become clouds in the sky, would be the very picture of confusion, were it merely transient, like the rage of a tempest. But when the beholder has stood awhile, and perceives no lull in the storm, and considers that the vapor and the foam are as ever5 lasting as the rocks which produce them, all this turmoil assumes a sort of calmness. It soothes, while it awes, the mind.

Leaning over the cliff, I saw the guide conducting two adventurers behind the falls. It was pleasant, from that high seat in the sunshine, to observe them struggling against the eternal 10 storm of the lower regions, with heads bent down, now faltering, now pressing forward, and finally swallowed up in their victory. After their disappearance, a blast rushed out with an old hat, which it had swept from one of their heads. The rock, to which they were directing their unseen course, is marked, at a fearful 15 distance on the exterior of the sheet, by a jet of foam. The attempt to reach it appears both poetical and perilous to a lookeron, but may be accomplished without much more difficulty or hazard than in stemming a violent northeaster. In a few moments, forth came the children of the mist. Dripping and breath20 less, they crept along the base of the cliff, ascended to the guide's cottage, and received, I presume, a certificate of their achievement, with three verses of sublime poetry on the back.

My contemplations were often interrupted by strangers who came down from Forsyth's to take their first view of the falls. 25 A short, ruddy, middle-aged gentleman, fresh from Old England, peeped over the rock, and evinced his approbation by a broad grin. His spouse, a very robust lady, afforded a sweet example of maternal solicitude, being so intent on the safety of her little boy that she did not even glance at Niagara. As for the child, 30 he gave himself wholly to the enjoyment of a stick of candy.

Another traveler, a native American, and no rare character among us, produced a volume of Captain Hall's tour, and labored earnestly to adjust Niagara to the captain's description, departing, at last, without one new idea or sensation of his own. The 35 next comer was provided, not with a printed book, but with

a blank sheet of foolscap, from top to bottom of which, by means of an ever-pointed pencil, the cataract was made to thunder. In a little talk which we had together, he awarded his approbation to the general view, but censured the position of Goat Island, observing that it should have been thrown farther to the right, so as to widen the American falls, and contract those of the Horseshoe. Next appeared two traders of Michigan, who declared, that, upon the whole, the sight was worth looking at; there certainly was an immense water-power here; but that, 10 after all, they would go twice as far to see the noble stoneworks of Lockport, where the Grand Canal is locked down a descent of sixty feet. They were succeeded by a young fellow in a homespun cotton dress, with a staff in his hand, and a pack over his shoulders. He advanced close to the edge of the rock, 15 where his attention, at first wavering among the different components of the scene, finally became fixed in the angle of the Horseshoe Falls, which is indeed the central point of interest. His whole soul seemed to go forth and be transported thither, till the staff slipped from his relaxed grasp, and falling down— 20 down-down-struck upon the fragment of the Table Rock.

In this manner I spent some hours, watching the varied impression made by the cataract on those who disturbed me, and returning to unwearied contemplation when left alone. At length my time came to depart. There is a grassy footpath through 25 the woods, along the summit of the bank, to a point whence a causeway, hewn in the side of the precipice, goes winding down to the Ferry, about half a mile below the Table Rock. The sun was near setting, when I emerged from the shadow of the trees, and began the descent. The indirectness of my downward road so continually changed the point of view, and showed me, in rich and repeated succession, now, the whitening rapids and majestic leap of the main river, which appeared more deeply massive as the light departed; now, the lovelier picture, yet still sublime, of Goat Island, with its rocks and grove, and the lesser 85 falls, tumbling over the right bank of the St. Lawrence, like a

tributary stream; now, the long vista of the river, as it eddied and whirled between the cliffs, to pass through Ontario toward the sea, and everywhere to be wondered at, for this one unrivaled scene. The golden sunshine tinged the sheet of the 5 American cascade, and painted on its heaving spray the broken semicircle of a rainbow, heaven's own beauty crowning earth's sublimity. My steps were slow, and I paused long at every turn of the descent, as one lingers and pauses who discerns a brighter and brightening excellence in what he must soon be10 hold no more. The solitude of the old wilderness now reigned over the whole vicinity of the falls. My enjoyment became the more rapturous, because the spot so famous through the world was all my own!

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography see page 268.

