170 



NATURE FOR ITS OWN SAKE 



frank to confess that it always impressed me as 

 one of nature's lamentable accidents. I am also 

 frank to confess that no great waterfall or cat- 

 aract ever gave me anything but a cold chill. 

 Niagara is merely a great horror of nature like 

 a lava-stream pouring into the sea, or a volcanic 

 explosion like that of Krakatoa. Grand it is 

 in its mass, and sometimes beautiful in the col- 

 oring of the rising spray shot with sunlight ; 

 but its chief impression is one of power unre- 

 strained and catastrophe unavoidable. It is 

 nothing less than nature committing suicide. 



The Catskill or the New England brook is per- 

 haps the most enjoyable of all the small streams, 

 because of its purity, its wildness, its tangled 

 undergrowth, and its vivacious motion. It has 

 many beauties of line and also countless varieties 

 of color. Not the greens of tree and grass and 

 moss, not the glow of mountain-flowers or the 

 flare of autumn foliage, not the blue-and- white 

 of sky-patchesnot any of these alone ; but all 

 of them together, mingled in the delicate 

 reflections of the brook water. The local color 

 of the stream and the color of the objects 

 reflected struggle for mastery. Sometimes one 

 conquers and sometimes the other ; but more 

 often they make a surface-compromise, each 



