Lake

“ The very atmosphere of that lovely land, where so many hearts have been healed, the flowerhaunted meadows, the shimmering lake below, the blue hills, the far-off snows—is in the loving verse, and it is mingled with the soul of Arnold and Obermann, till each mountain slope and every flower upon them, and the waves of the lake as they break on the shore, are of men, and through men, and in men. ”

“ Then the shadows are deep under the black growth that spires up all about the little placid sheet of water, though it still reflects the sapphire blue of the clear sky above. The lake is, indeed, a hermit, dwelling always apart in its hollow among the spiring spruces, a tiny level of water, strangely beautiful for its placidity amid all the turmoil and grandeur about it. ”

“ The lake has a character of its own. As the traveler sails north and approaches the middle of the lake, the gems of green islands multiply, the mountains rise higher, and shouldering up in the sky seem to bar a further advance; toward sunset the hills, which are stately but lovely, a silent assembly of round and sharp peaks, with long, graceful slopes, take on exquisite colors, violet, bronze, and green, and now and again a bold rocky bluff shines like a ruby in the ruddy light. ”

“ THE sun rose many hours before me, and when I got up was spangling the surface of the lake, which spreads itself between steeps of wood, crowned by lofty crags and pinnacles. We had an opportunity of contemplating this bold assemblage as we travelled on the banks of the lake, where it forms a bay sheltered by impending forests; the water, tinged by their reflection with a deep cerulean, calm and tranquil. Mountains of pine and beech rising above, close every outlet; and, no village or spire peeping out of the foliage, impress an idea of more than European solitude. ”

“ Tall forest trees, mountain and valley are on the right hand and on the left. Before us, stretching away for miles, is a beautiful lake, its waters calm and placid, giving back the bright heavens, the old woods, the fleecy clouds that drift across the sky, from away down in its quiet depths. ”

“ Look at that beautiful lake, which we are just opening, on the north—see how those wooded capes partly intercept the view, with their soft outline of birch, and that long reach of blue water dancing in the sunlight, and that little island, a single spot of shade, with its three picturesque fir trees, and that dark red rock that overhangs it, with its iron stains of brown and yellow starting up from among the bright green foliage; and look how the ash fringes the edge of that precipice: get up, and if you are too lazy to work, at least admire. ”

“ It is a little world that we survey from the borders of this rock-hemmed, forest-girt lake, one perspective after another with varying gradations of colour making us realize the many-featured, chequered area spread before us. From this coign of vantage are discerned alike the sterner and the more smiling beauties of the forest, rocky defiles, gloomy passes, sunlit lawns and mossy dells, scenery varied in itself and yet varying again with the passing hour and changing month. ”

“ Then, as he staggered toward this green-bordered pond and that crystal-blue lake, already drinking and laving in his mind, he began to hear the beautiful sounds of falling rain, of gurgling brooks, of lapping waves, of roaring rapids, of gentle river currents, of water—water—water sweetly tinkling and babbling, of wind-laden murmur of a mountain stream. ”

“ Stretching at your feet, on the brow of this beautiful mountain, is a lake, more than a mile in circumference, deep, cold, crystalline, and bordered with trees. The white bathing-house on its margin, and the pleasure-boat on its bosom, with bright streamers, and graceful gliding motion, are pleasing points in the landscape. The utmost pinnacle of the mountain, which rises northward of the lake, is surrounded by a hexagonal tower, sixty feet in height, seeming to spring from the dark, grey rock, which in color it resembles. ”

“ And the lake, a gem in the mountain fastness, how calm it is! There is no melody in the pines this morning, their sighing is hushed, and the lake is still, its smooth surface only dotted here and there with the widening rings made by the leaping trout. How deep it is no man knows; how cruel it has been is the subject of many a story within the experience of the whites about its shores, and legends not a few among the red men. Seductive it is in its silent beauty, and treacherous as grand. Cold and relentless as fate, “it never surrenders its dead.” ”

