The Literary World Seventh Reader Part 3

"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."

V

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 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 wise thoughts in his mind. 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 farmer had ideas unlike those of other men, and a tranquil majesty as if he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Ernest received these visitors with the gentle sincerity that had marked 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 and s.h.i.+ne upon them, as with a mild evening light.

When his guests took leave and went their way, and pa.s.sing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face, they imagined 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 he had celebrated it in a poem which was grand enough to have been uttered by its lips.

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 said, 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 n.o.ble simplicity of his life. One summer morning, therefore, he took pa.s.sage 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 he read, and then, with a finger between the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

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

"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 conversed 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. 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. So thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved 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.

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 toward the Great Stone Face; then back to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his head, and mournfully sighed.

"Wherefore are you sad?" inquired the poet.

"Because," replied Ernest, "all through life I have awaited the fulfillment of a prophecy; and when I read these poems, I hoped that it might be fulfilled in you."

"You hoped," answered the poet, faintly smiling, "to find in me the likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes, Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the ill.u.s.trious three, and record another failure of your hopes. For--in shame and sadness do I speak it, Ernest--I am not worthy."

"And why?" asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. "Are not those thoughts divine?"

"You can hear in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song," replied the poet. "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 speak to an a.s.semblage 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 [v]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 [v]niche, s.p.a.cious enough to admit a human figure. 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 gra.s.s, as seemed good to each, with the departing suns.h.i.+ne falling over them. 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. The poet, as he listened, felt that the being and character of Ernest were a n.o.bler 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 h.o.a.ry mists around it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter, the face of Ernest a.s.sumed a grandeur of expression, so full of 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. The man had appeared at last.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE.

=HELPS TO STUDY=

The Great Stone Face is a rock formation in the Franconia Notch of the White Mountains of New Hamps.h.i.+re, known as "The Old Man of the Mountain."

I. What picture do you get from Part I? Tell in your own words what the mother told Ernest about the Great Stone Face. Who had carved the face? How? Find something that is one hundred feet high, and picture to yourself the immensity of the whole face, judging by the forehead alone. Describe Ernest's childhood and his education.

II. What reason had the people for thinking that the great man had come in the person of Mr. Gathergold? Explain the reference to Midas. What was there in Mr. Gathergold's appearance and action to disappoint Ernest? What comforted him? Why were the people willing to believe that Mr. Gathergold was the image of the Great Stone Face? What caused them to decide that he was not? What was there to indicate that Ernest would become a great and good man?

III. What new character is now introduced? Wherein was Old Blood-and-Thunder lacking in resemblance to the Great Stone Face?

Compare him with Mr. Gathergold and decide which was the greater character? How was Ernest comforted in his second disappointment?

IV. What kind of man had Ernest become? What figure comes into the story now? Find a sentence that gives a clew to the character of Stony Phiz. Compare him with the characters previously introduced.

Why was Ernest more disappointed than before? Where did he again look for comfort?

V. What changes did the hurrying years bring Ernest? What sentence indicates who the man of prophecy might be? Who is now introduced in the story? Give the opinion that Ernest and the poet had of each other. Find the sentence which explains why the poet failed. Who was the first to recognize in Ernest the likeness to the Great Stone Face? Why did Hawthorne have a poet to make the discovery? In what way was Ernest great? How had he become so? What trait of Ernest's character is shown in the last sentence?

The story is divided into five parts. Make an outline telling what is the topic of each part.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

The Sketch Book--Was.h.i.+ngton Irving.

Old Curiosity Shop--Charles d.i.c.kens.

Pendennis--William Makepeace Thackeray.

The Snow-Image--Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Legend Beautiful--Henry W. Longfellow.

William Wilson--Edgar Allan Poe.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Priscilla and John Alden]

THE COURTs.h.i.+P OF MILES STANDISH

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