There its poverty and vulgarity ceased; there its beauty and grace
abounded. A light breeze ruffled the face of the bay, and the innumerable
little sail-boats that dotted it took the sun and wind upon their wings,
which they dipped almost into the sparkle of the water, and flew lightly
hither and thither like gulls that loved the brine too well to rise wholly
from it; larger ships, farther or nearer, puffed or shrank their sails as
they came and went on the errands of commerce, but always moved as if bent
upon some dreamy affair of pleasure; the steamboats that shot vehemently
across their tranquil courses seemed only gayer and vivider visions, but
not more substantial; yonder, a black sea-going steamer passed out between
the far-off islands, and at last left in the sky above those reveries of
fortification, a whiff of sombre smoke, dark and unreal as a memory of
battle; to the right, on some line of railroad, long-plumed trains arrived
and departed like pictures passed through the slide of a magic-lantern;
even a pile-driver, at work in the same direction, seemed to have no
malice in the blows which, after a loud clucking, it dealt the pile, and
one understood that it was mere conventional violence like that of a Punch
to his baby.
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