Music — Poetry — Fiction 



Wild, with wide arms of imploring he calls aloud to him, 1871 



Unto the face of his brother, scarce seen in the distance dim ; 



But in the roar of the rapids his fluttering words are lost 



As in a wind of autumn the leaves of autumn are tossed. 



And from the bridge he sees his brother sever the rope 



Holding him to the raft, and rise secure in his hope; 



Sees all as in a dream the terrible pageantry, — 



Populous shores, the woods, the sky, the birds flying free; 



Sees, then, the form, — that, spent with effort and fasting and 



fear, 

 Flings itself feebly and fails of the boat that is lying so near, — 

 Caught in the long-baffled clutch of the rapids, and rolled and 



hurled 

 Headlong on to the cataract's brink, and out of the world. 



HowELLS, WILLIAM Dean. Their wedding journey. Boston and 

 N. Y. : Houghton Mifflin and Co. 1 888. Pp. 119-171, 288-3 1 9. 



Howell's descriptions of the Niagara scenery in this story rank with 

 the artistic and sympathetic study of Charles Dudley Warner in Their 

 pilgrimage. Like Warner, Howells has used the Falls as a background 

 upon which to project his characters. In the edition cited, the last chapter 

 contains the story of Niagara revisited twelve years after their wedding 

 journey. On page 1 39 is found the poem entitled Aver}) which is quoted 

 separately. 



I am not sure but the first emotion on viewing Niagara is that 

 of familiarity. Ever after, its strangeness increases; but in that 

 earliest moment, when you stand by the side of the American fall, 

 and take in so much of the whole as your glance can compass, 

 an impression of having seen it often before is certainly very vivid. 

 This may be an effect of that grandeur which puts you at your 

 ease in its presence; but it also undoubtedly results in part from 

 lifelong acquaintance with every variety of futile picture of the 

 scene. You have its outward form clearly in your memory; the 

 shores, the rapids, the islands, the curve of the Falls, and the stout 

 rainbow with one end resting on their top and the other lost in 

 the mists that rise from the gulf beneath. On the whole I do not 



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