“Aye,” said Joel, laughing, “that is ever the way those pronounce who have seen little. What think you of volcano fires, my lady, quivering over two hundred miles of a midnight sea? What think you of an avalanche sparkling as it slides from the highest pinnacle of the Andes? There are things, for that matter, that you have seen. What think you of the northern lights, or of our own shining, changing moon? Is she not so far off as yonder sea?” “I was rash in what I said, Joel. But I wish that mist was away that I might find a sail. Look, look, Thérèse! Is there anything?... Do you see any form come out from amidst the haze?” Thérèse not having fixed her sight so long, could discern nothing; but her mistress satisfied herself that a vessel was visible, and at length, by dint of attention, could make out first the hull, then the sails, then one, then two more vessels in its train, and at last, a whole fleet. “Why do you not insist on your servant seeing them too?” asked the old philosopher. “’Twould be just as reasonable as quarrelling, as the people do down below, about what they see with their minds’ eyes. Bring them up here. One will say that yonder haze is nothing more than a blotch upon a bright sky; another won’t trouble himself to look, but believes it is a mountain, or a city, or whatever other folks tell him it is. You, madam, see that within the mist which interests you more than the whole landscape besides; but, depend upon it, you will find plenty of people to assure you that ’tis all fancy that you perceive anything.”—Turning to Thérèse, he said, “Now you believe the lady that she sees a fleet, I dare say?” “I do. Madame is not apt to see visions, and she ever speaks truth. Do not you believe?” “I do. What a world of trouble it would save if we had a few people that could discern as far off, and tell what they saw as faithfully about things that will outlast the sea; or even about some notions that will pass away long before yon fleet has all been sunk, or beaten to pieces, or decayed!” “You mean,” said Letitia, anxious to prove the old man’s scholarship, “what a pity it is that there is nobody to look out and tell us what truths there are holding their course within the mists in which our systems of religion, and politics, and science, and—above all—of society, are shrouded.”