s 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
majestic 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 smiled on him, "I wish that
it could spea