were approaching, and of pleasant company
+in the guests who were assembled at the door.
+
+OUR EVENING PARTY AMONG THE MOUNTAINS We stood in front of a good
+substantial farmhouse, of old date in that wild country. A sign over the
+door denoted it to be the White Mountain Post Office--an establishment
+which distributes letters and newspapers to perhaps a score of persons,
+comprising the population of two or three townships among the hills. The
+broad and weighty antlers of a deer, 'a stag of ten,' were fastened at
+the corner of the house; a fox's bushy tail was nailed beneath them; and
+a huge black paw lay on the ground, newly severed and still bleeding
+the trophy of a bear hunt. Among several persons collected about the
+doorsteps, the most remarkable was a sturdy mountaineer, of six feet two
+and corresponding bulk, with a heavy set of features, such as might be
+moulded on his own blacksmith's anvil, but yet indicative of mother wit
+and rough humor. As we appeared, he uplifted a tin trumpet, four or five
+feet long, and blew a tremendous blast, either in honor of our arrival
+or to awaken an echo from the opposite hill.
+
+Ethan Crawford's guests were of such a motley description as to form
+quite a picturesque group, seldom seen together except at some place
+like this, at once the pleasure house of fashionable tourists and the
+homely inn of country travellers. Among the company at the door were
+the mineralogist and the owner of the gold opera glass whom we had
+encountered in the Notch; two Georgian gentlemen, who had chilled their
+southern blood that morning on the top of Mount Washington; a physician
+and his wife from Conway; a trader of Burlington, and an old squire of
+the Green Mountains; and two young married couples, all the way from
+Massachusetts, on the matrimonial jaunt, Besides these strangers, the
+rugged county of Coos, in which we were, was represented by half a dozen
+wood-cutters, who had slain a bear in the forest and smitten off his
+paw.
+
+I had joined the party, and had a moment's leisure to examine them
+before the echo of Ethan's blast returned from the hill. Not one, but
+many echoes had caught up the harsh and tuneless sound, untwisted its
+complicated threads, and found a thousand aerial harmonies in one stern
+trumpet tone. It was a distinct yet distant and dreamlike symphony
+of melodious instruments, as if an airy band had been hidden on the
+hillside and made faint music at the summons. No subsequent trial
+produced so clear, delicate, and spiritual a concert as the first. A
+field-piece was then discharged from the top of a neighboring hill,
+and gave birth to one long reverberation, which ran round the circle
+of mountains in an unbroken chain of sound and rolled away without a
+separate echo. After these experiments, the cold atmosphere drove us all
+into the house, with the keenest appetites for supper.
+
+It did one's heart good to see the great fires that were kindled in
+the parlor and bar-room, especially the latter, where the fireplace was
+built of rough stone, and might have contained the trunk of an old tree
+for a backlog. A man keeps a comfortable hearth when his own forest is
+at his very door. In the parlor, when the evening was fairly set in, we
+held our hands before our eyes to shield them from the ruddy glow,
+and began a pleasant variety of conversation. The mineralogist and the
+physician talked about the invigorating qualities of the mountain air,
+and its excellent effect on Ethan Crawford's father, an old man of
+seventy-five, with the unbroken frame of middle life. The two brides and
+the doctor's wife held a whispered discussion, which, by their frequent
+titterings and a blush or two, seemed to have reference to the trials or
+enjoyments of the matrimonial state. The bridegrooms sat together in a
+corner, rigidly silent, like Quakers whom the spirit moveth not, being
+still in the odd predicament of bashfulness towards their own young
+wives. The Green Mountain squire chose me for his companion, and
+described the difficulties he had met with half a century ago in
+travelling from the Connecticut River through the Notch to Conway, now
+a single day's journey, though it had cost him eighteen. The Georgians
+held the album between them, and favored us with the few specimens
+of its contents which they considered ridiculous enough to be worth
+hearing. One extract met with deserved applause. It was a 'Sonnet to the
+Snow on Mount Washington,' and had been contributed that very afternoon,
+bearing a signature of great distinction in magazines and annals. The
+lines were elegant and full of fancy, but too remote from familiar
+sentiment, and cold as their subject, resembling those curious specimens
+of crystallized vapor which I observed next day on the mountain top. The
+poet was understood to be the young gentleman of the gold opera glass,
+who heard our laudatory remarks with the composure of a veteran.