“ In its stead, they beheld the broad, blue surface of a lake, which filled the great basin of the valley from brim to brim, and reflected the surrounding hills in its bosom with as tranquil an image as if it had been there ever since the creation of the world. For an instant, the lake remained perfectly smooth. Then, a-165- little breeze sprang up, and caused the water to dance, glitter, and sparkle in the early sunbeams, and to dash, with a pleasant rippling murmur, against the hither shore. ”

“ To a wearied frame and tired mind what refreshment there is in the neighborhood of this lake! The air is singularly searching and strengthening. The noble pines, not obstructed by underbrush, enrich the slightest breeze with aroma and music. Grand peaks rise around, on which the eye can admire the sternness of everlasting crags and the equal permanence of delicate and feathery snow. ”

“ The sun still shines upon us from a cloudless sky, and early in the morning, before any breeze springs up, the lake makes a most beautiful picture, with its steep mountain sides and foaming torrents so perfectly reflected in the green unruffled water. ”

“ The great lake-scape is blue and green and grey and opaline as the sun strikes it and the surface breaks to a south wind. Ours is the one craft on this inland sea, but overhead a whole navy of clouds manœuvres, the ships of the ghostly argosy doubling themselves in the lake. ”

“ For, as we walk, the lake groans, with throttled sobs, and sudden cracklings of its joints, and sighs that shiver, undulating from afar, and pass beneath our feet, and die away in distance when they reach the shore. ”

“ One living long here might well measure the flight of time on a clear afternoon and evening by the changes of color in the lake. It is but a shallow pool, but you look through the mud of its bottom and see far below, by the inverted spires of the marginal trees, into infinite depths of a blue that is that of the sky but clarified and - 102 - intensified by the clear waters from which it shines till it is to the eye as perfect and inspiring as a clear musical note that leaps out of silence to the longing ear. ”

“ There is a succession of fine views, near and distant: of the steamer slipping through the deep blue water within stone’s throw of the crags, for the lake-bed falls in a precipice here; of sheep climbing and grazing on the shelving hillside, and timorously rushing off at our approach; of the swell when a breeze lifts it along, bursting green on the boulders and throwing shimmering spray into the air; of birches in their summer radiance; of thin green shadows of ghylls where rivulets are slipping down to the lake through piles of moss; of the bramble, and the fox-glove and the heather ”

“ Come, O come to my lake, if you must fill your pitcher.
If you would be idle and sit listless and let your pitcher float on the water, come, O come to my lake.
The grassy slope is green, and the wild flowers beyond number.
Your thoughts will stray out of your dark eyes like birds from their nests. ”

“ From chill embraces of the wave.
If she this fairy spot did know?”
I thought: “From this enchanted lake,
That holds the heavens on its heart,
Should she have risen in the night
And flung the clinging waves apart.” ”

“ Lower down the mountain lies a calm lake, with its smooth silvery surface ever and anon broken by the leaping of a fish, as if to prove that it is water and not glass, and beyond the lake are more mountains rolling up into the sky in purple and green folds, with the faintest of blue borders and crimson-tipped edges, for they are many miles off. ”

“ Mountains, snowbanks, granite walls, trees galore, creeks flashing their white crests dashing down their stony courses toward the Lake, but only now and then do we catch fleeting glimpses of it. All at once it bursts full and clear again upon our enraptured vision, but only to give us a full taste of its supernal beauty before we are whirled around a curve where the eye rests upon nothing but the rugged majesty of the Sierras. ”

“ Behind those neat, well-watered gravelled paths, where long lines of wheels moving slowly around the lake draw a furrow by constant wear throughout the day, with the precision of a machine, behind that wonderful stage-setting of verdure-covered walls, of captive streams, of flower-girt rocks, the real forest, the wild forest, with its luxuriant underbrush, advances and recedes, forming impenetrable shadows traversed by narrow paths and rippling brooks. ”

“ Along the valley lay a clear pure lake, in the centre of which played a number of fountains which threw their waters many feet above its surface, and sending their waves rippling away to the pebbly shores, made the mountains and groves that were reflected from its bosom, seem to leap and clap their hands for joy at the sacred quiet that reigned amongst them. ”

“ It is beautiful, at sunset, looking from the summer-house, for then the lake sometimes seems to be on fire, and the trees in the orchard between us and the road send long shadows that creep, creep up the hill as if they were alive. ”

