184 SIGNS AND SEASONS 



the mood and temper of the sky above. The storm 

 is mirrored in it, and the wind chafes it into foam. 

 The face of winter it makes doubly rigid and corpse- 

 like. How stark and still and white it lies there! 

 But of a bright day in spring, what life and light 

 possess it! How it enhances or emphasizes the 

 beauty of those calm, motionless days of summer 

 or fall, — the broad, glassy surface perfectly dupli- 

 cating the opposite shore, sometimes so smooth that 

 the finer floating matter here and there looks like 

 dust upon a mirror; the becalmed sails standing 

 this way and that, drifting with the tide. Indeed, 

 nothing points a calm day like a great motionless 

 sail; it is such a conspicuous bid for the breeze 

 which comes not. 



I have observed that when the river is roily, the 

 fact is not noticeable on a calm day ; a glassy sur- 

 face is a kind of mask. But when the breeze comes 

 and agitates it a little, its real color comes out. 



"Immortal water," says Thoreau, "alive to the 

 superficies." How sensitive and tremulous and 

 palpitating this great river is! It is only in cer- 

 tain lights, on certain days, that we can see how it 

 quivers and throbs. Sometimes you can see the 

 subtle tremor or impulse that travels in advance of 

 the coming steamer and prophesies of its coming. 

 Sometimes the coming of the flood-tide is heralded 

 in the same way. Always, when the surface is 

 calm enough and the light is favorable, the river 

 seems shot through and through with tremblings 

 and premonitions. 



