Born at Lowville, New York, in 1819, Benjamin Franklin Taylor died at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1887. During the Civil War he was the Chicago Journal war correspondent with the Western armies.
Mr. Taylor wrote a number of books, among which are several volumes of verse and a novel, "Theophilus Trent." He is best remembered, however, as author of "The Isle of the Long Ago," that singularly felicitous picture of the home of sweet-sad memories.
Niagara, the June Bride's Paradise.
The Eloquent Language in Which the Great Cataract Was Described by Sir
Edwin Arnold, and John Galt's Romantic Account
of Its Discovery.
The compass of the honeymooner, like the compass of the mariner, has four points, but on that of the honeymooner the points are rather differently indicated. The East is represented by the term "abroad," the South by Washington, the West by almost anything lying between Pittsburgh and the Pacific, and the North by Niagara.
The honeymooner who finds it less difficult to make money than to kill time shapes his matrimonial course via Pittsburgh or Paris. The good, patriotic, homespun sort of chap, who finds it more easy to kill time than to make money, and who may one day be the father of a President of the United States, whirls his bride off to Washington or Niagara. Washington is a little dull and rather warm after Congress adjourns, so the June bride is most likely to pick the last of the rice-grains out of her hair within earshot of the great Northern cataract.
Two selections that have to do with the big waterfall are given herewith. Of these, one has been called the finest description of Niagara ever written. It is from the pen of the late Sir Edwin Arnold, the author of "The Light of Asia," and appeared originally in the London Daily Telegraph.