+
+Such was our party, and such their ways of amusement. But on a winter
+evening another set of guests assembled at the hearth where these summer
+travellers were now sitting. I once had it in contemplation to spend a
+month hereabouts, in sleighing time, for the sake of studying the yeomen
+of New England, who then elbow each other through the Notch by hundreds,
+on their way to Portland. There could be no better school for such a
+place than Ethan Crawford's inn. Let the student go thither in December,
+sit down with the teamsters at their meals, share their evening
+merriment, and repose with them at night when every bed has its three
+occupants, and parlor, barroom, and kitchen are strewn with slumberers
+around the fire. Then let him rise before daylight, button his
+greatcoat, muffle up his ears, and stride with the departing caravan
+a mile or two, to see how sturdily they make head against the blast. A
+treasure of characteristic traits will repay all inconveniences, even
+should a frozen nose be of the number.
+
+The conversation of our party soon became more animated and sincere,
+and we recounted some traditions of the Indians, who believed that the
+father and mother of their race were saved from a deluge by ascending
+the peak of Mount Washington. The children of that pair have been
+overwhelmed, and found no such refuge. In the mythology of the savage,
+these mountains were afterwards considered sacred and inaccessible,
+full of unearthly wonders, illuminated at lofty heights by the blaze
+of precious stones, and inhabited by deities, who sometimes shrouded
+themselves in the snowstorm and came down on the lower world. There
+are few legends more poetical than that of the' Great Carbuncle' of the
+White Mountains. The belief was communicated to the English settlers,
+and is hardly yet extinct, that a gem, of such immense size as to be
+seen shining miles away, hangs from a rock over a clear, deep lake,
+high up among the hills. They who had once beheld its splendor were
+inthralled with an unutterable yearning to possess it. But a spirit
+guarded that inestimable jewel, and bewildered the adventurer with a
+dark mist from the enchanted lake. Thus life was worn away in the vain
+search for an unearthly treasure, till at length the deluded one went up
+the mountain, still sanguine as in youth, but returned no more. On this
+theme methinks I could frame a tale with a deep moral.
+
+The hearts of the palefaces would not thrill to these superstitions
+of the red men, though we spoke of them in the centre of the haunted
+region. The habits and sentiments of that departed people were too
+distinct from those of their successors to find much real sympathy. It
+has often been a matter of regret to me that I was shut out from the
+most peculiar field of American fiction by an inability to see any
+romance, or poetry, or grandeur, or beauty in the Indian character, at
+least till such traits were pointed out by others. I do abhor an Indian
+story. Yet no writer can be more secure of a permanent place in our
+literature than the biographer of the Indian chiefs. His subject, as
+referring to tribes which have mostly vanished from the earth, gives
+him a right to be placed on a classic shelf, apart from the merits which
+will sustain him there.
+
+I made inquiries whether, in his researches about these parts, our
+mineralogist had found the three 'Silver Hills' which an Indian sachem
+sold to an Englishman nearly two hundred years ago, and the treasure of
+which the posterity of the purchaser have been looking for ever since.
+But the man of science had ransacked every hill along the Saco, and knew
+nothing of these prodigious piles of wealth. By this time, as usual with
+men on the eve of great adventure, we had prolonged our session deep
+into the night, considering how early we were to set out on our six
+miles' ride to the foot of Mount Washington. There was now a general
+breaking up. I scrutinized the faces of the two bridegrooms, and saw but
+little probability of their leaving the bosom of earthly bliss, in the
+first week of the honeymoon and at the frosty hour of three, to climb
+above the clouds; nor when I felt how sharp the wind was as it rushed
+through a broken pane and eddied between the chinks of my unplastered
+chamber, did I anticipate much alacrity on my own part, though we were
+to seek for the 'Great Carbuncle.'
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Great Stone Face, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
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