The Great Stone Face

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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.