massive depth and loftiness, and all the other features, indeed,
were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in emulation of a more than
heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity and stateliness,
the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that illuminated the
mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite substance
into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been
originally left out, or had departed. And therefore the
marvellously gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the
deep caverns of his eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its
playthings or a man of mighty faculties and little aims, whose
life, with all its high performances, was vague and empty,
because no high purpose had endowed it with reality.

Still, Ernest's neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side,
and pressing him for an answer.

"Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of
the Mountain?"

"No!" said Ernest bluntly, "I see little or no likeness."

"Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!" answered his
neighbor; and again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent: for
this was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who
might have fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so.
Meantime, the cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the
barouches swept past him, with the vociferous crowd in the rear,
leaving the dust to settle down, and the Great Stone Face to be