Letters to a Friend 



spray feels the hand of God. O the music that 

 is blessing me now! The sun of last week has 

 given the grandest notes of all the yearly an 

 them and they echo in every fibre of me. 



I said that I was going to stop here until 

 morning and pray a whole blessed night with 

 the falls and the moon, but I am too wet and 

 must go down. An hour or two ago I went out 

 somehow on a little seam that extends along 

 the wall behind the falls. I suppose I was in 

 a trance, but I can positively say that I was 

 in the body for it is sorely battered and wetted. 

 As I was gazing past the thin edge of the fall 

 and away through beneath the column to the 

 brow of the rock, some heavy splashes of water 

 struck me, driven hard against the wall. Sud 

 denly I was darkened ; down came a section of 

 the outside tissue composed of spent comets. 

 I crouched low, holding my breath, and, an 

 chored to some angular flakes of rocks, took 

 my baptism with moderately good faith. When 

 I dared to look up after the swaying column 

 admitted light, I pounced behind a piece of ice 

 [ 121 ] 



