But
What Is Wanting In The Color Of The Water Is More Than Compensated
By The Wonderful Hues And Luster Of The Shores.
We visited the
river in October, and I must presume that they who seek it solely
for the sake of scenery should go there in that month.
It was not
only that the foliage of the trees was bright with every imaginable
color, but that the grass was bronzed and that the rocks were
golden. And this beauty did not last only for awhile, and then
cease. On the Rhine there are lovely spots and special morsels of
scenery with which the traveler becomes duly enraptured. But on
the Upper Mississippi there are no special morsels. The position
of the sun in the heavens will, as it always does, make much
difference in the degree of beauty. The hour before and the half
hour after sunset are always the loveliest for such scenes. But of
the shores themselves one may declare that they are lovely
throughout those four hundred miles which run immediately south
from St. Paul.
About half way between La Crosse and St. Paul we came upon Lake
Pepin, and continued our course up the lake for perhaps fifty or
sixty miles. This expanse of water is narrow for a lake, and, by
those who know the lower courses of great rivers, would hardly be
dignified by that name. But, nevertheless, the breadth here
lessens the beauty. There are the same bluffs, the same scattered
woodlands, and the same colors. But they are either at a distance,
or else they are to be seen on one side only. The more that I see
of the beauty of scenery, and the more I consider its elements, the
stronger becomes my conviction that size has but little to do with
it, and rather detracts from it than adds to it. Distance gives
one of its greatest charms, but it does so by concealing rather
than displaying an expanse of surface. The beauty of distance
arises from the romance, the feeling of mystery which it creates.
It is like the beauty of woman, which allures the more the more
that it is vailed. But open, uncovered land and water, mountains
which simply rise to great heights, with long, unbroken slopes,
wide expanses of lake, and forests which are monotonous in their
continued thickness, are never lovely to me. A landscape should
always be partly vailed, and display only half its charms.
To my taste the finest stretch of the river was that immediately
above Lake Pepin; but then, at this point, we had all the glory of
the setting sun. It was like fairy-land, so bright were the golden
hues, so fantastic were the shapes of the hills, so broken and
twisted the course of the waters! But the noisy steamer went
groaning up the narrow passages with almost unabated speed, and
left the fairy land behind all too quickly. Then the bell would
ring for tea, and the children with the beef-steaks, the pickled
onions, and the light fixings would all come over again.
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