he historic page to be truly the age
or truly the America. A little leaven is leavening the whole mass for
other bread.

The whirlpool I like very much. It is seen to advantage after the great
falls; it is so sternly solemn. The river cannot look more
imperturbable, almost sullen in its marble green, than it does just
below the great fall; but the slight circles that mark the hidden
vortex, seem to whisper mysteries the thundering voice above could not
proclaim,--a meaning as untold as ever.

It is fearful, too, to know, as you look, that whatever has been
swallowed by the cataract, is like to rise suddenly to light here,
whether uprooted tree, or body of man or bird.

The rapids enchanted me far beyond what I expected; they are so swift
that they cease to seem so; you can think only of their beauty. The
fountain beyond the Moss Islands, I discovered for myself, and thought
it for some time an accidental beauty which it would not do to leave,
lest I might never see it again. After I found it permanent, I returned
many times to watch the play of its crest. In the little waterfall
beyond, nature seems, as she often does, to have made a study for some
larger design. She delights in this,--a sketch within a sketch, a dream
within a dream. Wherever we see it, the lines of the great buttress in
the fragment of stone, the hues of the waterfall, copied in the flowers
that star its bordering mosses, we are delighted; for all the lineaments
become fluent, and we mould the scene in congenial thought with its
genius.

People complain of the buildings at Niagara, and fear to see it further
deformed. I cannot sympathize with such an apprehension: the spectacle
is capable to swallow up all such objects; they are not seen in the
great whole, more than an earthworm in a wide field.

The beautiful wood on Goat Island is full of flowers; many of the
fairest love to do homage here. The Wake Robin and May Apple are in
bloom now; the former, white, pink, green, purple, copying the rainbow
of the fall, and fit to make a garland for its presiding deity when he
walks the land, for they are of imperial size, and shaped like stones
for a diadem. Of the May Apple, I did not raise one green tent without
finding a flower beneath.

And now farewell, Niagara. I have seen thee, and I think all who come
here must in some sort see thee; thou art not to be got rid of as easily
as the stars. I will be here again beneath some flooding July moon and