Preservation of the Falls 



Niagara I. (Nation, Oct. 12, 1 871 . 13:238-239.) 1871 



Niagara II. (Nation, Oct. 19, 1871. 13:254-255.) 



A letter from Niagara, under date of September 28, deploring the abuse 

 of the scenery and approving of " the most beautiful object in the world." 

 The letter was evidently written by Henry James. It is reprinted in his 

 " Portraits of Places." 



The pure beauty of elegance and grace is the grand character- 

 istic of the Fall. It is not in the least monstrous. It is supremely 

 artistic — a harmony, a conception, a masterpiece; it beats 

 Michael Angelo. One may seem at first to say the least, but 

 the delicate observer will admit that one says the most, in saying 

 that it is pleasing. There are, however, so many more things to 

 say about it — its multitudinous features crowd so upon the vision 

 as one looks — that it seems absurd for me to attempt to handle 

 details. The main feature, perhaps, is the incomparable loveli- 

 ness of the immense line of the river and its lateral abutments. 

 It neither falters, nor breaks, nor stiffens, but maintains grandly 

 from wing to wing its consummate curve. This noble line is 

 worthily sustained by mighty pillars of alternate emerald and 

 marble. The famous green loses nothing, as you may imagine, 

 on a nearer view. A green more gorgeously cool and pure it is 

 impossible to conceive. It is to the vulgar greens of earth what 

 the blue of a summer sky is to our mundane azures, and is, in 

 fact, as sacred, as remote, as impalpable as that. You can fancy 

 it the parent-green, the head-spring of color to all the verdant 

 water-caves and all the clear, sub-fluvial haunts and bowers of 

 naiads and mermen in all the streams of the earth. The lower 

 half of the watery wall is shrouded in the steam of the boiling 

 gulf — a veil never rent nor lifted. At its core, this eternal cloud 

 seems fixed and still with excess of motion — still and intensely 

 white; but, as it rolls and climbs against its lucent cliff, it tosses 

 little whiffs and fumes and pants of snowy smoke, which betray 

 the furious tumult of its dazzling womb. In the middle of the 

 curve, at the apex of the gulf, the converging walls are ground 



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