ainst the sky above the
general surface, and as it had already caught the sun it shone on the
horizon like the topsails of some giant ship. There were huge waves,
stationary, as it seemed, like waves in a frozen sea; and yet, as I
looked again, I was not sure but they were moving after all, with a slow
and august advance. And while I was yet doubting, a promontory of the
hills some four or five miles away, conspicuous by a bouquet of tall
pines, was in a single instant overtaken and swallowed up. It reappeared
in a little, with its pines, but this time as an islet and only to be
swallowed up once more and then for good. This set me looking nearer,
and I saw that in every cove along the line of mountains the fog was
being piled in higher and higher, as though by some wind that was
inaudible to me. I could trace its progress, one pine tree first growing
hazy and then disappearing after another; although sometimes there was
none of this forerunning haze, but the whole opaque white ocean gave a
start and swallowed a piece of mountain at a gulp. It was to flee these
poisonous fogs that I had left the seaboard, and climbed so high among
the mountains. And now, behold, here came the fog to besiege me in my
chosen altitudes, and yet came so beautifully that my first thought was
of welcome.

The sun had now gotten much higher, and through all the gaps of the
hills it cast long bars of gold across that white ocean. An eagle,
or some other very great bird of the mountain, came wheeling over the
nearer pinetops, and hung, poised and something sideways, as if to look
abroad on that unwonted desolation, spying, perhaps with terror, for
the eyries of her comrades. Then, with a long cry, she disappeared again
toward Lake County and the clearer air. At length it seemed to me as
if the flood were beginning to subside. The old landmarks, by whose
disappearance I had measured its advance, here a crag, there a brave
pine tree, now began, in the inverse order, to make their reappearance
into daylight. I judged all danger of the fog was over. This was not
Noah's flood; it was but a morning spring, and would now drift
out seaward whence it came. So, mightily relieved, and a good deal
exhilarated by the sight, I went into the house to light the fire.

I suppose it was nearly seven when I once more mounted the platform to
look abroad. The fog ocean had swelled up enormously since last I saw
it; and a few hundred feet below me, in the deep gap w