Pondering
these things, I remembered how, four thousand years ago, a stiff-necked
generation were brought to their senses and on their knees. It was on
the morning after the visit of the Dark Angel, when Egypt awoke, and
found not a house in which there was not one dead. If such fearful waste
of life goes on here, with no decisive or final advantage on either side
attained, that ancient curse may not be long in recurring.
I rose when the sun ought to have risen, on the following morning,
intending to admire the famous harbor which Americans love to compare
with the Neapolitan Bay. But long before we reached the Narrows,
"A blinding mist came up and hid the land
As far as eye could see."
Very soon we were buried in fog, dense and Cimmerian, as ever brooded
over our own Thames or the Righi panorama. More and more slowly the
paddles turned, till they stopped altogether. It was dangerous to
advance, ever so cautiously, when the keenest sight could not pierce
half a ship's length ahead. So there we lay at anchor for weary hours,
listening to the church-bells chiming drowsily through the heavy air,
till an enterprising tug ventured out for the mails, and sent another
for the relief of the passengers.
The custom-house officers were not troublesome, and I was soon at the
Brevoort House, the Parisian Pylades still faithfully following my
fortunes.
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