But when I stood stun still in my tracts, and the full glory and beauty
of that seen of wonder and enchantment broke onto my almost enraptured
vision, I gin up that I never had had a emotion in my hull life, not
one, nothin' but plain, common breathin's and sithes.
When I see these snowy palaces, vast and beautiful and dreamlike, risin'
up from the blue waters, and their pure white columns and statuary
reflected into the mirrow below, and the green beauty of the Wooded
Island, and the tall trees a-dottin' them here and there--
And when I see the lagoon a-windin' along, and arched over with bridges,
like the best of the beauty of Venice born agin, perfect and fresh in
the heart of the New World--
When I beheld the immense quantity of shrubs and flowers of every kind
known to the world--
And all along the blue waters of the Grand Basin, surrounded by the
magnificence and glory of these beautiful palaces--the fountains
a-sprayin' up, and waters a-flashin', and banners a-flyin', and the tall
white statutes a-standin' on every side of us a-watchin' us with their
still eyes, to see how we took in the transcendent seen, and how we
appeared under the display--wall, I stood, as I say, stun still in my
tracts, and sez to myself--
"It would be jest as easy to comprehend the wonder of this Exposition by
readin' about it, as it would be for any one to try to judge Niagara by
lookin' at a pan of dishwater."
They are both water, but different, fur different.
And you have got to take in the wonder and majesty of the sight, through
the pores as it wuz, through all your soul, not at first, but it has got
to grow and soak in, and make it a part of yourself.
And then, when you have, you hain't a-goin' to describe it--words can't
do it; you can walk through it and talk about the size of the buildin's,
and the wonders of the display, but that hain't a-goin' to describe it,
no more than the pan of dishwater can explain Niagara.
You can converse about Niagara, the depth, the eddies, the swirl of the
waters, the horseshoe falls, the rainbow that rises over it, the grotto,
the slate-stun on the banks below, and so forth, and so forth, and so
on.
And how to show off the might and rush of the volume of water that
shakes the earth, the mountain of shinin' mist that floats up to the
wonderin' and admirin' heavens--how to paint this wonderful and
inexpressible glory by tongue, how to put in words that which is
mightier than any words that wuz ever said or sung! Wonder and awe,
overwhelmin' sensation that makes the pulse stop and then beat agin in
bounds.
When you paint a picture showin' the full power and depth of a mother's
love; when you can paint the ardor and extacy that inspires the hero's
soul as he leads the forlorn hope, and dies with his face to the foe--
Then you may try to describe Niagara; no pen, no tongue can describe
this ever rushin', ever old and ever new Wonder of the new world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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