We follow the stream of amber and bronze brawling along its bed,
with its frequent cascades and snow-white foam. Through the cañon we
fly--mountains not only each side, but seemingly, till we get near,
right in front of us--every rood a new view flashing, and each flash
defying description--on the almost perpendicular sides, clinging
pines, cedars, spruces, crimson sumach bushes, spots of wild grass--but
dominating all, those towering rocks, rocks, rocks, bathed in delicate
vari-colors, with the clear sky of autumn overhead. New senses, new
joys, seem develop'd. Talk as you like, a typical Rocky Mountain cañon,
or a limitless sea-like stretch of the great Kansas or Colorado plains,
under favoring circumstances, tallies, perhaps expresses, certainly
awakes, those grandest and subtlest element-emotions in the human
soul, that all the marble temples and sculptures from Phidias to
Thorwaldsen--all paintings, poems, reminiscences, or even music,
probably never can.