And now you have the little all I have to write.  Can it interest you?  To one who has enjoyed the full life of any scene, of any hour, what thoughts can be recorded about it, seem like the commas and semicolons in the paragraph, mere stops.  Yet I suppose it is not so to the absent.  At least, I have read things written about Niagara, music, and the like, that interested me.  Once I was moved by Mr. Greenwood’s remark, that he could not realize this marvel till, opening his eyes the next morning after he had seen it, his doubt as to the possibility of its being still there, taught him what he had experienced.  I remember this now with pleasure, though, or because, it is exactly the opposite to what I myself felt.  For all greatness affects different minds, each in “its own particular kind,” and the variations of testimony mark the truth of feeling.

I will add a brief narrative of the experience of another here, as being much better than anything I could write, because more simple and individual.

“Now that I have left this ‘Earth-wonder,’ and the emotions it excited are past, it seems not so much like profanation to analyze my feelings, to recall minutely and accurately the effect of this manifestation of the Eternal.  But one should go to such a scene prepared to yield entirely to its influences, to forget one’s little self and one’s little mind.  To see a miserable worm creep to the brink of this falling world of waters, and watch the trembling of its own petty bosom, and fancy that this is made alone, to act upon him excites—­derision?—­No,—­pity.”

As I rode up to the neighborhood of the falls, a solemn awe imperceptibly stole over me, and the deep sound of the ever-hurrying rapids prepared my mind for the lofty emotions to be experienced.  When I reached the hotel, I felt a strange indifference about seeing the aspiration of my life’s hopes.  I lounged about the rooms, read the stage bills upon the walls, looked over the register, and, finding the name of an acquaintance, sent to see if he was still there.  What this hesitation arose from, I know not; perhaps it was a feeling of my unworthiness to enter this temple which nature has erected to its God.

At last, slowly and thoughtfully I walked down to the bridge leading to Goat Island, and when I stood upon this frail support, and saw a quarter of a mile of tumbling, rushing rapids, and heard their everlasting roar, my emotions overpowered me, a choaking sensation rose to my throat, a thrill rushed through my veins, “my blood ran rippling to my finger’s ends.”  This was the climax of the effect which the falls produced upon me—­neither the American nor the British fall moved me as did these rapids.  For the magnificence, the sublimity of the latter I was prepared by descriptions and by paintings.  When I arrived in sight of them I merely felt, “ah, yes, here is the fall, just as I have seen it in picture.”  When I arrived at the terrapin bridge, I expected to