Old Man of the Mountain

“ It is a relief to get away from such fearful sights and look up at the Old Man of the Mountain. There stands the face, without any humanizing help from the hand of an artist. Mr. Bierstadt has given it to us very well. Rather an imbecile old gentleman, one would say, with his mouth open; a face such as one may see hanging about railway-stations, and, what is curious, a New-England style of countenance. ”

“ I have seen a picture of the old man, sitting upon a mountain side—above him the eternal snow—below, the smiling valley of the tropics, filled with vine and palm; his chin upon his breast, his eyes deep, thoughtful and calm—his forehead majestic—grander than the mountain upon which he sat—crowned with the snow of his whitened hair, he looked the intellectual autocrat of this world. ”

“ To most of the neighbors it was merely “the old man of the mountain”—merely a common rock with an accidental shape. But this boy grew up to manhood believing in his heart that God had put on the lonely mountain his ideal of the mask of noble human character. And the boy went through life thinking that if he could only find a human being with a face like that on the mountain he would find a great man—one carrying in his life a great message to mankind. ”

“ In my hurry and delight I put my head into the small of the back of the puffing old man who blocked the way in front and forced him forward, until at last—before we expected it—the cleft suddenly ended, and he and I tumbled headlong over each other on to a glittering, frozen snowslope; the sky azure overhead, the sunshine warm as a tepid bath, and a wide prospect of mountain and plain extending all around. ”

“ At sunset the old man descended, with staff in hand, and went slowly down the mountain side. Such lovely blossoms, pink, golden, and scarlet, met his eye as he gazed on the gardens of the laborers, that he involuntarily exclaimed, "I fear I have spent my days not wisely on yonder mountain top, taking at least a third of my time in climbing up and down. Richer flowers grow here in the valley; the air is softer, and the grass like velvet to the tread. I'll see if there is a vacant cottage for me." ”

“ With wild gestures, as if scared out of his senses, the dwarf rusht in again, and leapt for safety within the circles. "The world is at the last gasp," he shriekt, pale and with chattering teeth: "the storms are rolling onward; but all beneath the voiceless night is dismay and horrour; every living thing has fled into its closet, or crept beneath the pillows of its bed to skulk away from its fears."
The old man lifted up a face of ghastly paleness from the floor, and with wrencht and indistinguishable features screamed in sounds not his own: "Be silent, wretch, and disturb not the work. ”

“ As for gold he scarce heeds it now: he has a tribe of little elves that wash it out of the sand for him, and gather it up, like bees, into balls and grains, and then carry it like honey, and stuff his cane with it. Ay, ay, my worthy smooth-faced pedlar of all wisdom's small wares! this is why the old man is for ever moping so, and never dares laugh; this is why he loses his wits if he chances to hear music, which gladdens the heart of every godly man ”

“ Had he been strong of heart, he would have tried again, and not returned without the blossom from the mountain top. Many others tried, but never had the courage to reach its height; while the old man daily grew weaker.
"He'll die without setting eyes on his flower," said the good woman who had given him shelter the night he came to the valley. She had not the courage to try the ascent, but she endeavored to stimulate others to go to the top and bring the blossom to cheer his heart. ”

“ By and by he looked up at Forrester, reclining near him.
"Thank Heaven, my brain is clear!" he began. "What an absurd thing one's body is! ... Now, they'll either rebuild the bridge and storm us, or do nothing, and starve us out. It depends on whether the Old Man can bear the thought of extinguishing us without using the Eye! Either way, we are doomed--unless we get out. That's as much as to say that we must get out at once. We must! And we must let our friends above know when to expect us Scribble a note to Mackenzie, then: we pop out of the chimney to-morrow night." ”

“ In Left Out on Lone Star Mountain, among the very best of the later stories, we have a little group of miners held together, inspired, and redeemed from selfishness by the youngest of their number, affectionately spoken of [Pg 167] as “The Old Man,” one of those brilliant, fine, lovable natures, rare but not unknown in real life, to which all the virtues seem to come as easily as vice and weakness come to the generality of men. ”

“ 53-4—*For he on honey-dew hath fed, And drunk the milk of Paradise.* Professor Cooper, in the article cited in the introductory note above, points out that this part of the poem contains perhaps reminiscences of the stories told of the Old Man of the Mountain. ”

“ ON A SHOULDER OF THE 'OLD MAN' 'The ascent becomes dismally laborious here, so much so, that you are fain to lie down upon the soft, dry mountain grass, to recover breath, and while doing so, what objection can you have to a little conversation with the Old Man himself? ”

“ The former was so named on account of the broad bend it makes in its course, and the latter because it is believed that Old Man, when making the world, tarried long in the mountains at its head and gambled with Red Old Man, another god. On a mountain-side there is still to be seen a long, smooth furrow in the rock formation, and at the foot of it several huge stone balls which the gods rolled along it at the goal. ”

“ At last it was decided that a venerable old man, who had never eaten of human flesh, should go forth alone into the mountains in quest of the lake. Much we wondered as he departed, for with him he took only a staff and no fern root or anything to eat. We bade him good bye with sorrow in our hearts, for we felt that we should never look upon his face again, and that his bones would bleach upon the mountain side, with no pah to covert them, but there they would lie for all time to come, a warning to men who went in search of the wonderful lake. ”

“ It was there that the Old Man of the Mountains, by showing them the image of the joys of Paradise, inspired them with a blind obedience. In the midst of illusions which fascinated them, their master could order them to cast themselves from the height of a tower, to precipitate themselves into flames, or to pierce themselves with mortal wounds. ”

