noon in the beginning of autumn
It was a gray , windy noon in the beginning of autumn . The sky and the sea were almost of the same color , and that not a beautiful one . The edge of the horizon where they met was an edge no more , but a bar thick and blurred , across which from the unseen came troops of waves that broke into white crests , the flying manes of speed , as they rushed at , rather than ran towards the shore : in their eagerness came out once more the old enmity between moist and dry . The trees and the smoke were greatly troubled , the former because they would fain stand still , the latter because it would fain ascend , while the wind kept tossing the former and beating down the latter .