I wondered what Irving would think of the scene. Some people profess that they are disappointed with the first sight of Niagara. There are also people who look upon the ocean without surprise; and some who see the curtain go up on a great play, or a grand opera, for the first time in their lives, without experiencing one throb of the sensation which Bulwer, in one of his novels, describes with pathetic eloquence. The Rev. Dr. Thomas, a popular preacher in the Prairie city, went to his first play while Irving was at Chicago, and was greatly impressed; although he half confessed that, on the whole, he liked a good lecture quite as well. A colored man and his wife, at Philadelphia, told me they had always considered the play wicked, and would never have thought to go to a theatre had not one of their clergymen done so. “But,” said the husband, “I see noffin’ wicked nor wrong, and it did my heart good to see all dem white folk bowing to de colored gentleman and making much of him.” It was the casket scene in “The Merchant” that had most delighted these people.
Almost the first thing I did on arriving at Niagara was to send Irving a telegram, asking if he had settled where to stay, advising him that for a brief visit the Prospect House was most conveniently placed for seeing the falls. My response was a request for rooms. This was followed by an inquiry if the house could provide a dinner for seventy; and from that moment I found myself actively engaged, not in reviving my former recollections of Niagara, but in preparing to receive the Irving Company. The landlord of the Prospect House is a land-owner in Manitoba. He was looking after his interests in those distant regions. The landlady, a bright, clever woman of business, however, undertook to “run the dinner.”
“The house is partially closed, as you know,” she said, “and it is small. We have only a few servants during the winter, and it is difficult to get provisions at short notice. But we have the Western Union telegraph in the house, and a telephone. We will do our best.”
The intelligent colored waiter found it impossible to seat seventy persons in the dining-room.
“They must dine at twice,” he said; “that’s the only chance; no help for it.”