In
1902, when he left the theater for good, he wrote to me:
"The place is now given up to the rats--all light cut off, and only
Barry[1] and a foreman left. Everything of mine I've moved away,
including the Cat!"
[Footnote 1: The stage-door keeper.]
I have never been to America yet without going to Niagara. The first
time I saw the great falls I thought it all more wonderful than
beautiful. I got away by myself from my party, and looked and looked at
it, and I listened--and at last it became dreadful and I was
_frightened_ at it. I wouldn't go alone again, for I felt queer and
wanted to follow the great flow of it. But at twelve o'clock, with the
"sun upon the topmost height of the day's journey," most of Nature's
sights appear to me to be at their plainest. In the evening, when the
shadows grow long and all hard lines are blurred, how soft, how
different, everything is! It was noontide, that garish cruel time of
day, when I first came in sight of the falls. I'm glad I went again in
other lights--but one should live by the side of all this greatness to
learn to love it. Only once did I catch Niagara in _beauty_, with pits
of color in its waters, no one color definite--all was wonderment,
allurement, fascination.
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