More Extensive
Fogs, However, Have Their Own Limits.
I once saw the day break
from the top of Saddle-back Mountain in Massachusetts, above the
clouds.
As we cannot distinguish objects through this dense fog,
let me tell this story more at length.
I had come over the hills on foot and alone in serene summer
days, plucking the raspberries by the wayside, and occasionally
buying a loaf of bread at a farmer's house, with a knapsack on my
back which held a few traveller's books and a change of clothing,
and a staff in my hand. I had that morning looked down from the
Hoosack Mountain, where the road crosses it, on the village of
North Adams in the valley three miles away under my feet, showing
how uneven the earth may sometimes be, and making it seem an
accident that it should ever be level and convenient for the feet
of man. Putting a little rice and sugar and a tin cup into my
knapsack at this village, I began in the afternoon to ascend the
mountain, whose summit is three thousand six hundred feet above
the level of the sea, and was seven or eight miles distant by the
path. My route lay up a long and spacious valley called the
Bellows, because the winds rush up or down it with violence in
storms, sloping up to the very clouds between the principal range
and a lower mountain. There were a few farms scattered along at
different elevations, each commanding a fine prospect of the
mountains to the north, and a stream ran down the middle of the
valley on which near the head there was a mill.
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