Beauty

Driving home, we came to the most spectacular waterfall, foaming

down a black precipice. The Master peremptorily stopped the car and with a sort of excitement got out of it; then walked to the very edge of the precipice. After standing there for some time, His eyes fixed on that long, shining torrent, which seemed to be shaking off diamonds in a fury, He seated Himself on a rock hanging over the deep abyss. I can still see that Figure of quiet Power perilously poised above the precipice, that still, rapt Face delighting in some secret way in the beauty of the waterfall. Tears came to Laura's eyes and mine. During the whole drive He was always discovering lovely things and with vivid animation pointing them out to us: the bright green of the fields and hills, the neat villages, a spire rising from a cluster of Swiss houses, or from some lonely spot on a mountain. A tiny village, high among the peaks, caught His eye . . . It was just after we left the waterfall that the Master turned, smiling, to me. "If I come to America, Juliet, will you invite Me to see such waterfalls?"

Diary of Juliet Thompson, p. 78-79