Niagara Falls 



1832 another, and in an instant you feel that from thence the wonder 

 Trollope is visible. 



I trembled like a fool, and my girls clung to me trembling 

 too, I believe, but with faces beaming with delight. We encoun- 

 tered a waiter, who had a sympathy of some sort with us, for he 

 would not let us run through the hall to the first gallery, but 

 ushered us up-stairs, and another instant placed us where, at one 

 glance, I saw all I had wished for, hoped for, dreamed of. 



It is not for me to attempt a description of Niagara: I feel I 

 have no powers for it. 



After one long, steadfast gaze, we quitted the gallery that 

 we might approach still nearer, and in leaving the house had the 

 good fortune to meet an English gentleman, who had been intro- 

 duced to us at New- York; he had preceded us by a few days, 

 and knew exactly how and where to lead us. If any man living 

 can describe the scene we looked upon it is himself, and I trust 

 he will do it. As for me, I can only say that wonder, terror, 

 and delight completely overwhelmed me. I wept with a strange 

 mixture of pleasure and of pain, and certainly was, for some 

 time, too violently affected in the physique to be capable of much 

 pleasure; but when this emotion of the senses subsided, and I 

 had recovered some degree of composure, my enjoyment was 

 very great indeed. 



To say that I was not disappointed is but a weak expression 

 to convey the surprise and astonishment which this long dreamed 

 of scene produced. It has to me something beyond its vastness; 

 there is a shadowy mystery hangs about it which neither the eye 

 nor even the imagination can penetrate; but I dare not dwell on 

 this; it is dangerous subject, and any attempt to describe the 

 sensations produced must lead direct to nonsense. 



Exactly at the fall, it is the fall and nothing else you have 

 to look upon; there are not, as at Trenton, mighty rocks and 

 towering forests, there is only the waterfall; but it is the fall of 

 an ocean, and were Pelion piled on Ossa on either side of it, we 

 could not look at them. 



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