The Great Stone Face

by N. Hawthorne

E

mbosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious 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 farmhouses, 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 a 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 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 outlines 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 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 the 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. 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.

Notes and exercises:

1.         Write the following words at the top of separate columns:

show

thirst

led

fee

more

got

sit

plunge

      Now study the words given below and arrange them in columns according to vowel or diphthong sound:

bow	law	comb	word	leant	ton	crept	mischief
burst	blood	rich	shown	crow	ward	sew	mischievous
bust	firm	crisp	ought	rogue	monk	seat	handkerchief
trough	chalk	bread	sieve	heap	snow	dead	first
groan	said	hiss	dove	worse	wrath	dog	beast
creep	pea	gnaw	hurt	slit	cough	ate	four
world	salt	murk	chips	this	floor	son	bit
shone	kit	cloth	peach	road	pitch	sun	bunch

2.   Explain the meaning of the following verbs and memorize their spelling: fuse, suffuse, infuse, diffuse, profuse (adj.).

3.   Combine the adjectives from A with the nouns from B paying attention to the spelling of the words in both columns (A & B):

A.

live

living

lively

B.

language	imagination	conversation	sense of gratitude
wire	breeze	fellow	wage
image	fire	tune	colour

A.

deadly

deathly

dead

B.

stillness	conflict	certainty	weapon	monotony
poison	leaves	body	enemy	haste
sound	pallor	weight	fire	wound

4.   Word study:

embosom               to clasp or hold in the bosom; to cherish; to embrace; to envelop or enclose protectively; to shelter

congregate to come or bring together: People quickly congregated round the speaker.

Titan                      in Greek mythology one of a family of giants who once ruled the world; a person of superhuman size, strength, intellect, etc.

ponderous             heavy; bulky; unwieldy: ponderous movements (of a heavy man); dull, laboured (of style)

benign                   kind and gentle (of persons); mild, favourable (of climate, soil); not dangerous (of a disease, tumour)

5.   Translate the following expressions and use them in sentences of your own:

in short, a short memory, in a short time, to cut a long story short, to make short work of, to be short with someone, there are two books short, to be short of, to run short of, to make a short cut, to stop short of (not to go as far as to), short-handed (short staffed), in short supply, short weight: The butcher has given us short weight again.

from one end of the valley to the other, to turn end for end, to be at an end, to draw to an end, to come to an end, to put an end to, to make an end of, to make a good end, you’ll be the end of me (you’ll be the death of me), to meet one’s end, to the bitter end, to gain one’s ends, private ends, end product, to be at an idle end, to be at a loose end, to be at one’s wits’ end, to have something at one’s fingers’ ends, to make both ends meet, no end (it costs no end), it’s no end of a job, he’s no end of a fellow, for hours on end, to play both ends against the middle