nd would start and look behind me for a
foe_. I realised the identity of that mood of nature in which
these waters were poured down with such absorbing force, with
that in which the Indian was shaped on the same soil. For
continually upon my mind came, unsought and unwelcome, _images
such as had never haunted it before, of naked savages stealing
behind me with uplifted tomahawks_. Again and again this
illusion recurred, and even _after I had thought it over, and
tried to shake it off, I could not help starting and looking
behind me_. What I liked best was to sit on Table Rock close
to the great fall; _there all power of observing details, all
separate consciousness was quite lost_.'

"The truthfulness of the passages italicized will be felt by all; the
feelings described are, perhaps, experienced by every (imaginative)
person who visits the fall; but most persons, through predominant
subjectiveness, would scarcely be conscious of the feelings, or, at
best, would never think of employing them in an attempt to convey to
others an impression of the scene. Hence so many desperate failures to
convey it on the part of ordinary tourists. Mr. William W. Lord, to be
sure, in his poem 'Niagara,' is sufficiently objective; he describes
not the fall, but very properly, the effect of the fall upon _him_.
He says that it made him think of his _own_ greatness, of his _own_
superiority, and so forth, and so forth; and it is only when we
come to think that the thought of Mr. Lord's greatness is quite
idiosyncratic confined exclusively to Mr. Lord, that we are in
condition to understand how, in spite of his objectiveness he has
failed to convey an idea of anything beyond one Mr. William W. Lord.

"From the essay entitled 'Philip Van Artevelde, I copy a paragraph
which will serve at once to exemplify Miss Fuller's more earnest
(declamatory) style, and to show the tenor of her prospective
speculations:--

"'At Chicago I read again 'Philip Van Artevelde,' and certain
passages in it will always be in my mind associated with the
deep sound of the lake, as heard in the night. I used to read
a short time at night, and then open the blind to look out.
The moon would be full upon the lake, and the calm breath,
pure light, and the deep voice, harmonized well with the
thought of the Flemish hero. When will this country have
such a man? It is what she needs--no thin Idea