ws of Niagara. I paused involuntarily a hundred
paces from the brink of the cataract. I was about to realize one of the
magnificent dreams of my youthful imagination. I hesitated and trembled.
I felt something of the trepidation, the blissful tremor that agitated
my whole being when Ernest asked me into the moonlight garden at
Cambridge, and I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me. The
emotions I was about to experience would never come again, and I knew
when once past could never be anticipated as now, with indescribable
awe. I felt something as Moses did when he stood in the hollow of the
rock, as the glory of the Lord was about to pass by. And surely no
grander exhibition of God's glory ever burst on mortal eye, than this
mighty volume of water, rushing, roaring, plunging, boiling, foaming,
tossing its foam like snow into the face of heaven, throwing up rainbow
after rainbow from unfathomable abysses, then sinking gradually into a
sluggish calm, as if exhausted by the stupendous efforts it had made.

Clinging to the arm of Ernest, I drew nearer and nearer, till all
personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I
was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty
struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous
element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous
_arcs-en-ciel_ that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and
the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with
the subsiding waves that slept like weary warriors after the din and
strife of battle, the frown of contention lingering on their brows, and
the smile of disdain still curling their lips.

Oh, how poor, how weak seemed the conflict of human passion in the
presence of this sublime, this wondrous spectacle! I could not speak,--I
could scarcely breathe,--I was borne down, overpowered, almost
annihilated. My knees bent, my hands involuntarily clasped themselves
over the arm of Ernest, and in this attitude of intense adoration I
looked up and whispered, "God,--eternity."

"Enthusiast!" exclaimed he; but his countenance was luminous with the
light that glowed on mine. He put his arm around me, but did not attempt
to raise me. Edith and her mother were near, in company with a friend
who had been our fellow-traveller from New England, and who had extended
his journey beyond its prescribed limits for the sake of being our
companion. I looked tow