Another visitor, a bright-looking lady, was heard to declare, "Nothing in the world can ever make me believe that he was not once a living being. Why, you can see the veins in his legs."[21]
[21] See Letter of Hon. Galusha Parsons in the Fort Dodge Pamphlet.
Another prominent clergyman declared with ex cathedra emphasis: "This is not a thing contrived of man, but is the face of one who lived on the earth, the very image and child of God."[22] And a writer in one of the most important daily papers of the region dwelt on the "majestic simplicity and grandeur of the figure," and added, "It is not unsafe to affirm that ninety-nine out of every hundred persons who have seen this wonder have become immediately and instantly impressed with the idea that they were in the presence of an object not made by mortal hands…. No piece of sculpture ever produced the awe inspired by this blackened form…. I venture to affirm that no living sculptor can be produced who will say that the figure was conceived and executed by any human being."[23]
[22] See Mr. Stockbridge's article in the "Popular Science Monthly," June, 1878.
[23] See "The American Goliath," Syracuse, 1869, p. 16.
The current of belief ran more and more strongly, and soon embraced a large number of really thoughtful people. A week or two after my first visit came a deputation of regents of the State University from Albany, including especially Dr. Woolworth, the secretary, a man of large educational experience, and no less a personage in the scientific world than Dr. James Hall, the State geologist, perhaps the most eminent American paleontologist of that period.
On their arrival at Syracuse in the evening, I met them at their hotel and discussed with them the subject which so interested us all, urging them especially to be cautious, and stating that a mistake might prove very injurious to the reputation of the regents, and to the proper standing of scientific men and methods in the State; that if the matter should turn out to be a fraud, and such eminent authorities should be found to have committed themselves to it, there would be a guffaw from one end of the country to the other at the expense of the men intrusted by the State with its scientific and educational interests. To this the gentlemen assented, and next day they went to Cardiff. They came; they saw; and they narrowly escaped being conquered. Luckily they did not give their sanction to the idea that the statue was a petrifaction, but Professor Hall was induced to say: "To all appearance, the statue lay upon the gravel when the deposition of the fine silt or soil began, upon the surface of which the forests have grown for succeeding generations. Altogether it is the most remarkable object brought to light in this country, and, although not dating back to the stone age, is, nevertheless, deserving of the attention of archaeologists."[24]
[24] See his letter of October 23, 1869, in the Syracuse papers.
At no period of my life have I ever been more discouraged as regards the possibility of making right reason prevail among men.
As a refrain to every argument there seemed to go jeering and sneering through my brain Schiller's famous line: