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 5 glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. He showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial birth that make them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who thought to 10 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 15 having plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made. As respects all things else, the poet's ideal was the truest truth. The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his customary toil, seated on the bench 20 before the 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. 25 "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 30 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 35 cars, at no great distance from Ernest's cottage. The 5 great hotel, which had formerly been the palace of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpet-bag on his arm inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be accepted as his guest. Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face. "Good evening," said the poet. "Can you give a traveler 10 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 15 Ernest talked together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and the wisest, but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths so familiar by his simple utterance of them. 20 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 25 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 30 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 distinguish his own share from the other's. They led one another, as it were, into 35 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 5 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." 10 Again, and still more earnest 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. 15 "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 20 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. For25 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. 30 "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 35 even shall I dare to say it? - I lack faith in the grandeur, 5 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, 10 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 15 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 20 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 25 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. 30 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 35 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 5 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 10 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 15 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!" 20 Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deepsighted 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 25 by appear, bearing a resemblance to the GREAT STONE FACE. HELPS FOR STUDY What was the "Great Stone Face"? Into what classes were the inhabitants of the valley divided? Stone Face? How was it regarded by the people of the valley? What prophecy was connected with it? How many men claimed to be the one to fulfil the prophecy? Give a description of them. "hy do you think Hawthorne created these characters? |