ich, 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 coun