purple and violet and pale blue and fluid gold begin to shoot and
quiver and broaden; these are the currents of the morning,
catching varying color with the deepening of the day and the
lifting of the tide.

Then, as the sun rises higher, green masses begin to glimmer
among the grays; the outlines of the forest summits commence to
define themselves through the vapory light, to left and right of
the great glow. Only the city still remains invisible; it lies
exactly between us and the downpour of solar splendor, and the
mists there have caught such radiance that the place seems hidden
by a fog of fire. Gradually the gold-green of the horizon
changes to a pure yellow; the hills take soft, rich, sensuous
colors. One of the more remote has turned a marvellous tone--a
seemingly diaphanous aureate color, the very ghost of gold. But
at last all of them sharpen bluely, show bright folds and
ribbings of green through their haze. The valleys remain awhile
clouded, as if filled with something like blue smoke; but the
projecting masses of cliff and slope swiftly change their misty
green to a warmer hue. All these tints and colors have a
spectral charm, a preternatural loveliness; everything seems
subdued, softened, semi-vaporized,--the only very sharply defined
silhouettes being those of the little becalmed ships sprinkling
the western water, all spreading colored wings to catch the
morning breeze.

The more the sun ascends, the more rapid the development of the
landscape out of vapory blue; the hills all become green-faced,
reveal the details of frondage. The wind fills the waiting
sails--white, red, yellow,--ripples the water, and turns it