Ernest Linwood; or, The Inner Life of the Author

by Caroline Lee Hentz

CHAPTER XLIV.

It is not my intention to describe our journey; and I fear it will indeed be an act of supererogation to attempt to give an idea of those majestic Falls, whose grandeur and whose glory have so long been the theme of the painter's pencil and the poet's lyre. Never shall I forget the moment when my spirit plunged into the roar and the foam, the thunders and the rainbows of Niagara. I paused involuntarily a hundred paces from the brink of the cataract. I was about to realize one of the magnificent dreams of my youthful imagination. I hesitated and trembled. I felt something of the trepidation, the blissful tremor that agitated my whole being when Ernest asked me into the moonlight garden at Cambridge, and I thought he was going to tell me that he loved me. The emotions I was about to experience would never come again, and I knew when once past could never be anticipated as now, with indescribable awe. I felt something as Moses did when he stood in the hollow of the rock, as the glory of the Lord was about to pass by. And surely no grander exhibition of God's glory ever burst on mortal eye, than this mighty volume of water, rushing, roaring, plunging, boiling, foaming, tossing its foam like snow into the face of heaven, throwing up rainbow after rainbow from unfathomable abysses, then sinking gradually into a sluggish calm, as if exhausted by the stupendous efforts it had made.

Clinging to the arm of Ernest, I drew nearer and nearer, till all personal fear was absorbed in a sense of overpowering magnificence. I was a part of that glorious cataract; I participated in the mighty struggle; I panted with the throes of the pure, dark, tremendous element, vassal at once and conqueror of man; triumphed in the gorgeous arcs-en-ciel that rested like angels of the Lord above the mist and the foam and the thunders of watery strife, and reposed languidly with the subsiding waves that slept like weary warriors after the din and strife of battle, the frown of contention lingering on their brows, and the smile of disdain still curling their lips.

Oh, how poor, how weak seemed the conflict of human passion in the presence of this sublime, this wondrous spectacle! I could not speak,—I could scarcely breathe,—I was borne down, overpowered, almost annihilated. My knees bent, my hands involuntarily clasped themselves over the arm of Ernest, and in this attitude of intense adoration I looked up and whispered, "God,—eternity."

"Enthusiast!" exclaimed he; but his countenance was luminous with the light that glowed on mine. He put his arm around me, but did not attempt to raise me. Edith and her mother were near, in company with a friend who had been our fellow-traveller from New England, and who had extended his journey beyond its prescribed limits for the sake of being our companion. I looked towards Edith with tremulous interest. As she stood leaning on her crutches, her garments fluttering in the breeze, I almost expected to see her borne from us like down upon the wind, and floating on the bosom of that mighty current.

I said I did not mean to attempt a description of scenes which have baffled the genius and eloquence of man.

"Now I am content to die!" said an ancient traveller, when the colossal shadow of the Egyptian pyramids first fell on his weary frame. But what are those huge, unmoving monuments of man's ambition, compared to this grandest of creation's mysteries, whose deep and thundering voice is repeating, day after day and night after night,—"forever and ever," and whose majestic motion, rushing onward, plunging downward, never pausing, never resting, is emblematic of the sublime march of Deity, from everlasting to everlasting,—from eternity to eternity?

Shall I ever forget the moment when I stood on Termination Rock, beyond which no mortal foot has ever penetrated? I stood in a shroud of gray mist, wrapping me on every side,—above, below, around. I shuddered, as if the hollow, reverberating murmurs that filled my ears were the knell of the departed sun. That cold, gray mist; it penetrated the depths of my spirit; it drenched, drowned it, filled it with vague, ghost-like images of dread and horror. I cast one glance behind, and saw a gleam of heaven's sunny blue, one bright dazzling gleam flashing between the rugged rock and the rushing waters. It was as if the veil of the temple of nature were rent, and the glory of God shone through the fissure.

"Let us return," said I to Ernest. "I feel as if I had passed through the valley of the shadow of death. Is it not sacrilegious to penetrate so deeply into the mysteries of nature?"

"O Gabriella!" he exclaimed, his eyes flashing through the shrouding mist like burning stars, "how I wish you felt with me! Were it possible to build a home on this shelving rock, I would willingly dwell here forever, surrounded by this veiling mist. With you thus clasped in my arms, I could be happy, in darkness and clouds, in solitude and dreariness, anywhere, everywhere,—with the conviction that you loved me, and that you looked for happiness alone to me."