A humble man in a mountain valley awaits the fulfillment of prophecy in this story by the 19th-century author.
When we know that good things are destined for us, the waiting can be difficult to endure. Yet patience and humility can help lift the burden of the wait.
In his short story “
The Great Stone Face,” Nathaniel Hawthorne follows young Ernest who, along with the people of the valley, awaits the fulfillment of a prophecy. They sometimes don’t see what others of great insight can appreciate.
The Prophecy
Like all of his neighbors, little Ernest grows up knowing the prophecy of the Great Stone Face, the perpendicular side of a mountain that resembles the profile of a giant. The decades-old prophecy states that “a child should be born hereabouts, who is destined to become the greatest and noblest personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face.”
