“I can understand now,” said Norman, “what I have read about morbid impulses, for I feel as if I would like to jump into the rushing water.”
The path down the hill to Juna Island was very muddy and slippery, and they were obliged to walk down very carefully, lest a misstep should plunge them into the mighty current.
Mrs. Lester told Norman of a happy party that once crossed the bridge to this island; of the little girl playfully thrown toward the fall by a young man; of the sudden terror that led her to jump from his arms; of his fearful plunge to save the life he had periled, and of the twain borne over that giddy verge. Those fresh young lives, gone in one moment, with all of earthly hope and aspiration.
It was fearful to think of; but how many are daily and hourly borne, by the mighty tides of worldliness and sin, over a more tremendous precipice; and there are no cries or prayers of pitying love; no man careth for their souls!
Norman was very silent as he looked for the first time on that wondrous fall, the sight of which, he said, took away his strength. He felt awed and solemnized by this mighty display of God’s mighty works.
By the path on Goat Island, not beautiful and attractive as usual, for the trees had not put on their heavy foliage, and the path was wet and muddy, they walked to a little rural building, where, sheltered from the falling rain, they could look down upon the Horse-Shoe Fall. On one point in this magnificent cataract Norman loved to look; it was the angular central point where the stream is greatest in volume, and where its exquisite hue of emerald green continually breaks into snowy whiteness.
“I have heard those falling waters compared to the robes of a goddess continually falling from her shoulders,” said Mrs. Lester; “but the thought is scarcely spiritual enough to satisfy one.”
“It seems too grand to say anything about it,” said Norman; “it makes me so silent.”
“‘Come then, expressive Silence, muse thy praise,’
is a most fitting invocation at this place,” replied his mother.