University of Virginia Library

SARAH TO JOHN.

We are now within two miles and a half of the cataract.
I can hear it roar, distinctly; and the earth appears
to tremble under my feet. I do not say that it
does actually, tremble, but only, that it appears to. Perhaps
it may be the agitation of the air; or, it may be that
there is that sympathy between these elements, which
makes one correspond to the movement of the other, as
the most inert things will, to the sound of musick. You can
hear this, you know, in a room where it is all silent, and
two instruments are in perfect unison. If you touch one,
the other will answer; nay, have you never heard of a
gentleman in Philadelphia, whose voice is so powerful
and clear, that the glasses on the table will ring, if they
be put together, half a dozen, or so, when he is singing?
I can answer for its truth, for my father knows him,
and has heard the mysterious reply; or, (one more illustration
and I have done;) have you never felt the wood
tremble, when you have been at church, and your hand
rested on the pew, while the organ was playing? Perhaps
the earth answers here, to this organ of the waters.
What a conceit!—but is it worse than that of the
poet, over whose pages we have so often laughed, and
scolded, and held our breath, by turns, while he described
—no, he did not describe it, the “tempest hymning” of
these falls? And this reminds me of a question that I

dare say has occurred to you and others, time and again.
Why was it called the “Battle of Niagara? What has
Niagara to do with it? or the falls? or the battle? Nothing—absolutely
nothing. Yet, having chosen the
name, he probably thought it rather too barefaced, not
to mention either of them, in the poem. But how does
he mention them?—precisely as a man would, who had
never seen, or cared for either.—Good bye—they are
all ready. The sun is shining out, and we are sure of
having a delightful time.

Well!—we have returned. We have seen the wonder,
and I am entirely out of breath. Shall I tell the truth?
I am giddy and blind, but very much disappointed. What
exaggerated pictures the imagination will form of such
matters. The poet was right;—he has never been there,
they say;—and it is well that he has not. Had he been
there, and studied the whole in detail, there would then
have been none of that indistinctness, shadow, and darkness,
in his picture, which provoked all my powers of
thought to contention. Yes, I am disappointed;—and
this, notwithstanding my caution. It reminds me of
Harper's Ferry. Mr. Jefferson says, it is worth crossing
the Atlantick to see. Fudge! I went there, and, at
the hazard of my neck, clambered up Mr. Jefferson's
rock, where, it is said, that he sat, manufacturing his
notes; looked about me for the “war of the rivers and
mountains,” about which he made such a fuss in his book,
and came away, mortified to the soul, that so great a
man, should have been so intemperate. But he, himself,
is ashamed of it now, I believe; and speaks of his past
enthusiasm, as rather that of the blood than the brain.
So, too, my father once went somewhere up the Kennebeck
river, in the District of Maine. It was said, in
Morse's Geography, (and Dr. Morse is the man, you recollect,
that speaks of “brass mines,”) to be the greatest
fall, in height, not in quantity, to be found in the United
States, not excepting Niagara, itself. My father took
a guide, wallowed some miles, up to his middle, in snow,
(no very light matter, he used to say, for one of his habit
and temper,) and knew not that he was near the awful

place, till his guide called to him, to stop! or he was
lost! My father was near a tree; and, in his horrour,
caught at a projecting limb. The snow, upon which he
had stood, caved in, at the same moment, and my poor
father owed his preservation to the tree alone. Being
extricated from this, his guide called his attention to the
falls. They were said to be about two hundred feet; but
some idea may be formed of their descent, from the fact,
that a horse went down them once, and came out alive
below. My father looked about him, for the signs of the
water, but none appeared. There were a few holes, here
and there, in the snow---and the broken crust was whiter
in the middle, and heaped up, in a narrow and glittering
ridge, as if water ran aslant under it. But these were
the falls—these!—And it was very probable that their
descent was about as great as Dr. Morse had been told; but,
unluckily, he had forgotten to mention the distance included
in that descent. It might have been from the source,
to tide water; or, to the ocean itself, for aught that we
know.

But my disappointment, here, was not so great. I was
stunned and awed for a time;—and I grew frightfully
dizzy in looking at the frail contrivance, by which so
many precious creatures were accustomed to descend,
into the very whirl of the waters. Nay, were I not afraid
of being laughed at, I should say that one person, whom
I saw there, under the very arch of the cataract, was the
deaf and dumb man that we met in the grave-yard! His
dress was different; but his manner, an indescribable
something, that was about him, makes me believe it, yet,
in spite of probability. Is it the love of the marvellous?
or the romantick? or, am I possessed? What should he
do here, poor wretch?—I ask myself again, and again;
and then, I feel a sensation, nearly allied to terrour,
when I think of his danger. Can it be that he has followed
us? If so, let us be gone. I cannot endure the
thought; yet it constantly obtrudes itself. I have taken
no notice of it, here; and my father, I am sure, has not
seen him, or does not perceive the resemblance. Indeed,
when I began this, I did not mean to mention him; for I
was rather angry at something that had occurred. At

first, I felt compassion for him; but his pertinacity has
provoked a—Bless me, cousin, I am speaking exactly
as if it were he, the deaf and dumb man, beyond a doubt.

