‘A lovely, most verdant island, Goat Island, divides the two grand Falls,--or, I may rather say, three, for one glorious cascade is called Central Fall. In this exquisite island, and other smaller ones, you wander amongst silent shady woods, or stand so close to the rushing waters, that one or two steps would send you over the brink into the cloudy chasm below. Perhaps, Laura, nothing can better convey to you the impression left on me, than to tell you what was my repeatedly recurring thought. “If I had to suffer martyrdom, in no form could it appear more attractive than by being thrown over Niagara!” To be launched into eternity, shrouded in that cascade of diamonds, would rouse such a thrilling sense of the beautiful and the sublime, that half one’s fears would be swallowed up in something almost like joy. It would seem ten times more horrible to be flung from a high tower on to the hard, cold earth. This is not a mere fancy of my own. I find that I am not alone in thinking that death would appear less repulsive at Niagara than elsewhere.[23]