A lone sailboat drifts across Oneida Lake at golden hour, its white sail catching the last blaze of a sunset that turns the water molten copper and rose — the kind of scene that made linen-era postcards irresistible vacation souvenirs. Constantia, a quiet hamlet on the lake's southern shore in Oswego County, was a modest summer retreat whose cottagers clearly adored the view: on the reverse, a sender named Martin tells "Mrs. M.E. K." at the Bureau of Mines, Department of the Interior, Washington D.C., that this is "the view from our cottage" and that "it will be hard to leave it." The Tichnor Brothers linen printing process gives the sunset an almost painterly, over-saturated warmth that real photographs of the era rarely matched. The September postmark and the 1-cent green stamp complete a small, intimate dispatch from a lake cottage to a federal office building — a lovely collision of rural leisure and government work.