Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1881-08-10
The Old Man of the Mountain.

Six miles of continual ascent have
brought us TO Profile Lake. Although a
pretty enough piece of water, it is not for
itself this lake is resorted to by the thou
sand, or for the trout which you take for the
reflection of birds on its FURNISHED surface,
but for the mountain rising high above
whose wooded slope it so faithfully mirrors
Now lift the eyes to the bare summit. 1t is
difficult to believe the evidence of the senses.
Upon the high cliffs of this mountain is the
remarkable and celebrated rock-sculpture Of
a human head, which, from height twelve
hundred feet above the lake, has for un-
counted ages looked with the same stony
stare down the pass upon the windings of
the river through its Incompatible valley.
The profile itself measures about forty feet
from the tip of the chin to the fattened
crown, which imparts to it such peculiarly
antique appearance. 1t is perfect, except
that the forehead is concealed by something
like the visor of a helmet. Aud all this IL
lusion is produced by several projecting
crags. 1t might be said to have been be-
gotten by a thunderbolt Taking seat
within rustic arbor on the high shore of
the lake, one is at leisure to peruse at liberty
what, dare say is the most extraordinary
sight of a lifetime. A slight change of po-
sition varies more or less the character of
the expression, which is, after all, the
marked popularity of this monstrous alto
relieve; for, let the spectator turn his gaze
vacantly upon the more familiar objects at
hand, as he inevitably will, to assure him
self that he is not the victim of some
strange hallucination, fascination born nei-
ther OF admiration nor a horror, but strongly
partaking of both emotions, draws him ire
sistibly back to the Dantesque head stuck
like felon's on the highest battlements Of
the pass. The more you may have seen, the
more your feelings are disciplined, the
greater the confusion of ideas. The mo-
ment is come to acknowledge yourself van
quished. This is not merely face, it is por-
trait. That is not the work of some cum
ming chisel, but a cast from living head
You feel and will always maintain that those
features have had living and breathing
counterpart Nothing more, nothing less
But where and what was the original proto-
type2 Not man since ages before he was
created the chisel of the Almighty wrought
this sculpture upon the rock above us. No,
not man, the face is too majestic, too nobly
grand for anything of mortal mould One
of the antique gods may, perhaps. have sat
for this archetype of the coming man. And
yet not man, we think, for the head will
surely hold the same strange converse with
futurity when man shall have vanished
from the face of the earth. Had Byron Wis
tied this place of awe and mystery, his
Manfred" the scene of which is laid
among the mountains of the Bernese Alps,
would doubtless have had deeper, perhaps
more sinister, impulse but even among
those eternal realms of ice the poet never
beheld an object that could so arouse the
gloomy exaltation he has breathed into that
tragedy. His line, Bound to earth, he lifts
his eye TO heaven" becomes descriptive here.
This gigantic silhouette, which has been
christened the Old Man OF the Mountain, is
unquestionably the greatest curiosity OF this
or any other mountain region.-Harper's
Magazine for August.