of Washington; when you have
taken in the proportions and circumstances of this elevated and wide
span of rock,--so wide that the skies seem to slope from it to the
horizon,--you are called to investigate other parts of the scene which
strain the emotions less, and are distributed around in almost endless
variety.

Looking through the arch, the eye is engaged with a various vista. Just
beyond rises the frayed, unseamed wall of rock; the purple mountains
stand out in the background; beneath them is a rank of hills and matted
woods enclosing the dell below, while the creek coursing away from them
appears to have been fed in their recesses. A few feet above the bridge
the stream deflects, and invites to a point of view of the most curious
effect. Taking a few steps backward, moving diagonally on the course of
the stream, we see the interval of sky between the great abutments
gradually shut out; thus apparently joined or lapped over, they give the
effect of the face of a rock, with a straight seam running down it, and
the imagination seizes the picture as of mighty gates closed upon us. We
are shut in a wild and perturbed scene by these gates of hell; behind
and around us is the contracted and high boundary of mountains and
hills, and in this close and vexed scene we are for a moment prisoners.

Now let us move across, step by step, to a position fronting where these
gates apparently close. Slowly they seem to swing open on unseen and
noiseless hinges; wider and wider grows the happy interval of sky, until
at last wide open stands the gate-way raised above the forest, resting
as it were on the brow of heaven,--a world lying beyond it, its rivers
and its hills expanding themselves to the light and splendor of the
unshadowed day.

To an observer of both places a comparison is naturally suggested
between the Natural Bridge and Niagara Falls in respect of the
sublime and the beautiful; and, indeed, as in this respect the two
greatest works of nature on this continent, they may well be used as
illustrations in our American schools of aesthetics. The first is unique
in its aspects of nature like art; it is nature with the proportions of
art. In its expressions of power, in its concentration of emotion, as
when we look at it distinct or complete, it is truly sublime; and its
effect is alleviated (for it is a maxim in aesthetics that the sublime
cannot be long sustained) by the picturesque scenery which surrounds it.
It is a gre