roaring mist of waters, in the wild river leaping as
in reckless sport over the vast broad precipice. It is usual, especially
for those who have no gift of description, to say that Niagara is
"utterly indescribable," and the Visitors' Book has this opinion repeated
by the American Philistine on every page. But that is because those who
say so have no proper comprehension of facts stated, no poetic faculty,
and no imagination. Of course no mere description, however perfect,
would give the same conception of even a pen or a button as would the
_sight_ thereof; but it is absurd and illogical to speak as if this were
_peculiar_ to a great thing alone. For my part, I believe that the mere
description to a _poet_, or to one who has dwelt by wood and wold and
steeped his soul in Nature, of a tremendous cataract a mile in breadth
and two hundred feet high, cleft by a wooded island, and rushing onward
below in awful rocky rapids with a mighty roar, would, could, or should
convey a very good idea of the great sight. For I found in after years,
when I came to see Venice and the temples on the Nile, that they were
picturesquely or practically precisely what I had expected to see, not
one shade or _nuance_ of an expression more or less. As regards Rome and
all Gothic cathedrals, I had been assured so often, or so generally, by
all "intelligent tourists," that they were all wretched rubbish, that I
was amazed to find them so beautiful. And so much as to anticipations of
Niagara, which I have thrice visited, and the constant assertion by cads
unutterable that it is "indescribable."

While at Niagara for three days, I walked about a great deal with a young
lady whose acquaintance we had made at the hotel. As she was, I verily
believe, the very first, not a relative, with whom I had ever taken a
walk, or, I may almost say, formed an acquaintance, it constituted an
event in my life equal to Niagara itself in importance. I was at this
time just twenty-one, and certain I am that among twenty-one thousand
college graduates of my age in America, of the same condition of life,
there was not another so inexperienced in worldly ways, or so far behind
his age, or so "docile unto discipline." I was, in fact, morally where
most boys in the United States are at twelve or thirteen; which is a very
great mistake where there is a fixed determination that the youth shall
make his own way in life. We cannot have boys good little angels at home