It has often been remarked that no one is insensible to the beauty of
flowing water. When it glides quietly on in a stream, its character is
that of gentleness, and it suggests only the ideas of calm and tranquil
beauty. But when it expands to a greater width, and its floods are
poured forth in an impetuous tide, then it assumes the aspect of
grandeur, and wakens in the beholder the emotions of sublimity.
The beauty of running water has, indeed, long been celebrated, and the
river has often suggested an image illustrative of human life. Even
Pliny, who wrote some two thousand years ago, likens a river to the
progress of man. “Its beginnings,” he says, “are insignificant, and its
infancy is frivolous; it plays among the flowers of a meadow, it waters
a garden, or turns a mill. Gathering strength in its growth, it becomes
wild and impetuous. Impatient of the restraint it meets with in the
hollows of the mountains, it is restless and fretful, quick in its
turnings, and unsteady in its course. Now it is a roaring cataract,
tearing up and overturning whatever opposes its progress, and it shoots
headlong down a rock; then it becomes a gloomy, sullen pool, buried in
the bottom of a glen. Recovering breath by repose, it again dashes
along, till, tired of uproar and mischief, it quits all that it has
swept along, and leaves the opening of the valley strewed with the
rejected waste. Now, quitting its retirement, it comes abroad into the
world, journeying with more prudence and discretion through cultivated
fields, yielding to circumstances, and winding round what would trouble
it to overwhelm or remove. It passes through the populous cities, and
all the busy haunts of man, tenders its services on every side, and
becomes the support and ornament of the country. Increased by numerous
alliances, and advanced in its course, it becomes grave and stately in
its motions, loves peace and quiet, and in majestic silence rolls on its
mighty waters, till it is laid to rest in the vast abyss.”