Let us rest on our oars a moment, here in the bay, to view the scenery around us, as seen by the mellow moonlight.  So calm, so still, so motionless are both air and water, that we seem suspended between the sky above, sparkling and glowing with millions of bright stars, and the moon riding gloriously on her course, and a sky beneath, sparkling and glowing with like millions of bright stars, and the same moon, or its counterpart, floating away down in fathomless depths below us.  See, how the same hillside, the same line of forest trees, the same ranges and mountain peaks are reflected back from the stirless bosom of the lake.  There, above, and just on the upper line of that tall peak, looming darkly and majestically in the distance, hangs a brilliant star, sparkling and twinkling, like the sheen of a diamond; and right beneath, away down just as far below the surface of the water as mountain peak and star are above it, is another mountain peak and bright star, twinned by the mirrored waters.  See, away down the lake, that little island with its half dozen spruce trees, clustered together!  How like a great war vessel it looks, with sails all set, as seen by the uncertain light of the moon.  And that other island, off to the left, with the dead and barkless trees, how like a tall ship with bare masts riding at anchor it seems.  That other island, away to the right, with its great boulders and bare rocks rising straight up out of the water, is a fortification, a stronghold surrounded by a wall of solid masonry, and bristling with cannon.  We can almost see the sentinel, and hear his measured tramp as he travels his lonely rounds, keeping watch out over the waters.  See all along the shore, as you look up the bay towards the Lake House, how the millions of fireflies flash their tiny torches, upward and downward, this way and that, mingling and crossing, and gyrating and whirling—­a troubled and billowy sea of millions upon millions of glowing and sparkling gems.

Reader, were you and I gifted with the spirit of poetry, what inspiration would we not gather from the glories which surround us, as we float of a summer evening over these beautiful lakes, sleeping away out here, in all their virgin loveliness, among these old primeval things?  But you ask, “what inspiration can there be in a moon and stars, that we see every night, when the sky is cloudless; in a desolate wilderness; the roar of the frogs; the hooting of owls; these useless waters; the phosphorescent flash of lightning bugs; these piled up rocks and barren mountains?  Can you grow corn on these hills, or make pastures of these rocky lowlands?  Can you harness these rivers to great waterwheels, or make reservoirs of these lakes?  Can you convert these old forests into lumber or cordwood?  Can you quarry these rocks, lay them up with mortar into houses, mills, churches, public edifices?  Can you make what you call these ’old primeval things’ utilitarian?  Can you make them minister to the progress of civilization, or coin them into dollars?”