"
The man at the drug store quoted differently alleging the saying to have
been: "Europe has nothing on this": whereas the livery stable man's
version was: "This has that famous German river--the Rhine River don't
they call it?--skinned to death."
Whatever Jefferson's remark was, there has been added to the spectacle
at Harper's Ferry, since his day, a new feature, which, could he have
but seen it, must have struck him forcibly, and might perhaps have
caused him to say more.
At a lofty point upon the steep wall of Maryland Heights, across the
Potomac from the town, far, far up upon the side of the cliff,
commanding a view not only of both rivers, but of their meeting place
and their joint course below, and of the lovely contours of the Blue
Ridge Mountains, fading to smoky coloring in the remote distance, there
has, of late years, appeared the outline of a gigantic face, which looks
out from its emplacement like some Teutonic god in vast effigy, its huge
luxuriant mustaches pointing East and West as though in symbolism of the
conquest of a continent. A blue and yellow background, tempered somewhat
by the elements, serves to attract attention to the face and to the
legend which accompanies it, but the thing one sees above all else, the
thing one recognizes, is the face itself, with its look half tragic,
half resigned, yet always so inscrutable: for it is none other than the
beautiful brooding countenance of Gerhard Mennen, the talcum-powder
gentleman.
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