The morning light did not efface the impressions of the night, the dominating presence of a gigantic, pitiless force, a blind passion of nature, uncontrolled and uncontrollable.  Shut the windows and lock the door, you could not shut out the terror of it.  The town did not seem safe; the bridges, the buildings on the edge of the precipices with their shaking casements, the islands, might at any moment be engulfed and disappear.  It was a thing to flee from.

I suspect King was in a very sensitive mood; the world seemed for the moment devoid of human sympathy, and the savageness and turmoil played upon his bare nerves.  The artist himself shrank from contact with this overpowering display, and said that he could not endure more than a day or two of it.  It needed all the sunshine in the face of Miss Lamont and the serenity of her cheerful nature to make the situation tolerable, and even her sprightliness was somewhat subdued.  It was a day of big, broken, high-sailing clouds, with a deep blue sky and strong sunlight.  The slight bridge to Goat Island appeared more presumptuous by daylight, and the sharp slope of the rapids above it gave a new sense of the impetuosity of the torrent.  As they walked slowly on, past the now abandoned paper-mills and the other human impertinences, the elemental turmoil increased, and they seemed entering a world the foundations of which were broken up.  This must have been a good deal a matter of impression, for other parties of sightseers were coming and going, apparently unawed, and intent simply on visiting every point spoken of in the guide-book, and probably unconscious of the all-pervading terror.  But King could not escape it, even in the throng descending and ascending the stairway to Luna Island.  Standing upon the platform at the top, he realized for the first time the immense might of the downpour of the American Fall, and noted the pale green color, with here and there a violet tone, and the white cloud mass spurting out from the solid color.  On the foam-crested river lay a rainbow forming nearly a complete circle.  The little steamer Maid of the Mist was coming up, riding the waves, dashed here and there by conflicting currents, but resolutely steaming on—­such is the audacity of man—­and poking her venturesome nose into the boiling foam under the Horseshoe.  On the deck are pigmy passengers in oil-skin suits, clumsy figures, like arctic explorers.  The boat tosses about like a chip, it hesitates and quivers, and then, slowly swinging, darts away down the current, fleeing from the wrath of the waters, and pursued by the angry roar.