Day-dreams and night-dreams are pretty much alike with me unless there be a trifle of brilliant imagination in favor of the latter. Still, if any stray thoughts wandered through my brain at this time, they must have been something like these: Why was it that the law of rest had to be superadded to the law of labor, if not because man has turned his wholesome penance into a debauchery? Avarice and ambition have gradually mastered the human race, and he who would eat or hold his 88 own must sweat and fight, or others will snatch it from him. By degrees, the struggle has grown and deepened. First, we were shepherds and tillers of the soil. Childhood passed in plenty and obedience. Ploughing and reaping came only in their seasons, and, while kings and princes tended flocks, labor was worship and life was not all drudgery--there was some time for happiness and God. Then came the curse of cunning and trade and cities. Here began a fiercer strife, and, instead of the accidental miseries of drought and famine, men learned to fear beggary. And, now that craft and commerce are supreme, slavery is universal. No more days of festival, no more years of jubilee! You, George Peters, wretch that you are, are the bond-slave of Hawkins & Smith. What! will you rebel? Well, it is only a choice of masters--serve you must. This pitiful vacation is only a device of old Smith to make you feel your real bondage. If, dear reader, you should perceive any other explanation of the facts which I so loosely jumbled together, remember that this was the reverie of a lazy youth, escaped from the thraldom of his counter, and basking in the fresh air and beauty of Lake George. If, branching off from the great labor question, I thought of anything else, it was to compare that beauty with what I had seen in pictures or read in books of other lakes. I have before alluded to the placid and tranquil English character of the scenery between Caldwell and Fourteen Mile Island. The farms and villas, and the town of Bolton, although lying on the western shore, add much to this effect, and serve to rob the eastern bank almost entirely of its natural air of uninhabited wildness. The sail-boats and skiffs and three little steamers continually plying about this portion of the lake, complete the impression that it is a place of pleasure, ease, and holiday. The Narrows, completely filled with islands, where every stroke of the oar reveals new vistas and endless changes of scene, I can compare with nothing, and, indeed, it would seem as if they were a unique creation. These extend for two or three miles to where Black Mountain begins. And as for the rest, my ignorance is also at a loss for a comparison, and I can only think of what Lake Como might have been if adorned with islands, if its peaks were lower and covered with foliage, and if the hand of man had never wrought upon its native beauty.