Discussion. 1. Why was Hawthorne at first disappointed in Niagara? 2. How did he finally come to know that it is one of the world's wonders? 3. What feelings did Niagara produce in Hawthorne? 4. What effect on the reader did he seek to produce? 5. What does Hawthorne say is necessary in order to appreciate Nature? 6. Account for the fact that Niagara grew on Hawthorne. 7. What comments of other observers does Hawthorne give? 8. What do you think determines the kind of response an observer gives to a wonderful scene in Nature, such as Niagara? 9. Have you ever seen Niagara? If so, tell about your feelings. 10. What other famous American scenes have you read about or seen? 11. On page 296 you were told of things that help us to picture our country; what do scenes such as Niagara add to the meaning our country has for us? 12. Find in the Glossary the meaning of: cataract; native; turmoil. 13. Pronounce: loath; heroism; route; unwonted; minutely; reptile; tremor; abyss; tour; idea.

Phrases for Study

suitable extravagance, 352, 4

perverse epicurism, 352, 22

Eternal Rainbow, 353, 10

aspiring to immortality, 352, 12

Library Reading. "A Descent into the Maelstrom," Poe.

Suggestions for Theme Topics. 1. A description of a visit to a new building, a park, the country, or to some city. 2. A diary of an imaginary trip, based on material in your geography.

FROM MORN TILL NIGHT ON A FLORIDA RIVER*

SIDNEY LANIER

For a perfect journey God gave us a perfect day. The little Ocklawaha steamboat Marion had started on her voyage some hours before daylight. She had taken on her passengers the night previous. By seven o'clock on such a May morning as no 5 words could describe we had made twenty-five miles up the St. Johns. At this point the Ocklawaha flows into the St. Johns, one hundred miles above Jacksonville.

Presently we abandoned the broad highway of the St. Johns, and turned off to the right into the narrow lane of the Ockla10 waha. This is the sweetest water-lane in the world, a lane which runs for more than one hundred and fifty miles of pure delight betwixt hedgerows of oaks and cypresses and palms and magnolias and mosses and vines; a lane clean to travel, for there is never a speck of dust in it save the blue dust and gold dust 15 which the wind blows out of the flags and lilies.

As we advanced up the stream our wee craft seemed to emit her steam in leisurely whiffs, as one puffs one's cigar in a contemplative walk through the forest. Dick, the poleman, lay asleep on the guards, in great peril of rolling into the river over 20 the three inches between his length and the edge; the people of the boat moved not, and spoke not; the white crane, the curlew, the heron, the water turkey, were scarcely disturbed in their quiet avocations as we passed, and quickly succeeded in persuading themselves after each momentary excitement of our 25 gliding by, that we were really no monster, but only some daydream of a monster.

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"Look at that snake in the water!" said a gentleman, as we sat on deck with the engineer, just come up from his watch. The engineer smiled. "Sir, it is a water turkey," he said gently.

The water turkey is the most preposterous bird within the *See Silent and Oral Reading, page 40.

range of ornithology. He is not a bird; he is a neck with such subordinate rights, members, belongings, and heirlooms as seem necessary to that end. He has just enough stomach to arrange nourishment for his neck, just enough wings to fly painfully 6 along with his neck, and just big enough legs to keep his neck from dragging on the ground; and his neck is light-colored, while the rest of him is black. When he saw us he jumped up on a limb and stared. Then suddenly he dropped into the water, sank like a leaden ball out of sight, and made us think he was 10 drowned. Presently the tip of his beak appeared, then the length of his neck lay along the surface of the water. In this position, with his body submerged, he shot out his neck, drew it back, wriggled it, twisted it, twiddled it, and poked it spirally into the east, the west, the north, and the south, round and round with 15 a violence and energy that made one think in the same breath of corkscrews and of lightnings. But what nonsense! All that labor and perilous contortion for a beggarly sprat or a couple of inches of water snake.

Some twenty miles from the mouth of the Ocklawaha, at the 20 right-hand edge of the stream, is the handsomest residence in America. It belongs to a certain alligator of my acquaintance, a very honest and worthy reptile of good repute. A little cove of water, dark-green under the overhanging leaves, placid and clear, curves round at the river edge into the flags and lilies, 25 with a curve just heart-breaking for its pure beauty. This house of the alligator is divided into apartments, little bays which are scalloped out by the lily pads, according to the winding fancies of their growth. My reptile, when he desires to sleep, has but to lie down anywhere; he will find marvelous 80 mosses for his mattress beneath him; his sheets will be white lily-petals; and the green disks of the lily pads will straightway embroider themselves together above him for his coverlet. He never quarrels with his cook, he is not the slave of a kitchen, and his one housemaid-the stream-forever sweeps his cham85 bers clean. His conservatories there under the glass of that