I set out on my rambles one morning in June about sunrise. The day
promised to be fair, though at that early hour a heavy mist lay along
the earth and settled in minute globules on the folds of my clothes, so
that I looked precisely as if touched with a hoar-frost. The sky was
quite obscured, and the trees and houses invisible till they grew out
of the fog as I came close upon them. There is a hill towards the west
whence the road goes abruptly down, holding a level course through the
village and ascending an eminence on the other side, behind which it
disappears. The whole view comprises an extent of half a mile. Here I
paused; and, while gazing through the misty veil, it partially rose and
swept away with so sudden an effect that a gray cloud seemed to have
taken the aspect of a small white town. A thin vapor being still
diffused through the atmosphere, the wreaths and pillars of fog,
whether hung in air or based on earth, appeared not less substantial
than the edifices, and gave their own indistinctness to the whole. It
was singular that such an unromantic scene should look so visionary.
Half of the parson’s dwelling was a dingy white house, and half of it
was a cloud; but Squire Moody’s mansion, the grandest in the village,
was wholly visible, even the lattice-work of the balcony under the
front window; while in another place only two red chimneys were seen
above the mist, appertaining to my own paternal residence, then
tenanted by strangers. I could not remember those with whom I had dwelt
there, not even my mother. The brick edifice of the bank was in the
clouds; the foundations of what was to be a great block of buildings
had vanished, ominously, as it proved; the dry-goods store of Mr.
Nightingale seemed a doubtful concern; and Dominicus Pike’s tobacco
manufactory an affair of smoke, except the splendid image of an Indian
chief in front. The white spire of the meeting-house ascended out of
the densest heap of vapor, as if that shadowy base were its only
support: or, to give a truer interpretation, the steeple was the emblem
of Religion, enveloped in mystery below, yet pointing to a cloudless
atmosphere, and catching the brightness of the east on its gilded vane.
As I beheld these objects, and the dewy street, with grassy intervals
and a border of trees between the wheeltrack and the sidewalks, all so
indistinct, and not to be traced without an effort, the whole seemed
more like memory than reality. I would have imagined that years had
already passed, and I was far away, contemplating that dim picture of
my native place, which I should retain in my mind through the mist of
time. No tears fell from my eyes among the dewdrops of the morning; nor
does it occur to me that I heaved a sigh. In truth, I had never felt
such a delicious excitement nor known what freedom was till that moment
when I gave up my home and took the whole world in exchange, fluttering
the wings of my spirit as if I would have flown from one star to
another through the universe. I waved my hand towards the dusky
village, bade it a joyous farewell, and turned away to follow any path
but that which might lead me back. Never was Childe Harold’s sentiment
adopted in a spirit more unlike his own.
Naturally enough, I thought of Don Quixote. Recollecting how the knight
and Sancho had watched for auguries when they took the road to Toboso,
I began, between jest and earnest, to feel a similar anxiety. It was
gratified, and by a more poetical phenomenon than the braying of the
dappled ass or the neigh of Rosinante. The sun, then just above the
horizon, shone faintly through the fog, and formed a species of rainbow
in the west, bestriding my intended road like a gigantic portal. I had
never known before that a bow could be generated between the sunshine
and the morning mist. It had no brilliancy, no perceptible hues, but
was a mere unpainted framework, as white and ghostlike as the lunar
rainbow, which is deemed ominous of evil. But, with a light heart, to
which all omens were propitious, I advanced beneath the misty archway
of futurity.
I had determined not to enter on my profession within a hundred miles
of home, and then to cover myself with a fictitious name. The first
precaution was reasonable enough, as otherwise Parson Thumpcushion
might have put an untimely catastrophe to my story; but as nobody would
be much affected by my disgrace, and all was to be suffered in my own
person, I know not why I cared about a name. For a week or two I
travelled almost at random, seeking hardly any guidance except the
whirling of a leaf at, some turn of the road, or the green bough that
beckoned me, or the naked branch that pointed its withered finger
onward. All my care was to be farther from home each night than the
preceding morning.