![]() 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 inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many modes of life. 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. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hill-sides. 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.Įmbosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. 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. I hope you enjoy this break from politics, which perfectly explains our wretched moment. Reading the story will help you think more deeply about American politics, and more clearly about this moment. “The Great Stone Face” is a short and wonderful method to understand the nature of the contest at hand. The presidential primary process is the place where character is tested, and the field where the fraudulent are ruthlessly exposed for who they truly are. Certainly, a deep shallowness must surround any perspective within a society that believes it discovered the fallibility of human character just now, and is the first to learn that the pursuit of power is filled with fraudsters.Ī presidential campaign is a character test for both the candidates and the nation that decides who to elect to high office. It carries a whiff of delusion with it because of the tone of wonderment that people of such loathsome character would aspire to power. There is a surplus of hysteria and panic to be found across much of the political media in early 2024. “The Great Stone Face” was written in 1850, 13 years before the boys who lived in the valley Hawthorne writes about were killed in battle at Gettysburg over what Nikki Haley tells this generation of Americans was over “the role of government and what the rights of the people are,” without mentioning slavery. Alexander’s summer reading list, Nathaniel Hawthorne. I might share some of them another time, but the short story on my mind today was written by the author who captivated my imagination in seventh grade when “Last of the Mohicans” was on Mrs. Six hundred generations of Indigenous peoples looked up at the “Great Stone Face” with great wonder and awe, as evidenced by the multitude of native legends that were passed orally, and ultimately, written. It appears on highway signs, the state quarter, and is affixed to New Hampshire license plates that read “Live Free or Die.” Last May, the Legislature passed a bill to remember the Old Man with an annual proclamation on May 3. In 1945, the Legislature made it the state symbol. The Old Man remains the most recognizable symbol of the Granite State.
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