The Vapors Are Seen Rising In Small Columns
Like Smoke From Many Chimneys.
When risen to a certain height,
they spread, meet, condense, and are attracted to the mountains,
where they either distil in gentle dews, and replenish the
springs, or descend in showers, accompanied with thunder.
After
short intermissions, the process is repeated many times in the
course of a summer day, affording to travellers a lively
illustration of what is observed in the Book of Job, `They are
wet with the showers of the mountains.'"
Fogs and clouds which conceal the overshadowing mountains lend
the breadth of the plains to mountain vales. Even a
small-featured country acquires some grandeur in stormy weather
when clouds are seen drifting between the beholder and the
neighboring hills. When, in travelling toward Haverhill through
Hampstead in this State, on the height of land between the
Merrimack and the Piscataqua or the sea, you commence the descent
eastward, the view toward the coast is so distant and unexpected,
though the sea is invisible, that you at first suppose the
unobstructed atmosphere to be a fog in the lowlands concealing
hills of corresponding elevation to that you are upon; but it is
the mist of prejudice alone, which the winds will not disperse.
The most stupendous scenery ceases to be sublime when it becomes
distinct, or in other words limited, and the imagination is no
longer encouraged to exaggerate it. The actual height and
breadth of a mountain or a waterfall are always ridiculously
small; they are the imagined only that content us.
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