The Montana Face

[Ed I]

Passage from Leslie Fielder's 1949 essay.

"Iwas met unexpectedly by the Montana Face. What I had been expecting, I do not clearly know; zest, I suppose; naivete, a ruddy and straightforward king of vigor-perhaps even honest brutality. What I found seemed at first glance, reticent, sullen,weary-full of self-sufficent stupidity;a little later it appeared simply inarticulate, with all the dumb pathos of what cannot declare itself; a face developed not for sociability or for feeling, but for facing into the weather."

I guess now I know why my face is wind burnt.