Some people evidently spent more time in laboriously carving
their names than in viewing the wondrous beauty of the Falls.
When they perchance do gaze at them one can almost hear them
shooting, "Behold us, Niagara, we are here," or "Just as we
expected, only a big pile of water." Better it were to leave a
living tree like the palm that the loving hands of Queen
Victoria planted in the Hiles' estate at Cannes, France. Here
groups of weary American soldiers gazing up at its lovely
fronded foliage, then out over the deep blue Mediterranean,
beheld a sunset sky like a more vast sea of amethyst through
which a few orange colored clouds were idly drifting. They
forgot for a time the horrors of war and as they caught a view
of the far-flushing Alpine peaks that appeared like vast walls
of alternate shades of crimson and purple rising from a golden
sea of light they joined in the twilight prayer of the universe
to Him who made such wondrous beauty for the delight of man.
It was here that Victoria showed by her queenly life the right
to her title. Her memory still remains verdant in the hearts of
her countrymen whom she showed in a thousand acts of charity and
nobleness that "The crown does not make the queen."
Memories of delight steal o'er you as you recall again the many
noble trees at Mt. Vernon. Just north of the brick wall of the
flower garden are two magnificent tulip trees towering in their
stately grandeur far above their companions; filling their
branches with a wealth of creamy bell-shaped blossoms which like
innumerable swinging censers scatter delicious incense on the
passing breeze.
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