“ And when the woods cease, what delightful natural lawns of crisp turf sweep in little curving bays to the mere edge, where gently shelving beaches of silvery gravel dip into the shallow waters, and show far out into the lake their clean white bottom beneath its crystal depths! ”

“ The lake has no lofty shores and no level ones, but a series of undulating hills, fringed with woods from end to end. The profaning axe may sometimes come near the margin, and one may hear the whetting of the scythe; but no cultivated land abuts upon the main lake, though beyond the narrow woods there are here and there glimpses of rye-fields that wave like rolling mist. ”

“ On the contrary, the deep-blue, pure waters of Lake Tahoe, rivaling in purity and blueness the sky itself; its clear, bright emerald shore-waters, breaking snow-white on its clean rock and gravel shores; the Lake basin, not on a plain, with mountain scenery in the distance, but counter-sunk in the mountain's top itself,—these produce a never-ceasing and ever-increasing sense of joy, which naturally grows into love. ”

“ We might have been able to show the lake, with its tender blue colour, here broadening nobly, there enfolding with its sparkling white arms clusters of tropic isles, or projecting long silvery tongues of blazing water into the spacious meadowy flats, curving everywhere in rounded bays, or extending along flowing shore-lines, under the shadows of impending plateau walls, and flotillas of canoes gliding over its bright bosom to give it life, and broad green bands of marsh grasses, palms, plantains, waving crops of sugar-cane, and umbrageous globes of foliage, to give beauty to its borders. ”

“ In summer the lake is blue as the heavens above, the borders of it are fringed with larch and maple that grow right down to the rippling edge and bow to their own reflections in the clear waters beneath, while on its glassy surface can be seen daily numbers of boats and launches, the whole scene animated by merry voices of happy folks, with picnic baskets, bound for the woods, or others merely seeking relief from the intense heat on shore. ”

“ A short, crisp swim, a vigorous rub down, and a resumption of the walk or ride and one feels fit enough to conquer a world.
It can be imagined, too, what a lively scene the Lake presents in the height of the season, when, from the scores of hotels, resorts, camps, private residences, fishermen's camps, etc.; fishing-boats, row-boats, launches, motor-boats, and yachts ply to and fro in every direction, unconsciously vying with each other to attract the eye of the onlooker. ”

“ A lake is the landscape’s most beautiful and expressive feature. It is earth’s eye; looking into which the beholder measures the depth of his own nature. ”

“ It is a curious circumstance that while the lake of fresh water is of a bright blue, and calm and smooth as a mirror, the other is green as the sea, and heaves to and fro in constant commotion, rolling its foamy waves to the beach, which they strew with marine weeds. ”

“ The waters deep beneath follow the mood of the day; laugh and sparkle when the sun shines and a warm breeze whispers; well gloomy and leaden when a host of clouds presses the mountains and shadows the lake-basin; swoon tender and soft when evening’s purple vapour drifts through passes and over summits, to collect in a pool in the valley beneath; surge and heave in breakers when a gale sweeps through the air ”

“ Then what shores! On one side, where the lake is widest, low-lying they seem, and therefore lovelier—undulating with fields and groves, where many a pleasant dwelling is embowered, into lines of hills that gradually soften away into another land. On the other side, sloping back, or overhanging, mounts beautiful in their bareness, for they are green as emerald; others, scarcely more beautiful, studded with fair trees—some altogether woods. ”

“ The intense blue of the cloudless sky arches overhead, the royal waters of the lake flow blue and green with the colours of a peacock's tail or the variegated232 beauty of an abalone shell; sweeping upward from the shores are tall, timbered hills, so thickly sown with pine that each tree seems but a spear of grass and the whole forest but a lawn, and towering beyond, yet seeming very near in the pure, white light, is a host of peaks silvered with the benediction of the clouds—the deathless snow. ”

“ The life in the lake, the ferns and flowers on the slope, the fur-coated and feather-covered friends in the wood, as well as the charm of the Lake itself in its unusual environment, are left for the enjoyment of the visitor. ”