Then arose in my breast a genuine admiration, and a humble adoration of the Being who was the architect of this and of all.  Happy were the first discoverers of Niagara, those who could come unawares upon this view and upon that, whose feelings were entirely their own.  With what gusto does Father Hennepin describe “this great downfall of water,” “this vast and prodigious cadence of water, which falls down after a surprising and astonishing manner, insomuch that the universe does not afford its parallel.  ’Tis true Italy and Swedeland boast of some such things, but we may well say that they be sorry patterns when compared with this of which we do now speak.”

CHAPTER II.

The lakes.—­Chicago.—­Geneva.—­A thunder-storm.—­Papaw grove.

Scene, steamboat.—­About to leave Buffalo.—­Baggage coming on board.—­Passengers bustling for their berths.—­Little boys persecuting everybody with their newspapers and pamphlets.—­J., S., and M. huddled up in a forlorn corner, behind a large trunk.—­A heavy rain falling.

M. Water, water everywhere.  After Niagara one would like a dry strip of existence.  And at any rate it is quite enough for me to have it under foot without having it overhead in this way.

J. Ah, do not abuse the gentle element.  It is hardly possible to have too much of it, and indeed, if I were obliged to choose amid the four, it would be the one in which I could bear confinement best.

S. You would make a pretty Undine, to be sure!

J. Nay.  I only offered myself as a Triton, a boisterous Triton of the sounding shell.  You, M., I suppose, would be a salamander, rather.

M. No! that is too equivocal a position, whether in modern mythology, or Hoffman’s tales.  I should choose to be a gnome.

J. That choice savors of the pride that apes humility.

M. By no means; the gnomes are the most important of all the elemental tribes.  Is it not they who make the money?

J. And are accordingly a dark, mean, scoffing ——­

M. You talk as if you had always lived in that wild, unprofitable element you are so fond of, where all things glitter, and nothing is gold; all show and no substance.  My people work in the secret, and their works praise them in the open light; they remain in the dark because only there such marvels could be bred.  You call them mean.  They do not spend their energies on their own growth, or their own play, but to feed the veins of Mother Earth with permanent splendors, very different from what she shows on the surface.

Think of passing a life, not merely in heaping together, but making gold.  Of all dreams, that of the alchemist is the most poetical, for he looked at the finest symbol.  “Gold,” says one of our friends, “is the hidden light of the earth, it crowns the mineral, as wine the vegetable order, being the last expression of vital energy.”