Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. II.djvu/211

Rh of brilliant scenes, continually varying and enchantingly beautiful. There is a something about it which charms and depresses me at the same time, because there is a something in it which I wish to understand better. I feel that Niagara has more to say to me than it has yet said, or more than I have yet comprehended; and nothing can perfectly delight me until it has told me its innermost thought. Even when young, dancing gave me no pleasure, until I understood the meaning of dancing; before then it had been to me an irrational hopping about.

We have been here for three days, and shall remain yet two or three days longer. In the mornings I see the fall from the American shore, that is to say from the New York side, when the sun, in its ascent, throws hundreds of beautiful bridges over the cloud of spray; in the afternoon and evening it ought to be contemplated from the Canadian shore when the sun descends on the British side. In the forenoon I bathe in the stream, in the so-called “Mammoth” stream-bath, where the river rushes with such impetuosity into the bath-house, that one can with difficulty stand against it. It is very refreshing. In the afternoon, directly after dinner, I sit with my young friends in the piazza outside our room, and see the stream rushing by, and listen to its music. I often stand for a long time upon some one of the little bridges over the stream, merely to inhale the fragrance of the water; for the water here has the most delightful freshness, that I can compare to nothing with which I am acquainted. But it feels like the spirit of a delicious, immortal youth. Yes, here it seems to me as if one might become young again in body and in soul.

My young friends however do not enjoy the life here as fully as I do. James is not very lively, and Maria, who expects shortly to become a mother, dreams at night that she sees little Mabel playing with her departed