O, this reminds me of some of your nonsense, John.
What meant you, some time ago, in one of your long letters,
where you reasoned, for a moment, quite seriously,
about the existence of spirits? Were you in good earnest?
If you were, my resentment, which kept me from replying,
was just. Were you not in earnest? Then were
you most unhappy in your pleasantry;—for it has given
my father an authority, that I am sorry for, for believing
what, I am sure, was a deception of the senses, the very
night before my blessed mother's death. What shall I
say to you? Should I be indignant? No!—and my advice
is, neither to believe, nor disbelieve, in such things
on speculation. There may be wisdom in what is unintelligible
to us;—but I cannot believe that the vilest
creatures of the earth, all that are about us, are made
eloquent with prophecy, which is utterly unintelligible.
Is not their superstition excessive, always, in proportion
to the rudeness of a people? Does it not, always, keep
pace with ignorance? Assuredly, it does. So, let us say
no more about it. But, if you should see fit to renew the
subject, at some future day, do not let my excellent father
get to the knowledge of it. It troubles him, I can perceive,
more than he is willing to confess.

And now, let me return to the falls;—but no, I cannot
speak of them. I hate putting ones self out in description.
People enough have described them, and all have
failed; they, probably, the most, who have most studied
to be fine. Some paintings, and one, in particular,
by a lady of Boston, in oil, gave me some notion of the
smoke and thunder that I was to encounter. The sky
and the water were all in agitation, as with a great battle.
But all descriptions are mockery. They either
want indistinctness; are so minute in describing the
parts, as to prevent your obtaining any notion of the
whole, like Belzoni's account of the scratching and chiseling
in the pyramids;—or they are inflated and ridiculous,
to an insupportable degree. There is a person,
one who was never there, too, but who has been supposed

to have been there, by another, who sat with his testimony
in his hand, and compared the poetical description
with the reality; and then, came away, wondering
at the faculty of observation in poets; and their power of
seeing and touching out, what is passed over with indifference,
or utterly unseen, by others!—and—(but I cannot
finish the sentence)—I—.

O—I have just caught a glimpse of the stranger's face
—it is noble; not in feature, but in expression. I shall
never forget it;—he has just past my window, (on the
most beautiful horse, that I ever saw—all in a foam.)

To return.—I do not know why it is; but, from these
lines, particularly the four last, my imagination had
taken a more faithful picture of the cataract, than from all
else that I have seen; and yet, they contain no picture,
not even an outline. All is general, dim, and tumultuous.
Were the poet a painter, I suppose that he would
give us Niagara somewhat after this fashion. A glimpse
only, of the sky; no landscape,—no, he would scorn to
copy a single line as it is; but the whole atmosphere
would appear in commotion; and about the rocks, there
would be a vivid, quick, tremulous outline, as if they
quaked and shivered, incessantly, in the uproar; the
spray would be insupportably bright; great birds, dashing
hither and thither through it; and the water would
go up, like breakers, to the very top of the picture.

I believe, cousin, if you had stood where I did, and
seen the thick cloud above—the blazing brightness of
the water, shooting, all at once, out of it, into the sunshine,
with the tremendous musick of its roaring—that
you would have clasped your hands, as I did, and acknowledged,
that the madman, (for, I am told, that the poor
fellow, who wrote that, is mad,) was singularly happy in
the four last lines. The first part would have been better
relished by me, if there had been a rainbow, when I
was there;—for, I declare to you, the noise of the thunder
was martial, like the ringing of ten thousand trumpets—the
rolling of ten thousand drums—and artillery
in proportion! Really! What do you think of that?—
Should'nt I make a pretty poet, with a little encouragement?

One moment more, and then, good bye, to the poet and
the poem— the waters and the thunder—reminding you
that it was impossible to visit Niagara, without recalling
somewhat of a work, put forth with such a pretending
title—Do you remember this? It struck me very forcibly.—

No wonder that the man is mad, cousin, is it? I have
followed his own punctuation—his own—indeed;—
for there is nothing more peculiarly his, than his dashing.

But, let me be done. That poor deaf and dumb man—
cousin, I can't get him out of my head. He haunts me
like a spectre. Turn which way I will, the first object
that I catch, is a shadow like his, that, as it cannot be
where I see it---must be in my own brain! Well. well.

He'll have to walk fast, if he keep up with us, after tomorrow.
We shall go the battle-ground next.