Suddenly, "Katahdin!" said Iglesias.

Yes, there was a dim point, the object of our pilgrimage.

Katahdin,--the more I saw of it, the more grateful I was to the three
powers who enabled me to see it: to Nature for building it, to Iglesias
for guiding me to it, to myself for going.

We sat upon the deck and let Katahdin grow,--and sitting, talked of
mountains, somewhat to this effect:--

Mountains are the best things to be seen. Within the keen outline of a
great peak is packed more of distance, of detail, of light and shade, of
color, of all the qualities of space, than vision can get in any other
way. No one who has not seen mountains knows how far the eye can reach.
Level horizons are within cannon-shot. Mountain horizons not only may be
a hundred miles away, but they lift up a hundred miles at length, to be
seen at a look. Mountains make a background against which blue sky
can be seen; between them and the eye are so many miles of visible
atmosphere, domesticated, brought down to the regions of earth, not
resting overhead, a vagueness and a void. Air, blue in full daylight,
rose and violet at sunset, gray like powdered starlight by night, is
collected and isolated by a mountain, so that the eye can comprehend it
in nearer acquaintance. There is nothing so refined as the outline of
a distant mountain: even a rose-leaf is stiff-edged and harsh in
comparison. Nothing else has that definite indefiniteness, that melting
permanence, that evanescing changelessness. Clouds in vain strive to
imitate it; they are made of slighter stuff; they can be blunt or
ragged, but they cannot have that solid positiveness.