Elson Grammar School Literature Part 28

Notes and Questions.

Why did the author realize so clearly the extent of the journey he had undertaken?

How many days do you think Irving was on the ocean?

What change has taken place in the method of ocean travel since he made this voyage?

Find words and lines which tell you the kind of vessel in which he crossed the ocean.

Had Irving greater opportunity for observing "the monsters of the deep"

than is afforded people crossing the ocean at the present day? Why do you think so?

What does Irving say is a "glorious monument of human invention"?

Name some inventions which seem to you more worthy of this designation.

Find the paragraph which describes the mast of a ship that was wrecked.

How does this description compare with his description of the "monsters of the deep"?

Which description in this selection do you like best? Why?

What do you think of Irving's powers of description?

What does this sketch tell you of Irving's own character?

Words and Phrases for Discussion.

"undulating billows"

"idle speculation"

"reconnoitred"

"delicious sensation"

"dread"

"abbey"

"wild phantasms"

"despair"

"anxiety"

"monument of human invention"

"prowled like guardian giants"

"light of knowledge"

"insurmountable barrier"

"dismal anecdotes"

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The ancestors of Hawthorne, unlike those of most of the New England writers, were not of the clergy, but were seamen, soldiers, and magistrates. Concerning one of these, a judge who dealt harshly with the Salem witches, Hawthorne writes: "I take shame upon myself for their sakes and yet strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine." Hawthorne was born in Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, July 4, 1804, and when only four years old lost his father, a sea captain.

The happiest years of his boyhood were spent at his uncle's home in the forests of Maine. Here he loved to wander through the woods, afterwards recording carefully his observations. His early education was rather irregular; however, for a time he had for schoolmaster, Worcester, the author of the dictionary. At Bowdoin college his studies were largely literary. His life at college is chiefly remarkable for the friendships formed there. Both Franklin Pierce, who later became president of the United States, and Longfellow, the poet, were members of his cla.s.s.

After graduation in 1825, while Longfellow was traveling in many lands and yielding himself to the charm of mediaeval history and legend, Hawthorne drifted into a strange mode of life, virtually disappearing from the world for a dozen years and living in actual solitude. "I have made a captive of myself," he wrote to Longfellow, "and put me into a dungeon; and now I cannot find the key to let myself out." But the key was found. The appreciation of Elizabeth and Sophia Peabody and the deep affection for the latter acted as a spur to get him into active life. At thirty-eight he married Sophia Peabody and took up courageously enough a life of poverty and hard literary work at Concord in the Old Manse, which had formerly been Emerson's home. There he came to know and value the friendship of Emerson, who we may well believe was the inspiration of the allegory of the Great Stone Face.

In curious contradiction with his natural love for solitude, Hawthorne became interested in the experiment of communal life and spent the year before his marriage at Brook Farm, where a number of literary men tried to live simply and happily by combining intellectual and manual work.

During the years of his solitude he wrote incessantly and composed many of those sketches of the fancy which won for him his peculiar place in literature. Many of these sketches appeared in the collection "Twice Told Tales." For children he has written the little stories and biographies of "Grandfather's Chair" and the story of Greek and Roman Myths in his "Wonder-Book" and "Tanglewood Tales." Sin and the effect of guilt upon human conduct are the problems in his great romances.

Many of our literary men have held public positions, sometimes to help out the meager financial returns of literary work, but more often because they would bring honor to these positions. Hawthorne successively filled the offices of weigher and gauger in the Boston Custom House, collector of customs at Salem, and American consul at Liverpool, having been appointed as consul by his old friend President Pierce. After four years' residence in England he resigned his consulship and spent several years in travel on the continent, spending two winters in Rome. Here he conceived his "Marble Faun," which, though given an Italian setting, embodies the same problem of conscience that we find in his earlier "Scarlet Letter."

In June, 1860, he returned to America. He was deeply agitated by the Civil War, the more so because his sympathies were not entirely with his Northern friends. In May, 1864, his old friend General Pierce suggested that they make a journey to the scenes of their college days. On their way they stopped at Plymouth, New Hampshire, and there, early on the morning of the nineteenth, he pa.s.sed quietly away.

THE GREAT STONE FACE

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

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 s.p.a.cious 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 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 t.i.tan, 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 cl.u.s.tering 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 n.o.ble, 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 t.i.tanic visage smiled 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 pa.s.s," answered his mother, "we may see a man, some time or 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 n.o.blest 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 n.o.bler 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, a.s.sisting 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, un.o.btrusive 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 acc.u.mulation 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.