Theodore Winthrop

“ Glows of approaching evening lie among the long shadows and fall across the glades. Not even where the dusky canopy of clouds shuts off sunshine can this become an austere woodland. Trees of many-colored foliage make play of light even in the unillumined spots; and sunshine, streaming low and level, betrays a wilderness of leafage and umbrage, stems and vines.
From these bright labyrinths we emerge again into open daylight. Here, above the basin, warm cliffs uphold a tablet where sunlight may blazon its last fond inscriptions. ”

“ It lies open before us, a lucent shell lined with imprisoned rainbows, — a chalice of dissolved pearl, — a flushed corolla, where the cataract rises like a white cone of vestal leaves just opening, — a pool of newly-troubled water, where weary spirits may find healing and lightness of heart. ”

“ Observe again how the level of the basin below the cataract corresponds with the emphatic plateau below the mountains, — repose after power. No discomposure or weariness is anywhere possible. We are nowhere beaten back and debilitated by stern, rude heights we cannot climb. Slope and plateau and successive grades of ascent take us gently up from the lowest plane of blue water speeding toward ocean, to blue, illimitable space of sky. Step by step the eye is educated to comprehend the vast scope of the scene, yet no step is abrupt. ”