I was unable to utter the thoughts that stirred me at the sight of so sublime a disorder. In the desert of my early life, I was obliged to invent persons to adorn it; I drew from my own substance beings whom I did not find elsewhere and whom I carried within myself. In the same way, I have placed memories of Atala and René on the edge of the cataract of Niagara, as the expression of its sadness. What meaning has a cascade which falls eternally in the unfeeling sight of heaven and earth, if human nature be not there, with its destinies and its misfortunes? To be steeped in this solitude of water and mountains and not to know with whom to speak of that great spectacle! To have the waves, the rocks, the woods, the torrents to one's self alone! Give the soul a companion, and the smiling verdure of the hill-slopes, the cool breath of the water, will all turn into charm: the journey by day, the sweetest repose at the end of the day's march, the gliding over the billows, the sleeping upon the moss, will call forth from the heart its deepest tenderness. I have seated Velléda upon the shores of Armorica, Cymodocea beneath the porticoes of Athens, Blanca in the halls of the Alhambra. Alexander created towns wheresoever he hastened: I have left dreams behind me wherever I have dragged my life. I have seen the cascades of the Alps with their chamois and those of the Pyrenees with their izards; I did not go sufficiently high up the Nile to meet its cataracts, which are reduced to rapids; I will not speak of the azure zones of Terni or of Tivoli, graceful fragments of ruins or subjects for the poet's song: Et præceps Anio ac Tiburni lucus[489]. Niagara eclipses everything. I gazed upon the cataract the existence of which was revealed to the old world, not by puny travellers like myself, but by missionaries who, seeking solitude for the love of God, flung themselves upon their knees at the sight of some marvel of nature and received martyrdom while completing their hymn of admiration. Our priests greeted the fine sites of America and consecrated them with their blood; our soldiers clapped their hands at the ruins of Thebes and presented arms to Andalusia: the whole genius of France lies in the double army of our camps and of our altars. [Sidenote: Two hair-breadth escapes.]