Soft mists rise in summer like "rich distilled perfumes" from the warm
Gulf Stream off Long Island Sound and drift landward in invisible airy
volumes. Suddenly, as at a given signal, the sky becomes troubled,
grows dun: trembling dew-specks glister upon the leaves, and in a few
moments the gray fog starts out of the air on every side and clings to
tree, crag and house like shroud to corpse. It is this warm moisture
that gives to the south-coast hamlets their mellow tint. I have
especially in mind at this moment one romantic village whose stout old
yeoman elms hold their protecting foliage-shields over many a gray
mansion as rich in tradition as the House of the Seven Gables, and only
awaiting the touch of some wizard hand to become immortalized. The
prevailing tint of these old houses, and of everything that a lichen
can take hold of, is a sage-gray. There seems to be something in the
sea-breezes unusually favorable to the growth of lichens, and they hold
high carnival everywhere, growing in riotous exuberance on every tree
and rock and fence. I saw whole board fences so thickly tufted and
bearded with a rich, particolored mosaic of lichens that from
base-board to cope-board there was scarcely a square foot of the
original wood to be seen.
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