Page:Tales of the White Hills.djvu/28

22 barouche, drawn by four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered, sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.

&ldquo;Confess it,&rdquo; said one of Ernest&rsquo;s neighbors to him, &ldquo;the Great Stone Face has met its match at last!&rdquo;

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the mountain-side. The brow, with its 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&rsquo;s neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and pressing him for an answer.

&ldquo;Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the Mountain?&rdquo;

&ldquo;No!&rdquo; said Ernest, bluntly, &ldquo;I see little or no likeness.&rdquo;

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

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost