The Cataract at Last!
Encouraged by this report, after refreshing themselves (being much wearied by their toilsome march), they hastened along the edge of the cliffs, while the rushing sound that had been gradually increasing was every instant becoming more and more tremendous, and the velocity of the stream made them imagine that they were in the vicinity of a furious rapid, when, on advancing from the thick bushes, they suddenly found themselves on a bare ledge of rock which overhung an immense chasm into which two streams and a mighty river were tumbling with a noise that drowned all their exclamations of surprise, and which was louder than the voice of the ocean in a storm.
Springing back with terror from the edge of the precipice over which they had so nearly plunged, they eyed the thundering and foaming torrent with amazement, not noticing that part of the rock on which they had just been standing was tottering, and slowly separating itself from the adjoining mass, till they were roused by the crash with which it was precipitated into the gulf below, shaking the living rock from whence it had been detached, and resounding through the woods, far above the roaring of the stupendous cataract.
The missionaries involuntarily leaped back among the trees, not daring to return to the place where they had been, and viewed with more composure the awful prospect before them. The river above the falls was for some distance a furious rapid, rushing with incredible force toward the precipice; but when on its very brink it, in some parts of the great stream, became calm, other parts were white with foam.
While thus engaged, Maiook, with a loud cry, directed their attention to a large deer, which, in vain struggling against the overpowering suction of the falls, was rapidly coming to destruction. They watched its fruitless endeavors to reach the shore; but, on arriving at the deceitful calm, it looked wildly, with distended nostrils and outstretched neck, and seemed to be crying; but the roar of the cataracts drowned its voice, and it was soon precipitated into the boiling abyss.
The French, from the province of Quebec, may have reached as far before, but Price and his companion believed they were the first who had penetrated to that spot; and when they returned back to the settlements their description of the unparalleled magnificence of the cataracts to which Maiook gave the name of Niagara, or the thundering waters, was deemed incredible.
But the wilderness has now been banished, and festivity and commerce have there established themselves amidst the simple sublimity that distinguishes this, the most impressive spectacle of the kind to be seen on the whole earth.
I think the first virtue is to restrain the tongue: he approaches nearest to the gods who knows how to be silent, even though he is in the right.—
Cato. (95-46 B.C.)
THE GLORY OF THE CORN.
An Eloquent Appreciation of the Greatest and Most Typical of All the Agricultural
Staples of America, to Which Richard J. Oglesby, the Famous Old War
Veteran and Governor of Illinois, Gave Expression.
Richard J. Oglesby, from whose lips came this eloquent praise of Indian corn, was himself a son of the Corn Belt. He was born in Oldham County, Kentucky, July 25, 1824. He was elected Governor of Illinois in November, 1864, holding the office continuously until 1869. Again, in 1872, he was elected Governor. From 1873 to March 3, 1879, he was a United States senator from Illinois, when he declined reelection. In November, 1884, he was once more elected Governor, serving four years. He died at Elkhart, Indiana, April 24, 1899.
The following speech was delivered before the Fellowship Club in Chicago, September 9, 1892, on the occasion of the Harvest Home Festival. At the speaker's table that night ex-Governor Oglesby sat between Joseph Jefferson and Sir A. Conan Doyle.
The corn! The corn! The corn, that in its first beginning and in its growth has furnished aptest illustration of the tragic announcement of the chiefest hope of man! If he die he shall surely live again. Planted in the friendly but somber bosom of mother earth, it dies. Yea, it dies the second death, surrendering up each trace of form and earthly shape until the outward tide is stopped by the reacting vital germs which, breaking all the bonds and cerements of its sad decline, come bounding, laughing into life and light, the fittest of all the symbols that make certain promise of the fate of man. And so it died, and then it lived again.
See it—look on its ripening, waving field. See how it wears a crown, prouder than monarch ever wore; sometimes jauntily, and sometimes, after the storm, the dignified survivors of the tempest seem to view a field of slaughter and to pity a fallen foe. And see the pendent caskets of the cornfield filled with the wine of life, and see the silken fringes that set a form for fashion and for art.
And now the evening comes, and something of a time to rest and listen. The scudding clouds conceal the half and then reveal the whole of the moonlit beauty of the night; and then the gentle winds make heavenly harmonies on a thousand thousand harps that hang upon the borders, and the edges, and the middle of the field of ripening corn, until my very heart seems to beat responsive with the rising and the falling of the long, melodious refrain. The melancholy clouds sometimes make shadows on the field and hide its aureate wealth; and now they move, and slowly into sight there comes the golden glow of promise for an industrious land.
Aye, the corn, the royal corn, within whose yellow hearts there is of health and strength for all the nations. The corn triumphant! That with the aid of man hath made victorious procession across the tufted plain and laid foundation for the social excellence that is and is to be. This glorious plant, transmitted by the alchemy of God, sustains the warrior in battle, the poet in song, and strengthens everywhere the thousand arms that work the purposes of life.
Oh, that I had the voice of song or skill to translate into tone the harmonies and symphonies and oratorios that roll across my soul when, standing, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, upon the borders of the verdant sea, I note a world of promise; and then before one-half the year is gone I view its full fruition and see its heaped gold await the need of man!
Majestic, fruitful, wondrous plant! Thou greatest among the manifestations of the wisdom and the love of God that may be seen in all the fields, or upon the hillsides, or in the valleys. Glorious corn that, more than all the sisters of the field, wears tropic garments. Nor on the shore of Nilus nor of Ind does Nature dress her forms more splendidly. My God, to live again that time, when half the world was good and the other half unknown!
And now again the corn! The corn, which in its kernel holds the strength that shall (in the body of the man refreshed) subdue the forest and compel response from every stubborn field; or, shining in the eye of beauty, make blossoms of her cheeks and jewels of her lips, and thus make for man the greatest of all inspirations to well-doing, the hope of companionship of that sacred, warm, and well-embodied soul, a woman.
OUR INTEREST IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY.
Among the Impressive Memorials in the Ancient Edifice in Which England Lays the
Bodies of Her Honored Dead Are Many That Possess
Peculiar Interest for Americans.
To be buried in Westminster Abbey, or to be honored there by a memorial bust or tablet, is one of the highest posthumous honors that can be accorded an Englishman. The noble old structure enshrines many of the good and the great; and it is gratifying to Americans that a number of their fellow countrymen are there remembered. In the Poets' Corner is a beautiful bust of Longfellow, set up in 1884 by English admirers of the poet.
Before the tomb of Major André the American visitor pauses, and doubtless he agrees with the inscription, which says that the ill-fated André was "lamented even by his foes." André's remains were taken to England in 1821 from Tappan, New York, where he was originally buried.
Another memorial of the Revolutionary War is a monument to the memory of William Wragg, of South Carolina. Wragg stuck to the fortunes of England when the colonies revolted. On his way to England he was drowned. The monument was erected by his sister in 1779. A very beautiful urn surmounts it, on which is pictured the incident of the shipwreck in which Mr. Wragg was drowned.
The visitor who does not penetrate to the remotest corner of the Abbey will look in vain for the James Russell Lowell memorial. It has been erected in the vaulted vestibule of the old chapter-house. This chapter-house is the most interesting feature of the entire Abbey. It is the oldest part of the building.
Originally the assembly-hall of the members of the convent and the scene of the floggings of the older monks, it became the meeting-place of the Commons soon after the separation of the two houses of Parliament, in the reign of Edward I, and it remained their meeting-place until they removed to the Chapel of St. Stephen, in the old Westminster Palace, in 1547.
The chapter-house itself is dark and gloomy. Far more so is the passageway which leads to it, and in the dimness of its obscurity one who looks closely will find a small tablet bearing the bust of James Russell Lowell in bas-relief. Above this tablet is a beautiful triple stained-glass window to the memory of Mr. Lowell, erected by his friends in England.
The tributes to Americans which appear in the Abbey are the tributes of their English friends and admirers. Colonel Joseph Lemuel Chester, an American little known to his countrymen, who edited the Westminster Abbey Register, figures among the distinguished dead. He was a native of Norwich, Connecticut, but lived for many years in London, and died there in 1882. The dean and chapter of Westminster erected the memorial to his memory.
Though the monuments in Westminster to Americans are the gifts of Englishmen, the old church of St. Margaret's, which stands close beside the Abbey, holds two memorials to famous Englishmen erected by Americans. These are a fine stained-glass window commemorating Sir Walter Raleigh, who was buried in St. Margaret's in 1618, and another beautiful window in honor of John Milton, whose second wife and infant child also rest in the church. The Milton window was erected by the late George W. Childs, of Philadelphia; the Raleigh memorial by several American subscribers.
The Beginnings of Stage Careers.
By MATTHEW WHITE, Jr.
A Series of Papers That Will Be Continued from Month to Month
and Will Include All Players of Note.