Niagara Falls 



1859 



White 



1859 



Cornwall is 



1859 



comes, in short, to be more matter-of-fact, the conviction that 

 the thing is hardly quite up to the mark. What nonsense people 

 had written about its height! It hardly looked its own 164 feet. 

 The American Fall was formal — too square, and a little prig- 

 gish. There was a want of grace in its forms, of wildness and 

 abandonment in its movements. Then, the surroundings — those 

 saw-mills — those photograph-shops — those great staring hotels ! 

 Nature had spoiled a good thing; and man had helped her. 

 Other Falls, to be seen in Europe, were a hundred times more 

 picturesque, more beautiful. Was that American so very far 

 out, who described this Fall as a sad waste of water-power? 

 It certainly had something of the look of a very much exagge- 

 rated mill-stream. A minute later, and j'ou are ashamed of such 

 judgments: for there can be no sight in the world which exer- 

 cises its power over the feelings more intermittently, or with more 

 variation in form and intensity, than this Niagara. The influence 

 of the place seems to roll over you in waves, now bearing dov/n 

 in full flood, controlling you utterly and holding you breathless, 

 now receding and leaving you free to breathe, or even to let loose 

 the flippancies of criticism upon it — then again breaking in sud- 

 denly, and arousing you (to have done with metaphor), to a 

 thousand beauties which before, neither in the one state nor the 

 other, had you been able to perceive. 



CORNWALLIS, KlNAHAN. Royalty in the New World; or, The Prince 

 of Wales in America. New York: Doolady. 1860. Pp. 145-153. 



An account, by a NelP York Herald correspondent, of the prince's 

 visit, Blondin's exploits, the illumination of the Falls, etc. 



A British Canadian. The tour of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales 

 through British America and the United States. Montreal: John Lovell. 

 1860. Pp. 187-188. 



A calendar of the prince's activities at Niagara. 



1860 



Howells 



1860 



Howells, William Dean. Niagara, first and last, 

 book. N. Y., 1901. Pp. 236-269.) 



(The Niagara 



280 



