Cape Ann 39 
are opalescent, and passing sails in a roseate 
light appear to float in mid-air, so vague and 
dreamlike is the sea; when the shadbush 
lights, as by a soft glow, the pine woods; 
when the osmunda flares in the swamps and 
the Virginia creeper runs aloft a scarlet flag 
from the pignut and the pitchpine. Then 
the huckleberry and the dwarf sumac redden 
the sombre hills of Dogtown, the red maple 
fills those sinuous swamps with a tide of 
colour, and the staghorn—the most brilliant 
of all—paints itself savage vermilion and 
flaunts its barbaric beauty. 
Now you shall feel the lure of the opal sea 
as never before, dominating and pervading 
all. It compels you to the shore; it assails 
the sense from every avenue—the pungent 
sea smell, the haunting sea song, the un- 
dulating sapphire field, unlock the fancy and 
the unfettered mind escapes for an hour into 
a larger consciousness, as a drop might return 
to the sea. This spell is most potent in 
autumn, which is itself an enchantment. In 
a double bewitchment, the sea and the air are 
in league to steal away the sense, like opium. 
Colour, too, massed as it is in autumn, has a 
certain intoxicating effect, a little more divine 
perhaps than that of any wine we know. 
