£ 42 ;] 



EARLY MORNING FOG FROM 

 NAWSHAWTUCT HILL 



June 2, 1853. 4 a.m. To Nawshawtuct. I go to 

 the river in a fog through which I cannot see more 

 than a dozen rods, — three or four times as deep as 

 the houses. . . . Now I have reached the hilltop 

 above the fog at a quarter to five, about sunrise, and 

 all around me is a sea of fog, level and white, reaching 

 nearly to the top of this hill, only the tops of a few 

 high hills appearing as distant islands in the main. 

 It is just like the clouds beneath you as seen from a 

 mountain. It is a perfect level in some directions, 

 cutting the hills near their summits with a geometri- 

 cal line, but puffed up here and there, and more and 

 more toward the east, by the influence of the sun. It 

 resembles nothing so much as the ocean. You can 

 get here the impression which the ocean makes, 

 without ever going to the shore. Men — poor sim- 

 pletons as they are — will go to a panorama by fami- 

 lies, to see a Pilgrim's Progress, perchance, who never 

 yet made progress so far as to the top of such a hill 

 as this at the dawn of a foggy morning. All the fog 

 they know is in their brains. The seashore exhibits 

 nothing more grand or on a larger scale. How grand 

 where it rolls off northeastward over Ball's Hill like 

 a glorious ocean after a storm, just lit by the rising 

 sun! It is as boundless as the view from the high- 

 lands of Cape Cod. They are exaggerated billows. 