“ A mountain is a mountain, a tree a tree to them, a field forever a field. Life solidifies itself in words. And finally how everything wearies them and that is old age!
Is it not the prime struggle of life to keep the mind plastic? To see and feel and hear things newly? To accept nothing as settled; to defend the eternal right of the questioner? To reject every conclusion of yesterday before the surer observations of to-day?—is not that the best life we know?
And so to the Open Road! Not many miles from my farm there is a tamarack swamp. ”

“ At the same time he begged for another, a last interview, and said he had a request which the old man must needs grant him, if he would have him leave the mountains with honour, with peace of mind, and without repenting of the years he had past there. ”

“ So old man know water going down. The Great Spirit say, old man, let sun, moon, stars go out, old man too. He go out, raft on much big mountain, when he see prety bird, he send out first, eating dead things—he say, bird, you do no right, when me send, you no come back, you must 318be black, you no prety bird any more—you always eat bad things So it was black. ”

“ Even as the Great Master of old, who in time of tribulation "went up alone on to a high mountain," we hear the still small voice. Haply sometimes we may heed, and carry back to the dust and turmoil of the valley a glimpse of the vision that never was on land or sea. ”

“ These good old people declared that they had not seen better days, but that they were living the simple life from choice. They loved the peace of this isolated mountain home and the companionship of the grand old peak. ”

“ Before sunset, they had found the lost hunter.
Carefully they freed him from the grasp of the great oak and bore him to his people. That night there was a feast and a dance in his honor.
Ever since, the Indians have loved the birds that carry the messages, and they never shoot a pigeon. [Pg 159]
HOW OLD MAN WINTER WAS DRIVEN BACK
Far away in the North Sky lives Old Man Winter. Every year he leaves his wigwam in the sky and comes to earth.
At the foot of a mountain, he builds a lodge of ice and snow, which no human being, animal, or bird can enter. There he lives for a time. ”

“ But that didn't suit him, so in different parts of it he made a lot of running jumps, and at every jump a mountain arose under him. Then from the mountains he cut gashes in the plains, and wherever he cut, valleys were formed and creeks and rivers ran in the bottom of them. This looked good enough for the world, and so he then made [Pg 72] living things on it: people, animals, and all the grasses and things that leaf.
"But when Old Man made the people he gave them paws instead of hands, so they were quite helpless and at the mercy of the bears and all other animals ”

“ Morn on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing, and in the vales The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life Within the solemn woods of ash deep-crimsoned, And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved, Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down By the wayside a-weary. ”

“ On, O man! while the sun is high— On to the certain joys that lie Yonder where blazeth the noon of day, Over the hills and far away— Over the hills, and far away! Over the hills and far away, An old man lingers at close of day ”

“ The stars roll nightly over his head, but only to direct his steps in the wilderness, without shedding a ray of light upon the denser wilderness of his dark and sensual mind. The old man knows not how many years he has lived. ”

“ And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed back within.
How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the Indian-summer sun! ”

“ The young chieftain passed in and sat down by the strange fire that had no heat. The South Wind stayed without, and sang, soft and low.
The Old Man was very angry. He raged about the lodge and ordered the young chieftain with sunshine in his face and warmth in his breath to depart.
"I am great and powerful," said the Old Man. "When I touch the sky, the snow falls. When I speak, hunters hide in their lodges; animals crawl into their holes; and birds fly in fear.
"When my hand touches the earth, it grows cold and hard, and all life dies. Begone! or I will make an ice man or a snow man of you." ”

“ For six hundred years the story has been told over and over again, of the Old Man of the Hill—le vieux de la montagne—who, in his delightful gardens, intoxicated his young elect with voluptuous pleasures, made them believe that they were in paradise, and sent them to the ends of the earth to assassinate kings in order to merit an eternal paradise. ”

“ The old man claims to be frightened at a shadow, yet he is able to throw himself down to rest with the weightier portion of his body hanging over a precipice and held back from the slippery edge of the cliff of black shining rock, some sixteen hundred feet high, merely by the power of his elbows thrust into the earth. ”

“ Many, many moons ago, in a lodge in a forest, there lived an old man. His hair was white as the snowdrift. All the world was winter; snow and ice were everywhere, and the old man wore heavy furs.
The winds went wildly through the forest searching every bush and tree for birds to chill. The old man looked in vain in the deep snow for pieces of wood to keep up the fire in his lodge. ”

“ To be sure the old man has not much to offer now, and he has already become quite childish. He has bent a piece of wood, across which he has stretched straws for strings, and this is his harp. He rests it against his breast, and his fingers wander over the strings as he murmurs his songs.
He is a strange old figure, as he sits upon a stone in the dark forest, wrapped in his wide, faded cloak, with his long, luxuriant, snow-white beard and shimmering hair, which falls unkempt about his shoulders. ”

“ In these hills he dies, sitting in his chair and looking far east, to the forest and great sweet waters, whence he came. He dies gently, in physical peace with the land and the Indians. He is an old, old man. ”

“ Merrymind was weary with his long journey, and stood thinking of what path to choose, when, by the way of the valley, there came an old man as tall and large as any three men of the north country. His white hair and beard hung like tangled flax about him! ”

“ THE OLD MAN The moon had ceased to shine in through the window-panes, and it had grown quite dark; but the old man still sat in his arm-chair with folded hands and gazed before him into the emptiness of the room.
Gradually, the murky darkness around him dissolved away before his eyes and changed into a broad dark lake; one black wave after another went rolling on farther and farther, and on the last one, so far away as to be almost beyond the reach of the old man's vision, floated lonely among its broad leaves a white water-lily. ”