--_Gosse's
Naturalist's Sojourn_.
A SCENE IN NEW ENGLAND.
I leave Boston sometimes in the evening by rail, get thirty miles off,
then strike away into byways, ramble for an hour or two, and get back
to the rail. I was out yesterday, and nothing can equal the colour of
the foliage: if it was painted, it would look like fancy. In the
course of my stroll, I came upon a lake entirely surrounded with
forest, and containing, as I was informed, about four square miles of
water, studded with islands varying in size from one to twenty acres.
I would describe a point of view which enchanted me. I was on one side
of the lake, where it is about half a mile in width: about half-way
across, for the foreground of my picture, is a small island, about two
acres, covered with trees, looking as if they grew out of the lake,
with a central one of at least eighty feet high, and of the purest
orange colour. The opposite shore is of a crescent shape, with the
forest rising like an amphitheatre behind, glowing with every
imaginable colour, from the intense crimson to the pale pink, and
looking exactly like an enormous flower-garden stretching away to the
distance, and the colour so strongly reflected in the water, that it
is difficult to tell the reality from the reflection.
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