Year: 1859


The Sort Lakes Correspondent Likes-where he


Found Them-What he Thinks of them, and Specu.


lanons 1hereon.
Editorial Correspondence Of the Pioneer &. Democrat


En- ROUTE, July, 1859. fl.
If correspondent may be indulged in
private passion, 1, for one, will confess to
lakes for mine--littledeep-set dark-shadowed
lakes-such as man may measure in an
hours evening walk upon its strand little
cosy hooks of sunshine that one can own
within the compass of his farm, and know
that it reflects nothing but his own and
Gods; little pocket editions of poetry in
velvet and gold, in whose white and lustrous
margin one may let his own thoughts run
at will to gloss the legends which the sky
and the winds weave in the mystic text of
CLEAN and shadow little lakes that from
under their wooded fringes gleam with an
under soul and flash back the introverted
glances of the stars from depths as pure and
spiritual as the heights of the down gazing
heaven-such lake as you can take into
your confidence, and talk to it in the sacred
hours of the heart, as the lover talks to the
image in the golden locket, and sees the cold
crystal all aglow and shadowy with the
passion of the hour like woman's eye.


One may find lakes to meet all moods of
temperament or fancy in the undine districts
of Minnesota, but nowhere that l have seen
in such completeness of quiet beauty, such
perfect correspondence with the surround
ings of landscape, as here around the head
waters of the Sauk, the Long Prairie, the
Grow, and other rivers, which thread the
western slope of the Mississippi above the
Sauk valley.


The whole of the dividing ridge between
the Minnesota and Mississippi valleys is
perfect Zodiac of charming lakes. The
road from Alexandria to Dayton, on the
Otter Tail river, passes over the intersect-
ing streams of the opposite slopes just on
the upland seam where the treeess savann-
nahs of the Chippewa and Pommes des Terres
on the South, are buttoned with countless
interglades and lakelets into the woodland
levels of the Mississippi valley on the north.
There is an indiscribable amenity-I had
almost said, luxuriousness of effect in this
intermingling of lakes and groves, and lawns
in every circle of vision-flling all the
reaches OF the eye, with all soft and rounded
harmonies of color and proportion.


None of the wildness Of those sylvan soli-
tudes of the North, in which the voice of
man seems at sacrilegious discord with the
eternal stillness-nothing wild here-all
subdued and calm, and toned down to the
gentle pulses of world aweary of work and
wanting rest. The round lawns shut in by
the circling woods, as smooth in the sheen
of the slanting sun as lakes of silk, seem old
fallow fields; the groves are only too grace.
full in their luxurant groupings to have been
planted by human hands; and the smooth,
round cut of the banks that swell above the
precious mosaic of the lakes paved margin,
with graduation of sloping terraces here and
there-the fine full curve of the water line
below-and the silvery unfoldings of the
vistas that break through the linked rings
of wood on every side this surely was the
work of skilful gardeners-when gardeners
were poets, and skill was genius.


A very beautiful portion of this lake
region is the level district Immediately