three diminutive waterfalls, or rather
courses of water. Each of these was a miniature of all that summer and
winter can produce of delicate beauty. The rock in the centre of the
falls, where the water was most abundant, a deep black, the adjoining
parts yellow, white, purple, and dove-colour, covered with water-plants
of the most vivid green, and hung with streaming icicles, that in some
places seem to conceal the verdure of the plants, and the violet and
yellow variegation of the rocks; and in some places render the colours
more brilliant. I cannot express to you the enchanting effect produced
by this Arabian scene of colour as the wind blew aside the great
waterfall behind which we stood, and alternately hid and revealed each
of these fairy cataracts in irregular succession, or displayed them
with various gradations of distinctness as the intervening spray was
thickened or dispersed. What a scene, too, in summer! In the luxury of
our imagination we could not help feeding upon the pleasure which this
cave, in the heat of a July noon, would spread through a frame
exquisitely sensible. That huge rock on the right, the bank winding
round on the left, with all its living foliage, and the breeze stealing
up the valley, and bedewing the cavern with the freshest imaginable
spray. And then the murmur of the water, the quiet, the seclusion, and a
long summer day.'[47]

25. _Inconsistent Opinions on his Poems_.

|----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 'HARMONIES OF CRITICISM.' |
|---------------------------------------|------------------------------------------|
| '_Nutting_.' | '_Nutting_.' |
|Mr. C.W.: | 'Mr. S.: |
|'Worth its weight in gold.' | 'Can make neither head nor tail of it.'|
| | |
| '_Joanna_.' | '_Joanna_.' |
| | |
|Mr. J.W.: | Mr. S.: |
|'The finest poem of its | |
|length you have written.' | 'Can make nothing of it.' |
|